Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-30T21:46:12.908Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Police in civil society: police, Enlightenment and civic virtue in urban Scotland, c. 1780–1833

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2010

DAVID BARRIE
DAVID BARRIE*
Affiliation:
History, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Based on how notions of civil society and civic virtue were defined in Enlightenment Scotland, this article assesses how far these ideals shaped police development in Scottish towns, c. 1780–1833. It argues that both concepts provided a framework for the development of ‘police’ as a broad mechanism of urban government. Collectively, civil society and civic virtue offered a wide-ranging, intellectual backdrop presupposing ideas on police, improvement and polite society, with the new police model bearing a striking resemblance to how these ideals were imagined and constructed at the time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , May 2010 , pp. 45 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Harris, J. (ed.), Civil Society in British History: Ideas, Identities, Institutions (Oxford, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, preface and acknowledgements. See also J. Harris, ‘Introduction: civil society in British history: paradigm or peculiarity?’, in ibid., 1–12, for the ambiguous way the concept has been defined; and Morris, R.J., ‘Introduction: civil society, associations and urban places: class, nation and culture in nineteenth-century Europe’, in Morton, G., de Vries, B. and Morris, R.J. (eds.), Civil Society, Associations and Urban Places. Class, Nation and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Aldershot, 2006), 2–16Google Scholar.

2 Harris, ‘Introduction’, 12.

3 Quote from ibid., 5.

4 See the essays in Hall, J.A. (ed.), Civil Society. Theory, History, Comparison (Cambridge, 1995)Google Scholar; Habermas, J., The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Berlin, 1962)Google Scholar; and Dahrendorf, R., Society and Democracy in Germany (London, 1968)Google Scholar.

5 For good overviews, see Harris, ‘Introduction’, 5–7; Trentmann, F. (ed.), Paradoxes of Civil Society. New Perspectives on Modern German and British History (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar; and Kumar, K., ‘Civil society: an inquiry into the usefulness of an historical term’, British Journal of Sociology, 44, 3 (1993), 383CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 J. Harris, ‘From Richard Hooker to Harold Laski: changing perceptions of civil society in British political thought, late sixteenth to early twentieth centuries’, in Harris (ed.), Civil Society, 15.

7 See, for instance, Morris, R.J., ‘Civil society and the nature of urbanism: Britain, 1750–1850’, Urban History, 25, 3 (1998), 287–301CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morton, G., ‘Civil society, municipal government and the state: enshrinement, empowerment and legitimacy. Scotland, 1800–29’, Urban History, 25, 3 (1998), 348–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Gellner, E., Conditions of Liberty. Civil Society and its Rivals (London, 1994), 7Google Scholar.

8 Kumar, ‘Civil society’, 383.

9 Harris, ‘From Richard Hooker’, 14.

10 See J. Innes, ‘Central government “interference”: changing conceptions, practices, and concerns, c. 1700–1850’, in Harris (ed.), Civil Society, 51–4. For an interesting study on the important role eighteenth-century notions of ‘civic duty’ and ‘public service’ played in shaping the ‘civic police’ in England, see Dodsworth, F.M., ‘“Civic” police and the condition of liberty: the rationality of governance in eighteenth-century England’, Social History, 29, 2 (2004), 199–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Morton, ‘Civil society’, 355.

12 Harris, ‘Introduction’, 11.

13 Morris, ‘Introduction’, 1.

14 Oz-Salzberger, F., ‘Civil society in the Scottish Enlightenment’, in Kaviraj, S. and Khilnani, S. (eds.), Civil Society: History and Perspectives (Cambridge, 2001), 58Google Scholar.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 Robertson, J., ‘The Scottish Enlightenment at the limits of the civic tradition’, in Holt, I. and Ignatieff, M. (eds.), Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1983), 153Google Scholar.

18 Oz-Salzberger, ‘Civil society’, 59.

19 Hume, D., A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), ed. Mossmer, E.C. (Harmondsworth, 1969), 590–8Google Scholar.

20 Smith, A., The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), ed. Raphael, D.D. and Macfie, A.L. (Oxford, 1974), 340Google Scholar.

21 MacCormick, N., ‘Adam Smith on law’, in Haakonssen, K. (ed.), Adam Smith (Aldershot, 1998), 255Google Scholar.

22 Smith's views are examined in Skinner, A., ‘Adam Smith: society and government’, in Attwooll, E. (ed.), Perspectives in Jurisprudence (Glasgow, 1977), 195–220Google Scholar.

23 Cited in Herman, A., The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots’ Invention of the Modern World (London, 2002), 184Google Scholar.

24 Smith, A., Lectures on Jurisprudence, ed. Meek, R.L., Raphael, D.D. and Stein, P.G. (Oxford, 1978), 129–30Google Scholar; and Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 231.

25 Varty, J., ‘Civic or commercial? Adam Ferguson's concept of civil society’, in Fine, R. and Rai, S. (eds.), Civil Society: Democratic Perspectives (London, 1997), 31Google Scholar.

