London Crime in the 19th century

Crime in London, between the 18th and 19th centuries, was at a historical peak and the people of the city heavily felt the need for order and figures that would obey law and justice.

Infant crime, prostitution, smuggling, collusion and many other crimes were on the agenda and made London one of the most disfigured cities in Europe, second only to Paris and Prague, which held the primacy.

This particular state of affairs was accentuated in the low quarters. Whole areas of the city were inhabited exclusively by criminals. Alsatia, the neighbourhood between Fleet Street and the Thames, was famous; no honest man dared venture into that network of winding lanes and slothful slums. The area around Covent Gardens was dotted with "night houses", low taverns where every form of wickedness could happen.

Saffron Hill, Dickens's Fagin House, next to Smithfield, had a more unpleasant reputation. Between St Katherine's Dock and Limehouse, the river bank was the gathering place for "river rats" robbing shipping on the Thames for a sum of about £ 300,000 a year.

In all these districts and many others, every street had its den of thieves, its shop, and its brothel. In 1796, there were 3000 old-fashioned shops in London, which were considered to be stolen goods.

At the same time, the city contained over 5,000 pubs and beer shops, many of them little more than together for street bandits, thieves, cheaters and fakers.

Counterfeiting of coins was carried out on a large scale. In London, in 1790 there were at least a quarter or fifty ticks engaged in this illicit sector. It is said that only one of them had produced 200,000 pounds of "Half-crowns" in seven years. The "Smasher" or false money dealers were hiding near each inn, while every Hackney coach had half-crowns in his hand to return to those who were so unkind to offer her a good one.

Burglary and home breach were on the agenda, and the only defence of the citizen was a big stick or a pair of guns. There was no police, or at least no one making the difference. Everything that was there was both inefficient and corrupt. The Nightwatch who patrolled the streets with sticks and lanterns every night was mostly composed of elders, decrepit, or infirm, who kept terror or corruption away when it was time for badgers.

Many arrested criminals never reached a prison cell. The policeman responsible for locking him could be corrupted, as witnesses and jurors. The Magistrates were equally corrupt. Until 1792 all the sanctions imposed by the judges of peace went in their own pockets, and can easily be understood because the perpetrators with sufficient means to try the jailer or magistrate resurface the force.

Corruption was so extensive that there were rumours that there were cops who would go on the street, giving a few cents to beggars, to stop them and get the 10 pounds of reward.

In 1749, at 4 Bow Street, in London, Magistrate Sir Henry Fielding set up the first regular police force in the United Kingdom: the Bow Street Runners.