The history of law enforcement in the United Kingdom charts the development of

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 ...

. It spans the period from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, through to the development of the first modern police force in the world in the ninetieth century, and the subsequent modernisation of policing in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Police-Victorian-1256

History

Middle Ages

Early concepts of policing in Britain were based on the ancient laws which relied heavily on all subjects of the crown having a responsibility to assist in maintaining law and order. The ''

posse comitatus The ''posse comitatus'' (from the Latin for "power of the county/community/guard"), frequently shortened to posse, is in common law a group of people mobilized by the conservator of peace – typically a reeve, sheriff, chief, or another speci ...

'' originated in

ninth century The 9th century was a period from 801 ( DCCCI) through 900 ( CM) in accordance with the Julian calendar. The Carolingian Renaissance and the Viking raids occurred within this period. In the Middle East, the House of Wisdom was founded in Abbas ...

England along with the creation of the office of

sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...

Henry II of England Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle (french: link=no, Court-manteau), Henry FitzEmpress, or Henry Plantagenet, was King of England from 1154 until his death in 1189, and as such, was the first Angevin king ...

made an

Assize of Arms of 1181 The Assize of Arms of 1181 was a proclamation of King Henry II of England concerning the obligation of all freemen of England to possess and bear arms in the service of king and realm and to swear allegiance to the king, on pain of "vengeance, not ...

which created an obligation on all freemen of England to possess and bear arms in the service of king and realm. The assize stipulated precisely the military equipment that each man should have according to his rank and wealth. The Ordinance of 1233 required the appointment of

watchmen ''Watchmen'' is an American comic book Limited series (comics), maxiseries by the British creative team of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins (comics), John Higgins. It was published monthly by DC Comics in 1986 a ...

. The Ordinance of 1252 provided for the enforcement of the Assize of Arms of 1181 and the appointment of

constables 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 ...

to summon men to arms, quell breaches of the peace, and to deliver offenders to the sheriff. It expanded the 1181 Assize of Arms by adding the system of

watch and ward ''Watch and Ward'' is a short novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in ''The Atlantic Monthly'' in 1871 and later as a book in 1878. This was James' first novel, though he virtually disowned the book later in life. James later called ...

, and pointing the way forward to subsequent legislation along similar lines by Edward I and Henry IV. The

Statute of Winchester The Statute of Winchester of 1285 (13 Edw. I, St. 2; Law French: '), also known as the Statute of Winton, was a statute enacted by King Edward I of England that reformed the system of Watch and Ward ( watchmen) of the Assize of Arms of 1252, and r ...

1285 was the primary piece of legislation that regulated the policing in the period after the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...

until the nineteenth century. Of particular note was the requirement to raise

hue and cry In common law, a hue and cry is a process by which bystanders are summoned to assist in the apprehension of a criminal who has been witnessed in the act of committing a crime. History By the Statute of Winchester of 1285, 13 Edw. I statute 2. c ...

, and that "the whole

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...

... shall be answerable" for any

theft Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for some ...

robbery Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the perso ...

, in effect a form of

collective responsibility Collective responsibility, also known as collective guilt, refers to responsibilities of organizations, groups and societies. Collective responsibility in the form of collective punishment is often used as a disciplinary measure in closed insti ...

Watchmen and constables

During this period, law enforcement and policing were organised by local communities such as town authorities. In Scotland, the first statutory police force is believed to be the

High Constables of Edinburgh The High Constables of Edinburgh are a prestigious body of constables, founded in 1611 and located in Edinburgh, Scotland. Historically, the High Constables were charged with policing the streets of Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, howev ...

, who were created by the Scottish parliament in 1611 to "guard their streets and to commit to ward all person found on the streets after the said hour". Within local areas in England, a constable could be attested by two or more

Justices of the Peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

, following a procedure that some sources say had its roots in an Act of the

Parliament of England The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England from the 13th century until 1707 when it was replaced by the Parliament of Great Britain. Parliament evolved from the great council of bishops and peers that advised t ...

of 1673. From the 1730s, local improvement Acts made by town authorities often included provision for paid watchmen or constables to patrol towns at night, while rural areas had to rely on more informal arrangements. In 1737, an Act of Parliament was passed "for better regulating the Night Watch" of the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

which specified the number of paid constables that should be on duty each night.

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 ...

established the

Bow Street Runners 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 force originally numbered six men and was founded in 1 ...

in 1749; between 1754 and 1780, Sir John Fielding reorganised Bow Street like a police station, with a team of efficient, paid constables. In 1800, some town authorities became more involved in improving local policing. An Act of Parliament in 1800 enabled Glasgow to establish the

City of Glasgow Police The City of Glasgow Police or Glasgow City Police was the police of the City of Glasgow, Scotland. In the 17th century, Scottish cities used to hire watchmen to guard the streets at night, augmenting a force of unpaid citizen constables. On 30 ...

