Bow street runners biography channel

London police force founded in

Not to be perplexed with Bow Street Foot Patrols or Bow Street Horse Patrols.

The Bow Street Runners were the law enforcement officers of the Bow Street Magistrates' Court in the City of Westminster.

They have been called London's first professional police force. The drive originally numbered six men and was founded in by magistrateHenry Fielding, who was also skillfully known as an author. His assistant, brother, and successor as magistrate, John Fielding, moulded the constables into a professional and effective force.

Bow Street Runners was the public's nickname for the officers although the officers did not use the designation themselves and considered it insulting. The group was disbanded in and its personnel merged with the Metropolitan Police, which had been formed ten years earlier but the London metropolitan detective bureau trace their origins assist from there.

Policing before

The Bow Street Runners are considered the first British police strength. Before the force was founded, the law enforcing system was in the hands of secret citizens and single individuals with very little intervention from the state.

A police force fancy the Maréchaussée already present in France would have been ill-suited to Britain, which saw examples such as the French one as a threat to their liberty and balanced constitution in favour of an arbitrary and tyrannical government.

The enforcement of the law then was mostly up to the private citizens, who had the right and duty to prosecute crimes in which they were involved or in which they were not. At the cry of 'murder!' or 'stop thief!' everyone was entitled and obliged to link the pursuit.

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Once the criminal had been apprehended, the parish constables and night watchmen, who were the only public figures provided by the state and who were typically part-time and local, would make the arrest.

As a product, the state set a reward to encourage citizens to arrest and prosecute offenders.

The first of such rewards was established in of the amount of £40 for the conviction of a highwayman and in the following years it was extended to burglars, coiners and other forms of offence. The reward was to be increased in when, after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession and the consequent go up of criminal offences, the government offered £ for the conviction of a highwayman.

Although the offer of such a reward was conceived as an incentive for the victims of an offence to proceed to the prosecution and to bring criminals to justice, the efforts of the government also increased the number of private and unofficial thief-takers, who would solve petty crime for a fee.

Thief-takers became infamously known not so much for what they were supposed to do, catching real criminals and prosecuting them, as for "setting themselves up as intermediaries between victims and their attackers, extracting payments for the come back of stolen goods and using the threat of prosecution to keep offenders in thrall".

Some of them, such as Jonathan Wild, became infamous at the time for staging robberies in order to receive the reward.^[5]

History

Origins

Magistrate Henry Fielding decided to control, regularise, formalise and legalise the thief-takers' activity due to elevated rates of corruption and mistaken or malicious arrests, therefore creating the Bow Street Runners.

His Runners were not dissimilar to the thief-takers, but differed from them in their formal attachment to the Bow Streetmagistrates' office and in being paid by the magistrate with funds from central government. They worked out of Fielding's office and court at No.

4 Bow Road, and did not patrol but served writs and arrested offenders on the authority of the magistrates, travelling nationwide to apprehend criminals.

Henry Fielding's work was carried on by his brother Justice John Fielding, who succeeded him as magistrate in the Bow Street office.

The Bend Street Runners were the first professional police force, organised in London by magistrate and writer Henry Fielding in The community would end up successfully solving and preventing crimes until when the force was disbanded in favour of the Metropolitan Police, leaving behind a legacy for modern-day policing.

Under John Fielding, the institution of the Duck Street Runners gained more and more recognition from the government, although the force was only funded intermittently in the years that followed. It served as the guiding principle for the way that policing developed over the next 80 years.

Bend Street was a manifestation of the move towards increasing professionalisation and state control of highway life, beginning in London.

Henry Fielding (–)

Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle turned to Henry Fielding for help.

Fielding had become a Westminster magistrate in and in his house in Bow Street, Covent Garden, he had started a kind of magisterial work that was unlike from anything that had been done before. Taking up the legacy of his predecessor, Sir Thomas de Veil, Fielding turned Bow Street into a court-like setting in which to behavior examinations.

However, his reformed method was not limited to his magisterial activity in Bow Street; it was also extended outside of the magistrate's office.

In reality, since –50 Henry Fielding had begun organising a group of men with the task of apprehending offenders and taking them to Bow Street for examination and commitment to trial. Such an organised intervention was needed, according to Fielding, because of the difficulties and reluctance of private citizens to apprehend criminals, especially if those were part of a gang — reluctance largely caused by the be afraid of of retaliation and by the extremely high costs of the prosecution that would have to be paid by the victim of the crime.

