Poor Relief – Applications for Poor Relief

The applications for poor relief often survive as a separate series. Between 1845 and 1865 the information they contain is similar to that in the registers of poor: they usually contain the date of application, name and residence of applicant, country of birth, marital status, age, occupation, whether disabled, other information to enable a decision to be made, such as any children and their financial circumstances, any previous applications and decisions on the application. However, they are considerably less detailed than the general registers of poor which were introduced in 1865. For example, the application forms will not include the religious denomination, and probably there will be no details about dependants or other relatives. Where the survive, they contain far more entries per year than the registers. This is partly because of multiple applications from individual paupers, but also because they include the ‘casual poor’, that is, those relieved by the inspector without a decision by the board and therefore not on the poor roll.

Police – central government records

Policing was a major issue in parliament in the 19th century. Evidence presented to parliamentary commissions by Scottish burghs, counties and other bodies and individuals appears in parliamentary papers.

From 1857 onwards HM Inspector of Constabulary visited and enquired into the state and efficiency of Scottish police forces and of their buildings and equipment and laid reports before each house in parliament. These reports enabled the Secretary of State to decide whether an Exchequer grant could be properly paid to a police authority. Their reports were made public in Command Papers (a series within parliamentary papers). From 1857 until 1886 the Secretary of State in question was the Home Secretary, and records relating to HM Inspector of Constabulary survive among the records of the Home Office held at The National Archives. From 1887 the reports were made to the Secretary of State for Scotland and latterly to Scottish Ministers. For the National Records of Scotland’s holdings of HMI reports, see below.

Records relating to the police in the National Records of Scotland

HH4 Police report files
Manuscript reports of inspections by HM Inspector of Constabulary presented to the Secretary of State for Scotland, which have annotations and other additions. The National Records of Scotland have retained a sample of reports for 2 large burghs (Edinburgh and Glasgow), 2 small burghs (Alloa and Brechin), 1 large county (Aberdeenshire) and 1 small county (Banffshire) for the period 1887-1929. For printed reports see HH79 below. Also in this series is a small sample of Chief Constables’ Annual Reports for several burgh and county forces, 1890-1930 & 1969-88.

HH52 Police circulars

Scottish Office Police Circulars numbers 84-5574 (1890-1943).

HH55 Police series: general files

Over 400 files from the Home and Health Department of the Scottish Office, 1891-1998 (and continuing), containing information on a wide range of police related subjects, including riots, war duties (intelligence reports), Irish disturbances (1920s), road traffic, Scottish Criminal Record Office (1958 onwards), complaints against police, crime prevention, police college, police organisation, and firearms. There is a typescript index by subject matter and constabulary name.

HH79 HMI reports

Printed copies (Command Papers) of the annual HMI reports presented to parliament under the 1857 Police (Scotland) Act. An incomplete set covering the years 1901-1932 (with gaps). These and others should be in Command Papers held by large reference libraries.

Police station records

Records retrieved from police stations take a variety of forms and are described by a bewildering variety of names. Separate forms of record may have been kept by stations, depending on the whim and sophistication of the station, for example some stations kept lost property books or criminal registers (for the latter see the Knowledge Base entry for criminal registers and criminal photographs). However, most stations kept records conforming to four basic types:

Station occurrence books/log books
Charge/indictment books/case books
Duty journals
Detention/bail books

Station occurrence books/log books

These are essentially daily log books of incidents reported to the police staffing the station, either by members of the public or else by members of the police force. Runs of these survive from the mid-19th century for many stations in different parts of Scotland, and are manuscript. In some cases they have clearly been written up, very neatly, possibly from individual policemen’s notebooks. They go by a variety of names, such as Information Book, Incident Book, Occurrence Book, Station Log Book. Their format and content depended on the practice of individual officers, stations or forces, but some forces had developed a set form of occurrence book by the start of the 20th century.

