Punishment

Williams, Samantha

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-73320-3_6

Samantha Williams²

Abstract

The parents of illegitimate children were liable to punishment by the secular courts: mothers as ‘lewd women’ and fathers for failure to provide security and maintenance payments, as well as to the church courts for fornication. This chapter charts trends in commitments to the London houses of correction for bastardy. There was a division by gender, with women being committed to Bridewell and men to Clerkenwell and Tothill Fields. The most remarkable finding is that very few men and women were sent to one of these houses of correction after the 1620s; unmarried parents were largely going unpunished. However, rather more putative fathers were gaoled south of the river in Southwark, as a means of getting men to pay up.

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Notes

1.
L. Gowing, Common bodies: women, touch and power in seventeenth-century England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 117.
2.
L. Gowing, ‘Giving birth at the magistrate’s gate: single mothers in the early modern city’, in S. Tarbin and S. Broomhall (eds), Women, identities and communities in early modern Europe (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2008), pp. 137–52; M. Ingram, Church courts, sex and marriage in England, 1570–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 261. See also R.B. Outhwaite, The rise and fall of the English ecclesiastical courts, 1500–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007 online ed.); K. Wrightson and D. Levine, Poverty and piety in an English village: Terling, 1525–1700 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 125–7; B. Reay, Popular cultures in England 1550–1750 (London: Longman, 1998), pp. 29–30.
3.
Ingram, Church courts, Table 2, p. 68, pp. 261–2.
4.
Gowing, Common bodies, p. 117; R.B. Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment: petty crime and the law in London and rural Middlesex (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 36–7.
5.
Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, pp. 20–21; F. Dabhoiwala, The origins of sex: a history of the first sexual revolution (London: Penguin 2012), pp. 51–4.
6.
Dabhoiwala, Origins of sex, ch. 1.
7.
Ibid., pp. 14, 16 (quote), 19–11, 41. On the London church courts in general see: R.M. Wunderli, London church courts and society on the eve of the Reformation (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1981, online edn), chs IV, 2. These records have been used but they are difficult to use systematically due to the nature of source survival; see E. Hubbard, City women: money, sex, and the social order in early modern London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 86–110; E. Fox and M. Ingram, ‘Bridewell, bawdy courts and bastardy in early seventeenth-century London’, in R. Probert (ed.), Cohabitation and non-marital births in England and Wales, 1600–2012 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp. 10–32; T. Reinke-Williams, Women, work and sociability in early modern London (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
8.
Fox and Ingram, ‘Bridewell, bawdy courts and bastardy’. See also A. Macfarlane, ‘Illegitimacy and illegitimates in English history’, in P. Laslett, K. Oosterveen and R.M. Smith (eds), Bastardy and its comparative history: studies in the history of illegitimacy and marital nonconformism in Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, North America, Jamaica and Japan (London: Edward Arnold, 1980), pp. 71–85, at pp. 81–3.
9.
Dabhoiwala, Origins of sex, p. 46; Outhwaite, Rise and fall, pp. 78–9.
10.
Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, pp. 20–21. Roughly equal numbers of cases for fornication (not bastardy) were prosecuted in church courts and quarter sessions, 1660–1689. See also T. Meldrum, ‘A women’s court in London: defamation at the Bishop of London’s Consistory Court, 1700–1745’, The London Journal, 19:1 (1994), pp. 1–20.
11.
T. Nutt, ‘The paradox and problems of illegitimate paternity in old poor law Essex’, in A. Levene, T. Nutt and S. Williams (eds), Illegitimacy in Britain, 1700–1920 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 102–21, p. 103.
12.
18 Eliz c.3 s.1, An Act for the setting the poor on work and for avoiding idleness; 7 Jac. 1 c.4; M. Dalton, The countrey justice, conteyning the practise of the justices of the peace out of their sessions (London, 1618/1655), pp. 31–2; T. Nutt, ‘Illegitimacy, paternal financial responsibility, and the 1834 Poor Law Commission Report: the myth of the old poor law and the making of the new’, Economic History Review, 63 (2010), pp. 335–61, pp. 336–7; Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, pp. 36–7; J. Innes, ‘Prisons for the poor: English bridewells, 1555–1800’, in F. Snyder and D. Hay (eds), Labour, law, and crime: an historical perspective (London: Tavistock Publications, 1987), pp. 42–122, at pp. 42–77.
13.
R. Burn, Justice of the peace (London, 1727), p. 32; P. King, ‘The summary courts and social relations in eighteenth-century England’, Past & Present, 183 (2004), pp. 125–172, at pp. 132, 143; Nutt, ‘Paternal financial responsibility’.
14.
Burn, Justice of the peace, p. 32; P. King, ‘The summary courts and social relations in eighteenth-century England’, Past & Present, 183 (2004), pp. 125–172, p. 132, 143; Nutt, ‘Paternal financial responsibility’.
15.
Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, pp. 35–6, 48n; A. Shepard, ‘Brokering fatherhood: illegitimacy and paternal rights and responsibilities in early modern England’, in S. Hindle, A. Shepard and J. Walter (eds), Remaking English society: social relations and social change in early modern England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2013), pp. 41–63, p. 50.
16.
F. Dabhoiwala, ‘Summary justice in early modern London’, English Historical Review, 121 (2006), pp. 796–822; Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, p. 26.
17.
Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, pp. 26, 55, 169, 174; W. King, ‘Punishment for bastardy in early seventeenth-century England’, Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, 10:2 (1978), pp. 130–151, p. 133.
18.
Innes, ‘Prisons for the poor’, p. 101.
19.
M. Dalton, The Countrey justice, conteyning the practise of the justices of the peace out of their sessions (1655), p. 41.
20.
Dalton, The countrey justice, pp. 41–2.
21.
Burn, Justice of the peace, pp. 45–6.
22.
Dalton, The countrey justice, pp. 41–2; Burn, Justice of the peace, p. 46. See also P. Crawford, Blood, bodies and families in early modern England (London: Routledge, 2004, 2014 edn), p. 87.
23.
‘Correspondence between Secretary of State and Visiting Magistrates of Prisons on Tread-Wheels in Gaols and Houses of Correction’, P.P. 1824, 45, p. 15.
24.
King, ‘Punishment for bastardy’, p. 139.
25.
A. Eccles, Vagrancy in law and practice under the old poor law (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 14, 88, 90–95.
26.
King, ‘Punishment for bastardy’, pp. 140–1; Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, pp. 166–7, 187–8.
27.
Dalton, The countrey justice, pp. 39–40; Gowing, Common bodies, pp. 117–18. And see King, ‘Punishment for bastardy’, pp. 133–5; Eccles, Vagrancy, pp. 14, 88, 90–95.
28.
Fox and Ingram, ‘Bridewell, bawdy courts and bastardy’, p. 24.
29.
Ibid., p. 26.
30.
Ibid., p. 28.
31.
Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, p. 48n. See also King, ‘Punishment for bastardy’, pp. 142–3.
32.
Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, pp. 166–8; P. Griffiths, Lost Londons: change, crime, and control in the capital city, 1550–1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
