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Law and Administration
The evolution of law and administration
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Headlines are in brown.
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.
References and citations are in turquoise.
Context and local history are in purple.
Geographical context is in green.
About 1000
Local organisation focused around a
lord’s great hall (later called manors by the Normans). From these would
satellite outlying demesne farms which were called berewicks.
Free men held soke estates. There were some larger sokes
which belonged to the King, church or Earl. In other words, there was an
informal hierarchy from larger to smaller lordships.
Over seventy thegns are listed in
the Domesday Book, including the large landowner Ormr,
who held Kirkbymoorside, Earl Siward, Gamal, Tosti and Ughtred
of Cleveland.
Arable farming focused around vills or towns.
Tax was assessed on cultivated land
through caracutes (derived from the Latin carruca, plough) and bovates. Early
assessments were therefore focused on the amount of ploughing that could be
achieved in an area of land. These initial measures would last through time,
even though methods of ploughing changed. A carucate was a medieval land
unit based on the land which eight oxen could till in a year.
By this time York
had seven administrative districts, with one controlled by the Archbishop. The
townsmen had extensive pasture rights in the surrounding area. Archaeology has
revealed significant manufacturing in metal, glass, amber, jet, deer horn, wood
and bone.
1070
After he faced rebellion, William I adopted a more
ruthless approach to governing the country. He dispossessed the indigenous
aristocracy. He now proclaimed that every part of the kingdom belonged to him
by right of conquest. The Domesday Book
provided William with administrative dominance over 13,400 named places. The
local populations, the nativii, were regarded
as mere peasants and to be scorned and laughed at. Libraries of written
material were lost. He stopped using English in documents by 1070.
However there were some building blocks
from the pre Norman history of the nation that survived this time of ruthless
change. William was persuaded to show some element of continuity to cement his
rule – he did after all place significance in persuading of natural succession
to Edward the Confessor. There were aspects of Anglo Saxon government that
continued, and English saints started to return into the cultural tradition.
The council of the English people of
witan fell out of use, but was replaced by a gathering of feudal tenants,
initially referred to a concilia (French) and
later parlements. Initially this was more a
summoning of advisers.
The Feudal System
Administration took a more centralised
form.
·
William
I granted land, fiefs or fees, to his barons, to pay for their
services. This was reinforced by a homage ceremony, where a public oath of
allegiance was declared.
·
The
Barons in turn granted land within their own domains to local folk, also in
return for a declaration of allegiance.
·
At
the lowest level were villeins, serfs who were allotted parcels of land
in return for labour, rent and service.
o
About
70% of these folk could be classed as villeins, and held perhaps 15 to
50 acres
o
Cottagers
held around 5 acres or less.
o
Many
became paid labourers or slaves.
In addition to the barons, the clergy
and monasteries held land in a similar fashion, and in many ways they were more
unpopular in their efficiency and impersonality.
In consequence previously free landowners
became subjects of the invading aristocracy. They were subject to serfdom and
directly confronted with obligations of fighting and taxes.
Two groups did retain some autonomy and
wealth – townspeople and churchmen.
Language
The Normans ended the use of English for
the purpose of government. Old English tended to continue as a vernacular
language. T survived as the means of communication with the bulk of the
population.
Latin became widely used for
administrative and legal purposes.
French became the form of communication
between the elite classes. Walter Scott in Ivanhoe later commented that English
soon became the language of the farmyard (swine, ox and calf), whilst French
became the language of the table (pork, beef). Noblemen’s children were sent to
France to learn the language well.
Law
After 1066, the Normans introduced
greater complexity in the legal system, with a blossoming of:
·
New
laws for the French population;
·
Laws
for the English population;
·
New
forest laws;
·
Canon
law administered through church courts;
·
Justice
administered by local lords
·
A
tradition of trial by combat.
To some extent local disputes were
resolved locally, royal authority intervening savagely where local discipline
broke down.
