Epistolary Gossip: On the History and Morality of the “Poison Pen” Letter

In the early twentieth century one genre of anonymous letter became so prominent it was given a name: the “poison pen” letter. Coined in America, the term “poison pen” was first used in ­1911 in a headline for an article in the Maryland Evening Post. The press popularized the term in Britain in the ­1920s.

Poisoning was the form of murder most connected to women, and these letters were regarded as a form of social poisoning more often than not perpetrated by women. Designed to cause trouble, the letters were, in some ways, a continuation of neighborly over-the-fence gossip, defamation, and rancor. Some were libelous, some were obscene, some were threatening, some were all three. Others were very banal.

Will the Sanitary Inspector when he has time have a look through ­– 14 Myrtle Rd.

[Sent to The Sanitary Inspector, Council House, Hounslow, 23 March ­1915]

This pithy message, written on a Christmas postcard previously addressed to (but presumably never received by) a “Mr. Townsend,” arrived at the office of the Heston and Isleworth sanitary inspectors in March ­1915. It draws the inspector’s attention to an address on Myrtle Road in Hounslow, West London. The inspector is not invited to look at any particular issue. Sanitary inspectors often received anonymous communications.

They had oversight of local issues associated with public health and nuisances, much as environmental health officers today have. They were sent letters on all sorts of issues, including communicable diseases; drainage faults; dampness; accumulations of rubbish; and pigs, rabbits, and poultry kept on-site. Complaints could be submitted by council officials, doctors, policemen, or anyone aggrieved. Already it was known that some complaints were “frivolous” or made for “vexatious reasons,” but it was not always clear which could be ignored.

The writing does not look strikingly similar to that of the Myrtle Road residents who filled in their census returns for ­1911­­, but most of those were entered by male household heads, and I suspect that this postcard was written by a woman. The Lawrences lived at number ­14 in 1915—a family of five, headed by Richard, in a house of three rooms plus a kitchen. In ­1911­­ Richard Lawrence’s brother, Sidney, lived at number 8. Sidney’s wife, Fanny, was the sister of the Lawrences’ lodger, Alfred Morley. Mary Ann Morley, the widowed mother of Fanny and Alfred, also lived at number 8.

It is possible that the postcard relates to some family spat; although Sidney and his family had moved away from the street shortly before ­1915. Communications like this postcard were usually designed to rectify a problem, after informal discussions had broken down. Perhaps the author did not sign their name because they felt awkward about the situation, or feared repercussion, or simply because they wrote in malice. The postcard probably relates to an issue with neighbors; at this time relationships with neighbors were among the most important, particularly for women.

By the start of the twentieth century, female literacy rates had increased to almost match those for men, especially outside rural areas. Men without authority attempted to gain power through anonymous letters at the start of the nineteenth century. An apparent increase in women writing anonymously at the start of the twentieth century may have followed similar lines: a weapon in the arsenal of the weak.

However, anonymous letters written (mostly) by men in the eighteenth century were generally dispatched to male social superiors and contained threats. The letters sent by women in the early twentieth century, by contrast, were mostly sent to their social peers, people within their immediate community, often next-door neighbors, often women. These letters were more obviously connected to the frustrations of community life for women who felt trapped in particular roles; they do relate to power, and powerlessness, but less overtly than some of the letters already examined.

Once again, the only letters for which we have records were those which were taken seriously and became the focus of investigation. It is possible that lots of anonymous letters written by men were, for some reason, not taken seriously, and never became the focus of investigation, with the gender of the author therefore never exposed.

It is likely, for example, that many disgruntled male employees wrote letters to erstwhile male employers at this time, which letters were destroyed and not acted upon, partly because this would not conform with expectations around masculine responses to threat. Societies determine their own preoccupations—some types of anonymous letter were ignored, others were investigated. The circumstances in which the letters came to light, and the moral values and legal procedures brought to bear upon them, are often as significant as the texts themselves.

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Adapted from Penning Poison: A History of Anonymous Letters by Emily Cockayne. Copyright © 2023 by Emily Cockayne and published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.