turns to command the watch every evening and who conferred authority on the
men they very often called ‘my watchmen’. In turn, watchmen giving evidence
at the Old Bailey invariably referred to constables as their ‘masters’, by which
they recognized not only their leadership but their social superiority. Con-
stables, however poor, were householders; watchmen were more likely to be
lodgers. There is no question that constables were the superior officers. They
emerge from the little evidence we have of the watch at work as commanding
figures. Seen from the vantage point of the mayor and aldermen, constables are
small fry; from that of the watchmen they are men of consequence. They play a
large part in watchmen’s narratives in the Old Bailey Sessions Papers, while
other officials, the beadles for example, rarely appear. They can be found organ-
izing the watchmen to make arrests, taking charge of prisoners brought in, and
on occasion—perhaps because of the possibility of a reward that they might
share—making an effort to gather the evidence that would secure a convic-
tion.^121 The constable could also assemble them for special duty, if necessary
well outside the precincts and wards to which they belonged. Watchmen were
on occasion called out in large numbers to help to deal with riots, for example.
The more active the constable, the more likely he would be to pressure his
watchmen into activity, or to seek to get men appointed who would be willing to
make arrests. Why Nicholas Wade became as engaged as he did when he got
news that there was a good deal of revelry at the Shepheard tavern in Cheapside
at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning in 1693 is unclear. He may well have been active
on behalf of the societies for the reformation of manners that were beginning
then to conduct campaigns against blasphemy and vice, and that were particu-
larly anxious to preserve Sunday as a day of rest and worship. Wade was the
constable of the night in Cheap, and hearing about this illegality he gathered
four of his watchmen and went to investigate. He found three men drinking in
the tavern. As he later deposed before the lord mayor, when
he askt them what they were doing att that time A night, one of them answered what was
that to him, they were not to give him an account. Thereupon one of the watchmen sayd
why do you speake so to the Constable, one of them answered they cared not A fart for
him...
Wade ordered one of the watchmen to take that man to the compter. He led
the rest upstairs, despite the efforts of another man to stop them by drawing his
sword and telling them that ‘there was a p[er]son of Quality above’. Up one
flight they found a man drinking, and another playing a Welsh harp: Wade ar-
rested them both and he and another watchmen took them to the compter. In-
formed by a watchman who came after them that there were still other revellers
at the same tavern, they all went back again, demanded entrance ‘in the King’s
name’ when they found the door locked, and immediately arrested another
Policing the Night Streets 205(^121) OBSP, December 1732 , pp. 8 – 9 (Dun). For a constable gathering evidence, see OBSP, September
1740 , pp. 228 – 9 (Nos. 392, 393, Wilson and Murray).