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This Jane Austen blog brings Jane Austen, her novels, and the Regency Period alive through food, dress, social customs, and other 19th C. historical details related to this topic.

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Bow Street Runners

August 29, 2006 by Vic

Bow Street Runners

According to The Proceedings of the Old Bailey,

“In order to encourage victims to report crimes, magistrates in both the City of London and Middlesex established “rotation offices” in the 1730s where Londoners could be certain of finding a magistrate present at fixed hours. One of these was set up in Bow Street, near Covent Garden, by Sir Thomas De Veil in 1739. ”

In 1748, Henry and John Fieldings introduced a new practice of capturing thieves by

“employing thief-takers as “runners” who, when a crime was reported, could be sent out by the magistrates to detect and apprehend the culprit. Thief-takers, such as William Pentlow, made a living out of the fees they charged for their services and the rewards they obtained from victims for identifying suspects and from the state for successful convictions.”

Click here for The Proceedings of the Old Bailey. This impressive website is a”fully searchable online edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing accounts of over 100,000 criminal trials held at London’s central criminal court.”

Find more on Bow Street Runners here.

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Posted in Crime, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency World | Tagged Bow Street Runner, Bow Street Runners, Regency crime |

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    Black London by Gretchen Gerzina

    Free E-Book: Gerzina has written a fascinating account of London blacks, focusing on the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Because of a paucity of sources from blacks themselves, Gerzina had to rely primarily on glimpses through white eyes, especially those of antislavery advocate Granville Sharp. Gerzina is quite adept at culling evidence of a rich, complex black life, with significant interaction (and intermarriage) with the white community. Although subjected to much discrimination, London blacks never suffered as much as their American counterparts. The author rightly concludes that blacks have played an important role in the life of London for much of its history.

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