Abstract

‘Flash houses’, a distinctive type of public house associated with criminal activity, are a shadowy and little-studied aspect of early 19th-century London. This article situates flash houses within a wide perspective, arguing that the discourses on flash houses were part of concerns about the threat of the urban environment to the moral character of its inhabitants. The article draws on an original synthesis of a range of sources that refer to flash houses, including contemporary literature, newspapers, court documents, and government papers. It demonstrates that flash houses were part of both popular intrigue about the perceived ‘criminal underworld’ and official concerns about the collusion between police officers and suspected offenders, since police officers allegedly frequented flash houses to gather criminal information. A detailed examination of this term reveals anxieties about the state of the metropolis, poverty, and criminality that were central to the early 19th-century consciousness. However, the discussion of flash houses in this context also demonstrates a powerful connection in contemporary minds between the physical spaces of the city and the risks that they posed to inhabitants' morals. While associations between the physical environment and morality have been drawn throughout history, flash houses represent a paradigmatic moment in this dialogue. This is because different moral concerns coalesced around the discourse on flash houses: anxieties about the criminal underworld, the potential for moral degradation of young people who frequented these spaces, and the corruption of police officers through contact with known or suspected offenders.

Highlights

  • An 1840 pamphlet entitled The Flash Mirror, or Kiddy’s Cabinet by an anonymous ‘Regular Slangsman’ noted that ‘London may well be termed a theatre of infamy, since it has scarcely a bye-street or alley where the unprincipled have not a meeting house’ (The Flash Mirror, 1840: 3)

  • The idea of a ‘criminal class’, categorised by Mayhew (1861: 111) as a distinctive ‘race’ composed of the poorest members of society, shows that contemporaries believed that environment and socio-economic background played substantial roles in causing criminality. Combining this historical context with a moral geography framework suggests that flash houses were a source of concern in this period as they represented this connection between environment and criminality, as spaces that facilitated individual and collective criminal activity

  • Flash houses were viewed as potential sites of moral degeneration for all those who associated with them. By synthesising this evidence on flash houses for the first time, this article has provided a window into a significant aspect of the zeitgeist of the early 19th century

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Summary

Introduction

An 1840 pamphlet entitled The Flash Mirror, or Kiddy’s Cabinet by an anonymous ‘Regular Slangsman’ noted that ‘London may well be termed a theatre of infamy, since it has scarcely a bye-street or alley where the unprincipled have not a meeting house’ (The Flash Mirror, 1840: 3). This article relates flash houses to these wider moral concerns situated within the specific sites of public houses, but examines how the police interacted with these spaces, connecting them with more specific concerns around criminality.

Results
Conclusion

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