Harvey Osborne - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Harvey Osborne

Research paper thumbnail of VICTOR GRAY, MBE, MA, FSA, Chairman 2014–21, an Appreciation

Monks Eleigh Manorial Records, 1210-1683

Research paper thumbnail of John Brian Weller

Monks Eleigh Manorial Records, 1210-1683

Research paper thumbnail of The great experiment: the impact of the Great War on the British commercial sea fishing industry, fisherman and fish

Research paper thumbnail of Workhouse disorder in Suffolk, 1835-1855

University of Hertfordshire Press eBooks, Jan 4, 2021

Research paper thumbnail of John Bright’s poacher: poaching, politics and the illicit tradein live game in early Victorian England

This article takes as its subject the life and career of Frederick Gowing, once described as ‘the... more This article takes as its subject the life and career of Frederick Gowing, once described as ‘the greatest poacher in England’. Gowing’s reputation as a professional poacher brought him to national attention during the Anti-Corn Law League’s populist campaign against the Game Laws of the 1840s, when he provided evidence damaging to the landed interest at the 1845 Select Committee on the Game Laws. His unusually well-documented career reveals otherwise concealed and unknown features of commercial poaching in late Georgian and early Victorian England. Although in some ways an archetypal ‘Victorian poacher’ and ‘social criminal’, Gowing’s experiences in the illegal trade in game, which included poaching breeding-stock on behalf of game-preservers themselves as well as supplying urban markets with dead game, illustrates the complexity of the poaching industry of the nineteenth century as well as the liminal and often ambiguous position of the poacher in society. Gowing’s later transitio...

Research paper thumbnail of ‘Unwomanly practices’: Poaching Crime, Gender and the Female Offender in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Rural History, 2016

Studies of poaching in the nineteenth century have tended to understate the involvement of women ... more Studies of poaching in the nineteenth century have tended to understate the involvement of women in this archetypal rural crime. This article will suggest that female offending was both more significant and more widespread than previously assumed, but it will also highlight how in a variety of complex ways dominant conceptions of gender shaped perceptions of female poachers and often influenced their treatment before the courts. It will argue that alongside more widely effectual assumptions about appropriate male and female spheres and behaviours, the response of the authorities to female poachers was also shaped by powerful and increasingly culturally embedded notions about the sexually exclusive nature of hunting.

Research paper thumbnail of Clothing and Landscape in Victorian England: working-class dress and rural life

Research paper thumbnail of The Seasonality of Nineteenth-Century Poaching

Historians have generally explained the pronounced seasonal pattern of nineteenth-century poachin... more Historians have generally explained the pronounced seasonal pattern of nineteenth-century poaching in economic terms, emphasising the apparent correlation between annual peaks in offending and cyclical periods of unemployment and poverty. There has been little acknowledgement of the role nature played in determining that most poaching activity occurred in the autumn and winter months. This paper will use evidence from case studies of salmon and game poaching in Victorian Cumberland, Westmorland and Suffolk to suggest that ecological and environmental factors played a fundamental part in shaping the annual pattern of offending. Poaching was a crime often linked to poverty, but its seasonal timing usually owed more to practical considerations concerning both the suitability of the natural environment for hunting and the availability, maturity and marketability of the quarry. Recent studies by Neeson and Freeman have used an interdisciplinary approach to bring nature into the foreground of rural social history in a fashion rarely encountered outside the texts of Arnerican environmental historiography. In Neeson's case the result is an essentially symbiotic portrait of the relationship which eighteenth and nineteenth century commoners had with the natural environment, while in Freernan's work this same group are cast as both victims and predators in a case study of the social consequences of long term ecological change in a woodland environment.' Both studies demonstrate the relevance of White's dictum that 'physical nature does, at any given time, set limits on what is humanly possible', whether in terms of determining the viability of certain forms of social organisation as is Freeman's concern, or, as Neeson illustrates, by dictating the availability of natural resources throughout the seasons. 2 The interplay between human activity and the natural world has, of course, long been recognized by historians examining seasonal patterns of marriage, work and leisure. 3 But a proper understanding of how far nature determines the possible has been largely lacking from explanations of the periodicity of offences like poaching which involved the 'theft' of living natural resources. Indeed, as Freeman has argued, citing work on eighteenth-century forest • Tiffs article stems from research funded by the ESRC and is an amended version of a paper given to the Social History Society's 1996 Winter Conference. I have benefited from comments made on that occasion and from the assistance of Mr S. R. Douglas of the Environmental Agency and of Mr M. D. Harrison of the Suffolk Record Office. I would also like to thank Dr J. E. Archer, Prc, f. I. K. Walton and Dr M. I. Winstanley for their consistently pertinent and constructive criticism. i j.M. Neeson, Commoners. Common right, eaclosure and social change in England, t7oo-182o (1993) and M. Freeman, 'Whichwood Forest, Oxfordshire. An episode in its recent enviromnental history', AgHR 45 AgHR 48, I, pp. 27-41 "7 (1997), pp. 137-149. 2 R. White, 'American environmental history. The devdopment of a new historical field', Pacific History Rev., 54 (D85), p. 335. THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW 3 A. Kussmaul, A general view of the rural economy of England, 1538-184o (D9o); E. L. Jones, Seasons and prices. The role of the weather in English agricultural histoly (1964). 4 Freeman, 'Whichwood Forest', p. 137. 5 A. Howkins, 'Economic crime and class law. Poaching and the Game Laws, 184o-188o', in S. B. Burman and B. E. Harrell-Bond (eds), The Imposition of Law (1979). J. E. Archer, B), a Flash and a Scare. Incendiarism, animal maiming and poaching in East Anglia (199o) and D. ]. V. lones, 'The Victorian Poacher. A study in crime and protest', Historical 1. 22 (D79), PP. 825-86o.

