‘A Shocking State of Domestic Unhappiness’: Male Victims of Female Violence and the Courts in Late Nineteenth Century Stafford

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a thoughtful and timely exploration of an issue that has, as the author points out, been almost entirely overlooked by scholars. To the best knowledge of this reviewer, it represents the first attempt to examine women's violence towards their partners during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as a discrete dataset in its own right. As such, it provides a fascinating insight into how the courts dealt with male victims of violence committed by women that they had romantic relationships with in late nineteenth century England.  As the author notes, the limitations of the surviving records make this a very difficult group to identify and analyse, making this contribution to the field all the more important.

I read the article with great pleasure, and think it is very nearly ready for publication, with only a few amendments needed to the current version. Most of these, as can be seen below, are about signposting the argument more clearly in places. This is a strong piece of work, but I hope the suggestions below will strengthen it further and can be carried out relatively quickly. As a starting point, it is important for the author to consult Ginger Frost's article 'He Could Not Hold His Passions: Domestic Violence and Cohabitation in England (1850-1905)', Crime, History & Societies, (2008) 12: 45-63, which includes reference to a small number of cohabiting women who were accused of violence towards the man they lived with as well as examining men's violence towards female partners, and think about how the arguments made in this work relate to their own exciting and original findings. Crucially, I also think the title needs to change slightly to both pluralise 'court' (since this actually cites cases that were heard at the petty sessions, Quarter Sessions, and Assizes) and remove/amend reference to 'marital violence' (and likewise include use of a different term throughout the main text) since the article actually deals with cases where both married and unmarried women were accused of attacking their male partner? References specifically to 'marital violence' in the title and indeed the article itself are thus a touch problematic as they stand - what alternative term(s) might be more applicable? 

Specific suggestions:

Line 14 - In the last sentence of the abstract, 'unsympathetic of' I think needs changing to either 'unsympathetic towards' or 'unsympathetic to'? 

Line 27- Might want to change 'Stafford magistrates' to 'local magistrates' or similar in order to avoid repeating the name of the town twice in the same sentence?

Line 28 - Might also wish to cite & direct readers to a great article on women's experiences of Stafford prison specifically in this period by Jo Turner & Helen Johnston, 'Female prisoners, aftercare and release: residential provision and support in late nineteenth-century England', British Journal of Community Justice (2015) 13: 35-50?

Lines 42-43 - Would recommend splitting this sentence into two separate ones, and making the point that Thomas never having been charged was not the same as being able to determine he was never violent a separate point?

Line 45 - Perhaps swap word order of 'twice prosecuted' (but completely appreciate this is a matter of individual taste!)

Line 49 - Would the author consider replacing 'places such as Stafford' with 'provincial English towns'? Partly this is to avoid repeating the name of the town too often, but also because while naturally this article is focusing on rigorous analysis of the evidence related to Stafford itself, this point can be broadly applied to late nineteenth century urban Britain, and I think it will be good to remind the reader more directly that these 'normal backgrounds' of couples like the Coulson's applied to thousands of women and men across England in this period.

Line 51- Perhaps replace 'aged twenty years' with 'twenty years old'? (Again, I do appreciate this is a matter of individual taste)

Line 55 - Completely agree with the author that other Stafford couples (and quite possibly elsewhere) had similar stories, as this article neatly demonstrates, but perhaps good to flag quickly in this sentence how the author has been able to match them as relatively typical?

Lines 55-60 - Sentence beginning 'It was the reporting of 56 the imprisonment for twenty-one days hard labour...' is currently rather awkwardly worded. It might also be helpful as part of revising this sentence, since this currently goes across 6 lines of text, to split into two shorter, pithier sentences?  

Lines 63-68 - Sentence beginning 'At that hearing...' needs splitting into two separate sentences. I also think it would be worthwhile explaining to readers what a 'separation order' actually was (and perhaps also worth spelling out that prior to twentieth century legislative reforms divorce was almost impossible to secure), just to ensure that this is clear to those coming to this article without a background in late nineteenth century British history. I think it would also be great to make a bit more of the very gendered nature of separation orders and how the magistrates have tried to interpret this power in light of Edwin's request? This is a fascinating example of how complicated and sometimes unexpected decisions made by the courts might be!

