¹ Certain aspects of poaching have been excluded from this article. First, poaching in Scotland has been omitted, because the story is different there. Secondly, certain kinds of criminal activity have been ignored, notably the trapping of deer, moor game and water-fowl. Rabbits and hares comprised perhaps two thirds of the total catch. Fish poaching has been included, because there was in some districts a close relationship between fish, rabbit and game poaching, with the same group of men moving from one crime to another as weather and seasons changed.

² See, for instance, Samuel, R. (ed.), Village life and labour, (London, 1975)Google Scholar, and Evans, G. E., The days that we have seen (London, 1975)Google Scholar.

³ 1843 was a bad year for poaching. Parliamentary Papers (hereafter P.P.), 1846, IX, pt. I, 784Google Scholar. Of the Norfolk figure of 2156, 610 of these had previous convictions. P.P., 1872, x, appendix 4.

⁴ Hill, F., Crime: its amount, causes and remedies, (London, 1853), 26Google Scholar; Worsley, H., Juvenile depravity, (1849), 70–1Google Scholar; Kent, J. H., Remarks on the injuriousness of the consolidation of small farms (Bury St Edmunds, 1844), 45–6Google Scholar; Glyde, J., Suffolk in the nineteenth century (London, 1856), 127Google Scholar.

⁵ Some of the best-known contemporary writings on the poacher are: Jefferies, J. R., The amateur poacher (London, 1879)Google Scholar; Watson, J., The confessions of a poacher (London, 1890)Google Scholar; Eden, E., The autobiography of a working man (London, 1862)Google Scholar; Rider-Haggard, L. (ed.), I walked by night (London, 1935)Google Scholar; and Christian, G. (ed.), A Victorian poacher: James Hawker's journal (London, 1961)Google Scholar.

⁶ For the Carpenter quotation and a summary of the poets' and novelists' approach to the poacher, see the fascinating Denwood, J. M., Cumbrian nights (London, 1932), 53Google Scholar.

⁷ Christian (ed.), A Victorian poacher, p. 95; Rider-Haggard (ed.), I walked by night, pp. 114–16; Thompson, E. P., Whigs and hunters (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Thompson, E. P. and others, Albion's fatal tree (London, 1975)Google Scholar, ch. 5; Hobsbawm, E. J. and Rudé, G., Captain Swing (London, 1969), 63Google Scholar; Peacock, A. J., Bread or blood (London, 1965), 52–4Google Scholar.

⁸ For background to, and detail on the Act of 1831, see P. B. Munsche, ‘The Game Laws in Wiltshire in 1750–1800’ in Cockburn, J. S. (ed.), Crime in England, 1550–1800 (London, 1977), 212–13Google Scholar; Trench, C. C., The poacher and the squire (London, 1967), 154–5Google Scholar.

⁹ The story of the clash between landowners and farmers can be found in the two select committee reports on the Game Laws. P.P., 1846, ix, 1872, x, and 1873, xii. See especially the evidence of J. W. Cooper, M. Browne and A. J. Smith, and the opposite viewpoint from Grantley-Berkeley and J. Jones. Compare the Morning Chronicle, 22 Dec. 1849. For concrete evidence of clashes over game preservation, on the Bunny estate, see the Nottingham Journal, 31 Jan. and 7 Feb. 1862.

¹⁰ For a brief introduction to the Welsh story, see Jones, D. J. V., ‘Crime, protest and community in nineteenth-century Wales’, Llafur, I, 3 (1974), 11Google Scholar.

¹¹ Worseley, Juvenile depravity, p. 19. Compare Glyde, Suffolk, p. 147. For the metaphor on ‘Romans’ and ‘Britons’ see Thompson, F., Lark Rise to Candleford(Harmondsworth, 1971 edition), 291Google Scholar. On the notion that the hunt and shoot brought the peer and commoner side by side, see Jefferies, J. R., Hodge and his masters, I (London, 1880), 191–3Google Scholar.

¹² Holdenby, C., Folk of the furrow (London, 1913), 26–7Google Scholar.

¹³ Hobsbawm and Rudé, Captain Swing, pp. 80–3, and Amos, S. W., ‘Social discontent and agrarian disturbances in Essex, 1795–1850’, M.A. thesis, University of Durham, 1971, 54, 158Google Scholar.

¹⁴ On Grafton's, views, see, for example, his Letter to the magistrates of the western division of the county of Suffolk (London, 1844)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Kirby, C., ‘The English Game Law system,’ American Historical Review, xxxviii, 2 (1933)Google Scholar, and ‘The attack on the English Game Laws in the forties’, Journal of Modern History, iv, 1 (1932).

¹⁶ Cited in Amos, ‘Social discontent’, pp. 54–5.

¹⁷ Cockburn (ed.), Crime, p. 223. For evidence on intimidation, see P.P., 1839, xix, 38, 40.

