PAROCHIAL POLICE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Before proceeding to a narration of the successive steps that
culminated in the radical reorganization authorized in 1829, it is
necessary to describe the nature and extent of the various police
establishments as they existed at the close of the eighteenth century.
Exclusive of Special Constables, who, though legally available, were
but rarely if ever employed, there were, at this time, five distinct
classes of Peace Officers:
(i.) Parochial Constables, elected annually in
Parish or Township and serving gratuitously.
(ii.) Their Substitutes or Deputies serving for a
wage voluntarily paid by the Principals.
(iii.) Salaried Bow Street Officers, and Patrols
expressly charged with the suppression of
highwaymen and footpads.
(iv.) Stipendiary Police Constables attached to
the Public Offices established under "The
Middlesex Justices Act."
(v.) Stipendiary Water-Police attached to the
Thames Office, as established by Act of
Parliament in 1798.
It will be noticed that of these five classes, numbers i. and ii. were
common to the whole of England, whilst numbers iii. iv. and v. were
peculiar to London and its immediate neighbourhood, but, for our
present purpose, it will be more convenient to consider the provincial
constabulary as altogether distinct from the various Metropolitan
Police bodies. Theoretically and constitutionally, there should have
been little or no difference between the policing of London and that
of any rural district, but the stage of development reached in the
Metropolis already foreshadowed the impending changes, whilst in the
country the standard of police had as yet deviated hardly at all from
the mediæval pattern.
Leaving the London police establishments, therefore, for future
consideration, we find that in rural districts, and in provincial
towns, High Constables and Parish Constables, acting under the
direction of the Justices of the Peace, continued to exercise the
time-honoured powers which had been handed down to them from forgotten
generations. To get a clear idea of how the old-time system adapted
itself, more or less, to the changed conditions that prevailed in
the nineteenth century, the best way is to turn to what we may call
the police text-books of the period such as the "Treatise on the
Functions and Duties of the Constable," by Colquhoun (1803), or "The
Churchwardens' and Overseers' Guide," by Ashdowne, published at
about the same time. "The High Constable," says Colquhoun, "has the
superintendence and direction of the petty constables, headboroughs,
and other peace officers in his hundred or division. It is his duty to
take cognisance of, and to present, all offences within his hundred or
division which lead to the corruption of morals, breaches of the Lord's
Day, Drunkenness, Cursing and Swearing. To bring forward sufficient
number of constables to maintain decency and good order during the
execution of malefactors or the punishment of offenders, and to attend
in person to see that the peace officers do their duty. To summon petty
constables to keep order in the Courts of Justice &c...." With regard
to tumults and riots, "to do all in his power to arrest offenders,
and so to dispose of his constables as to suppress the disorders in
question, also to give assistance to neighbouring divisions ... to
present all persons exposing for sale unwholesome meat ... and to take
cognisance of false or deficient weights and measures." In another
place he declares that petty constables should regularly perambulate
their districts once at least in every twenty-four hours, and visit all
alehouses once a week "to see that no unlawful games are permitted,
and that labouring people are not suffered to lounge and tipple until
they are intoxicated." The duty of petty constables when riots are
threatened is thus described. "The instant a constable hears of any
unlawful assembly, mob, or concourse of people likely to produce danger
or mischief within or near his constablewick or district (he must) give
notice to the nearest Justice, and repair instantly to the spot with
his long or short stave, and there put himself under the direction of
such magistrate or magistrates as may be in attendance."
"The Churchwardens' and Overseers' Guide and Director" is arranged in
the form of a vocabulary, and in alphabetical order gives explanations
of the principal matters with which Parish Officers are chiefly
concerned. "Constables," we learn, "are to make a Hue and Cry after
the offenders where a robbery or felony is committed, to call upon the
parishioners to assist in the pursuit: and if the criminal be not found
in the liberty of the first constable, he is to give notice to the
next, and thus continue the pursuit from town to town, and from county
to county; and where offenders are not taken, constables are to levy
the Tax to satisfy an execution on recovery against a Hundred, and pay
the same to the Sheriff &c...."
