Gaskell's Reference to the Vagrancy Act
Gaskell’s
reference to the Vagrancy Act
The Vagrancy Act
passed in 1824, prohibited ‘a person from wandering abroad and lodging in such
places as barns or outhouses or deserted or unoccupied buildings and not giving
a good account of himself or herself.’ [1]
Mary McInstosh,
‘Vagrancy and Street Offences’, The British Journal of Criminology, 3,
(1975), pp.280-284.
The Vagrancy Act
of 1824 is the basis of most of the present provisions about vagrancy. It
enunciates rules for categorising people according to a hierarchy – “idle and
disorderly person”, “rogues and vagabonds”, and “incorrigible rogues” – and
specifies maximum sentences and fines for each category. These categories have
come, over the years, to be used for an absurdly wide range of behaviour,
extending far beyond “vagrancy” in its everyday sense. P.280
10 main headings:
‘sleeping rough, begging, fortune telling, peddling, indecent and obscene
displays in public places, indecent exposure, being found on enclosed premises,
being a suspected person, being armed with an offensive weapon, escaping from a
place of legal confinement.’
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| Vagrancy Act of 1824, Consortium for Street Children, accessed 12 August 2022 |
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