¹⁸ Jones, D. J. V. and Bainbridge, A., ‘Crime in nineteenth-century Wales’, S.S.R.C. report, 1975, ch. viGoogle Scholar; P.P., 1846, IX, evidence of J. Jones; letters in the Nottingham journal, 3 Jan., 11 July 1862.

¹⁹ See, for instance, Norwich Mercury, 29 Mar. 1834.

²⁰ Much of the evidence before the royal commission on the constabulary force of 1839 and the select committee on the police of 1852–3 concerned the rural police and their impact on crime. Much of it was deliberately chosen to illustrate the inadequacies of the old, and the value of the new, police. See, for instance, P.P., 1839, xix, 132–3. See also Glyde, Suffolk, p. 133

²¹ P.P., 1872, x, evidence of Arch, Congreve and Black, and P.P., 1896, xxxiv, 509–10.

²² Note how the trends in night poaching and day poaching do not always coincide. Unfortunately, the statistics of Game Law offences for England and Wales are given only infrequently in the Parliamentary Papers in the first half of the nineteenth century. Literary evidence is sometimes a useful pointer to major changes in poaching statistics. See, for instance, Hall, A. C., Crime in its relations to social progress (London, 1901), 360–7Google Scholar, and Pike, L. O., A history of crime in England, II (London, 1876), 476Google Scholar.

²³ This paragraph has been based on information gleaned from local newspapers and estate records in the record offices at Ipswich, Norwich, Stafford and Nottingham, and in the archives section of the Nottingham University Library. The long history of poaching in the Nottingham area is outlined in vol. xi of the scrapbooks in the Nottingham Central Library, local studies section. Unfortunately, the papers of the Musters family have not been deposited in a library.

²⁴ P.P., 1872, x, 46. Donne's figure seems a little high. One can follow the story of the conflict on the Derwent and Eden by studying the various commissions and reports on fisheries during the century. Particularly valuable here are the commission on salmon fisheries, P.P., 1861, XXIII, and the report on the fisheries of the Lake District, P.P., 1878, XXI. More precise information can be found in the petty sessions minute books in the Record Office, Carlisle, and in local newspapers, especially the Carlisle Journal.

²⁵ Jones, D. J. V., ‘The second Rebecca riots’, Llafur, II, 4 (1976)Google Scholar.

²⁶ P.P., 1846, IX, evidence of Pusey, especially his answers to questions 7566–7. George Brooke handled 164,000 rabbits and game between Sept. 1844 and Feb. 1845. J. W. Cooper claimed that 14,000 hares, 4,000 pheasants and 7,000 partridges passed through the hands of two Bury dealers in a season. Both gave evidence before the select committee in 1845–6.

²⁷ Brooke's comment is in P.P., 1873, XIII, answer to question 2419. Thomas Muirhead, a Manchester merchant, gave a somewhat different view. See also P.P., 1846, IX, evidence of Hatherton, , and the Norwich Mercury editorial, 4 12 1834Google Scholar. The price of rabbits and game in 1872 was approximately twice the figure of 1845, but there were great seasonal variations in price. Despite the welter of evidence on the Game Laws, information on prices is very thin, making it difficult to relate poaching to changes in demand and profits.

²⁸ For some detail on this paragraph, see for instance, the Bury and Norwich Post, 16, 30 Oct. 1844; P.P., 1846, IX, evidence of the duke of Grafton; 1873, XIII, 353, 383–4; Springall, L. M., Labouring life in Norfolk villages, 1834–1914 (Norwich, 1936), p. 72Google Scholar, and Trench, The poacher, p. 172. There were complaints that traditional gifts of game and fish to friends, charities and labourers had become dwarfed by sales to dealers, and there was also considerable opposition to the battue system. See, for instance, the letter in the Nottingham Journal, 18 July 1862. For interesting details on the shooting figures and the disposal of the bag, see Stafford Record Office, D. 593/L and N, and the Manvers and Portland papers in the Nottingham University Library – e.g. Ma.B. 259.

²⁹ Glyde, Suffolk, p. 160. Much of the background here is supplied by Grafton, Verney, and Hatherton in P.P., 1846, IX, and by Black in P.P., 1872, X. Grafton prided himself on the absence of poachers on his non-preserved estate, yet still had a full complement of keepers.

³⁰ P.P., 1873, XIII, 405. See also Jefferies, , The amateur poacher (London, 1879), pp. 144–5Google Scholar and the evidence of Hooper, Bell, Sturgeon, and Malmesbury in P.P., 1846, IX.

³¹ For Robertson's evidence, see P.P., 1846, IX, pt I, 501–2, and II, 332. Compare the optimistic evidence of Hatherton and Berkeley in the same volume, but note that the latter was involved in the arrest of many poachers. Trench claims that as the cost of shooting rose during the late century, so the attitude of landowners and keepers hardened; The poacher, p. 183.