1100
To secure support Henry I agreed in his
coronation charter that he would restore the laws of Edward the Confessor.
1135
The period of King Stephen (1135 to 1154)
saw sporadic conflict between Matilda (Henry I’s daughter and dowager empress
of Germany through marriage), and Stephen of Boulogne (William I’s grandson).
This was a period of breakdown in Royal authority, the period often being
called ‘The Anarchy’.
1154
The reign of Henry II eventually led to
greater rivalry with France, and the consequence for the English population was
higher taxation to fund wars that would sporadically continue for the next
three hundred years or so.
1166
In 1166, Henry II started to introduce
travelling royal judges or eyres
(literally ‘journeys’).
1170
Permanent courts started to sit in
Westminster in the 1170s.
Writs came to be used as the basis of
the system of justice, which adopted a standardised form.
This in turn gave rise to a universal
nature of royal justice, and the start of a common law. This contrasted to the
development of law in Continental Europe, which was more coded, for instance
deriving from Roman law and the Code of Justinian (530 CE). In this way England
adopted its own distinct national legal system. In theory, the law in England
rejected the use of torture, in contrast to the rest of Europe, at least at
this time.
There was a significant focus on
property law and land rights.
1184
Old forest customs were codified in the
Assize of the Forest in 1184. Under the Norman kings, the royal forest grew
steadily, probably reaching its greatest extent under Henry II when around 30
per cent of the country was set aside for royal sport. The object of the forest
laws was the protection of ‘the beasts of the forest’ (red, roe, and fallow
deer, and wild boar) and the trees and undergrowth which afforded them shelter.
The definitive form to forest law occurred during Henry II's reign, most notably
in the Assize of the Forest (also known as the Assize of Woodstock) in 1184.
None could carry bows and arrows in the royal forest, and dogs had to have
their toes clipped to prevent them pursuing game. Savage penalties for any
infringements were often imposed. Discontent with the laws ensured that the
forest became a major political issue in John's reign. It culminated in the
Charter of the Forest (1217), but only in the 14th cent., when large areas were
disafforested, did the political issue subside.
1215
John’s unpopular methods of raising
taxation came to a head by the barons insistence that King John signed Magna
Carta at Runnymede in June 1215. It included a resolution of countless
grievances of the day, but it also embraced some fundamental legal principles
which have passed through to contemporary legal doctrine, including that No
Freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned … but by lawful judgment of his peers.
Magna Carta:
·
Imposed
restraints on monarchy;
·
Might
be taken as the first example of a written constitution, which was unusual
across Europe at that time;
·
Represented
a contract between monarchy and the community of the realm, which started to
emerge as a distinct legal entity.
1258
Although Henry III reaffirmed Magna
Carta and agreed to an amended form which included forest rights, he later
started to develop a form of absolute monarchy. The barons were insistent upon
their right to advise the King, and there crystalised some early ideas of
communal rights and more radical ideas. By 1258, the barons were growing
impatient again with royal authority. They appointed Simon de Montfort, Earl of
Leicester, to lead them. Although the rebellion was eventually crushed, the
barons wars of this period started to give more force to ideas of a parlement.
1300
Local administration
Most
people lived in a village, worshipped in a parish and worked in a manor (Robert
Tombs, The English and their History, 2023, 92).A lord might possess many
manors, or one. A manor operated as a large collective.
Senior
villagers held offices, such as constable or church warden.
About 2/3
of manorial tenants were not free in 1200, but were villeins or serfs. Villeins
usually paid part of their rent in labour. Strictly, they could not leave the
manor without permission. They could be sold.
The
common law gradually extended to all free men and even unfree men had certain
rights and could even pass on their land to their heirs.
At a
local level, the Lord was the pinnacle of local society and the political,
cultural and economic focal point. Norman feudalism only lasted for about a
century and it was replaced by a primitive system of land tenure. Over time
this was increasingly paid for by money rather than service. The lord provided
land, justice and protection. In return the lord expected obedience and
deference; support to profit from the land; and military assistance when
necessary.
