When I was writing my short story “Order and Disorder” LOTS of research was required, especially information about the policing practices in Regency Era London. One of my discoveries was the River Thames Police….
en.wikipedia.org
In the 18th Century, importers docking along the River Thames in London had lost £500.000 annually as cargoes were unloaded on the unprotected River Thames. In 1797, an Essex Justice of the Peace, farmer, and inventor from Great Stanbridge, Mr John Harriott, came up with a plan to change all that. Mr Patrick Colquhoun, LLD. (the principle magistrate of Queens Square Police Office), advocated for Harriott’s plan with the West India Merchants and the West India Planters Committees to finance preventative policing of the central shipping area of the Thames. The government approved the establishment of the Marine Police on 2 July 1798 in Wapping High Street. Originally, the West India Merchants Company Marine Police Institute was to operate for just one year, but as the Government was involved with the war with France, the time was extended.
A Surveyor (equivalent rank of an Inspector, by today’s standards) and three waterman Constables under the direction of a Superintending Surveyor manned each of the rowing galleys. The Superintending Surveyor also had a supervision galley with a crew of four. The Surveyors had taken an oath to the Crown and were issued an excise warrant by the Customs and Excise Service.
In addition, ship and quay guards were employed on a part-time basis. They were only employed when the West India fleets were on the river. Otherwise, they were dismissed until needed again. These “guards” were supervised by the boat patrols, which eventually became the first River Police Special Constables. Initially, it cost £4.200 to set up the force (hires and premises), but , by all estimates, they had saved £122.000 in cargo and had saved a dozen individuals.
Only numbering in the low 50s, these Officers were expected to control some 30.000 + people who made their living on the river. One must realize a large portion (some 25-35%) of that 30.000 were likely criminals. Unfortunately, during the first six months, a riot took place outside the Office, and a crowd of 2000+ threatened to burn the building to the ground, with officers and magistrates inside. Harriott managed to quell the riot. Sadly, Gabriel Franks (Master Lumper) was shot and killed – the first recorded police death. “After a year, Harriott was able to give his first report to the Home Office stating ‘instead of many waterman’s boats hovering nearby while ships unloaded, the river now appears quiet and peaceful, except for those going about their lawful business.” (River Thames Police – History – Establishment)
Ship owners convinced the government of the value of the Marine Police. Letters from importers, shipmasters, and wharf owners praised the deterrent tactics of the boat patrols and quay guards. On 28 July 1800, Parliament passed the Marine Police Bill making the river police a public domain. The bill also increased the number of officers to 88. “They were taken with the Magistrate John Harriott to be directly under the control of the Home Secretary, who used their hard won experience throughout the whole of the Metropolis until such times as the Metropolitan Police were formed.” In 1800, Patrick Colquhoun released a book entitled The Commerce and Policing of the River Thames. “As the only police body extant whole chapters were included about criminals of the Thames, its policing and the effect. The book was widely read and approved of, so much so that many other police forces were formed throughout the world on his principles, the most famous being Dublin, New York and Sydney, Australia.” (River Thames Police – History – Government Support)
By the time the Metropolitan Police began in 1829, the River Thames Police had grown in numbers and in stations. They had extended their jurisdiction to above Chelsea and down to Woolwich and had acquired two old naval vessels to patrol the extent of the Thames. “In 1817 an excise “Cutter” was purchased to patrol the lower reaches as far as the Downs, firstly to protect the Kings stores at Sheerness, a Magistrate with powers in the surrounding counties was then essential to empower the River Police to prevent such crimes and in particular crimping. Winter for the officers patrolling in open boats was most rigorous.” (River Thames Police: History)
By 1839, the Metropolitan Police, under Commissioners Sir Richard Mayne and Sir Charles Rowan, who operated with the Home Secretary’s permission, had unified other police bodies in London, including the Bow Street Runners, Horse patrols, and the River Police. The only exception was the City of London Police force, which was founded in 1834 and remains a separate entity even today.
With this unification, the Thames Magistrate Office was moved to Arbour Square and renamed the Thames Magistrates Court. “Thames Division of the Metropolitan Police was built on the officers and experience of its earlier force. It was always that the land police were formed (and indeed their uniform suggests it) on the pattern of an army regiment and the River Police on the pattern of a Royal Navy ‘man of war’ (Hence their reefer jackets and naval boaters.).
For the next forty years the rowing galleys and sailing patrols continued and were found adequate, while the river trades slowly became merchandised and to a large extent iron replaced wood. In 1878 the loss of over 600 lives in the disastrous collision between the paddle steamer “Princess Alice” and the collier “Bywell Castle” made it obvious that at least some powered craft were necessary. In 1884, two steam launches were purchased for supervisory purposes and later a third was found necessary.” (River Thames Police: History)
Crime and Culpability: A Jane Austen Mystery Anthology
“No one can withstand the charm of such a mystery.” – Jane Austen, Persuasion
Jane Austen mysteries have become a popular subgenre of Austen variations, but this is more than just a trend. Austen was a masterful storyteller who embedded clues within her stories for her readers to follow, inviting readers to read between the lines and “gather the evidence” to follow her intricate plot lines.