³² The reminiscences of poachers are invaluable here. See Christian, A Victorian poacher, Rider-Haggard (ed.), I walked by night, and Gowing's evidence in P.P., 1846, IX. For keepers involved in poaching, see the case of Parkes, J. and Webb, S., Nottingham Journal, 31 12 1862, and Jones, ‘The second Rebecca riots’, p. 51Google Scholar.

³³ See the views of Fox, Bicknall, Hatton and others in P.P., 1846, IX, and the tenth report of the inspectors of prisons, P.P., 1845, XXIV, Norfolk, p. 183. For one of the much-quoted cases in which a poacher who pleaded poverty, suddenly produced the money to pay a large fine, see the Staffordshire Advertizer, 2 Feb. 1861 – report of Uttoxeter Petty Sessions. Congreve, who succeeded Hatton in this county, was more sophisticated in his reasoning than most. He argued that night and day poaching were affected by prosperity and depression in different ways. P.P., 1872, X, 41.

³⁴ J. Kay-Shuttleworth, The social condition and education of the people, I, 596. He was, of course, by no means an objective observer of the rural scene.

³⁵ Quoted from Rider-Haggard (ed.), I walked by night, p. 70.

³⁶ Eden, Autobiography; Byng, A. H. and Stephens, S. M. (eds.), The autobiography of an English gamekeeper (1892)Google Scholar; Jones and Bainbridge, ‘Crime’, p. 301. Note how the foreman of James Barclay made a good income by poaching. P.P., 1872, X, answer to question 4435.

³⁷ Especially of meat. The periods concerned were the late 1850s to early 1860s, the late 1860s, and the mid-1870s. Such a correlation can be interpreted in a variety of ways, but much of the literary evidence suggests very strongly that poaching was a popular response of the urban peasantry to changes in living standards.

³⁸ P.P., 1846, pt. I, 394.

³⁹ Lawyers and gaolers in the Nottingham area were fairly certain of the importance of the trade cycle to poaching. See P.P., 1846, IX: evidence of Browne, Rolleston, Brierley and Patchitt. The Matthews, case is reported in the Nottingham Journal, 3 12 1862Google Scholar, and the Cumberland labourer in the Carlisle Journal, 5 Mar. 1878. For a good account of poor families poaching fish cast onto the banks of rivers in the latter county during the winter, see ibid., 25 Oct. 1878.

⁴⁰ Generally, the correlation between poaching in the countryside and agricultural depression was close in the fifty years after Waterloo. 1844–5 and 1862 were the most obvious exceptions to the rule.

⁴¹ See, for instance, Razzell, P. E. and Wainwright, R. W. (eds.), The Victorian workingclass (London, 1973), p. 35Google Scholar.

⁴² Rider-Haggard (ed.), I walked by night, p. 95. On the problems and frustrations of the young, see Glyde, Suffolk, p. 153, and Rider-Haggard (ed.), I walked by night, p. 93.

⁴³ P.P., 1844, XXIX, 59.

⁴⁴ Bury and Norwich Post, 9 Apr. 1845. On the vicious circle of unemployment and poaching, see especially the Wiltshire example in P.P., 1846, IX, 238.

⁴⁵ There was much disagreement over the social punishment of poachers; some employers continued to employ them, but others penalized them and their relations. A convicted poacher could lose his job, house and allotment, and find poor relief hard to get. The result, as reformers were keen to point out, was sometimes disastrous for society and ratepayers. For a different picture of farmers who were ready to give a poacher 3s. a week to prevent his family becoming a liability on the rates, see Razzell and Wainwright, Working class, p. 68.

⁴⁶ The evidence of Sewell Read and Cooper is in P.P., 1846, IX, and 1872, X. For Arch, see the Labourers' Union Chronicle, 27 Dec. 1873.

⁴⁷ P.P., 1846, XXI, 21.

⁴⁸ P.P., 1846, ix, pt. I, 629. In the reports on prisons in Norfolk and Suffolk in 1844 and 1846 there are several references to the poachers' dislike of the workhouse. P.P., 1844, xxix, and 1846, xxi. Compare similar attitudes early in the twentieth century in Norfolk, Long, H. P., ‘Poaching now and then’, East Anglian Magazine, 12 1967, p. 80Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Henslow, J. S., Suggestions towards an enquiry into the present condition of the labouring population of Suffolk, 1844, p. 15Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Hereford Times, 19 Mar. 1881.

⁵¹ Norfolk News, 8 Mar. 1856 to 11 Aug. 1866. Reference kindly supplied by John Archer of the University of East Anglia.

