2025/02/10 by Jeremy Black · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Historical Economic and Social Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/1468-229x.70002
openalex publication_date 2025/02/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
The nature of British society under the pressure of total war has attracted much interest of late. Moreover, this has been a period that was covered by some noted detective novelists, notably Carol Rivett writing as E.C.R. Lorac, as well as Agatha Christie. Amy Bell, Professor of History at Huron University College and already the author of major works on London and crime, has added to her reputation with a well-researched account of murders there, one organised in terms of the city's geography. Two introductory chapters are followed by others on bombsites and shelters; pubs and clubs; home; dark streets; waste ground; and food stalls and cafés, before an ‘Aftermath’ chapter that focuses in particular on 10 Rillington Place. This is history from the perspective of individuals, and Bell is able to capture wartime society through the many murders of the period. In some respects, it is surprising there were not more. In the early years of the war, most murders were committed in a domestic setting, including the murder of spouses as well as supposed ‘mercy’ killings within families, a product of wartime fears that was also differently seen with the large-scale killing of pets. Some ‘mercy killings’ faced the law of 1821 stating that a surviving partner of a suicide pact was guilty of murder. In the second half of the war, in contrast, there was violence on the streets, with more random and opportunistic killings in which drink and sex played a major role. Bell plays a major role in focusing on the victims, the number of whom rose, from a pre-war yearly average of 250–300 for England and Wales to 406 in 1942 and 492 in 1945, a 75 year high. In London, the recorded murders rose from 46 in 1939 to 59 in 1943 and 66 in 1945. Many more may have been left undiscovered. The discovery of a corpse in the River Lea in Luton in November 1943 was followed by the police tracing or excluding 404 missing women. Rivers were also where the bodies of newborn infants were most likely to be found during the war. Bell probes many factors, for example, the ambition of particular policemen and issues over sentencing, both seen in the Mancini case in 1941. His execution after a murderous club fight is presented as leading to fewer gang brawls. Sex is a major theme in killings; sex including rape, jealousy, deaths during abortions as well as infanticides in plenty. Women's lives were more in danger from illegal abortions, the fatal number of which rose greatly, than from murder by strangers. Violent attacks on people of colour reflected the increased racial tension in public spaces during wartime, but Bell argues that what was striking was the solidarity and help given to Black men who were attacked. Bell offers an impressive social history, one that deserves attention.