"Hundreds or Wapentakes," according to Ashdowne, "are generally
governed by a High Constable, under whom a Tythingman or Borsholder is
generally appointed for each Borough or District within the Hundred.
Hundreds are liable to penalties on exportation of wool, liable also
for damages sustained by violently pulling down buildings; by killing
cattle; cutting down trees, ... by destroying turnpikes, or works on
navigable rivers; by cutting hopbines; by destroying corn to prevent
exportation; by wounding officers of the Customs; by destroying woods
&c.... Hundreds are also bound to raise Hue and Cry when any robbery
is committed within the Hundred; and if the offender is not taken, an
action may be maintained against the Hundred to recover damages."[158]
Under the heading of "Swearing" is arranged the following
information:--"Persons guilty of profane swearing, and convicted
thereof, to forfeit to the Poor of the Parish. Day-Labourers, common
soldiers, or common seamen, 1/-. Persons under the degree of gentlemen,
2/-. Gentlemen or persons above the degree of gentlemen, 5/-. The above
penalties to be doubled for a second offence, and trebled after a
second conviction."
Of Tythingmen the same author writes:--"There is frequently a
Tythingman in the same town with a constable, who is, as it were, a
deputy to exercise the office in the constable's absence; but there are
some things which the constable has power to do that tythingmen cannot
intermeddle with. When there happens to be no constable of a parish,
the office and authority of a Tythingman seems to be the same under
another name."
If anyone should be inclined to doubt the remarkable stability of
the Constable's office, and all that pertains to it, he may find it
instructive to look back a few hundred years, and refer to what Lambard
and others have to say about Tythingmen and Constables, part of which
is quoted in the third chapter of this book.
To the scope and intention of the functions exercised by parish
officers as stated by Colquhoun and Ashdowne, if somewhat
old-fashioned, no exception need be taken. The trouble was, however,
that the office-holders did not live up to the standard inculcated by
their teachers. The commonsense and reasonableness of the whole system
fell to the ground whenever ignorant and unworthy agents were entrusted
with its administration, and such, unfortunately, was the character
of the large majority of the police personnel. The parish constable
was incompetent, and the duties imposed on him were either evaded, or
performed in a purely perfunctory manner. Under the circumstances such
a tendency was perhaps inevitable, for it is not to be expected that
unpaid services will be well performed by the poorer classes without
constant supervision. Struggling men, who have to work hard to provide
for themselves, and for their families, are not likely to overtax
their energies in the service of the State without reward, and those
substitutes who received a few shillings a year from their principals
were only careful not to exceed the minimum amount of labour which
could be exacted from them compulsorily.
Further consideration of the Rural Constabulary must be postponed
until we come to deal with the reorganization which was set on foot
in 1839. For the present we must return to the Metropolis, where the
doomed parochial system was now tottering to its fall, and where the
need for reform was more pressing than elsewhere. At the time we are
considering, London boasted a variety of police establishments, all
more or less disconnected. The City had one organization, Westminster
another, the public offices distributed justice after a fashion
in their respective districts, and Bow Street prided itself upon
holding a position of complete isolation and independence. Nor was
this all--the whole of the metropolis was split up into parishes,
and each parish made its own arrangements for keeping the peace, or
dispensed with police altogether, as it saw fit. Twelve London parishes
were thus entirely unprotected: St James' and Marylebone employed
Chelsea pensioners, the City supported 765 watchmen, Edgeware had no
policeman and no patrol, Camberwell armed its night watchmen with
blunderbusses, whilst St Pancras had no less than eighteen distinct
Watch Trusts, a source of weakness rather than of strength, because
they never co-operated with each other. In Kensington the police
force consisted only of three headboroughs, excellent men perhaps;
but as Peel remarked, "if they had been angels, it would have been
utterly impossible for them to fulfil the duties required from their
situation." Deptford, being without a single professional watchman, was
at one time patrolled by the inhabitants, who enrolled themselves into
companies twenty strong for that purpose, quickly disbanding, however,
as soon as the robbers moved into another district. In some parishes,
again, there were patrols and no beats, and in others there were beats
and stands but no patrols, despite the recommendations of Special
Commissions and the provisions of Acts of Parliament.
