Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T20:21:41.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Precocious Girls”: Age of Consent, Class and Family in Late Nineteenth-Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2020

Laura Lammasniemi
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A fixed legal age of consent is used to determine when a person has the capacity to consent to sex yet in the late Victorian period the idea became a vehicle through which to address varied social concerns, from child prostitution and child sexual abuse to chastity and marriageability of working-class girls. This article argues that the Criminal Law Amendment Act (CLAA) 1885, the Act that raised the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen, and its application were driven by constructions of gender in conjunction with those of social class and working class family. The article firstly argues that CLAA 1885 and related campaigns reinforced class boundaries, and largely framed the working class family as absent, thereby, requiring the law to step in as a surrogate parent to protect the girl child. Secondly, the paper focuses on narratives emerging from the archives and argues that while narratives of capacity and protection in particular were key concepts behind reforms, the courts showed limited understanding of these terms. Instead, the courts focused on notions resistance, consent, and untrustworthiness of the victim, even when these concepts were not relevant to the proceedings due to victims' young age.

Type
Forum: Regulating Age of Consent in the British Empire
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 241 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

She thanks Dr. Maebh Harding, Professor Rebecca Probret, and Dr. Mayur Suresh for giving generous comments on earlier versions of this paper. This paper stems from a conference the author co-organized with Dr. Kanika Sharma on Age of Consent in the British Empire, which was funded by the Society of Legal Scholars and Economic History Society.

References

1. Letter from Justice Wills to Secretary of State, April 15, 1893, The National Archives HO 144/248/A54795.

2. Hendricks, Harry, Child Welfare, England 1872–1989 (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 1994), 7Google Scholar.

3. Jackson, Louise, Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 1999), 6Google Scholar.

4. Levine, Philippa, “Sovereignty and Sexuality: Transnational Perspectives on Colonial Age of Consent Legislation,” in Beyond Sovereignty—Britain, Empire and Transnationalism, c. 1880–1950, ed. Grant, Kevin, Levine, Philippa, and Trentmann, Frank (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 17Google Scholar.

5. Rose, Sonya O., Limited Livelihoods: Gender and Class in Nineteenth-Century England (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 1992), 27Google Scholar.

6. Gorham, Deborah, “The ‘Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’ Re-examined,” Victorian Studies 21:3 (1995): 317Google Scholar; and Conley, Carolyn, The Unwritten Law—Criminal Justice in Victorian Kent (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 122Google Scholar.

7. See, for example, Pande, Ishita, “Coming of Age: Law, Sex and Childhood in Late Colonial India,” Gender & History 24 (2012): 205–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sarkar, Tanika, “A Prehistory of Rights: The Age of Consent Debate in Colonial Bengal,” Feminist Studies 26 (2000): 601–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Anagol, Padma, “The Age of Consent Act (1891) Reconsidered: Women's Perspectives and Participation in the Child-Marriage Controversy in India,” South Asia Research 12 (1992): 100–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Derry, Caroline, “Lesbianism and Feminist Legislation in 1921: The Age of Consent and ‘Gross Indecency between Women,’” History Workshop Journal 86 (2018): 245–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Waites, Matthew, The Age of Consent: Young People, Sexuality and Citizenship (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. Waites, The Age of Consent, 62.

10. Bates, Victoria, Sexual Forensics in Victorian and Edwardian England: Age, Crime and Consent in the Courts (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Jackson, Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England.

11. William Hogarth's A Harlot's Progress is an earlier example of such representation in arts; see also Nead, Lynda, “Fallen Women and Foundlings: Rethinking Victorian Sexuality,” History Workshop Journal 82 (2016): 177–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on artwork on fallen women in the Victorian period.

12. Walkowitz, Judith, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late Victorian London (London: Virago Books 1992), ch. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Gorham, “The ‘Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’ Re-examined.”

13. Stead, W.T., “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon I,” Pall Mall Gazette (London), July 6, 1885, 1–6Google Scholar.

14. Home Office (hereafter HO) Archives are held at the National Archives (London); in addition, relevant archives at the Women's Library (London School of Economics [LSE], London) and Parliamentary Archives (London) have been looked at.

15. Collections focused on were HO and Records of the Central Criminal Court (hereafter CRIM) during the period of study.

