Crime and Punishment in Victorian London

Crime looms large in the minds of Victorian Londoners. Burglaries are rife, and people fall victim to all kinds of ingenious swindles. Pornographers proliferate and an estimated 80,000 prostitutes operate on London's streets.   

Criminals caught by London's new police force are sentenced to prisons with experimental regimes or sent to the hulks moored in the Thames. The condemned provide gruesome theatre for the crowds on hanging days.

Discover Victorian London's grimy rookeries, home to thousands of the city's poorest and most desperate residents. Explore the crime-ridden slums, flash houses and gin palaces from a unique street-level view and meet the people who inhabited them.