By the
1300s landlords comprised about 20,000 individuals and 1,000 institutions (Robert
Tombs, The English and their History, 2023, 94). The Crown held about 3% of the
land directly.In the fourteenth century there were
perhaps a dozen dukes. There were some 1,500 kinghts.
Then came esquires, who came to be referred to by the 1400s as gentlemen. Some
of these were yeoman freeholders.
Nobility became defined by an air
of nobility, enabling it to be distinguished by appearance, gesture and
language.
Baronial courts existed by royal grant. Forest Law was
separate and had its own hierarchy of courts. Many lords ran lesser manor
courts and benefitted from fines for breaches of local customs. The tenants at
Kirkbymoorside under the Stutevilles and the Wakes
were taxed annually at Michaelmas.
Law
Royal administration started to see the
advent of a legal professional class of lawyers, clerics and lay
administrators. There emerged at Westminster:
·
Law
courts;
·
The
Chancery to deal with documents;
·
The
Treasury to hold funds;
·
The
Exchequer to account for funds.
The common law extended to every
village. It was well used as it was cheap. Cases were reported.
Parliament
Parliament had first been referred to in
1236, when it was no more than the royal council. By the 1250s it met more
regularly and by the 1270s it met twice a year at Westminster. Its main
function had by then become the approval of taxation and to hear petitions.
1350
The consequences of the Black Death
Following the Black Death, Edward III
took steps to keep society running as it had before the plague. Edicts were
issued requiring folk to maintain their obligations.
The Statute of Labourers in 1349 and Statute of Artificers fixed
princes at pre plague levels, required people to work at those levels and
forbad employers to pay more. Serfs were not to leave their manors. Even the
wearing of clothes was regulated so that ordinary folk would know their
station.
Moral writers such as William Langland
(1330 to 1386), author of Piers Ploughman, wrote of society becoming unruly and
materialistic.
However the population had ben reduced
from 6M in 1300 to 2.5M in 1350 due to the famines and then the Black Death.
1376
The Good Parliament protested as a
Commons about the costs of the French Wars and elected a new office, the
Speaker.
The Peasants Revolt
The
Peasants
Revolt
led by Wat Tyler arose from tensions from high taxes and fixed incomes
following the Black Death.
On
30 May 1381, John Bampton imposed a poll tax in Brentwood, Essex and a
significant uprising was triggered, insisting on reductions in taxation, the
end of serfdom, and the removal of some senior officials and law courts.
John
Ball,
Jack
Straw
and Wat
Tyler
led the rebels to London and they met Richard II at Mile End where charters
were conceded freeing them from all bondage. However there was a further
meeting between the rebels at Smithfield. Violence broke out. Tyler was stabbed
and killed by the mayor of London.
The
rebellion was eventually quashed. However the germs had been sewn for greater
rights for the general population.
Outbreaks
of rebellion materialised outside London.
At
first it seemed that the cause was lost. It is said that Richard II soon
declared Rustics you were and rustics you are still; you will remain in
bondage, not as before but incomparably harsher.
The
rebels tended to support the King; they had more confidence in landholdings
being taken direct from the King, but their rebellion was targeted primarily at
the aristocratic elite.
Revolts
in Northern England
Revolts
also occurred across the rest of England, particularly in the cities of the
north, traditionally centres of political unrest. In the town of Beverley,
violence broke out between the richer mercantile elite and the poorer
townspeople during May 1381. By the end of the month the rebels had taken power
and replaced the former town administration with their own. The rebels
attempted to enlist the support of Alexander Neville, the Archbishop of York,
and in June forced the former town government to agree to arbitration through
Neville. Peace was restored in June 1382 but tensions continued to simmer for
many years.
