A History of Police in England

by W. L. Melville Lee

It is doubtful at what date the custom first arose of discharging the office of constable by proxy, but certain it is that, in the Tudor period, instead of one headborough responsible to the Crown for the maintenance of the peace in Tything and Hundred, which, as we have seen, was anciently the system, we find two or more constables answerable to the Justices, nominally employed by the year, but practically as permanent deputies, performing duties delegated to them in parish and township, and their services paid for, not by the public at large, but by the individuals whose deputies they were.

In some respects the change, which in all probability was a gradual one, contributed to the deterioration of the police administration, because unfortunately a very indifferent sort of man was almost invariably selected as deputy. Speaking of constables, Bacon says they are "of inferior, yea, of base condition, which is a mere abuse or degenerating from the first institution, for the petty constables in towns ought to be the better sort of residents in the same, save that they be not aged or sickly, but of able bodies in respect of their keeping watch and toil of their place"; and Blackstone says that considering the class of man that commonly acts as constable, it is just as well that he should remain in ignorance of the powers that are entrusted to him by law.

Despite the fact that the employment of deputies was mischievous in its immediate consequences, the rise of the custom marked a distinct stage in the development that resulted in the freedom from personal liability which, without prejudice to the police administration, we now enjoy; it began to be felt that the onerous and thankless position of constable deserved remuneration, and that it was more economical to delegate constabulary duties to experts, than that every man should be compelled to serve his turn in an office that interfered with his normal activity, and for which, perhaps, he had no special aptitude. England, as we have seen, was rapidly becoming a commercial country, and all were eager to take advantage of every chance of money-making that offered itself, and finding that the duties of citizenship absorbed more of their time than they were willing to spare, peace-officers were no sooner elected than they hastened to hire any proxies whom they could persuade to undertake the burden of office. This reluctance of busy men to devote their valuable time to an unpaid public service was reasonable enough, and the practice of employing substitutes was winked at by the authorities; yet centuries passed before a way was found to organize with intelligence, and officially recognize a system, that whilst freeing the mass of the people from an unnecessary conscription, should yet retain the essential principle that every man shares in, and cannot divest himself of, a definite responsibility for the maintenance of good order in the commonwealth.

The decay of the feudal system and the gradual abolition of villenage went hand in hand, as we have seen, with the rise of the merchant and the artisan; as trade increased and as the skilled workman became a recognized power in the state, the police horizon widened, new interests needed protection, new laws and regulations had to be made and enforced. The supreme direction of commercial police rested with the Crown; and, as long as the sovereign's prerogative was confined to the control of fairs and ports, to the granting or withholding of monopolies, and to the regulating of weights and measures, the services of the Justices of the Peace, assisted by their constables, had been found sufficient for all practical purposes. But when questions arose, touching our trade with foreign merchants or demanding a technical knowledge of native manufactures, it became necessary to submit these difficult problems to some more expert authority than the ordinary executive officer. This want was supplied, to a great extent, by the above-mentioned police development of the Trade-Guilds or Livery Companies, which, recently deprived of much of their former political influence, now for the first time seriously began to devote themselves to the special interests of their several trades, by properly confining their energies to channels more legitimate than state-craft, such as the protection and control of the various markets, manufactures, and handicrafts.

In the early stages of its development in this country, commerce stood on a very different footing from that upon which it rests to-day: skilled artizans came and settled in England from all parts of the continent, bringing their laws and customs with them; arrived here, they not only competed with the native manufacturer, but beat him at all points of the game. In the absence of any preventive police worth mentioning, the position of these aliens would have been an impossible one, except for two considerations; in the first place they thoroughly recognised the value of combination and acted upon it, and in the second place the very considerable revenue that their activities brought to the royal coffers, secured for them the king's protection and support.[83]

This incursion of foreigners was not without its effect on our craftsmen, who saw, that to command success, they too must combine, organize, and regulate. The result was that nearly every trade and industry soon had its guild organized on the continental model, the object of which (unlike the modern trades-unions that exist mainly to prevent the power of the capitalist over his employées from becoming absolute), was to create a monopoly, and hedge it round so that no outsider could enter the exclusive circle without being properly initiated and regularly admitted to craft-membership.

The Livery Company punished the fraudulent workman, corrected the idle apprentice, and also prosecuted the would-be interloper who attempted to infringe upon its rights and privileges.

We are indebted to these trade-guilds for introducing to our shores in the first instance, many mechanical arts which, greatly to our advantage, subsequently became naturalized, and afterwards for keeping them alive through times of difficulty and danger, when the central government was not strong enough to afford much protection; the high character that English goods have earned throughout the world's markets is, to a great extent, owing to this system of commercial police, which compelled every workman to serve a long apprenticeship in a technical school, and which punished the producer of fraudulent and worthless articles. On the other hand whole fields of industry were arbitrarily closed to honest and capable folk by the absurd restrictions imposed for the sole benefit of corporations, which, when full allowance has been made for the good they did, and when full credit has been given for the service they rendered by standing in the breach at the critical moment, were, after all, thoroughly reactionary in their tendency, bent, as they were, upon stifling healthy competition whenever possible, and inclined to look upon any new invention as a crime against their craft mysteries.

A serious defect in the constitution of our mediæval police consisted in the numerous privileges enjoyed by favoured communities. No police regulation was of universal application; we have seen how in Anglo-Saxon times the king's peace afforded especial protection to certain classes, and how various limitations were imposed according to locality and according to season; subsequently charters were freely given to monasteries, guilds, boroughs and cities, carrying rights and conferring favours that were not shared by the nation at large. The consequence was that every rule bristled with exceptions, and legislation grew proportionally more complicated and difficult of application than would have been the case had all men been equal in the eye of the law. Many a useful measure was rendered largely inoperative by reason of the numbers of persons who could plead privilege against its enforcement in their particular case. Hue and Cry could avail nothing against the baron who had bought a charter of pardon for felonies committed in the past or contemplated in the future, and the pursuit of the sheriff was stayed when the fugitive took refuge in sanctuary. First the clergy, and afterwards persons not in orders who could prove their ability to read a word or two in the Gothic character,[84] were entitled to plead "benefit of clergy," and thereby escape perhaps well-merited punishment. In the reign of Henry VII. this privilege was wisely restricted, by ordaining that those who had pleaded "clergy" once, should be branded on the brawn of the thumb with a hot iron (M for a Murderer, T for a Thief), so as to prevent their cheating justice a second time by means of the same plea. Gradually benefit of clergy was taken away from one offence after another, until at last[85] no serious crime was left to which this exemption from punishment attached. Again, the scholars of Oxford and Cambridge were not subject to many regulations that applied elsewhere, the members of these universities being allowed to beg, under certain restrictions, without incurring the penalties that ordinary "vagabonds and sturdy beggars" were liable to; on the other hand Jews and gypsies were subject to pains that did not attach to the native population.