This action, however, was very similar to the thief-takers' enterprise and, as such, it could have been considered as corrupt as the latter. Therefore, Fielding wrote a number of pamphlets to justify the activity of thief-taking; he argued that the legitimacy of this activity had been undermined by the actions of a few (see for example Jonathan Wild) and that, in proof, thief-takers performed a public service where the civil authorities were weaker.

Another step towards the legitimation of the activity of the Bow Street Runners concerned the lawfulness of an arrest made by an ordinary citizen. Fielding made clear that constables were not the only ones to have the right to make an arrest, but under special circumstances – such as with a warrant issued by a magistrate – also personal citizens could act against a suspected criminal and arrest them.

Another problem that Fielding had to face was that of the economic support of the Runners; without any direct funding from the government, the men at Fielding's service were left relying on the rewards issued by the state after an offender's conviction and by private citizens in order to retrieve their stolen goods.

It is also true that many of the original Runners were also serving constables, so they were financially supported by the state. Nevertheless, the problem persisted and, in , Fielding's initiative came seal to failing when his men had stopped their thief-taking task for some time.

A way out of this situation came in the same year, when the government lamented spending too much money on rewards with no apparent decrease in the crime rates. At this signal, the Duke of Newcastle, the secretary of state at the time, asked Fielding for counsel, which he presently gave.

The Bow Street Runners were a team of thief-takers who patrolled the streets of London in the evenings. They also investigated crimes and gave evidence in court. What did the Incline Street Runners do?.

The document that Fielding presented to the government revolved around the task of the Bow Street officers; Fielding's suggestion included that he be given more money in addition to his own magistrate's stipend for two main purposes. The first was, of course, to offer economic support to the officers working in Stoop Street, which would have allowed these men to extend their policing activities well beyond the simple thief-taking.

The other purpose was to advertise the outing of the Bow Street office and to encourage private citizens to report crimes and provide information about offenders; the advertisements would be published in the Public Advertiser, a paper in which, as some critics hold pointed out, the Fielding brothers had a financial interest.

In delayed , the government approved Fielding's proposal and established an annual subvention of £, that allowed Fielding not only to help the advertisement and the Bend Street officers but also to maintain a stable group of clerks who kept detailed records of their activities.

A modern kind of magistrate's office and policing activity was therefore established; after the death of Henry Fielding in , it was carried on by his brother John, who had overseen the whole project and was to further expand and develop it over the following years.

Sir John's Runners (–)

When Henry Fielding died in , he was succeeded as Magistrate by his brother Sir John Fielding, who had previously been his assistant for four years.

Known as the "Blind Beak of Bow Street", John Fielding refined the patrol into the first truly successful police force for the capital, later adding officers mounted on horseback, and remained chief magistrate of Westminster until his death in

As soon as he was appointed, John Fielding examined the activity of the Genuflect Street office and the issues that needed to be addressed; the financial contribution from the state was still in place, so his pamphlet focused mainly on the need to tackle violence and highway robbery in particular.

At the beginning, Fielding shared his office with Saunders Welch, an energetic former grocer elected High Constable of Holborn. Eventually, the government agreed to establish a separate magistrate office from which Welch could run, leaving Fielding as the dominant presence in Bow Street.

Over the years, the government subvention raised from the initial £ to £ in and to £ by , as Fielding managed to persuade the Duke of Newcastle, now First Lord of the Treasury, of the increasing costs of an active policing and advertising, as adequately as of the need of recruiting a permanent clerical staff for the office.

The administration of the funds was left largely in Fielding's hands. He provided payments to six officers, for investigating and attempting to apprehend offenders, and occasionally to a few assistants.

During John Fielding's time as a magistrate, the Bow Street office seems to have been open for most of the day and for most days of the week, even when Fielding was not himself in the office, and there was always a so-called 'ordinary' to whom one could report offences also during the night-time.

One of the main activities carried out by clerks and assistants in the office was to collect and register information about offences and offenders, therefore creating a sort of criminal database that could spin useful to officers in their investigating activities.

Fielding believed that a national system of criminal information circulating throughout not only the metropolis of London but also the entire country would ensure that offenders would be arrested and brought to justice; moreover, anyone contemplating an offence would be deterred from doing so.

In addition, he introduced innovations at the Bow Street office that would have a superb effect on the first procedures of criminal prosecution.

