911: The History of Police

The origin story of modern-day police.

Hot History

Nov 25, 2023

Article voiceover

1×

0:00

-10:59

Constables

Over a thousand years ago, Britain was ruled by Anglo-Saxon kings, who expected their subjects to keep the peace. Citizens themselves were responsible for enforcing the law, imposing fines on those who broke it. Over time, it became the duty of every free citizen to serve as a local parish constable. Each term lasted a year, and it was an unpaid position. While there were no uniforms, citizen constables carried an official staff to represent their legitimate authority. But as the population grew, policing became a more urgent and relentless social need. So many citizens began to pay others to take over their policing duties. In 1663, the city of London began to employ paid watchmen to protect the streets at night. They were nicknamed Charlies, possibly after the then-reigning King Charles II. Equipped with a rattle and a lantern, their staff was the only means of self-defense against criminals. Their tiny salaries attracted only the oldest and weakest men. Even still, London’s nighttime police were among the most efficient and modern in the entire country until the end of the 18th century.

Bow Street Runners

In 1748, Henry Fielding became chief magistrate for Westminster. His office was located on Bow Street, near Covent Garden. He realized that London needed a more permanent and efficient police force than the previous use of local constables. So he began to recruit constables for longer periods of time than the traditional one-year term. While still without uniforms, the police were now paid full-time salaries. They became known as the Bow Street Runners. Henry, along with his blind half-brother and successor John, launched a generation-long campaign to transform London into a modern crimefighting force.

Thames River Police

As the Industrial Revolution took England away from its small-time agrarian roots, thousands left the countryside looking for work. Towns such as Birmingham and Manchester grew at a staggering rate. Masses of people were unemployed, stuck living in poor slumps. It became a breeding ground for criminality. One of the worst hotspots for theft was London’s River Thames, where merchant ships were robbed of their luxury goods and cargo. Ships fell to the predation of organized gangs, who plundered the riverside. A sea captain named John Harriott, and a London magistrate named Patrick Colquhoun, came up with a plan for policing the river. They persuaded merchants to pay for a Marine Police Force, which went into operation in 1798. Salaried police officers were armed with cutlass swords, and operated out of rowing boats. They soon became a respectable law enforcement body, and grew to be the largest regular professional police of its time. The success of the Marine Police encouraged the growth of other nascent law enforcement agencies as well. The Bow Street police began to organize horse patrols in 1805. The Thames River Police was later consolidated into the Metropolitan Police in 1839.

Robert Peel

Jealous of their liberties, the British populace and Parliament were skeptical of a uniformed professional police force. They saw the police as a threat to individual freedom. This was only confirmed by the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, when the British Army was deployed to crack down on protestors. When Sir Robert Peel became Home Secretary in 1822, he quickly introduced reforms to the police. Attempting to assuage public fears about law enforcement, Peel emphasized crime prevention rather than harsh punishment. In 1829, with the consent of Parliament, a new London Metropolitan Police was organized. It was tasked with policing an area stretching seven miles from the center of the city. Lieutenant Colonel Sir Charles Rowan and Sir Richard Mayne were appointed as the first Commissioners. Their headquarters was set up at Four Whitehall Place, known as Scotland Yard. Police constables wore civilian top hats and blue swallow tail coats. They carried wooden truncheons, and a rattle for raising alarm and calling for help. Peel’s new police force were nicknamed Peelers and Bobbies. Recruits were required to be under age 35, be in good health, and at least five foot seven. At first, the Metropolitan Police were not well-received. Police were harassed and attacked. Despite this, similar police forces sprung up across the British Isles, such as Manchester, Cardiff, Dublin, and Belfast. One of the pioneers of the modern police was Glasgow, which boasts having one of the oldest forces in Britain. The British model of policing was introduced in Ireland and other colonies across the Empire. By the 1830s, most areas were required to have their own police force. The British government inspected the quality of these local police, establishing nationwide standards. Urban police worked in six or seven hour shifts, clocking in at pre-arranged checkpoints. Rural police were assigned to specific villages, where lodging was provided for them. Those officers tended to be better received by the community than their urban counterparts. However, the police were still not taken very seriously by the public. They were regarded as little more than incompetent drunkards. Many of the original Peelers were fired for being drunk on duty. Beyond crimefighting, police were given a vast array of tasks. This included putting out fires, breaking up fights, and stopping felonies. In its early days, the police were little more than thief catchers. Any detective work was hindered by their uniforms, which were required to be worn at all times. In 1842, Commissioners Rowan and Mayne founded a detective department at Scotland Yard. It started out with two inspectors and six sergeants. Plagued by corruption, it was reformed and renamed the Criminal Investigation Department, or CID. This department was heavily criticized after it failed to capture the infamous Jack the Ripper. At the time, police suffered from a lack of transportation. The first vehicles were horse-drawn prison vans, which were later replaced by bikes and then cars. But by the end of the 19th century, the CID boasted of 800 workers.

