Vagrancy Act 1898


Vagrancy Act 1898 Vict. 61 & 62 c.39
Lord Salisbury the British Prime Minister was constantly aware of the enemy Socialism, "Whenever an Act for the benefit of the people is introduced." Acting on the Parliamentary Select Committee's Report there were modifications to the Poor Laws. Already torn apart by the new secular dilemmas in education, the Cabinet juggled competing priorities for new social policy considerations. Henry Chaplin, President of the Local Government Board implemented the bill. His committee reported in 1899 that "all needy and deserving poor over the age of 65 should receive 5 s. per week under strict conditions." On 14 March 1898, Sir Matthew Ridley, the Home Secretary moved a bill to amend the Vagrancy Act 1824. He described "rogues and vagabonds", as "bullies" and "enemies of society", rejoining with "those men who lived by the disgraceful earnings of the women whom they consorted with and controlled." Vagrancy became a police matter.
It was read a second time on 23 June 1898, passing a third reading on 21 July. A week later it was moved into committee by the Lords. On return to the Commons, Sir Charles Dilke, the radical MP, moved a procedural amendment, "a clause dealing, not simply with the matters of this Bill in particular, but dealing with the whole of the Vagrancy Acts".

Background

The radicals were prepared to use social deprivation, disease and squalor as a political issue, and to a degree it worked. Gladstone became a major advocate of reform as did Liberal Liverpool convert the Old Tories into New Liberals. Defending beggars and homelessness became one of Gladstone social concerns expressed in speeches, legislation, public oratory, and the opening of new hospitals, schools and workhouses. However liberalism did not recognise poverty as a major causal factor in Vagrancy or indeed any crime. Criminals were minors and incapable therefore of rational thought, let alone legal and moral responsibility for their actions. The essential protestant nature of vagrancy was met by punishment: beatings, floggings, whippings; they were sent home, without the adequate realisation that industrialisation caused migration across communities from the countryside.
From the 1860s onwards the tramping artisan began to disappear, as those in search of work intensified the experience to gain finality to it; whereas tramps came at last to accept, however reluctantly their lot in life as ‘down and outs’. Only 20% of ‘discharged souldiers’ could in 1897, justify their claim to be migrant workers to the Royal Commission; while only 3% could in the workhouse population. Thus the Report of Minority Opinion was condemned in a scathing critique by Fabian socialists Beatrice and Sidney Webb, in their work ''The Break-Up of the Poor Law', could actually be categorised as “professional tramps”. The Fabian emphasis fell on assessing at least between 1/3 and 2/3 of all vagrants as ‘deserving’ of classification as “genuine workman” and therefore respectability. This was determined by the economic climate: if prosperity rose and then the numbers in work increased, the number of assessed casuals would shrink. But more Liberal gentlemen earlier in the period could hardly discern any deserving case in the East End. Both men were quite disparaging of casual poor.
The Fabian Webbs and G B Shaw denounced casualism as immoral and infectious. The wards were seedbeds of disease and contagion, often infested with rats and cockroaches. Casuals had to work and sleep in solitary confinement, even if not convicted of an offence. It was this incarceration that was perceptibly dichotomous for any defining feature of respectability for the deserving man. Nowadays it would be axiomatic to condemn stone-breaking as unskilled, but in 1900 it was considered a skilled job. Being thus condemned to mind-numbing casual hard labour, a man could not recover his status, and was thus permanently in a ‘poverty trap.’ Oakum picking was “demoralising” to an out-of-work navvy moving between jobs. How could he register on a casual ward, and then find work at the same time. The Vagrants ‘casual ward’ in the workhouse became a stinking, filthy room, with mould creeping up the wall, 20 people, mostly men, naked and half-starved in the dark, dank corridors of a depressing workhouse existence. The lucky ones who had a skill and could work might escape the worst depravity – but according to many accounts the Oakum trade boomed. Puritanical middle-class Victorians hated poverty and deplored it to the extent that many chose to ignore it altogether. Branded as idle, and lazy those who could not be worked; and yet many MPs found that the workhouses, harsh as they were in the early 19th century were too easy-going on the homeless tramp. The criminalization of the poor was a highly controversial aspect of the handling of rapidly expanding urban centres of population.
London was the trading hub of the world's largest empire had reached one million people by 1900. Discipline was rigorous, tough and uncompromising; punishment was puritanical, austere and harsh. But canes were still used in grammar schools, and contemporaries rather accepted the use of the staff. Hence the advocacy of Transportation to Australia, much in the same way as slaves and indentured servants had made their way to America. Branding of prostitutes and other harsh measures were abandoned when Benthamite Utilitarianism made government think in a more rational, organized way about the role of the State in society. Despite the moderate reforms in many areas of social existence, the prudish puritans of Victorian upper and middle classes were not about to humanise begging. The strictness and harshness of the system was recognised by contemporaries. It took the Irish 653 years to repeal the Vagrancy legislation, and the 1824 Act passed in London was still in force in the republic in 1982; it was not finally repealed until 1988.