Research paper thumbnail of Rural and Urban Poaching in Victorian England

Rural History, 2006

Poaching is commonly portrayed as the archetypal nineteenth-century ‘rural’ crime, particularly a... more Poaching is commonly portrayed as the archetypal nineteenth-century ‘rural’ crime, particularly associated with agricultural districts of southern and eastern England. This study argues that this interpretation is misleading. Judicial statistics collected from the mid-nineteenth century suggest that poaching was much more widespread in the North and Midlands than has previously been acknowledged. These industrialising regions largely determined the national trends in poaching in the second half of the century which have usually been considered to be characteristics of rural society in the South. The South shared neither the national peak in prosecutions of the mid-1870s nor the dramatic decline in prosecutions thereafter. It considers a range of possible explanations for these different regional trends. These include a discussion of the potential motivation of so-called ‘steam age poachers’ but also the growing regional specialisation in game preservation during the period and the d...

Research paper thumbnail of VICTOR GRAY, MBE, MA, FSA, Chairman 2014–21, an Appreciation

Monks Eleigh Manorial Records, 1210-1683

Research paper thumbnail of John Brian Weller

Monks Eleigh Manorial Records, 1210-1683

Research paper thumbnail of The great experiment: the impact of the Great War on the British commercial sea fishing industry, fisherman and fish

Research paper thumbnail of Workhouse disorder in Suffolk, 1835-1855

University of Hertfordshire Press eBooks, Jan 4, 2021

Research paper thumbnail of John Bright’s poacher: poaching, politics and the illicit tradein live game in early Victorian England

This article takes as its subject the life and career of Frederick Gowing, once described as ‘the... more This article takes as its subject the life and career of Frederick Gowing, once described as ‘the greatest poacher in England’. Gowing’s reputation as a professional poacher brought him to national attention during the Anti-Corn Law League’s populist campaign against the Game Laws of the 1840s, when he provided evidence damaging to the landed interest at the 1845 Select Committee on the Game Laws. His unusually well-documented career reveals otherwise concealed and unknown features of commercial poaching in late Georgian and early Victorian England. Although in some ways an archetypal ‘Victorian poacher’ and ‘social criminal’, Gowing’s experiences in the illegal trade in game, which included poaching breeding-stock on behalf of game-preservers themselves as well as supplying urban markets with dead game, illustrates the complexity of the poaching industry of the nineteenth century as well as the liminal and often ambiguous position of the poacher in society. Gowing’s later transitio...

Research paper thumbnail of ‘Unwomanly practices’: Poaching Crime, Gender and the Female Offender in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Rural History, 2016

Studies of poaching in the nineteenth century have tended to understate the involvement of women ... more Studies of poaching in the nineteenth century have tended to understate the involvement of women in this archetypal rural crime. This article will suggest that female offending was both more significant and more widespread than previously assumed, but it will also highlight how in a variety of complex ways dominant conceptions of gender shaped perceptions of female poachers and often influenced their treatment before the courts. It will argue that alongside more widely effectual assumptions about appropriate male and female spheres and behaviours, the response of the authorities to female poachers was also shaped by powerful and increasingly culturally embedded notions about the sexually exclusive nature of hunting.

