Previous chapters have demonstrated that complainants of fraud had a number of choices when using the law to seek redress for fraud. These choices ranged from the civil to the criminal law, and within the criminal law, a possible range of indictments and courts. As has been detailed in Chapter 3, fraud offences ranged from misdemeanours to felonies and consequently, any of the criminal courts from the summary to the assize may have been used for respective prosecutions.
This section of the chapter questions whether prosecutors of fraud were members of prosecution associations, and whether this had an effect on their choice to pursue their complaint of fraud criminally and in the most expensive criminal court. A brief overview of prosecution associations will be followed by consideration of a London prosecution association, The Society for the Protection of Trade against Swindler and Sharpers. Due to the nature of these associations, the focus will be upon prosecutions for non-naval frauds as such prosecutions are distinguishable by their quasi-official nature in that prosecutions were brought by state officials or agents.704
Prosecution Associations: a Background
Prosecution associations came into existence in the late-seventeenth century and continued in popularity until the mid-nineteenth century.705 Prosecution associations developed in order to make prosecutions cheaper for lay prosecutors by banding members together to form a type of insurance organisation that would cover the cost
704 See previous chapter
705 A Schubert, ‘Private initiative in law enforcement: associations for the prosecution of felons, 1744-1856’ in Victor Bailey (eds) Policing and Punishment in Nineteenth Century Britain. (London:
Croom Helm, 1981) p.25
186 of any future prosecution.706 These private institutions existed in ‘virtually every part of the country’707 and were generally made up of local property owners. The number of prosecution associations is not fully known, but they certainly numbered in the hundreds between the mid-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.708 In a time of private prosecutions, these associations ostensibly existed in order to reduce the cost and complications of securing justice through the criminal courts.
The associations were designed to pool the resources of their members, so that, should a member be a victim of a crime, they could rely on the association to either pay for this process or provide compensation. ‘Prosecution associations’ is a slightly misleading name as such associations often had wider and more nuanced purposes.
Some associations merely provided compensation for the loss of the goods, rather than funding any legal action. Other associations only assisted the advertising of stolen property or only the partial funding of any legal action. Likewise, some associations acted as a hue and cry-type association and would actively seek out perpetrators of crime, sending agents to neighbouring areas to investigate and actively search for illegally obtained property.709 These associations also ranged in the scope of the offences they helped to prosecute. King highlights that most prosecution associations in the eighteenth century only applied to specific offences such as cattle theft, housebreaking or highway robbery.710 This trend changed during the nineteenth century. From the end of the eighteenth century, there are more examples of associations prosecuting crimes other than larceny and burglary, such as crimes by soldiers, bread riots, or embezzlement of yarn.711 However, these associations were very much ephemeral, with their existence depending upon the crises to which they were reacting.
706 Langbein, Cambridge Law Journal p.344
707 Schubert, Policing and Punishment, p.25
708 Ibid p.27
709 David Philips, ‘Good Men to Associate and Bad Men to Conspire: Associations for the Prosecution of Felons in England, 1760-1860’, In Policing and Prosecution in Britain 1750-1850, eds. D. Hay and F. Snyder. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989), p.142
710 P J R King, ‘Prosecution Associations and their impact in Eighteenth Century Essex’ in Policing and Prosecution in Britain 1750-1850, eds. D. Hay and F. Snyder. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989) p.174
711 Ibid
187 Before turning to The Society for the Protection of Trade, it must be stressed that we cannot know how many of the 469 fraud indictments under scrutiny were brought by members of such organisations. The Proceedings make no reference to such associations in any of the relevant fraud cases, but this certainly does not mean that prosecutors were not members. With regard to the wider existence of prosecution associations, it is difficult to gauge their number or usage. Luckily there exists a cache of documentation relating to one particular prosecution association and this association was directly concerned with fraud.
