ABSTRACT
The establishment of these powerful, autonomous councils was the result of a Whiggish move towards decentralisation in the mid-nineteenth century; their operational freedom is demonstrated by Chris Williams’ observation that “[t]he only compulsory statutory duty of the newly-elected councils was to select a watch committee from their number to run the police force” (Williams 2003: np). Godfrey, Lawrence and Williams (2008: 59-60) provide further insight into the level of autonomy held by watch committees over their forces:
Watch Committees were elected annually from the newly elected local council, but once it was in place it was the Committee, not the council, who were the police authority. They had the power to promote, hire and fire any member of the force, right up to the top, and the local chief … could not fine his men more than one day’s pay without the watch committee’s involvement. They wrote the rules and regulations for their force. … Practically, this meant that local councils had direct control over how the law over many important local issues was enforced. These included licensing laws, the regulation of traffic, and the imposition of sexual morality through the ability to tolerate (or not) brothels.
