The Police Outrage - A Killing, a Coverup and a Campaign for Justice in Nineteenth-Century London

Join Dr Jonah Miller to explore a forgotten episode in the early history of British policing.

"The Police Outrage - A Killing, A Cover-up and a Campaign for Justice in 19th-Century London"

One summer night in 1851, a London police officer beat a young man to death in Plumtree Court, a predominantly Irish neighbourhood in the heart of the city. The Court was a notorious slum, attracting the attention of missionaries, sanitary inspectors, poor law officials, architectural reformers, metropolitan railway enthusiasts, and many others besides the police. After the killing, it became the centre of an attempted coverup, a Chartist-led campaign for justice, a public inquiry, and finally a trial.

About the Speaker:

Dr Jonah Miller is a research fellow at the University of Westminster. He is the author of Gender and Policing in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2023), as well as articles and essays on a variety of topics in British history from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. He is currently working on migration, housing, policing, and political campaigning in Victorian London. His next book, The Police Outrage, will be published by Penguin.