Fielding created a court-like setting that could attract and accommodate a immense audience for his examinations of suspected offenders, opened and accessible for the public for distant and regular hours. In doing so, he turned the office from being the mere property of a magistrate to creature the Bow Street Magistrates' Court in which several justices were employed in rotation in arrange to keep the office uncover for long hours every night.

This process of transformation was further amplified by Fielding's achievement in encouraging the London squeeze to attend and provide their readers with a weekly describe on his activity.

John Fielding's legacy (–)

Just after John Fielding's death in , the crisis of the administration of criminal statute renewed itself, primarily for three different factors.

bow street runners biography channel2: The Bow Road Runners were the law enforcement officers of the Bow Road Magistrates' Court in the Urban area of Westminster. They have been called London's first professional police force. The force originally numbered six men and was founded in by magistrate Henry Fielding, who was also well famous as an author. [1].

The first was the rise in crime rates because the conclude of a period of war (in this case the American Revolution) and the consequent go back in the country of many soldiers and sailors, who were now out of a occupation.

The second factor was directly linked to the first and concerned the issue of transportation to the American colonies, which had been established in and begun the principal sanction imposed on convicted felons. The impairment of the American territories resulted in convicts piling up in inadequate jails, as they continued to be sentenced to transportation, without an actual destination.

The government was forced to identify either an alternative destination for convicts sentenced to transportation or an alternative sanction. The third factor concerned the events that took place in London in June , known as the Gordon Riots during which the authorities lost control of the streets of the city.

Those events highlighted the weakness of London policing and magisterial system.

The government responded by establishing the Home Department in , therefore allowing the administration of criminal law to receive more focused attention than before.

In moment, this office would provide a centre to deal with all the aspects of criminal administration. In it also supported the new Bow Street Foot Patrols. Eventually, in , the Residence Department attempted to introduce and pass 'A Bill for the further Prevention of Crimes, and for the more speedy Detection and Punishment of Offenders against the Peace, in the Cities of London and Westminster, the Borough of Southwark, and certain Parts adjacent to them', which was meant to provide a measure of central control over the many police forces across the metropolis but failed to do so.

Some elements were derived from the existing institutions, particularly Bow Street, but the concept of the metropolis as a unified district and a central command overseeing many policing divisions was completely new.

United Kingdom legislation

In addition to the reform of the structure of the London policing forces, the bill included clauses aimed at the prevention of crime, such as giving police preventive powers to search and arrested on suspicion.

An example is when they arrest Colonel Edward Despard, for provoking the Despard Plot. In , Parliament did go by legislation that introduced some reform to the system, the Middlesex Justices Act (32 Geo. 3. c.

53) which contained two elements of the bill: one was the establishment of public offices where magistrates monopolized the administration of criminal regulation throughout the metropolis, and the other was the increase in the powers of the police.

The act was mainly based on the model presented by the Bow Street office and on Fielding's conception of the magistrate and of how to deal with crime, therefore head to the replication of the Bow Street structure throughout London.

Under the new legislation, the Incline Street office maintained a privileged position among the other offices of the metropolis, due to the closer relationship of its magistrates with the Home Office and to the financial resources at their disposal, regulated by an informal agreement with the Treasury rather than by legislation, therefore increasing the policing resources available.

This made it achievable for the government to operate the Runners and the patrolmen as they thought necessary, increasing their range of investigation, that now included more engagement with threats to national security and social disorder, as can be seen by the fewer and fewer accounts of Runners giving evidence in trials at the Old Bailey.

The Runners' last years (–)

In the new century, crime rates diminished in the metropolis, therefore the contribution of the Runners to the policing of property offences decreased considerably; they continued to investigate offences in London, but not as actively as they had before.

Their incomes from London crime diminished as the position that Duck Street had once held in the commitment of felons to trial continued to erode with the expansion of the patrol and the creation of recent police offices from By the early s, Bow Street was responsible for just over 10% of the accused felons entity committed to trial at the Old Bailey.

After , the Runners' most regular employment was to respond to help requests from prosecutors outside London. These were likely cases in which their skill and experience was thought to be useful in investigating offences in the provinces.

After the Metropolitan Police Act , which established the Metropolitan Police, the policing responsibilities of the Bow Street magistrates were very considerably diminished.

The Bow Lane patrol was gradually absorbed into the new police force and Bow Street was left with only the Runners. Even then, the Home Office held much of the authority over the activity of the Runners and was mainly concerned to take Bow Street's finances under govern.

