Patrick Colquhoun was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 merchant, statistician, magistrate

Magistrate

A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...

, and founder of the first regular preventive police force in England, the Thames River

River Thames

The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...

 Police

Police

The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

.

Early life

Colquhoun, a descendent of the Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 Clan Colquhoun

Clan Colquhoun

Clan Colquhoun is a Highland Scottish clan.The clan motto shown above in the crest best translates to "if I can."-Origins of the clan:In the 13th century Maol Domhnaich, Earl of Lennox granted the lands of Colquhoun, located in Dunbartonshire, to Humphry de Kilpatrick...

 of Luss

Luss

Luss is a village in Argyll & Bute, Scotland, on the west bank of Loch Lomond.-History:Historically in the County of Dunbarton, its original name is Clachan dubh, or 'dark village'...

, was born in Dumbarton in 1745.
Orphaned at age 16, his relatives sent him to America, setting him up in the lucrative commercial trade in Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

. In 1766, the 21-year old Colquhoun returned to Scotland, settling in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

 and going into business on his own in the linen trade. Ten years later, with the outbreak of the American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

, Colquhoun sided against the rebels and, along with 13 other local businessmen, funded a Glasgow regiment to contribute to the government’s war effort.

He built an estate in the West End (now part of Kelvingrove Park

Kelvingrove Park

Kelvingrove Park is a public park located on the River Kelvin in the West End of the city of Glasgow, Scotland, containing the world-famous Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.-History:...

) and on 22 July 1775, married his cousin Janet, the daughter of James Colquhoun, the Provost of Dumbarton. Between 1782 and 1784, Patrick Colquhoun himself served as the Lord Provost of Glasgow. He also founded the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce

Chamber of commerce

A chamber of commerce is a form of business network, e.g., a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to advocate on behalf of the business community...

 and Manufacturing during that time, and made himself the first chairman. He was awarded an honorary LL.D. by the University of Glasgow in 1797.

Colquhoun was an avid statistician, and collected economic data. He used this information to lobby the government on behalf of the country’s industries, particularly cotton and muslin. His findings formed the basis of numerous pamphlets and treatise that he wrote promoting legal reform and business generally. On one occasion, he traveled to Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 and compiled statistics on the cotton trade. He presented his findings to Prime Minister William Pitt

William Pitt the Younger

William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...

 in 1789, but they were not acted upon because of the war with France. These activities brought Colquhoun increasingly into contact with the political sphere and to the attention of government and in 1785 he moved to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to seek a government position, and was appointed Magistrate in the East End

East End of London

The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...

.

River Police

Merchants were losing an estimated £500,000 worth of stolen cargo annually from the Pool of London

Pool of London

The Pool of London is a part of the Tideway of the River Thames from London Bridge to below Tower Bridge. It was the original part of the Port of London. The Pool of London is divided into two parts, the Upper Pool and Lower Pool...

 on the River Thames. A plan was devised to curb the problem in 1797 by an Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

 Justice of the Peace

Justice of the Peace

A justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...

 and master mariner, John Harriot, who joined forces with Patrick Colquhoun and utilitarian

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...

 philosopher, Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...

. Armed with Harriot’s proposal and Bentham’s insights, Colquhoun was able to persuade the West India Planters Committees and the West India Merchants to fund the new force. They agreed to a one year trial and on 2 July 1798, after receiving government permission, the Thames River Police began operating with Colquhoun as Superintending Magistrate and Harriot the Resident Magistrate.

With the initial investment of £4,200, the new force began with about 50 men charged with policing 33,000 workers in the river trades, of whom Colquhoun claimed 11,000 were known criminals and “on the game.” The river police received a hostile reception by riverfront workers not wishing to lose their supplementary income. A mob of 2000 attempted to burn down the police office with the police inside. The skirmish that followed resulted in the first line of duty death for the new force with the killing of Gabriel Franks.

Nevertheless, Colquhoun reported to his backers that his force was a success after its first year, and his men had “established their worth by saving £122,000 worth of cargo and by the rescuing of several lives.” Word of this success spread quickly, and the government passed the Marine Police Bill on 28 July 1800, transforming it from a private to public police agency. Colquhoun published a book on the experiment, The Commerce and Policing of the River Thames. It found receptive audiences far outside London, and inspired similar forces in other countries, notably, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Dublin, and Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

.

Significance for "modern" policing

Historians of policing credit Colquhoun’s innovation as a critical development leading up to Robert Peel

Robert Peel

Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846...

’s “new” police three decades later. Along with the Bow Street Runners

Bow Street Runners

The Bow Street Runners have been called London's first professional police force. The force was founded in 1749 by the author Henry Fielding and originally numbered just six. Bow Street runners was the public's nickname for these officers, "although the officers never referred to themselves as...

