Cruel Victorian Justice |
Victoriana — the overlooked past How insightful it was when Charles Dickens wrote the often cited phrase, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” By the 1830s, England had finally achieved peace following the Napoleonic Wars, but it was economically strained. The Georgian government at that time levied heavy taxes, and the country's workforce, which had laboured extensively for centuries, was increasingly supplanted by the mechanisation introduced by the Industrial Revolution. The gap between the upper and lower classes was broader than ever before. Factory and mill owners, merchants, and shopkeepers were more focused on boosting profits than on the suffering of the labourers. For everyone except the landed gentry, life was harsh, and ordinary people struggled to survive. In the cities and towns men were driven to make an honest living in the slaughterhouses, sewers, cesspits and tanneries whilst in rural areas women and children toiled as agricultural labourers (not to be confused with farmers who owned the land), underground in the mines or in factories as Ơ™pressed՚ labour — anything that would avoid them being forced into the ubiquitous workhouse. Living conditions in the larger cities and towns were appalling. People walked along dirty streets covered in rubbish and horse manure with the air constantly carrying the stench from numerous unpleasant trades. In the smaller rural communities the situation was, if anything, worse with the infant death rate appallingly high [1]. Hospitals were filthy and foul-smelling with medical procedures not having progressed much beyond the practice of “bleeding” and the use of leeches. Most working-class people were illiterate, and their children had no access to education. Schooling, as an alternative to child labour, did not become compulsory until the Elementary Education Act was introduced in 1870. |
Crime and Punishment During the early 1800s, England faced significant internal unrest. Social and criminal justice reforms had yet to be introduced. This was the era of the iconic “Artful Dodger” character from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. Minor juvenile crime was widespread with groups of ragged, undernourished children, some as young as 9 or 10, roaming the streets trying to “pick a pocket or two.” At that time, law enforcement was managed by locally appointed watchmen and constables, with punishments carried out quickly and harshly. |
Flogging was common and often seen as a form of public entertainment, while hanging (or more accurately, lynching) was a frequent event. Public executions were routine for any of around 200 crimes. |
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| A public hanging in the early 1800's. Image from The Illustrated London News. |
In 1829, the year James Atkins Chard was born, a 12-year-old boy was sentenced to death for stealing goods worth two pence through a broken window [2]. Eight years later, a 9-year-old girl was hanged for theft. A 14-year-old girl met the same fate for stealing a handkerchief, and a 10-year-old boy was executed for unlawfully handling a pocket knife. It was not until 1822, when Robert Peel became Home Secretary, that the idea of professional policing was introduced. It took another seven years — the same year Thomas Chard married — for a Parliamentary Act [3] to be passed, creating an organised force euphemistically known as the “peelers” or “bobbies”, with their role being to enforce the law more strictly and with less discretion. Many unwitting transgressors — the Chard family included — who in the past had easily eluded apprehension, now found the long arm of the law inescapable. |
Justice Indeed — for what its worth Thomas James Chard, aged 29 Apprehended not long after the birth of his fifth child, Thomas found himself facing the Devon Assizes court in Exeter for the second time. |
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| Thomas Chard is charged with cattle theft in 1840. The Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser, Wednesday August 5, 1840. |
Charged with the theft of two bullocks belonging to Mr Robert Dommett, a farmer of Blackdown, Thomas was sentenced to 10 years at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. At this time the country’s gaols were full to overflowing and prisoners were consigned to the most squalid of accommodations aboard scuttled marine vessels. Anchored in England’s calmest harbours, these hulks were effectively floating graveyards for prisoners awaiting transportation to the colonies. One such vessel — HMS Stirling Castle [4] — wallowing at anchor in Plymouth Harbour became the “residence” of Thomas Chard and 100 other miscreants at the time of the 1841 England Census. |
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| HMS Stirling Castle at anchor in Plymouth Harbour in 1840. Painting by William B Jenner. |
For Thomas and many of his fellow prisoners, destiny took a fortunate turn. The colonies in the antipodes were urgently in need of workers — especially farmers who could establish and cultivate the most challenging terrains. Leaving their homeland of England was the price he and many others had to pay for the opportunity to escape certain death in the plague-ridden floating “hell on water”. On 30 November 1841, Thomas, together with 219 other “shipmates”, found himself aboard HMS Somersetshire [5] heading to Van Diemen’s Land. |
James Atkins Chard, aged 13 On May 9th, 1840, when his father was taken into custody for theft, James Atkins Chard was only ten years old and the oldest among his siblings: Betsy, aged 8; John, 4; Richard, 1; and Mary, just 3 months old. Six months later, on his birthday, he received the heart breaking news that he would never see his father again and that he had unexpectedly become the provider for his family. With all members of his family listed as paupers in the 1841 Census, James began work as an apprentice labourer to Mr William Spurrell, a yeoman farmer of Egg Buckland (near Plymouth). Sadly for James this sponsorship ended quickly and tragically when he was arrested and subsequently convicted of larceny on January 3rd 1843. |
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| James Chard's case is reviewed but sustained in April 1843. The Western Times, Saturday April 29, 1843. |
Considering the judicial sentencing norms of that era, James might regard himself fortunate to have avoided the gallows or the brutal filth of the prison hulks. Instead, he was sent to Parkhurst, the new juvenile prison on the Isle of Wight, awaiting subsequent transportation to the colonies. |
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