Abstract
In August 1785 the Public Advertiser carried a story of domestic violence. It was rare for the London press to print stories of non-lethal violence unless it was exceptional, involved the theft of property, or was in some way amusing. This case fell into the first category:
A man was carried before the Lord Mayor, charged with beating and stabbing his wife in the neck, and otherwise ill-treating her. The Lord Mayor recommended it to him to be reconciled to his wife, and to use her better for the future. This he promised to do: but they were no sooner in a public house but he beat her again, whereupon he was brought a second time before his Lordship, who committed him to the Poultry Compter till he can give security for his good behaviour to her for the future.1
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Notes
T. Evans, ‘Unfortunate Objects’: Lone Mothers in Eighteenth-Century London (Basingstoke, 2006), p. 3.
J.S. Davis, ‘Prosecutions and Their Context: The Use of the Criminal Law in Later Nineteenth-Century London’, in D. Hay and F. Snyder (eds), Policing and Prosecution in Britain, 1750–1850 (Oxford, 1989); R.S. Neale, Bath: A Social History 1680–1850 (London, 1981 ), pp. 87–90.
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© 2009 Drew D. Gray
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Gray, D.D. (2009). Settling their Differences: The Prosecution of Interpersonal Violence. In: Crime, Prosecution and Social Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230246164_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230246164_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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