Plymouthhistory

Plymouth, Devonport and Stonehouse:
From the Peace of 1815 to the 1860s
The story of the early nineteenth-century Plymouth district is a tale of growth and expansion. It is
also indicative of a nationally occurring theme of urban centres attracting poor and unemployed
people, sparking a rise in all types of criminality and more importantly, a rise in the fear of crime.
The cessation of the wars in Europe (French Revolutionary Wars 1792–1802 and the Napoleonic
War 1803–1815) brought peacetime to Plymouth, Stonehouse and Plymouth Dock, as Devonport
was then known as. How the towns dealt with the difficulties of peace and urbanisation, along with
their failures to deal with these issues, gives each town an individual historiography. Each town
shall now have their social conditions examined separately, and the chapter will culminate with an
investigation into the primary common denominator between the places – crime.
Although Plymouth was better equipped than its neighbours to deal with the mass invasion of
unemployed sailors, soldiers and locals who depended on war for employment, the town still
suffered. The first two decades of the century saw an expansion of Plymouth as new affluent
suburbs were built to accommodate those who had profited from the wars, such as naval captains
and army officers. Wealthier classes were moving to the new neighbourhoods in the west (Millbay)
and north-west (New Town). This left the poorer inhabitants to crowd themselves into the large old
buildings in the centre that the wealthy people vacated.
By the late 1820s, Plymouth’s population had risen dramatically. An account from the
Victorian historian Henry Whitfeld indicates that the increasing population resulted in mass
unemployment, giving rise to gangs of desperate, bored young men and women ‘infesting’ the
town.
by
Marc
Partridge ©
Girardet's famous picture of Napoleon aboard HMS Bellerophon in
Plymouth Sound portrays the clamour of the people of the Three
Towns to see him, and the carnival-like atmosphere as they
celebrate the peace that his downfall would bring.