16. For full discussion on the ethics of naming, see Moore, Niamh, “The Politics and Ethics of Naming: Questioning Anonymisation in (Archival) Research,” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 15 (2012): 331–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. Grey, Daniel J.R., “‘Monstrous and Indefensible’? Newspaper Accounts of Sexual Assaults on Children in Nineteenth-Century England and Wales,” in Women's Criminality: Patterns and Variations in Europe, 1600–1914, ed. van der Heijen, Manon, Pluskota, Marion, and Muurling, Sanne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 189–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. Stevenson, Kim, “Outrageous Violations: Enabling Students to Interpret Nineteenth Century Newspaper Reports of Sexual Assault and Rape,” Law, Crime and History 4 (2014): 36–61Google Scholar.

19. Grey, “‘Monstrous and Indefensible’?”.

20. Weeks, Jeffrey, Sex, Politics and Society—the Regulation of Sexuality Since 1800, 3rd ed. (London: Pearson, 2012), 107Google Scholar.

21. R v. Prince (1875) LR 2 CCR 5.

22. Josephine Butler, “Laws for the Protection of Youth” (Letter to the Editor of Sentinel, March 1882, 90–92).

23. Under section 3 of CLAA, it was an offense to procure a woman of any age and character if she was drugged or overpowered.

24. HC Deb 07 August 1885.

25. Statutes of Westminster I and II, as quoted in Waites, Matthew, The Age of Consent: Young People, Sexuality and Citizenship (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26. Graupner, Helmut, “Sexual Consent: The Criminal Law in Europe and Overseas,” Archives of Sexual Behaviour 29 (2000): 415–61CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

27. Jackson, Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England, 15.

28. 1868 Chelmsford Royal Commission on the Laws of Marriage (H.M. Stationery Office, 1868).

29. Cretney, Stephen, Family Law in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30. Collette, Christine and Montgomery, Fiona, eds., The European Women's History Reader (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2001), 184Google Scholar.

31. Various notes and pamphlets on the issue in the records of Association for Moral and Social Hygiene (AMSH), at The Women's Library Archives (hereafter TWLA) 3AMS/B/01/01-03.

32. These calls continued well into the early 1920s, and culminated in the CLAA 1922, which simply confirmed 16 as the appropriate age of consent. For discussion on the 1922 and reform efforts, see Stevenson, Kim, “‘Not Just the Ideas of a Few Enthusiasts’: Early Twentieth Century Legal Activism and Reformation of the Age of Sexual Consent,” The Journal of the Social History Society 14:2 (2017): 219–36Google Scholar.

33. Marital rape was criminalized in 1991 by R v. R [1991] UKHL 12.

34. For opposition, see work of Elmy, Elizabeth Wolstenholme, and Wright, Maureen, Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy and the Victorian Feminist Movement: The Biography of an Insurgent Woman (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

35. Cretney, Family Law in the Twentieth Century, 75.

36. See, for example, Dyer, Alfred, The European Slave Trade in English Girls (London: Dyer Brothers, 1881)Google Scholar or the National Vigilance Association, In the Grip of the White Slave Trader (London: National Vigilance Association, 1911) as examples of such downward spiral.

37. For discussion of juvenile paupers, see Rachel Pimm-Smith, “Juvenile de-pauperisation: The journey from public childcare to English citizenship 1884–1900” (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 2018).

38. Professor Alliers (Conference of the International Abolitionist Organisation for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Paris, 1913), TWLA 3AMS/E/02.

39. Archbishop of York, “New Slave Trade” pamphlet (c. August 1885) WL 3AMS/B/01/01-04.

40. Butler, Josephine, The Education and Employment of Women (Liverpool: T. Brakell, 1868), 16Google Scholar.

41. Notes from a meeting in Leeds, dated August 31, 1885, WL 3AMS/B/01/01-03.

42. Ibid.

43. HC Deb 24 June 1885.

44. HC Deb 30 July 1885.

45. W.T. Stead, “The Maiden Tribute I”; and W.T. Stead, “The Maiden Tribute II.”

46. Testimony of W.T. Stead, Old Bailey (October 28, 1885).

47. Ibid.

48. Murdoch, Lydia, Imagined Orphans: Poor Families, Child Welfare, and Contested Citizenship in London (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006), 16Google Scholar.

49. Wakefield Express, August 1885, “To the Editors of Express,” WL Archive, no date.

50. Sharp, Amy, The Legal Protection of Young Girls, London (Hatchards, 1884)Google Scholar (reprinted in the Tracts, 1776–1884), 13.

