a dead perpetrator and those bound over, the prisoner was convicted in 105
of 125 cases, a rate of 84 per cent. This statistic is misleading, though. Many
incidents did not make it to trial; in those that did, juries often lessened
the charge, as from murder to manslaughter. Not all of my cases have a
clear charge and verdict, but of the 82 which do, 31 cases (38 per cent)
were reduced from the original charge, including 15 reduced from murder
to manslaughter and 4 reduced from attempted murder to attempt to do
grievous bodily harm.6
Furthermore, many times coroners’ inquests had already reduced
the charges before the defendants went to trial. Of the 34 full inquest
reports in my group of cases, 13 (more than one-third) reduced the charge,
usually from murder to manslaughter. Thus, though juries often convicted
defendants, the sentences were not always severe. Especially in magistrates’
and police courts, penalties could be fines or being bound over to keep
the peace. The police courts, in particular, tried to reconcile the parties,
knowing that women needed breadwinners.7 In these ways, as well as many
others, cohabitees showed little distinction from those legally wed.
Cohabitees as husbands and wives
In addition to these statistical similarities, judges and barristers at all levels
emphasised the way that cohabitees matched the experience of married
couples. Robert Cooper’s barrister defended him from the charge of
murder by appealing to the jury’s sympathy for a man whose ‘wife’ had
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
left him: ‘the defendant was not legally married to the prisoner, but … the
prisoner always looked upon her as his wife,’ he explained. Nor was such
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Manchester University Press, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nscc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1069613.
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living in sin
rhetoric limited to defence barristers. In 1878, the police court magistrates
gave James Stubbs six months at hard labour for kicking his cohabitee, Ann
Bullock, since, Mr Bridge insisted, ‘she was equally entitled to protection
as if she were his wife.’8 In essence, these judges and lawyers semantically
erased the difference between cohabiting and married partners, expecting
those who had made no vows to fulfill marital obligations.
The similarities to married couples often worked in women’s favour,
but such ideas could also hurt women who had not shown ‘wifely’ obedience.
As historians have found, courts disapproved of women who cursed, fought
back, or drank, because they failed in their domestic duties and upset the
middle-class ideal of the helpless victim of the brutal working-class man.9
Ann Perry called William Burke an ‘Irish bugger’ and stabbed him when
he beat her and pushed her out of their home. At her trial, the Common
Serjeant insisted that ‘The man whom she destroyed, although not legally
her husband, was to be regarded in the same light. It was true that he had
struck her; but the language that the Court had heard that she had used
… had provoked him’.10 In short, he ignored the fact that Perry had made
no vow to obey, treating her as a wife. Similarly, John Abbot beat Hannah
McKay with a coal rake in 1876 in Yorkshire, justifying it because she had
been out drinking all night. The jury found him guilty of the unlawful
wounding, a lesser offence, and the judge agreed, considering the ‘great
provocation’. Abbot got only eight months. In 1893, Job Taylor, a labourer,
beat Emily Twiggs to death over some money, but also because ‘he was
exasperated by the conduct of the woman and the language she made use
of.’ The jury reduced the charge to manslaughter, and Justice Mathew ‘was
satisfied they had adopted the right course.’11
By expecting cohabitees to fulfil spousal duties, judges and juries
agreed with most couples’ views of their cohabitation. The vast majority
of these couples saw themselves as married. They shared the same name,
registered their children as legitimate, and followed the gender roles of
working-class marriage. As we will see, the motives for violence were the
same as married couples – sexual jealousy and money squabbles. The courts’
reactions to their quarrels, then, supported these couples’ wider definition
of the institution. In other words, judges and juries elided the differences
between married and non-married couples, believing men and women
could expect their partners to behave as spouses simply by assuming these
roles. The court did this in part because the couples themselves did so, and
judges and juries followed suit. Indeed, judges and juries probably could
not imagine a coupling that did not involve traditional gender roles, with
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
or without a ceremony. In addition, if the couple were ‘married’, the cases
fell into predictable patterns that made decisions easier for all. And both
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Manchester University Press, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nscc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1069613.
