1st Edition

The New Police in the Nineteenth Century

Edited By Paul Lawrence Copyright 2011

    The period 1829-1856 witnessed the introduction of the 'New Police' to Great Britain and Ireland. Via a series of key legislative acts, traditional mechanisms of policing were abolished and new, supposedly more efficient, forces were raised in their stead. Subsequently, the introduction of the 'New Police' has been represented as a watershed in the development of the systems of policing we know today. But just how sweeping were the changes made to the maintenance of law and order during the nineteenth century? The articles collected in this volume (written by some of the foremost criminal justice historians) show a process which, while cumulatively dramatic, was also at times protracted and acrimonious. There were significant changes to the way in which Britain and Ireland were policed during the nineteenth century, but these changes were by no means as straightforward or as progressive as they have at times been represented.

    Contents: Introduction; Part I: Police Reform and Administration: The Bedfordshire Police 1840-1856: a case study in the working of the Rural Constabulary Act, Clive Emsley; Reform of the Borough police, 1835-1856, Jenifer Hart; The County and Borough Police Act, 1856, Jenifer Hart; The new police, crime and people in England and Wales, 1829-1888, D.J.V. Jones; The Metropolitan Police Receiver in the XIXth century, R.M. Morris; The police system of London, W. O'Brien; The Home Office and the provincial police in England and Wales, 1856-1870, Henry Parris; Whigs and coppers: the Grey ministry's National Police Scheme (1832), David Philips and Robert D. Storch. Part II: Changing Patterns of Policing: Recruiting the English policeman, c.1840-1940, Clive Emsley and Mark Clapson; 'Private policing and the workplace': the Worsted Committee and the policing of labor in Northern England, 1840-1880, Barry Godfrey; Policing London's morals: the Metropolitan Police and popular culture, 1829-1850, Stephen Inwood; Early policing methods in Gloucestershire, Bryan Jerrard; The plague of the blue locusts: police reform and popular resistance in Northern England, 1840-57, Robert D. Storch; The policeman as domestic missionary: urban discipline and popular culture in Northern England, 1850-1880, Robert D. Storch; The new science of policing: crime and the Birmingham police force, 1839-1842, Michael Weaver. Part III: The New Police - Ireland (The Royal Irish Constabulary): Peel and police reform in Ireland, 1814-18, Tadhg Ó Ceallaigh; James Shaw-Kennedy and the reformation of the Irish Constabulary, 1836-38, Gregory J. Fulham; The domestication of the Royal Irish Constabulary, 1836-1922, W.J. Lowe and E.L. Malcolm; Policing famine Ireland, W.J. Lowe; The constabulary agitation of 1882, W.J. Lowe; 'The reign of terror in Carlow': the politics of policing Ireland in the late 1830s, Elizabeth Malcolm. Part IV: International Comparisons: A typology of 19th-cen

    Biography

    Paul Lawrence is Senior Lecturer in European History at The Open University, UK