Abstract
Historians of technology and road safety have tended to view the nineteenth century merely as a prologue to the motor vehicle. Luckin’s chapter challenges this, arguing for the importance of studying the nineteenth century in its own right. Focusing on oalcohol and accidents, it explores the diffuse mechanisms of governance of public spaces, including the roles of the various courts, and the difficulties of defining incapacity to drive as a result of drink. He examines moral judgements around drinking and driving over the long nineteenth century, and the roles that class and gender played in determining responsibility for street accidents.
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Notes
- 1.
For background to the continuingly high levels of consumption for most of the nineteenth century, see J. Greenaway, Drink and the British: A Study in Policy-Making (Basingstoke, 2003); and J. Nicholls, The Politics of Alcohol: A History of the Drink Question in England (Manchester, 2009).
- 2.
See B. Hanawalt, The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England (Bloomington, IN, 1986), pp. 271–4. For other sources and a chronological framework for the exploration of different kinds of urban calamity, see B. Luckin, ‘Accidents, Disasters and Cities’, Urban History 20 (1993), pp. 5–18. An ESRC project under the leadership of Dr Steven Gunn entitled ‘Everyday Life and Accidental Death in Sixteenth Century England’ promises to yield important results.
- 3.
On the complexities of criminal negligence and manslaughter—‘a crime against the state’—see J.W. Thatcher and D.J.H. Hartley, The Law of the Road (London, 1909), p. 23; and M.J. Allen, Textbook on Criminal Law, 8th edn (Oxford, 2005), p. 303.
- 4.
For a classic theoretical-cum-historical overview, see K. Figlio, ‘What is an Accident?’, in P. Weindling (ed.), The Social History of Occupational Health (London, 1985), pp. 180–206. See also R. Campbell, ‘Philosophy and the Accident’, in R. Cooter and B. Luckin (eds), Accidents in History: Injuries, Fatalities and Social Relations (Amsterdam, 1997), pp. 17–34.
- 5.
R. Porter, ‘Accidents in the Eighteenth Century’, in Cooter and Luckin (eds), Accidents in History, pp. 90–106.
- 6.
A. Causton, A Comprehensive Scheme for Street Improvements in London, Accompanied by Maps and Sketches (London, 1893), p. 7. See also J. Winter, London’s Teeming Streets, 1830–1914 (London, 1993), pp. 48–9, 203–4.
- 7.
Morning Post, 8 July 1879, p. 7.
- 8.
C. McShane and J.A. Tarr, The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore, 2007), p. 167. See also the pioneering C. McShane, Down the Asphalt Road: The Automobile and the American City (New York, 1994).
- 9.
McShane and Tarr, Horse in the City, p. 168.
- 10.
D. Miller, ‘Driven Societies’, in D. Miller (ed.), Car Cultures (London, 2000), p. 6. See also for an imaginative context C.G. Pooley, ‘Landscapes without the Car: A Counterfactual Historical Geography of Twentieth-Century Britain’, Journal of Historical Geography 36 (2010), pp. 266–75.
- 11.
W. Plowden, The Motor Car and Politics, 1896–1970 (London, 1971), Part 1.
- 12.
See C. Emsley, ‘“Mother, What Did Policemen Do When There Weren’t Any Motors”? The Law, the Police and the Regulation of Traffic in England, 1900–1939’, Historical Journal 36 (1993), pp. 357–81; and J. Moran, ‘Crossing the Road in Britain, 1931–1976’, Historical Journal 49 (2006), pp. 477–96.
- 13.
G.C. Drew, W.P. Colquhoun and H.A. Long, Effect of Small Doses of Alcohol on a Skill Resembling Driving (Medical Research Council Memorandum, No. 38) (London, 1959); R.F. Borkenstein et al., The Role of the Drinking Driver in Traffic Accidents (Bloomington, IN, 1964).
- 14.
R. Irwin, Risk and the Control of Technology: Public Policies for Road Traffic Safety in Britain and the United States (Manchester, 1985).
- 15.
For an overview of the British position in a comparative context, see B. Luckin, ‘A Never-Ending Passing of the Buck? The Failure of Drink Driving Reform in Interwar Britain’, Contemporary British History 24 (2010), pp. 363–84; and B. Luckin, ‘A Degree of Consensus on the Roads: Drink Driving Policy in Britain, 1945–70’, Twentieth Century British History 21 (2010), pp. 350–74. See also the excellent account in B.H. Lerner, One for the Road: Drunk Driving since 1900 (Baltimore, MD, 2011). Lerner focuses on the USA, but there is revealing comparative material in the early chapters of his book. See also J. Burnham, Accident Prone: A History of Technology, Psychology and Misfits of the Machine Age (Chicago, 2009), pp. 67–86.
