Urbanization, Rising Homicide Rates and the Geography of Lethal Violence in Scotland, 1800-1860

Abstract

By showing that Scottish homicide rates more than doubled in the first sixty years of the nineteenth century, this article challenges the assumption on which much current work on pre-1950 homicide rates is based -that this was a story of uninterrupted decline. Using a detailed study of the geography of Scottish homicide, it argues that, while many historians have linked urbanization to lower homicide rates, in Scotland in this period the opposite was the case. The article then explores some of the key factors that lay behind these temporal and spatial variations in Scottish homicide rates such as regional differences in the proportion of lethally violent acts that were prosecuted, the effects of widening definitions of culpable homicide, and the impact on actual levels of lethal violence made by factors such as urban living conditions, migration patterns, and urban/ rural differences in the age profile of the general population.

Capital Punishment and the Criminal Corpse in Scotland, 1740–1834

“…A witness in the case recalled how John had predicted "some time or other he would be hanged on her account." 76 The manner in which Alexander Provan had committed the crime of murder was also especially brutal, even compared to the above cases. The Scots Magazine called the crime so atrocious "that the devil could not have exceeded it in wanton cruelty."…”

“…Burke was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged on 28 January 1829 at the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh and his body, in an ironic instance of poetic justice, was given to Monro for dissection. 76 This case, more so than any other Scottish criminal in this period, captivated the public and received mass press attention with newspapers and pamphlets before, during and after the trial claiming to provide the most authentic account of the murders. This contemporary thirst for extensive details of the case has also facilitated and informed the large body of more recent popular and academic literature and thus it is not the intention here to reiterate the story at length.…”

“…This rate of execution was striking as no women had been executed in Surrey in the previous 20 years. 76 Following the capital conviction of Jean Lindsay and Henrietta Faulds for theft in 1784, petitions sent from Glasgow stated that thousands of its inhabitants wished for the extension of mercy and begged for the assistance of the Lord Advocate in securing a pardon. 77 Despite their efforts Jean was executed.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2011

“…Thus, Neale concludes that a more nuanced account of the way stolen goods were disposed of during the eighteenth century is required. P. King ( History ) demonstrates that the homicide rate in Scotland more than doubled during the first half of the nineteenth century and uses this finding to challenge common assumptions about the gradual and uninterrupted decline of homicide before the mid‐twentieth century and, in particular, the connections between declining murder rates and increasing urbanization and industrialization. The detection of lethal violence is the focus of two articles.…”

Contextualising the Punishment of Death

“…By the 1830s this had risen to 1.75 and by the 1840s the figure was 2.6. 76 However, the marked upturn in the number of executions in early nineteenth-century Scotland was primarily due to an increase in the number of executions for property offences which doubled between 1810 and 1819 compared to the previous decade and remained at a similar level in the 1820s. Donnachie stated that, within the overall number of criminal investigations, property offences rose from making up slightly more than half the total number in 1810 to 75% by 1830.…”