The legislation

Vagrants are “incorrigible rogues”, wrote the legislation. Quarter Session Justice could order whipping, when and if “in their discretion shall deem to be expedient.” The 1890s witnessed a veritable crackdown. Police were the only witness statements taken in such cases; women were convicted after only a short trial; and hardly any proof by way of evidence was required for submission. But by 1900 only 165 ‘pimps’ had been prosecuted under the new act, whereas 7,415 women were convicted for solicitation in the same period. By 1917 Police were systematically arresting and finger-printing women, even if just standing around without much intent. The Victorian ‘annoyance clause’, therefore was lifted making it easier for Police to prosecute.
Offences were defined as begging: Wandering abroad or being in any street to beg or gather alms, or causing or procuring any child so to do. Vagrancy Act 1824 s.3, and s.4, so far as it relates to the offence when committed by a person who has been convicted as an idle and disorderly person. The Vagrancy Act 1824 once again stood to penalise rough-sleepers, and punish drunkards, whores and prostitutes, and sturdy beggars. They were overwhelmingly concentrated in the big cities because that is where the data has survived. London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol in England are the only areas with any correlated data in Victorian period for homelessness. s.10 that punished by "whipping" was repealed, despite the fact that the Government had recorded such a punishment in recent times was used only seven occasions. During debates one MP Mr. Pickersgill called the bill's punishment "capricious" declaring that no fewer than 1,265 persons were convicted in 1895. There was concern expressed among Liberal MPs that the legislation should amend the need "for some poor insane wretch to be flogged." Sir Matthew Ridley accepted the Lords amendment. Much later a Liberal parliament went a step further in formalising these offences in Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1912.
Gaming :
Playing betting in any public place at or with any table or instrument, or with coins, cards, etc. at any game or pretended game of chance. – Vagrancy Act Amendment Act 1873, s.3.
Found in inclosed premises, possessing picklocks, etc.
Being on inclosed premises for an unlawful purpose. – Vagrancy Act, s.4.
Having in possession a picklock or other implement with intent to break into any premises., Vagrancy Act 1824, s.4.
Frequenting :
Any suspected person or reputed thief frequenting a public place with intent to commit felony., s.4
Living on prostitute’s earnings:
Any male person who lives on the earnings of prostitution, or controls, or directs prostitution, or in any public place persistently solicits or importunes for immoral purposes. –

Some consequences

The Fin de Siecle ushered in an era of libertines, and sexual freedom. To combat the excesses, a new offence of "indecent exposure" became the legacy of the Lords amendment. As the Home Secretary did consider amendments, it main purposes being to update the Vagrancy legislation in the whole bill, living "on the prostitution of a woman", remained an offence. On 8 May 1899 two men from Bristol were prosecuted for this new offence. Yet in 1901 a new Home Secretary, C T Ritchie could write "To get rid of prostitution by legal enactment or by official interposition is out of the question - so long as human nature is what it is, you will never be entirely rid of it."
One of the results of Vagrancy Act 1898 was a growth in social purity legislation, that included feminist campaigns to protect women and children against trafficking. Under s.21 of Summary Jurisdiction Act 1879 any convicted offender who continued in cohabitation was granted an Order for Separation on the ground of desertion. A trafficker of women and children was deemed by the law as “a rogue and vagabond” under the Vagrancy Act 1898. The Committee for Outdoor Relief were committed to reform: it included two East End MPs A C Crowder and W A Bailward, MP for Bethnal Green, both Guardians to the Poor Law Unions. The Brixworth Board elected Albert Fell MP. The proportion of homeless for 100,000 had continued to rise to about 400 per 100,000. But the service delivery was haphazard. And the 1895 Report by Sir Wilfred Chance recommended “strict” Unions. Then the High Court ruled that you were not a vagrant if you were collecting money or food for strikers and their families.
By and by in 1902 the act was shown to be working well, and so it was kicked up to the Lords to be extended to Scotland. Lord Kinnaird said,…"it will be of great value in reducing this nefarious traffic by making provision for the punishment of offenders.” Lord Balfour of Burleigh, the Conservative Secretary of State for Scotland had no objection to a second reading to “compel extremely undesirable persons to leave the Metropolis” of Glasgow. The bill was called the Immoral Traffic Act but performed a similar role as the Vagrancy Act. Subsequent amendments included the White Slave Traffic bill of 1910. On 25 November 1912, George Greenwood MP asked the Liberal Home Secretary if the Vagrancy Act could be amended of the s.10, 1824 Act. In a frenzied atmosphere of radicalism, Rescue Societies and suffragists posing a danger to British society, Reginald McKenna answered that the punishment of flogging would be determined by the Court of Appeal and pending the decision the floggings would be suspended. The White Slave Traffic was later outlawed by the treaty of Versailles and League of Nations Charter, although this was already law in England under Criminal Law Amendment Act 1912. But many MPs believed the legislation of 1912 to be repressive. The rush to stiffen the legislation, to strengthen the bonds of marriage punished both prostitution and male homosexuality. Both the 1898 and 1912 Acts refused to condone lesbianism, but louche behaviour remained adjured until the 1960s.