Law Enforcement

Early modern London had no professional police forces, apart from a handful of provost marshals, first appointed in the Elizabethan period to perambulate the City and suburbs, rounding up vagrants and petty criminals.  The job of policing the streets, arresting criminals and compiling the evidence needed for prosecutions fell mainly to unpaid parish constables, watches comprised of local householders and victims of crime, who frequently had to pay the costs of a prosecution.  Serious offenses were usually prosecuted by one of the two annually elected sheriffs of London or justices of the peace for Westminster and Middlesex County, who had jurisdiction over many of the suburbs.  The adequacy of these resources varied considerably within the metropolis.  Within the City the number of constables, watchmen and others responsible for crime prevention seems to have been similar to the number of police assigned to the same area in the early twenty-first century.  But some of the larger and poorer suburbs would have had proportionally fewer constables and watchmen.(1)   

The legal penalty for all serious crimes was death by hanging, except for high and petty treason, where a more horrific death by hanging drawing and quartering or burning was prescribed.  But in practice petty criminals and suspicious characters were often consigned to the London workhouse, Bridewell, for terms of incarceration and hard labor.  Offenses that landed people in Bridewell included small thefts, getting pregnant out of wedlock, night walking (being found in the streets after dark) and vagrancy.  A significant number of individuals were sent there more than once.  Public whipping and the stock and pillory were also used.  In the latter case the public could lighten or aggravate the punishment by the way it treated the miscreant as he sat or stood helplessly, with shackled arms or legs.( 

In dealing with dangerous and large-scale threats to law and order, such as major riots, the City would sometimes have to rely on the trained bands of the urban militia.  After the Restoration professional troops were also available to back up the City authorities in case of need.  William Earl of Carven, commander of the elite Coldstream Guards responsible for the security of Whitehall Palace, also had responsibility for overseeing law enforcement and fire prevention in the metropolis.  But the authorities disliked using soldiers except in cases of real need.

Another resource that gradually became available after 1660 was the services of professional thief takers or detectives.  Many thief takers were disreputable figures with criminal backgrounds and connections, which sometimes helped in their work but also led to crime rackets masquerading under the guise of law enforcement. Thief takers would, for example, act as brokers between crime rings and their victims by arranging for the return of stolen property in return for a substantial reward.  Sometimes they were suspected of arranging thefts so as to collect these rewards. Then as now convicted criminals were often given pardons or reduced sentences in exchange for information against their colleagues.  Petty criminals might be spared from prosecution if they cooperated with investigations leading to the arrest and conviction of more prominent figures in organized crime gangs.  Thief takers actively involved themselves in negotiations over these deals, thereby acquiring the power to shield criminal associates, while aggressively prosecuting other criminals who did not pay them protection money.  

The most notorious case of a criminal master mind masquerading as thief taker was that of Jonathan Wild in the early eighteenth century.  Wild's initiation into the metropolis's criminal underworld began during a long period of imprisonment for debt in the Wood Street compter.  He gained the confidence of the superintendent and was put in charge of overseeing other prisoners, with whom he often developed good relationships.  A street-walker named Mary Milliner became his chief instructor in the ways of London's criminal underworld.  After their release in 1712 the pair briefly set up house together, running what was probably a brothel.  Wild soon branched out into racketeering and selling stolen goods.  By 1713 he had become an associate of the corrupt Under City Marshal Charles Hitchens, assisting him as he perambulated London, ostensibly to enforce the law but actually to extort protection money and set up fencing rackets.  When the two quarreled Wild struck out on his own, with an office near the Old Bailey from which he arranged for the return of stolen goods for rewards, which the thieves split with Wild.  He initiated prosecutions of criminals who refused to cooperate with him, collecting more rewards offered by the government for the capture and conviction of felons.  Wild advertised his services in the London press and by 1717 was dressing as a gentleman styling himself "The Head Thief Catcher" of England.  His business continued to expand until 1724, despite a public attack by Hitchen, who in several printed pamphlets accused his erstwhile partner of running a criminal racket.   Wild struck back with his own pamphlets, exposing Hitchen's associations with pickpockets and sodomites and managed to win the public relations battle.  

Wild's demise began with his prosecution of two famous criminals, Jack Sheppard and Joseph "Blueskin" Blake, who were championed in the press as underdogs fighting against a corrupt thief taker.  In February 1725 he was arrested for helping one of his associates escape from a constable.  While in prison he made the mistake of collecting a reward for the return of some stolen lace, without attempting to prosecute the thief.  This was illegal under a recently passed (although commonly ignored) statute; to make matters worse there were indications that Wild himself had arranged the theft.  Although acquitted of theft he was convicted on the lesser charge and sentenced to hang.  By this time his role in bringing scores of criminals to the gallows, including some of his own associates, had made him deeply unpopular and he was pelted with stones on his way to the gallows.  He provided the model for Peachum, the lead character in Gay's Beggar's Opera.

 1.  For an excellent survey of this subject, from which much of this discussion derives, see Paul Griffiths, Lost Londons: Change, Crime and Control in the Capital City 1550-1660 (Cambridge, 2008)

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.