⁵² Rufford Park and Laxton common were traditional trouble spots. See also the famous clash between Squire Musters and Robert Brown. Nottingham Central Library, Local Studies, Scrapbook v, p. 110. Compare the case of fishing at Pasture-Lane Dyke, Lenton. Nottingham Journal, 17 Apr. 1862. See Hatherton, P.P., 1846, ix, 390. On the problems regarding highway poaching, see Fox, P.P., 1872, x, 37. Frederick Gowing's evidence refers to such battles in which he and others were involved, P.P., 1846, ix. One of the most famous conflicts of the time in East Anglia was over Snettisham woods. See, for example, the Norwich Mercury, 22 May 1844. For typical battles over rights of way, which so interested the King of the Norfolk poachers, see P.P., 1839, xix, 134, and P.P., 1839, xix, 44.

⁵³ The area around Sneiton and Longton in the Midlands was the scene of many such conflicts over the taking of mushrooms, berries, turnip tops, etc. And the young and female members of the family were especially involved in this. For some background here see Samuel, Village life, pp. 53 ff., and 207 ff.; Bourne, G. (Sturt), Change in the village (London, 1912)Google Scholar; Roberts, E., ‘Working-class standards of living in Barrow and Lancaster, 1890–1914’, Economic History Review, xxx, 2 (1977), 315–17Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ Cf. Horn, P., Labouring life in the Victorian countryside (London, 1976), p. 229Google Scholar. Hawker served 7 days in gaol for collecting a bundle of sticks. Christian (ed.), A Victorian poacher, p. 20.

⁵⁵ P.P., 1844, xxix, 117. There is a wealth of material on these attitudes. See ibid., pp. 59, 113, 123, P.P., 1846, ix, evidence of Griffith and Pusey; P.P., 1873, XIII, evidence of Barclay and Haward; Watson, Confessions, pp. 100, 145, 172; Rider-Haggard (ed.), I walked by night, pp. 28, 186. The legal experts who appeared before the select committees in 1845–6 and 1872–3 testified to the problems of defining the private property in game. For similar attitudes to related rural crimes, see Henslow, Suggestions, p. 18 and Razzell and Wainwright, Working class, p. 35.

₅₆ Jefferies, Amateur poacher, pp. 101–2.

₅₇ Snape, Westleton and Brandon were three other East Anglian places which attracted the attention of contemporaries. It was said that constables resigned rather than face the poachers of the Snape-Saxmundham area. For more information on ‘poaching villages’, see P.P., 1846, IX, evidence of Meredith, Bennett, Malmesbury, Gowing, Hatton and J. W. Cooper; P.P., 1873, xiii, evidence of Haward and Bartlett.

₅₈ P.P., 1846, ix, pt. i, 871. Cf. the evidence of Brierley, Rolleston and Adams in the same volume, and of Bartlett in P.P., 1873, xiii. Note also P.P., 1845, xxiv, 183, and for some background, see Ashby, M. K., Joseph Ashby of Tysoe, 1859–1919 (Cambridge, 1961)Google Scholar, and Howkins, A., Whitsun in nineteenth-century Oxfordshire, History Workshop Pamphlet, 8 (1973)Google Scholar.

₅₉ The questions and answers attached to the royal commission on the police in 1839 are particularly interesting. P.P., 1839, xix.

₆₀ The examples cited are to be found in P.P., 1873, xiii, 359; 1872, x, 45; Jones, ‘Crime, protest and community’, p. 8; P.P., 1846, ix, evidence of Hatton.

₆₁ P.P., 1872, x, 321. Interesting background material here can be gleaned from Byng and Stephens (eds.), Gamekeeper, P.P., 1846, IX, evidence of Richardson; and the case involving Watkin Williams Wynn at Llangurig in 1866. D. J. V. Jones, ‘Crime, protest and community’, p. 11.

₆₂ Byng and Stephens (eds.), Gamekeeper, p. 105. Eggs could be very profitable. See P.P., 1846, ix, evidence of ‘A.B.’; 1872, x, 46, 327; Eden, Autobiography, pp. 30–1. Cf. the successful careers of J. Read in P.P., 1846, ix, and Smart, Harold in Evans, G. E., The days that we have seen (London, 1975), p. 111Google Scholar.

₆₃ Christian (ed.), A Victorian poacher, p. 48.

₆₄ Nottingham Journal, 31 Jan. 1862. Compare Trench, The poacher, gk pp. 159, 188–9. Note also the long criminal careers of Charles Edge and John Baxter who appeared before the Staffordshire assizes in 1860–1.

₆₅ The Somerset figures were given by Gould, P.P., 1872, x, 32.

₆₆ Trench, The poacher, pp. 188–9.

