A History of Police in England

by W. L. Melville Lee

In 1833 Bath had a population of about 20,000, or if we include the suburbs, 55,000; there was no permanent body of professional peace officers, only tythingmen or constables to the number of 110. This small force was split up into three parts, each part independent of, and antagonistic to, the others: on the occasion of a parliamentary election, when party feeling ran high and serious disturbances took place all over the town, the Walcot and Bathwick divisions gave their assistance, but the city police refused to act, even when they were appealed to by the Mayor in person. If a felony was committed in the city, the guilty party could only be apprehended on the warrant of a city magistrate, and, if the felon should succeed in reaching the suburbs, the city constables could not execute the warrant until it was backed by a justice of the county of Somersetshire.

In Gloucester no watchmen were employed before 1822, and the whole available constabulary force consisted of the Sergeant-at-Mace, and the other officers of the Corporation, assisted by twelve constables appointed by the magistrates. The ancient Court of Pie-poudre flourished until 1770 or thereabouts, after which it gradually fell into disuse. In 1831 two day policemen were appointed in imitation of the London system.

Coventry, with a population of 28,000, supported 60 peace-officers under the command of a chief-constable, and from 8 to 10 watchmen under the orders of an official called "the Inspector of the Watch." In case of emergency the town looked for protection to the services of special constables who had been enrolled in times of tumult to the number of four or five hundred. Generally speaking the police were unpaid, but when employed in quelling a riot, the constables were sometimes given a shilling or eighteenpence for refreshments.

Dover had two distinct forces, one under the control of the magistrates, and the other (established under the "Pavement Act"), wholly independent. The total number of constables was from 25 to 30, but they had nothing to do with watching the town.

At this time Hull contained 36,000 inhabitants, and was policed on a very economical plan. The chief constable supervised thirty-nine officers who were only paid for work done; that is to say, the constables were allowed so much an hour for time actually spent in apprehending felons or vagrants, on the principle: no prisoner, no pay.

The dock companies employed a percentage of their day-labourers to act as night watchmen, and, under a local act, 72 watchmen were appointed for the town and outlying districts. In Portsmouth 22 peace officers pretended to protect nearly 50,000 people, and in Liverpool, where the prevalence of crime was so pronounced that the town was often spoken of as the "black spot on the Mersey," the only police force existing in 1834 was a body of 50 watchmen (of the usual type), to keep order amongst 240,000 inhabitants.

These brief but representative examples will give some idea of the diversity of police systems and police expedients to be found in the larger towns. If each borough had been left to work out its own salvation according to its own predilections, constabulary forces more or less efficient would eventually, no doubt, have sprung up here and there; but the absence of uniformity and co-operation, which necessarily must accompany such a spasmodic process, would have seriously retarded the ultimate triumph of good government throughout England.

There were three principal reasons why the immediate provision of a general scheme of police reform in the Boroughs was urgently required at this particular moment. Criminals of all kinds are ever on the alert to find an Alsatia where they can ply their trades without the unwelcome interference of their hereditary enemy, the policeman, and the formation of the Metropolitan force was the signal for a wholesale exodus of depredators from London towards other and more secluded centres of activity. The smaller country towns and rural districts offered few attractions to enterprising thieves, and so boroughs like Liverpool, Manchester and Bristol, where considerable plunder was to be had at little risk, were the chosen retreats of many who no longer dared to brave it out in London.

If any reliance may be placed on contemporary statistics, this migration entirely altered the distribution of the criminal classes: it was estimated, incredible as it may seem, that in 1797 nearly ten per cent. of the population of London supported themselves "by pursuits either criminally illegal or immoral":[196] in 1837, the proportion of known bad characters to the population was calculated at only 1 to 89 in the Metropolitan Police District, but at 1 to 45 in the Borough of Liverpool, 1 to 31 in the City of Bristol, and 1 to 27 in the Town of Newcastle-on-Tyne.[197] One cannot believe that these calculations were based on perfectly accurate information, but on the other hand it is unlikely that the results are so wide of the mark as to be altogether without value, and after allowing a large margin for error, proof enough remains that the enhanced security of London had, to some extent, been purchased at the expense of the inhabitants of other towns.

The desire to acquire wealth without working for it—to "live idly yet to fare well"—is the main incentive that makes men criminal, and experience proves that if those who live by their wits are sufficiently harassed, they soon show their wit by returning to the humdrum path of honesty till such time as the vigilance of their enemies is relaxed. "Allow the thief no rest" is a sound maxim of preventive police; and if in 1829 it had been possible simultaneously to provide efficient police for all the towns of England, many and many a thief would have been driven to exchange his old occupation for some less precarious trade.