The degree of security extended to the ratepayers by the local
authorities was thus a very variable quantity; but it is not too much
to say that without exception the constitution of all the parochial
police bodies was antiquated and radically unsound, and that Watch and
Ward was at this time more indifferently kept than had previously been
the case throughout the whole history of the Metropolis.
In the year 1800 Parish Constables were generally permanent deputies
and of inferior origin; nor was any trouble taken to secure officers of
the right stamp. The wages paid to Parish Watchmen were miserable, and
the men usually engaged were those whose antecedents and qualifications
precluded them from obtaining more lucrative or reputable employment.
These "Charlies" (as they were popularly called, after their
predecessors the Bell-men, instituted in the reign of Charles the
Second) were for the most part infirm from age and starvation, drunken,
the creatures of street-walkers and publicans rather than servants
of the public, and altogether contemptible. Dressed in heavy capes,
muffled up to the ears, provided with long staves and dim lanterns,
they issued from their watchboxes twice an hour for a minute or two to
call the time and the state of the weather. As clocks and barometers
they may have been of some service; or, as somebody once put it, to
wake a man up after his house has been robbed to tell him the bad news;
but for the prevention of crime, they were worse than useless. Striking
their staves on the pavement, and shewing their lanterns, they gave
timely warning of their approach; and if the thieves thought it worth
while to take any notice at all of such a trivial interruption, they
had only to remove themselves temporarily into the next parish to be
secure from pursuit.
As an object for practical joking, and as a theme for ridicule, the
Charlies provided some amusement to the Jerry Hawthorns and Corinthian
Toms of the period, but this was the extent of their usefulness. Quite
a considerable literature hinged on their grotesque incompetency, but
in their praise not a syllable was uttered; everyone made fun of them.
They were humorously described as "persons hired by the parish to
sleep in the open air," and another topical saying was to the effect
that "Shiver and Shake" ought to be substituted for "Watch and Ward,"
because they spent half the night shivering with cold and the other
half shaking with fright. It was a popular amusement amongst young men
of the town to imprison watchmen by upsetting their watchboxes on top
of them as they dozed within; and the young blood who could exhibit
to his friends a collection of trophies such as lanterns, staves,
and rattles, was much accounted of in smart society. The newspapers
were never tired of skits at the expense of the parochial watch: the
following extract from _The Morning Herald_ of October 30th, 1802, will
serve as an example:--
"It is said that a man who presented himself for the office of
watchman to a parish at the West End of the Town very much infected
by depredators, was lately turned away from the Vestry with this
reprimand--I am astonished at the impudence of such a great sturdy
strong fellow as you are, being so idle as to apply for a watchman's
situation, when you are capable of labour." Another publication
calling itself "The Microcosm of London" gives its readers a satirical
account of the nightly watch in these words. "The Watch is a Parochial
establishment supported by the Parochial rate, and subject to the
jurisdiction of the magistrates: it is necessary to the peace and
security of the metropolis, and is of considerable utility: but that
it might be rendered much more useful cannot be denied. That the Watch
should consist of able-bodied men, is, we presume, essential to the
complete design of its institution, as it forms a part of its legal
description: but that the watchmen are persons of this character,
experience will not vouch: and why they are chosen from among the aged
and incapable must be answered by those who make the choice. In the
early part of the last century, an halbert was their weapon: it was
then changed to a long staff: but the great coat and lantern are now
accompanied with more advantageous implements of duty--a bludgeon and
a rattle. It is almost superfluous to add, that the watchhouse is a
place where the appointed watchmen assemble to be accoutred for their
nocturnal rounds, under the direction of a constable, whose duty being
taken by rotation, enjoys the title of Constable of the Night. It is
also the receptacle for such unfortunate persons as are apprehended
by the watch, and where they remain in custody till they can be
conducted to the tribunal of the police office, for the examination of
a magistrate."
