A History of Police in England

by W. L. Melville Lee

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.