Violent Women: Changes in Magisterial Attitudes to Female Acts of Assault in Cheltenham and Exeter (England), 1880-1909

Recent scholarship has indicated that judges and magistrates became increasingly stringent in their treatment of male violence during the Victorian and Edwardian period. Yet it has been argued that female acts of violence were regarded as trivial and thus more readily overlooked. This article presents an alternative perspective on the judicial treatment of violent women by examining female assault prosecutions held at Exeter and Cheltenham magistrates’ courts in the years 1880-1910. By analysing patterns in the verdicts and sentences issued to defendants, it argues that magistrates adopted harsher policies towards violent women as the period progressed. The study further examines a number of circumstantial, demographic and procedural factors which may have impacted shifts in magisterial decision-making processes.