Research paper thumbnail of Clothing and Landscape in Victorian England: working-class dress and rural life

Research paper thumbnail of The Seasonality of Nineteenth-Century Poaching

Historians have generally explained the pronounced seasonal pattern of nineteenth-century poachin... more Historians have generally explained the pronounced seasonal pattern of nineteenth-century poaching in economic terms, emphasising the apparent correlation between annual peaks in offending and cyclical periods of unemployment and poverty. There has been little acknowledgement of the role nature played in determining that most poaching activity occurred in the autumn and winter months. This paper will use evidence from case studies of salmon and game poaching in Victorian Cumberland, Westmorland and Suffolk to suggest that ecological and environmental factors played a fundamental part in shaping the annual pattern of offending. Poaching was a crime often linked to poverty, but its seasonal timing usually owed more to practical considerations concerning both the suitability of the natural environment for hunting and the availability, maturity and marketability of the quarry. Recent studies by Neeson and Freeman have used an interdisciplinary approach to bring nature into the foreground of rural social history in a fashion rarely encountered outside the texts of Arnerican environmental historiography. In Neeson's case the result is an essentially symbiotic portrait of the relationship which eighteenth and nineteenth century commoners had with the natural environment, while in Freernan's work this same group are cast as both victims and predators in a case study of the social consequences of long term ecological change in a woodland environment.' Both studies demonstrate the relevance of White's dictum that 'physical nature does, at any given time, set limits on what is humanly possible', whether in terms of determining the viability of certain forms of social organisation as is Freeman's concern, or, as Neeson illustrates, by dictating the availability of natural resources throughout the seasons. 2 The interplay between human activity and the natural world has, of course, long been recognized by historians examining seasonal patterns of marriage, work and leisure. 3 But a proper understanding of how far nature determines the possible has been largely lacking from explanations of the periodicity of offences like poaching which involved the 'theft' of living natural resources. Indeed, as Freeman has argued, citing work on eighteenth-century forest • Tiffs article stems from research funded by the ESRC and is an amended version of a paper given to the Social History Society's 1996 Winter Conference. I have benefited from comments made on that occasion and from the assistance of Mr S. R. Douglas of the Environmental Agency and of Mr M. D. Harrison of the Suffolk Record Office. I would also like to thank Dr J. E. Archer, Prc, f. I. K. Walton and Dr M. I. Winstanley for their consistently pertinent and constructive criticism. i j.M. Neeson, Commoners. Common right, eaclosure and social change in England, t7oo-182o (1993) and M. Freeman, 'Whichwood Forest, Oxfordshire. An episode in its recent enviromnental history', AgHR 45 AgHR 48, I, pp. 27-41 "7 (1997), pp. 137-149. 2 R. White, 'American environmental history. The devdopment of a new historical field', Pacific History Rev., 54 (D85), p. 335. THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW 3 A. Kussmaul, A general view of the rural economy of England, 1538-184o (D9o); E. L. Jones, Seasons and prices. The role of the weather in English agricultural histoly (1964). 4 Freeman, 'Whichwood Forest', p. 137. 5 A. Howkins, 'Economic crime and class law. Poaching and the Game Laws, 184o-188o', in S. B. Burman and B. E. Harrell-Bond (eds), The Imposition of Law (1979). J. E. Archer, B), a Flash and a Scare. Incendiarism, animal maiming and poaching in East Anglia (199o) and D. ]. V. lones, 'The Victorian Poacher. A study in crime and protest', Historical 1. 22 (D79), PP. 825-86o.

Research paper thumbnail of Rural and Urban Poaching in Victorian England

Rural History, 2006

Poaching is commonly portrayed as the archetypal nineteenth-century ‘rural’ crime, particularly a... more Poaching is commonly portrayed as the archetypal nineteenth-century ‘rural’ crime, particularly associated with agricultural districts of southern and eastern England. This study argues that this interpretation is misleading. Judicial statistics collected from the mid-nineteenth century suggest that poaching was much more widespread in the North and Midlands than has previously been acknowledged. These industrialising regions largely determined the national trends in poaching in the second half of the century which have usually been considered to be characteristics of rural society in the South. The South shared neither the national peak in prosecutions of the mid-1870s nor the dramatic decline in prosecutions thereafter. It considers a range of possible explanations for these different regional trends. These include a discussion of the potential motivation of so-called ‘steam age poachers’ but also the growing regional specialisation in game preservation during the period and the d...