Criminality and Englishness in the aftermath: The racecourse wars of the 1920s

This article explores the extent to which post-war concerns about Englishness and fears about ‘the enemy within’ shaped understandings of the ‘racecourse wars’ of the 1920s. These conflicts involved mainly metropolitan criminals in various affrays and fights on the streets of London, and on the racecourses of South-East England. The press coverage of the events has been described as akin to a ‘moral panic’ and certainly they provided serious headline fodder during the peaks of 1922 and 1925. Moreover, the key personnel of these ‘wars’, arguably dramatically overwritten by the press, have become signposts in the chronology of twentieth-century British organized crime. This article will draw upon newspaper reports, police autobiography, trial reports, Metropolitan Police records and correspondence with the army to explore concerns about the nature and prevalence of gang crime and forms of inter-personal violence

'“A strange enough region wherein to wander and muse": Mapping Clerkenwell in Victorian Popular Fictions'

Drawing on the work of Bertrand Westphal, this essay attempts to perform a geocritical reading of the London district of Clerkenwell. After discussing the spatial turn in the Humanities and introducing a range of spatial critical approaches, the essay “maps” literary Clerkenwell from the perspectives of genre hybridity and intertextuality, spatially articulate cartography, multifocal and historically aware public perception and potentially transgressive connection to outside areas. Clerkenwell is seen to have stimulated a range of genre fiction, including Newgate, realist, penny and slum fiction, and social exploration journalism. In much of this writing, the district was defined by its negative associations with crime, poverty, incarceration and slaughter. Such negative imageability, the essay suggests, was self-perpetuating, since authors would be influenced by their reading to create literary worlds repeating existing tropes; these literary representations, in turn, influenced readers’ perceptions of the area.Intertextual, multi-layered and polysensorial geocritical readings,the essay concludes, can producepowerful andnuanced pictures of literary placesbut also face a formidable challenge in defining an adequate geocentric corpus

The Hospitallers and the 'Peasants' Revolt' revisited

On the evening of Thursday 13 June 1381 a large armed band broke into the Hospitallers’ priory at Clerkenwell and set it and the many houses around it on fire, beheaded several people and plundered documents, goods and money from the house. The leader of this band was one Thomas Farndon or Farringdon of London, who had been one of the leaders of the rebels. After sacking Clerkenwell priory, Farndon and other rebels spent the night drawing up a ‘black list’ of those in the government that they wanted dead. On Friday 14 June Jack Straw and other rebels, including some of those who had attacked Clerkenwell, burned down Highbury Manor, the property of the prior of the Hospital in England, and looted it. Farndon and his associates then went to the Tower of London, where they seized the chancellor Archbishop Simon Sudbury of Canterbury (the chancellor of England), the treasurer Robert Hales prior of the Hospital in England (treasurer of England), John Cavendish the chief justiciar and other leading royal officials, marched them out to Tower Hill and beheaded them. This article examines why Robert Hales and the Hospitallers became the target of the angry 'peasants' in 1381. It concludes that the Hospital as a religious order and a landowner, alongside other religious orders and landowners, and because of its role as a sort of government financial office. Hales, however, was thoroughly hated; and this article examines why this was so

Loose, idle and disorderly: vagrant removal in late eighteenth-century Middlesex

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Social History on 2 October 2014, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2014.975943Peer reviewe

Gender and the Culture of the English Alehouse in Late Stuart England

The world of the alehouse and tavern in early modern England has generally been regarded as primarily male, a view that was deeply embedded in the period itself. This essay explores the place of women within the public house, in serving, buying and consuming alcohol, and the unwritten conventions that underpinned social practice. It argues that while some female customers matched their contemporary image, as disorderly, immoral and dishonest, it was also possible for respectable women to visit a tavern or alehouse without risking their good name, provided they adhered to the conventions. Middling-sort and elite women might drink and dine in London taverns with their husbands, or in mixed parties; throughout England married couples, and mixed groups of young folk, might drink, dance, and socialise; marketwomen might assemble at the end of the day, and chapwomen often lodged overnight. And, at least in London, respectable women might enter a public house alone, by day, without meeting disapproval. Many establishments provided private as well as public rooms, and these created social spaces for female customers, couples and mixed parties, serving different needs than those met within the main public space

Institute of Historical Research Newsletter, Spring Term 2006

The IHR produces a termly newsletter, which gives details of seminars and conferences and other historical news. This is the newsletter for the spring term 2006

A nagykövet védelmének kérdése : Esterházy herceg és a Bettera-ügy

Prince Paul Anton Esterhazy became Austria's ambassador to London following the Congress of Vienna. He played a key social and political role during his time in England, and he was a recognised and respected figure in his profession. From the second half of the 1810s, however, his stay in London was overshadowed by a seemingly persistent problem, a personal dispute with Vito Bettera. The Ragusan nobleman had formerly been in the service of Paul Anton Esterhazy's father, Nicholas Esterhazy, but later their working relationship came to an end. Nonetheless, after his departure, Bettera demanded an annual pension, and since he resided in London from 1816, he turned to Paul Anton Esterhazy with his financial problem. The case dragged on for years, but Bettera's demands became more and more violent as time went on, and Prince Paul was publicly insulted in January 1823. The Prince, as an ambassador, requested protection from the British government after the incident, and urged it to intervene in the case. The study highlights how the Liverpool cabinet responded to the situation. To what extent did it feel that the obligation to protect the ambassador was within their own competence, or even necessarily applicable in a situation where the physical safety of the ambassador was at risk for reasons that did not fall within the category of official duties, but within the category of private life? The study aims to point out the complexity of this issue, and present an interesting and lesser known period in the life of Paul Anton Esterhazy

Communities of Co-presence and Surveillance: how public open space shapes awareness and behaviour in residential developments

12-15 June 200

Institute of Historical Research Newsletter, Summer Term 2005

The IHR produces a termly newsletter, which gives details of seminars and conferences and other historical news. This is the newsletter for the summer term 2005