Rogues and Rebels - Lawbreaking in the Forest Hundreds 1779 - 89 (Paperback)

As George III lost his grip on the American colonies, and Louis XVI was soon to lose his head in France, daily life in Essex was perhaps less eventful. The days of Dick Turpin and the Gregory Gang were past. But in recent decades crime had been on the increase again, and the south-west corner of the county in particular was getting a reputation for lawlessness. This in spite of the penalties for anyone found guilty, which could be extremely harsh. A man could be hanged for stealing a sheep, and a woman burnt at the stake, for offences such as counterfeiting. Lesser crimes might be punished by transportation, by public flogging or by branding. As yet, there was no formal police force anywhere in the country, and village constables were generally unpaid, part-time volunteers. The old, the poor, the unmarried mother, the vagrant, were dealt with in local communities under the 180-year-old Elizabethan Poor Law. As a window on the daily lives of ordinary people at the end of the eighteenth century - few of whom left diaries or letters for posterity - the records of vestries, magistrates' courts and assizes are a source of fascinating detail. The reader may find that indeed 'the past is a foreign country' - or they may just occasionally get a glimpse of someone familiar, from two hundred years ago.