Mayhem : post-war crime and violence in Britain, 1748-53 / Nicholas Rogers.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rogers, Nicholas.

Series:

Lewis Walpole series in eighteenth-century culture and history.

The Lewis Walpole series in eighteenth-century culture and history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Violence--England--History--18th century.

Violence.

Great Britain--History--George II, 1727-1760.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Social conditions--18th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 online resource (xi, 258 pages) ) illustrations (black and white).

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

After the end of the War of Austrian Succession in 1748, thousands of unemployed and sometimes unemployable soldiers and seamen found themselves on the streets of London ready to roister the town and steal when necessary. In this fascinating book Nicholas Rogers explores the moral panic associated with this rapid demobilization. Through interlocking stories of duels, highway robberies, smuggling, riots, binge drinking, and even two earthquakes, Rogers captures the anxieties of a half-decade and assesses the social reforms contemporaries framed and imagined to deal with the crisis. He argues that in addressing these events, contemporaries not only endorsed the traditional sanction of public executions, but wrestled with the problem of expanding the parameters of government to include practices and institutions we now regard as commonplace: censuses, the regularization of marriage through uniform methods of registration, penitentiaries and police forces.

Contents:

The trials of Admiral Knowles

The sailors' return

The sailors' revenge

Fire from heaven: the London earthquakes of 1750

Riots, revels, and reprisals

Tackling the gin craze

Henry Fielding and social reform

From Havana to Halifax.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780300189063

0300189060

9781283906500

1283906503

9780300169621

0300169620

OCLC:

1024018472