Heroes and Villains: the Tunbridge Wells Police Scandal of 1853

This paper discusses the standards of crime detection and policing in mid 19th- century Tunbridge Wells. The paper focuses on William Morten, appointed as superintendent in 1847, and the partnership he formed with James Dadson, town commissioner and parish constable – an unlikely combination of law enforcement with a laissez-faire approach to crime detection. The paper focuses on the micro history of Morten and Dadson, 1847-53; and raises interesting questions on law enforcement and its practices and draws attention to the failure of the police commissioners to maintain and promote a system of firm accountability and the resulting unchecked waywardness of two officers. Significantly, an insight is provided into the crimes experienced in Kent (and parts of East Sussex) and a sense of lawlessness and criminality which the counties had to battle before modern police forces were formally established. What comes as a surprise was its acceptability of this cavalier type of policing and the degree of enterprise of crime detection across county borders and indeed into Europe.

In April 1853, the Sussex Advertiser reported that Tunbridge Wells ‘was caused great excitement’; and Reynold’s Newspaper, evoking memories of a scandal more than a century before, referred to ‘Jonathan Wildism extraordinary’.[fn1] They were describing the sudden disappearance from the town of William Morten, superintendent of the Tunbridge Wells Improvement Commissioners’ police force, and that of long-serving parish constable (and town commissioner) James Dadson, and the subsequent issue of warrants for their arrest by Tunbridge Wells magistrates. These were by no means trivial matters: they involved corruption, embezzlement of public funds, and perverting the course of justice. The warrants specifically mentioned: inciting [a] 21-year-old [man] to plead guilty to incendiarism (arson), embezzling sums of money from the county and bribing vagrants apprehended in Sussex to plead guilty to avoid Kent magistrates from enquiring into their cases.

There were undoubtedly other criminal matters outstanding, but the magistrates hadn’t yet got round to investigating the full scale of their activities.

Yet, two months earlier, Morten was being congratulated on his ‘energy and efficiency’ by the Tunbridge Wells Improvement Commissioners who favourably ‘compared the state of the town now, to what it was before Morten came’.[fn2]In August [pg161] 1852 the chief officer of Brighton police and the clerk to Brighton magistrates had written jointly to the commissioners at Tunbridge Wells to commend Morten and Dadson for responding to their request for assistance in capturing a multiple fraudster from Brighton who had escaped to Belgium.[fn3]And in early 1851 both Morten and Dadson were being congratulated at the East Sussex quarter sessions for their work in arresting the members of the so-called ‘Uckfield Gang’ after a series of burglaries across Sussex and Surrey, as a result of which a large subscription fund was created to reward the several police officers involved.[fn4] This paper is by no means a celebration of their mutual careers between 1847 (when they first worked together) and 1853; it is about the reality of mid-Victorian crime investigation and how Morten and Dadson fell spectacularly from grace and moved from being heroes to villains. One obvious explanation for motive could simply involve greed and hubris. Victorian crime detection was endemically entrepreneurial, and temptation ever present. But deterministic interpretations also fail to recognize other factors that created the means and opportunities for financial rules to be stretched, money to be made, and eventually for laws to be broken. Local government structures in the Tunbridge Wells area, especially after the 1835 Town Act, created an environment of uncertain political boundaries (two parishes in Kent and one in East Sussex) and fragmented accountability (at least two vestries, two sets of quarter sessions, and squabbling town commissioners and magistrates) (Fig. 1). In turn these generated opportunities for undoubtedly enterprising – and, it has to be said, remunerative – detective work that frequently took them away from Tunbridge Wells and across large parts of southern England and even to Belgium and France. Morten and Dadson were undoubtedly successful investigators, and the combination of professional police officer and parish constable as a detective team was, at the very least, unusual.[fn5]

[fg]jpg|Fig. 1 Map of Tunbridge Wells, administrative boundaries.|Image[/fg]

The context – an unlikely team

Tunbridge Wells was one of over 500 municipalities in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that sought (often as a direct result of rapid population growth), to codify local governmental structures through a so-called Improvement Act with powers for local commissioners to levy rates and to legislate, amongst other things, for a paid police. The preamble to the 1835 Act summarized it succinctly: ‘An Act for lighting, watching, cleansing, regulating, and otherwise improving the Town of Tunbridge Wells in the Counties of Kent and Sussex, and for regulating the Supply of Water and establishing a Market within the said Town’.

In 1841 the population of Tunbridge Wells was just over 8,300, and the police force consisted of a chief officer, a sergeant, and six or seven police constables. By the standards of the day the numbers of police were more than adequate.[fn6]After inspector William Plumb of the East Sussex Constabulary became the town’s chief officer in December 1844, the post-holder was thereafter styled ‘superintendent’. Management of the force was delegated by the commissioners’ General Committee to a smaller Police and Lighting Committee (hereafter, ‘police committee’) which typically acted autonomously. On policing matters the rest of the commissioners remained, in turn, largely acquiescent.[fn7] Plumb died suddenly on 23 May 1847 at the age of 41. Charles Courant Bailey, [pg162] formerly of the Cambridge borough police, was chosen as the new superintendent. Belatedly discovered to be a serial debtor, he was sacked on 18 October, by which time the police committee had started looking for a new superintendent (interestingly, this time they decided not to place any press advertisements for the post). Thirty-four-year-old William Morten, a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police from Walworth, was appointed superintendent, to start on 6 November. Given Bailey’s disastrous short tenure, Morten’s appointment was probably auspicious.

