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The Bow Street Runners were the law enforcement officers of the
Bow Street Magistrates' Court Bow Street Magistrates' Court became one of the most famous magistrates' court in England. Over its 266-year existence it occupied various buildings on Bow Street in Central London, immediately north-east of Covent Garden. It closed in 2006 a ...
in the
City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a city and borough in Inner London. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It occupies a large area of central Greater London, including most of the West En ...
. They have been called London's first professional
police force The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...
. The force originally numbered six men and was founded in 1749 by magistrate
Henry Fielding Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel '' Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders ...
, who was also well known as an author. ''Bow Street Runners'' was the public's nickname for the officers although the officers did not use the term themselves and considered it derogatory. The group was disbanded in 1839 and its personnel merged with the Metropolitan Police. The Metropolitan Police Detective Agency traces their origin back to them.


History

The Bow Street Runners are considered the first British police force. Before the force was founded, the law enforcing system was in the hands of private citizens and single individuals with very little intervention from the state. Magistrate
Henry Fielding Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel '' Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders ...
decided to regulate and legalise their activity due to high rates of corruption and mistaken or malicious arrests, therefore creating the Bow Street Runners. They represented a formalisation and regularisation of existing policing methods, similar to the unofficial '
thief-taker In English legal history, a thief-taker was a private individual hired to capture criminals. The widespread establishment of professional police in England did not occur until the 19th century. With the rising crime rate and newspapers to bring th ...
s' (men who would solve petty crime for a fee). What made them different was their formal attachment to the
Bow Street Bow Street is a thoroughfare in Covent Garden, Westminster, London. It connects Long Acre, Russell Street and Wellington Street, and is part of a route from St Giles to Waterloo Bridge. The street was developed in 1633 by Francis Russell, 4 ...
magistrates' office, and payment by the magistrate with funds from central government. They worked out of Fielding's office and court at No. 4 Bow Street, 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 Sir John Fielding (16 September 1721 – 4 September 1780) was a notable English magistrate and social reformer of the 18th century. He was also the younger half-brother of novelist, playwright and chief magistrate Henry Fielding. Despite bein ...
, who succeeded him as magistrate in the Bow Street office. Under John Fielding, the institution of the Bow 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. Bow Street was a manifestation of the move towards increasing professionalisation and state control of street life, beginning in London.


Bow Street Horse Patrol

Contrary to several popular sources, the Bow Street Runners were not nicknamed "Robin Redbreasts", an epithet reserved for the Bow Street Horse Patrol. The horse patrol was organised in 1763 by Richard Ford, Sir John Fielding's successor at Bow Street, who secured a government grant of £600 to establish the force to deal with highway robbery. It was so successful in cutting crime that when funding stopped, highwaymen soon returned. The Patrol was not re-introduced until 1805 following
Patrick Colquhoun Patrick Colquhoun ( ; 14 March 1745 – 25 April 1820) was a Scottish merchant, statistician, magistrate, and founder of the first regular preventive police force in England, the Thames River Police. He also served as Lord Provost of Glasgow 1 ...
's campaign. They wore a distinctive scarlet waistcoat under their blue greatcoats.


Policing in the early 18th century

Up to the early 18th century, Britain did not have an official policing system backed by the state. A police force like the
Maréchaussée The () were corps of soldiers in the armies of France initially put in charge of military policing and justice in the Middle Ages, and later extended to civilian responsibilities. They gradually coalesced into a police force with jurisdicti ...
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 join the pursuit. Once the criminal had been apprehended, the parish
constable A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...
s 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 result, the state set a reward to encourage citizens to arrest and prosecute offenders. The first of such rewards was established in 1692 of the amount of £40 for the conviction of a
highwayman A highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed by horse as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot; mounted highwaymen were widely considered to be socially superior to foot ...
and in the following years it was extended to
burglars Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is the act of entering a building or other areas without permission, with the intention of committing a criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, robbery or murder ...
, coiners and other forms of offence. The reward was to be increased in 1720 when, after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession and the consequent rise of criminal offences, the government offered £100 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 thief-takers. 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 return of stolen goods and using the threat of prosecution to keep offenders in thrall". Some of them, such as
Jonathan Wild Jonathan Wild, also spelled Wilde (1682 or 1683 – 24 May 1725), was a London underworld figure notable for operating on both sides of the law, posing as a public-spirited vigilante entitled the "'' Thief-Taker General''". He simultaneously ran ...
, became infamous at the time for staging robberies in order to receive the reward.


