68 • Our chief law enforcers — the police
opposed the Fieldings' ideas of maintaining law and order on the grounds that it would infringe civil liberties. When he died in 1754, Henry Fielding left behind a detailed plan which was to be used by Robert Peel 75 years later as the blueprint for the first professional metropolitan force.
The first police force to become an organised body of men wearing uniforms and given special powers was the Metropolitan Police Force (The Met'), named because it policed the metropolis of London. This force was created by the Metropolitan Police Act 1829. At that time Robert Peel was the Home Secretary, and policemen were therefore known as 'Peelers' or 'Bobbies'. The new police force first went out on duty at 6 p.m. on 29 September 1829. Its Instruction Book stated, 'the first duty of a constable is always to prevent the commission of a crime'. The force made a poor start. By the end of the year, of the 2,800 men recruited, 2,238 had been dismissed, 1,790 of them for being drunk on duty.
It is hardly surprising, then, that in the early days of the police force, public opinion was very much against it. Newspapers complained bitterly that the police behaved with brutality in their enthusiasm to make arrests. At the same time the police were blamed for failing to clear up crime. Nevertheless, the value of an organised police force soon became apparent. In the 1840s police forces were formed in most of the counties, and the first plain-clothes detectives were used to infiltrate gangs of criminals and 'gather intelligence' on their activities.
In the remainder of the century the police force grew rapidly. The conditions of employment improved, although, as this report from the Daily Telegraph in 1865 shows, they were hardly satisfactory:
The attributes necessary to the making of a thoroughly efficient policeman are that he must be active, industrious, punctual, sober, intelligent, faithful, obedient, courageous, forbearing and incorruptible. He must have an iron constitution, no small power of endurance, the facility of going without his natural rest at stated periods, the eyes of Argus and the stoicism of an ancient philosopher. Can we expect all these virtues, cut and dried, for three and twenty shillings a week?
Eventually, policemen living in many areas were provided with accommodation and a modest but steady living wage. Their work came under the direct supervision of local councillors, giving local communities a degree of control and sense of pride in their police. Women first joined the force in the 1920s.
The ranks of the police are further increased by the appointment of Special Constables. These are unpaid volunteers who assist the police in their work. Special constables were first given statutory authority by the Special Constables Act 1831. This provided that in time of 'Tumult, Riot and Felony', any two Justices of the Peace of a parish or township were given power to
OUR CHIEF LAW ENFORCERS —THE POLICE • 69
appoint 'Householders or other [suitable]persons... residing [there] to act as Special Constables . . .for the Preservation of the Public Peace'.
We still have special constables, one of the best known being Nigel Mansell, the motor racing champion, who is a member of the Devon and Cornwall Police Force. In 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, the great English composer Sir Edward Elgar, who was then 56 years old, enlisted as a special constable in Hampstead, North London. A friend records him 'perambulating the streets, firmly grasping his truncheon and looking for German spies'. The most notorious special constable was John Christie, a murderer who was executed in 1953, and who almost certainly swore away the life of an innocent man, Timothy Evans, at the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey), by giving false evidence against him. The cases of Evans and Christie feature in Chapter 25.
The Police Reform Act 2002 created a new kind of guardian of the peace— the Community Support Officer (CSO). CSOs do not hold the office of constable; they are 'support officers' under the control of the police. They provide a visible presence on the streets, and assist police officers by focusing upon low-level crime in tasks such as foot patrol, manning roadblocks, controlling crowds and tackling anti-social behaviour such as local rowdiness and graffiti. The Government has stated its aim of having 24,000 CSOs on the streets by 2008.
The police have always had wide powers of arrest and search. One of the most sensational arrests in the past century, that of Dr Crippen, which still captures the imagination, took place on 31 July 1910. It was the first arrest in which the 'wireless' (radio) was used.
The arrest ofDr Crippen
In January 1910, an American doctor, Hawley Harvey Crippen, lived with his wife, Cora, at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, North London. She was a failed music hall performer with the stage name Belle Elmore. Dr Crippen had been having an affair with a young woman called Ethel Le Neve. He could not bear the thought of his wife standing in the way of their happiness. He poisoned her and dismembered her body, hiding it beneath the floorboards of his home.
After the murder, Crippen and Ethel (disguised as a young boy) fled the country. They caught the SS Montrose for Quebec, Canada. The crime and Crippen's disappearance resulted in massive publicity, and because of the wireless, as it was then called, Captain Kendall of the Montrose learned of this while his ship was at sea. He became convinced that Crippen and Le Neve were on board, and telegraphed his suspicions through to Inspector Walter Dew of New Scotland Yard, who together with a police sergeant set sail for Canada from Liverpool aboard the SS Laurentic.
The Laurentic overtook the Montrose, and on 31 July the police boarded this ship and