Leading the Police

A History of Chief Constables 1835–2017

Kim Stevenson, David Cox, Iain Channing, David J. Cox

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315441061
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

In 2015 the College of Policing published its Leadership Review with specific reference to the type of leadership required to ensure that the next generation of Chief Constables and their management approach will be fit for purpose. Three key issues were highlighted as underpinning the effective leadership and management of contemporary policing: hierarchy, culture and consistency. Yet these are not just relevant to modern policing, having appeared as constant features, implicitly and explicitly, since the creation of the first provincial constabularies in 1835.

This collection reviews the history of the UK Chief Constable, reflecting on the shifts and continuities in police leadership style, practice and performance over the past 180 years, critiquing the factors affecting their operational management and how these impacted upon the organization and service delivery of their forces. The individuality of Chief Constables significantly impacts on how national and local strategies are implemented, shaping relationships with their respective communities and local authorities. Importantly, the book addresses not just the English experience but considers the role of Chief Constables in the whole of the United Kingdom, highlighting the extent to which they could exercise autonomous authority over their force and populace.

The historical perspective adopted contextualises existing considerations of leadership in modern policing, and the extensive timeframe and geographical reach beyond the experience of the Metropolitan force enables a direct engagement with contemporary debates. It also offers a valuable addition to the existing literature contributing to the institutional memory of UK policing. The contributors represent a range of disciplines including history, law, criminology and leadership studies, and some also have practical policing experience.

Section 1
Early Chief Constables

1 ‘A fit man to be at the head of the police’: Police Superintendents and Watch Committees in the first generation of ‘new policing’

A Yorkshire perspective, c.1850–70

David Taylor

Introduction

There have been several detailed accounts of the first generation of ‘new police’ in the large cities of England. The city forces in Yorkshire have been well studied while the survival of the smallest has been noted, albeit in passing.¹ In contrast, the medium-sized boroughs, notwithstanding their socio-economic significance, have been largely overlooked. The main focus of this chapter is the borough of Huddersfield, which was governed by an Improvement Commission between 1848 and 1868. The fraught relationships between successive Watch Committees and Superintendents of police in the town highlight the considerable problems faced by local politicians and senior figures in their employ as they sought to develop an effective working relationship at a time when there were no clearly laid down guidelines or conventions regarding their respective responsibilities. Huddersfield had five police Superintendents, four of whom were dismissed or forced to resign, in less than 20 years. In contrast, in Halifax, incorporated in 1848, the first Superintendent, Thomas Spiers served for seven years and his successor, John Pearson, for two, while in Middlesbrough, incorporated in 1853, the first Superintendent, William Hannan, served for eight years and his successor, Edward Saggerson, served for 23.² A combination of managerialism and morality resulted in recurring failures to establish an effective working relationship in Huddersfield. Particularly during the 1850s, leading Commissioners viewed the relationship between the town’s Improvement Commission and various public agencies and servants, including the police, in terms of a business model with the Commissioners as the board of directors. Further, there was a continuing belief that the Superintendent of Police should be more an administrator, organizing and directing the work of the ‘thief-takers’ rather than being an active, hands-on ‘thief-taker’ himself (see Cox, Chapter 2 for an example of this causing problems between a Chief Constable and his committee). Finally, there was an ongoing emphasis that the Superintendent of Police should be a man of probity and unimpeachable moral standing without taint of drunkenness or gambling. In contrast, through a more pragmatic and flexible approach that recognized the experience and expertise of police Superintendents, a greater degree of success was achieved in the nearby (and similar) textile town of Halifax and also in the more distant (and contrasting) iron and steel town of Middlesbrough.

The Yorkshire context

In the mid-nineteenth century there were sixteen borough forces in the three ridings of Yorkshire, eleven in the West Riding alone. These forces fell into three categories (See Table 1.1). The sheer size of the forces, particularly in Leeds and Sheffield, but also Bradford and Hull, set these cities clearly apart from the rest.³ In addition, these cities were more heavily policed, as their more favourable police: population ratios show. Although all borough forces faced some common problems, the largest forces had different organizational issues and, to a significant degree, their size impacted on the nature of the relationship between Watch Committees and their chief police officers.

