A History Of Police In England - free ebook by W. L. Melville (William Lauriston Melville) Lee

A HISTORY OF POLICE IN ENGLAND

BY Captain W. L. MELVILLE LEE M.A. Oxon. METHUEN &amp; CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON 1901 DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO The Right Hon. LORD ALVERSTONE, G.C.M.G. LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND...

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PREFACE

A title of convenient length, but one which shall exactly fit the subject-matter in hand, is a desideratum that seldom lies within an author's reach. The title selected for this book is open to the objection that, though consisting of as many as six words, it is, however, not quite explicit. The sense in which the word "police" is used is explained in the Introductory Chapter, but it here remains to be said that "England" must be taken to include the Principality of Wales, and, incidentally, tha

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INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

Introducing himself to his readers at the close of the eighteenth century, Dr Colquhoun wrote: "Police in this country may be considered as a new science." A full generation later, or to be more precise, in the year of Queen Victoria's accession, one of the leading magazines of the day found occasion to remark as follows: "The art of preventing offences is unbeaten ground—has hardly had a scientific teacher. On laws and general legislation, on the theory of crimes and punishments, on prison disc

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CHAPTER I ANGLO-SAXON AND NORMAN POLICE

In the days before the attainment of English unity, the maintenance of the peace was the care of certain local institutions and bodies, the nature of which need not here be specified. The Anglo-Saxon period of our history being one of continual change and gradual development, the maintenance of the peace cannot be treated as a homogeneous whole before the various arrangements which secured it had been consolidated, and, for the first time reduced to a system, by Edgar. From this time onwards, ho

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CHAPTER II WATCH AND WARD

The intimate bond which linked together the Kingly Office and the general police organisation invested the latter with a certain concrete dignity that was beneficial. The people were impressed by the fact that police was the special province of the highest personage in the land, at a time when they were incapable of appreciating the abstract importance of the subject. The responsibility for peace-maintenance was in this way definitely fixed on the one individual, who besides being best able to e

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CHAPTER III JUSTICE AND CONSTABLE

The accession of Edward III. marked the beginning of a new police era, that of the petty constable acting under the direction of the Justice of the Peace. The Statute of Winchester continued to be the guide in matters of police, but the executive which carried out its provisions underwent a change. Any attempt to follow in detail the history of the Justices of the Peace, and the powers resident in them, is beyond the scope of the present work; this task has already been often and ably performed.

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CHAPTER IV FOREST POLICE AND POLICE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

Just as the state of public tranquillity brought about by the wise government of Edward I. had been disturbed by the irresponsible and childish behaviour of his pleasure-loving successor, so was the admirable domestic policy of Edward III. robbed of its due reward by the lack of judgment and the want of administrative capacity exhibited by Richard II., whose unhappy reign is thus described by Froissart. "The State generally of all men in England began to murmur and to rise one against another, a

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CHAPTER V COMMERCIAL POLICE AND POLICE UNDER THE TUDORS

The growth of the royal power that was so well defined a characteristic of the sixteenth century was accompanied by a general re-establishment of good order throughout the kingdom. As long as the reins of government were slackly held by feeble monarchs, the king's peace was reckoned of but little account, and in the words of the Anglo-Saxon writer already quoted, "every man that could, forthwith robbed another." Nobles surrounded by their retainers, broke the peace whenever they chose, and laid

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CHAPTER VI ECCLESIASTICAL POLICE AND POLICE UNDER JAMES I

The accession of Queen Elizabeth inaugurated a period of great activity for the police departments. Her rule was masterful and her control maternal. Magistrates and constables were kept busy in administering the statutes dealing with apprentices, wages, disputes in service, hours of labour, the regulation of industrial trades, laws for the suppression of rogues and vagabonds, and other enactments too numerous to mention, which followed each other in quick succession. Of the many statutes, public

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CHAPTER VII MILITARY POLICE AND POLICE UNDER CHARLES II

If the feebleness of the police was in some degree responsible for the ready appeal to arms in 1642, the lawlessness that was so widespread at the close of the century, was largely the outcome of the disorganization of the national police system, which was the natural accompaniment of the Revolution. Civil War is invariably attended by an outbreak of crime that has no connection with the main quarrel, but which arises in the day of trouble because the powerlessness of the executive is the opport

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CHAPTER VIII BOW STREET POLICE AND MAGISTERIAL REFORM

It was not until the middle of the century that any intelligence was brought to bear on the problem of police, or that any promise appeared of a better state of things in that department of government. For an awakened interest and the resulting improvement we are mainly indebted to the famous novelist, Henry Fielding, who spent the closing years of his short life in a vigorous campaign against the growing domination of society by the criminal classes. Appointed to the Westminster bench at the ag

