little authority.^15 The numbers of watchmen required in each ward had long
been established by acts of the Common Council, and the customary numbers
were confirmed at the Restoration. But in 1660 , and for long after, the effective
management of the night watch in the City resided at the ward or even parish
and precinct level. Although the aldermen might issue exhortations and regula-
tions from time to time, they found the process of appointment impossible to
control, and the conduct of the watch difficult to influence. As a result, the char-
acter of the watch varied from one ward to another, indeed in some large wards,
from one parish or precinct to another—one reason why it was frequently criti-
cized when crime, begging, or other disorders in the streets appeared to be on
the increase.
Concerns about the watch were of long standing.^16 They were being voiced
within months of the Restoration of Charles II. In a letter to the lord mayor in
1661 the king complained that
there is not that care and vigilance in setting the Night Watches in [the City] as for the
peace and security thereof there ought to bee, but that the same for the most part con-
sisteth of a few weak and feeble men, who if there were occasion, would not be able to
suppresse any such disorders, as in these times of lycence and sedition may be easily ap-
prehended. And that they usually depart from their Charge and breake up their
Watches some houres before the day breake, whereby thieves and robbers have the
opportunity to committ their Villanyes without comptroll or discovery.^17
The City authorities received other complaints in 1661 that robberies and
other felonies were being committed for ‘want of a watch remaining through
the night’.^18 Committees of the Common Council, made up of aldermen and
commoners, were established to examine the way the watch was recruited and
to see to its ‘better ordering and strengthening’—the first in 1661 , apparently
without result, and again in 1662 and 1663. The outcome was an act of Com-
mon Council in October 1663 , known as ‘Robinson’s Act’ from the name of the
sitting lord mayor, that confirmed the duty of all householders in the City to take
their turn at watching in order ‘to keep the peace and apprehend night-walkers,
malefactors and suspected persons’. For the most part the Common Council act
of 1663 reiterated the rules and obligations that had long existed. The number
of watchmen required for each ward, it declared, was to be the number
174 Policing the Night Streets
(^15) It is not possible to ascertain the number of citizens who served their turn as (unpaid) watchmen and
of men hired as substitutes. Unlike deputy constables, who served as substitutes for an elected principal,
and who had to take an oath of office, no lists of watchmen were apparently kept by precincts or wards
in the late seventeenth century or the early decades of the eighteenth, or none that has survived. There
were complaints from time to time about the quality of the hired watchmen, but the emphases in the cen-
tury after the Restoration concerned their numbers, whether they did their duty through the night, and
how the money for their support was to be raised.
(^16) The Common Council had dealt with the familiar problem of under-manning in an act of 1621 that
fixed the number of watchmen to be raised in each ward. The fact that it was re-issued in 1630, 1640, and
1655 suggests how unsuccessful it had been (CLRO: P.D. 10.49).
(^17) SP 44 / 4 ( 25 October 1661 ). (^18) Jor 45 , fos. 142, 275, 275; Rep 67 , fo. 55.