- 16.
R. Light, Criminalizing the Drink Driver (Aldershot, 1994), pp. 11–14: N. Ley, Drink Driving Law and Practice (London, 1993), pp. 1–2; T.C. Willett, Criminal on the Road: A Study of Serious Motoring Offences (London, 1962), pp. 64–72, 92–4.
- 17.
Willett, Criminal on the Road, pp. 92–3.
- 18.
Light, Criminalizing the Drink Driver, p. 13.
- 19.
Emsley, ‘“Mother, What Did Policemen Do When There Weren’t Any Motors”?’; and Plowden, Motor Car and Politics.
- 20.
The narrative is related in outline in R.D. Summers, History of the Police Surgeon (London, 1988). See also A.D. Matthews, Crime Doctor: The Memoirs of a Police Surgeon (London, 1959); and H. de la Haye Davies, In Suspicious Circumstances: Memories of a Northamptonshire Police Surgeon (Newbury, 1998).
- 21.
‘Charge of Manslaughter’, Morning Post, 17 September 1822, p. 1.
- 22.
‘Committal of Farmer for Manslaughter at Neston’, Liverpool Mercury, 1 June 1864, p. 5. See also Liverpool Mercury, 13 August 1864.
- 23.
‘Travelling by Mail Coaches’, Hampshire Daily Telegraph, 16 August 1802, p. 4. See also J. Tilling, Kings of the Highway (London, 1957), p. 21.
- 24.
‘Mansion House London’, Leeds Times, 4 November 1837, p. 21.
- 25.
London Standard, 10 January 1839, p. 4.
- 26.
‘Accident in Fleet Street’, Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 29 December 1849, p. 25.
- 27.
The Times, 14 November 1865, p. 11.
- 28.
York Herald, 15 June 1805, p. 11.
- 29.
‘Furious Driving’, Manchester Mercury, 15 July 1817, p. 3.
- 30.
‘Police’, London Standard, 26 December 1849, p. 4.
- 31.
F. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, trans. R. Pevear and L. Volokhonsky (London, 2007), pp. 175–6.
- 32.
Ibid., p. 182.
- 33.
Hansard (House of Commons), 3rd ser., vol. 216, cols 994–7 (16 June 1873). On slightly improved levels of traffic control in some places in the capital at this time, see Winter, London’s Teeming Streets, p. 48.
- 34.
‘Committed for Manslaughter’, Essex Standard, 3 May 1861, p. 3.
- 35.
‘The Fatal Street Accident in the Wicker’, Sheffield Independent, 25 October 1876, p. 4.
- 36.
On this elusive organization, see ‘Street Accident and Dangerous Driving’, Morning Post, 8 July 1879, p. 7; Huddersfield Chronicle, 11 October 1879, p. 7; and R. Cooter, ‘The Moment of the Accident: Culture, Militarism and Modernity in Late-Victorian Britain’, in Cooter and Luckin (eds), Accidents in History, pp. 108, 123–4.
- 37.
Winter, London’s Teeming Streets, p. 49.
- 38.
‘Fatal Accident Inquest’, Belfast Newsletter, 7 July 1877, p. 3.
- 39.
‘Fatal Accident’, The Observer, 31 August 1879, p. 6.
- 40.
Morning Post, 13 September 1881, p. 4.
- 41.
Manchester Evening News, 17 July 1879, p. 2.
- 42.
‘Street Accidents’, The Times, 15 January 1880, p. 10.
- 43.
‘Fatal Accident from Furious Driving’, Sheffield Independent, 9 September 1845, p. 8.
- 44.
‘Killed in the Streets’, East London Observer, 11 September 1869, p. 7.
- 45.
‘Summary of the Morning’s News’, Pall Mall Gazette, 6 September 1880, p. 1.
- 46.
‘Towcester: Notes on the News’, Northampton Mercury, 26 January 1884, p. 4.
- 47.
‘The Case of Alleged Manslaughter’, Northampton Mercury, 19 January 1884, p. 8.
- 48.
Plowden, Motor Car and Politics, pp. 60–83; and S. O’Connell, The Car and British Society: Class, Gender and Motoring, 1896–1939 (Manchester, 1998), pp. 119–21.
- 49.
V. Woolf, The Years (London, 1937), p. 139.
- 50.
