The Devil’s Highway: Urban Anxieties and Subaltern Cultures in London’s Sailortown, C.1850-1900

Branded the Devil’s Highway, nineteenth century Ratcliffe Highway was associated with crime and vice. In contrast, this book argues that sailortown was a distinctive and functional community. This community fostered an urban-maritime culture that shaped a sense of themselves and the conventions that governed subaltern behaviour in the district.

Brad Beaven is a Professor of Social and Cultural History at the University of Portsmouth.