₆₇ Studies which provide useful background material here are Rider-Haggard (ed.), / I walked by night; Worsley, Juvenile depravity; Edwards, G., From crow-scaring to Westminster (London, 1922)Google Scholar; and Jefferies, J. R., Hodge and his masters, 1 (London, 1880)Google Scholar. Gowing claimed that most of those who poached were married, a view not shared by many of his ‘superiors’. See P.P., 1846, ix: evidence of Gowing and Pussey. Only an intensive search of the census records would help with this problem; the criminal records give few clues. The age-breakdown is taken from the prison returns of the 1840s and 1860s. Compare Watson, Confessions, pp. 95, 106. In 1871 the court records reveal that in England and Wales no more than 1 in 300 cases were of females. The Poaching Prevention Act was used to trap a good number of these. For the remarkable Turnbill, see the Carlisle Journal, 8 Feb. 1878.

₆₈ Compare this with the hectic life of Dusty Webb. F. Samuel, Village life, pp. 222–3. Note the fairly common, though unfair generalization, that unlike the rural poacher, the urban variety never worked. P.P., 1872, x, 221.

₆₉ Cf. the analysis in Cockburn, Crime, p. 225. Note the composition of the Westleton gang in P.P., 1873, xiii, 406. One problem in relation to petty session records is the vagueness of job classification, where it exists. Newspapers sometimes gave more details. But most of the people who appeared before the Cockermouth and Workington petty sessions in the 1870s were simply labelled ‘labourers’ or ‘miners’ by the Carlisle Journal. The Staffordshire picture was gleaned from the quarter session records in the Stafford Record Office (especially the list of convictions, QS/B/i) the Staffordshire Advertizer, and P.P., 1846, pt. 1, p. 500. From the prison records for Nottingham in the 1840s, it appears that up to 50 per cent of poachers were framework knitters. For the composition of Rebeccaites, see Jones, ‘The second Rebecca riots’, p. 51.

₇₀ P.P., 1846, IX, evidence of Sturgeon and Berkeley; 1872, x, 57; Turner, T. W., Memoirs of a gamekeeper, Elvedon, 1868–1953 (London, 1954), p. 91Google Scholar; Jones and Bainbridge, ‘Crime’, p. 261; Trench, The poacher, p. 187.

⁷¹ P.P., 1844, xxix, 113.

⁷² On Bunny, see the cases reported in the Nottingham Journal, 31 Jan. and 7 Feb. 1862. See also the cases of Marshall, Woodruffe and John Hardstaff in ibid., 24 Jan., 28 Mar. 1862. For an earlier picture, see Cockburn, Crime, p. 225; P.P., 1846, ix, evidence of Fitzhardinge; E. P. Thompson and others, Albion's fatal tree, p. 212.

⁷³ Denwood, Cumbrian nights, pp. 38–9. See also P.P., 1846, ix, pt. 1, p. 830, and note Christian (ed.), A Victorian poacher, p. 104. People like Robert Smellie of Ruddington were always ready to ask for leniency because of their social status and ‘honest confessions’. See the Nottingham Journal, 10 Oct., 12 Dec. 1862.

⁷⁴ On the intelligence, legal knowledge, skill, and sometimes the sobriety of poachers, see the interesting evidence of reporter, Robert Ackrill, together with that of Verney and Pusey in P.P., 1846, ix; Rider-Haggard (ed.), /I walked by night, p. 31; Trench, The poacher, pp. 188–9; and many other sources.

⁷⁵ Keepers were sometimes surprised that those who arrived in court had the right name, but were not the persons he had caught and questioned. See, for instance, the Staffordshire Advertizer, 8 June 1861.

⁷⁶ Report in the Nottingham Journal, 19 Sept. 1862.

⁷⁷ Norwich Mercury, 6 Apr. 1844.

⁷⁸ As the ‘confessions’ of men sentenced to death in the early nineteenth century remind us. See, for instance, P.P., 1845, xxiv, 183Google Scholar. Cf. the evidence of Brierley, , Browne, , Hatton, and Grafton, in P.P., 1848, IXGoogle Scholar; Donne, in P.P., 1872, XGoogle Scholar; Jones, J. in P.P., 1873, XVIIIGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁹ For examples of the first group of poachers, see the criminal careers of Shore, Turner and Wilkinson, who appeared at the Nottingham winter assizes in 1862, and for the second group, see John Wilson at Selston and certain members of the Warrington gang. It is, however, significant that of the long list of offences committed by the gangs known to James Jones, at least two-thirds of them involved poaching and attacks on keepers. See the Nottingham Journal, 30 May 1862; P.P., 1846, IX, pt. II, 363–5Google Scholar; 1839, XIX, 116.

⁸⁰ Report in the Nottingham Journal, 12 Dec. 1862.

⁸¹ For the poacher as a general criminal in rural society, see the interesting tables of Gloucestershire, statistics in P.P., 1846, IXGoogle Scholar, pt. I, 823 and pt. II, 251. It was frequently claimed that successful intimidation of the poachers reduced other crime figures. See, ibid., pt. I, p. 498. For the relationship between poaching, other crime and arson, see the somewhat contradictory evidence of Grafton, J. W. Cooper, Boultbee, Hatton, Bennett, and especially Berkeley's, tables, P.P., 1846, IXGoogle Scholar. See also P.P., 1839, XIX, 112, 137Google Scholar and Amos, ‘Social discontent’, pp. 55–6.