33.
Innes, ‘Prisons for the poor’, pp. 42–101; Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, ch. 7.
34.
http://www.londonlives.org/static/HousesOfCorrection.jsp Sept 2013.
35.
Ibid.
36.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol25/pp9-21#h2-000, accessed 7 October 2016; Hitchcock and Shoemaker, London lives, p. 329.
37.
D. Kennedy, ‘A local prison for the poor. A study of the Kingston house of correction’, 20 Aug 2016, www.kingstonhistoryresearch.co.uk, accessed Oct 2016; Return of Persons committed under Vagrant Laws to Prisons in England and Wales; Sums paid for Apprehension and Maintenance of Vagrants, 1820–23, p. 94; http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol26/pp100-105#h3-0011, accessed October 2016.
38.
Dabhoiwala, ‘Summary justice’, p. 805; Innes, ‘Prisons for the poor’, pp. 103–5.
39.
Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, pp. 166–7.
40.
Ibid., p. 197.
41.
Ibid., pp. 279–80.
42.
Minutes of the Court of Governors, Bridewell Prison, www.londonlives.org accessed August 2013; sample of Middlesex and Westminster calendars, London Metropolitan Archives [LMA] MJ/SR/1940–1958 (1700), 2143–2160 (1710), 2180–2194 (1712), 2340–2354 (1720), 2360 (1721), 2529–2538 (1730), 2728–2736 (1740). Not all of the Middlesex and Westminster calendars could be viewed per year due to many being unfit for production.
43.
‘Answers to Town Queries’ (P.P. 1834, XXXVI).
44.
I. Archer, The pursuit of stability social relations in Elizabethan London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), Table 6.11, p. 239; Griffiths, Lost Londons, pp. 201–3, Table 2a p. 451.
45.
Archer combines fornication and adultery, as well as bigamy, rape and child abuse, and Griffiths includes 28 different categories of sexual offence: Archer, Pursuit of stability, Table 6.11, p. 239; Grifiths, Lost Londons, pp. 201–3, Table 2a p. 451.
46.
Griffiths, Lost Londons, p. 202.
47.
Ibid., p. 202.
48.
Ibid., Table 2a p. 451.
49.
Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, Table 7.1, p. 169. Of Shoemaker’s sample (1670–80, 1693/1697, 1712, 1721) many of the house of correction calendars are no longer fit to be seen by researchers at London Metropolitan Archives.
50.
D.D. Gray, Crime, prosecution and social relations: the summary courts of the City of London in the late eighteenth century (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 133; P. King, ‘Summary courts’, Table 4, p. 159; Eccles, Vagrancy, pp. 156–7; Innes, ‘Prisons for the poor’, p. 99.
51.
Eccles, Vagrancy, p. 102.
52.
Dabhoiwala, Origins of sex, ch. 1.
53.
www.londonlives.org, Bridewell prison, 15/01/1697.
54.
Ibid., 02/03/1711.
55.
Ibid., 23/03/1735.
56.
Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, pp. 168–70.
57.
www.londonlives.org, Bridewell prison, 23/08/1695.
58.
Ibid., 27/07/1694.
59.
Ibid., 13/01/1692, 14/05/1697.
60.
www.londonlives.org, 06/05/1698.
61.
Ibid., 20/10/1736.
62.
Ibid., 14/10/1731.
63.
K. Thomas, ‘The double standard’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 20:2 (1959), pp. 195–216; B. Capp, ‘The double standard revisited: plebeian women and sexual reputation in early modern England’, Past & Present, 162 (1999), pp. 70–100; Gowing, Domestic dangers, chs. 2–4; Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, p. 173.
64.
www.londonlives.org, Bridwell prison, 15/11/1698.
65.
Ibid., 27/03/1696.
66.
Shepard, ‘Brokering fatherhood’, pp. 51–2.
67.
Ibid.
68.
www.londonlives.org 12/08/1698, 20/05/1698, 18/08/1698.
69.
Ibid., 30/07/1697.
70.
Ibid., 08/11/1691.
71.
Ibid., 02/03/1694.
72.
Ibid., 18/03/1698.
73.
Ibid., 09/09/1692, 05/04/1728, 09/10/1729.
74.
Griffiths, Lost Londons, Table 2a, p. 451.
75.
