Domestication.
This page sets out to consider the change in late Victorian society and how this affected the development of the police station, both strategically and operationally.
Storch (1976) details how the modern police were used by the municipal and state authorities to impose a layer of ‘urban discipline’ on the urban working class in the early Victorian period. That middle class ‘domestic missionaries’ attempted via education, recreation, public health and housing reforms to alter the behaviour of the urban labouring class either voluntarily or by the policeman’s truncheon, sheathed or otherwise.[1] He describes the persistent police presence on the streets and in places of recreation as surveillance was used as a generally effective means of keeping order. [2]
One measure of this process were the overall crime figures published annually from 1869 in Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary [HMIC] report on the Counties and Borough forces along with the annual reports of the WC.[3]
[see STATISTICS: Table 3 Manchester Police : Establishment and Statistics 1858 -1901].
Storch (1976) details how the modern police were used by the municipal and state authorities to impose a layer of ‘urban discipline’ on the urban working class in the early Victorian period. That middle class ‘domestic missionaries’ attempted via education, recreation, public health and housing reforms to alter the behaviour of the urban labouring class either voluntarily or by the policeman’s truncheon, sheathed or otherwise.[1] He describes the persistent police presence on the streets and in places of recreation as surveillance was used as a generally effective means of keeping order. [2]
One measure of this process were the overall crime figures published annually from 1869 in Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary [HMIC] report on the Counties and Borough forces along with the annual reports of the WC.[3]
[see STATISTICS: Table 3 Manchester Police : Establishment and Statistics 1858 -1901].
The figures demonstrate a significant reduction in indictable and summary offences, alongside an increase in the numbers of police officers and police station cells, as Manchester’s city limits expanded over the last three decades of the nineteenth century. There were other reasons for this reduction in crime than solely police intervention. It was DCI Jerome Caminada’s perception of the trends in crime that:
'With the progress of civilisation, the growth and development of education and the consequent strengthening of the common-sense, the incitements to breaches of the law and order have vastly diminished. Education is at the bottom of it all, because it has compelled the recognition of rights, and has shown up the existence of wrongs whose growth has been shaded by ignorance as well as by artifice; and it has shown too, that the world is not for the few and the division of it and its productions that has to be enforced by grab and might only is neither advantageous nor permanent.’ [4]
In his 1901 report Chief Constable Robert Peacock drew the conclusion that in Manchester there had been a reduction of approximately 80 per cent in recorded indictable offences and 21 per cent in the number of persons prosecuted for less serious offences, during the previous twenty years.[5]
[see Statistics – Table 6 Manchester’s Crime and Census Statistics 1881-1901].
This was by any measure a notable reduction of criminal activity and adds weight to Caminada’s perception. However, Andrew Davies reveals a far darker side to life in the streets of the poorest urban districts during this period, notably the rise of gang fighting amongst young men and women mirroring one cultural practice of earlier Irish immigrants. [6]
By no means confined to the Irish the scourge of ‘scuttling’ becomes a heavily publicised problem for the police and authorities in the last quarter of the century. Gang street fighting did not reflect any claim of domestication and its existence tends to support Storch’s argument of the inability of the authorities to quash the working or labouring class cultural identity or recreational practices such as gambling.[7] However the practice had been reduced by the end of the century and Davies argues that one of the most effective causes was probably the advent of the working lads clubs such as the Hugh Oldham Lad’s Club which met in the old police station on Livesey Street Ancoats.[8]
The large Livesey Street PS was the replacement police station for the unsanitary but essential Oldham Road PS in 1852. It was used operationally until the opening of Goulden Street PS in 1872. This station was much larger and more conveniently situated by being closer to the problem area of Angel Meadow. By 1887 the old Livesey Street PS was beingused by the WC only for storage due to an inability to sell it. It was in a poor state of repair but sound enough to be let cheaply to the Hugh Oldham Lad’s Club. Such was the beneficial effect of the club on local street crime it remained owned and subsidised by the WC until well into the twentieth century.[9]
[see POLICE STATIONS -LIVESEY STREET PS].
However, Davies does evidence the actions of the street constables in bringing the scuttlers to court and subsequent imprisonment had a marked effect on their disorderly activity.[10] Once more the ability to arrest and successfully remove prisoners to a nearby station for prosecution was paramount to effective policing. Fig 5 a letter from 1897 reveals much of the class attitudes, social and operational problems that the Victorian constable (and his working-class prisoner) had to endure.[11] It is noteworthy that the basic issue of drunkenness and related violence continued to be combated by constables on foot-beat working from nearby police stations.