⁸² Quoted by Tobias, J. J., Nineteenth-century crime and punishment (London, 1972), p. 17Google Scholar.

⁸³ For this paragraph, see the statistics in P.P., 1845, XXIV, 174, 186Google Scholar; the Staffordshire Advertizer, 26 Dec. 1862, and the comments of Gowing and the Somerset chief constable in P.P., 1846, IX, pt. I,630; pt. II,313. See also the special pleadingand anger in Rider-Haggard (ed.), I walked by night. Add to this the comments of Richardson, , Williams, and Griffiths, , in P.P., 1846, IXGoogle Scholar, and note how some poachers did ‘reform’, becoming respected leaders of village communities, and making lucrative careers in the city. Christian (ed.), A Victorian poacher, introduction; Byng and Stephens (eds.), Gamekeeper, pp. 246–53.

⁸⁴ Paragraph based on statistics of crime in Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire. For instance, in returns to the Quarter Sessions for the former County in the last three quarters of 1861 and the first of 1862, four-fifths of the poachers were convicted for day poaching, and almost half of them committed their crimes on Saturdays and Sundays. Returns in the Stafford Record Office.

⁸⁵ For material on the gangs, see Dunbabin, J. P. D., Rural discontent in nineteenth-century Britain (London, 1974), p. 51Google Scholar. He pre-dates the decline in poaching violence. See ibid. p. 63. See also many editorials and judges' comments in 1834, as in the Norwich Mercury, 4 Jan. and 29 Mar. 1834, and the evidence of Wilson, H. W. in P.P., 1846, IXGoogle Scholar. For excellent detail on Victorian gangs in the remoter areas of East Anglia and the Midlands, in market centres of Wiltshire and Worcestershire, and in or near towns such as Manchester, Rochdale, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stafford, see especially the evidence of Jones, James, Storey, , Rolleston, , Hatton, and Gowing, in P.P., 1846, IXGoogle Scholar, and of Donne, in P.P., 1872, XGoogle Scholar, and P.P., 1839, XIX, 12 ffGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁶ P.P., 1872, X, 63Google Scholar. For the fear of the early 1860s – despite claims that police action had destroyed some gangs ten years earlier – see especially the memorial of 28 chief constables in P.P., 1862, XLV, 220Google Scholar. On the confidence of the authorities in the early 1870s, see P.P., 1872, XGoogle Scholar, evidence of Black, Congreve, Gould, Fox and Bicknell; P.P., 1873, XIIIGoogle Scholar, evidence of Walpole. For somewhat different views, and concern over fish poaching gangs, see P.P., 1872, X, evidence of Robertson and Donne; the Carlisle Journal, Jan., Feb., Oct. 1878; Turner, Memoirs, chapters on poaching and early lifeGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁷ Some assize cases, such as those involving Smith, Edge and Fallows in Staffordshire in 1861–2, highlighted the many problems of authority and discipline which faced gang leaders. There were also many arguments in such cases over whether sticks and bludgeons could be defined as ‘weapons’.

⁸⁸ P.P., 1861, XXIIIGoogle Scholar, cited in Jones, ‘The second Rebecca riots’, pp. 35–6.

⁸⁹ P.P., 1873, XIII, 404Google Scholar. For further information on intimidation, see P.P., 1846, IXGoogle Scholar, evidence of Storey and Hatton; P.P., 1839, XIX, 44Google Scholar; Ashby, Joseph Ashby, p. 33.

⁹⁰ Amos, ‘Social discontent’, p. 58. J. W. Cooper was uncertain about the role of the beerhouse keeper, but most of the witnesses before the Select Committee in 1845–6 condemned him without reservation. See, for instance, P.P., 1846, evidence of J. Jones and Berkeley.

⁹¹ See, for instance, P.P., 1839, XIX, 131–3, 136–7Google Scholar; and P.P., 1852–1853, XXXVIGoogle Scholar, evidence of Stanley and McHardy, questions 305–11, 784–7. There was a good deal of opposition to the activities of some of these policemen. See Trench, The poacher, pp. 169–70.

⁹² Carlisle Journal, 4–25 Oct. 1878.

⁹³ For some of this story, see the Nottingham Journal, July-Oct. 1862, and P.P., 1873, XIIIGoogle Scholar, evidence of Walpole and Haward.

⁹⁴ P.P., 1872, XGoogle Scholar, evidence of Donne. Note the sensitive evidence of Black in the same volume, and the admission that the act of 1862 could be stretched to include searches for other goods. See also Rider-Haggard (ed.), I walked by night, p. 42, and Bourne (Sturt), Change, pp. 116–19.