Line 72 - Perhaps add a qualified such as 'complicated further in this instance' immediately before 'male victim's reticence'?

Line 73 - I do appreciate that lack of detail in the records is a mammoth problem for this subject, but given how wildly varying different court records in different regional/national/chronological contexts can be in terms of what they contain, perhaps signpost for the reader what this specifically means in relation to the exciting Staffordshire materials cited in this article before expanding on this subject below?

Line 74 - I think the current 'usual' was actually meant to be 'unusual'?

Line 75- I think 'overt' might be better replaced with an alternative word?

Lines 77-80 - Might this sentence be reworded?

Lines 81-84 - For the benefit of readers unfamiliar with the different jurisdictions, processes and surviving records of the Stafford Borough Petty Sessions, Quarter Sessions and relevant Assizes, we need rather more details about what this actually meant for these prisoners, including that magistrates routinely dealt with cases of domestic violence in late nineteenth and early twentieth century England. Obviously this explanation does not need to be exhaustive, but it would be enormously beneficial to spell out more clearly to readers how the court system worked in this period and why, for example, it was possible in extreme cases for someone to be brought before the Stafford magistrates in the first instance but end up tried for a felony at the Stafford branch of the Oxford Assize Circuit? What sorts of records were used? What issues do these represent? (I am aware some of this is engaged with in pp.4-5, but this is rather too late for the reader). How *many* such cases were found, and of these, what proportion were necessarily then sent to the Quarter Sessions or the Assizes? (I am assuming very few went to the Assizes, for example, and unless these were murder cases then depositions are unlikely to have survived at the National Archives, but most nonspecialists will erroneously assume that full trial transcripts were routinely preserved at all British courts from the magistrates up). For a start, these are potentially three different courts based in Stafford itself, and so it seems important to reflect on the extent to which those different venues and individuals might have shared or differed in attitudes: for example, did magistrates claim special expertise in regard to domestic violence cases since they encountered them so frequently? Were assize judges less sympathetic to claims of marital violence because the crimes were perceived or actually more severe than those of the lower courts? Why was the time period 1880-1905 selected? (I am sure the author had an excellent reason for doing this, but this is not immediately obvious at the moment). It would be really helpful to draw in this explanation on texts such as Helen Johnston's 2015 book 'Crime in England 1815-1880: Experiencing the criminal justice system' (though I recognize that of course this deals with the period immediately before this article). This all really does need much more elaboration than is currently the case: at the moment this summary does not do justice to the detailed and rigorous research and analysis that the author has evidently carried out for the article.

Lines 94-97 - Might be helpful to spell out specifically that while, distressingly a certain degree of domestic abuse was tacitly condoned by Victorian culture as 'not to be interfered with', this did not actually make it *legal* to commit such violence.

Line 101 - I think this should be 'in 1889' not 'was 1889'?

Lines 103-104 - Did the author mean 'cohabiting couples' rather than 'married couples'? Does the article also deal with violence committed by women towards men they cohabited with but were not married to? There were important legal and cultural distinctions in dealing with these two groups, even when contemporaries recognized certain individual long term partnerships as very much the emotional and familial equivalents of marriage (cf. Frost, 'He Could Not Hold His Passions'). (It became clear later on that the article also dealt with cohabiting couples, but I wanted to leave the note here as it was first written when I read through for the first time).

Lines 118-119 - Two uses of 'has written about' in the same sentence, would advise reframing one of these

Lines 123-129: Might also wish to cite Davies (1999) here as well as later in the article?

Line 135 - Which specific records was Godfrey referring to here? The judicial statistics?

Lines 138-139 - Suggest moving 'during the late nineteenth century' to immediately after 'towards other women' in this sentence from its current position

Lines 141-144: Might also wish to cite Gail Savage's essay '"A State of Personal Danger": Domestic Violence in England, 1903-1922' in Katherine D. Watson (ed.) Assaulting the Past: Placing Violence in Historical Context (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007)?

Line 150 - Did the author mean 'prevents', 'prevented' or (which would seem perfectly appropriate in context) both past AND present tense here?

Line 159 - Perhaps simply start the sentence here 'These court records provide no detail...'?

Lines 169-172: I found the sentence beginning 'Generally,...' to be a bit confusingly worded - could this perhaps be revised more clearly?