Unless these basic operational constraints could be improved the operational design and layouts of the police station would remain the same. The next section looks at how at the end of the nineteenth century the Chief Constable and the Watch Committee attempted a strategic rationalisation of the police estate.
Fig 5. Letter to the WC 11 March 1897
[see Statistics – Table 6 Manchester’s Crime and Census Statistics 1881-1901].
This was by any measure a notable reduction of criminal activity and adds weight to Caminada’s perception. However, Andrew Davies reveals a far darker side to life in the streets of the poorest urban districts during this period, notably the rise of gang fighting amongst young men and women mirroring one cultural practice of earlier Irish immigrants. [6]
By no means confined to the Irish the scourge of ‘scuttling’ becomes a heavily publicised problem for the police and authorities in the last quarter of the century. Gang street fighting did not reflect any claim of domestication and its existence tends to support Storch’s argument of the inability of the authorities to quash the working or labouring class cultural identity or recreational practices such as gambling.[7] However the practice had been reduced by the end of the century and Davies argues that one of the most effective causes was probably the advent of the working lads clubs such as the Hugh Oldham Lad’s Club which met in the old police station on Livesey Street Ancoats.[8]
The large Livesey Street PS was the replacement police station for the unsanitary but essential Oldham Road PS in 1852. It was used operationally until the opening of Goulden Street PS in 1872. This station was much larger and more conveniently situated by being closer to the problem area of Angel Meadow. By 1887 the old Livesey Street PS was beingused by the WC only for storage due to an inability to sell it. It was in a poor state of repair but sound enough to be let cheaply to the Hugh Oldham Lad’s Club. Such was the beneficial effect of the club on local street crime it remained owned and subsidised by the WC until well into the twentieth century.[9]
[see POLICE STATIONS -LIVESEY STREET PS].
However, Davies does evidence the actions of the street constables in bringing the scuttlers to court and subsequent imprisonment had a marked effect on their disorderly activity.[10] Once more the ability to arrest and successfully remove prisoners to a nearby station for prosecution was paramount to effective policing. Fig 5 a letter from 1897 reveals much of the class attitudes, social and operational problems that the Victorian constable (and his working-class prisoner) had to endure.[11] It is noteworthy that the basic issue of drunkenness and related violence continued to be combated by constables on foot-beat working from nearby police stations.
Unless these basic operational constraints could be improved the operational design and layouts of the police station would remain the same. The next section looks at how at the end of the nineteenth century the Chief Constable and the Watch Committee attempted a strategic rationalisation of the police estate.
Fig 5. Letter to the WC 11 March 1897
[1] R.D. Storch, ‘The policeman as domestic missionary: urban discipline and popular culture in northern England, 1850-80’, Journal of Social History, 9 (1976) p.481.
[2] Storch, ‘Domestic Missionary’, p.484.
[3] Manchester Watch Committee Minutes 24 Jan 1901.
[4] J. Caminada, Twenty Five Years of Detective Life, (Manchester: Heywood, 1899)(Vol.2) p. 501.
[5] WCM 24 Jan 1901.
[6] Andrew. Davies, ‘Youth gangs, masculinity and violence in late Victorian Manchester and Salford’. Journal of Social History 32(2) (1998) pp. 349-70, & Andrew. Davies, The Gangs of Manchester, (Preston, Milo Books, 2008) p.46.
[7] Storch, ‘Domestic Missionary’, p.496.
[8] Davies, Gangs of Manchester, p.291.
[9] Davies, Gangs of Manchester, p.292 .
[10] Davies, Gangs of Manchester, pp 300-302.
[11] Manchester City Police Watch Committee Proceedings, 1897 Number 66. Greater Manchester Police Museum and Archive.
[2] Storch, ‘Domestic Missionary’, p.484.
[3] Manchester Watch Committee Minutes 24 Jan 1901.
[4] J. Caminada, Twenty Five Years of Detective Life, (Manchester: Heywood, 1899)(Vol.2) p. 501.
[5] WCM 24 Jan 1901.
[6] Andrew. Davies, ‘Youth gangs, masculinity and violence in late Victorian Manchester and Salford’. Journal of Social History 32(2) (1998) pp. 349-70, & Andrew. Davies, The Gangs of Manchester, (Preston, Milo Books, 2008) p.46.
[7] Storch, ‘Domestic Missionary’, p.496.
[8] Davies, Gangs of Manchester, p.291.
[9] Davies, Gangs of Manchester, p.292 .
[10] Davies, Gangs of Manchester, pp 300-302.
[11] Manchester City Police Watch Committee Proceedings, 1897 Number 66. Greater Manchester Police Museum and Archive.
