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Gender, Medicine, and Consumer Culture in Victorian England: Creating the Kleptomaniac

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2017

Tammy Whitlock
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Extract

In his Crime and Society in England 1750-1900 Clive Emsley notes that “for England the subject of the middle-class woman ‘kleptomaniac,’ as opposed to the working-class woman ‘thief,’ awaits an historian,” and casts doubt on the significance of the respectable shoplifter in England. However, not only is there ample evidence that middle-class shoplifting was a rising concern in Victorian England, it is a key example of the way in which gender ideology and medical science were constructed to solve a commercial and legal problem. Early in the nineteenth century, a respectable woman accused of shoplifting only had the option of denying her crime and blaming the shopkeeper; however, as the number of middle-class women committing retail crimes such as shoplifting and fraud increased, the issue of representation in the nineteenth century became more complicated. Woman’s role as aggressive consumer and her role in retail crime clashed with her home-centered image. In trials, canting ballads, and scathing articles, critics presented an image of the retail female criminal as greedy, fraudulent, and middle-class. Women fought against this image by denying their crimes or by participating in the creation of the developing representation of criminal women as ill rather than greedy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , Fall 1999 , pp. 413 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1999

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References

1 This excerpt is slightly misquoted in an 1861 article “Kleptomania,” The Lancet 2, 1994 (16 November 1861): 483.

2 Melford, Mark, Kleptomania: A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts (London, 1888), p. 24.Google Scholar

3 Emsley, Clive, Crime and Society in England, 1750-1900 (New York, 1996), p. 155.Google Scholar Emsley’s conclusions are drawn in part from Elaine Abelson’s work on American middle-class shoplifters (When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle-Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department Store [New York, 1989], p. 277n. 73).

4 See Patricia O’Brien, “The Kleptomania Diagnosis: Bourgeois Women and Theft in Late Nineteenth-Century France,” Journal of Social History 17 (Fall 1983): 65-67. Abelson, Elaine S., “The Invention of Kleptomania,” Signs 15, 1 (1989): 123-(3; Abelson, When Ladies Go A-Thieving.Google Scholar

5 [Bucknill], J. C. B., “Kleptomania,” The Journal of Mental Science 7, 42 (July 1862): 266.Google Scholar

6 In 1896, Strahan, S. A. K. compared the Ella Castle case to a case where a beadle had stolen books, “which were much less desirable property for a beadle than fans, furs, and opera-glasses to a rich American lady.” Letter to the Editor, Strahan, S. A. K., Savage Club, Dec. 16, 1896, The Times, 16 December 1896.Google Scholar

7 Lori Loeb traces the lush history of the Victorian advertisement and its contribution to commodity culture prior to the advent of the department store (Consuming Angels: Advertising and Victorian Women [New York, 1994], passim. See also Richards, Thomas, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 1851-1914 (Stanford, 1990), pp. 1-72.Google Scholar

8 [Bucknill], J. C. B., “Kleptomania,” p. 265.Google Scholar

9 A Handy Guide for the Draper and Haberdasher (London, 1864), p. 23.

10 Ibid„ p. 24.

11 For the growth of consumer culture see Fraser, W. Hamish, The Coming of the Mass Market, 1850-1914 (Hamden, Conn., 1981);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Miller, Michael B., The Bon Marché: Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, 1869-1920 (Princeton, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Hayes, J. W., Hints on Haberdashery & Drapery (London, 1875), p. 13.Google Scholar Note: sold at The Draper’s Stationery Warehouse, 96, Wood Street, Cheapside.

13 Trollope, Anthony, The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson: By one of the Firm (London, 1870), p. 43.Google Scholar

14 The Times, 28 November 1859. The founding date of the APS is unknown, however, it appears to be similar in operation to the many other urban, trade protection societies. It is very likely that Turner and Hobbs were repeat offenders and probably not the middle-class shoppers they pretended to be, because they pleaded guilty and requested that the magistrate deal with their case summarily. As this Times article states, “Though there was no evidence of a previous conviction, it did not at all follow that the present was their first offence. It frequently happened that old offenders, being brought to a police-court where they did not happen to be known, were dealt with summarily, whereas if they had been sent to the sessions evidence of former convictions might have been produced at trial.” Ibid.

