The Monster Evil: Policing and Violence in Victorian Liverpool

During the nineteenth century, Liverpool had a notorious reputation as a dangerous, violent, crime-ridden city. Yet were these fears justified? Or were they rather the sensational inventions of Victorian-era news?

The Monster Evil explores Liverpool’s history of violent crime and its policing by the then-new constabulary through the use of police records, local and national press, and contemporary accounts of the violence confronting constables on night patrol. The first significant account of nineteenth-century violence in a British city, this book covers the entire spectrum of violent crime, from murder to drunken assault, and sheds light on the role of the police in combating it.