Policing Victorian London

Phillip Thurmond Smith’s Policing Victorian London charts the development of the London Metropolitan Police from its inception in 1829 through the 1870s. Created in large part due to demands for order in a rapidly growing and urbanizing city, the London Metropolitan Police nevertheless was endowed with less power than European police forces. [1] In addition to having unarmed police officers, the London Metropolitan Police also did not have a large detective service. Though political refugees were monitored and spied upon by the police, the London Metropolitan Police’s surveillance and spying activities were never as thorough as those of Continental European police forces. [2]

Nevertheless this restraint in espionage was not completely followed in other police activities during the nineteenth century. Though the London police garnered significant support from the middle and upper classes by the middle of the 19th century in its efforts to maintain crowd control, to forestall potentials of class revolution (such as the Chartist demonstration of 1848) and to "clean up the streets," it also engendered much ill will and mistrust by the working classes for these same actions. The London police in its efforts to strictly limit rights of public assembly, in places such as Hyde Park and Trefalgar Square, among others, led to several riots and public disturbances in the 1850s and 1860s. The uproar by both working class agitators as well as middle class Radicals over the police’s conduct during this period ultimately led, Smith maintains, to the principle of virtually unlimited exercise of public assembly which has persisted to the present day.

In concluding, Smith focuses on a main theme of his book: Why was it that after the numerous disturbances of the first half of the 19th century, the second half of the 19th century was relatively stable and non-violent. Arguing that the growing acceptance of the rule of law by the working classes was largely responsible for this phenomenon, he implicitly argues that this was only possible because the police usually showed restraint. [3] Though the London police might have been criticized, especially during the Fenian disturbances of the late 1860s, for being inefficient, they were never portrayed as being "figures of terror." [4] This, I think, is key to understanding Smith’s question. By setting an example of living within the rule of law, the London police encouraged other Britons to do so as well.

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