This article is a case study of two Glasgow police officers tried at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh accused of attempting to rape a young working-class woman. The assault occurred against the backdrop of the bitter Leith dock strike in 1913, was debated in the highest political and legal offices, and exposed questionable practices within the Scottish criminal justice system. The article argues that the narrative, and the ethnographic detail it reveals about police collusion and cover-up, exposes how the police across the ranks of multiple forces fostered a culture of self-protection that shielded sexual abusers within their own institutions. In doing this, it provides the first in-depth historical account of how 'structural misogyny' and the infamous 'blue code of silence' played out in practice and underpinned police culture. The case study underscores the difficulties victims of sexual assault faced in having their complaints taken seriously by those entrusted with enforcing the law. Community action and external political pressure were, it is argued, necessary to force the hands of the authorities, albeit with limited success.
This article examines the changing geographical distribution of crimes prosecuted at the Old Bailey (1720-1820) using the mapping facilities on the website Locating London's Past. By assessing the impact of the reform of the night watch, the creation of new 'rotation offices' and the development of forms of proactive policing, it argues that changing patterns of prosecutions reflect changes in policing and access to justice rather than the incidence of crime. The evidence presented here suggests, first, that improvements to the night watch made little difference to patterns of prosecution; second, that the rotation offices had a limited but measurable impact; and, third, that the development of investigative policing transformed the level and geographical distribution of prosecutions in the latter half of our period of study. A pattern whereby prosecutions were heavily concentrated in the West End in the early eighteenth century was replaced by a more even distribution (with the exception of the City), mapping closely onto the distribution of changes in policing. The article expands our understanding of the significance of new forms of professional justice and policing, and highlights their role in disrupting social relations in London by removing criminal accusations from the community.
Agriculture plays a key role in the history of Italian Fascism. In 1925 Mussolini proclaimed the 'Battle for Grain' to reduce wheat imports and increase self-sufficiency, and between 1928 and 1933 the laws of 'integral reclamation' were passed to provide new land for cultivation. These measures fostered the growth in professional and political recognition of technicians in agriculture: both agricultural economists who graduated from universities and agricultural experts trained in technical middle schools (periti agrari). This article examines how agricultural technicians under-stood the relationship between the Fascist state and their profes-sional identities. Like all professional groups, they were engaged in building a specific union for agricultural technicians during fascism. This union was at the forefront of political and cultural life, as agricultural technicians created some of the most emble-matic public exhibitions to mark the triumphs of Fascist Italy and the achievements of technology.
This article reconstructs and explains the introduction and spread of plague in the Great Lakes region of East Africa in the pre- and early colonial period (c.1700-1900). It argues that plague arrived and focalised in the region, which was marked by isolation from the outside world, towards the end of the seventeenth century and in unique circum-stances of human migration, triggered by climatic anomaly and environ-mental factors. The most likely route of introduction was along the Nile, from Egypt and Sudan. Subsequent spread waves, each characterised by different spatio-temporal contours, were triggered largely by anthropo-genic and demographic factors (including conflicts and human migra-tion), but it was not until the colonial period that the disease left the region and spread farther east to the Swahili Coast and beyond. The article conjoins both textual and non-textual evidence, including recent palaeogenetic work (the study of ancient DNA), to demonstrate the value of an inherently interdisciplinary approach to plague history.
This study looks into a previously unnoticed rise of eugenic concepts in Polish legal and medical discourses in the late 1950s. It took the form of a newspaper debate about policies pertaining to children with intellectual disabilities. By examining the viewpoints of civic leaders, attorneys, physicians and social workers, I show that eugenic solutions were frequently sought to remedy the flaws of the care system for such children. I examine the issue in light of the political, socio-economic and ideological constraints that the social welfare system and the medical sciences were subject to at the time. While eugenic concepts were suppressed during the Stalinist era, its proponents pushed actively to bring them back into the mainstream after it ended. This, I argue, disproves the generally held idea that when Nazi crimes committed in the name of racial hygiene were revealed, eugenics was generally rejected.
This article explores institutionalised labour migration from socialist Yugoslavia to Western capitalist countries, focusing on the recruitment of female labour migrants. By examining Yugoslav archival sources, it investigates the mechanisms of migration control and management developed by the Yugoslav government to discharge labour surplus to the West in accordance with state interests. The article highlights the alignment of women's unemployment and increased social mobility with these processes; further, it demonstrates that from the onset of Yugoslavia's liberalised labour migration policy, women were integral to the state's efforts to employ labour surplus in Western labour markets and shape labour migrants' demographic and socio-economic characteristics. Thus, the article expands the understanding of Yugoslav labour migration and governmental and institutional efforts to control and shape international migrations and underscores the value of archived sources in providing a comprehensive understanding of the state's role in labour migrations.
Leprosy was a widespread disease in pre-colonial and colonial northern Nigeria, and the British colonial authority's determination to control the ailment inspired partnerships involving Christian missions and Native Authorities, leading to the creation of leprosaria in some provinces of the region in the mid-1930s. This article examines the distinctive experience of Bauchi Province in northern Nigeria, where the commencement of the Sudan Interior Mission's leprosy work was significantly delayed due to the distrust and denial displayed by the provincial authorities, and analyses archival documents, oral interviews and secondary data sources to underscore the interplay of colonialism, religion and local politics, assessing their influence on leprosy control. We examine the events leading up to the establishment of the Bayara Leprosarium in Bauchi Province in 1952, tracing its evolution and assessing its subsequent social impact. Despite the delay, we show that the subsequent commencement of leprosy work yielded effective leprosy control, the medical training of indigenous staff, and internal migration to the area, fostering a more harmonious relationship between the government and medical-missionary activity in Bauchi Province.
Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, shifts in consumption patterns gave individuals access to cheaper substitutes for quality goods, which though less expensive were of lower quality. This led to an increased consumption and accumulation of objects, which eventually flooded the second-hand market. While the literature often portrays this trend as 'luxury for the poor', emphasising its positive outcomes, it is not yet clear how it affected the saving behaviours of the lower strata. This article investigates precisely how this transition to a new and cheaper material culture affected the credit potential and pawning practices of the lower social strata. To this end, it focuses on the pawnbroking activity of Venetian innkeepers and bastioneri, wine sellers. The analysis draws on a database of approximately 3500 objects pledged between 1698 and 1798. The research highlights the dynamic interplay between material culture, consumption patterns and access to credit in shaping socio-economic realities during the early modern period. The study reveals a decline in the purchasing power of the lower strata, and a gradual erosion of their saving capacity. The changing composition of the pawn basket over time suggests the growing general impoverishment of the local population and an increase in real inequalities.
