A History of Police in England

by W. L. Melville Lee

Troops were sometimes made use of in a half-hearted sort of way to patrol the most infested localities, but the simple remedy of maintaining a properly paid and equipped police was never tried: the only expedient that the wisdom of the age could suggest was the offering of rewards to all and sundry to encourage the apprehending of highwaymen. This disastrous policy was inaugurated in 1692.[140] "Whereas the highways and roads," runs the preamble of the statute in question, "within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales have been of late times more infested with thieves and robbers than formerly, for want of due and sufficient encouragement given, and means used, for the discovery of such offenders," provision is accordingly made, that in the event of any person being killed in the act of taking a highwayman, his executors shall have the reward, and a free pardon is promised to accomplices and other criminals who shall cause such offenders to be brought to justice. The conditions under which this pardon was granted were as follows: "If any person or persons, being out of prison from and after the said five-and-twentieth day of March, commit any robbery and afterwards discover two or more persons, who already hath or hereafter shall commit any robbery, so as two or more of the persons discovered shall be convicted of such robbery—any such discoverer shall himself have, and be entitled to, the gracious pardon of their Majesties."

The provisions of this Act were afterwards extended to robberies in London,[141] and first and last were responsible for an appalling sum of wickedness. The bait of blood-money and the lack of a salaried or professional class of detectives were answerable for the appearance of amateur thief-takers; these men were mostly ex-thieves, who had given up their old vocation for the safer, more lucrative, but infinitely baser role of fattening on the conviction of the innocent, and on the execution of those whom they had themselves corrupted. The best known and most energetic member of this horde of vampires was the notorious Jonathan Wild, who flourished at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and whose modus operandi is fully set forth for us by Henry Fielding in his satirical history of "Jonathan Wild the Great."

This arch-ruffian had a most complete knowledge of all the thieves in England, and at one time practically monopolised in his own person the trades of receiver of stolen property and trafficker in blood money. He established warehouses all over the country, and even bought himself a ship to export what he could not dispose of at home. To those thieves who submitted to his authority, and who brought him the proceeds of their robberies, he extended a protection that must have been dependent to a certain degree on the connivance of some person or persons in authority. Grandmaster of espionage, and holding in his talons the threads of all villainy, Wild could manufacture whatever evidence he chose, could ruthlessly destroy any who opposed him, and deliver up to justice those thieves who were bold enough to take their spoils elsewhere for disposal. When this supply of victims ran short, or when it suited his purpose to shield the real culprit, he was content to take the reward offered for the conviction of the innocent. It is comforting to know that his carcass, the foulest fruit the fatal tree ever bore, eventually swung at Tyburn, at the same spot where so many of his victims had preceded him.

The iniquitous system of paying blood-money for the conviction of certain classes of offenders continued for generations, but is now happily extinct. At the present day rewards are not offered by Government except under very exceptional circumstances, and then only in cases where the identity of the criminal is clear, whilst rewards offered by private persons are placed under restrictions that prevent any revival of the abominable traffic that continued even into the nineteenth century. As late as 1816 George Vaughan, and others associated with him, were convicted at the Middlesex Sessions of conspiring to induce three brothers named Hurley, and a lad named Wood, only thirteen years of age, to commit a burglary at Hoxton, and by having them convicted of the fact, to procure for themselves the rewards given by Parliament for the conviction of housebreakers.

One of the chief embarrassments, after the inefficiency of the constabulary, which hampered the action of the authorities, and made the suppression of crime more difficult, was the popularity that the more notorious thieves enjoyed amongst a large section of the people; the sympathy, felt and expressed, for highwaymen of the Claude Duval type was widespread, and arose from a variety of sentiments. The mass of the people, who never suffered in their own pockets, were not altogether averse to seeing the rich plundered occasionally, especially as it was the policy of the robbers to be free and open-handed with a part of their booty. Another class of people who were well-disposed towards the highwaymen, gave their sympathy as a misdirected kind of protest against the severity of the law; and the "gentlemen of the road," as they were called, quick to perceive the advantage that this popularity, from whatever source arising, gave them—sometimes, but not often—performed quite gentlemanly actions, in order to enhance and to advertise their reputation for good deeds.

