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

Urban History

Volumn 37, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 45-65

  Barrie, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CIVIL SOCIETY; EIGHTEENTH CENTURY; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; POLICE FORCE; POLITICAL HISTORY; URBAN HISTORY;

SCOTLAND; UNITED KINGDOM;

EID: 77954618930     PISSN: 09639268     EISSN: 14698706     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0963926810000064     Document Type: Article

References (117)

1. J. Harris (ed.), Civil Society in British History: Ideas, Identities, Institutions (Oxford, 2003), preface and acknowledgements.
2. 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;
3. and R. J. Morris, 'Introduction: civil society, associations and urban places: class, nation and culture in nineteenth-century Europe', in G. Morton, B. de Vries and R. J. Morris (eds.), Civil Society, Associations and Urban Places. Class, Nation and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Aldershot, 2006), 2-16.
4. Harris, 'Introduction', 12.
5. Quote from ibid., 5.
6. See the essays in J. A. Hall (ed.), Civil Society. Theory, History, Comparison (Cambridge, 1995);
7. J. Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Berlin, 1962);
8. and R. Dahrendorf, Society and Democracy in Germany (London, 1968).
9. For good overviews, see Harris, 'Introduction', 5-7;
10. F. Trentmann (ed.), Paradoxes of Civil Society. New Perspectives on Modern German and British History (Oxford, 2000);
11. and K. Kumar, 'Civil society:aninquiry into the usefulnessofan historical term', British Journal of Sociology, 44, 3 (1993), 383.
12. 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.
13. See, for instance, R. J. Morris, 'Civil society and the nature of urbanism: Britain, 1750-1850', Urban History, 25, 3 (1998), 287-301;
14. G. Morton, 'Civil society, municipal government and the state: enshrinement, empowerment and legitimacy. Scotland, 1800-29', Urban History, 25, 3 (1998), 348-67;
15. and E. Gellner, Conditions of Liberty. Civil Society and its Rivals (London, 1994), 7.
16. Kumar, 'Civil society', 383.
17. Harris, 'From Richard Hooker', 14.
18. See J. Innes, 'Central government "interference": changing conceptions, practices, and concerns, c. 1700-1850', in Harris (ed.), Civil Society, 51-4.
19. 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 F. M. Dodsworth, '"Civic" police and the condition of liberty: the rationality of governance in eighteenth-century England', Social History, 29, 2 (2004), 199-216.
20. Morton, 'Civil society', 355.
21. Harris, 'Introduction', 11.
22. Morris, 'Introduction', 1.
23. F. Oz-Salzberger, 'Civil society in the Scottish Enlightenment', in S. Kaviraj and S. Khilnani (eds.), Civil Society: History and Perspectives (Cambridge, 2001), 58.
24. F. Oz-Salzberger, 'Civil society in the Scottish Enlightenment', in S. Kaviraj and S. Khilnani (eds.), Civil Society: History and Perspectives (Cambridge, 2001), 58. Ibid.
25. F. Oz-Salzberger, 'Civil society in the Scottish Enlightenment', in S. Kaviraj and S. Khilnani (eds.), Civil Society: History and Perspectives (Cambridge, 2001), 58. Ibid.
26. J. Robertson, 'The Scottish Enlightenment at the limits of the civic tradition', in I. Holt and M. Ignatieff (eds.), Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1983), 153.
27. Oz-Salzberger, 'Civil society', 59.
28. D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), ed. E. C. Mossmer (Harmondsworth, 1969), 590-8.
29. A. Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie (Oxford, 1974), 340.
30. N. MacCormick, 'Adam Smith on law', in K. Haakonssen (ed.), Adam Smith (Aldershot, 1998), 255.
31. Smith's views are examined in A. Skinner, 'Adam Smith: society and government', in E. Attwooll (ed.), Perspectives in Jurisprudence (Glasgow, 1977), 195-220.
32. Cited in A. Herman, The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots' Invention of the Modern World (London, 2002), 184.