Word
of the troubles in the south-east spread north, slowed by the poor
communication links of medieval England. In Leicester, where John of Gaunt had
a substantial castle, warnings arrived of a force of rebels advancing on the
city from Lincolnshire, who were intent on destroying the castle and its
contents. The mayor and the town mobilised their defences, including a local
militia, but the rebels never arrived. John of Gaunt was in Berwick when word
reached him on 17 June of the revolt. Not knowing that Wat Tyler had by now
been killed, John of Gaunt placed his castles in Yorkshire and Wales on alert.
Fresh rumours, many of them incorrect, continued to arrive in Berwick,
suggesting widespread rebellions across the west and east of England and the
looting of the ducal household in Leicester; rebel units were even said to be
hunting for the Duke himself. Gaunt began to march to Bamburgh Castle, but then
changed course and diverted north into Scotland, only returning south once the
fighting was over.
News
of the initial events in London also reached York around 17 June 1381, and
attacks at once broke out on the properties of the Dominican friars, the
Franciscan friaries and other religious institutions. Violence continued over
the coming weeks, and on 1 July a group of armed men, under the command of John
de Gisbourne, forced their way into the city and
attempted to seize control. The mayor, Simon de Quixlay,
gradually began to reclaim authority, but order was not properly restored until
1382. The news of the southern revolt reached Scarborough where riots broke out
against the ruling elite on 23 June, with the rebels dressed in white hoods
with a red tail at the back. Members of the local government were deposed from
office, and one tax collector was nearly lynched. By 1382 the elite had
re-established power.
Robin
Hood
The
emergence of the Robin Hood legends at about this time was likely to have
been inspired in part at the general grievances of the new aspiring middle
class which led to the peasants revolt. It is notable that Nicholaus de ffarnedale
(FAR00838A)
paid 4d for the second Poll Tax in 1379, and may well have had rebellious
sympathies with these ideas.
There
were rebellions in 1450 (“Jack Cade’s Rebellion”), 1471 and
1497.
It
was principally the shortage of labour and the aristocracy’s dependence upon
service, that led over the following half century or so to:
·
Wage
growth
·
Tenants
increasingly able to use their land as they wished
·
The
beginning of tenants dividing up their strips of land by enclosures
·
Serfs
purchasing their freedom
·
Extinction
of servile tenures, replaced by rents in money and copyholds
·
The
growth of a cash economy
·
An
evolution of village communities and concepts of help for the poor
·
The
evolution of the yeoman, as a landowner of tenant of some
importance
·
Workers
moving between jobs
Society
was more restless and unpredictable, but it was freer.
1468
De Laudibus legem Angliaie (In Praise of the Law of England),
by the lawyer Sir John Fortescue claimed the English Common Law as the most
ancient of the world.
1590s
By the end of Elizabeth’s reign, the
institutions and administration was beginning ot be
called the State, albeit Elizabeth’s government was still small and personal.
1603
The lack of an heir left by Elizabeth
meant that the son of Mary Stuart, the 37 year of James VI of Scotland, with
his protestant upbringing, was welcomed with relief.
Union of the Crowns of Scotland and
England (though the nations remained separate with their own parliaments). James’
ambition was to make Scotland and England a single Great Britain and he
introduced a union flag, and common coinage. A new 22 shilling piece bore the
motto, faciem eos
in gentem unam, I will make them one nation.
James, influenced by the French and
Scottish styles, had a natural dislike of English institutions, including
Parliament and was surprised that his forebears had allowed such an
institution.
James had the common law adopted in
Scotland. The largely forgotten Magna Carta was re-found as the fountaine of all the fundamental lawes
of the realm. Coke’s Institutes of the Laws of England found a new and
ancient uniqueness in the law.
In 1628 Parliament’s Petition
of Right found intangible and permanent values in the law, giving rise to
the idea of the rule of law, and of fundamental freedoms.
Local government
During the reign of James I, central
government struggled to finance itself, but local government became more participatrory and gentlemanly JPs and farmers took turns
to serve as churchwardens, constables and overseers of the poor.