26 Oz-Salzberger, ‘Civil society’, 58–60.

27 Robertson, ‘The Scottish Enlightenment’, 138.

28 Pocock, J.G.A., The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Chichester, 1975)Google Scholar; Burtt, S., Virtue Transformed: Political Argument in England, 1688–1740 (Cambridge, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Withington, P., The Politics of the Commonwealth: Citizens and Freemen in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar.

29 Robertson, ‘The Scottish Enlightenment’, 140.

30 For more on the relationship between neo-classical liberalism and its relationship with urban administration, see Dodsworth, F., ‘Masculinity as governance: police, public service and the embodiment of authority, c. 1700–1850’, in McCormack, M. (ed.), Public Men. Masculinity and Politics in Modern Britain (Basingstoke, 2007), 33–53Google Scholar; and Dodsworth, ‘“Civic” police’.

31 Oz-Salzberger, ‘Civil society’, 59.

32 Harris, ‘From Richard Hooker’, 26.

33 J.A. Hall, ‘In search of civil society’, in Hall (ed.), Civil Society, 10.

34 A.B. Seligman, ‘Animadversions upon civil society and civic virtue in the last decade of the twentieth century’, in Hall (ed.), Civil Society, 207.

35 Ibid., 205.

36 Maver, I., ‘A (north) British end-view: the comparative experience of municipal employees and services in Glasgow (1800–1950)’, in Dagenais, M., Maver, I. and Saunier, P.-Y. (eds.), Municipal Services and Employees in the Modern City: New Historical Approaches (Aldershot, 2003), 179Google Scholar.

37 Harris, ‘From Richard Hooker’, 36.

38 Seligman recognizes these common features, but argues that as models of citizenship they were irreconcilable. Seligman, ‘Animadversions upon civil society’, 201–3. Moran, however, argues that Scottish Enlightenment philosophers broke down the distinctions between public and private spheres. M.C. Moran, ‘“The commerce of the sexes”: gender and the social sphere in Scottish Enlightenment accounts of civil society’, in Trentmann (ed.), Paradoxes of Civil Society, 68.

39 Robertson, ‘The Scottish Enlightenment’, 140.

40 Some of the subsequent ideas on police reform in urban Scotland can be followed more closely in D.G. Barrie, Police in the Age of Improvement: Police Development and the Civic Tradition in Scotland, 1775–1865 (Cullompton, 2008), passim.

41 Emsley, C., Policing and its Context, 1750–1870 (London, 1983), 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Smith, A., Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms, Delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith, Reported by a Student in 1763 (Glasgow, first published in 1776), ed. Cannan, E. (London, 1896), 422Google Scholar.

43 Chambers, W., The Book of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1830), 84–91Google Scholar.

44 55 & 56 Victoria (c. 55), 1892. See also Dinsmor, A. and Goldsmith, A., ‘Scottish policing – a historical perspective’, in Donnelly, D. and Scott, K. (eds.), Policing Scotland (Cullompton, 2005), 40–61Google Scholar.

45 Cited in Critchley, T.A., A History of Police in England and Wales, 900–1966 (London, 1967), 39Google Scholar. For more on Colquhoun and the Enlightenment, see Barrie, D.G., ‘Patrick Colquhoun, the Scottish Enlightenment and police reform in Glasgow in the late eighteenth century’, Crime, Histoire, Societies/Crime, History and Society, 12, 2 (2008), 57–79Google Scholar.

46 Dundee City Archives, Dundee Town Council Minute Books, 24 May 1870 and 25 May 1803.

47 Emsley, C., ‘A typology of nineteenth-century police’, Crime, History and Society, 3 (1999), 30–44Google ScholarPubMed.

48 Glasgow Post Office Directory, 1801 (Glasgow, 1801), 121.

49 There was, of course, considerable variation. In Sheffield, commissioners had a wide range of responsibilities. See Williams, C., ‘Expediency, authority and duplicity: reforming Sheffield's police, 1832–40’, in Morris, R.J. and Trainor, R.H. (eds.), Urban Governance. Britain and Beyond since 1750 (Aldershot, 2000), 116–17Google Scholar.

50 Morton, ‘Civil society’, 355.

51 Fraser, D., Urban Politics in Victorian England. The Structure of Politics in Victorian Cities (Leicester, 1976), 91Google Scholar. See also Langford, P., Public Life and the Propertied Englishman 1689–1798 (Oxford, 1991), 234–6Google Scholar.

52 Bell, J. and Paton, J., Glasgow: Its Municipal Organisation and Administration (Glasgow, 1896), 113Google Scholar.

53 J. McGowan, ‘The emergence of modern civil police in Scotland: a case study of the police and systems of police in Edinburghshire, 1800–33’ (Open University Ph.D. thesis, 1997), 227.

54 R.J. Baird, ‘Report on the General and Sanitary Conditions of the Working Classes and Poor in the City of Glasgow’ (Glasgow, 1841), 7.

55 For more on associational activity, see Clark, P., British Clubs and Societies 1580–1800: The Origins of an Associational World (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar.

