(to the extent the records make it possible) who they were and how they were
appointed over the late seventeenth century and first half of the eighteenth.
Appointment and character
What appears from the aldermanic records to have been a succession of ex-
panding demands on the constabulary over the late seventeenth and early eight-
eenth centuries would help to explain a significant change over this period in the
kinds of men who served as constables. Perhaps it would be better to say an ap-
parent change, since it is difficult to establish with certainty the social identity
and economic circumstances of the men who acted in the post. But the evidence
clearly points to a major shift away from men in the solidly middling ranks of the
City’s inhabitants who held the post for a year as an aspect of their civic duty and
towards men oflesser rank and wealth, many of whom it seems right to assume
did it as a way of supporting themselves.
The first task in exploring this subject is to discover who actually served. This
is not as straightforward a matter as simply uncovering the names of those who
were elected in their wards every year, because it was possible for men so elected
to avoid serving. They could escape in two ways. In the first place, they could
buy their way out, paying a fine that would excuse them from that one office or
from all parish offices. Such ‘fining’, as it was called, could occur at the two
points at which decisions were made about the ward’s officers for the ensuing
year: at the parish-precinct level, where nominations were made; or at the ward-
mote, where the precinct decisions were reported and confirmed. Most often
fines were paid at the lower level. Indeed, they were an important element in the
finances of many of the larger and less-wealthy parishes, since the fines were
most often committed ‘to the service of the poor’ as a means of making up defi-
ciencies in the Poor Law funds. Nominations in such parishes may have been
made with an eye to increasing the revenues—deliberately choosing men who
it was clear would not serve—with the result that several ‘elections’ might have
to be held in the precinct or parish before the name of a prospective constable
could be sent forward to the wardmote for confirmation.^63
134 Constables and Other Officers
(^63) For the election of five men in St Katharine By the Tower in 1660 , each of whom paid a fine of
£ 3. 10 s. 0 d. rather than allow their names to go forward to the wardmote see GLMD, MS 9680 , fo. 135 ;
and see Webb and Webb, Manor and Borough, 588 – 91. Not a great deal of evidence remains of the nomin-
ation and selection process at the parish or precinct level. It is likely that practices varied from place to
place. A series of nominations and fines to escape were almost certain to have been more common in the
large and poor wards, both because their parishes would have had more calls on their Poor Law funds
with proportionately fewer householders contributing, and because the job of constable would have
been more demanding. In other places, the nomination and selection process was apparently more set-
tled and straightforward and men might have a year or two warning that their turn was coming to be
elected constable. At the precinct meetings held for the parish of St Helen’s in Bishopsgate in the 1720 s,
for example, three men were generally nominated for the office, one of whom was chosen. The next year,
the two who had not been selected would be nominated, again along with a third, and one of them would
be chosen. And so it would go on year after year. Once nominated, a man could expect to be elected the