Policing before 1829

The policing of towns and the countryside before the nineteenth century was based on a system established in the Middle Ages. In charge were the Justices of the Peace appointed by the Crown. Constables and watchmen helped them.

• Constables were appointed by Quarter Sessions. The high constable of a hundred was in effect a servant of the JPs. Appointed for between three and ten years, the constable faced a heavy fine if he refused to serve. The person appointed constable could pay someone to do the job for him. This became widespread in the sixteenth century and meant that, in some places, almost permanent ‘professionals’ were at work. The constable had to report to JPs on the state of roads and on public houses. He relied on his petty constables, operating in town and village, for his information. The constables had to use their own initiative and make regular presentments [reports] to the court. They had no uniform or weapons.
• In towns, but also in some villages. Watchmen patrolled the streets at night. In London there were also two provost marshals whose job was to arrest vagrants. In larger towns, like London, parish councils appointed paid beadles whose job was to organise the night watchmen. In theory all male citizens had to take it in turn to act as unpaid watchmen. In practice most prosperous people paid someone else to do the job.

Maintaining law and order depends on some form of policing. By the early eighteenth century this medieval system of policing was increasingly unable to cope with the rising population and the rising tide of crime. The only national police force that existed was the revenue or customs officer force that specialised in catching smugglers. The major problems were:

1. The old constable system was cheap to run and the government continued with it. However, it could not cope with the size of the new industrial towns like Birmingham, Manchester and Sheffield. What existed was a medieval system of policing in a modern world.
2. Watchmen were poorly paid. Patrick Colquhoun, a critic of the system, argued that “the old and infirm were thus employed to keep them out of the workhouse”. The City of London employed 1000 night watchmen so it was an important source of employment. Some watchmen were in league with criminals. They were rarely efficient in dealing with criminals and usually gave up the chase when a criminal went into a neighbouring parish.
3. Some large towns employed thief-takers like Jonathan Wild. They pocketed reward money after the successful prosecution of criminals.
4. Large-scale disturbances or riots were deal with either by the professional army or by the local militia or yeomanry.

The problem of policing was at its most severe in London. In 1730 the government decided to appoint a chief magistrate for London to hold court at Bow Street. The first was Sir Thomas de Veil. He was followed by two half brothers, Henry and John Fielding. Henry Field had little faith in petty constables or watchmen and he appointed six men to act as full-time ‘runners’ or thief-takers. They were paid a guinea a week plus a share of the reward for each successful prosecution. Later the blind[1] Sir John Fielding, who succeeded his brother, established the Bow Street Runners[2] on a permanent basis and ran it from 1754 to 1780. They could be called on to investigate any crime committed in London. He also began a system of publishing information about serious crimes committed in London with descriptions of wanted criminals. In 1772 he called for the collection, collation and circulation of information on a national basis. This was published as The Hue and Cry and Police Gazette and is still published today. The Thomas river police was set up in 1800 to police the river and its banks.

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[1] It was said that Sir John could recognise 3,000 criminals by their voices and that they were unnerved by this talent.

[2] In 1805 some of the runners were issued with blue coats and trousers, black boots and hats, white gloves and scarlet waistcoats – hence the name ‘Robin Redbreasts’. Each carried a pistol, cutlass and truncheon.

Young offenders

Children have always committed crimes. Farmers whose apples had been taken may have complained to the children’s parents. The local constable might give them a severe telling off or a clip on the ear. Only the most difficult and persistent child criminals found themselves in court. When they did, they were punished like adults. Children were put in prisons, transported and even hanged. In 1880 there were 6,500 children under 16 in adult prisons, of whom 900 were under 12.  People’s awareness of juvenile crimes was raised by the publication of Oliver Twist in 1837. Dickens shocked people with his description of the Artful Dodger and Fagin’s trained gang of pickpockets. His story may have been fiction but it was successful in getting people thinking about child crime and how to deal with it. There was a growing understanding that children were not just miniature adults but developing people who were influenced by their environment. Reformers like Mary Carpenter began to ask important questions:

• How and when does a child know what is right and wrong?
• What should be done about the fact that criminals and deprived backgrounds produced more child criminals?
• Children were likely to become criminals by sending them to an adult prison. What alternatives should there be?

The result was the gradual development of the juvenile justice system.  The need to separate young offenders from the corrupting influence of hardened criminals had been urged for centuries. In 1838 a positive, but short-lived, step was taken of separating juvenile offenders when the former military prison on the Isle of Wight at Parkhurst was opened with a reformatory regime for convicts under eighteen prior to their transportation.

1. In 1853 a Select Committee on Criminal and Destitute Children recommended a degree of state assistance for reformatory schools. The Youthful Offenders Act 1854 provided for persons under sixteen years to be sent to such schools for from two to five years following two weeks in a prison (perhaps as a shock). These reform schools were very tough but the clear intention was to separate the child from his or her bad home environment.
2. In 1857 legislation sanctioned the sending to industrial schools of children between the ages of seven and fourteen who had been convicted of vagrancy. The perceived decline in juvenile crime after 1860 was often attributed to the reformatories and industrial schools by reformers[1].
3. In 1902 an experimental school to try to reform repeating offenders aged 15-21 was started at Borstal in Kent. It was run like a public school, with lots of sport and residential houses. The plan for more such schools, called Borstals, was extended in 1908 and for a time they were very successful.
4. The 1908 Children’s Act was an important move in the separate treatment of children. It stopped children under 14 being sent to prisons and created special Juvenile courts to hear cases. After 1908 a child under seven was not held liable for his actions. This was raised to eight in 1933 and ten in 1963. Whether it should remain at 10 is now a matter of some debate.
5. In 1932 reformatory schools were replaced by Approved Schools for offenders under 15. A total of 86 boys’ schools and 35 girls’ schools were set up.

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[1] It is unlikely that this was the only cause of decline and taking the country as a whole there was no common sentencing policy with regard to juveniles. The majority of convicted juveniles continued to be sent to ordinary gaols.