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Smale, David Martin
(2008).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.0000fd62
Abstract
This work is the first systematic study of rural policing in nineteenth century Scotland and concerns the development of policing in the Scottish Border counties of Berwickshire, Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire. These counties were overwhelmingly agricultural but the growth of a number of burghs into substantial mill towns during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries led to two distinct environments; the rural county and the industrial burgh.
This study has revealed some new and original ideas on the development of policing. The issue of vagrancy permeates the whole work and is the main impetus for the border counties forming new police forces. The old system could not cope with the massive number of people on the tramp and this combined with other concerns including the fear of public disorder led the Commissioners of Supply to reconsider their police systems. Alfred John List was brought to East Lothian from London and consulted by the border counties. His distinctive and previously unknown two-tier system involving a core of full-time officers augmented with part-time parish constables was a practical answer to policing the large sparsely populated counties. Having designed plans for new police forces in the border counties he went on to become the most influential writer and practitioner of policing in rural Scotland.
An examination of the recruits to the county police reveal that the majority did not come from the land and more remarkably that the Highlands provided a large proportion of the men of these Lowland forces. The work of the new police was to enforce the social order but not as crudely as some 'revisionist' writers contend; policemen was also used by working class people to obtain redress and sometimes justice. However the River Tweed Police, a distinctive seasonal force, formed within the county forces to protect the fishing rights of the gentry, ensured that for many the new police were clearly associated with protecting the interests of the propertied classes.