The Shadow of Great Britain

”Portrait of Frederick Goodie, the First Chief of Leicester City Police Station”

And what about John Redman of Newport? He was even less than Goodie; upon leaving Scotland Yard, his rank was merely that of Chief of Police. However, for a small town like Newport, having a Chief of Police serve as the Police Chief was indeed sufficient, considering that Newport Police Department had only two patrol districts and merely 14 officers on duty.

As for the Bristol’s Joseph Bishop, this Police Chief overseeing 232 Bristol officers had similar qualifications to Arthur; he was promoted to Police Superintendent in the same year as Arthur, both possessing extensive precinct management experience, fully capable of handling public security management in cities with populations of over a hundred thousand.

Officers like Bishop, Goodie, and other excellent officers from Scotland Yard were quickly recruited by financially robust municipalities to take up posts as the first local Police Chiefs after the passage of the ”Municipal Corporations Act” in 1836.

If Arthur didn’t have such great ambition or such an extraordinary life...

Perhaps, in another mundane timeline, Arthur, stagnating at the position of Police Superintendent, might have also been recruited to locales like Manchester and Liverpool with an annual salary of 300 to 500 Pounds in 1836.

But a person’s destiny includes personal effort, considering also the progress of history.

Thus, propelled by the tides of history, in the present of 1838, Arthur Hastings did not appear with the title of Manchester’s Police Chief, but instead sat in the most honorable position in the meeting room as the Executive Secretary of the Police Commissioner Committee.

A brief silence spread across the meeting room.

It wasn’t the kind of uncomfortable silence but more like a professional waiting. Everyone knew that this meeting wasn’t about pleasantries or exchanging current status. The real issue had long been laid under the table, just waiting for someone to unveil it.

Finally, it was Ball, the Chief of Liverpool Police seated next to Rowan, who first broke the silence.

”Sir.” Ball’s voice wasn’t loud but it set the tone for this special police meeting right away: ”Liverpool hasn’t yet seen riots. But since the New Poor Law was fully implemented in our city, our police force deployment has been forced into a structural change. The area surrounding the Poorhouse is becoming the most concentrated area of police deployment.”

He paused here, then continued: ”In just the past six weeks, the police force allocated for patrols around the Poorhouse and its neighboring districts has exceeded the total previously used for port disputes and nighttime security. And our investment of these police forces has not corresponded to any definite criminal activity.”

He didn’t mention protests or unrest.

But everyone present understood that he was deliberately avoiding these two words.

Joseph Bishop from Bristol immediately picked up the thread: ”In Bristol, the situation is slightly different. Our Poorhouse is larger, and the system is executed more thoroughly. Therefore, the issue hasn’t erupted but has accumulated over time. The police are increasingly frequently required to handle incidents that are not unlawful yet can easily escalate into conflicts. For example, paupers refusing to enter the institution, disputes between relatives and the institution, gatherings around allocation days. Indeed, we can disperse crowds as required by the Poor Law Commission, but this doesn’t help resolve the situation.”

John Redman from Newport seemed somewhat hesitant, but after briefly organizing his thoughts, he spoke up.

”For towns like ours, the issue is more direct.” Redman admitted: ”The police station is limited in size, with only two patrol districts. Once police forces are long-term stationed around the Poorhouse, it’s inevitable that other areas’ security will see a vacuum. I say this not to evade responsibility, maintaining order is the natural duty of the police, and if other departments require cooperation from the police, we of course execute with a spirit of cooperation. However, Sir, I believe cooperation shouldn’t mean that we must become a subsidiary of the Poor Law Commission, right? After all, the departments needing help are not just the Poor Law Commission.”

McManus also concurred: ”We are required to both maintain order and not interfere with the operation of the Poor Law system, yet in reality these two can no longer be separated. If the existing pressure continues, and we do not receive additional support, then Sir Arthur, Kingston might not be able to assure the Home Office that larger scale community conflicts won’t erupt in the coming months.”

The officers present were already doing their best to avoid attacking the New Poor Law itself, not because they revered this law, but because they knew better than anyone that the police had no right to assess the legitimacy of legislation, yet this didn’t hinder them from expressing dissatisfaction.

The police department was clearly cleaning up for the Poor Law Commission, but the extra work hadn’t brought them extra resources, leading only to patching up holes here and there.

Every police station had just so much police force available; focus on the New Poor Law and naturally the police force for daily patrols dwindled, while out of precaution against the police department, Parliament was unwilling to grant them greater power and financial allocations.

And morally speaking, stopping family members from contacting relatives inside the institution, dispersing spontaneous gatherings around the workhouse without using force to prevent the situation from escalating are such arduous but unrewarding tasks that no department wants to be swapped into.