2007 P2 Source Booklet

History 2007 Paper 2 Source Booklet Source A – From “Crime and Punishment in England”, John Briggs 1996 By the eighteenth century smuggling had in many areas assumed enormous proportions…over three million pounds of tea were imported illegally every year. Many of the people engaged in this huge illicit trade were no doubt common criminals. To run a successful smuggling enterprise a considerable investment of capital was needed. People with this sort of money were unlikely to be in it simply to make a political point. They were more akin to modern drugs barons than to freedom fighters. Source B – Abraham Walter, a tea dealer and former smuggler, speaking to a committee of Parliament in the 1740s. “It is extremely dangerous for the Custom House Officers to attempt to seize [smuggled] goods in the coast counties because smugglers are very numerous there and can assemble a great number whenever they need. Nine persons in ten in the area would give them assistance and do lens the smugglers their horses and teams to convey their goods.” Source C – A contemporary picture of the Hawkhurst Gang seizing tea from the customs house at Poole, Dorset in 1747.

Source D – John Taylor, the keeper of Newgate prison, 1747 “The common people of England in general fancy there is nothing in the crime of smuggling…the poor feel they have a right to shun paying any duty [tax] on their goods.”

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Source E – An MP opposes the introduction of police, 1811 They have admirable police in Paris, but they pay for it dear enough. I had rather half a dozen men’s throats cut in Radcliffe Highway every 3 or 4 years than be subject to house raids, spies and all the rest of it. Source F – Robert Peel, writing to prime minster Wellington in 1829: I am very glad indeed to hear that you think well of the Police. It has given me from first to last more trouble than anything I ever undertook. But the men are gaining a knowledge of their duties so rapidly that I am very sanguine of the ultimate result. I want to teach people that liberty does not consist in having your house robbed by organised gangs of thieves, and in leaving the principal streets of London in the nightly possession of drunken women and vagabonds. Source G – Historian Chris Culpin, 1998, in “Crime and Punishment Through Time”, a GCSE textbook. They [the Metropolitan Police] were not an instant success. Many of the first 2,800 recruits were unsuitable; 2,200 were sacked of resigned. Many people, rich and poor alike, bitterly resented them. Some drove their coaches straight at policemen on traffic duty. The worst case of hostility was in 1833, when PC Robert Culley was stabbed to death in a political demonstration and his attacker was acquitted by the jury, who were all given medals [by a newspaper for delivering the verdict of ‘justifiable homicide’]. Source H – Part of a folk song from the 1830s about the police: I'M one of the new police, egad, The servant maids declare, There's not a chap in all the force, Can sturt with such an air; My gloves of white, my coat of blue, My dignity increase, And every gesture shows to you. That I'm one of the new police. I'm partial to an outside beat, For there I feel secure, Then with the servant maids I romp, And play at some back door; I love to loll in kitchens too, Some mutton joints to fleece, I'm never in the want of prog, Cause I'm one of the new police

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Source I – Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis (1797) A report by Patrick Colquhoun, a London magistrate, who supported the idea of a professional police force. The night-watch for the most part consisted of helpless old men, or of labourers, appointed by way of charity to keep them and their families off the poor-rate. They were paid from 10s. to 15s. a week, and they usually eked out their wages by taking hush-money, gifts from streetwalkers, and contributions from publicans. These were the old Charlies, who used to be described as men employed by the parishes to sleep in the open air. Boxes were provided for them, the overturning of one of which, with the watchman inside, was one of the favourite feats of the 'Mohawks' and 'Tom and Jerry' men. Source J – Robert Peel: Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence Source K – The main points of the Gaols Act, 1823, passed by Robert Peel • prisons to be secure and healthy • gaolers to be paid • prisoners to be divided into categories • women prisoners to be looked after by women warders • gaols to be inspected by JPs at least once a year • reform of prisoners to be attempted through education, religious instruction and work Source L – Religious instruction in Pentonville Prison, 1860s

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Source M - From “Crime and Punishment in England”, John Briggs 1996 “The solitary system went further [than the silent system] by requiring the total isolation of prisoners in solitary cells; even when they attended chapel they met in separate boxes, and wore anonymizing masks when moving around the prison. The net result of the system was to throw men in entirely upon themselves for as long as eighteen months with only a chaplain’s sermon to break the isolation, when it was hoped his gentle words might be able to shape their by now hopefully malleable (changeable) minds to more social attitudes.” Source N: James Grant, ‘The Great Metropolis’, 1837 There are many instances on record of criminals spending full one-half of their time in Newgate, until, as they themselves say, a new leaf is turned over by their being transported beyond seas. Not many years ago, a youth under twenty, was found in Newgate for the thirteenth time. The separation of the prisoners from one another; in other words, solitary confinement, is the only thing which will ever invest Newgate, or any other gaol, with sufficient terror to a criminal’s mind, to deter him from the commission of crime. The solitary system has been tried in other places, and found most effectual. I am glad to understand that it is in contemplation to resort to it in London. I am satisfied it will be followed here, as in other places, by a very great and permanent diminution of crime.

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Source O – Charles Dickens, the author, writing about the solitary system in action in Philadelphia, USA in 1842: Over the head and face of every prisoner who comes into this melancholy house, a black hood is drawn; and in this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped between him and the living world, he is led to the cell from which he never again comes forth, until his whole term of imprisonment has expired. He never hears of wife and children; home or friends; the life or death of any single creature. He sees the prison-officers, but with that exception he never looks upon a human countenance, or hears a human voice. He is a man buried alive; to be dug out in the slow round of years; and in the mean time dead to everything but torturing anxieties and horrible despair.

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