Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis; Containing a Detail of the Various Crimes and Misdemeanors. [Patrick Colquhoun] "By a magistrate". Publication Date: 1796 Condition: Very Good

Title: A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis; ...

Publisher: H. Fry, Finsbury-Place, for C. Dilly, Poultry.

Publication Date: 1796

Binding: Hardcover

Book Condition: Very Good

Edition: 3rd Edition

xvi, 440, xxviii. Engraved folding table. Page 288 misnumbered 88 (as with the B.L. copy). Short contemporary inscription on front paste-down endpaper ("For Langholm Lodge"). Very minimal foxing on title-page. Lacks half titlepage. All edges light green. 14 x 21.5 cm. Contemorary full calf binding. Spine in six compartments with raised bands, gilt rules and contrasting red morocco gilt-letterred label (tiny and unobtrusive, old repair at the head of the spine). Gilt heraldic emblem for the Duke of Buccleuch in the centre of both upper and lower covers (very slightly rubbed). The best account of crime in London at the end of the eighteenth century. Provenance:- Langholm Lodge was built by the architect James Playfair in 1786 for the Duke of Buccleuch. Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch and 5th Duke of Queensberry KG FRSE (1746-1812) was a Scottish nobleman and long-time friend of Sir Walter Scott. He was the paternal 3rd great-grandfather of Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, and the maternal 4th great-grandfather of Prince William of Gloucester and Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Adam Smith was his tutor from 1764 to 1766. The Duke of Buccleuch (Governor of the Royal Bank of Scotland from 1777 to 1812 & joint founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh) remained lifelong friends with Smith and is credited with bringing him out of his shell (Adam Smith was also a friend of Colquhoun). Patrick Colquhoun (1745-1820) was a Scottish merchant, statistician, magistrate, and founder of the first regular preventive police force in England, the Thames River Police. He pressed for the hanging of those committing crimes of stealing money & the arrest of textile workers who re-cycled waste textiles for their own use. In addition to his Virginia cotton interests, Colquhoun owned shares in Jamaican sugar plantations & organized covert surveillance of people opposing slavery. In 1798 Colquhoun established the Police Office (financed by West India merchants and planters). In 1800 Parliament passed the Marine Police Bill expanding and making official the police as a centralized, armed, and uniformed state force. Historians of policing credit Colquhoun's innovation as a critical development leading up to Robert Peel's "new" police three decades later & for inspiring the foundation of police in Dublin, Sydney, and New York. Along with the Bow Street Runners, the Marine Police Force was eventually absorbed by the Metropolitan Police in the 19th century.

Revised and expanded over six editions in Colquhoun's lifetime. A second and third edition appeared in the same year as the first. Published anonymously, "By a Magistrate". Colquhoun's name only appears on the title-page of the fifth edition.This early edition only located in the British Library. Fascinating association copy. Bookseller Inventory # 5053