The Tom Pascoe Series

Welcome to this series of books introducing the character of Tom Pascoe, a River Surveyor with the Marine Police in the Port of London at the end of the 18^th Century.

Although my books are all works of fiction, the events portrayed in them did, in many cases, actually occur and Tom’s spirit continues to exist to this day in the men and women of the Metropolitan Police Marine Support Unit who patrol the River Thames.  Of course many things have changed and the police of the 21^st Century have no need for cutlasses or the massive boat guns carried by the crews of the rowing galleys at the turn of the 19^th Century. Nor do Tom Pascoe’s successors face the same level of danger or hardship as those incredibly tough men who joined the newly formed organisation on 2^nd July 1798. Health and safety rules have taken care of that.

But some things do remain. The police office at 259, Wapping New Stairs from which Tom set out to patrol the reaches of the Thames is the same address from which modern officers still set out although it has had to be rebuilt several times since those early days.

Historical context of the series

In 1798 England was in dire straits. Her finances were at a very low ebb as a result of the war in America which had ended a few years before. Now she was at war with France and facing the immediate prospect of invasion from the Napoleonic army. The Dutch and the Spanish were also waiting their opportunity. All that stood in the way was the Royal Navy – a navy which, in the previous year, had mutinied almost within sight of a Dutch invasion fleet.

As if that were not enough, Ireland was being convulsed by an armed rebellion  in which thousands were to die and thousands more were to leave Ireland to seek a new life in London. In Scotland, meanwhile, resentment  bubbled just below the surface and threatened to go the same way as Ireland.

In the midst of all this, huge quantities of imported goods were being plundered from ships in the Port of London and, in the process, seriously reducing the revenue the government needed to prosecute the war. So serious was this problem that the Prime Minister, William Pitt, was considering a swingeing increase in the level of taxation – a measure that would probably have led to serious public disorder.

Into this particular breach stepped two men – both magistrates. One was Patrick Colquhoun and the other was John Harriot. Both, simultaneously and independently, developed the idea of a body of police to patrol the Port of London. But while the idea was met with cautious enthusiasm by the government, it insisted that much of the cost of the new organisation should fall on the private sector (in this case, the captains and owners of the West India Merchants and Traders’ ships who had most to gain from the new organisation).

On Monday 2^nd July 1798, with the absolute minimum of training, the new organisation  – the first professional police force in the country – went into action with just 60 watermen constables and 9 river surveyors (now called inspectors) patrolling the three and a half miles of the Thames between London Bridge and the Harbour Master’s house at Greenwich. Their effect was immediate and (by the men who worked the port) bitterly resented.