33. A. Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence, ed. R. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael and P. G. Stein (Oxford, 1978), 129-30;
34. and Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 231.
35. J. Varty, 'Civic or commercial? Adam Ferguson's concept of civil society', in R. Fine and S. Rai (eds.), Civil Society: Democratic Perspectives (London, 1997), 31.
36. Oz-Salzberger, 'Civil society', 58-60.
37. Robertson, 'The Scottish Enlightenment', 138.
38. J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Chichester, 1975);
39. S. Burtt, Virtue Transformed: Political Argument in England, 1688-1740 (Cambridge, 1992);
40. and P. Withington, The Politics of the Commonwealth: Citizens and Freemen in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2000).
41. Robertson, 'The Scottish Enlightenment', 140.
42. For more on the relationship between neo-classical liberalism and its relationship with urban administration, see F. Dodsworth, 'Masculinity as governance: police, public service and the embodiment of authority, c. 1700-1850', in M. McCormack (ed.), Public Men. Masculinity and Politics in Modern Britain (Basingstoke, 2007), 33-53;
43. and Dodsworth, '"Civic" police'.
44. Oz-Salzberger, 'Civil society', 59.
45. Harris, 'From Richard Hooker', 26.
46. J. A. Hall, 'In search of civil society', in Hall (ed.), Civil Society, 10.
47. A. B. Seligman, 'Animadversions upon civil society and civic virtue in the last decade of the twentieth century', in Hall (ed.), Civil Society, 207.
48. A. B. Seligman, 'Animadversions upon civil society and civic virtue in the last decade of the twentieth century', in Hall (ed.), Civil Society, 207. Ibid., 205.
49. I. Maver, 'A (north) British end-view: the comparative experience of municipal employees and services in Glasgow (1800-1950) ', in M. Dagenais, I. Maver and P.-Y. Saunier (eds.), Municipal Services and Employees in the Modern City: New Historical Approaches (Aldershot, 2003), 179.
50. Harris, 'From Richard Hooker', 36.
51. 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.
52. Robertson, 'The Scottish Enlightenment', 140.
53. 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.
54. C. Emsley, Policing and its Context, 1750-1870 (London, 1983), 2.
55. A. Smith, 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. E. Cannan (London, 1896), 422.
56. W. Chambers, The Book of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1830), 84-91.
57. 55 & 56 Victoria (c. 55), 1892.
58. See also A. Dinsmor and A. Goldsmith, 'Scottish policing - a historical perspective', in D. Donnelly and K. Scott (eds.), Policing Scotland (Cullompton, 2005), 40-61.
59. Cited in T. A. Critchley, A History of Police in England and Wales, 900-1966 (London, 1967), 39.
60. For more on Colquhoun and the Enlightenment, see D. G. Barrie, '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), 57-79.
61. Dundee City Archives, Dundee Town Council Minute Books, 24 May 1870 and 25 May 1803.
62. C. Emsley, 'A typology of nineteenth-century police', Crime, History and Society, 3 (1999), 30-44.
63. Glasgow Post Office Directory, 1801 (Glasgow, 1801), 121.
64. There was, of course, considerable variation. In Sheffield, commissioners had a wide range of responsibilities. See C. Williams, 'Expediency, authority and duplicity: reforming Sheffield's police, 1832-40', in R. J. Morris and R. H. Trainor (eds.), Urban Governance. Britain and Beyond since 1750 (Aldershot, 2000), 116-17.
65. Morton, 'Civil society', 355.
66. D. Fraser, Urban Politics in Victorian England. The Structure of Politics in Victorian Cities (Leicester, 1976), 91.
67. See also P. Langford, Public Life and the Propertied Englishman 1689-1798 (Oxford, 1991), 234-6.
68. J. Bell and J. Paton, Glasgow: Its Municipal Organisation and Administration (Glasgow, 1896), 113.
69. 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.
