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BURGLARY INSURANCE AND THE CULTURE OF FEAR IN BRITAIN, c. 1889–1939*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2011

ELOISE MOSS
ELOISE MOSS*
Affiliation:
Magdalen College, University of Oxford
*
Magdalen College, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 4AUEloise.Moss@magd.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article explores the representations of burglary and burglars created by the burglary insurance sector in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. Two lines of argument are developed: first, that the marketing strategy of the burglary insurance sector exacerbated existing fears about the nature and prevalence of burglary in a calculated bid to attract custom; and secondly, that the depictions of crime and criminal used in marketing this form of insurance were subsequently revised in the contracts issued to customers as part of the industry's commercial transactions, thereby securing against supposed ‘negligence’ by homeowners as well as malicious attempts to defraud insurers. As the self-styled commercial ‘protection’ against burglary, burglary insurance became an ordinary household investment. Its prosperity therefore enables us to identify certain ideas about crime and criminal then current. Crucially, this research highlights the intersection of media, state, and market discourse about crime in weaving a specific version of burglary into the very fabric of everyday life, uniting three domains that historians of crime have traditionally treated separately.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 54 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 1039 - 1064
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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Footnotes

*

This research was enabled by the generous funding of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I have given versions of this article at Oxford, Sheffield, and Vermont: thanks to all who attended for their helpful comments and criticisms. Matt Houlbrook's insights, advice, and encouragement have pushed my ideas much further than they would otherwise have ventured, for which I am extremely grateful. Many thanks also to the journal's editor and anonymous reader for their suggestions. I am indebted to the patient assistance of Hannah West at the Chartered Institute of Insurance Archives; Morgannis Graham at the Prudential Group Archives; Peter Welch, Senior Information Officer at Lloyds; and Clare George at the Royal Mail Archives.

References

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2 Ibid., pp. 19, 21–2, 25, 27.

3 Ibid., preface, pp. 7–8, 17, 18.

4 In its final pages the pamphlet asserted that the scope of their policies had been extended to insure those residing ‘in any Private Dwelling House, Hotel, Inn, Boarding or Lodging House’, thereby offering coverage for those renting properties in addition to homeowners. Ibid., p. 30.

5 Ibid., p. 25.

6 ‘Waxwork tragedy from heat’, Daily Mirror, 19 Aug. 1906, p. 3; ‘Chamber of horrors’, Daily Express, 29 Nov. 1907, p. 4; ‘Million pound wax palace’, Daily Express, 2 Mar. 1928, p. 9.

7 CII: 9.94 box 158, Law Accident Insurance Society, Burglars and burgling, pp. 25–6.

8 See 1861 Larceny Act, 24 and 25 Vict. c. 96. For analysis of journalistic reportage of crime in London during the 1880s see Walkowitz, Judith, City of dreadful delight: narratives of sexual danger in late-Victorian London (Chicago, IL, 1992), pp. 81–120, 191–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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12 As V. A. C. Gatrell observes, against the trend of decrease in theft and violence in other forms of larceny in England during the Victorian and Edwardian periods, burglary continued to rise in statistical prevalence. V. A. C. Gatrell, ‘The decline of theft and violence in Victorian and Edwardian England’, in V. A. C. Gatrell, Bruce Lenman, and Geoffrey Parker, eds., Crime and the law: the social history of crime in Western Europe since 1500 (London, 1980), pp. 331–3.

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35 TNA: MEPO 3/1211, Imparting information to insurance companies where fraud suspected: Home Office observations on correct police procedure, 1937.

36 I use the term ‘translation’ here in the sense ascribed it by Reddy; as a twofold process of the identification and selection of the desired language by the author and the internalized emotional response the use of a term such as ‘insecurity’ was intended to elicit. Reddy, , Navigation of feeling, pp. 78–9, 110–11Google Scholar.

37 Marcus, Apartment stories, p. 94.

38 London Metropolitan Archives (LMA): MS15048, Miscellaneous burglary insurance policy documents: Army, Navy and General Assurance Association Limited (190?)Google Scholar; CII: 9.701TEKN, General Accident Corporation [189?], p. 28.