15 GLRO, MJ/SR 5194, Middlesex Quarter Sessions of the Peace. Indictment of Sarah Johnson and Jane Wise,” Middlesex Sessions Papers” 6 June 1864; Times, 9 June 1864; Times, 11 June 1864. For a similar example of a team of shoplifting women see the case of Mary Ann Kelly and Hannah Rose prosecuted in the Guildhall Police Court in 1860 (The Times, 23 May 1860). See also the case of Sarah Reeves’ theft of silk handkerchiefs from Shoolbred’s, The Times, 16 May 1866. Another venerable drapery firm, Thomas Olney, prosecuted a team of shoplifting women in 1859. The Times, 29 July 1859.

16 Mr. Cox’s business is not designated, but must be that of draper or haberdasher from the types of goods that he sold. The Times, 17 January 1860.

17 Emsley, Crime and Society in England, pp. 248-92.

18 O’Brien, “Kleptomania Diagnosis,” p. 70. See also Ellis, Havelock, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, 2 vols. (New York, 1936), 2: 477-78;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Miller, Bon Marché, pp. 197-200.

19 Smith, Roger, Trial By Medicine: Insanity and Responsibility in Victorian Trials (Edinburgh, 1981), p. 8.Google Scholar See also Eigen, Joel, Witnessing Insanity: Madness and Mad-Doctors in the English Court (New Haven, 1995)Google Scholar tracing the growing importance of physicians and mad doctors in English court cases especially murder cases. See also physician John Haslam’s 1817 treatise “Medical Jurisprudence As It Relates to Insanity, According to the Law of England,” in Tracts on Medical Jurisprudence [microform] (Philadelphia, 1819).

20 Ray, Isaac, M.D., A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Imanity (London, 1839), pp. v-x.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., pp. 171-74.

22 See Porter, Roy, A Social History of Madness: Stories of the Insane (London, 1987), pp. 103-24Google Scholar; Digby, Anne, “Women’s Biological Straitjacket,” Sexuality and Subordination: Interdisciplinary Studies of Gender in the Nineteenth Century, eds., Mendus, Susan and Rendali, Jane (London, 1989), pp. 192-15.Google Scholar

23 Alienists were doctors who specialized in the realm of medicine now known as psychiatry.

24 Sutherland, Alexander John, M.D., F.R.S. “Pathology of Mania and Dementia,” Medico-Chirur-gical Transactions 38 (1855): 261-88.Google Scholar See also Showalter, Elaine, “Victorian Women and Insanity,” Victorian Studies 23, 2 (Winter 1980): 157-81,Google Scholar where she traces the development Victorian psychiatry, and its tragic effects for the women treated.

25 Ray, A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, pp. 174, 171.

26 See especially Showalter, Elaine, The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980 (New York, 1985), pp. 50-120. See also Showalter’s more recent critique of modern mass hysterias and “syndromes” that define women as victims, Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media (New York, 1997).Google Scholar

27 Ellis, , Studies in the Psychology of Sex, p. 486;Google Scholar O’Brien, , “Kleptomania Diagnosis,” pp. 69-71Google Scholar; Abelson, , When Ladies Go A-Thieving, pp. 174-83Google Scholar. Although William Stekel’s “cleptomania” case study in his 1924 book, Peculiarities of Behavior, is male, the stereotype of the kleptomaniac was still the female patient as is demonstrated by his earlier work on the “Sexual Root of Kleptomania” published in 1911, which refers to a female patient. See also Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll, “The Hysterical Woman: Sex Roles and Role Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America,” in Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (New York, 1985), pp. 197-216Google Scholar for the nineteenth-century treatment of female “hysteria” and other physiological “manias.”