In 1601, Elizabeth’s Poor Law Act
replaced monastic charity. It sought to consolidate all previous legislative
provisions for the relief of 'the poor'. The Poor Law made it compulsory for
parishes to levy a 'poor rate' to fund financial support ('public assistance')
for those who could not work.
1696
After the Glorious Revolution, an
offshoot of concurrent warfighting was the spiralling of taxes, which trebled
between 1688 and 1713. In 1696 an Inspector General was appointed to levy
customs and excise duties. The Land Tax created in 1688 was administered
locally by JPs.
There is a perception of eighteenth
century administration as corrupt, but there is no real evidence of that and in
contract to Continental Europe, there was a tendency to trust and accept the
administration, accepting the need for national defence, albeit reluctantly.
Taxation was generally regarded as fair and compliance was high.
However taxation alone was not
sufficient. Public debt grew from £3M in the 1680s to £100M in 1760. This was
the catalyst for a new more efficient financial system.
·
Simple
IOUs were replaced by more sophisticated long term low interest bonds.
·
In
the 1690s, there were studies of Dutch and Venetian banking systems.
·
In
1694, the Scot, William
Paterson founded the Bank of England (based on the Bank of Amsterdam). It
immediately acted to prevent a debt crisis to save a collapsed in government
credit.
·
As
Parliament’s guarantee made default unlikely and by 1715, half of the tax
revenue was spent servicing the national debt, but ‘as long as land lasts
and beer is drunk’, there was little worry of default.
·
Domestic
and foreign savers were eager to lend.
·
The
rate of interest fell from 14% in 1693 to 3% in 1731.
·
Britain
became a fiscal military state.
·
New
professions arose such as bankers and lenders.
(Robert
Tombs, The English and their History, 2023, 307-308).
Robert
Tombs suggests that the political system as it was in the early eighteenth
century is best preserved in the political system of the modern US. The king,
as by then constituted, was like an American president. He was at the centre of
power and able to choose his Cabinet and a change of king could mean wholesale
change of policy. However he needed the approval of Parliament and regularly
struggled with the legislature to have his polices accepted. The politicians
needed wealth and contacts, a local power base, and economic influence.
Politics
intermingled with social life. It was no democratic. Landed gentlemen were
preferred to nouveau riche merchants. The electorate was small and there
was no real electorate in rotten boroughs. There was corruption. The electorate
of England and Wales was over 30,000, about a quarter of adult men. Scotland
had 45 seats, but only 428 electors. In London all ratepaying householders
could vote. In rural areas owners of land worth 40s a year could vote.
(Robert Tombs, The English and their History, 2023,
323-324).
Crime and punishment
On
the one hand there was a cultural emphasis on politeness and cultural
achievement. On the other hand, there was ruthless treatment of criminals and
the poor.
In
rural areas, there was harsh punishment of innocuous crimes such as poaching,
which in reality was a symbol of rural inequality in times of enclosure,
depriving the poor of common land for pasture and fuel.
In
London, there was organised crime. More widely there were violent armed gangs,
involved in smuggling, poaching and housebreaking. Dick Turpin later
romanticised began his criminal career as a gang member in Essex. Jonathan
Wild
organised crime in London in the 1720s and has been called the world’s
prototype gangster.
Most
crime however was petty.
There
were few prisons or ‘police’. Victims generally had to take matters into their
own hands.
The
death penalty was extended so that by 1800 there were 200 capital offences,
often for crime against property. Actual executions were rare though. Pardons
were often given. Juries tended to soften crueller punishment. Women’s claims
of pregnancy were easily accepted and the ‘benefit of the clergy’ meant those
claiming to be clerics were usually given minor punishment. However there were
still regular public hangings, often on a ‘hanging day’ – in London there were
1,242 public hangings between 1703 and 1772.
Local power depended on deference, but
by the early eighteenth century, deference had to be earned. There was a
growing confederacy between those working on the land who increasingly saw the
Squire’s property as fair booty and who colluded to help each other against
punishment. Attempts to enforce ancient Game Laws which reserved all game to the lord of
the manor, led to serious confrontation.