Table 1.1 Yorkshire Borough Forces (by size) 1872

	Population (000s)	Size of force	Population per constable
Large
Bradford (WRY)	146	175	917
Hull (ERY)	122	172	706
Leeds (WRY)	259	315	822
Sheffield (WRY)	240	290	827
Medium
Halifax (WRY)	65	65	1002
Huddersfield (WRY)	73	70	962
Middlesbrough (NRY)	39	43	917
Scarborough (NRY)	24	26	932
Wakefield (WRY	28	37	758
York (WRY)	44	47	931
Small
Beverley (ERY)	10	10	1021
Dewsbury (WRY)	25	12	2064
Doncaster (WRY)	19	19	987
Pontefract (WRY)	5	6	895
Richmond (NRY)	4	2	2221
Ripon (WRY)			3402

(ERY =East Riding Yorkshire; NRY = North Riding Yorkshire; WRY = West Riding Yorkshire)

Source: Reports of Inspectors of Constabulary for the year ending 29 September 1873, Parliamentary Papers, 1873 (16).

Table 1.2 Size of force, police population and police acreage ratios, Halifax, Huddersfield and Middlesbrough, 1858 and 1872

Source: Reports of Inspectors of Constabulary for the years ending 29 September 1858 and 1872, Parliamentary Papers, 1859 (17) and 1873 (16).

The three towns studied had differing socio-economic characteristics. The two West Riding towns, Huddersfield and Halifax were both important textile centres with a history dating back into the eighteenth century. By 1871 they were roughly similar in size (70,000 and 66,000 respectively), the former growing more rapidly between 1851 and 1861, the latter between 1861 and 1871. The policed areas were significantly affected by boundary changes in Halifax (1865) and Huddersfield (1868).⁴ Middlesbrough was very different. It was a ‘frontier town’, built on iron and steel that had grown dramatically since 1840.⁵ Attracting people, disproportionately young unmarried men and with one of the highest percentages of Irish in the country, it had doubled its size between 1851 and 1861 and doubled it again in the next decade to top 40,000 by 1871. Statistics relating to population and police numbers in these towns and cities is contained in Tables 1.1 and 1.2.

Watch Committees and Chief Constables: some general issues

The responsibility for law enforcement in the boroughs of nineteenth-century England rested on local Watch Committees and justices, both of whom had statutory powers and Chief Constables, who retained the common law powers of constables. The relationship between these three elements was not spelled out in detail and, therefore, was a matter of local negotiation and compromise. This gave rise to considerable variations in practice, from very close supervision by a Watch Committee to a more hands-off approach in disciplinary and operational matters.⁶ Recent discussion has focused on the notion of police independence and the enforcement of specific policies. The clashes between the Chief Constables of Birmingham and Liverpool with their local Watch Committees, in 1880 and 1890, dominate the literature. Despite some vigorous arguments by Brogden and Jefferson and Grimshaw,⁷ the present consensus is that there was general agreement in the nineteenth century that Watch Committees had the power to instruct their chief police officers on matters of law enforcement policy.⁸ However, the power to instruct did not, in itself, resolve the question of the appropriate day-to-day relationship between Watch Committees and their senior officials. To describe the relationship simply as one of master and servant, while not inaccurate in broad terms, overlooks the fact that the nature of that relationship was fundamental to a successful working partnership. A second source of tension, noted by several historians centred on expenditure with several Watch Committees cutting back the size of their forces in response to pressure from their electorates.⁹ Demands for ‘economy’ were important locally (the Huddersfield force was reduced by one for a brief period in the early 1860s) but of greater importance, and less well covered in the secondary literature, were considerations about the appropriate management model for policing in the town and the necessary personal qualities of a Superintendent of Police.

Conflict in the 1850s: Superintendent Thomas

The members of the newly formed Watch Committee of the Huddersfield Improvement Commission were very conscious of the fragmentation and weak leadership that had characterized policing in the town in the early and mid-1840s. The first problem was easily solved by establishing a single force, responsible for day and night policing, under a Superintendent of Police and responsible to the Watch Committee. Finding the right man to fill this post and developing an effective working relationship with him proved more problematic. The Commissioners’ first choice, John Cheeseborough (a former Worsted Inspector), was incapacitated by a stroke within months of taking office but there appeared to be an appropriate successor in the figure of the Superintendent of night constabulary, John Thomas. Although his previous police experience was modest, he had been part of the two-man force created in Ripon in 1848, his early years in charge were largely successful in the eyes of the Watch Committee. He proved himself to be a positive, hands-on officer, playing an active role in quelling trouble in the Huddersfield’s notorious Castlegate district and tackling the problems of immorality, disorderly beerhouses and cruel sports, which won him acclaim for his ‘most praiseworthy’ exertions.¹⁰ Yet within two years he had been dismissed – twice...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Section 1 Early Chief Constables
• Section 2 Chief Constables and their forces
• Section 3 Twentieth-century Chief Constables
• Table of statutes (chronological)
• List of Chief Constables/equivalent titles, mentioned by name
• Index