Line 174- Might want to note that such journalists for the provincial and even national press were invariably anonymous until well into the 20th century?

Lines 177-178 - Might want to avoid two uses of the word 'detail' in one sentence here

Lines 180-186 - The wording of this is currently rather confusing. Is the article based on 110 cases of women being violent towards their partner, which is my current impression at this point in the article? (And were all these women married to their victim or not, which potentially had an impact on the attitude of the court in dealing with them? This really does need to be made explicit right from the start of the article). Are these 110 cases also part of a larger dataset for another project, which the current wording implies? Or were there 110 cases found by the author and women accused of violence towards male partners are a smaller number (if so, as would seem to be the case from reading p.10, I must stress that a smaller number of such cases being found and analysed would not in any way reduce the originality and rigor of the article, but it would be great to be clearer about signposting this throughout). Would it be useful to cite a relevant article or other work on life grid methodology for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with this analytical framework? (For example the relevant pages of Barry Godfrey, Pamela Cox, Heather Shore and Zoe Alker's book 'Young Criminal Lives: Life Courses and Life Chance from 1850' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)?

Lines 187-192 - I thought this sentence might benefit from being split into two shorter sentences: at the moment the thread gets a little lost. 

Lines 193-195 - I am sure there were a number of long term partnerships that we would certainly consider equivalent to marriage (and so may have late 19th/early 20th C contemporaries) in the working-class community of Stafford - but how does the author know? Is this from consulting Jo Turner's excellent doctoral work?  (If so, a reference to this thesis, already cited in the article, is also needed here). Is it from the archival sources used for the article, or other materials such as press reports generated at the time? Would it be helpful to also cite Joanne Klein, 'Irregular Marriages: Unorthodox Working-Class Domestic Life in Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester, 1900-1939', Journal of Family History (2005) 30: 210-229?

Line 205 - Might want to add 'often seen as', or some other qualifier, between 'was' and 'an'?

Line 216 - Should 'for' be 'from' here?

Lines 218-219 - Would advise changing either 'appearing' or 'appearance' in this sentence to avoid repeating the expression

Lines 221-224 - The sentence beginning 'What is clear...' is awkwardly worded, please rephrase this more smoothly

Line 279 - Why just over half? (I am sure there was an excellent reason for this, but its not clear at present)

Lines 296-301 - Would recommend splitting sentence beginning 'In all the cases of neglect...' into two separate sentences

Lines 327-328 - I take the point about its cultural and chronological specificity, but can it really be described as a 'particular late nineteenth and early twentieth century crime' given the horrific recent cases of acid throwing in 21st century Britain that garnered substantial media attention?

Line 330 - 'Of the violence cases' might be better reworded?

Lines 408-409 - Aha! The article is based on 18 cases, then? I don't feel this in any way detracts from its importance or the contribution this makes to the field - but this needs to be flagged up much, much earlier than page ten please!! I also think the author does not do themselves justice by using the word 'mentioned' here, which undercuts the originality of the article - I think something bolder (perhaps 'analysed'?) would be better.

Lines 412-415 - Best to revise sentence to avoid starting with 'Maybe'?

Lines 416-418 - Again, this seems to be referring to a different project that is outside the scope of the article: how might this be reworded?

Lines 418-421 - There seem to be words missing from the sentence beginning 'Although few...' : it might also be worth splitting this into two separate sentences as part of revision?

The references also need to be gone through carefully to ensure that these all correspond with the journal's house style, as a few errors have crept in to these (a common problem for all authors when editing a manuscript immediately before submission!): so for example endnote 9 line 456 has accidentally kept 'Level of Thesis' rather than 'PhD Thesis'.

I very much hope that the author finds these suggestions helpful in making the necessary changes to the current version, and I would be more than happy to clarify any of the points raised via the editors if they have any questions.

Author Response

Many thanks for your comments and for taking the time to go through the original manuscript so thoroughly. The article is much better for the revisions you suggested. I have taken all your suggestions on board and changed the manuscript in light of all of them. Please see below for my responses to your suggestions.  Please note that the revised manuscript has both improvements in light of your comments and the improvements in relation to the second reviewer’s comments.