28 Both O’Brien, Patricia and Abelson, Elaine note the intimate connection between class and the kleptomania diagnosis. O’Brien, “Kleptomania Diagnosis,” p. 67; Abelson, When Ladies Go A-Thieving, p. 174.Google Scholar

29 Duncan, James F., A.M. , M.D., Popular Errors on the Subject of Insanity (Dublin, 1853), p. 138.Google Scholar

30 The Times, 16 April 1849.

31 See Ray, , A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, p. 138.Google Scholar

32 He agreed with the judge in the 1853 case of such a maniacal lady who was sent to the asylum instead of given a prison sentence. Ibid., p. 139.

33 The Times, 28 March 1855, 3 April 1855, and 12 April 1855.

34 The Times, 28 March 1855 and 12 April 1855.

35 The Times, 28 March 1855.

36 The Times, 3 April 1855 and 12 April 1855.

37 The Times, 12 April 1855.

38 Once again like other middle-class shoplifters. See The Times, 3 April 1855.

39 The Times, 6 April 1855.

40 Ibid.

41 The Times, 3 April 1855; See also Ray, A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity.

42 The Times, 12 April 1855.

43 These ballads were already being circulated before the April 12th Middlesex Sessions trial. See The Times, 12 April 1855. A later version appeared in England 1867. This version is cited by Abelson, Elaine, When Ladies’ Go A Thieving, and Murphy, Daniel, Customers and Thieves: an Ethnography of Shoplifting (Brookfield , Vt., 1986), p. 185.Google Scholar I want to thank Julie Lambert of the John Johnson Collection, Oxford for helping me find these ballads.

44 ‘Ladies Don’t Go Thieving!,” Mullins, Printer, Red-Cross Street [dated from ref. at 1855], “Street Ballads,” Box 9, John Johnson Collection, Bodleian, Oxford. See also “Rich & Poor Law,” Smith, Printer, Broad-street, Berwick-street “Street Ballads,” Box 9, John Johnson Collection, Bodleian, Oxford. In the version of the ballad titled “Rich and Poor Law” the last lines are replaced with “Six-months they’d have to serve—And play amongst the oakum.”

45 Brown, John, “On Genteel Thieves,” Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 26 O.S., 22 n.s. (1855): 289.Google Scholar

46 Ibid., p. 290.

47 One woman pointed out his “mistake” and refused to pay. Another lady sent someone to settle the account and never returned to his store. See Brown, “On Genteel Thieves,” pp. 289-93.

48 Ibid., pp. 290, 292.

49 See Showalter, , “Victorian Women and Insanity,” pp. 157-81Google Scholar; Digby, , Women’s Biological Strait-jacket, pp. 192-15.Google Scholar

50 sutherland, “Pathology of Mania and Dementia,” pp. 270-71. Puerperal mania was a madness that struck women immediatley or soon after childbirth.

51 Ibid., pp. 261-88. See also Eigen, Witnessing Insanity.

52 General Paralysis was an extreme form of madness that ended in physical paralysis and death. Sankey, W. H. O, M.D., “Illustrations of the Different Forms of Insanity,” British Medical Journal (11 February 1865): 136.Google Scholar Although Sankey does not designate kleptomania as a specifically female malady, by categorizing it with puerperal and “nymphomanias” the inference is clear.

53 The Times, 18 December 1851.

54 Ibid.

55 Letter to the editor, A Mother of Ten Children, Glocester [sic], December 18 1851, The Times, 20 December 1851.

56 See Smith, , Trial By Medicine, pp. 143-60. See also Lucia Zedner who traces the development of “feeble-mindedness” as a diagnosis for female criminality in the later Victorian era in Women, Crime, and Custody in Victorian England (Oxford, 1991), pp. 264-96.Google Scholar

57 Ray, , A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, p. 174.Google Scholar

58 See Duncan, , Popular Errors on the Subject of Insanity, p. 139n. Duncan then alluded to a Dublin case in March of 1853 in the Recorder’s Court where a shoplifting lady was “sentenced” to an asylum.Google Scholar