Henry Fielding (1750–1754)

Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne and 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, (21 July 169317 November 1768) was a British Whig statesman who served as the 4th and 6th Prime Minister of Great Britain, his official life extende ...
turned to Henry Fielding for help. Fielding had become a Westminster magistrate in 1748 and in his house in Bow Street, Covent Garden, he had started a kind of magisterial work that was different 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 conduct 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 fact, since 1749–50 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 fear of retaliation and by the extremely high costs of the prosecution that would have to be paid by the victim of the crime. This activity, 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 Jonathan Wild, also spelled Wilde (1682 or 1683 – 24 May 1725), was a London underworld figure notable for operating on both sides of the law, posing as a public-spirited vigilante entitled the "'' Thief-Taker General''". He simultaneously ran ...
) and that, in fact, 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 private 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 1753, Fielding's initiative came close to failing when his men had stopped their thief-taking activity 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 point, the Duke of Newcastle, the secretary of state at the time, asked Fielding for advice, which he presently gave. The document that Fielding presented to the government revolved around the activity 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 Bow 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 activity 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 have pointed out, the Fielding brothers had a financial interest. In late 1753, the government approved Fielding's proposal and established an annual
subvention A subsidy or government incentive is a form of financial aid or support extended to an economic sector (business, or individual) generally with the aim of promoting economic and social policy. Although commonly extended from the government, the ter ...
of £200, that allowed Fielding not only to support the advertisement and the Bow Street officers but also to maintain a stable group of clerks who kept detailed records of their activities. A new kind of magistrate's office and policing activity was therefore established; after the death of Henry Fielding in 1754, 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 (1754–1780)

When Henry Fielding died in 1754, he was succeeded as Magistrate by his brother Sir
John Fielding Sir John Fielding (16 September 1721 – 4 September 1780) was a notable English magistrate and social reformer of the 18th century. He was also the younger half-brother of novelist, playwright and chief magistrate Henry Fielding. Despite bein ...
, 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 effective police force for the capital, later adding officers mounted on horseback, and remained chief magistrate of Westminster until his death in 1780. As soon as he was appointed, John Fielding examined the activity of the Bow 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 A highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed by horse as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot; mounted highwaymen were widely considered to be socially superior to foot ...
in particular. At the beginning, Fielding shared his office with Saunders Welch, an energetic former grocer elected
High Constable A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...
of Holborn. Eventually, the government agreed to establish a separate magistrate office from which Welch could operate, leaving Fielding as the dominant presence in Bow Street. Over the years, the government subvention raised from the initial £200 to £400 in 1757 and to £600 by 1765, as Fielding managed to persuade the Duke of Newcastle, now First Lord of the
Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or ...
, of the increasing costs of an active policing and advertising, as well 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 record information about offences and offenders, therefore creating a sort of criminal database that could turn 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 great effect on the first procedures of criminal prosecution. Fielding created a court-like setting that could attract and accommodate a large audience for his examinations of suspected offenders, opened and available for the public for long and regular hours. In doing so, he turned the office from being the mere house of a magistrate to being the
Bow Street Magistrates' Court Bow Street Magistrates' Court became one of the most famous magistrates' court in England. Over its 266-year existence it occupied various buildings on Bow Street in Central London, immediately north-east of Covent Garden. It closed in 2006 a ...
in which several justices were employed in rotation in order to keep the office open for long hours every day. This process of transformation was further amplified by Fielding's success in encouraging the London press to attend and provide their readers with a weekly report on his activity.


John Fielding's legacy (1780–1815)

Just after John Fielding's death in 1780, the crisis of the administration of criminal law renewed itself, primarily foor three different factors. The first was the rise in crime rates because the end of a period of war (in this case the
American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
) and the consequent return in the country of many soldiers and sailors, who were now out of a job. The second factor was directly linked to the first and concerned the issue of transportation to the American colonies, which had been established in 1718 and begun the principal sanction imposed on convicted felons. The loss 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 find 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 1780, known as the
Gordon Riots The Gordon Riots of 1780 were several days of rioting in London motivated by anti-Catholic sentiment. They began with a large and orderly protest against the Papists Act 1778, which was intended to reduce official discrimination against British ...
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 1782, therefore allowing the administration of criminal law to receive more focused attention than before. In time, this office would provide a centre to deal with all the aspects of criminal administration. One of the main initiatives supported by the Home Department, as well as generously funded by them, was the introduction of an armed and salaried foot patrol during the winter of 1782–83, initiated by Sampson Wright, John Fielding's successor as chief magistrate, as a means of countering highway robberies, that was to become an established element of London policing in the 1780s. The government provided funds to support 46 men who worked in eight groups of six; each of the groups was assigned to one of the major routes around the metropolis and went out every night of the week. Eventually, in 1785, the Home 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. 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 Edward Marcus Despard (175121 February 1803), an Kingdom of Ireland, Irish officer in the service of the The Crown, British Crown, gained notoriety as a colonial administrator for refusing to recognise racial distinctions in law and, following his ...
, for provoking the
Despard Plot The Despard Plot was a failed 1802 conspiracy by British revolutionaries led by Colonel Edward Marcus Despard, a former army officer and colonial official. Evidence presented in court suggested that Despard planned to assassinate the monarch Ge ...
. In 1792, Parliament did pass legislation that introduced some reform to the system, ''The Middlesex Justices Act'' which contained two elements of the 1785 bill: one was the establishment of public offices where magistrates monopolized the administration of criminal law 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 leading to the replication of the Bow Street structure throughout London. Under the new legislation, the Bow 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 possible for the government to use 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 (1815–1839)