This is a thoughtful and timely exploration of an issue that has, as the author points out, been almost entirely overlooked by scholars. To the best knowledge of this reviewer, it represents the first attempt to examine women's violence towards their partners during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as a discrete dataset in its own right. As such, it provides a fascinating insight into how the courts dealt with male victims of violence committed by women that they had romantic relationships with in late nineteenth century England.  As the author notes, the limitations of the surviving records make this a very difficult group to identify and analyse, making this contribution to the field all the more important. Thank you

I read the article with great pleasure, and think it is very nearly ready for publication, with only a few amendments needed to the current version. Most of these, as can be seen below, are about signposting the argument more clearly in places. This is a strong piece of work, but I hope the suggestions below will strengthen it further and can be carried out relatively quickly. As a starting point, it is important for the author to consult Ginger Frost's article 'He Could Not Hold His Passions: Domestic Violence and Cohabitation in England (1850-1905)', Crime, History & Societies, (2008) 12: 45-63, which includes reference to a small number of cohabiting women who were accused of violence towards the man they lived with as well as examining men's violence towards female partners, and think about how the arguments made in this work relate to their own exciting and original findings.  References to Frost’s article now integrated. I agree, it was an omission that has now been considered and incorporated. I didn’t find any difference between married and unmarried couples, probably because the number of cases is so small

Crucially, I also think the title needs to change slightly to both pluralise 'court' (since this actually cites cases that were heard at the petty sessions, Quarter Sessions, and Assizes)  Done. However, the cases of domestic violence with a male victim only came before the magistrates although the original dataset includes female offenders who came before each of these courts – a note to that effect is now included in the article.

and remove/amend reference to 'marital violence' (and likewise include use of a different term throughout the main text) since the article actually deals with cases where both married and unmarried women were accused of attacking their male partner? References specifically to 'marital violence' in the title and indeed the article itself are thus a touch problematic as they stand - what alternative term(s) might be more applicable?  Done. I have simply used the phrase female violence and removed any reference to ‘marital’ violence.

Specific suggestions:

Line 14 - In the last sentence of the abstract, 'unsympathetic of' I think needs changing to either 'unsympathetic towards' or 'unsympathetic to'? Done. ‘Unsympathetic towards’ used

Line 27- Might want to change 'Stafford magistrates' to 'local magistrates' or similar in order to avoid repeating the name of the town twice in the same sentence? Done. ‘Local magistrates’ used.

Line 28 - Might also wish to cite & direct readers to a great article on women's experiences of Stafford prison specifically in this period by Jo Turner & Helen Johnston, 'Female prisoners, aftercare and release: residential provision and support in late nineteenth-century England', British Journal of Community Justice (2015) 13: 35-50? Done, but a few lines later in the manuscript as it seemed to fit better at the slightly later point.

Lines 42-43 - Would recommend splitting this sentence into two separate ones, and making the point that Thomas never having been charged was not the same as being able to determine he was never violent a separate point? Done

Line 45 - Perhaps swap word order of 'twice prosecuted' (but completely appreciate this is a matter of individual taste!) Done  

Line 49 - Would the author consider replacing 'places such as Stafford' with 'provincial English towns'? Partly this is to avoid repeating the name of the town too often, but also because while naturally this article is focusing on rigorous analysis of the evidence related to Stafford itself, this point can be broadly applied to late nineteenth century urban Britain, and I think it will be good to remind the reader more directly that these 'normal backgrounds' of couples like the Coulson's applied to thousands of women and men across England in this period. Done

Line 51- Perhaps replace 'aged twenty years' with 'twenty years old'? (Again, I do appreciate this is a matter of individual taste) Done

Line 55 - Completely agree with the author that other Stafford couples (and quite possibly elsewhere) had similar stories, as this article neatly demonstrates, but perhaps good to flag quickly in this sentence how the author has been able to match them as relatively typical? Done

Lines 55-60 - Sentence beginning 'It was the reporting of 56 the imprisonment for twenty-one days hard labour...' is currently rather awkwardly worded. It might also be helpful as part of revising this sentence, since this currently goes across 6 lines of text, to split into two shorter, pithier sentences? Done   

Lines 63-68 - Sentence beginning 'At that hearing...' needs splitting into two separate sentences. I also think it would be worthwhile explaining to readers what a 'separation order' actually was (and perhaps also worth spelling out that prior to twentieth century legislative reforms divorce was almost impossible to secure), just to ensure that this is clear to those coming to this article without a background in late nineteenth century British history. I think it would also be great to make a bit more of the very gendered nature of separation orders and how the magistrates have tried to interpret this power in light of Edwin's request? This is a fascinating example of how complicated and sometimes unexpected decisions made by the courts might be! Done. I have added in an explanation of separation orders and discussed the use of judicial discretion.

