Gangs of London: 2000 Years of Violence and Criminal Behaviour
The streets of London are the stage of a daily war. It is the worst it has ever been, newspapers frequently report. The actors are young men with guns and knives. No two commentators seem in agreement as to the object; it might be about drugs, it may be about territory, or it may be about repute. One thing is for certain: it is part of the city now. Gang warfare has created an informal geography of the city. Hackney streets are known colloquially as Murder Mile.
What the newspapers fail to mention is that London has never been a safe place to live. The city has since its earliest history seen violent clashes between opposing groups.
London's Prehistoric Battles
Weaponry is well represented among prehistoric finds of the London area. Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age flint battle axes and maces are found strewn about the landscape. From the later Bronze Age and from the Iron Age, the bottom of the Thames provides us with bronze and iron weapons, both native and imports from France, Germany and Ireland.
Who used these weapons and against whom? In the case of the older stone weapons, we simply do not know. The marked change in the Bronze Age and Iron Age may indicate an increase of conflict and a change in type of conflict, more specifically an increase of battles taking place at rivers or fords as per several later Celtic legends. The weapons found in the Thames might then have been lost during battle, presumably over rule of the London area. The newly more settled nature of south Britons at this time might account for the concentration of finds.
The evidence may also indicate something else entirely. That is, a change in ritual life. The weapons could have been deposited as grave goods in the river burial of a warrior whose body is now long gone. Given the ceremonially broken and largely ornamental nature of many weapons found in the Thames, they may also have been offerings to river deities, a class of divinity common across Europe in this period.
Foreign Celtic Invaders Fighting it Out For the Thames Valley
The only contemporary people to write of those living in the London area in this pre-Roman age were the Romans themselves. Through them we know, and we can verify through coinage, that two great Celtic tribes inhabited the Greater London area: the Trinovantes and the Catuvellauni.
At the time of his unsuccessful invasion in 55-54 BCE, Julius Caesar considered the Trinovantes the most powerful tribe in Britain. The archaeological record indicates that they were not a native British tribe, but rather one of the many tribes originating around modern Belgium to raid and settle in England in the 2nd century BCE. We do not know if they met violent opposition, nor who controlled the London area before them.
Indeed, we do not even know how the Trinovantes eventually lost prominence and control of the London area to the Catuvellauni, another powerful tribe of Belgic origin, by the time the Romans invaded again in 43 CE. Coinage indicates that a Catuvellaunian king by the name of Tasciovanus had taken over the Trinovantean town of Colchester by 15 CE. Due to the similar nature of the two tribes, we can at best only assume that the conflict was territorial, over riches and power.
The Civilising Power of Rome, or Lack of Evidence?
The Roman invasion of Britain, begun in 43 CE, saw the founding of the city of London. There is little evidence to recall the street-life and violent crime of Roman London. Though the Boudiccan and Carausian Revolts of 60 and 286-296 CE respectively, hoping to drive Rome out, brought violence into the city, it cannot be said if it was a constant presence. There is evidence suggesting violence among groups, for example the Christians against members of the Cult of Mithras, but it's difficult to say whether the threat was felt by Londoners at large.
After the Romans retracted from Britain, neither historical nor archaeological data will tell us what happened to London. Perhaps it was rioted and looted by Germanic invaders or local outlaws, accounting for its decline. We can imagine that crime and violence must have gone up without a local power to keep the peace, although it is possible that a local chieftain took on that task. It is not until the city becomes Saxon that it enters the historical record once again.
Everyone Germanic Wants a Piece of London
Not a single stone of Saxon London remains. Not much more is known about its inhabitants, but they certainly knew
The attacks then came from Denmark. The historian, and erroneously saint, Bede notes that there was great slaughter in the city as a result. In 871 these Vikings may even have controlled the city. They were eventually forced back by Alfred the Great and by 886 English rule of London were clearly established.
The Viking raids began anew in the 10th century. The city came under siege several times and was eventually ruled by the Danes. The Saxon line only returned in 1042, when Edward the Confessor became king. When he died, the throne was claimed by William the Conqueror, though his claim was not uncontested and thus the Norman invasion of 1066 was launched.
The disputes for London at this time were largely territorial. It was an extant and defendable city in the interior of the country with a formidable trading port. The Romans chose the perfect location. Though the opposing sides sometimes also held differing religious beliefs, this has been of more interest to historians like Bede than it probably was to those fighting the wars.
