What sources of information are useful for the study of the history of policing in Scotland?

Researchers with plenty of time to research, should read the entry on police records and select those which best fit their needs, then consult local archives staff and/or National Records of Scotland staff, as well as their advisers. Things to bear in mind are (a) records relating to the police are held in a variety of archives, (b) some records are held under closure rules of up to 84 years.

For researchers who have more limited time and ability to travel to a variety of archives, a project should be limited in one or more ways: geographically (looking at one or two areas or forces, e.g. a burgh or a county), time period (one century or decade), by subject (e.g. looking at one aspect of policing, such as recruitment, criminal investigation, etc). Above all consider which kinds of record are available easily and how much time and technical ability it will require to carry out research with these – on this take the advice of a local archivist. In particular, if your study is statistical, bear in mind the effects of boundary changes and police force amalgamations on statistics arranged by parish, burgh and county.

Do police records include records of prisons and prisoners?

police records sometimes include records of detainees in police cells (see under police station records), but these are not records of prisons and prisoners in the true sense. There are exceptional cases of prison records reaching archives via police records, and one of the earliest forms of prison in Scotland consisted of cells in the tollbooth of burghs. Records sometimes survive for these in the form of books of arrestments and incarcerations among burgh records held by local authority archive services. However, the administration of prisons in Scotland was primarily the responsibility of central government. Records relating to prisons and prisoners in Scotland are mainly held by the National Records of Scotland.

The passing of the Habitual Criminals Act of 1869, required police to supervise convicts in the latter stages of their sentence, following their release from prison. The names, addresses and other details of these individuals, sometimes referred to as “ticket of leave prisoners”, were sometimes recorded in “Registers of Returned Convicts”. An example of such a register is held by Aberdeen City & Aberdeenshire Archives under the reference POL/AC/6/6 which covers the period 1869 to 1939. 60 of the 260 entries within the volume are also accompanied by mugshot-type photographs.

Where can I find information about parish constables?

First read Ann E. Whetstone, Scottish County Government in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (John Donald, 1981), which has chapters on the Justices of the Peace and Commissioners of Supply – the two bodies which administered the parish constable system in Scotland. If you wish to look in details at the work of parish constables in a particular county, you should look at Justice of the Peace records and Commissioners of Supply records for that county. Depending on the county these may be with a local authority archive or the National Records of Scotland (NRS). You might also consult J. A. Haythornthwaite Scotland in the Nineteenth Century: An Analytical bibliography of material relating to Scotland in Parliamentary Papers 1800-1900 (Scolar Press, 1993) for material in parliamentary commissions.

Where should I look for statistics on crime and police activity for a particular year or years?

there are two main sources of statistics on crime: parliamentary papers and chief constables’ annual reports.

Parliamentary Papers
From 1836 onwards within Parliamentary Papers there are Annual Criminal and Judicial Statistics. These deal only with crimes which resulted in a trial (until 1868 they deal only with serious crimes – i.e. those tried in the High Court on circuit). Therefore, care has to be taken when using these, as they do not cover all crimes committed. For a discussion of the problems with these official statistics, see M. A. Crowther, ‘The Criminal Precognitions and Their Value for the Historian’ in Scottish Archives 1 (1995), pp. 75-84. Larger reference libraries, such as the Mitchell Library in Glasgow and the National Library of Scotland, hold Parliamentary Papers.

Chief Constables’ Annual Reports
In the mid-nineteenth century, chief constables (or the equivalent title, depending on the force) made annual reports to the committee which supervised them (police commissioners in most burghs, and police committees or standing joint committees in counties). To begin with these were recorded in the minute books of the committee, and they give statistics for certain types of crime, as well as an account of the work of the police over the previous year. By the late nineteenth century, the chief constables of cities, counties and larger towns had the annual reports printed and made more publicly available. By the early 20th century most forces issued printed reports, and these contained tables of statistics. Local studies libraries and some local authority archives keep runs of chief constables’ annual reports for forces in their areas.