H division/policing whitechapel

• The Metropolitan Police force was split into 20 divisions, each

  responsible for a district of London and named with a letter of the alphabet, Whitechapel was covered by H Division

  • The division was run by a superintendent and a chief inspector, with the support of 27 inspectors and 37 sergeants
  • The sergeants supervised around 500 ordinary officers – constables – who went out on the beat
• A typical day or night for an H Division beat constable began with him and his colleagues marching out into Whitechapel

  • When the constable reached his beat – the area he was to patrol – he dropped out of the marching column and started work
  • At night, stopping and questioning people to find out what they were up to was an important part of his work
  • At certain times, the constable would meet up with his beat sergeant todiscuss what had happened so far, and this conversation was written down in his diary
  • If a beat constable was found to be away from his beat, or missed a crime committed on his beat – and could not give a very good reason – he could be fined or dismissed
• The work as a beat controller was often boring and sometimes dangerous

  • Pay was not especially good
  • This meant that the quality of recruits was variable
  • Sergeants would follow constables to ensure they were doing their duty – not sleeping in doorways or idly chatting
• By mid C19, the Metropolitan Police, founded in 1829, were beginning to enjoy a respectable reputation as keepers of the peace and upholders of the law

  • Most ordinary working people wanted respectability and good order in their streets, and while they may not have counted the local policeman as a friend, they did accept that the police were there to help protect that good order
  • In many areas, the policeman was seen as a reliable and helpful ‘Bobby’
• But in more deprived districts, like Whitechapel, the police were seen in a more negative light and attacks by violent gangs were relatively common

  • The main reason for the unpopularity of the police was the economic depression and widespread poverty of the 1870s-90s
  • When discontent boiled over into public protests and the police were called in, they were seen as upholders, not of the law, but of unpopular government decisions
  • Therefore, they soon got a reputation for heavy-handedness and violence – despite the fact that they didn’t carry any weapon more lethal than a truncheon
• Whitechapel was a breeding ground for crime – ranging from petty theft to murder

  • This made H Division’s task particularly challenging
  • Many of the crimes committed were directly linked to the high levels of poverty and unemployment – people with no work would resort to crime rather than starve or go into the workhouse
  • Prostitution and alcohol were two particular problems
• Some of the violence in Whitechapel was stirred up by gangs like the Bessarabian Tigers and the Odessians, both made up of immigrants from Eastern Europe

  • These gangs demanded protection money from small business owners
  • Anyone who refused to pay would have their shop or market stall smashed to pieces
  • The gangs also attacked each other
• Ordinary people were afraid to report gang members to the police in case the violence turned on them

  • As a result it was almost impossible to gather enough evidence to arrest gang members or put them on trial
  • Because they were overstretched and understaffed, H Division made no attempt to shut down fights and other criminal activities in some areas of Whitechapel, which they would have acted against in other neighbourhoods
• Local authorities tended to regard the constable as a kind of social worker

  • By the 1870s, there were 82 government laws describing what the Metropolitan Police should do when dealing with a wide range of issues, including: vagrancy, lunatics, pubs, street traffic
  • One of these laws was the Metropolitan Police Streets Act 1867, which introduced further regulations concerning street trading and traffic control, and made the muzzling of dogs compulsory
  • This law was soon dropped as it was ignored by the public, including the well-off respectable classes
• Some of these social work tasks brought the police into immediate conflict with Whitechapel residents:-

  • When they acted as poor relief officers – conducting people to the workhouse, or children to school – they met great hostility
  • Attempts to control prostitution were resented by women whose very lives depended on earning enough to escape starvation
• On the other hand, the poor people of Whitechapel could see that H Division also provided real benefits: hosting soup kitchens (often to try to get information from witnesses, as the Home Office discouraged offering money); looking after stray children; and stopping runaway horses
• Most people felt that a police force was necessary – it was just their methods and priorities that were at fault

  • In general, many people felt that the police were rather too concerned with promoting good manners among the residents – at the expense of keeping them safe
  • Concern for crime prevention led to the police being seen as interfering busybodies who were imposing what they believed to be ‘civilised’ behaviour
  • This role could be unpopular with residents, who thought their police should act less like teachers and more like criminal catchers
• Overall, poor people needed the police to defend them, and because they were figures of authority, they were able to do this

