Abstract
The activity of female gangsters and the spaces they occupied were divisive and significant to contemporary understandings of organised criminality in London. Space was presented by the press as being both physically and ideologically invaded by female gangsters, encompassing ‘respectable’ fears over the encroachment of the ‘underworld’. For example, the targeting of elite spaces and ‘respectability’ led to fixations on the collective body, and the gang as a microcosm of the crowd—reflecting state uncertainty over class, revolution, uprising and social unrest. Therefore, spatial theory will form the primary methodology for this thesis due to its concentration on the city and the representation of its ‘criminal’ inhabitants. By encompassing aspects of the ‘new woman’, the female gangster also proved to be glamorous and exciting for her spatial transgressions, a narrative departure from existing archetypes of criminality pushed within the eugenics and phrenological movements. Therefore, female gangsterism was referred to by the press as an extreme case of emancipation, and the consequence of diminishing gender control. By focusing on prominent figures within the Forty Thieves gang, alongside those associated with the syndicate, this thesis will show that female gangsterism was presented as a form of criminal ‘otherness’ within the public imaginary, often discussed to comment on the perceived decline of social, economic, political and cultural stability. Female gangsters, such as the members of the Forty Thieves gang, deserve to be recognised within the current historiographical landscape, not only due to their real-life prominence, but, also, for their fictionalised reflections that were used to project the spatial tensions of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. Understanding the dissemination of female gangsterism and the conceptualisation of the ‘underworld’ will help historians to rethink the way criminal women were shaped in the popular consciousness.| Date of Award | 4 Mar 2025 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Robert James (Supervisor), Mike Esbester (Supervisor) & Katy Gibbons (Supervisor) |