Modern police

Going into the 20th century, police benefited from further breakthroughs in science and technology. Wireless radio was first used in 1910, and were equipped in police cars by the 1920s. Phone boxes were built around England to enable rapid communication with police stations. Commissioner Sir Edward Henry helped to modernize London’s police force. He recognized that the police would need further training for their increasingly complex duties. To this end, he introduced a centralized fingerprinting system, which revolutionized modern policing. His formative tenure also saw discussions of using police dogs, which would eventually become standard police practice. In the early decades of the century, British police found themselves facing against increasingly militant social movements, such as feminism. One of the worst incidents was the Siege of Sidney Street, a gunfight between police and Latvian anarchists in 1911. During the First World War, Great Britain suffered a loss of servicemen, which strained their police. Feminists exploited this situation to demonstrate the competence of women in public life. Women began to staff various positions to aid Britain’s war efforts. Under Margaret Damer Dawson, female volunteers organized themselves into the first women’s police service. At first, female police officers were not allowed to make arrests, and were not equipped to properly defend themselves. They lacked any representation in official police bodies. But this finally changed in 1923, when female officers were given the authority to make arrests. In the aftermath of World War One, many British laborers went on strike. To quell the unrest, police relied on horses as a means of crowd control. Horses were then replaced by motor vehicles, which became indispensable for police work. Cops used their cars not only for traffic duties, but also to catch runaway criminals. Soon enough, cop cars were fitted with alarms to alert the public to their presence. Automatic traffic signals, pedestrian crossings, and highway codes were introduced across Britain. To provide modern training for police, Hanson Police College was founded in 1934. Race car drivers were appointed as civilian advisers for the police. With the rise of fascism in the 1930s, British police faced the serious problem of mob violence. Sir Oswald Mosley, a fascist sympathizer, often instigated violence at his meetings, which he blamed on Jews and communists. In response, police were authorized to ban political demonstrations that were likely to cause such disorder. After the Second World War, the British police force continued to modernize. To compensate for lacking manpower, the police began their official use of highly-trained dogs starting in 1946. The German Shepherd was the most popular dog of choice. With the rise of second-wave feminism, women made greater employment gains in the police force. Beginning in the year 1970, police departments were no longer separated by sex. Female officers began to receive the same jobs and training as their male counterparts. Some parts of England did not supply uniforms for their women until the 1970s, or hard hats until the mid-1980s. Since the 1990s, the police have rapidly modernized thanks to the Computer Revolution. Now, facial identification software can simulate the appearance of a suspect. Fingerprints can be searched with almost lightning speed. Electron microscopes can identify unique chemical traces given off by a fired weapon. DNA techniques have vastly improved modern police work. The odds of two people’s DNA matching are less than three billion to one, making it the perfect forensic weapon against crime. DNA can be obtained from even tiny samples of hair or blood. The latest technological advances, such as artificial intelligence and biometrics, offer both potential and risk for policing in the near future.