The watchhouses here referred to were dirty and insecure hovels, with
an underground cellar secured by a grating, behind which prisoners
were confined, sometimes for forty-eight hours, but in the case of
minor offences a tip of half-a-crown to the constable was generally
sufficient to secure release.
In 1804 there were 2044 parochial constables and watchmen in the
Metropolis, including the 765 employed by the City, that is to say,
about one watchman to every seventy or eighty houses.
The City of London was much better policed than the rest of the
Metropolis. It was said that so superior were the arrangements
eastward of Temple Bar to those of the more westerly districts, that
a pickpocket was easily recognised when he came to the City boundary,
because he always walked so fast, and so often looked over his
shoulder, as if he suspected that someone was after him. The watchmen
appointed by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen were selected from a better
class of men than were those who held office in Westminster and other
parishes; they were also better paid and more carefully superintended.
In 1815 the Lord Mayor himself, on more than one occasion, visited the
watch by night and had the men mustered, discharging on the spot those
whom he considered unfit. Briefly the organisation was as follows--the
City was divided into four divisions with three day patrols to each
division, in all twelve patrolmen at one and a half guineas a week
each. By night, whilst the constables and watchmen were on duty, the
patrols were reduced to eight, two to a division; their duties were, to
visit the watchhouses at least twice a night, to see that the constable
of the night was not absent from his post, signing their names at every
visit in a book kept for the purpose at the several watchhouses. The
Constables of the Night were paid no salary, but were generally in
receipt of fees from the elected householders whose deputies they were.
They were bound to be present with the watch all night long, and were
held responsible that the watchmen did their duty. In time of riot,
or when disturbances were apprehended, the Lord Mayor had power to
summon them, together with the watch, at any hour--by day as well as by
night, for the maintenance of the peace. The task of supervising the
City police was entrusted, not to a High Constable, but to the two City
Marshals, whose duty it was to pay surprise visits to the watchhouses
at uncertain hours, to certify that the patrolmen's books were duly
signed up, and to report every morning to the Lord Mayor concerning
the "internal quiet of the City of London." They also bound themselves
on oath to proceed against no man through malice, and to screen no man
through favour or affection.
Both in the city and in other parts of London, the management of the
traffic was in the hands of special officials called Street-keepers;
but beyond the regulation of vehicular traffic within the limits of the
parishes where they were employed, they had no general police duties to
perform, and were not under the control of the magistrates, nor subject
to the police authorities.
The Burgesses of Westminster still suffered their police administration
to be bound by the ecclesiastical traditions of bygone centuries;
and if we make an exception in favour of the "Jury of Annoyances,"
established in 1755, we may say that little evidence of progress was
discoverable within the Liberties of the Western City. The Act creating
the Annoyance Jury was passed in the twenty-ninth year of George II.,
and two years later was amended and enlarged. The Court of Burgesses
was now empowered to maintain forty-eight inhabitants of Westminster
for the suppression of public nuisances: members of this jury had
authority to enter any shop or house, and if they found any unlawful or
defective weight or measure therein, to destroy the same, and to amerce
the offender a sum not exceeding forty shillings for each offence. In
1764 the Jury was divided into three divisions, called St Margaret's
Division, the St James' Division, and the St Martin's Division, each
containing sixteen members; at the same time it was ordained, that
all presentments had to be in writing under the hands and seals of at
least twelve jurymen. In 1800 the Annoyance Jury was still nominally
responsible for the cleanliness, sightliness, and sanitary condition
of Westminster, but, as a matter of experience, the removal and
prevention of nuisances was left almost entirely to the discretion and
taste of the more fastidious householders.
