on main streets, lesser streets, or in courts or alleys, hugely expanding what was
regarded as public space.^169 The committee drew up a petition to parliament
that blamed the seriousness of crime in the City on ‘the insufficiency of the con-
vex lights’ and prosecuted the ensuing bill through both houses.^170
The Lighting Act of 1736 set out the main features of the new lighting system
as the committee had drawn it up.^171 What emerged was a massively expanded
scheme that underlined the importance of the ward leaders in the management
of the lighting service—as in the management of the new night watch being es-
tablished at the same time. In the future no one lighting company was to have a
monopoly in the City to erect and service the lamps—the experience of which
system, the act announced, had led to higher costs and poor service.^172 Instead
the deputy aldermen and common councilmen of each ward were empowered
to sign a contract with any company they cared to engage to provide the light-
ing service for their ward for a year at a time, so long as the contractor con-
formed to the broad regulations laid down in the act, used the model of lamp
approved for the whole City, and did not exceed a certain charge per lamp. In a
further criticism of the previous system, the act made it illegal for an alderman
or other elected official to have a personal interest in companies signing the
contracts.^173
Altogether, the new arrangements gave much more influence to the men on
the ground, the leaders of the wards, who would actually have to deal with the
requirements and the consequences of the new system. Their influence con-
tinued at the City level, too, on the committee of Common Council set up to im-
plement the act—a committee that approved the annual contracts, oversaw the
collection of the rates, and the negotiations over arrears. Deputy aldermen and
common councillors dominated the meetings of this committee, as they had
those in which the new system had been conceived. Over the first two years of
the committee’s life ( 1739 – 40 ) it met thirty-four times: those most assiduous in
attendance were John Child, now deputy alderman of Farringdon Without
(thirty meetings); Thomas Winterbottom, common councilman for Billings-
gate, deputy in 1744 (sixteen); Richard Farrington, deputy alderman of Crip-
plegate Without (fifteen); and John Smart, deputy of Aldersgate Within
(fourteen).^174
It would be easy to play down the effectiveness of the lighting that resulted.
The seal oil lamps were almost certainly very dim indeed, and even if spaced
twenty-five yards apart, much of the street would have remained in darkness.
But the relative change that had taken place in the City over less than half a cen-
tury was remarkable. It was estimated by the early 1740 s that a total of 4,4 40
222 Policing the Night Streets
(^169) Jor 57 , fos. 364 – 7. (^170) Jor 57 , fo. 366 ; JHC, 22 ( 1732 – 7 ), 555.
(^1719) Geo. II, c. 20 ( 1736 ). (^1729) Geo. II, c. 20 , s. xiv. (^1739) Geo. II., c. 20 , s. xv.
(^174) CLRO, Misc. MSS 290 – 293 (Minute Book of the Committee to put the Lighting Act into effect,
1739 – 46 ).