(Robert Tombs, The English and their
History, 2023, 325-328).
Victorian Britain
There was a harping for small government
– criticism of grandmotherly government, harped later calls against the nanny
state.
Yet Victorian Britain could be intrusive
and authoritarian:
·
The
Factory Acts including the Factory Act 1833 instituted inspection and
enforcement.
·
The
New Poor Law was unparallelled for its
social intervention.
·
The
payment of income tax abolished in 1815 but reintroduced in 1842 required
detailed declaration and inspection of matters long felt to be private matters.
·
A
series of Public Health and Sanitary Acts from 1848 allowed sanitary inspectors
to enter private dwellings, order cleansing, stop nuisances and remove the sick
to hospital.
·
The
Contagious Diseases Acts 1864 saw state intervention in vice.
·
The
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in 1824 to curb
rowdy blood sports such as bull baiting. It became Royal from 1840 and
transformed perceptions from national toughness instilled by blood sports.
Local authorities tended to be less
oppressive, but managed local issues financed by local rates including Poor Law
guardians, elected school boards under the Education Act 1870 and watch
committees supervising the police.
Respectability
Working class folk began to adopt middle
class standards of decorum. Working people themselves sought greater security,
cleanliness and safety. Chartists, socialists and feminists saw a route to
greater equality. People themselves sought friendship and social
conviviality.
Self help organisations adopted this new
respectability. Trade unions and friendly societies were tough on shirkers and
benefit claimants. A declining minority resorted to the poor law, about 2.6% of
the population by the 1890s. It carried a stigma of failure.
(Robert
Tombs, The English and their History, 2023, 469-477).
Victorian politics
In 1853 Gladstone commissioned the Tory,
Sir Stafford Northcote and the Whig Sir Charles Trevelyan to eliminate
patronage in the civil service.
·
The
civil service was e3fficient and relatively accountable.
·
However
there was no clear line between politics and administration.
·
The
Civil Service Commission 1855 oversaw recruitment.
·
The
Order in Council 1870 required recruitment by competitive examination.,
·
These
reforms did not make the civil service democratic, but provided a barrier to
corruption,.
·
The
new civil service was still small – In the 1860s, the Foreign Office had 85 and
the whole UK civil service had 1,173 professional grade civil servants; 1801
superior grade and 10,000 general clerks.
·
In
time it became the domain of public school Oxbridge graduates. Balliol College
Oxford grew a reputation for training a national elite.
Public petitions had multiplied by 1840
to about 30,000 a year.
Ministers increasingly took control of
business in Parliament from backbenchers. The French procedure of the
guillotine was adopted in response to Irish tactics of obstruction in
Parliament in the 1880s. Parliament slowly became more party political and less
absorbed by local affairs.
The House of Lords had eventually
surrendered over constitutional; reform in the 1830s, and few members attended
regularly, but they gathered to influence significant issues such as Catholic
emancipation, the Corn Laws, Irish home rule and electoral reform.
Victorian politicians were rich, often
lawyers, and the largest group were landowners. Political families such as the
Cavendish, Grosvenor and Paget families became dominant.
The Conservatives had a continued attachment to
agricultural protectionism and a paternalistic, hierarchical, Anglican society.
However Disraeli sought a new purpose for Conservatism.
Benjamin Disraeli
(“Dizzy”) was the leader of a party of Church, land and tradition and had a
romantic attachment to autocratic leadership. A middle class Jew, he had no
real religious conviction. He was a dandified bohemian intellectual. He was an
early supporter of votes for women. He started to develop a more or less
coherent Conservative creed, defending Burkean
traditional influences. He was a man of principle and not in reality a
jingoist. His attitude to the Queen was ambivalent. He had the trappings of an
English gentlemen, but preferred small doses of rural life. He was an old
fashioned politician. He invented ideas of Tory democracy and was the wittiest
of Prime Ministers along with Churchill. He spent most of his time in
opposition, but was prime minister in 1868 (on the
resignation of the Earl of Derby due to gout) and 1874 (after an election
victory). He was defeated in 1880 and died in April 1881.
