An Ambiguous Relationship?:

Policing, Prosecuting and Censuring wife-

beating in Scotland, c1870-1939

Annmarie Hughes The Illustrated Police News, November 14, 1896

Policing• Poor reputation for dealing with domestic cases

• Charges of drunk and disorderly and Breach of the Peace rather than assault:

William and his wife had been in lodgings but had separated. He turned up at her home after he had been drinking and the landlady refused to admit him. He then assaulted his wife and her heavily pregnant sister and police were called. He was warned to go away and leave them alone. It was only after he refused that he was taken to the Police Station - he was fined £2 12/6 for the assaults and a charge of Breach of the Peace.

Criminal Officers Reports, Glasgow Parish, 1920

• Character witnesses

• Rules of evidence:

In 1888 the wife of Thomas McFarlane approached a policeman after her husband had smashed her face with an iron grate, fracturing her jaw. She was asked if she had any witnesses. Because she did not have witnesses the police refused to take action.

• The ‘reluctance’ of wives to prosecute• Ill-equipped

Impediments

Individuals apprehended and charged with assault in 1900:

• Assault: 288 [271 against men]

• Police Assault: 59 [56 against men]

• Assault by husbands on wives: 3677

Percent of the total number of apprehensions resulting in prison convictions for assault and

assault by husbnads on a wife: Scottish Summary Courts, 1898-1914

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1898 1900 1902 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912 1914

Assault

Assault byhusbands onw iv es

• 39 out of 356 Scottish homicides resulted in murder convictions

• 10% of murder charges were not proven.

• 1/3rd of all men tried for killing their wives were acquitted

• Only 7% of men who killed a wife who ‘provoked’ them were convicted of murder.

• Only one Scottish husbands was convicted of killing a drunken wife.

• ½ the men accused of murder in rape homicides were acquitted.

• Those most at risk of the death penalty in Scotland for murder were those who killed while poaching.

C. Conley, Certain Other Countries Homicide, Gender, and National Identity in Late Nineteenth-

Century England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, Ohio State University Press, 2007

1867-1892

Percent of apprehensions resulting in sentences of 30 days in prison or less for

assault and wife assault Scottish Summary Courts, 1889-1914

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10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Media discourse and domestic violence

‘We do not excuse the men, but there can be no doubt that in many

cases if the women managed better, they would not fare so badly.

Many men's homes are made utterly dull and comfortless, and even

repulsive to them by the slatternliness or stupidity of their partners.

And even where the housekeeping is good enough. . . the

housekeeper has become a permanent vixen or an intermittent

virago. In such circumstances a man is very strongly tempted. It is

extremely irritating to find himself neglected, defied, or domineered

over by a person who ought in duty and fairness to behave very

differently.’ Scotsman, 13th October 1871.

• Limited discursive pressure influencing public opinion and the policing priorities in relation to domestic violence

• Potential class-based concept of masculinity influencing policing

• Class differences between the police and the judiciary and media influences the ambiguity between apprehension and punishment.