Charge/indictment/case books

This type of record is a volume of information relating to specific cases, investigated by a police force, with information relating to the initial reporting of the crime, subsequent police action, and the result of the investigation (in many cases the result of prosecution in a civil or criminal court). These may be known by a variety of names, such as ‘Charge Books’, ‘Indictment Books’, ‘Reports of Crimes’, ‘Record of Convictions’, ‘Report and Disposals Book’, ‘Record of disposal of persons apprehended or cited’, or ‘Reports lodged with Procurator Fiscal’. It is sometimes difficult to differentiate between this type of record and the Station Log/Occurrence Book described above. Separate registers sometimes survive for accidents, sudden deaths and bodies found.

Duty journals

This type of record is more of a work record than a log book or a volume of case notes. In this case a policeman or several policemen stationed at one or more police stations records the details of each shift worked, including the amount of time on duty, the places patrolled, how he travelled to and around his beat (e.g. whether bicycle, horse, train or some other form of transport was used), costs incurred in the beat, and any action he took or incidents that occurred. In some cases the journal might relate to a specific type of duty, such as a time employed in escorting prisoners to and from prison after committal.

One example of this is a Police Duty Book for three officers at Bowmore 1863-66, (Glasgow City Archives SR22/91/4) which contains a record of beat patrolled, how travelled, costs, time worked, incidents.

Detention books/bail books

These are records relating to individuals detained in police cells or released, after arrest, on police bail. Most common are registers of persons detained in cells (sometimes called lock-up books), and registers of prisoners’ properties. Less common are bail books, registers of visits to prisoners, registers of punishments, and registers of sickness of prisoners.

Use of police station records

Taken as a whole, station records are probably most of use to local historians, as they allow the activities of police in relation to specific local events to be researched and some information about daily life (particularly the incidence of crime, accidents, etc). A proviso here is that station log books do not survive for all, or indeed, the majority of stations in Scotland. There is a particularly strong coverage for rural stations in some counties (notable highland forces) but much less survives for urban police stations, perhaps partly due to a higher incidence of reorganisation and relocation of police stations. Station records also have potential for academic research in social history and for historians of policing. For school use on the history of crime and policing in a particular area they are probably of less use than other records such as chief constables annual reports, since they are manuscript and require lengthy research. For genealogy, or for those researching the career of individual policemen or policewomen for other reasons, they may be of exceptional value or none at all, depending on what survives and in what form. If the individual you are researching happens to have left a duty journal, it will provide copious information about the life and work of the individual, written in his or her own hand. For others who require only basic details of the career and family of an individual, station records may represent a long, tedious research task, with little prospect of valuable results compared to personnel records (if these survive).

Related Knowledge Base entries

Criminal registers and criminal photographs

Police staff records

Police staff records take several different forms. Early 19th century records are often quite rudimentary registers of appointments and discharges. Some staff records have titles that do not appear at first glance to be personnel records, such as ‘register and defaulter book’, which refers to the fact that disciplinary issues are recorded in the volume along with records of service and promotion. Many forces kept separate registers of complaints against constables and registers of pensions awarded or fines and disciplinary action. By the late 19th century most forces kept more detailed personnel registers, which sometimes go under the name of ‘personal record book’. These record details of the careers of policemen and, from around the time of the First World War, policewomen. Where these survive, they are an exceptionally good form of staff record on several counts. Firstly, it is rare to find staff registers for any public or private body dating back as far as some police registers. Secondly, from the mid-19th century they typically contain a great deal of personal information about each policeman, including the name; age at joining; former occupation; marital status and number of children; domestic address; place of birth (and sometimes date of birth); date of appointment and subsequent dates of promotions and demotions; and salary levels of individual police officers. Some forces kept detailed records of the personal appearance of officers in their register entry including details of height, hair colour, colour of complexion and eyes and any distinguishing marks. They may also contain brief details of conduct resulting in rewards or conduct resulting in fines, suspensions, etc. In the 1930s police forces began moving over to card or file systems and registers in book form began to be closed at this time. Police personnel records are subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 2018 and therefore you may find some registers that give personal data are closed to the public.

