ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book looks at the creation of the constabulary in predominantly agricultural Bedfordshire exploring three basic questions: Why was it set up? How effective was it? How did contemporaries poraries react to it? Mid-19th-century Bedfordshire was an overwhelmingly rural county. In 1841 78 per cent of its population lived in communities of less than three and a half thousand; of the four principal towns, the borough of Bedford had a population of 9,000, Luton township had some 5,800 and Biggleswade and Leighton Buzzard just under 4,000 each. As an incorporated borough Bedford had come under the police clauses of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 which required corporations to establish Watch Committees and police forces. However, the largest popular manifestation against members of the Bedfordshire Constabulary did not end in physical violence; it was in the tradition of Rough Music.