Plowden, Motor Car and Politics, Appendix B, p. 456.
- 51.
‘The Charge against the Jobmaster’, Pall Mall Gazette, 4 October 1895, p. 7.
- 52.
‘The Charge against a Tramcar Driver’, Manchester Evening News, 2 October 1895, p. 3.
- 53.
‘Fatal Motor Car Accident’, Stamford Mercury, 28 August 1896, p. 3.
- 54.
‘The Fatal Motor Car Accident at Scarborough’, Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 21 April 1898, p. 6.
- 55.
‘County Police Court’, Derby Mercury, 28 December 1898, p. 7.
- 56.
‘Child Fatally Injured’, Dundee Courier, 29 April 1898, p. 6.
- 57.
‘Motor Car Driver Fined’, Coventry Evening Telegraph, 15 May 1899, p. 4.
- 58.
‘Serious Motor Accidents’, Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 21 May 1904, p. 8.
- 59.
Hansard (House of Commons), 4th ser., vol. 127, col. 480 (7 August 1903).
- 60.
Ibid., col. 482.
- 61.
Ibid., col. 480.
- 62.
‘The Motor Fiend’, Leamington Spa Courier, 3 February 1905, p. 5.
- 63.
Royal Commission on Motor Cars, Volume I: Report of the Royal Commission on Motor Cars (Parl. Papers 1906 [Cd. 3080]), p. 36.
- 64.
Royal Commission on Motor Cars, Volume II: Minutes of Evidence taken by the Royal Commission on Motor Cars with Appendices and Index (Parl. Papers 1906 [Cd. 3081]). Qs. 11, pp. 469–73. Evidence of George Langridge.
- 65.
‘A Duke Speaks Out’, Hull Daily Mail, 28 October 1908, p. 4.
- 66.
‘The Hadleigh Motor Fatality’, Chelmsford Chronicle, 26 February 1909, p. 6.
- 67.
‘Sentence on Stubbs: Twelve Months’, Manchester Courier and General Advertiser, 22 February 1913, p. 12.
- 68.
Report from the Select Committee on Motor Traffic, with Proceedings, Evidence, Appendices, and Index (Parl. Papers 1913 (278)). Q. 1, p. 243. Evidence of Sir William Nott-Bower. For a London census undertaken in 1904, see also J.F.J. Reynolds, General Notes on the Problem of London Traffic (London, 1904), p. 37.
- 69.
P.S. Bagwell, The Transport Revolution, 1770–1885 (London, 1974), pp. 210–11.
- 70.
‘Automobilism’, The Times, 9 April 1912, p. 11.
- 71.
‘Motor Tragedy’, Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 9 May 1913, p. 15.
- 72.
Report from the Select Committee on Motor Traffic. Q. 2795. Evidence of Sir Edward Henry.
- 73.
Ibid. Qs. 1371–5. Evidence of Sir William Nott-Bower.
- 74.
‘A Test of Drunkenness’, Edinburgh Evening News, 18 January 1882, p. 3.
- 75.
Derby Daily Telegraph, 19 May 1920, p. 3.
- 76.
‘Reckless Driving in Fife’, Dundee Courier, 4 August 1920, p. 4.
- 77.
‘Sobriety Test’, Evening Telegraph, 23 November 1922, p. 3.
- 78.
Luckin, ‘A Never-Ending Passing of the Buck’.
- 79.
Winter, London’s Teeming Streets, p. 49.
- 80.
The classic interpretation remains W. Shivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Space and Time in the Nineteenth Century (Leamington Spa, 1986). See also C. Studeny, L’invention de la vitesse: France XVIIIe–XXe siècle (Paris, 1995); and S. Kern, The Culture of Time and Space, 1880–1918 (London, 1983).
- 81.
J. Braithwaite, Crime, Shame and Reintegration (Cambridge, 1988).
- 82.
In the early 1960s, when T.C. Willett completed the research for his Criminal on the Road, full criminalization and ‘shaming’ remained a distant reformist goal.
- 83.
Quantification for our period is, of course, thin on the ground. But see the retrospective analysis for the interwar period in G.O. Jeffcoate, ‘The Importance of Alcohol in Road Accidents’, British Journal of Addiction 54 (1958), pp. 37–50. This throws light back on to the pre-motor era.
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Luckin, B. (2016). Drunk Driving, Drink Driving: Britain, c. 1800–1920. In: Crook, T., Esbester, M. (eds) Governing Risks in Modern Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46745-4_8
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