The Abbé le Blanc, who spent some years in England early in the eighteenth century, declared that he frequently met Englishmen who were as proud of the exploits of their highwaymen as they were of the bravery of their soldiers, and in a letter to de Buffon he writes: "It is usual, in travelling, to put ten or a dozen guineas in a separate pocket, as a tribute to the first that comes to demand them," and adds that, "... about fifteen years ago, these robbers, with a view to maintaining their rights, fixed up papers at the doors of rich people about London, expressly forbidding all persons, of whatever quality or condition, from going out of town without ten guineas and a watch about them, under pain of death. In bad times, when there is little or nothing to be got on the roads, these fellows assemble in gangs, to raise contributions even in London itself; and the watchmen seldom trouble themselves to interfere with them in their vocation."[142] Without attaching too much importance to the statements of this foreign critic, it must be confessed that at no time in our history have the arrangements for maintaining the peace sunk to so low an ebb as when thief-takers like Jonathan Wild were officially recognised and allowed to co-operate with the constitutional police forces, and at no time has the flood of lawlessness reached such a height as when highwaymen and footpads dictated their own terms to all who made bold to use the King's Highway. Yet the Government took no steps towards organizing an adequate defence, and utterly failed to provide any counterpoise to the criminal tendencies of the age; it was left to private enterprise to carry out the duties, or some of them, that Parliament neglected to perform. In 1696 a "Society for the reformation of manners in the cities of London and Westminster" was formed, and in 1702 was instrumental in securing the conviction of 858 "Leud and Scandalous persons." Two years later, the Governors of the London poor issued a proclamation, promising the sum of twelve pence to any person who should apprehend "any rogue, vagabond, or sturdy beggar," and, having brought him before a Justice of the Peace, cause him to be committed to the workhouse.

The particular kind of lawlessness, however, that chiefly exercised men's minds in the days of Queen Anne was the work of young men of the town, commonly known as "Mohocks," who established a reign of terror in London, and whose excesses the peace-officers were powerless to prevent. The worst outbreak occurred in 1712, and the doings of these young blackguards are minutely described in a pamphlet published in that year.[143] "The watch in most of the out-parts of the town stand in awe of them, because they always come in a body, and are too strong for them, and when any watchman presumes to demand where they are going, they generally misuse them. Last night they had a general rendezvous and were bent on mischief; their way is to meet people in the streets and stop them, and begin to banter them, and if they make any answer, they lay on them with sticks, and toss them from one to another in a very rude manner. They attacked the watch in Devereux Court and Essex Street, made them scower: they also slit two persons' noses, and cut a woman in the arm with a penknife that she is lam'd. They likewise rowled a woman in a tub down Snow Hill, that was going to market, set other women on their heads, misusing them in a barbarous manner."

In spite of the public indignation that such brutalities aroused, the feeble and timid watchmen were not superseded, nor was any inquiry instituted to discover the reasons for their inability to cope with these scandalous proceedings. It was thought rather a good joke that watchmen should be knocked down, and constables overturned, whilst the fact that London was left in complete darkness during the greater part of the night seems to have occasioned but little concern. There is a saying to the effect that a good lamp is a good policeman; but the subjects of Queen Anne, as it seems, expected the peace to be maintained without the assistance of either the one or the other,—the lamps were only lighted at six o'clock in the evening, and those that had not gone out before were extinguished at midnight, and when the moon was full they were not lighted at all.

The outrages committed by the Mohocks were so serious and persistent that something had to be done towards putting a stop to them, and so recourse was had to the objectionable expedient of offering a government reward for the conviction of the members of the gang. On the 17th of March 1712, the Queen issued a Royal Proclamation in the following words—"Anne R. The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty being watchful for the Public Good of her loving Subjects, and taking notice of the great and unusual Riots and Barbarities which have lately been committed in the Night Time, in the open Streets, in several parts of the Cities of London and Westminster, and Parts adjacent, by numbers of Evil dispos'd Persons, who have combined together to disturb the Public Peace, and in an inhuman manner, without any Provocation have Assaulted and Wounded many of her Majesty's good Subjects, and have had the Boldness to insult the Constables and Watchmen, in the Execution of their Office, to the great Terror of her Majesty's said Subjects, and in Contempt and Defiance of the Laws of this Realm, to the Dishonour of her Majesty's Government, and the Displeasure of Almighty God, &c., &c.... Her Majesty doth hereby promise and declare, That Whosoever shall before the First Day of May now next ensuing, discover to any of Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace, any Person who, since the First Day of February, last past, hath, without any Provocation, Wounded, Stabb'd, or Maim'd, or who shall before the said First Day of May, without any Provocation, Wound, Stab, or Maim, any of her Majesty's Subjects, within the said Cities of London and Westminster, and Parts Adjacent, so as such Offenders be brought to Justice, shall have and receive the Reward of One Hundred Pounds, &c., &c."