As has already been said, the Middlesex Justices Act was at first
an experimental measure; in 1801 it was repealed, but most of its
provisions were at once re-enacted by a statute[159] which placed the
public offices on a more permanent basis, and raised the salary of the
magistrates and the wages of the police officers. There were now ten of
these offices, viz., Mansion House, Guildhall, Hatton Garden, Worship
Street, Whitechapel, Shadwell, Southwark, Queen Street Westminster;
Great Marlborough Street, and Wapping. Mansion House and Guildhall
belonged to the City proper, and Wapping was the headquarters of the
River Police. To each office were apportioned three magistrates, eight
constables, and a clerk or two. The magistrates sat in rotation,
and, within the limited areas of their respective jurisdictions,
acted independently of their colleagues. There was little uniformity
or co-operation. Each office had a general duty of apprehending and
punishing any criminals found within its boundaries, but had no
connection with the Nightly Watch. The different parishes concerned
had transferred to the public offices the duties connected with Hue
and Cry, whilst retaining in their own hands the responsibilities
of Watch and Ward. The relations existing between the parochial and
stipendiary authorities were not cordial, in fact there was frequently
a pronounced enmity between the parish constable and the police
constable, whilst the amateur peace officer not infrequently set at
defiance the professional magistrate. The impossibility of controlling
the local watchmen conduced to a very unsatisfactory state of affairs,
as is seen by the following evidence given before the 1816 Committee
by Mr Robert Raynsford, the magistrate of Hatton Garden. "At present,
as the law now stands," he said, "we have no power at all over the
parish watchmen: but when this question was agitated on a former
occasion, the parishes had so rooted an aversion to the interference of
the magistracy, that I believe there were petitions from most of the
parishes: at the same time there are offences committed in the streets,
close by a watch-box, and we are told that the watchman was fast
asleep, or would give no assistance: we have no power of sending for
the watchman, or if we did, we have no power of punishing him. I think
it would be an improvement if they were put under the direction of the
Police."
It will be remembered that the Middlesex Justices Act had placed the
police offices under the control of the Home Office, which had the
power of appointing and dismissing the magistrates: this was right and
proper, but it would have been far better if any further supervision
exercised by the Secretary of State had been confined to the larger and
more general issues connected with the police establishments, and had
stopped short of the injudicious meddling that went on. The magistrates
might surely have been trusted with the selection of their own
constables, but, for some occult reason, successive ministers seem to
have thought it their duty to diminish the authority of the magistrates
by actively interfering with the nomination and election of the rank
and file. Under these circumstances it is strange that the magistrates
were as well served by their subordinate officers as they seem to have
been, yet, everything considered, the stipendiary policeman proved so
superior to the amateur constable that Maurice Swabey, the magistrate
at Union Street, declared, that he would rather have six additional
officers than fifty parish constables.
From the list of the Public Offices above enumerated, the most
interesting has intentionally been omitted, because its unique
position calls for separate and more detailed notice. Besides being
of earlier date than the other offices, Bow Street exceeded them also
in importance, and was distinguished as the centre of the police
activities of the time. From Henry Fielding, who presided in 1753, to
Sir Franklin Lushington, who recently succeeded Sir John Bridge, the
Chief Magistrate at Bow Street has nearly always been a man of mark
amongst his brother stipendiaries, and in their day the Bow Street
Runners (as the officers attached to this Court used to be called) were
of quite a different type from their comrades employed in the junior
offices.
Though only eight in number (afterwards increased to twelve) these
runners exerted a preponderating influence, which largely altered
the aspect of the contest between the professional thieves and the
helpless public on whom they preyed. The Bow Street policemen were the
first peace officers to make a serious study of the art of detecting
and running down criminals: they were experts whereas all their
predecessors had been amateurs; no longer dull officials performing
routine duties in perfunctory fashion when "not otherwise engaged";
but keen hunters with all their faculties stimulated by the prospect
of the blood money and other rewards they hoped to earn. When they
appeared on the scene the professional depredator no longer had things
all his own way; instead of the parish constable who could be outwitted
and bamboozled at every turn, the cracksman or forger found himself
confronted by a wary adversary, well armed, and up to every move on
the board. That the Bow Street Runners achieved much good in breaking
up predatory gangs, and in bringing notorious offenders to trial, is
not to be denied, but it is no less certain that they were the source
of much evil. Actuated by the hope of gain rather than by any sense of
duty, their motives were as ignoble as their methods were shady. They
played only for their own hand, and all their best endeavours were
bent towards the arrest of the particular criminal whose conviction
would bring the greatest profit to themselves, and not to the pursuit
of the fugitive from justice whose capture was chiefly desirable on
public grounds. Prevention did not enter at all into their conception
of police duty, and their services were of course only at the disposal
of those who were rich enough to pay handsomely for the privilege. The
extent to which this system of feeing was carried may be guessed from
the fact that Townsend left £20,000 behind him, and that Sayer's heirs
divided no less than £30,000 at the death of their benefactor.