. As the population in industrial towns grew, more local Acts were passed to improve policing arrangements in those towns, such as Rochdale in Lancashire in 1825, and Oldham in 1827. In

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, the

Belfast Borough Police The Belfast Borough Police was the police force for Belfast from 1800 to 1865, when it was abolished and replaced by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). Its members, nicknamed the Bulkies, had authority within the Belfast Police District. Histor ...

(1800),

Dublin Metropolitan Police The Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) was the police force of Dublin, Ireland, from 1836 to 1925, when it was amalgamated into the new Garda Síochána. History 19th century The Dublin city police had been subject to major reforms in 1786 and ...

(1836) and Londonderry Borough Police (1848) were founded. (At this time, all of Ireland was part of the UK.) Sir

Robert Peel Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850) was a British Conservative statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835 and 1841–1846) simultaneously serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer ...

, appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1812, found local magistrates and the Baronial Police unable to maintain law and order. He set up a Peace Preservation Force in 1814 and a system of county constabularies under the Irish Constabulary Act 1822.

(as

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national ...

) introduced the

Metropolitan Police Act 1829 The Metropolitan Police Act 1829 (10 Geo.4, c.44) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, introduced by Sir Robert Peel, which established the London Metropolitan Police (with the exception of the City of London), replacing the previ ...

, based on the findings of a committee originally set up in 1812, and the

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

was founded on 29 September 1829. The new constables were nicknamed 'peelers' or 'bobbies' after the Robert Peel. 'Bobbies' continues to be commonly used. In November 1830, the

Liverpool and Manchester Railway The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) was the first inter-city railway in the world. It opened on 15 September 1830 between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester in England. It was also the first railway to rely exclusively ...

set up their own police establishment under legislation going back to 1673. They were to preserve law and order on the construction site and to control movement of railway traffic by hand signals. Signalmen are known as 'bobbies'. This practice spread with the development of railways, and small shelters were erected at these stations, becoming known as police stations. Where there was no police control, they were just known as stations.

London

London in the early 1800s had a population of nearly a million and a half people but was policed by only 450 constables and 4,500 night watchmen. The idea of professional policing was taken up by

Sir Robert Peel Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850) was a British Conservative statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835 and 1841–1846) simultaneously serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer ...

when he became Home Secretary in 1822. Peel's

established a full-time, professional and centrally-organised police force for the greater London area known as the

. The new Metropolitan Police were responsible for an area of 7 miles in radius from the centre of the city (excluding the

), which was later extended to 15 miles. The government intentionally tried to avoid creating any likeness between the police and a military force; in particular the officers of the new police force were not armed, and a blue uniform was chosen that was dissimilar to those used by the army. During this period, the Metropolitan Police was accountable directly to the Home Secretary (whereas today it is accountable to the Mayor of London and the Metropolitan Police Authority). The City of London was not included within the remit of the Metropolitan Police. The Mayor and Corporation of the City of London refused to be part of a London-wide force because the City of London had certain liberties dating back to

Magna Carta (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the ...

. The London City Police was formed in 1832, later renamed in 1839 to the

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, ou ...

Boroughs and counties

In the early 1800s,

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

had a police force that was accountable to the mayor and council.

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

, at the time a city of around 250,000 people, had only watchmen and parish constables for policing; with a small police force for the dock area. The establishment of more formal policing in cities started to gain more support among the public as cities grew and society became more prosperous and better organised; through better understanding of legal rights, higher standards of education, and better informed through the press. In 1835 the Municipal Corporations Act was passed by Parliament which required 178 Royal Boroughs to set up paid police forces. In 1839 the Rural Constabulary Act allowed county areas to establish police forces if they chose to at a local level: Wiltshire was the first county to do this. A further eight county police forces were formed in 1839, twelve in 1840, four in 1841 and another four by 1851. By 1851 there were around 13,000 policemen in England and Wales, although existing law still did not require local authorities to establish local police forces. In England the

Retford Retford (), also known as East Retford, is a market town in the Bassetlaw District in Nottinghamshire, England, and one of the oldest English market towns having been granted its first charter in 1105. It lies on the River Idle and the Chesterfie ...

Borough Police are possibly the shortest existing police force, having been formed on 1 January 1836 and then amalgamating with the

Nottinghamshire Police Nottinghamshire Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the shire county of Nottinghamshire and the unitary authority of Nottingham in the East Midlands area of England. The area has a population of just over 1 million. ...

on the first day it was allowed to under the County Police Act 1839 only its 5th anniversary - 1 January 1841.

National policing

The UK's first national police force was the

Irish Constabulary The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC, ga, Constáblacht Ríoga na hÉireann; simply called the Irish Constabulary 1836–67) was the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when all of the country was part of the United Kingdom. A separate ...

, established in 1837. It received the appellation ''Royal Irish Constabulary'' in 1867 after its success in suppressing the

Fenian Rising The Fenian Rising of 1867 ( ga, Éirí Amach na bhFíníní, 1867, ) was a rebellion against British rule in Ireland, organised by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). After the suppression of the ''Irish People'' newspaper in September 186 ...