, the Marine Police Force

Marine Police Force

The Marine Police Force, sometimes known as the Thames River Police and said to be England's first Police force, was formed by magistrate Patrick Colquhoun and a Master Mariner, John Harriott, in 1798 to tackle theft and looting from ships anchored in the Pool of London and the lower reaches of the...

 was eventually absorbed by the Metropolitan Police

Metropolitan police

Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...

 in the 19th century. Colquhoun’s utilitarian approach to the problem – using a cost-benefit

Cost-benefit analysis

Cost–benefit analysis , sometimes called benefit–cost analysis , is a systematic process for calculating and comparing benefits and costs of a project for two purposes: to determine if it is a sound investment , to see how it compares with alternate projects...

 argument to obtain support from businesses standing to benefit – allowed him to achieve what Henry

Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....

 and John Fielding

John Fielding

This article is about the London magistrate. For the soldier, see John Williams .Sir John Fielding was a notable English magistrate and social reformer of the 18th century. He was also the younger half-brother of novelist, playwright and chief magistrate Henry Fielding...

 failed for their Bow Street detectives. Unlike the stipendiary system at Bow Street, the river police were full-time, salaried officers prohibited from taking private fees.

The idea of a police, as it existed in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, was considered an affront to the liberal English, particularly during this period of upheaval. For the government then, it was not only a matter of saving money, but that there was significant opposition and little support from political constituencies. In building the case for the police in the face of England's firm anti-police sentiment, Colquhoun framed the political rationale on economic indicators to show that a police dedicated to crime prevention was “perfectly congenial to the principle of the British constitution.” Moreover, he went so far as to praise the French system, which had reached “the greatest degree of perfection” in his estimation.

As impressive as Colquhoun’s salesmanship of the public police idea was, his main contribution is recognized as the introduction of crime prevention, or preventive policing, as a fundamental principle to the English police system. His police were to be a deterrent to crime by their permanent presence on the Thames. He came to this conclusion through viewing policing as a science, and in utilitarian fashion, attempted to press that science into the service of the national political economy. He published two dozen treatises on a variety of social problems, but the most significant is his 1797 A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis.

The Marine Police Force continues to operate at the same Wapping

Wapping

Wapping is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets which forms part of the Docklands to the east of the City of London. It is situated between the north bank of the River Thames and the ancient thoroughfare simply called The Highway...

 High Street

High Street

High Street, or the High Street, is a metonym for the generic name of the primary business street of towns or cities, especially in the United Kingdom. It is usually a focal point for shops and retailers in city centres, and is most often used in reference to retailing...

 address. In 1839 it merged with the Metropolitan Police Force to become Thames Division

Thames Division

The Marine Policing Unit is a Central Operations branch of London's Metropolitan Police Service.-Role:...

; and is now the Marine Support Unit of the Metropolitan Police Service.

Consul of the Hanseatic League

Patrick Colquhoun was appointed as Resident Minister

Resident (title)

A Resident, or in full Resident Minister, is a government official required to take up permanent residence in another country. A representative of his government, he officially has diplomatic functions which are often seen as a form of indirect rule....

 and Consul general by the Hanseatic

Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...

 cities of Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 in 1804 and by Bremen

Bremen

The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...

 and Lübeck

Lübeck

The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...

 shortly after in the following as the successor of Henry Heymann, who was also master of the Steelyard

Steelyard

The Steelyard, from the German Stalhof, was in the Middle Ages the main trading base of the Hanseatic League in London.-Location:It lay on the north bank of the Thames by the outflow of the Walbrook, in the Dowgate ward of the City of London. The site is now covered by Cannon Street station and...

 (In German: Stalhofmeister). Colquhoun was valuable to those cities through the time of their occupation by the French until 1814 since he also provided the indirect communication between Northern Germany

Northern Germany

- Geography :The key terrain features of North Germany are the marshes along the coastline of the North Sea and Baltic Sea, and the geest and heaths inland. Also prominent are the low hills of the Baltic Uplands, the ground moraines, end moraines, sandur, glacial valleys, bogs, and Luch...

 and Whitehall

Whitehall

Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...

, especially in 1808, when the three cities considered their membership in the Confederation of the Rhine

Confederation of the Rhine

The Confederation of the Rhine was a confederation of client states of the First French Empire. It was formed initially from 16 German states by Napoleon after he defeated Austria's Francis II and Russia's Alexander I in the Battle of Austerlitz. The Treaty of Pressburg, in effect, led to the...

. His son James Colquhoun

James Colquhoun

James Colquhoun was a British diplomat who represented the interests of various German cities in Great Britain.-Biography:...

 was his successor as Consul of the Hanseatic cities in London.

External links

• Grant David Yeats, M.D. (Colquhoun's son-in-law), A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Writings of Patrick Colqhoun, London: G. Smeeton, 1818.

The 'Patrick Colquhoun' Thames Police Motor Launch http://www.riverside-charters.com

Writings by Patrick Colquhoun

• on the Commerce and Police of the River Thames, London: H. Baldwin and Son, 1800.
• A Treatise on the Functions and Duties of a Constable, London: W. Bulmer and Co., 1803.
• Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis, London: Bye and Law, 1806.