Jack the Ripper - The Law and order in London in the Late Nineteenth century.

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GCSE History

Daniel Murphy        Jack The Ripper        01/05/2007        -  -

Jack the Ripper

Assignment One: The Law and order in London in the Late Nineteenth century

  1. Describe law and order in London in the late nineteenth century.

In 1829 Sir Robert Peel, Home Secretary, created a judicatory force named the Metropolitan Police, the organisation that has policed us to the present day.  This Metropolitan Police force, known as ‘peelers’ or ‘bobbies’ after their founder, replaced the Bow Street Runners, the former Thames River Police Force and the general watchmen and parish constables who had patrolled the streets of many British towns and cities. In this essay I will examine the responsibilities of the police force, the methods of crime control and prevention, the modernisations within the force and the detection and forensic improvements within the force to gain a better understanding of law and order in London in the late nineteenth century…

In this paragraph I will highlight the responsibilities of the police force in London and what they had to contend with. Police in London had a variety of uses and acted in different ways, some collected tolls from traders while some inspected tramcars and cabs, some officers duties included school attendance monitoring and bridge inspection. They were commonly used as lifeguards or even to enforce the Poor Law. But the commonest and main duties of the MPF were simply to deal with drunkenness, begging, vagrancy and prostitution. These duties were vastly different to others that were proposed or initiated within the nineteenth century like the proposition in 1837 by the Select Committee stating that the whole City of London should be placed under the control of the Metropolitan Police Force. Constables learnt their trade ‘on the job’, which was by no means an easy task. Hours of duty could be as long as 14 a day, seven days a week. In the 1870’s/80’s a London beat during daytime was seven and a half miles on average, it was 2 miles at night. Police officers have also had varying responsibilities in the manner in which they conducted themselves and appeared to the public; some had to wear uniform at all times while others were required to attend church on Sundays or not be seen out with women. They also had to deal with major disturbances, although the ways in which they did this were often considered un-desirable and criticised greatly…

The methods of crime control/prevention were assorted. Police commonly used baton charges in order to deal with multiple people, violent methods were often employed and some people were even killed in the conflict, such as PC Culley during a riot. Another example of these methods was the mass unemployed demonstration in Trafalgar Square, 1886. The MPF charged the demonstrators supported by two squadrons of Life Guards and two companies of foot guards. Although crowd control wasn’t the only situation in which the Metropolitan Police used perhaps more heavy handed than necessary methods and officers were often attacked, in some cases murdered, in retaliation within poor and working class areas (Such as the East). Resentment towards actions such as in 1886 made policing certain districts a difficult, and often dangerous, problem. In 1885 the population of London was approx. 5,255,069. In that same year the police force amounted to 13,319 men of which only 1,383 were available to patrol. This meant that each police officer had responsibility over approx. 3,800 people. This was a staggering statistic and could not have been helped by the primitive state of the MPF…

Because of the epoch in which the MPF was established and existed (an age of technological and industrial revolution) it was constantly undergoing changes and improvements and because of its youth it was always in the process of modernisation. In 1829 Sir Robert Peel had the task of deciding the uniform for his new Police Force, he knew that the British people disliked seeing ‘redcoats’ or individuals from the army on the streets so avoidance of possible confusion between the army and the MPF was imperative. However the blue-clad navy were considered heroes and defenders of England, so the MPF was given a blue uniform, with a rather unpractical tailcoat and top hat. At first policeman were armed only with a truncheon (and occasionally a cutlass), but from the 1840’s inspectors began to carry revolvers. In 1842 eight detectives were appointed by the MPF; two inspectors and six sergeants. But it was in the 1860’s that detective work really began to start and the inspector/sergeant combination created a pattern of inquiry that was to last to the present day. Opposition to these plain clothed policemen was widespread and the possibility of corruption due to their un-identifiable nature was raised. This was proven in 1877 when three out of four inspectors in the Detective Department were found to be guilty of corruption. The following year this department was re-organised and the CID (Criminal Intelligence Department) was set up, leading to considerable improvements in the number of arrests…  

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Forensic science and detection techniques were improved within the force as well: In the early nineteenth century the cutting edge of detection policy was foot printing and its value in locating the criminal. But still the standard process in detective work remained to be ‘following suspicious characters’, the same methods used by ‘bobbies’ on the street. In 1884 a murderer was convicted because of the torn paper used for his pistol wadding matched the minute pieces that were found in his victims wound from the firearm. In 1892 a man called Alphonse Bertillon gave his name to a new ...

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Jack the Ripper - The Law and order in London in the Late Nineteenth century.
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  • Level
    GCSE
  • Subject
    History
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