In this anthology, various authors who are also fans and admirers of Austen’s work have taken the challenge to add some mystery to Austen’s stories and characters. From Regency sequels to film noir retellings to cozy art heists, Crime and Culpability: A Jane Austen Mystery Anthology explores the many faces of Austen and all of her enigmas.
Featuring stories by Regina Jeffers, Riana Everly, Jeanette Watts, Michael Rands, Linne Elizabeth, Emma Dalgety, and Elizabeth Gilliland, with a foreword by Regina Jeffers and an introduction by Elizabeth Gilliland Rands.
Purchase Links:
Kindle https://www.amazon.com/Crime-Culpability-Austen-Mystery-Anthology-ebook/dp/B0D6JQN6JL
Available to Read on Kindle Unlimited
Servants could be released for any number of arbitrary reasons. Employers were not responsible for medical care, even if the servant became ill or was injured because of the household conditions. Neither was an employer required to supply the servant was a character, or reference, which permitted the mistress to hold that knowledge over the servant’s head in all disputes for a servant without a character reference would not be able to secure another position. Servants, as a whole, had few rights and little hope for a future. 
From M. Collet’s Report on the Money Wages of Indoor Domestic Servants [1899, Volume XCII, page 15], we learn, “The young ‘slavery,’ working in a lodging house or a coffee shop or with ‘rough-mannered’ employers had to ‘work harder and under more unfavorable conditions perhaps than any other class of the community…. As soon as she reaches an age when she wants more than a very small sum in wages, she is dismissed and replaced by another young girl…. This class of girl in a very few years disappears from the ranks of domestic servants, and in doing so, in generally in a worse position than the factory girl in the same grade.” 
Outside of London, on St. Thomas’s Day, which is four days before Christmas, some charities provided little gifts of goods or money to selected servants. In 1663, the James Frethern’s Charity was founded ‘for the benefit of a maid servant who has continued six years as a hired servant in Burford, Oxfordshire.’ In Wargrave, Berkshire, the Rev. Walter Sellon’s Charity was founded in 1793 to provide 8 guineas ‘for the benefit of poor persons resident in the parish who are engaged in domestic service.’ The Margaret Dew Charity (1816) was for the ‘general benefit of Godly and deserving poor and decayed Housekeepers of Bramton Abbots parish’ in Herfordshire. 
Beyond their wages, many upper servants found means to line their pockets without their masters’ knowing. House stewards would secretly give tradesmen a “cash discount” for the privilege of continued business with the household. The butler, cook, and housekeeper customarily found similar compensations in the purchases made for the household over which they saw. A butler, for example, could claim his share of the wine purchased for the master’s use. A cook might claim the meat drippings to be sold. In Cooking with Jane Austen by Kirstin Owen (page 90), we find, “Emma’s father was a bit daft about one thing though, and that is the frying of anything in the Regency period ‘without the smallest of grease.’ Steaks of all kinds were fried in large quantities of butter – partly to keep them from sticking to the pan, partly for the sake of the flavor, and partly for the sake of the cook, whose perquisites included the right to sell the dripping fat. The more butter she used, the more was ‘left over’ in the pan, and the richer she got.” The groom of the chamber could claim the ends of the candles to resell. Moreover, the taking of “vails” (or tips from guests) became a common practice. 
In some households, a single servant served in the role of maid-of-all work. Generally, this servant was a girl from the age of twelve to fifteen. The conditions of the work were poor, with the girl often working from 5 A.M. to midnight for a wage of £6 to £9 per year. In James Fennimore Cooper’s Gleanings in Europe: England (Bentley, 1837, Vol.II, page 123), the author says: “These poor creatures have an air of dogged sullen misery that I have never seen equalled in any other class of human being, not even excepting the beggars in the streets.” He described one such slavey who entered a room with “a sort of drilled trot, as if she had been taught a particular movement to denote assiduity and diligence, and she never presumed to raise her eyes to mind, but stood the whole time looking meekly down. [Find a copy of the book 
Households benefited by employing those from workhouses as domestic servants Frank Huggett in Life Below Stairs [Book Club Associates, London, 1977, pages 110-111] describes an 1871-72 investigation into the practice of taking girls from the workhouses. “[The investigation] showed that only 16 per cent of the girls were given good marks by their mistresses; 30 per cent were considered ‘fair’; 38 per cent were rated ‘unsatisfactory’; and 16 per cent were described as ‘bad.’ Although the workhouses claimed that the children were already trained for service, many mistresses found that, in addition to their other manifold faults, they were often totally lacking in domestic abilities. One ‘unsatisfactory’ girl was described by her mistress as ‘a pilferer, untruthful, idle; incorrigibly dirty in habits. Can scrub a floor, but has no other accomplishments.’ A comment on another child read: ‘Girl said she had never lit a fire or cleaned a grate, but as she never spoke the truth about anything, probably she lied there.’ A number were unsound in both body and mind: one ‘half-witted’ orphan was round-backed and unhealthy, with one eye permanently dimmed by disease. No less than 8 per cent of the girls had weak or seriously defective eyesight. Another girl, who was described as ‘strong in body, but deficient in mind,’ was told to sweep the bedroom. When her mistress returned, expecting to find the room neat and tidy, she found to her amazement and annoyance that the girl had trodden all the tea leaves firmly into the carpet. 
Every Woman Dreams... 