⁹⁵ In the mid-1840s there were some 200 gamekeepers in Hertfordshire, and at least 278 over the age of 20 years in Suffolk. P.P., 1846, IXGoogle Scholar, pt. I, 787; pt. II, 224. Compare this with Cockburn, Crime, p. 217.

⁹⁶ Bury and Norwich Post, 11 Sept. 1844; The Independent; II Sept. 1844; Morning Advertizer, 13 Sept. 1844. Two of the most active Victorian keepers and bailiffs were Edward Preston of Edwallton and John Kendall and Henry Clements on the Derwent. For the use of cautions in Cumberland, see Carlisle Journal, 12 Mar. 1878. Note the astonishing bravery of Francis Chandler, described in a Thetford poaching case in the Norfolk Lent Assizes, 1844. For three fascinating accounts of the keepers' problems, see Byng, and Stephens, (eds.), Gamekeeper, P.P., 1846, IXGoogle Scholar, evidence of Adams and Hooper.

⁹⁷ P.P., 1846, IXGoogle Scholar, evidence of Wilson. Gowing and Hatherton. For a different view of the relationship between police and watchers, see P.P., 1872, XGoogle Scholar, evidence of Fox and Gould. See also Pilling, C., ‘The police in the English local community, 1856–80’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1973, p. 392Google Scholar.

⁹⁸ Denwood, Cumbrian nights, pp. 43–5. See a case study of such accusations in the report of the Mansfield petty sessions, Nottingham Journal,8 Aug. 1862, the wider criticism of G. Brooke and the admissions of Adams in P.P., 1846, IX.

⁹⁹ In some Midland cases in the 1860s there were clear mistakes over the identity, situation and purpose of the defendant. Why keepers' witnesses should change their mind raises all kinds of questions. Occasionally, to the magistrates' annoyance, keepers did not even turn up to support a summons. Where, as so often happened, it was one man's word against another, it was only too easy to challenge the integrity of the prosecutor, but there was apparently a good deal of general concern about the eagerness of underkeepers especially. See P.P., 1846, IX, evidence of Browne, Cooper, Bowley and Patchitt; Rider Haggard (ed.), I walked by night.

¹⁰⁰ The folk-song manuscripts can be found in Nottingham Central Library. Amongst the judges who felt concerned about the aggression of keepers were those at the Suffolk summer assizes and the Nottingham Stafford Winter Assizes of 1861. For one case, that of James Bellamy, which attracted national attention, see P.P., 1846, IX, evidence of Browne and Patchett. For an opposite viewpoint, explaining the frustration of keepers, see Turner, Memoirs, pp. 84–5. The Grainger case is in the Nottingham Journal, 30 May 1862. He claimed that stones had been thrown at his family.

¹⁰¹ Bury and Norwich Post, 17 Jan. 1844; P.P., 1846, IX, pt. I, 501; Norwich Mercury, 18 Jan. 1834 and 11 Apr. 1835. For the river story, see P.P., 1872, X, pp. 45, 57–8, 62–3; the Carlisle Journal, 17 Jan. 1862 and 22 Feb. 1870. Bailiffs and keepers were often attacked, and sometimes killed off-duty. See ibid., 21 Jan. 1870.

¹⁰² P.P., 1849, XLIV; P.P., 1862, XLV; Morning Chronicle, 19 Aug. 1844. There were some twenty incidents between September 1860 and January 1862 in Staffordshire, four of which are not included in P.P., 1862, XLV, but are reported in the Staffordshire Advertizer. Some claimed that conflicts were more likely to occur in the south of England, but Durham and Yorkshire miners could be very determined! P.P., 1872, X, evidence of Donne, and Trench, The poacher, p. 184.

¹⁰³ There were, of course, many factors here. John Wilkins said that conflicts often involved strangers to the area. Other elements were a history of vindictive feelings between the parties concerned, the size of the catch, drink, the shooting of a dog, etc. Sometimes, as in 1740s, 1790s, and the years 1815–20, keepers in early Victorian times were executed in the manner of a firing squad. See the splendid accounts of cases in the Norfolk and Suffolk Assizes, 1834–51. See also Amos, ‘Social discontent’, pp. 55–6, Horn, Labouring life, p. 233, and Wentworth, J. Day, ‘On a shiny night’, East Anglian Magazine, 02 1973Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁴ See, for instance, P.P., 1846, IX, pt. I, 308.

¹⁰⁵ Nottingham Journal, 21 November 1862. Compare the protest at the Suffolk lent assizes in 1849. Bury and Norwich Post, 29 Mar. 1849.

¹⁰⁶ For the reformers' case here, see the evidence of Browne, Brierley, Bowley, Patchitt, Captain Williams and J. Cooper in P.P., 1846, IX. Compare this with P.P., 1873, XIII, evidence of Walpole and Barclay, and the sarcastic comments in Watson, Confessions, pp. 171–2.

