City At Night 1080p Backgroundsl
Mica Withington
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Traditionally, every male householder was expected to contribute to policing the streets, just as every citizen was expected to report and prosecute anyone they witnessed committing a felony. But, under the pressure of increasing concerns about the threat posed by violent and dangerous criminals, and owing to the growing wealth of London's middle classes, this changed in the eighteenth century. Just as Londoners became less willing to initiate prosecutions, with informers and thief-takers playing an increasingly important role, so too did householders withdraw from serving as night watchmen and constables, preferring instead to hire deputies or pay taxes to fund salaried officers to serve in their place. Similarly, instead of responding directly to crime, victims became more likely to summon help from the watch or thief-takers. In some respects the culmination of this process was the creation by Henry and John Fielding of the Bow Street Runners, part-publicly funded detectives under the direction of a magistrate, which rendered thief-taking more respectable. All these developments led to the increasing professionalisation of policing, anticipating most of the significant features of the Metropolitan Police, established in 1829. While improved levels of policing did not lead directly to increased numbers of prosecutions in the criminal courts, they did lead to significant changes in the character of criminal prosecutions and the criminal trial.
Early modern householders were required to serve by rotation or appointment on the night watch, patrolling specified streets between 9 or 10 pm and sunrise. They were expected to examine all suspicious characters and to apprehend offenders and bring them to the watchhouse. In the City, they were appointed by the common council of each ward. In Westminster, watchmen fell under the joint control of the Court of Burgesses and the parish vestry, while in Middlesex they were appointed by the parish. The nightly work of watchmen was supervised by constables.
Although frequently ordered by Justices of the Peace to sweep the streets and arrest offenders guilty of specific crimes, such as nightwalkers or vagrants, most constables adopted a reactive approach and only enforced the law in response to complaints from victims, or specific warrants issued by the Justices. As inhabitants of the very neighbourhoods they policed, and with the everpresent threat of violence or being subject to vexatious prosecutions from those they arrested, discretion was often the better part of valour.
The City of London possessed additional law enforcement officers in the position of the City Marshal, a paid, uniformed officer who served under the Lord Mayor and had the responsibility to carry out the orders of City officials, supervise the night watch, and take up vagrants and other suspected criminals. The Marshal had an undermarshal and six men. He was given an enhanced role in the 1770s and leadership of the day patrol in 1785, by which point there were 10 men.8 The activities of the Marshals in apprehending offenders can be be found in the Old Bailey Proceedings.
Within the City, beadles were long-established ward officers. The office was a full-time job with a salary, and many served in the post for years, sometimes also acting as constables. Many had subordinates, called warders, who acted as their assistants. Their responsibilities included a range of policing activities: organising and supervising the night watch; controlling crowds; prohibiting the sale of goods on Sundays; prosecuting nuisances; arresting and prosecuting prostitutes, beggars and vagrants; and even arresting men and women on more serious charges. The Minutes of the Bridewell Court of Governors (MG) include many men and women accused of petty offences who had been committed directly by ward beadles (from 1785, however, beadles lost the power to make commitments on their own).
Fielding also expanded the role of the Runners by giving them the duty of patrolling major city streets and the principal roads leading into the metropolis in order to prevent robberies. Funding for this was only available erratically, when the government was particularly concerned about crime, for example in 1763 during the crime wave which followed the conclusion of the Seven Years War. In 1780, following the Gordon Riots, a patrol seems to have been set up on regular basis, and by 1797 the Bow Street office was home to sixty-eight patrol men, who patrolled in groups on horseback and on foot.10
With several different types of police patrolling the streets or seeking out deviants, eighteenth-century London was hardly the weakly policed city some contemporaries complained of. But levels of policing varied significantly across the metropolis. With its Marshal and his officers, ward beadles, and Patrole, the City of London was subject to much greater levels of surveillance than the surrounding suburbs, though the affluent Westminster parishes which taxed themselves to provide a more regular watch were also relatively intensively policed. Even within the City, the ratio of constables to houses varied enormously from ward to ward, from only 28 houses per constable in the central ward of Bread Street, compared to 267 houses per constable at the other extreme in the extra-mural parish of Farrington Without.11
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