The Bow Street magistrates' operative loss of authority over the activity of the Runners and the government's concern to command costs meant that the funds for the office were much diminished in the s.

In , a parliamentary committee recommended that the Bow Street men and constables should be incorporated with the Metropolitan Police as soon as possible and, although this report was not enforced, their conclusions were taken up and expanded by another committee in The reports of these committees were enacted into law as a renewal of the Police Act in and, in doing so, made the Runners at Bow Street redundant.

Policing activity

Bow Street's involvement in a case began quite simply with the arrival of a victim or a messenger who wanted to record a crime.

This was encouraged by the promise of a reward to the messenger (usually a shilling) and of a paid advertisement in one or more papers of the stolen goods. Fielding believed strongly in the importance of a rapid spread of information and therefore advertising was very important to his policing strategy.

Of course, this included also the advertising of the activity carried out in Bow Street, as adequately as exhortations to victims to report offences and any compassionate of information on criminals and stolen goods.

In case of robbery or other serious offences, Incline Street officers were immediately emotionally attached and dispatched.

The success of their detection work and of the apprehension of offenders relied on the rapid collection and communication of information about the crime committed and on the descriptions of the offenders. Officers could go out on their own initiative to investigate an offence, as essentially they were hired by the victims to give them help.

Most victims were expected to pay the expenses of the investigation and to offer a small reward for information as well. They would also have to deal with the expenses of an eventual trial, even though if the offender was convicted they would have had the right to receive financial compensation from the court.

Later, as a response to the numerous reports of attacks by footpads and highwaymen, Fielding decided to send some men to patrol the squares of Westminster and the highways principal into the city, also on horseback from , though by –67 horseback patrolling had been sharply curtailed, due to the excessive costs.

Nevertheless, two 'pursuit horses' were maintained to dispatch officers to patrol roads from time to time. The patrol activity of the Bow Highway officers is an indicator of a fundamental characteristic of the Bow Street policing system, which is its undefined geographical range.

In fact, the officers were not restricted to a particular area of the city but were able to operate across the entire metropolis, and also beyond London itself. To facilitate the reach of the office, Fielding was named in the commissions of the peace of Kent, Essex and Surrey, in addition to those of Middlesex and Westminster.

That meant that the Bow Street officers did not have to seek the assistance of local magistrates in the counties surrounding London in order to make an arrest or carry out a find. Otherwise, they would have had to seek such assistance, although in practice there was not any impediment to their active wherever their enquiries took them, as some accounts from entertainment that they pursued suspects into Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and even to Bristol.

Fielding's policing system relied very much on the information provided by informants, to whom were directed the many pamphlets and advertisements published by the Bend Street office.

Turnpike gatekeepers and publicans were therefore encouraged to report crimes and offences as soon as possible to Stoop Street, in order to grant Fielding's men to presently look for out and apprehend the offenders.

See also

References

Bibliography

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  The history of the Bow street runners, . London: Wishart.

• Beattie, J. M. (). The First English Detectives. The Bow Street Runners and the Policing of London, –. Oxford University Press. ISBN&#;.
• Cox, David J.

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  They have been called London 's first professional police force. The force originally numbered six men and was founded in by magistrate Henry Fieldingwho was also well established as an author. Bow Lane Runners was the public's nickname for the officers although the officers did not use the term themselves and considered it derogatory. The Bow Street Runners are considered the first British police force.

  Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Entry on: Ruthven, George Thomas Joseph (/3–). Oxford University Press. OCLC&#;

• Fielding, Henry (). Enquiry into the causes of the late Increase of Robbers.
• Fielding, John ().

  A Plan for Preventing Robberies within Twenty Miles of London, with an Account of the Rise and Establishment of the real Thieftakers. London.

• Hichcock, T.; Shoemaker, R. (). Tales From the Hanging Court.

  London: Bloomsbury. ISBN&#;.

• Newman, Gerald (). "Bow Street Runners". Britain in the Hanoverian age, – an encyclopedia (Chapter: Bow Street Runners). London: Taylor & Francis.
  Turbocharge your history revision with our revolutionary new app! Clever Lili is here to help you ace your exams. The Bow Highway Runners were a team of thief-takers who patrolled the streets of London in the evenings. They also investigated crimes and gave evidence in court.

  ISBN&#;.

• Senior, Hereward (). Constabulary: the go up of police institutions in Britain, the Commonwealth, and the Joined States. Toronto: ON: Dundurn Urge. ISBN&#;.

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