Tattooing was a growing and accepted phenomenon in Victorian England – not restricted to convicts, sailors and soldiers.

To study these questions, we carried out the largest analysis of tattoos ever undertaken, examining 75,688 descriptions of tattoos, on 58,002 convicts in Britain and Australia from 1793 to 1925.

Tattooing was a growing and accepted phenomenon in Victorian England – not restricted to convicts, sailors and soldiers.