¹⁰⁷ P.P., 1846, IX, evidence of Browne and Williams; P.P., 1873, XII, evidence of Haward and Walpole; Kirby, ‘Game Law system’ Christian (ed.), A Victorian poacher, Rider-Haggard, I walked by night. Some informers admitted that they had been promised free pardons. See the case of Hardy, Robert at the Cambridgeshire Assizes; report in Bury and Norwich Post, 25 03. 1846Google Scholar. The ratio of 1:6 refers to the years 1857–71; for a longer period, 1834–71, the ratio of acquittals to convictions in indictable cases was 1:4. P.P., 1872, X, 11, 39. Hatherton stresses the fairness of it all, and Wilkins is good on the reasons why a conviction was a likely result. But note the acquittals at the Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire petty sessions in the 1860s were often due to legal technicalities and not the supposed innocence of the defendants. Lawyers like Walpole of Bury and Churchyard of Woodbridge were specialists in this work. For a claim that perjury was often committed on both sides, see Clay, J., The prison chaplain (1861), p. 567Google Scholar, and Kent, Remarks, p. 57.

¹⁰⁸ people seem to have been more ready or able to pay fines in the eighteenth century than in the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s. Cockburn, Crime, p. 225, and Horn, Labouring life, p. 231.

¹⁰⁹ p p., 1845, XXIV, 55; Clay, Prison chaplain, pp. 564–5. The practice revived when Palmerston was in office. For some background to this paragraph, see P.P., 1846, IX, evidence of Williams, Bowley, Griffiths, Hatherton, Patchitt and Berkeley, and P.P., 1873, XIII, evidence of Haward and Barclay. Compare this with P.P., 1844, XIX, 59–60; 1846, IX, pt. I, 817–19. ‘A.B.’, one of the witnesses before the Select Committee in 1845–6, received 6 months for this first offence and 7 years transportation for the second. One common complaint was that poachers were given insufficient time to pay the fines. On the shattering effect of cumulative penalties, see the Staffordshire Advertizer, 27 07 1861, and P.P., 1873, XIII, 385Google Scholar.

¹¹⁰ For detail on the mitigation of sentences, and acquittals, see P.P., 1846, IX, pt. II, 127–9, 821–7. Poachers of pike and trout in Staffordshire could expect a fine of 15 s. or £2 with costs in the 1860s. For salmon poaching, £5 was the minimum fine for a second offence. See, for instance, National Library of Wales, Breconshire Quarter Sessions, convictions 1860–88, and the Carlisle Record Office, Cumberland Ward Book, 1859–62.

¹¹¹ For some interesting background material here, see P.P., 1846, IX, evidence of Grafton, Williams, Pusey and Gowing, and P.P., 1872, X, evidence of Arch.

¹¹² A pheasant taken or keeper shot represented a victory against ‘the Class’ For the personal revenge element associated with poaching and arson, see the classic Dalham case in the Morning Chronicle, 8 Dec. 1849. See also Ashby, Joseph Ashby, p. 4.

¹¹³ One significant aspect of descriptions of village life in the late nineteenth century is the way the community forgot, or chose not to recall, recent ‘scars’. See Ashby, Joseph Ashby, p.2, and F. Thompson, Lark Rise, p. 84.

¹¹⁴ Kay-Shuttleworth, Soial condition, p. 481; Pike, History of crime, p. 423.

¹¹⁵ Note the way that local people worked together to destroy the case of detective Parker, in the Bury and Norwich Post, 3 12 1844Google Scholar. Compare Day, ‘On a shiny night’ Byng and Stephens (eds.), Gamekeeper, p. 92; and the evidence of Shirley, Robertson, and Wemyss in P.P., 1846, IX.

¹¹⁶ On this particular point, see P.P., 1846, IX; evidence of Robertson and Pearce; P.P., 1873, XIII, evidence of J. Jones; Jones, ‘The second Rebecca riots’. Cf. Reaney, B., The class struggle in nineteenth-century Oxfordshire, History Workship Pamphlet 3 (1970), 66–8Google Scholar. Note the annoyance of Wolverhampton magistrates in some game cases. Staffordshire Advertizer, 12 Jan. 1861.

¹¹⁷ F. Thompson, Lark Rise, p. 154. For some background to changing attitudes on the part of tenant farmers, etc., see P.P., 1873, XIII, questions 81–3; P.P., 1846, IX, evidence of Pusey; P.P., 1852–3, XXXVI, evidence of H. Dover; P.P., 1872, X, evidence of Donne. For the Isleham Blacks, see Day, ‘On a shiny night’, pp. 144–5 and Turner memoirs, pp. 95–8.

¹¹⁸ For background to this chapter, see P.P., 1872, X, evidence of Arch; P.P., 1873, XIII, evidence of A. Brown; Ashby, Joseph Ashby, p. 4; Long, ‘Poaching’ Howkins, Whitsun.