Narrow Nowhere Universes, Child Rape and Convict Transportation Scotland and Van Diemen's Land, 1839-1853

Abstract

Narrow Nowhere Universes, Child Rape and Convict Transportation in Scotland and Van Diemen's Land, 1839-1853 Tom Dunning 'A universe of rented spaces haunted by a nowhere and by dreamed-of-places'. (Michel de Certeau)1 'A narrow universe in which most people experienced the exactions of power'. (VAC Gattrell)2 There are two general types of scholarly approaches to past sexual violence directed at females.3 First, there are the trans-historical approaches of feminist theorists who see male sexuality as a constant and rape as a major trans-cultural social force, part of a male strategy of power and domination.4 Second, many historians of gender want to, as Garthine Walker writes, 'locate rape as historically specific rather than as a trans historical phenomenon … no longer characterised by silence but by a desire to listen to and to analyse the testimonies of raped and sexually assaulted women, alleged rapists and witnesses'.5 There is an attempt to read the narratives of sexual assault in terms of the cultural conventions of the time and to study the narrative structure, the use of language and metaphor, and the silences and evasions. There are two recent substantial works on English sexual violence in the nineteenth century, Shani D'Cruze's Crimes of Outrage: Sex, Violence and Victorian Working Women,6 and Jackson's Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England. Both use legal documents to write their histories, discussing courtrooms as sites where sexual violence was redefined, where women and children experienced judicial power and where some women exercised agency to uphold reputations and maintain identities. They are interested not in only in courts but especially in the past spaces and places where sexual violence [End Page 113] actually occurred.7 An important attempt to write about an individual instance of sexual violence is V.A.C. Gatrell's 'The Rape of Elizabeth Cureton', in his book, The Hanging Tree. He observes that a trial is a rare moment where an event such as a sexual assault is 'likely to be copiously recorded'.8 Although he uses court records, Gattrell is more concerned with the actions of the members of the local community after the rape. Nevertheless, Gattrell reveals the fate of the convicted rapist, John Noden. He was a convict for twenty years in Bermuda eventually returning to a croft in a neighbouring dell where he lived for twenty more years. This article focuses on people like John Noden and the spaces and places they used for their actions, as well as the consequences of their behaviours; it will also, like Gattrell's piece, be interested in the actions of the neighbourhood and local community in the apprehension of the perpetrators. There is a modest literature on Scottish crime and transportation to which this paper hopes to contribute. Ian Donnachie has written about the relationship of personal offences to the general pattern of crime, making some specific references to rape. He has also written on the transportation of Scottish criminals. This article will attempt to expand on his work.9 English experience of crime against the person was not necessarily replicated in Scotland.10 Particularly different was the legal system and the records which it produced. The principal Scottish legal sources are precognitions, those unique and uniquely rich pre-trial statements that Scottish prosecutors collected. Although mediated by official purposes, such as indictment and judgment, they contain a variety of plebeian descriptions of places and stories of the intimate and violent events that occurred in these sites. They were records of criminal investigations for serious crimes by the Procurator Fiscal, a local officer of the Lord Advocate, the highest Scottish law enforcement official. The Lord Advocate's office used them to decide whether to prosecute. As such they offer a unique insight to Scottish crime, criminals, and most importantly Scottish society. As M. A. Crowther writes they 'gives us the words of people who otherwise have no voice'.11 In addition to the precognitions, the detailed Convict Conduct Registers for Van Diemen's Land [VDL] can reveal behaviours and experiences of the [End Page 114] individuals, who appear in the precognitions, after their conviction.12 Fewer Scottish criminals were transported...