Line 72 - Perhaps add a qualified such as 'complicated further in this instance' immediately before 'male victim's reticence'? Done

Line 73 - I do appreciate that lack of detail in the records is a mammoth problem for this subject, but given how wildly varying different court records in different regional/national/chronological contexts can be in terms of what they contain, perhaps signpost for the reader what this specifically means in relation to the exciting Staffordshire materials cited in this article before expanding on this subject below? Have discussed this now in the article.

Line 74 - I think the current 'usual' was actually meant to be 'unusual'? Done

Line 75- I think 'overt' might be better replaced with an alternative word? Done. ‘Clear’ is used instead

Lines 77-80 - Might this sentence be reworded? Done

Lines 81-84 - For the benefit of readers unfamiliar with the different jurisdictions, processes and surviving records of the Stafford Borough Petty Sessions, Quarter Sessions and relevant Assizes, we need rather more details about what this actually meant for these prisoners, including that magistrates routinely dealt with cases of domestic violence in late nineteenth and early twentieth century England. Obviously this explanation does not need to be exhaustive, but it would be enormously beneficial to spell out more clearly to readers how the court system worked in this period and why, for example, it was possible in extreme cases for someone to be brought before the Stafford magistrates in the first instance but end up tried for a felony at the Stafford branch of the Oxford Assize Circuit? What sorts of records were used? What issues do these represent? (I am aware some of this is engaged with in pp.4-5, but this is rather too late for the reader). How *many* such cases were found, and of these, what proportion were necessarily then sent to the Quarter Sessions or the Assizes? (I am assuming very few went to the Assizes, for example, and unless these were murder cases then depositions are unlikely to have survived at the National Archives, but most nonspecialists will erroneously assume that full trial transcripts were routinely preserved at all British courts from the magistrates up). For a start, these are potentially three different courts based in Stafford itself, and so it seems important to reflect on the extent to which those different venues and individuals might have shared or differed in attitudes: for example, did magistrates claim special expertise in regard to domestic violence cases since they encountered them so frequently? Were assize judges less sympathetic to claims of marital violence because the crimes were perceived or actually more severe than those of the lower courts? Why was the time period 1880-1905 selected? (I am sure the author had an excellent reason for doing this, but this is not immediately obvious at the moment). It would be really helpful to draw in this explanation on texts such as Helen Johnston's 2015 book 'Crime in England 1815-1880: Experiencing the criminal justice system' (though I recognize that of course this deals with the period immediately before this article). This all really does need much more elaboration than is currently the case: at the moment this summary does not do justice to the detailed and rigorous research and analysis that the author has evidently carried out for the article. Done. all comments responded to in the manuscript. Johnston’s work also referred to. I have discussed the different courts but made the point that the female violence cases discussed only went to the Petty Sessions. I have also discussed the choice of time period.

Lines 94-97 - Might be helpful to spell out specifically that while, distressingly a certain degree of domestic abuse was tacitly condoned by Victorian culture as 'not to be interfered with', this did not actually make it *legal* to commit such violence. Done.

Line 101 - I think this should be 'in 1889' not 'was 1889'? yes, changed.

Lines 103-104 - Did the author mean 'cohabiting couples' rather than 'married couples'? Does the article also deal with violence committed by women towards men they cohabited with but were not married to? There were important legal and cultural distinctions in dealing with these two groups, even when contemporaries recognized certain individual long term partnerships as very much the emotional and familial equivalents of marriage (cf. Frost, 'He Could Not Hold His Passions'). (It became clear later on that the article also dealt with cohabiting couples, but I wanted to leave the note here as it was first written when I read through for the first time). Yes, I am referring to both married and co-habiting couples, and have made it clearer at this earlier point, but haven’t found any difference in the way they were treated by the magistrates. There seems to have been an acceptance that men and women co-habited.

