Local History Group

Report on May 2010 Meeting

Johnnie Johnson delivered our May talk “Crimes and Criminals of Sussex - 1790 to 1840”. This was a period of enormous change in British Society resulting from not only the conduct of the Napoleonic Wars but the massive disruption brought about by a transformation from an agricultural based society to an industrial one. Because of a doubling of the population, wages were kept so low that for the working classes some 90% of income was being spent on food. The result was squalor, deprivation and poverty.
Against this background crime was rife. In Sussex most crime was petty, the theft of small amounts of food, clothing or money. Moreover it was not easy to catch perpetrators as there was no effective police force. If caught the punishments were severe. A man who stole one gander and two geese was sentenced to 7 years transportation. And in 1804 at the Lewes Assizes 17 people were sentenced to be hanged, although some were reprieved 8 suffered the ultimate penalty.
Even the most enlightened landlords such as Lord Gage at Friston Place suffered. In 1815 the local blacksmith and a number of his friends engaged a crime wave! They stole bottles from the cellar, poached rabbits and doves, took vegetables from his garden and fish from his ponds. For these heinous crimes the blacksmith was sentenced to 7 years transportation but on his return Lord Gage generously gave the blacksmith his job back.
Yet even then people were looking for scapegoats. In the 1830’s one Sussex vicar commented that the lack of parental discipline over the past 30 years was the reason for the crime wave! Nothing changes!
The next meeting of the Group is at 2.30pm on 28th July when John Surtees is giving an illustrated talk about Beachy Head.

Steve Harms

This page last modified on: 08 June 2010