In order to obtain information, the runners made it a rule to frequent
low "flash-houses," as the resorts of thieves were called, and to
associate with the vicious and desperate characters to be found there.
When examined before a Parliamentary Commission, several of these
officers freely admitted that it was by the employment of such tactics
that they expected to obtain the most valuable information, and gave it
as their opinion that flash-houses ought to be encouraged rather than
suppressed, on account of the facilities they afforded the runner in
his search for a man who was "wanted."
There were, no doubt, many honest men amongst the Bow Street Officers
doing their duty to the best of their ability after their lights, and
although their methods would not be tolerated for a moment at the
present day, they were much in advance of their predecessors. Certain
of them attained a wide celebrity. Such men as Lavender, Nelson and
others--unique characters in their way--made it their business to go
everywhere and know everybody: they carried a small baton surmounted
by a gilt crown, and this badge of office admitted them not only to
such unsavoury dens as "The Dog and Duck" and "The Temple of Flora,"
but even into the Royal Palaces, where two officers, we learn, were
constantly stationed "on account of the King being frequently teased
of lunatics." Runners were often specialists, occupying themselves
in one line of business to the neglect of others: thus, whilst that
well-known gossip Townsend chiefly confined himself to safeguarding the
property of his wealthy clients, and to capturing noble duellists, Keys
devoted himself to circumventing coiners and forgers of bank notes, and
a third was principally engaged in the detection and apprehension of
"Resurrectionists."
There is no doubt that more than one of the Bow Street policemen were
actually in league with the depredators they were paid to catch, though
they were generally too alert to be found out; but the confidence of
the public in their thief-takers received a rude shock when Vaughan,
of the Horse Patrol, was proved to have arranged a burglary for the
sake of the reward that would have come to him on the conviction of the
felons. "Set a thief to catch a thief" may sometimes be good policy,
but it is nearly always bad police.
The Patrols, Horse and Foot, which were attached to the Bow Street
Office, had been in existence some fifty years or so, but had only
consisted of a handful of men quite insufficient for the amount of
work that was expected of them. In 1805 Sir Richard Ford, the Chief
Magistrate, obtained permission to extend the system of mounted police
so as to provide patrols for all the main roads to a distance of about
twenty miles from Bow Street. The strength of this new force was
fifty-two patrols, two inspectors, and a clerk: they were recruited
almost exclusively from retired cavalrymen, and were familiarly
known as Robin Redbreasts on account of the red waistcoat that was a
conspicuous part of their uniform. They were better paid than their
predecessors, the wages of a "patrol" being twenty-eight shillings a
week, with allowance for horse keep, and the salary of a "conductor"
standing at £100 a-year and a guinea a-week for forage and shoeing.
Their energies were principally directed against highwaymen, and they
quickly cleared Hounslow Heath and other infested localities from this
class of plunderer. The Horse Patrol cost the Government £8000 a year,
not a high price to pay for the suppression of those impudent robbers
"the gentlemen of the road." The foot patrol policed the inner circle
within a radius of about four miles.
The legal powers of Bow Street were never very strictly defined, but
it was generally understood that the jurisdiction of the Office was
confined to the County of Middlesex (the City of London excepted),
and to the main roads in the neighbourhood of the metropolis which
were patrolled by Bow Street Officers. Under the direction of the Home
Secretary, the Chief Magistrate had, in fact, the control of a small
and independent force applicable to the general police requirements of
the capital and its environment.