Lines 118-119 - Two uses of 'has written about' in the same sentence, would advise reframing one of these Done

Lines 123-129: Might also wish to cite Davies (1999) here as well as later in the article? Done

Line 135 - Which specific records was Godfrey referring to here? The judicial statistics? Yes, made clear in article

Lines 138-139 - Suggest moving 'during the late nineteenth century' to immediately after 'towards other women' in this sentence from its current position Done

Lines 141-144: Might also wish to cite Gail Savage's essay '"A State of Personal Danger": Domestic Violence in England, 1903-1922' in Katherine D. Watson (ed.) Assaulting the Past: Placing Violence in Historical Context (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007)? Done

Line 150 - Did the author mean 'prevents', 'prevented' or (which would seem perfectly appropriate in context) both past AND present tense here? Both, have made this clear in the article.

Line 159 - Perhaps simply start the sentence here 'These court records provide no detail...'? Done

Lines 169-172: I found the sentence beginning 'Generally,...' to be a bit confusingly worded - could this perhaps be revised more clearly? Done. Hopefully is now less confusing

Line 174- Might want to note that such journalists for the provincial and even national press were invariably anonymous until well into the 20th century? Done

Lines 177-178 - Might want to avoid two uses of the word 'detail' in one sentence here Done

Lines 180-186 - The wording of this is currently rather confusing. Is the article based on 110 cases of women being violent towards their partner, which is my current impression at this point in the article? (And were all these women married to their victim or not, which potentially had an impact on the attitude of the court in dealing with them? This really does need to be made explicit right from the start of the article). Are these 110 cases also part of a larger dataset for another project, which the current wording implies? Or were there 110 cases found by the author and women accused of violence towards male partners are a smaller number (if so, as would seem to be the case from reading p.10, I must stress that a smaller number of such cases being found and analysed would not in any way reduce the originality and rigor of the article, but it would be great to be clearer about signposting this throughout). Would it be useful to cite a relevant article or other work on life grid methodology for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with this analytical framework? (For example the relevant pages of Barry Godfrey, Pamela Cox, Heather Shore and Zoe Alker's book 'Young Criminal Lives: Life Courses and Life Chance from 1850' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)? The article is based on just 18 women who were violent towards their partner, out of the 110 who could be traced in the earlier, larger PhD research. I have made this clearer in the article. I have also discussed the creation of life grids/life course analysis and added in relevant references.

Lines 187-192 - I thought this sentence might benefit from being split into two shorter sentences: at the moment the thread gets a little lost. Done

Lines 193-195 - I am sure there were a number of long term partnerships that we would certainly consider equivalent to marriage (and so may have late 19th/early 20th C contemporaries) in the working-class community of Stafford - but how does the author know? Is this from consulting Jo Turner's excellent doctoral work?  (If so, a reference to this thesis, already cited in the article, is also needed here). Is it from the archival sources used for the article, or other materials such as press reports generated at the time? Would it be helpful to also cite Joanne Klein, 'Irregular Marriages: Unorthodox Working-Class Domestic Life in Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester, 1900-1939', Journal of Family History (2005) 30: 210-229? Yes, from the doctoral work, so a reference to the thesis has been added here. I have also cited Klein’s work.

Line 205 - Might want to add 'often seen as', or some other qualifier, between 'was' and 'an'? Done ‘often seen as’ inserted

Line 216 - Should 'for' be 'from' here? Changed

Lines 218-219 - Would advise changing either 'appearing' or 'appearance' in this sentence to avoid repeating the expression Done

Lines 221-224 - The sentence beginning 'What is clear...' is awkwardly worded, please rephrase this more smoothly Done

Line 279 - Why just over half? (I am sure there was an excellent reason for this, but its not clear at present) Done. I have discussed the difficulty in tracing women which resulted in the ‘just over half’ being traced.

Lines 296-301 - Would recommend splitting sentence beginning 'In all the cases of neglect...' into two separate sentences Done

Lines 327-328 - I take the point about its cultural and chronological specificity, but can it really be described as a 'particular late nineteenth and early twentieth century crime' given the horrific recent cases of acid throwing in 21st century Britain that garnered substantial media attention? I have added in now a comment about the present-day incidences of acid throwing, and a reference.

