Review: The History of the Bow Street Runners
| Published date | 01 April 1933 |
| Date | 01 April 1933 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X3300600213 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
THE
HISTORY
OF
THE
BOW
STREET
RUNNERS. By GILBERT
ARMITAGE.
I2S.
6d. net. (Wishart.)
THIS
is a very interesting book, as indeed almost any book about old Bow
Street of the period 1729-1829is likely to be. But to those who have read
Mr. Percy Fitzgerald's' Chronicles of Bow Street Police Office' (misquoted
by Mr. Armitage as ' Chronicles of the BowStreet Police Force '), and other
previous accounts of the Bow Street Magistrates and Police, the book is
somewhat of a disappointment.
It
was to be hoped that any new work on
Bow Street would have added to our knowledge of the subject,
but
it would
be difficult to say that Mr. Armitage has done much in this direction.
The
title of his book is a misnomer as it has little claim to be a history
of the Runners.
It
would have been more correctly described by the same
title as Mr. Fitzgerald's book, on which Mr. Armitage seems to have drawn
for much of his material.
It
deals in
turn
with the Magistrates who presided
at Bow Street from the time of Sir Thomas De Veil to that of Sir Richard
Birnie, and gives us particulars of cases that occurred under, and criminals
dealt with by each, mentioning in connexion with them the names and
achievements of some of the Runners.
It
is thus only in passing, so to speak,
that we learn about the Runners, and, for no very obvious reason, a few
further particulars about them are relegated to an Appendix.
As regards the beginnings of the Bow Street Police under the Fieldings,
Mr. Armitage is not very clear and does not carry us any further than the
article on ' Police Reform Before
Peel'
in The Police Journal for January
1929.
The
first step in the formation of the Bow Street Police and the origin
of the Runners was when, in 1749, Henry Fielding got together a few of the
parish constables and induced them to act as a body under Saunders Welch.
By the end of 1750,' says Mr. Armitage, ' he ' (Henry Fielding)' had eighty
constables under his command.' This is misleading. These eighty were
the eighty parish constables of Westminster who would on occasions be
collected together. Henry Fielding's special body of ' thief-takers,' as they
were called, who subsequently became the Runners, were a handful of
men;
in a memorial addressed to the Prime Minister in 1754,he givestheir number
as seven.
With respect to the Foot Patrols, who were of later origin and quite dis-
tinct from the Runners, Mr. Armitage seems to accept the view that they were
established by Sir John Fielding. He does not, however, adduce any evidence
on the point, apart from the statement in the Appendix to the Report of the
Select Committee on Finance of 1798, which says,' This useful body of men
was established in the lifetime of Sir John Fielding'; but, if this is so, it is
remarkable that there is no mention of their existence at the time of the
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