. In 1847 two pieces of national legislation were enacted - the

Town Police Clauses Act 1847 The Town Police Clauses Act 1847 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (10 & 11 Vict c. 89). The statute remains in force in both the United Kingdom (except Scotland) and the Republic of Ireland, and is frequently used by local coun ...

and the

Harbours, Docks, and Piers Clauses Act 1847 The Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act 1847 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which governs harbours, docks and piers. Port police The act allows two justices of the peace to swear in port police officers as "special constables" w ...

. Parliament continued to discuss the idea of national policing and, by the early 1850s, the Government was thinking about implementing policing across the nation. After the County and Borough Police Act in 1856, policing became a requirement throughout England and Wales paid for by central government Treasury department funds distributed to local government. In addition, the Act formed a "central inspectorate of constabulary" that would assess the effectiveness of each constabulary and report regularly to the Home Secretary. Parliament passed a similar Act for Scotland in 1857. By 1900, England, Wales and Scotland had 46,800 policemen and 243 constabularies. The

Police Act 1946 The Police Act 1946 (1946 c.46) was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that provided for the amalgamation of smaller borough police forces with county constabularies in England and Wales, allowed for the merger of county ...

led to the merger of a number of smaller town forces and surrounding county forces, leaving 117 constabularies. Further mergers took place following the

Police Act 1964 The Police Act 1964 (1964 c.48) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that updated the legislation governing police forces in England and Wales, constituted new police authorities, gave the Home Secretary new powers to supervise lo ...

which cut the number of police forces in England and Wales to 47, and Scotland to 20.

Modern policing

Chief Constable Captain Athelstan Popkess is credited with being largely responsible for transforming the British Police Service from its Victorian era ' beat policing' model to the modern reactive response model, through his development of the 'Mechanized Division'. Under his stewardship from 1930 to 1959,

Nottingham City Police Nottingham City Police, originally founded as the Borough of Nottingham Police, was a UK police force created under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 in the style of Robert Peel's Metropolitan Police which initially launched in 1836. This ini ...

were the first force in the UK to develop the use of two-way radio communication. As early as 1931 they used radios to deploy mobile police patrol cars remotely, and receive updates from them in return. Popkess and the Nottingham City Police would expand this pioneering method and develop tactics to use it to its full potential, including: overlaying mobile patrol areas on top of several existing foot beats, allowing responding Mechanized Division officers to collect colleagues on foot and take them to incidents; 'snatch plans' to pot up police cars at key road junctions in the event of serious crimes; and 'Q Cars' or 'Q Cruisers', unmarked vehicles disguised as civilian cars or delivery vans for covert patrol. In 1947 he further linked this to an automated burglar alarm system which reported potential break-ins directly to a police control room where police cars could be deployed instantly to attend. Since the 1960s, police forces in the United Kingdom have been merged and modernised by several Acts of Parliament.

Height of officers

In the 19th and early 20th centuries most forces required that recruits be at least in height.

had a minimum height requirement of 6 feet. By 1960 many forces had reduced this to , and for women. Many senior officers argued that height was a vital requirement for a uniformed constable. Some forces retained the height standard at or until the early 1990s. In May 1990, the minimum height requirement was dropped by the Metropolitan Police, and other police forces had followed suit by September 1990. No British force now requires its recruits to be of any minimum height. The

MacPherson report Stephen Lawrence (13 September 1974 – 22 April 1993) was a black British teenager from Plumstead, southeast London, who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus in Well Hall Road, Eltham on the evening of 22 Apr ...

of 1999 recommended against height restrictions, arguing that they may discriminate against those of ethnic backgrounds who are genetically predisposed to be shorter than average. The shortest officer in the UK, PC Sue Day of

Wiltshire Police Wiltshire Police, formerly known as Wiltshire Constabulary, is the territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Wiltshire (including the Borough of Swindon) in South West England. The force serves 722,000 people over an area ...

, is tall. The tallest is PC Anthony Wallyn of the

who is tall. Both officers had to have their uniforms specially made for them due to their size.

Timeline of Selected Events

Study of Police History

Police History has become an area of study in itself with organisations such as the Police History Society existing since 1985 to further develop this field of knowledge. It is recognised as specialist area of academia; with notable experts including

Clive Emsley Clive Emsley (4 August 1944 – 5 October 2020) was a British historian and criminologist. He was a research director and lecturer at the Open University. Biography After his first degree at the University of York, where he was one of the init ...

, Dr Chris Williams, Martin Stallion, and

Richard Cowley Richard Cowley (died 1619) was an actor in English Renaissance theatre, a colleague of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men. Cowley was in the c. 1591 production of ''The Seven Deadly Sins'', ...

. Sub-fields of police history include Ripperologists, a group devoted to looking into cases linked to

Jack the Ripper Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer wa ...

and the state of policing of the time. An imprint from the publisher Mango Books calle
'Blue Lamp Books'
specialises in policing history works.