Journalists and Police Detectives in Victorian and Edwardian England: An Uneasy Reciprocal Relationship

Although journalism and detection are supposedly distinct vocations, on closer examination they have much in common and possess many points of contact. Both fields had existed prior to the nineteenth century, but only then did they expand significantly and develop professional credentials and public standing. The two occupations evolved in parallel and, moreover, were instrumental to each other in the performance of tasks and the elevations of their status. However, the links between them were also marked by tension and conflict. The paper explores the complex interplay between them in their formative period during the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.