70. R. J. Baird, 'Report on the General and Sanitary Conditions of the Working Classes and Poor in the City of Glasgow' (Glasgow, 1841), 7.
71. For more on associational activity, see P. Clark, British Clubs and Societies 1580-1800: The Origins of an Associational World (Oxford, 2000).
72. Select Committee on Hand-Loom Weavers, Parliamentary Papers, 1834 [556], X, 53-7.
73. 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.
74. Morton, 'Civil society', 350-1.
75. Morris, 'Civil society', 290.
76. For political infighting, see K. Carson and H. Idzikowska, 'The social production of Scottish policing, 1795-1900', in D. Hay and F. Snyder (eds.), Policing and Prosecution in Britain, 1750-1850 (Oxford, 1989), 283
77. and Louise Miskell, 'From conflict to co-operation: urban improvement and the case of Dundee, 1790-1850', Urban History, 29, 3 (2002), 354.
78. 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).
79. Ibid., 2-3.
80. James Miller, 'Lectures on government' (Glasgow, 1787-8), vols. I-III, Glasgow University Library, Special Collections, MS Gen. 289.
81. Langford, Public Life, 207 and 335
82. and D. Eastwood, Government and Community in the English Provinces, 1700-1870 (Basingstoke, 1997), 43.
83. For an interesting discussion on this, see The Scotsman, 14 Jul. 1821.
84. For an interesting discussion on this, see The Scotsman, 14 Jul. 1821. Ibid.
85. Dodsworth, '"Civic" police', 450.
86. See Glasgow City Archives, T-TH1/1/8, Trades House Minutes, 15 Oct. 1789.
87. Paisley (46 George III, c. 116).
88. A. Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), ed. F. Oz-Salzburger (Cambridge, 1995), 168, 212 and 241.
89. Morton, 'Civil society', 352.
90. A. Silver, 'The demand for order in civil society: a review of some themes', in D. J. Bordua (ed.), The Police: Six Sociological Essays (New York, 1967).
91. Dodsworth, '"Civic" police', 211.
92. Report of the Committees Appointed by the Merchant Company, 6.
93. Edinburgh Advertiser, 16 Jul. 1805.
94. 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.
95. See ibid.
96. 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.
97. See Kirkcaldy (51 George III, c. 35).
98. For urban improvement in Scotland, see B. Harris, 'Towns, improvement and cultural change in Georgian Scotland: the evidence of the Angus burghs, c. 1760-1820', Urban History, 33, 2 (2006), 196-202.
99. For urban improvement in Scotland, see B. Harris, 'Towns, improvement and cultural change in Georgian Scotland: the evidence of the Angus burghs, c. 1760-1820', Urban History, 33, 2 (2006), 196-202. Ibid., 202.
100. 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.
101. Morton, 'Civil society', 348-67.
102. See the chapters in Harris (ed.), Civil Society.
103. See, for instance, D. G. Barrie, "'Epoch-making" beginnings to lingering death: the struggle for control of the Glasgow police commission, 1833-46', Scottish Historical Review, 86, 2, 222 (2007), 253-77.
104. 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 A. T. Harris, Policing the City: Crime and Legal Authority in London, 1780-1840 (Columbus, 2004).
105. Morris, 'Introduction', 1.
106. Harris, 'From Richard Hooker', 26.
107. See Barrie, Police in the Age of Improvement, ch. 5.
108. Miskell, 'From conflict to co-operation', 354.
109. Burtt, Virtue Transformed.
110. For more on this, see Barrie, Police in the Age of Improvement, ch. 4.
111. Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence, 332.
112. Barrie, '"Epoch-making" beginnings', 272-7.
113. See Oliver, 'The administration of urban society', 113-14.
114. Langford, Public Life, 207.
115. A. B. Campbell, The Lanarkshire Miners: A Social History of their Trade Unions, 1775-1974 (Edinburgh, 1979), 217-18.
116. Morris, 'Civil society', 291, and Graeme Morton, Unionist Nationalism. Governing Urban Scotland, 1830-60 (East Linton, 1999), 107.
117. Robertson makes this point in relation to the 'civic tradition'. Robertson, 'The Scottish Enlightenment', 140.