Created from nscc-ebooks on 2019-06-18 23:44:10.
violence and cohabitation in the courts
defence and prosecution barristers had reasons to support the confusion
at different times; ‘unwifely’ behaviour might mitigate the man’s offence,
for instance. Whatever the reason, both the law and society reinforced each
other in pretending that an open, negotiable relationship was in fact a
marriage.
‘Fallen’ couples
Nevertheless, in many cases the fact that the couples were unmarried
changed the approach of those in the courtroom. First, cohabiting couples
had some motives peculiar to themselves. At times female cohabitees left or
planned to leave precisely because the men had not married them. Women
often entered ‘tally’ arrangements hoping they would lead to marriage.
When the men did not follow through, the women decided to try their
luck elsewhere; though they were technically free to do so, their partners
often objected. Ellen Marney threatened to leave George Mulley in 1855
‘because he has not kept his promise and married me.’ His response was to
cut her throat and then stab her several times. When a woman found a new
man, the ex-lover was even more enraged. Amelia Blunt lived with Francis
Wane in 1864, but she left him and became engaged to another man. Wane
begged her to return, but she replied: ‘No, Francis; you had a chance for me
to be your lawful wife.’ In response, Wane cut her throat.12
Another issue peculiar to cohabitees was the question of children;
because they were illegitimate, fathers had no legal rights to them. John
Hannah, for instance, attacked Jane Barnham when she left because she
took the children with her. Richard Sabley, similarly, left Sophia Jackson
when his wife returned, but he still wanted to adopt his child with Jackson.
He did not succeed though, since ‘the deceased refused to part with the
child.’13 These men could not assert control precisely because they had not
married the mothers of their children. Married couples also battled over
custody when they separated, but in those cases the women did not have
the legal upper hand. In cohabiting relationships, the mother was the legal
parent and could even refuse visitation rights. Though few women went
this far, many insisted on keeping their children, with fatal results.
More generally, at times the issue at stake was the man’s inability to
head the household. In Shani D’Cruze’s words, Victorian men ‘wished to be
“masters in their own house”’, and used violence if they could not achieve
mastery any other way.14 Cohabitation complicated this already contested
terrain. Particularly if the woman owned her home, a male partner did
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
not control her finances and this led to tensions. Mark Turner lived with
a widow, Mrs McCrea, in Lancaster in 1900. He got into a scuffle with her
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living in sin
married daughter, Elizabeth King, and a lodger, Annie Bowles, because he
had spread rumours about their sexual probity. Turner tried to force King
and Bowles out of the house, and King threw a pot at him. He then hit her
with a poker. Bowles, in giving evidence, insisted, ‘It was not defendant’s
house and he had no authority to order her to leave.’ Turner, for his part,
‘appealed to the Bench to support him in conducting his house properly.’
The Mayor was unimpressed, well aware that it was not actually Turner’s
house, and fined him 5s.15
As many of these cases indicate, the motives were bound up in
men’s desire to assert their masculinity. Legally, an unmarried woman had
every right to disobey a man not her husband, to leave an unsatisfactory
partner, or to keep her children, but the poorest classes often did not make
distinctions between marriage and cohabitation. Both Andrew Davis and
John Carter Wood have explored working-class men’s violence as a way
to assert their ‘honour’ and community standing. The men in my sample
were very poor, so physical strength was one of the few ways they could
impose themselves. Men also saw ‘disciplining’ wives as an acceptable part
of marriage. The fact that in these instances the men did not have legal
right on their side made little difference.16 In fact, in a few cases, men’s
anxiety about proving their ‘mastery’ was the main motive. Henrietta Corn
left Joseph Fountain in 1870 to go with another man. In April, Joseph
urged her to come back to him; when she refused, he slit her throat. In his
defence, he explained that ‘the woman had been persuaded to leave him
twice by a man who was a fellow private in a regiment of Militia. He did
not intend to have anything more to do with her, but she came while the
regiment was training and threatened to show him up in it.’ Fountain’s fear
of being ‘shown up’ in front of the men of the regiment led him to attack
Henrietta, to prove that neither she – nor the other private – could better
him.17
As well as these distinct motives, the reaction of the judges and juries
also distinguished cohabiting couples’ violence. Especially, some judges
took the position that if a man did not choose to marry a woman, he could
not expect her to behave like a wife and so had little excuse for violence.