39 See for example LMA: MS15048, Miscellaneous burglary insurance policy documents: The National General Insurance Company Limited [1907]Google Scholar; The Alliance Assurance Company Limited [190?].

40 CII: 9.701 CN 8CHW9, Correspondence and directory of clients: R. P. Walker and Son: letter to F. G. Cubitt Esq. from R. P. Walker and Son, 14 July 1904, p. 796.

41 ‘District courts’, Bromley District Times, 10 June 1904, p. 5.

42 CII: 9.94 box 158, Law Accident Insurance Society, Burglars and burgling, p. 31Google Scholar; CII: 9.701TEKN, General Accident Corporation [189?], pp. 30, 28; CII: 9.701TEKN, Goldsmiths and General Burglary Insurance Association Ltd [189?], p. 33; CII: 9.701TEKN, Early 1890s prospectuses of other accident offices : Ocean Accident and Guarantee Corporation Ltd (n.d.), pp. 43, 58Google Scholar; CII: 9.701TEKN, Security Company Limited, (n.d.), p. 89; LMA: MS15048, Miscellaneous burglary insurance policy documents: Post Office Employees’ Mutual Guarantee Association Limited, 12 July 1893Google Scholar; LMA: MS15048, Miscellaneous burglary insurance policy documents: Fine Art Insurance Company Limited [189?]Google Scholar; LMA: MS15048, Miscellaneous burglary insurance policy documents: Army, Navy and General Assurance Association, Limited [190?]Google Scholar.

43 Cohen, Household gods, pp. 136, 122–44.

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55 ‘What's happening at home?’, Times, 8 July 1921, p. 13.

56 Joanne Hollows, ‘The science of spells: cooking, lifestyle and domestic femininities in British Good Housekeeping in the interwar period’, in David Bell and Joanne Hollows, eds., Historicising lifestyle: mediating taste, consumption and identity from the 1900s to 1970s (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 21–39.

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59 See for example ‘Recent burglaries’, Times, 1 Jan. 1927, p. 12.

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62 See for example ‘Royal London Mutual Insurance’, Evening Standard, 8 Jan. 1930, p. 7; ‘Norwich Union insurance society’, Daily Mirror, 1 Oct. 1931, p. 6; ‘Hackney’, John Bull, 3 Oct. 1931, p. 23; ‘Your best free insurance’, Daily Mail, 1 Jan. 1934, p. 11; ‘It's different – and it's free’, Daily Mirror, 22 Jan. 1935, p. 12; ‘Epidemic of robberies’, Ideal Home, Apr. 1935, p. lxv; ‘News Chronicle free insurance’, Daily Chronicle, 1 Jan. 1936, p. 6; ‘Over £500,000 to registered readers’, John Bull, 22 Aug. 1936, p. 4; ‘Atlas Assurance Company Limited’, Daily Express, 24 June 1937, p. 24; ‘Alliance Assurance Company Limited’, Times, 14 July 1937, p. 19; ‘Atlas Assurance Company Limited’, Times, 16 Mar. 1938, p. 17; ‘Royal London Mutual Insurance’, Daily Mirror, 26 Apr. 1939, p. 22.

63 ‘Our picture gallery’, Prudential Bulletin, 13:144 (Apr. 1932), p. 1992; Champness, Arthur, A century of progress: the General Life Assurance Company (London, 1937), p. 36Google Scholar.

64 See for example ‘Safes should be thief-resisting’, Times, 23 Sept. 1932, p. 14.

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66 Royal Mail Archives (RMA): POST 33/149A, file no. 35 (14 June 1923–15 Oct. 1925) memo. 1 Nov. 1923; RMA: POST 33/149A, minute, 14 June 1923; RMA: POST 33/149A, letter from S. E. Knight, 19 June 1923; RMA: POST 33/149A, ‘Further statement of Mr. S. E. Knight made at the investigation branch’, 16 Nov. 1923.

