White-collar crime and the law in nineteenth-century Britain

Abstract

Rapid commercial development in Britain by 1800 inspired legislation rendering ‘white-collar’ crimes such as forgery, embezzlement, and obtaining money by false pretences criminally punishable. However, it was unclear how far this legislation applied to the managers and directors of companies, with the result that in practice, they could only be reached by actions in the civil courts. As the corporate economy grew, whether the criminal law should be extended to company managements became a pressing issue. This article explores these debates and examines the complex and tentative process of legal change which, though contested and controversial, resulted by 1900 in the effective criminalisation of a host of ‘white-collar’ offences.