Dark Side of the Cut: A History of Crime on Britain’s Canals

Canals were the lifeblood of the Industrial Revolution, but prosperity had its price: crime. From the earliest days, canals had a shady reputation, and in Victorian Britain disturbing facts emerged to reveal the hidden side of the water, isolated places where sinister figures lurked in the shadows. When a brutal murder in 1839 created a national outcry, it seemed to confirm all the worst fears about boatmen, a tough breed of men surviving harsh conditions, who enforced their own kind of rough justice, and were swiftly branded as outlaws by the press. Drawing on a rich collection of original sources, this new study by historian Susan Law brings to life dramatic stories, gruesome, shocking and tragic. These evocative snapshots uncover the secret world of the waterways set apart on the edge of society, to reveal the real human cost of the Industrial Revolution.