Nightly Carnage in Medieval London
Medieval London was wrought with violence and crime. The impulse to form groups was incredibly strong, which did nothing to quell the rampant bloodshed. Excessive alcohol consumption was so common in the early 14th century that it is estimated that each month at least two Londoners died in drunken disputes. The fighting that started in the tavern often escalated into minor wars between groups. The mutual affiliation which they clung to was their craft. Should a tanner and a farrier find themselves in a late night brawl, it might escalate to deadly proportions.
This sort of group cohesion was common in the late middle ages and not at all exclusive to London. Many British cities saw outbursts of similar violent behaviour, the most persistent being perhaps those known today as the town and gown riots between townsfolk and university students.
In April of 1339, representatives of the king set up for a public announcement in front of St Paul’s Cathedral. Their message was a plea for all brawling and rioting to stop, lest it encouraged the king’s enemies to act against him as he engaged in war with France. Inter-craft riots greatly affected city politics.
Meanwhile, Peasant Revolt, the storming of the Tower of London, the War of the Roses, and the Hundred Years’ War saw to it that violence was ever present and ever threatening to Londoners.
The distinction between the outlaw and the law-abiding in this period is not as clear-cut as our romanticised view with heroes such as Robin Hood. Members of bandit gangs were often ordinary craftsmen by day. No one was safe from accusation of participating in the city’s underworld, not even clerics.
There were gang wars, but the gangs were not necessarily what we consider outlaws.
Can we Speak of an Age of Englightenment?
The names of gangs offer us a quick glimpse into what bound them together. In the late middle ages it was craft and social status; the early modern period, in which gangs had more of an outlaw nature, saw naming according to ethnicity, city geography and leaders. The gangs carried names such as the Black Boy Alley Gang, the Gang of White Boys in Ireland or Moll Raby’s Gang.
As today, ethnic affiliation was important in the creation of the gang as well as in the public perception of criminal behaviour. Any Irish name was so distrusted that some jurors thought having one was on its own reason enough to be hanged.
London from the 16th century and onwards shows the classical signs of organised criminal behaviour: organised prostitution and the organised selling of stolen goods. It was also the era of London’s first crime boss: Jonathan Wild. He divided London up amongst the gangs and organised their activities. It all started with Wild buying the stolen goods of other criminals. He set himself up to the upperworld as a retriever of lost items and worked with the law in building a case and arresting other criminals. That way, his power in the underworld rose that way and when someone crossed him he framed them and handed them over to the authorities. Once convicted, the law did not permit them to testify against Wild.
The jurors of the time did not care to comment on the violence between criminal groups. The violence of the gangs against the general population, however, is well known:
The Damned Crewe (or Damed Crew), perhaps originally known as the Cursed Crue, appeared at the end of the 1500s, a group of violent desperados “without feare, or feeling, eyther of Hell or Heauen”. They were associated with numerous riots as well as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, and a great amount was written about them contemporaneously as though they were the worst sort of perjurers and assassins. Some modern historians, however, believe the stories about the Crewe to stem mostly from the overheated imaginations of contemporary moralists.
Likewise, some 18th century commentators thought that the stories of Mohock brutality were sensationalist and exaggerated. Whigs and Tories made political capital of the fear of gang violence and newspapers increased sales reporting about it. This particular gang was first heard of in March 1712, when it was said they made the streets unsafe with copious amounts of violence. The press coverage, and the fear that gripped the city, disappeared nearly as quickly as it arose. By the summer that same year, they were forgotten.
Even so, rioting was a very real threat. In 1780 protestant Lord George Gordon protested against Catholic lenient lawmaking by inciting his fellow Londoners with fear of absolute monarchism and loyalty to Rome over Britain, and leading a march against parliament that ended in violence. The Gordon Riots were not exceptional; religion was at the heart of many attacks, both real and perceived. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and the Great Fire of London 1666 were both, perhaps unfairly, blamed on Catholics.
Other riotous acts occurred against foreigners, such as the Evil May riots of 1517, when a mob of a thousand young men freed prisoners of xenophobic crimes and attacked and looted houses in areas of high foreign populations.
Universal Desires Over the Millennia
Like in the early modern period, the gangs of London today are often tied together by ethnicity, although shared ethnicity does not preclude aggression. They fight for power, for money, and for territory, as have so often been the reasons for bloodspill on London’s streets. It would seem that everyone wants London, and those who cannot have it all will settle for having it in part.
The exception is the medieval craftsmen. They did not want London; they wanted respect, as is often too the case today, unfortunately, when young armed men meet after dark.
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