In other words, the women, no matter how impure or drunk, were not
to blame for the illegality of their relationships. These findings contradict
those of other historians who have found that unchaste, assertive, and
drunken women would not receive sympathy from the courtroom. Since
all of my cases involve women who were unchaste by definition, and were
often entirely disorderly, these findings indicate that Victorian justice was
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
highly complex.
Indeed, judges and coroners castigated violent men even when their
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Manchester University Press, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nscc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1069613.
Created from nscc-ebooks on 2019-06-18 23:44:10.
violence and cohabitation in the courts
partners were drunk or worked as prostitutes. In 1863, the Commissioner
of the London police court had scant sympathy with George Shields, who
beat Jane Dixon, a prostitute, with a bedpost. Both were drunk and they
lived in a brothel, and he concluded, ‘The prisoner was living in a state
of concubinage with a known prostitute, in a house inhabited by other
women of loose character; they were all drinking to excess, and what but
violence among them could be expected?’ Shields got two years at hard
labour for unlawful wounding, a long sentence for that charge. Justice Brett,
similarly, disdained Thomas McDonald, who had beaten Bridget Welch, a
prostitute, to death. After the jury found Thomas guilty of murder, Brett
concluded: ‘She was a bad and wicked woman; you were a bad and wicked
man, and of all people on this earth you had no right to judge her for her
wickedness.’18
In short, judges, at times, insisted on policing male behaviour as
much as female. Men who did not marry legally, drank, and were violent
were just as much of a problem as unruly women. In fact, sometimes judges
were biased against defendants precisely because they had not married their
lovers. In 1866, Justice Martin summed up strongly against John Banks,
who had killed Ann Gilligan over money quarrels. When the jury found
him guilty of murder, Martin gave him the death sentence and lectured
him: ‘You had been drinking all day; you went with this woman to a public
house and although she was the wife of another man you were living with
her as your wife … you were guilty of the most barbarous violence towards
her.’ Banks drank to excess, lived ‘in sin’, and could not control his temper;
he had only himself to blame when the situation became deadly.19
The courts were most sympathetic to women when they were the
victims of violence. As Perry’s case demonstrated, women received less
sympathy when they perpetrated violence. Mary Turner, who shot her ex-
lover because he taunted her with his upcoming marriage, pleaded that she
was not in her right mind, and the jury convicted her of attempting to cause
grievous bodily harm rather than attempted murder, and recommended
m
ercy. Justice Williams, though, disliked her use of a gun. Insisting that
she had ‘an implacable spirit of revenge’, he gave her eighteen months.
Judges had a bias against any use of deadly weapons, as opposed to using
fists or boots, since the former appeared premeditated. This disadvantaged
women, since they were unlikely to wound or kill by beating or kicking.20
All the same, women rarely received the capital charge, and their sentences
for violence were shorter than those of men. Emily Mason, who stabbed
and killed her cohabitee, William Rae, in a drunken fury in 1856, was
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
indicted for manslaughter rather than murder, to which she pleaded guilty
at the trial. Sarah Burch, a prostitute, killed John Williams by fracturing
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Created from nscc-ebooks on 2019-06-18 23:44:10.
living in sin
his head with tongs in 1885, but the jury found her guilty of manslaughter
only. She had used a blunt instrument, was drunk, and was hardly pure, but
Justice Hawkins agreed with the jury, giving her ten years. Though this was
a lengthy sentence, it could easily have been longer. Tom Dixon, who beat
Mary Wilson with a poker in 1860 while ‘beastly drunk’, was also convicted
of manslaughter, but he got penal servitude for life.21 The Victorian courts,
especially judges, primarily blamed men for cohabitation and violence.
Judges with juries: controlling male violence
Martin Wiener has argued that Victorian judges tried to improve working-
class male behaviour through the courts, particularly from the 1860s. Work
by early modern historians has shown that concern with male violence
began before the nineteenth century, but in the Victorian period the issue
was politicised, since working-class men themselves started criticising
domestic violence. The decisions of judges, then, gained added resonance
and also became more consistent.22 Judges wanted to shape working-class
masculinity to be ‘respectable’. Thus, they supported harsher penalties and
disagreed with juries who took a more merciful view. My research supports
Living in Sin Page 8