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 Bow Street had once held in the commitment of felons to trial continued to erode with the expansion of the patrol and the creation of new police offices from 1792. By the early 1820s, Bow Street was responsible for just over 10% of the accused felons being committed to trial at the Old Bailey. After 1815, 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 establishment of the Metropolitan Police in
1829 Events January–March * January 19 – August Klingemann's adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's ''Faust'' premieres in Braunschweig. * February 27 – Battle of Tarqui: Troops of Gran Colombia and Peru battle to a draw. * March ...
, the policing responsibilities of the Bow Street magistrates were very considerably diminished. The Bow Street 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 bring Bow Street's finances under control. The Bow Street magistrates' effective loss of authority over the activity of the Runners and the government's concern to control costs meant that the funds for the office were much diminished in the 1830s. In 1834, 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 1837. The reports of these committees were enacted into law as a renewal of the
Police Act Police Act is a stock short title used for legislation in India, Malaysia and the United Kingdom relating to police forces and officers. List India * Indian Police Act 1861 Malaysia *The Police Act 1967 United Kingdom *The Police (Property) ...
in 1839 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 report 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 well as exhortations to victims to report offences and any kind of information on criminals and stolen goods. In case of robbery or other serious offences, Bow Street officers were immediately involved 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 face 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
footpad In archaic terminology, a footpad is a robber or thief specialising in pedestrian victims. The term was used widely from the 16th century until the 19th century, but gradually fell out of common use. A footpad was considered a low criminal, as op ...
s and highwaymen, Fielding decided to send some men to patrol the squares of Westminster and the highways leading into the city, also on horseback from 1756, though by 1766–67 horseback patrolling had been sharply curtailed, due to the excessive costs. Nevertheless, two 'pursuit horses' were maintained to send officers to patrol roads from time to time. The patrol activity of the Bow Street officers is an indicator of a fundamental characteristic of the Bow Street policing system, which is its 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 Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Gr ...
and Surrey, in addition to those of
Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbouri ...
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 search. Otherwise, they would have had to seek such assistance, although in practice there was not any impediment to their working wherever their enquiries took them, as some accounts from 1756 show that they pursued suspects into Hertfordshire,
Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council was ...
and even to
Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
. 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 Bow Street office. Turnpike gatekeepers and publicans were therefore encouraged to report crimes and offences as soon as possible to Bow Street, in order to allow Fielding's men to presently seek out and apprehend the offenders.


See also

* Blackstone novels *
Bow Street Magistrates' Court Bow Street Magistrates' Court became one of the most famous magistrates' court in England. Over its 266-year existence it occupied various buildings on Bow Street in Central London, immediately north-east of Covent Garden. It closed in 2006 a ...
*
Bow Street Police Museum The Bow Street Police Museum, opened in 2021, is based in the former police station in Covent Garden, London. Bow Street has a unique place in the history of policing in London, with the museum presenting the story of policing and criminal j ...
*
City of London Police The City of London Police is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, including the Middle and Inner Temples. The force responsible for law enforcement within the remainder of the London region, ...
* Thomas de Veil *
Henry Fielding Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel '' Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders ...
*
John Fielding Sir John Fielding (16 September 1721 – 4 September 1780) was a notable English magistrate and social reformer of the 18th century. He was also the younger half-brother of novelist, playwright and chief magistrate Henry Fielding. Despite bein ...
*
Law enforcement in the United Kingdom Law enforcement in the United Kingdom is organised separately in each of the legal systems of the United Kingdom: England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Most law enforcement is carried out by police officers serving in regional pol ...
* Metropolitan Police Service * Old Bailey *
Police officer A police officer (also called a policeman and, less commonly, a policewoman) is a warranted law employee of a police force. In most countries, "police officer" is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. In some, the use of the ...
*
Private police Private police or special police are law enforcement bodies that are owned or controlled (or owned and controlled) by non-governmental entities. Additionally, the term can refer to an off-duty police officer while working for a private entity, ...
*
Thief-taker In English legal history, a thief-taker was a private individual hired to capture criminals. The widespread establishment of professional police in England did not occur until the 19th century. With the rising crime rate and newspapers to bring th ...


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * *


External links


Bow Street Runners in the Literary Encyclopedia





The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court, 1674 to 1913
{{Authority control 1749 establishments in England 1839 disestablishments in England Organizations established in 1749 Organizations disestablished in 1839 Defunct police forces of England Social history of London