value of ten pounds or more ranged between the 99. 7 per cent in Wallbrook and
31. 2 per cent in Cripplegate Without. Arranging the number of houses per
watchman in rank order in the wards (from the lowest to the highest) side by side
with the percentage of houses rated above ten pounds (from the highest to the
lowest) confirms clearly what ward control of the watch meant for the City: the
continuing close relationship in 1737 between the ability of a ward to support its
watch and the intensity with which it was patrolled at night, supposing, of course,
that the watchmen walked the beats as they were supposed to do (Table 4. 2 ).^89
Under the new act, the ward authorities also continued to hire their own
watchmen and to make whatever local rules seemed appropriate—establishing,
for example, the places in their wards where the watchmen would stand and the
beats they would patrol. But the implementation of the new Watch Act did have
the effect of imposing some uniformity on the watch over the whole City, mak-
ing in the process some modest incursions into the local autonomy of the wards.
This was certainly the case in the important area of wages—the low levels of
which had been frequently seen as one of the weaknesses in the watch as it had
become an entirely paid body. Of the eight wards that reported their rates as the
1737 bill was being prepared, five paid ten pounds a year, two paid less, and one
paid a little more. One of the leading elements in the regime that emerged from
the implementation of the new act was an agreement that every watchman
would be paid the same amount and that the wages should be raised to thirteen
pounds a year.^90 This increase in costs was to be met by a collection of rates that
could be easily enforced and that was extended for the first time to institutions
and businesses that had not contributed earlier.^91 The Common Council also
confirmed the old watching hours and, in what may have been more a confirm-
ation of practice than an innovation, declared that watchmen were to be armed
with a ‘good and substantial Ashen staff ’, five and a half feet long, with an iron
ferule at each end.^92
To outward appearance, not a great deal changed in the way the City watch
worked. The force on the street was a little larger than it had been under the old
system, but its duties had not changed. Those responsible for its passage had no
other model of night-policing in mind. There was no thought that it would have
196 Policing the Night Streets
(^89) I have drawn the number of houses in each ward from Smart’s published reports on the wards
(A Short Account of the Several Wards, Precincts, Parishes, etc. in London( 1741 ) ) in which he revised the numbers
he reported to the committee in 1735. The earlier report, he himself said, was not complete (CLRO,
Misc. MSS 291.1). The land tax assessments are drawn from the 1735 report since he did not include them
in his later publication.
(^90) There was disagreement about both those matters in the committee that implemented the act. A
subcommittee recommendation that every watchman be paid £ 13 a year seemed to have been over-
turned by the whole committee, but none the less turned up in the City’s Watch Act in 1737 and in the
acts of subsequent years (CLRO, Misc. MSS 141.9; Jor 58, 59–64, 155–61, 192– 7 ).
(^91) One result was that a large number of such institutions, as well as individuals, took advantage of the
appeal mechanism set up under the act, though most of the claims of unfair assessment were denied by
the Court of Aldermen (see, for example, Rep 142 , pp. 212, 220–1, 246, 342, 371; Rep 143 , p. 296 ).
(^92) Jor 58 , fo. 64.