Line 330 - 'Of the violence cases' might be better reworded? Done. ‘Of all the cases involving female violence in Stafford during the late nineteenth century’ used instead

Lines 408-409 - Aha! The article is based on 18 cases, then? I don't feel this in any way detracts from its importance or the contribution this makes to the field - but this needs to be flagged up much, much earlier than page ten please!! I also think the author does not do themselves justice by using the word 'mentioned' here, which undercuts the originality of the article - I think something bolder (perhaps 'analysed'?) would be better. I have now moved this discussion much earlier in the article. I have also used the word ‘discussed’ rather than ‘mentioned’.

Lines 412-415 - Best to revise sentence to avoid starting with 'Maybe'? Now removed

Lines 416-418 - Again, this seems to be referring to a different project that is outside the scope of the article: how might this be reworded? Now reworded.

Lines 418-421 - There seem to be words missing from the sentence beginning 'Although few...' : it might also be worth splitting this into two separate sentences as part of revision? Now reworded. Also split into two sentences.

The references also need to be gone through carefully to ensure that these all correspond with the journal's house style, as a few errors have crept in to these (a common problem for all authors when editing a manuscript immediately before submission!): so for example endnote 9 line 456 has accidentally kept 'Level of Thesis' rather than 'PhD Thesis'. Have checked all references.

I very much hope that the author finds these suggestions helpful in making the necessary changes to the current version, and I would be more than happy to clarify any of the points raised via the editors if they have any questions. Very helpful, thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I found this to be an extremely interesting and generally well-written article on a previously under-researched topic.  The article is well structured with a logical progression and its premise is academically sound.. 

There are some minor grammatical issues with the content that require correction - there are some missing possessive apostrophes and hyphens, and the endnote notation is a little strange - for example endnote 5 reference appears before endnote 4 reference in the main body of text.

Overall, the level of scholarship displayed in the article is high, but I feel that a couple of important sources have been omitted; for example, Ros Crone's perceptive analysis of a Victorian Punch and Judy show (Violent Victorians, 2012, pp. 51-58) could have been referred to as it gives an excellent and succinct overview of the contemporary views of both violence against women and violence by women.  Similarly, Deirdrie Palk's Gender Crime and Judicial Discretion (2006, pp. 1-37) could be discussedt in order to provide a more nuanced historical context - although this book concentrates on capital property crimes and finishes in the 1830s, it still offers useful insights into gender and sentencing..   

I also have the following comments or suggestions to make:

Lines 81-84 I would have liked to see some explanation as to why this particular time period was chosen - without such an explanation the period seems somewhat arbitrary.

Line 91 - It would be useful to know when the term 'domestic abuse' first appears in the English CJS

Lines 109-110 It is unclear as to whether this refers to English or British courts

Lines 169-75  I feel that one or more references are required here - otherwise ''Generally, crime historians agree...' is a little vague

Lines 185-192 The construction and use of liifegrids was clearly central to the research methodology underpinning the article, but I feel that this section is a little underdeveloped. A little more detail with regard to methodology early on in the article would strengthen the article - for example the overall number of cases from which the sample is taken is not given until line 410.

Lines 193-97 I feel that the pragmatic nature and unromantic aspects of marriage during this period may be a little overplayed here - and there are no references to substantiate this viewpoint - perhaps Godfrey et al's Criminal Lives may be of use as a reference here?

Lines 210-17 There needs to be some discussion of the situation regarding male on female marital violence in this section - for example in the database of recorded cases, was there a signifcant disjuncture in sentencing patterns?  Research that I have been involved with suggested that all forms of marital violence were generally viewed as minor matters by magistrates during the period under question.  Also, I am somewhat surprised that Zedner's 'double deviance' theory is not discussed here - how does her argument fit in with your findings?

Lines 224 - titles of Acts of Parliament should be given in full here.

Lines 253-53 Reference required

Lines 273-77 Dates of cases referred to should be provided in order to provide chronological context.

Line 364 'factory' needs checking - I'm presuming that the gentleman was a cheese factor rather than a factory in his own right!

Line 456 Not sure what 'Level of Thesis' means here

Line 460 'Martial violence' should rad 'marital violence' - unless it was a very volatile union!

Endnotes Not sure if location of newspaper holdings need to be included?

