ABSTRACT
This chapter represents an original synthesis of the guides, instructions, and legislation relating to the different types of officer or ‘policing agent’ responsible for law enforcement in London between 1780 and 1850. It particularly focuses on the expectations placed on these policing agents to proactively pursue, investigate, and arrest suspicious persons, contributing to the wider project of policing urban public order. The policing agents under examination include: parish constables, watchmen, other parish officers, City of London officers, Bow Street runners and other officers attached to magistrates’ courts, and the Metropolitan and City Police forces. This broad analysis demonstrates that proactive policing was not an innovative feature of the ‘new’ Metropolitan Police, established in 1829, but instead had deeper historical roots as a fundamental feature of the policing role. It also reveals the ways in which divergent and specific local interests continued to play significant roles in shaping expectations for policing on the streets of London.