Personnel registers are the primary source of information on the careers of police personnel, and are therefore most used by police historians, genealogists (who know or suspect that their ancestors were in a Scottish police force) and those who have acquired the medal, badge, piece of equipment or some other artefact or a policeman or policewoman. However, police personnel registers have much greater potential than those investigating individual police officers. Because the policy of many forces was to recruit from outside the burgh or county served by the force the registers have also been used by social and economic historians, particularly as a source for the study of migration and emigration. In addition, many genealogists may not know that an ancestor was in the police service for a relatively short time, and, therefore where police personnel registers have been indexed, it can be worthwhile searching these indexes. Indexes to police registers are available at Glasgow City Archives for police forces which became part of Strathclyde Police, and at Stirling Council Archives for police forces which became part of Central Scotland Police.

Occasionally separate registers or lists survive for special constables, police reservists, policemen serving in the armed forces during wartime, and other categories of police personnel. Other forms of staff record include various types of lists or rolls of constables, pay books and pension records.

Police Records

Records relating to the history of policing in Scotland are used by a wide variety of researchers. Academics, local historians and schoolteachers and pupils use them to study the history of policing and crime and police personnel registers are an excellent source for family historians.

Records of modern police forces

Police forces for Scottish counties, cities and towns were set up in the 19th century. Smaller police forces were gradually amalgamated with larger forces. In 2013 the regional police forces were amalgamated into a single national police force and the decision was taken that the historic records of the regional forces and their predecessor city, county and town forces would remain deposited in the most appropriate local authority archives services. To trace records relating to a particular police force go to the Knowledge Base entry on Police Records Locations.

In general, a wider variety of records survive for the larger forces, especially the city constabularies, while, for some smaller constabularies, particularly those absorbed by larger forces, little survives. Police records held by archives tend to come from four sources: local authority records (county and burgh government), police HQs, police stations, and from families of former police personnel.

Knowledge Base entries for police record types

Police Authority minutes

Police Chief Constable annual reports

Police Chief Constable letter books

Police correspondence files, case files & administrative files

Police instruction books & manuals

Police licensing and similar records

Police memoranda books

Police photographs

Police staff records

Police station records

Related Knowledge Base entries

Police predecessors’ records

Policing records – central government oversight of policing

Court records

All
Police records

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.

Police predecessors’ records

Prior to 1800 there were a number of bodies which had powers to combat crime and public disorder. Of these, the most important were burgh councils (which organised watch and ward and, occasionally, town guards) and justices of the peace (who, along with commissioners of supply, controlled parish constables).

Watch and Ward/Town Guard

Research into policing in a specific burgh should begin with published histories of the burgh concerned. The principal source of information will be minute books of the burgh and other burgh records. In most cases these will be held by the relevant local authority, although the records of some burghs are held by the National Records of Scotland and the records of many burghs in Fife are held by St Andrews University Library.

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 archives service or the National Records of Scotland. 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.

Photographs of police officers & buildings

As is the case with many corporate bodies, the records of police forces often include photographs, most commonly commemorating the opening of a building or some other project, or in the form of group photographs of constabularies (if small enough), or divisions. There may also be portraits taken of the Chief Constable for use in annual reports and similar publications. To these can be added photographs relating to individual policemen and policewomen collected by force historians and those donated to police museums and local authority archives. Judging by the type of many photographs donated this way, many individuals who joined a police force had a portrait photograph taken by a commercial photographer. The survival of these is obviously haphazard. Personnel files since the 1960s have tended to include photographs of individual police officers. Access to personnel files including photographs will be subject to the Data Protection Act 2018 and may also require permission from Police Scotland.

Police memoranda books

A form of administrative record which was fairly ubiquitous in corporate bodies from the early 19th century until the advent of modern filing in the 1920s and 1930s was a volume where documents were pasted in or otherwise inserted. Staff in police stations and offices compiled volumes of this sort in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. These may be described a variety of ways and may be specific to certain types of documents. The term circular book (or circular letter book) is used for a volume which contains exclusively, or almost exclusively, communications sent out by the chief constable or other senior offices to all stations or personnel. Other frequently used terms are order book and memoranda book, which might contain a mixture of official and unofficial communications. The term scrap book generally refers to a volume, usually compiled by an individual, such as a chief constable, of a miscellanea, such as invitations and menus for official events, posters, newspaper cuttings, photographs, etc. In some cases, newspaper cuttings books were maintained.