56 Select Committee on Hand-Loom Weavers, Parliamentary Papers, 1834 [556], X, 53–7.

57 Other historians have also argued that civil society was often difficult to distinguish from the local state. See, for instance, K. Gleadle, ‘“Opinions deliver'd in conversation”: conversation, politics, and gender in the late eighteenth century’, in Harris (ed.), Civil Society, 61–78.

58 Morton, ‘Civil society’, 350–1.

59 Morris, ‘Civil society’, 290.

60 For political infighting, see Carson, K. and Idzikowska, H., ‘The social production of Scottish policing, 1795–1900’, in Hay, D. and Snyder, F. (eds.), Policing and Prosecution in Britain, 1750–1850 (Oxford, 1989), 283Google Scholar, and Miskell, Louise, ‘From conflict to co-operation: urban improvement and the case of Dundee, 1790–1850’, Urban History, 29, 3 (2002), 354CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 See, for instance, Report of the Committees Appointed by the Merchant Company, Incorporations, and Several other Public Bodies in the City of Edinburgh; to Consider the Effects of the Act Lately Passed for Regulating the Police of the Said City (Edinburgh, 1806).

62 Ibid., 2–3.

63 James Miller, ‘Lectures on government’ (Glasgow, 1787–8), vols. I–III, Glasgow University Library, Special Collections, MS Gen. 289.

64 Langford, Public Life, 207 and 335, and Eastwood, D., Government and Community in the English Provinces, 1700–1870 (Basingstoke, 1997), 43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 For an interesting discussion on this, see The Scotsman, 14 Jul. 1821.

66 Ibid.

67 Dodsworth, ‘“Civic” police’, 450.

68 See Glasgow City Archives, T-TH1/1/8, Trades House Minutes, 15 Oct. 1789.

69 Paisley (46 George III, c. 116).

70 Ferguson, A., An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), ed. Oz-Salzburger, F. (Cambridge, 1995), 168Google Scholar, 212 and 241.

71 Morton, ‘Civil society’, 352.

72 Silver, A., ‘The demand for order in civil society: a review of some themes’, in Bordua, D.J. (ed.), The Police: Six Sociological Essays (New York, 1967)Google Scholar.

73 Dodsworth, ‘“Civic” police’, 211.

74 Report of the Committees Appointed by the Merchant Company, 6.

75 Edinburgh Advertiser, 16 Jul. 1805.

76 Cited in I. Maver, ‘The guardianship of the community: civic authority prior to 1833’, in T.M. Devine and G. Jackson (eds.), Glasgow, vol. I: Beginnings to 1830 (Manchester, 1995), 253.

77 See ibid.

78 S. Oliver, ‘The administration of urban society in Scotland, 1800–50: with special reference to the growth of civic government in Glasgow and its suburbs’ (University of Glasgow Ph.D. thesis, 1995), passim.

79 See Kirkcaldy (51 George III, c. 35).

80 For urban improvement in Scotland, see Harris, B., ‘Towns, improvement and cultural change in Georgian Scotland: the evidence of the Angus burghs, c. 1760–1820’, Urban History, 33, 2 (2006), 196–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81 Ibid., 202.

82 The issue of civic culture is explored more fully by S. Gunn in ‘The rites of civic culture in English provincial cities, 1830–1914’, in Morris and Trainor (eds.), Urban Governance, 226–41.

83 Morton, ‘Civil society’, 348–67.

84 See the chapters in Harris (ed.), Civil Society.

85 See, for instance, Barrie, D.G., ‘“Epoch-making” beginnings to lingering death: the struggle for control of the Glasgow police commission, 1833–46’, Scottish Historical Review, 86, 2, 222 (2007), 253–77Google Scholar.

86 See, for example, Dinsmor and Goldsmith, ‘Scottish policing’, 40–61. In England, more recent interpretations have moved beyond the ‘problem–response’ model and located reform within wider intellectual, political and legal developments. See, for example, Dodsworth, ‘“Civic” police’, 199–216, and Harris, A.T., Policing the City: Crime and Legal Authority in London, 1780–1840 (Columbus, 2004)Google Scholar.

87 Morris, ‘Introduction’, 1.

88 Harris, ‘From Richard Hooker’, 26.

89 See Barrie, Police in the Age of Improvement, ch. 5.

90 Miskell, ‘From conflict to co-operation’, 354.

91 Burtt, Virtue Transformed.

92 For more on this, see Barrie, Police in the Age of Improvement, ch. 4.

93 Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence, 332.

94 Barrie, ‘“Epoch-making” beginnings’, 272–7.

95 See Oliver, ‘The administration of urban society’, 113–14.

96 Langford, Public Life, 207.

97 Campbell, A.B., The Lanarkshire Miners: A Social History of their Trade Unions, 1775–1974 (Edinburgh, 1979), 217–18Google Scholar.

98 Morris, ‘Civil society’, 291, and Morton, Graeme, Unionist Nationalism. Governing Urban Scotland, 1830–60 (East Linton, 1999), 107Google Scholar.

99 Robertson makes this point in relation to the ‘civic tradition’. Robertson, ‘The Scottish Enlightenment’, 140.