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CHAPTER IX PAROCHIAL POLICE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Before proceeding to a narration of the successive steps that culminated in the radical reorganization authorized in 1829, it is necessary to describe the nature and extent of the various police establishments as they existed at the close of the eighteenth century. Exclusive of Special Constables, who, though legally available, were but rarely if ever employed, there were, at this time, five distinct classes of Peace Officers: It will be noticed that of these five classes, numbers i. and ii. wer

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CHAPTER X POLICE AT THE DAWN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

In the year 1801, the population of London and Middlesex hardly exceeded a million, but how many of the individual units that went to make up this total were engaged in criminal pursuits, it is of course impossible to estimate with any degree of accuracy, because the bulk of the crime was undetected and consequently unrecorded. From such data as we possess, however, it is certain that the proportion of thieves and other delinquents to honest men must have been alarmingly high. Between 1801 and 1

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CHAPTER XI PIONEER REFORMERS

Just when the immediate outlook was the most gloomy, and at an hour when the future seemed most barren of any hopeful sign, unseen and unsuspected influences were already at work; influences which were destined first to arrest, and eventually to repel, the increasing flood of criminality, as well as to alleviate the hard lot of the unhappy convict. Up to this point the annual total of crime had ever been mounting higher and higher whilst the tale of abuses had continued to increase. But the mala

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CHAPTER XII "THE NEW POLICE"

The depth of lawlessness under which London lay submerged, and the deplorable condition of the feeble bulwarks that the richest city in the world had so long been content to rely on, have been considered at some length, because it is only by contrasting the security of recent years with the lawless confusion previously existing, that an intelligent appreciation of the debt we owe to Sir Robert Peel is made clear. The evidence given before the various Parliamentary Committees reveals to us an imp

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CHAPTER XIII PUBLIC OPPOSITION TO THE "NEW POLICE"

The formation of the new police force in the metropolis aroused the fiercest opposition and remonstrance. Invective and ridicule were heaped upon the measure from all sides. The hopeless incompetence and the discredited character of the blackguardly Charlies were at once forgotten, nor were the prevalence of crime and the insecurity of life and property at all considered by those who made it their business to foment the popular antagonism. Week by week certain newspapers continued to publish the

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CHAPTER XIV POLICE REFORM IN BOROUGHS

It is sometimes assumed that the Metropolitan Police Act solved, once and for all, the question as to the manner in which London was to be policed for the future. Such, however, was far from being the case. The old prejudice was not lived down in a day; and the jealousy of those who saw what they were pleased to consider their vested rights slipping out of their grasp into the hands of the newcomers, caused the remnant of the old office-holders to make frantic efforts to recover what they had lo

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CHAPTER XV POLICE REFORM IN COUNTIES

Before describing the successive steps by which the County Constabulary progressed towards its long-delayed reorganization, it will be convenient to follow the method before adopted, when dealing with the somewhat similar march of events in the Metropolis, and to preface such description by a short account of the unreformed county police, thereby shewing how disastrous were the consequences of the faulty system in vogue, as revealed by the deplorable condition of rural England under its influenc

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CHAPTER XVI CO-OPERATIVE POLICE AND THE SUPPRESSION OF RIOTS

When the new police was first introduced, the promoters of the scheme did not look beyond the creation of a local force, sufficient to protect life and property in the metropolis and its immediate neighbourhood. No doubt Peel intended that his police should serve as a model to other forces which he hoped to see established throughout the kingdom; but it was no part of his plan that the Metropolitan Police should be extended until the whole of England was policed by a homogeneous organization adm

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CHAPTER XVII POLICE STATISTICS AND PENOLOGY

Attention has already been directed to the excessive zeal of the opponents of the "New Police"; but no mention has been made of those enthusiasts who looked for an instant millennium to follow upon the adoption of the measures they advocated. Yet there were many such who formed extravagant hopes too high for realization. It is seldom easy for the observer to arrive at a just estimate of the value of a new institution until his standpoint is far enough removed from the stress of the moment to sec

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CHAPTER XVIII DETECTIVE POLICE AND THE RIGHT OF PUBLIC MEETING

It is popularly believed that the least efficient department of English police is that which is concerned with the detection of crime, and our detective service is often compared with corresponding agencies abroad in order to point the moral that we should do well to imitate the methods of our neighbours. It is certainly true that our detectives are proportionally less numerous than their continental confrères, true also, that extraordinary facilities for successful police action such as are gra

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CHAPTER XIX CONCLUSION

From the time when Rural Constabulary forces were instituted in 1839, until the date of the creation of County Councils fifty years later, the police authority throughout rural England had been the County Justices of the Peace in Quarter Sessions, to which body alone, in the several counties, was each Chief-Constable answerable, provided that he conformed to the general regulations laid down by the Secretary of State. During this period various changes, in addition to those of a more important n

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