59 Ray, Isaac, M.D., A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, (4th ed.; Boston, 1860), pp. 204-05.Google Scholar An article appearing two years later also uses this well-worn quote from The Times’ editorial. [Bucknill], J. C. B., “Kleptomania,” p. 266.Google Scholar

60 Ray, , A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, 4th éd., pp. 204-09.Google Scholar

61 “Kleptomania,” The Lancet 2, 1994 (16 November 1861): 483. Although the legend of the wealthy shoplifter predated the Ramsbotham case, The Times’ editorial on that famous case became the template for almost all future discussions with quotes often taken verbatim from the editorial in medical texts.

62 The Times, 1 November 1861.

63 “Kleptomania,” British Medical Journal 2, (9 November 1861): 510.

64 B., I. C, [Bucknill], “Kleptomania,” p. 262.Google Scholar

65 “Kleptomania,” British Medical Journal 2 (29 October 1864): 505.

66 The Times, 27 August 1866.

67 Ibid. See also the 1865 case of Isabella Freeman who was a respectable, married women who also had committed a previous offense. The Times, 1 March 1865.

68 Freeman claimed not pregnancy as the cause of her shoplifting mania but that is was prompted by the influence of chloroform a medication for a disease she currently suffered. Her defense failed to convince the magistrate. See The Times, 1 March 1865.

69 Allan, Henry, Prize Essay on Kleptomania, with a View to Determine Whether Kleptomaniacs Should he Held Disqualified for Employment of Trust and Authority Under the Crown (London, 1869)Google Scholar; Letter to the Editor, Wilson, D., M.D., Brooke-street April 17, 1869, The Times, 20 April 1869.Google Scholar

70 Wiener, Martin, Reconstructing the Criminal: Culture, Law, and Policy in England, 1830-1914 (New York, 1990), p. 168.Google Scholar See Owen, Alex, The Darkened Room: Women, Power and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England (Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 183-94.Google Scholar

71 Maudsley, Henry, M.D, Responsibility in Mental Disease (London, 1874), pp. 82, 125-26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

72 Maudlsey, Henry, “Stealing as a Symptom of General Paralysis,” The Lancet 2, no. 2724 (13 November 1875): 694Google Scholar. See also B., J. C., [Bucknill], “Kleptomania,” p. 267,Google Scholar for a reference to the connection between kleptomania and General Paralysis. Bucknill, John Charles was editor of the Journal of Mental Science. See Showalter, “Victorian Women and Insanity,” p. 164.Google Scholar

73 Maudlsey, , “Stealing as a Symptom of General Paralysis,” pp. 694-95Google Scholar.

74 See Maudsley, , Responsibility in Mental Disease, pp. 82, 125-26Google Scholar; Maudlsey, , “Stealing as a Symptom of General Paralysis,” pp. 694-95.Google Scholar

75 ”Kleptomania,” The Lancet 1, 2795 (24 March 1877): 435. See also Smith, , Trial by Medicine and Eigen, , Witnessing Insanity, pp. 73-74,Google Scholar for his explanation of the rise of the “lesion of the will” concept in which defendants acted in a rational manner, but were unable to control their own will or impulse to commit the crime.

76 ”Kleptomania,” The Lancet 2, 1994 (16 November 1861): 483.

77 Ibid. The writer also criticizes the use of the term “dipsomaniac” for the wealthier “drunkard.”

78 ”Kleptomania,” The Lancet 1, 2795 (24 March 1877): 435. See also “The Plea of Kleptomania,” The Lancet 2, 3026 (27 August 1881): 390 for a similar plea for a greater role for specialists in the courtroom.

79 This perceived rise in consumer crime may have been an actual rise in crime; however, the “dark figure” of unreported cases is so high that reported cases do not qualify as “proof of a rise in actual shoplifting or other consumer crimes.

80 See Smith, , Trial By Medicine, pp. 143-60Google Scholar.

81 Maudsley, , Responsibility in Mental Disease, pp. 82, 125-26.Google Scholar

82 “Kleptomania,” British Medical Journal (16 January 1875): 87.