The Liberal Party (its official name from the 1860s)
comprised landowning Whig notables, a few Radicals and a significant group of
businessmen. They inclined towards religious Dissenters and social reformers.
There was a tendency towards free trade.
William
Ewart Gladstone was the perfect foil to Disraeli. He was more an
establishment figure than Disraeli. He came from a Liverpool-Scottish
mercantile and slave owning family. A supporter of Peel, the issue of Fre Trade
moved him to the Liberal Party. His emotional core was Christianity and moral
behaviour. He was highly intellectual, well read, multi lingual and involved
with universities, charities and the arts. His Midlothian Campaigns 1879 to
1892 were the first mass election speeches and he had a preaching style of oratory.
Many disliked seeing their politicians spouting all over the country.
Victorian politics were not entirely
clear in their objectives. Politicians claimed to have principles, but there
were no manifestos. There was generally consensus to keep the cost of
government low and on the importance of individual self
reliance. However in appropriate areas like housing, sanitation and
welfare, there was a place for government intervention. The political statesmen
often showed impatience or contempt to their rank and file.
(Robert Tombs, The English and their History, 2023, 496 to
511).
Crime
An acceptance of rules and conventions
generally gave rise to a fall in crime. Violence fell sharply in the 1870s and
drinking diminished. Homicides fell from 1.6 to 0.8 per 100,000 from 1860 to
1914.
However domestic violence tended to be
viewed as minor, even legitimate and fights, especially after drinking, were
rarely prosecuted. Riot and arson almost disappeared. Weapons were used less
and duelling fell out of favour and seconds were sometimes prosecuted for
murder or attempted murder. Weapons had traditionally been uncontrolled by
legislation from 1903 started to limit ownership of guns.
Property crimes fell from the 1880s.
Groups of hardened professional criminals were small in number. The growth of
the finance sector saw an increase in embezzlement and fraud.
Prison regimes were harsh and adopted a
hard labour and solitary ‘silent’ system, as at Pentonville in 1842. Juvenile
institutions included ‘reformatory schools (1854) and Borstal institutions
(1908).
Notwithstanding an aspiration to a
calmer non violent society, capital punishment (over
one a month in the 1900s) and corporal punishment continued.
(Robert
Tombs, The English and their History, 2023, 517 to 521).
The Police
The Metropolitan Police Act 1829 was
introduced by Sir Robert Peel, and established the Metropolitan Police,
responsible for policing the newly created Metropolitan Police District.
Peel hoped that the Metropolitan force
would offer a model for reformed policing in other parts of the country.
Further development was rapid.
In 1835 the Municipal Corporations Act
required newly-created local councils to appoint paid constables for preserving
the peace. This initially
brought policing to 178 towns, and the number grew steadily.
In 1839 the Rural Constabulary Act (also
the County Police Act) allowed county areas to establish police forces if they
so wished; Wiltshire was the first county to do this.
By 1851 there were around 13,000 police
in England and Wales, although existing legislation did not compel local
authorities to establish local forces.
Early police forces were often ex
labourers, barely literate and often drunk.
The Metropolitan Police still had only
13 detectives in 1868.
The police were rarely armed and the
Home Secretary didn’t allow them military training.
Their lot was often 14 hour days and 24
mile foot patrols.
Standards started to improve in the last
quarter of the nineteenth century. A professional force emerged. The police saw
promotion from the lower ranks and there was no emerging officer corps as in
the armed forces. Their reputation and self respect
grew. The middle cl;asses appreciated them as
protectors and working classes increasingly sought the protection of the law. A
select
committee in 1853 reported that people felt safer.
By 1891, in London, there was 1
policeman for 421 inhabitants who adopted what is today called a zero tolerance
policy.
(Robert
Tombs, The English and their History, 2023, 519 to 521).