health, he laboured incessantly. He often sat on the bench for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, returning to Bow Street after a long day’s work to resume it from seven p.m. till midnight. He did a great public service in devising and executing a plan for the extirpation of robbers, although the benefit was but temporary. This was in 1753, when the whole town seemed at the mercy of the depredators. The Duke of Newcastle, at that time Secretary of State, sent for Fielding, who unfolded a scheme whereby, if £600 were placed at his disposal, he engaged to effect a cure. After his first advance from the Treasury he was able to report that “the whole gang of cut-throats was entirely dispersed, seven of them were in actual custody, and the rest driven, some out of the town, the rest out of the kingdom.” He had nearly killed himself in the effort. “Though my health was reduced to the last extremity ... I had the satisfaction of finding ... that the hellish society was almost entirely extirpated”; that, instead of “reading about murders and street robberies in the newspapers every morning,” they had altogether ceased. His plan had not cost the Government more than £300, and “had actually suppressed the evil for a time.”
It was only for a brief space, however; and his brother, blind Sir John Fielding, who succeeded him at Bow Street, frankly confessed that new gangs had sprung up in place of those recently dispersed. But he bravely set himself to combat the evil, and adopted his brother’s methods. He first grappled with the street robbers, and in less than three months had brought nine of them to the gallows. Next he dealt with the highwaymen infesting the road near London, “so that scarce one escaped.” The housebreakers, lead-stealers, shoplifters, and all the small fry of pickpockets and petty larcenists were increasingly harried and in a large measure suppressed. He organised a scheme for protecting the suburbs, by which the residents subscribed to meet the expense of transmitting immediate news to Bow Street by mounted messengers, with full particulars of articles stolen, and the description of the robber; the same messenger was to give information at the turnpikes and public-houses en route, and thus a hue and cry could be raised and the offender would probably soon be captured. At the same time a notice would be inserted in the Public Advertiser warning tavern-keepers, stable-keepers, and pawnbrokers, the first against harbouring rogues, the second against hiring out horses to the persons described, the third against purchasing goods which were the proceeds of a robbery.
Sir John Fielding (he was knighted in 1760) was a most active and energetic magistrate, and he was such a constant terror to evil-doers that his life was often threatened. There were few crimes reported in which he did not take a personal interest, promptly visiting the spot, taking information, and setting his officers on the track. When Lord Harrington’s house was robbed of some three thousand pounds’ worth of jewellery, Sir John repaired thither
at once, remaining in the house all day and the greater part of the night. It was the same in cases of highway robbery, murder, or riot. Everyone caught red-handed was taken before him, and his court was much frequented by great people to hear the examination of persons charged with serious crimes—such as Dr. Dodd, Hackman, who murdered Miss Reay, the brother-forgers the Perreaus, and Sarah Meteyard, who killed her parish apprentice by abominable cruelty. One well-known nobleman, “a great patron of the arts,” given also to visiting Newgate in disguise in order to stare at the convicts under sentence of death, would constantly take his seat on the bench.
Sir John Fielding’s appearance in court and manner of conducting business have been graphically described by the Rev. Dr. Somerville of Jedburgh. He speaks in his diary of Sir John’s “singular adroitness. He had a bandage over his eyes, and held a little switch or rod in his hand, waving it before him as he descended from the bench. The sagacity he discovered in the questions he put to the witnesses, and the marked and successful attention, as I conceived, not only to the words but to the accents and tones of the speaker, supplied the advantage which is usually rendered by the eye; and his arrangement of the questions, leading to the detection of concealed facts, impressed me with the highest respect for his singular ability as a police magistrate.”
Sir John Fielding was undoubtedly the originator of the horse patrol, which was found a most useful check on highway robbery. But it was not permanently established by him, and we find him beseeching the Secretary of State to continue it for a short time longer “as a temporary but necessary step in order to complete that which was being so happily begun.” He was satisfied from “the amazing good effects produced by this patrol that outrages would in future be put down by a little further assistance of the kind.” This patrol was reintroduced by the chief magistrate of Bow Street about 1805, either Sir Richard Ford or Sir Nathaniel Conant. It was a very efficient force, recruited entirely from old cavalry soldiers, who were dressed in uniform, well armed, and well mounted. They wore a blue coat with brass buttons, a scarlet waistcoat, blue trousers and boots, and they carried sword and pistols. Their duties were to patrol the neighbourhood of London in a circuit of from five to ten miles out, beginning at five or seven p.m. and ending at midnight. It was their custom to call aloud to all horsemen and carriages they met, “Bow Street patrol!” They arrested all known offenders whom they might find, and promptly followed up the perpetrators of any robbery that came under their notice. Very marked and satisfactory
results were obtained by this excellent institution; it almost completely ended highway robbery, and if any rare case occurred, the guilty parties were soon apprehended.