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Policeman's lot: the nature and dynamics of the Monmouthshire Constabulary 1857-1914

Gregory, Margaret 2008. Policeman's lot: the nature and dynamics of the Monmouthshire Constabulary 1857-1914. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

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Abstract

The development of full-time paid police forces throughout England and Wales originated in the nineteenth century. The formation of the Metropolitan force in 1829 had ushered in a new era in policing, but not without many voices being raised in protest. The idea of the new police and the new concept of 'preventive' policing was not universally welcomed. It was not that there was any great sentimentality about the old police, rather that the idea of the new police was seen by many as a strengthening of state power and a threat to personal liberty. It smacked of European despotism. There is a substantial body of work on the history of the Metropolitan Police and the debates leading up to its formation. The historiography of local forces, on the other hand, occupies considerably less shelf space. This thesis takes its place in the now growing production of local studies which aim to redress the balance by surveying the nature and development of change in the provinces. Early histories of police reform, written from a Whig perspective, and now a subject of controversy, tend to depict the change from old to new as an unproblematical linear continuum nuances of rate and variety of change are glossed over. In relation to Monmouthshire, this study has attempted to bring those nuances into sharper relief. Antecedents to the Monmouthshire Constabulary are traced in the first chapter. Subsequent chapters then explore and assess the development of the new force thematically. Through the themes of recruitment, organisation, morbidity and mortality, and discipline and default, the history of the Monmouthshire force is weighed against orthodox accounts. The latter themes more thoroughly survey the policeman's 'lot' than the former, and in this respect they help fill an historical gap, for labour relations within forces and policemen's health have not been widely explored. Overall, the thesis seeks to dispel the idea that provincial change was either radical or straightforward, and it challenges the notion that the Metropolitan situation was irrelevant to that of the provinces.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Status: Unpublished
Schools: History, Archaeology and Religion
Subjects: D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D204 Modern History
K Law > K Law (General)
ISBN: 9781303214837
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 30 March 2016
Last Modified: 12 Feb 2016 23:13
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/54864

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