It is sometimes hard to pin down the precise purpose of a particular volume of this kind. One might begin as a circular book or memoranda book, but over the years, turn into a scrapbook. Some may be confusingly titled. Among Glasgow City’s police records is a series of volumes described as ‘Chief Constable’s Minute Books’ (Glasgow City Archives, SR22/43/4), which are not minute books in the true sense, but are a combination of hand-written memos, scrap book, statistical returns etc. The series was maintained from 1877 until 1978, probably by staff in the Chief Constable’s office. The Chief Constable’s Order Books for Aberdeenshire contain (among many other things) details of constables appointed, promoted, retired and dismissed.

The content of these kind of volumes, especially scrapbooks, can be quite wide-ranging, reflecting the duties and concerns of an individual policeman. For example, scrapbooks in the City of Glasgow police records at Glasgow City Archives contain material as diverse as wanted posters, traffic arrangements for football matches and public events, plans of volunteer regiments sham battles, recruitment posters, statistical returns, second world war air-raid notices and invitations to official functions. In Highland Council Archives a Press Book for the Badenoch Division of Inverness County Constabulary (R91/D/B/9/1) 1973-77, includes press releases about mountain rescues, fatal road accidents etc. The value of such volumes is fairly obvious, that they can contain information about the operation of police forces, the public (or at least the media’s) view of the police via newspapers, official policy matters, etc. For those researching a particular chief constable, they may provide descriptions of official and unofficial events attended and other career details. For school projects they can provide useful material in the form of posters and memoranda, with those for the second world war period being especially good.

Police licensing and similar records

A wide range of licensing records can survive among police records. This derives from the original organisation of the policing of towns, which gave wider powers relating to public health and civic government, to the newly created police commissioners. In most cases licensing records come to local authority archives via town council and county council records, and to the National Records of Scotland via justice of the peace records. However, records received from police forces occasionally contain licensing and other forms of registers, such as registers of pedlars’ certificates, registers of shops (under the Shops Act, 1912), registers of premises licensed to keep carbide of calcium (under the Petroleum Acts), registers of lost dogs (under Dogs Act, 1906), registers of firearms (under the Firearms Act 1920), registers of explosives, registers of poisons and registers of moneylenders. Most of these registers became the responsibility of local authority trading standards departments.

Other registers, not connected with licensing, which occasionally survive from police records are registers of aliens (non-British citizens resident in a town or county from the First World War until the 1960s), and, among the county constabularies, especially highland constabularies, registers or lists of sheep marks.

The use of licensing and similar records which survive in both police records and among town council, county council and justices of the peace records is generally confined to researchers investigating particular trades (such as the licensed liquor trade). However, they have some potential for local historians and anyone researching individuals who were traders in licensed trades.

Police order books

In the early 19th century, individual policemen and police stations were expected to keep books of regulations, orders and policy decisions by the police committee or chief constable. Orders were issued regularly and were initially copied by hand into general order books but later copies were simply pasted into the volume. From the mid-19th century onwards, printed manuals and instruction books began to replace these, produced by individual constabularies or by national police bodies. Some constabularies continued the practice of keeping general order books for long-term instructions, as well as special order books for instructions relating to specific events.

The type of information these contain ranges from conditions of service of police officers and disciplinary procedures to regulations, orders and instructions on dealing with reports of crimes or incidents. General order books may contain information about how records are to be maintained or details of new or changed legislation. Special order books may contain details about which officers would police individual polling places during a local or parliamentary elections or during strikes. They may contain police intelligence about potential crimes, guidance on identifying suspicious activities and can also contain evidence of how suffragettes, refugees, foreign nationals (‘aliens’), trades unions and others were policed. They may include notification of the dismissal of police officers following disciplinary proceedings. One example includes the instruction ‘The officer or Constable shall, on joining the Police Force, become a member of the Glasgow Police Sick and Funeral Society’ (Glasgow City Archives, SR22/60/1 1857 Regulations, orders and instructions, City of Glasgow, p.7).

For those researching the history of policing, instruction books and manuals are a more concise and readable source than station records, memoranda books and administrative files. Although sometimes a surviving copy may be annotated by an individual officer, they have no real family history value. For school projects on police and crime they are less informative than chief constables’ annual reports and less visually appealing than posters etc from scrapbooks.