Villadom, Burglary, and the Criminal Suburbanscape of London in the 1880s and 1890s

By addressing a specific intersection of suburban villadom and home security, this article interrogates how the offence of burglary carried deep implications for understanding the evolving concept of London’s criminal suburbanscape in the 1880s and 1890s. It argues that the popular representations of burglary in London-based periodicals not only reflect the social realities of criminality but also the history of crime and policing, weaving together the lived experience of London’s suburbanites. The expansion of villa suburbs typically carries connotations of fear and anxiety to involve thinking about the creation and dissemination of ‘the gentle art of burgling’, the growth of the private security industry, and the shifting significance of policing and crime prevention alongside the verbal and nonverbal representations of crime and criminals. At the heart of the article, therefore, are press depictions of how suburban burglary becomes an indicator for shaping visions of real-life exploits of criminals in the context of the New Journalism.