Mysterious and Suspicious Deaths: Missing Homicides in North-West England (1850-1900)

Abstract

By examining what Victorian newspapers headlined ‘mysterious’ or ‘suspicious’ deaths, this article argues that some of these deaths in the north west of England escaped the official statistics for homicide and, in particular, murder. In addition it is possible to identify cases which were downgraded to either manslaughter or assault, and these too may, as a result, throw light on cultural attitudes towards violence, not least the toleration and acceptance of certain forms of violence. Such ‘smoking-guns’ may partly explain why the official national statistics for murder remained low. This article also examines the victims of this unprosecuted violence and puts forward explanations as to why such cases were either downgraded or else ignored entirely by the policing authorities and the judicial system. It is argued here that certain groups within society, namely infants, foreigners and female partners, made up a substantial number of the victims whose deaths were ignored by the authorities. When issues of age, nationality, gender and the social status of the deceased are taken into consideration, it becomes clear that murder is not an unequivocal legal absolute. Rather it was a complex social construct.