There were usually 12 calendars per year for Middlesex and Westminster. For this chapter a sample was taken of the calendars, the first year of each decade 1700–1770: MJ/SR/1940–1958 (1700), 2143–2160 (1710), 2340–2356 (1720), 2526–2546 (1730), 2728–2746 (1740), 2932–2950 (1750), 3095–3108 (1760), 3221–3236 (1770), plus also additional calendars MJ/SR/2180–2194 (1712), 2360 (1721), 2556, 2561, 2566 (1730/1), except for those rolls which were unfit to be seen or were so poor that they were illegible (around one-third of calendars).
76.
Mothers committed for having a bastard child, some of whom refused to name the father, while others were also prostitutes; fathers committed for ‘begetting a bastard child’, and, frequently (but not invariably), for lack of sureties; women for lying about the identity of the father; women for naming a man the father of a bastard child for the purposes of blackmail and fraud; and those accused of ‘dropping’ (abandoning) a bastard child.
77.
See LMA MJ/SR/1950, 2180, 2340, 2351.
78.
LMA MJ/SR/2340.
79.
https://www.londonlives.org/static/Prisons.jsp#toc16, Nov 2017.
80.
LMA, MJ/SR/2180. There were additional cases in 1712 (3 fathers) and 1731 (1 case of dropping).
81.
LMA, MJ/SR/2351.
82.
LMA, MJ/SR/2351.
83.
Eccles, Vagrancy, p. 102.
84.
Ibid.
85.
Shoemaker argues that many persons were bound over for making false accusations of paternity of bastard children: Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, pp. 98–9, 129.
86.
MJ/SR/2556, 2744, 3225.
87.
See, for instance, www.londonlives.org LMSLPS150050092, 23 April 1694; LMSLPS150100167 3 June 1699; LMSLPS150100168 03/06/1699; LMSLPS150050092, 6 Dec 1704.
88.
LMA, MJ/SR/2153, 2155, 2158.
89.
www.londonlives.org/static/MG.jsp October 2013.
90.
www.londonlives.org (Frar Lessall 27/03/1696).
91.
Ibid., 26/02/1749.
92.
Ibid.,06/05/1698.
93.
Ibid., 09/09/1692; 09/10/1729; 18/03/1698; 05/04/1728.
94.
Ibid., 27/03/1702.
95.
Ibid., 05/04/1695.
96.
Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, Table 7.5 p. 189.
97.
Ibid., pp. 91; Dabhoiwala, ‘Summary justice’.
98.
LMA, MJ/SR/3230.
99.
Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, p. 87; Eccles, Vagrancy, p. 169.
100.
Ibid, pp. 187–8, 194; Dabhoiwala, ‘Summary justice’; Eccles, Vagrancy, pp. 164–71.
101.
Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, p. 195.
102.
http://www.londonlives.org/static/HousesOfCorrection.jsp, Nov 2017.
103.
Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment, p. 194.
104.
Ibid., p. 195 and n.101.
105.
http://www.londonlives.org/static/Bridewell.jsp#toc5, Nov 2017.
106.
Eccles, Vagrancy, pp. 164–71.
107.
Kennedy, ‘A local prison for the poor’; BPP XIX 1824, ‘Vagrant laws’, p. 94.
108.
BPP 1824, ‘Vagrant laws’, p. 94; http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol26/pp100-105#h3-0011 Oct 2016.
109.
‘Tread-Wheels in Gaols and Houses of Correction’, pp. 10, 15–17.
110.
199 orders on 152 fathers, of whom 29 were imprisoned for want of sureties or refusal to pay bastardy costs.
111.
Southwark Local Studies Library 762 St. George the Martyr, Relief and filiation orders, 1822–1832.
112.
SLSL 762.
113.
Ibid.
114.
Ibid.
115.
Middlesex (68 parishes), City of London within the Walls (73 parishes), City of London Without the Walls (11 parishes), and Southwark (4 parishes).
116.
www.londonlives.org Minutes of the Court of Governors Bridewell Prison, 26/02/1749.
117.
See also T. Nutt, ‘Illegitimacy and the poor law in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century England’ (unpub. Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Cambridge, 2005), pp. 72–3, 148–54.

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Williams, S. (2018). Punishment. In: Unmarried Motherhood in the Metropolis, 1700–1850. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73320-3_6

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73320-3_6
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