67 RMA: POST 33/149A, letter to S. E. Knight from the Fine Art and General Insurance Company Limited, 3 Dec. 1923; RMA: POST 33/149A, letter to the secretary, Fine Art and General Insurance Company from S. E. Knight, 27 Nov. 1923.

68 RMA: POST 33/149A, letter to the secretary, Fine Art and General Insurance Company from D. A. Stroud, 8 Nov. 1923.

69 RMA: POST 33/148, file no. 22 (17 Mar. – 26 Aug. 1916), letter from C. A. Comber, postmaster, to ‘The Controller’, 17 Mar. 1916; RMA: POST 33/148, memo. ‘B. H. A.’ to the staff branch, 8 May 1916.

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72 Larceny Act 1916, Geo. V c. 50. ss. 6 and 7, paragraph 28:4 (a).

73 LMA: ACC/1294/82, burglary insurance policy issued by the Security Company to Mary Elizabeth Phillips, 4 Aug. 1897; CII: 9.701 CN 8CHW9: letter to Miss Oxleford from R. P. Walker and Son (10 June 1901), p. 45; letter to Miss P. C. Foster from R. P. Walker and Son, 18 Oct. 1901, p. 105; letter to Lady Edith Cregeen from R. P. Walker and Son, 19 Nov. 1901, p. 131; letter to Mrs M. J. Witlaw from R. P. Walker and Son, 23 Dec. 1901, p. 157.

74 LMA: ACC/1294/88, letter from the Royal Insurance Company to Mary Elizabeth Phillips, 13 Jan. 1917.

75 CII: 9.701 CN 8CHW9, Correspondence and directory of clients: R. P. Walker and Son (1900–4).

76 CII: 9.701 CN 8CHW9: letter to Lady Edith Cregeen from R. P. Walker and Son, 19 Nov. 1901, p. 131; letter to Miss Isaacson from R. P. Walker and Son, 26 Mar. 1903, p. 446; letter to Miss E. A. Francis, 27 Apr. 1903; letter to Miss A. F. Willson from R. P. Walker and Son, 16 June 1903, p. 505; letter to Mrs. Smith from R. P. Walker and Son, 7 Apr. 1904, p. 697.

77 Bingham, Adrian, ‘“An era of domesticity”? Histories of women and gender in interwar Britain’, Cultural and Social History, 1 (2004), pp. 225–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 RMA: POST 33/149A, ‘Further statement of Mr. S. E. Knight’, 16 Nov. 1923.

79 ‘Is insurance a real safeguard?’, Daily Mirror, 18 Apr. 1904, p. 4.

80 ‘Insurance co.'s strange methods’, John Bull, 27 Nov. 1926, p. 15.

81 ‘Great art robbery’, Daily Mirror, 28 Feb. 1907, p. 4; ‘Burgled by consent’, Daily Mirror, 26 July 1913, p. 13; ‘Sham burglary case’, Daily Express, 24 Apr. 1923, p. 5; ‘Famous folk who swindle’, John Bull, 16 Oct. 1926, p. 24; ‘Bogus burglary allegation’, Daily Express, 27 June 1933, p. 9.

82 ‘Law report, April 20’, Times, 21 Apr. 1923, p. 5.

83 Ibid.

84 ‘High Court of Justice’, Times, 24 Apr. 1923, p. 5.

85 The legal definition of burglary in both the 1861 and 1916 Larceny Acts was conditional upon forced entry into a dwelling house with the intent to commit a felony (theft), or forced entry out of a dwelling house having committed a felony within, between the hours of nine o'clock in the evening and six o'clock the following morning (legally ‘night’ time). Larceny Act 1861, 24 & 25 Vict. c. 96, ss. 50–9; Larceny Act 1916, Geo. V c. 50. ss. 6–7.

86 ‘An army of bogus bankrupts’, John Bull, 19 Sept. 1931, pp. 18–19.

87 Golding, Burglary, p. 35.