Overall I think that this article is deserving of publication with a few minor additions/corrections and that it will make a significant contribution to knowledge of an under-researched but important aspect of criminal behaviour during the late-Victorian/early-Edwardian period.

Author Response

Many thanks for your comments and for taking the time to go through the original manuscript so thoroughly. The article is much better for the revisions you suggested. I have taken all your suggestions on board and changed the manuscript in light of all of them. Please see below for my responses to your suggestions.  Please note that the revised manuscript has both improvements in light of your comments and the improvements in relation to the first reviewer’s comments.

I found this to be an extremely interesting and generally well-written article on a previously under-researched topic.  The article is well structured with a logical progression and its premise is academically sound.. Thank you

There are some minor grammatical issues with the content that require correction - there are some missing possessive apostrophes and hyphens, and the endnote notation is a little strange - for example endnote 5 reference appears before endnote 4 reference in the main body of text. All in-text citations checked and now chronological

Overall, the level of scholarship displayed in the article is high, but I feel that a couple of important sources have been omitted; for example, Ros Crone's perceptive analysis of a Victorian Punch and Judy show (Violent Victorians, 2012, pp. 51-58) could have been referred to as it gives an excellent and succinct overview of the contemporary views of both violence against women and violence by women.  Similarly, Deirdrie Palk's Gender Crime and Judicial Discretion (2006, pp. 1-37) could be discussedt in order to provide a more nuanced historical context - although this book concentrates on capital property crimes and finishes in the 1830s, it still offers useful insights into gender and sentencing..   Both texts now incorporated and cited in the article. I agree, they are definitely omissions, and both are relevant and important to the article.

I also have the following comments or suggestions to make:

Lines 81-84 I would have liked to see some explanation as to why this particular time period was chosen - without such an explanation the period seems somewhat arbitrary. Time period now discussed

Line 91 - It would be useful to know when the term 'domestic abuse' first appears in the English CJS This detail is now added – it was a gradual change in terminology

Lines 109-110 It is unclear as to whether this refers to English or British courts English and Welsh and this is made clear

Lines 169-75  I feel that one or more references are required here - otherwise ''Generally, crime historians agree...' is a little vague References now added but that specific phrase removed.

Lines 185-192 The construction and use of liifegrids was clearly central to the research methodology underpinning the article, but I feel that this section is a little underdeveloped. A little more detail with regard to methodology early on in the article would strengthen the article - for example the overall number of cases from which the sample is taken is not given until line 410. This point has been addressed. A discussion and relevant references used for life grid construction have been included. The number of cases for the sample is also now discussed much earlier in the article.

Lines 193-97 I feel that the pragmatic nature and unromantic aspects of marriage during this period may be a little overplayed here - and there are no references to substantiate this viewpoint - perhaps Godfrey et al's Criminal Lives may be of use as a reference here? Criminal Lives now referenced.

Lines 210-17 There needs to be some discussion of the situation regarding male on female marital violence in this section - for example in the database of recorded cases, was there a signifcant disjuncture in sentencing patterns?  Research that I have been involved with suggested that all forms of marital violence were generally viewed as minor matters by magistrates during the period under question.  Also, I am somewhat surprised that Zedner's 'double deviance' theory is not discussed here - how does her argument fit in with your findings? Discussion of male on female violence also now discussed. Zedner’s double deviancy theory also now included.

Lines 224 - titles of Acts of Parliament should be given in full here. Done

Lines 253-53 Reference required Done. Reference to larger doctoral work added

Lines 273-77 Dates of cases referred to should be provided in order to provide chronological context. Done

Line 364 'factory' needs checking - I'm presuming that the gentleman was a cheese factor rather than a factory in his own right! Made clear in article. I took this comment to mean that Mary had inherited a cheese factory from her late husband.

Line 456 Not sure what 'Level of Thesis' means here – problem with the refworks – it should have been PhD thesis – now corrected.

Line 460 'Martial violence' should rad 'marital violence' - unless it was a very volatile union! Changed

Endnotes Not sure if location of newspaper holdings need to be included? Not sure either. I assume the journal’s editors will advise.

Overall I think that this article is deserving of publication with a few minor additions/corrections and that it will make a significant contribution to knowledge of an under-researched but important aspect of criminal behaviour during the late-Victorian/early-Edwardian period. Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.docx