The Society for the Protection of Trade against Swindlers and Sharpers
The Society for the Protection of Trade against Swindlers and Sharpers (henceforth referred to as ‘the Society’) was founded in London in 1776.712 There would have been other such trade associations during this period and, by 1866, these groups were amalgamated into the National Association of Trade Protection Societies.713 Fortunately, there are surviving records of the Society from between 1825 and 1835, including a large number of the notices that were sent to members and correspondence both to and from the Society’s secretaries.714 The existing records provide insights into the Society, as well as invaluable information as to how its members fought the onslaught of fraud in the nineteenth century. Before analysing the details of the records surrounding the Society, it is perhaps first useful to outline the nature of these records and what they can tell us more generally about the Society.
The Society published bi-monthly notices that it sent out to each of its members.
These notices contained a range of information, predominantly listing people to whom credit had been extended by one of the Society’s members, who had then either disappeared or was found to be a swindler. The records also contain details of the proposed members to the Society, along with their professions. There are also
712 Records can be found in The National Archive at C 114/34
713 Finn, Character of Credit p.290
714 I would like to thank Professor Margot Finn for bringing these records to my attention.
188 examples of the accounts of the Society that were sent to members and a small cache of correspondence both to and from the Society’s secretaries.
As with any voluntary organisation during the time, the scope of the responsibilities of prosecution associations were limited to the constitution of that particular association and Consequently, it is appropriate to use one such association as a focus upon which to inform understandings of the role that particular association played in the criminal justice system. By studying this particular society, we can gain insight into the common practices that traders used to deter, detect, and prosecute potential swindles.
The Society was highly organised and run by a strict set of rules. A recommended change in 1831 to ‘the 18th of the printed rules’ suggests that a constitution underpinned the running of the Society. Like many other such associations715, the Society employed a solicitor, Mr Thomas Miller of 22 Ely Place, Holborn. It is because of Mr Miller that the records survive. From its accounts, it is apparent that the Society had a full time secretary who was paid a very generous salary amounting to £628 including expenses. The Society also had its own Treasurer, Messrs Veres, Ward & Co of Lombard Street. The Society had quarterly meetings in the George and Vulture tavern on Cornhill, but the notices would suggest that attendance at such meetings needed to be encouraged. The committee incentivised attendance at the meeting with a policy that the first nine members who arrived at quarterly meetings and remained for the duration received three shillings. The Society had such healthy finances that it also invested some of the subsidies in financial speculations. There are no details of these investments, but they returned a bi-annual dividend of the usual three per cent, so it might be concluded that these investments were safe options such as government bonds.
Members
Fortunately the quarterly meetings of the Society were well-recorded and the minutes sent to members. These minutes, in the form of notices, included a list of
715 Schubert, Policing and Punishment p.32
189 the newly proposed members alongside their occupations and addresses. We know from the records that the Society was very large, receiving subscriptions from between 830 and 890 members, at an average of just over one pound per annum.
Lists of proposed members suggest that both companies and individuals could be members. The occupations of all the members cannot be ascertained, as the records do not include a full list of members. However, the notices detail the occupation of proposed members, which gives a very good indication of the background of members.
The Society membership appears diverse. Memberships of prosecution associations tended to be gentlemen, farmers, or tradesmen, depending upon the location and purpose of the association.716 The notices reflect that, as well as tradespeople, there were a large number of artisans such as brush makers, sack makers, hat makers, carpenters, and silversmiths. Overwhelmingly however, the members are tradespeople including a range of merchants, booksellers, drapers, and haberdashers. There is evidence of professional members such as land surveyors and solicitors, as well as a ‘gentleman’ member. Companies were also members of the Society. Of the 225 members recommended for election to the Society, 83 of these were companies. This is to be expected given the nature and purpose of the Society as a protection against threats to trade.
As detailed in Chapter 5, we must be very careful not to make too broad conclusions regarding the social status of members according to their occupations. However, what we can see is that the Society has a wide range of members, from the smaller artisan to the international merchant. The membership of the Society largely correlates with the occupation of prosecutions of fraud within the Old Bailey, with the largest proportion of members coming from trade.717 What all members have in common is that they all had property to protect and they all worked in industries and occupations that heavily relied upon the use of credit, both receiving and extending.
The diverse membership of the Society supports Schubert’s claim that membership
716 Philips, Policing and Punishment p.132
717 See Chapter 5