  However, the fact that policemen were in authority was also the reason they were resented, as people did not like being told what to do in their everyday lives
• There were many different police forces at this time

  • Many counties had their own force, and within counties many cities and towns had separate forces
  • The home secretary, based in Westminster, had little control over local police forces outside London, which were usually run by watch committees – these were groups of local politicians or law professionals set up to monitor the work of the police forces
  • The exception was the Metropolitan Police force in London, which reported directly to the home secretary, who also appointed the head of the force
  • The government was reluctant to give up this influential relationship
• 1889 – the London County Council was set up and there were

  discussions about giving it control over the Met; but the government resisted because it feared the Met would fall under the influence of socialist members of the new council and others with close connections to the working classes
• Police work was hampered by insufficient manpower

  By 1885, the Met was made up of 13,319 men among a population of just over 5m; but only 1,383 of those officers were available for duty at any one time
• According to the Home Office archive, the detective force in London grew from 216 in 1878 to 294 in 1883, and the number of arrests they made rose from 13,000 to 18,000
• Statistics from individual police stations are useful, but can be

  misleading

  • According to records, during the 1860s, a Middlesbrough policeman could be expected to be assaulted twice a year
  • But these statistics reflect only cases where the officer made an arrest or a report
  • Freedom licences – official release papers for prisoners – are valuable records of convictions and punishments, which are not covered by police station records
• There are also extensive archives of records from court cases

  Many people arrested in Whitechapel found themselves tried at the Central Criminal Court in London – the Old Bailey
• Another useful source of information is police memoirs

  • James Bent and Richard Jervis were two Lancashire policemen who wrote accounts of their long careers
  • Memoirs need to be treated with care, as people tend to use them to present their lives in a positive way, but the Bent and Jervis memoirs do provide a vivid and detailed picture of police work in NW England in the late C19
  • They show that violence between police and locals was common and that poachers (on PC Bent’s rural beat) were often part of organised gangs
• The way crimes were reported is also important as not all forces used the same criteria for defining crimes and convictions

  • Crime rates seem to have gone at the end of C19
  • Perhaps criminals thought improvements to policing made it more likely that they would be caught
  • However, this is speculation and historians are careful about the conclusions they draw from statistics
• One of the easiest ways of monitoring what happened is through local and national newspaper accounts

  • But these publications seem to value ‘getting a good story’ ahead of the facts
  • The name of the Illustrated Police News suggests it was an official publication but in fact it was a sensationalist ‘penny dreadful’ and very anti-police
  • So negative did some of the press become that, from the 1860s, police newspapers such as the Police Review, began to appear
  • These aimed to challenge negative views of local policemen in other papers
• Although the main task of the police was to prevent crime, a detective department was added to the Metropolitan Police in 1842

  It was tiny and ineffective and there was confusion over whether

  detectives were meant to prevent or detect crime
• After a serious police corruption scandal in 1877, a barrister called Howard Vincent was appointed to set up the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in 1878 with 216 officers

  • This finally seemed to clear up confusions between crime prevention and crime detection
  • However, detection standards did not improve, as the Ripper investigation showed and the problem of corruption in the service continued
• Following a series of strikes and demonstrations against government policy, the home secretary appointed a former general, Sir Charles Warren, as Metropolitan Police Commissioner in 1886

  • This was probably intended as a warning to those who were seen as troublemaking opponents of the government
  • It contributed to the idea of many that the police in London were simply the government in uniform
• It was Commissioner Warren who called in the army to control the protestors in Trafalgar Square on Bloody Sunday

  • The police action on that day added to a growing feeling that the police favoured the middle and upper classes against the poor
  • This made policing in poorer districts much more difficult
  • Warren was also criticised by all sides for appearing to enjoy the action in Trafalgar Square
  • People who had previously supported the distinguished general now showed intense dislike for his bullying ways
• When Jack the Ripper terrorised Whitechapel a year later, Warren paid for the police’s failure to catch him by being forced out as Commissioner

  He did himself no favours by sharing his views about public disorder in a popular magazine – Murray’s Magazine
• In 1888, five women were murdered in and around Whitechapel:

  • Mary Ann (Polly) Nichols - 31 August
  • Annie Chapman - 8 September
  • Elizabeth Stride - 30 September
  • Catherine Eddowes - 30 September
  • Mary Jane Kelly - 9 November
• The police believed the 5 women had all been killed by the same person

  • The murderer was never caught but was given the popular nickname ‘Jack the Ripper’
  • The investigation into the murders provides a case study within which to assess the challenges faced by the police, and methods of investigative policing at this time
• Inspector Frederick Abberline and his CID team were assigned to the Jack the Ripper case by the Metropolitan Police, to assist the uniformed men of H Division

  • Almost immediately, their task was made much harder by more than 300 letters and postcards sent to them, or the newspapers, by men claiming to be the murderer
• A short time after the discovery of Catherine Eddowes’ body, PC Alfred Long of H Division discovered an important clue on Goulston Street – half a mile away

  • It was a piece of Eddowes’ apron, smeared with blood and faeces
  • In the alleyway behind, there was a message scrawled in chalk on the wall: ‘The Juwes are the men that will not be blames for nothing.’
  • Commissioner Warren ordered the message to be washed off before it could be photographed – apparently fearing a backlash against the Jewish community
• Warren may also have had another motive for getting the message washed off

  • One possible reason is that Eddowes was killed inside the boundaries of the City of London, which had its own police force, independent of the Met, and he did not want to be beaten to the capture of the serial killer by a rival force
  • This bitter rivalry between the forces was one of the biggest problems in police investigation in and around Whitechapel
• methods used in early stages of investigation

  • Follow up direct leads from the public
  • Use evidence from post mortems
  • Follow up indirect leads from articles by investigating journalists
  • Follow up on clues in the victims’ possessions
  • Visit lunatic asylums
  • Follow up on coroners’ reports
  • Interview key witnesses
  • Set up soup kitchens
• Set up soup kitchens

  The Met was not allowed to offer money as a reward as it might attract time-wasters, but local police encouraged poor people to come forward as witnesses by promising a hot meal.
• Follow up on coroners’ reports

  Dr Wynne Baxter proposed a theory about the skills and motive of the murderer arguing that they had anatomical knowledge beyond that of a butcher. This was challenged by detectives investigating later murders
• Visit lunatic asylums

  Because the murders were so savage, it was assumed that the Ripper was insane, and could have escaped from an asylum, or been housed in one after his crimes
• Following Dr Baxter’s coroner’s report on the death of Chapman in September, the police became more interested in investigating hospitals and veterinary surgeons

  • However, expert opinion about the similarly savage attack upon Eddowes left some room for doubt about the knife-wielder’s skill and 76 butchers and slaughterhouse workers were also questioned
  • Despite all the different methods being used by the police, newspapers and the public were ever more critical of their apparent incompetence, especially after the ‘Double Event’, when Stride and Eddowes were discovered on 30 September.
  • Emotions ran high, and thousands of people turned out to observe the post mortems of Stride and Eddowes
• To counter the criticism, Chief Inspector Swanson made public a Home Office report on Metropolitan Police methods including:

  • House-to-house searches
  • Questioning more than 2000 lodging house residents
  • Distributing 80,000 handbills asking for information
  • Getting help from the Thames River Police to question sailors in the docks, and neighbouring divisions of the Met to search opium dens
• As well as criticising police methods the press made the investigation more difficult by publishing stories based on journalists’ guesswork and unreliable interviews with locals

  • The police had to follow up these stories, wasting valuable time
  • The press frequently portrayed suspects as ‘foreign’, drawing heavily on negative stereotypes of Jewish immigrants, and this was a further distraction
• Investigative methods became increasingly bizarre

  • Some policemen adopted disguises: there were reports of men
  • disguised as prostitutes to lure the Ripper into a trap – although they
  • refused to remove their moustaches!
  • Some wore strips of rubber attached to their boots – hoping to sneak up quietly on the murderer
  • The police also experimented with bloodhounds
  • The dogs, Barnaby and Burgho, performed well in tracking trials in London parks, but the police failed to pay their owner who then refused to work further with the police