83 See O’Brien, “Kleptomania Diagnosis,” pp. 68, 72-73; Miller, , Bon Marché, pp. 200-04Google Scholar; Leach, “Women and Department Stores,” pp. 329-34; Tiersten, Lisa, “In the Public Eye: Women Shoppers and Urban Space in Late 19th-century Paris”Google Scholar (paper presented to the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies conference on “The Nineteenth-Century City: Global Contexts, Local Productions, Santa Cruz, California, 7-8 April 1995), pp. 4-5. Tiersten refers to French studies in the latter part of the century that claimed wives would even turn to adultery and prostitution to pay for the numerous goods that their husbands did not know about or could not afford, see page 5.

84 ”Kleptomania and Artifice,” The Lancet 1, 2893 (8 February 1879): 203-04.

85 ”Kleptomania,” The Lancet 1, 3112 (21 April 1883): 698-99.

86 The Times, 11 April 1883.

87 ”Kleptomania,” The Lancet 1, 3112 (21 April 1883): 698-99.

88 Ibid.

89 CCCSP, Seventh Session, 1883, p. 34.

90 ”The Kleptomania of Pregnancy,” The Lancet 2, 3228 (11 July 1885): 81.

91 Abelson, Elaine, “The Invention of Kleptomania,” p. 131.Google Scholar

92 B., J. C., [Bucknill], “Kleptomania,” pp. 262-75.Google Scholar

93 Also possibly Long and Murrary, see B., J. C. [Bucknill], “Kleptomania,” pp. 262-63.Google Scholar

94 “Kleptomania,” The Lancet 2, 1994 (16 November 1861): 483. He is referring to Nancy, a lower-class character who appeared in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.

95 See “Kleptomania,” The Lancet 1, 2795 (24 March 1877): 434-35. See also a letter by Strahan, S. A. K., a well-known psychiatrist, to The Times regarding the Ella Castle case. This wealthy American woman only received three months’ imprisonment as a sentence for her West-end shoplifting and she never served the time. The Home Secretary released her. Letter to the Editor, Strahan, S. A. K., Savage Club, Dec. 16, 1896, The Times, 16 December 1896. This case is described in detail by Elaine Abelson, When Ladies’ Go A Thieving, pp. 175-81.Google Scholar

96 Melford, “Kleptomania,” p. 18.

97 Ibid.

98 See O’Brien, “The Kleptomania Diagnosis,” pp. 72-73.

99 Ibid., pp. 200-06.

100 Ibid., p. 73.

101 ‘ Goldman, Marcus J., “Kleptomania: Making Sense of the Nonsensical,” American Journal of Psychiatry 148, 8 (August 1991): 986-97.Google Scholar

102 See also Zavitzianos, George, “The Kleptomanias and Female Criminality,” Sexual Dynamics of Anti-social Behavior, eds. Schlesinger, Louis B., Revitch, Eugene, et al. (2nd. ed.; Springfield, IL, 1997 ), pp. 132-57: Sarasalo, Elina, Bergman, Bo, Toth, Janos, “Kleptomania-like Behaviour and Psychosocial Characteristics Among Shoplifters,” Legal & Criminological Psychology 2, 1 (Feb. 1997): 1-10.Google Scholar For connections between shoplifting and older women see also McNeilly, Dennis P. and Burke, William J., “Stealing Lately: A Case of Late-Onset Kleptomania,” International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 13, 2 (Feb. 1998): 116-21.Google Scholar

103 B., J.C., [Bucinili], “Kleptomania,” p. 264.Google Scholar

104 See especially W, T.., Gutter-lane, 12 December 1844, The Times, 14 December 1844; Duncan, Popular Errors on the Subject of Insanity, pp. 138-39;Google Scholar The Times, 6 April 1855; Ray, A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, 4th ed., pp. 204-09; B, J. C.., [Bucknill], “Kleptomania,” p. 266.Google Scholar