ABSTRACT
The development of policing in England from 1750 can be roughly divided into three phases. Initially, from 1750 up to about 1850, what has become known as the ‘old’ police was in operation. This was a system of amateur or semiprofessional parish constables and nightwatchmen. While reputedly ineffective at enforcing legislation, this system actually worked remarkably well in many places. Then, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, following the setting up of the Metropolitan Police in 1829, a more consistently professional system – the so-called New Police – was developed. This featured uniformed officers, a hierarchy of ranks, and a pattern of operation based on patrol and prevention. It took almost thirty years of experimentation to consolidate this new style of policing, and there have been numerous debates about its purpose among historians. Some argue that it was a rational response to rising crime in rapidly growing cities, while others claim that it was in fact a tool via which the middle classes ensured the sanctity of their newly earned property, and point to its ‘social control’ function. By 1870, however, the new system was firmly established. Following a period of social turbulence in the 1880s, what has often popularly been conceived of as a ‘golden age’ of policing began, which lasted from about 1890 to around 1950. Yet police forces went through many further changes during this period, too, and arguments with the Home Office over centralization, often violent clashes with demonstrators and pickets, and disputes over pay were at least as typical as the amiable approach of Dixon of Dock Green (a long-running TV series depicting a kind, fatherly and friendly policeman who was supported by all the law-abiding people on his beat).