51. Jackson, Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England; Bibbings, Lois, Binding Men: Stories about Violence and Law in Late Victorian England (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 2014), 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Grey, “‘Monstrous and Indefensible'?”.

52. Jackson, Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England, 35.

53. Conley, The Unwritten Law, 120.

54. Hale, Matthew, Historia Placitorum Coronae: The History of the Pleas of the Crown, Volume 1 (reprinted London: R.H. Small, 1847), 634Google Scholar.

55. Blackstone, William, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Vol. 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765–69), 214Google Scholar.

56. J.P.K., General Appeal Documents, The National Archives HO 144/248/A54795.

57. Letter from Justice Wills to Secretary of State, April 15, 1893, The National Archives HO 144/248/A54795.

58. Petition of J.A., Petty Sessions Depositions 8/10/1887, HO 144/209/A48093.

59. Unreported, Summary in Londonderry Sentinel, June 5, 1888, 4.

60. The courts of assize—commonly known as the assizes—were courts held in the main county towns and presided over by visiting judges from the higher courts based in London. The assizes had juries of twelve, drawn from local men, and they were held periodically.

61. His comments were reported in full in the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, Tuesday, July 27, 1886, 6.

62. Alfred Swaine Taylor, Medical Jurisprudence, as quoted in Jackson, Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England, 75.

63. Trial of R.C., Deposition of John Ruddle Milsome, Doctor of Medicine, 14/5/1880, the National Archives CRIM 1.8.8.

64. Report from Liverpool Constabulary's Detective Department, April 14, 1893, the National Archives HO 144/248/A54795.

65. Appeal documents J.P.K., HO 144/248/A54795.

66. Consent was first defined in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (sections 74–76).

67. Camplin (1845) 1 Cox CC 220 607.

68. Appeal documents for E.A., Prisoner's Petition dated February 2, 1889, The National Archives, HO 144/224/A50010.

69. Deposition of victim, C.E.R, The National Archives, HO 144/224/A50010.

70. Letter from Rear Admiral Mayne, MP, to SofS, August 10, 1889, The National Archives, HO 144/224/A50010.

71. Letter from Viscount Curzon, MP to SofS, August 2, 1889, The National Archives, HO 144/224/A50010.

72. Trial of C.G., Police court hearing: 24/11/1880, the National Archives, CRIM 1.11.3.

73. Bates, Sexual Forensics in Victorian and Edwardian England, 42.

74. Ibid., 106.

75. Trial of R.C., May 10, 1881, the National Archives CRIM 1.8.8.

76. R. v. GH (Old Bailey, September 11, 1900) The National Archives, Crim 1/63/5.

77. Stevenson, Kim, “‘These are Cases which it is Inadvisable to Drag into the Light of Day’: Disinterring the Crime of Incest in Early Twentieth-Century England,” Crime, History and Societies 20 (2016): 1–26Google Scholar.

78. Appeal of W.E., the National Archives HO 144/214/A48912.

79. HC Deb 07 August 1885.

80. HC Deb 07 August 1885.

81. The National Archives, Appeal files for T.S., HO 144/143/A37239.

82. Prisoner's Petition July 18, 1890, HO 144/143/A37239.

83. Appeal documents for S.H., convicted April 30, 1881 under s.5 of CLAA 1885, HO 144/88/A9885.

84. Appeal of W.B., Prisoner's Petition, March 16, 1893, the National Archives, HO 144/214/A48912.

85. R v. JW (Old Bailey May 28, 1888).

86. Letter from William Chadwick (Chief Constable) to Secretary of State, June 7, 1892, HO 144/143/A37239.

87. Phrase used in the appeal of W.B., Prisoner's Petition, March 16, 1893, the National Archives, HO 144/214/A48912.

88. Appeal of W.E., the National Archives HO 144/214/A48912.

89. F.J.B. charged with assaulting H.S.J. (1881), the National Archives, CRIM 1.12.7.

90. Appeal of A.J., The National Archives HO 144/280/A61921.

91. Trial of C.G. for “felonious assault on SS, and for violently and against her will ravish and carnally know her.” Date of police court hearing: 24/11/1880, the National Archives, CRIM 1.11.3.

92. R v. RC, The National Archives CRIM 1.8.8

93. Jackson, Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England, 47.

94. Appeal of W.E., the National Archives HO 144/214/A48912.

95. Deposition of E.E. daughter of prisoner, B.E., The National Archives, CRIM 1.15.6.

96. The National Archives, CRIM 1/15/6.