Victorian crime and punishment

We bring you the facts about crime and punishment in the Victorian era – from Jack the Ripper, who stalked the streets of Whitechapel for his five victims in 1888, to the pick-pocketing street urchins popularised by Charles Dickens’s ‘Oliver Twist’. Why were the Victorians so fascinated by murder? Did grave-robbers really steal corpses in the dead of night? Find out more below…