A Predatory Social Structure: Informers in Westminster, 1737-1741

Archival data about, and contemporary accounts of, the Gin Acts illustrate the careers of 198 informers known to have operated in Westminster between 1737 and 1741, providing an idea of their interrelationships. Visible links among the informers appear to have been generally weak. Most of the sample at hand operated as isolates on an opportunistic basis, informing only once. Their network, such as it was, seems to have functioned primarily as a clearinghouse, connecting informers with victims in neighborhoods where the informers were as yet unknown and thus less vulnerable to attack by the community.