William Morten had joined the Metropolitan Police in July 1840 at the age of 27 years. A native of Nottinghamshire, little is known of him before 1840, but it is probable that that he was already engaged in some kind of police or detective work. The main referee for his application to the force, Sir Thomas Wilde, MP had become Attorney General in 1841 and was of far higher status than those who usually provided references for police recruits. By 1845 contemporary newspapers and court records show that Morten was regularly appearing as a prosecution witness at the Central Criminal Court: 14 times between January 1845 and March 1846, for instance. By way of comparison, the Metropolitan Police had formed a specialist, though very small, Detective Department in 1842, and each of these detectives seemed, on average to take eight cases to the Old Bailey each year.

[pg163]Morten was, by contemporary standards, an energetic and successful detective. However, although he was reported to be working sometimes ‘in plain clothes’ he was not a member of the Detective Department per se and was probably a local divisional detective.[fn8] By June 1846 Morten had been promoted to sergeant, but his work as a detective was undiminished and he developed something of a reputation with the London press. In December that year following a spate of burglaries in the Croydon area it was reported that ‘Serjeant William Morton (sic) and a body of hand-picked constables’ were sent there and found ‘notorious thief and cracksman’ Tom Fletcher leaving the railway station. Fletcher and four other gang members were followed to a farmhouse, which they burgled; Morten and his ‘hand-picked’ team were waiting for them when they came out.[fn9]Things did not, however, always go to plan. In May 1847 he arrested a man in Lambeth who had been circulated in Hue and Cry as wanted for a number of thefts of horses and gigs in the Reading and Oxfordshire areas. However, despite being handcuffed, his prisoner escaped from a railway waiting room and Morten was suspended for three weeks without pay. Undeterred, he pursued the man, (Henry Baynton ‘a gentleman with respectable connections’) to Brighton by train and Baynton was eventually convicted at Berkshire assizes. His use of Hue and Cry to identify potential rewards, and a willingness to utilise the newly built railways, were to be identifiable features of his successes as a detective at Tunbridge Wells.[fn10] But it was another case, this time following a burglary in Tunbridge Wells that was arguably most important, because it was probably the first time that Morten and Dadson met. Although they didn’t know it at the time it was just a few weeks before the recently appointed superintendent Charles Bailey left without notice, and Tunbridge Wells would have need of yet another chief police officer. On the night of 13 August 1847 William Strange’s drapery shop in High Street was burgled and ‘superfine cloth’ valued at £70 (close to £10,000 at 2023 values) stolen. One might expect that a crime of this sort would be investigated by the town police, but Bailey, during his short tenure, wasn’t noted for his enthusiasm for dealing with felonies. So, the investigation was undertaken by parish constables led, in the first place, by constable Thomas Goddard of Tonbridge. Two days after the burglary railway staff at Tunbridge Wells, suspicious of a large hamper left for delivery in London, called in parish constables Goddard and Davidson. They found it full of Strange’s stolen cloth. The hamper was resealed and sent to London the following day accompanied by Goddard and Davidson and constable Dadson. It was then delivered to a house in Newington, with sergeant Morten and police constable Smith (‘two active officers belonging to P Division’) keeping observation. After the parcel was accepted the house was searched. Three men and a woman inside the house (described by a contemporary newspaper as ‘three well-known members of the “swell mob” and … a notorious character who has frequently been tried for daring street robberies’) were arrested. Two of them, Thomas Foster, and Eliza Eaton, were later convicted at the Old Bailey and each transported for seven years.11 Just how James Dadson became involved in the investigation can only be guessed. As well as being a town commissioner he had been a parish constable for nearly a decade.[fn12]He probably was of relatively high status amongst the constables appointed at the Tunbridge Wells vestry. But the vagaries of the parochial [pg164]constabulary in Tunbridge Wells itself meant that, in theory at least, Dadson was subordinate to the Tunbridge Wells superintending constable, a quarter sessional appointee who, after 1842, happened also to be an ex officio appointment for whoever was the chief officer of the Tunbridge Wells commissioners’ police.[fn13]Whether he regarded himself as subordinate or not is a moot point: he probably didn’t. As a parish constable Dadson was no slouch; during 1847, for instance, he successfully investigated three burglaries in the Tunbridge Wells area and arrested those responsible for two more in East Sussex. So, when Morten ‘was brought by me to Tunbridge Wells’, (as Dadson later claimed, doubtless stretching the facts a little), a mutually beneficial partnership was formed. And even if Morten’s pay in Tunbridge, at 27 shillings a week, was little more than he had been getting as a sergeant in London, the potential rewards and gratuities made his new job much more attractive, even if some of the cases really had little to do with Tunbridge Wells.[fn14] The arrests that Morten made in his first few months as chief officer suggest that, despite his primary responsibility being to police the town itself, (and at least that is what the commissioners seemed to have believed), municipal boundaries were of little consequence to him. In February 1848, for instance, William Buckwell was knocked to the ground in the street in Mayfield and robbed of money. Because he couldn’t find the local constable, he went the day afterwards to Tunbridge Wells and reported it to Morten and Dadson. They made enquiries in Mayfield and arrested George Fry, who was later arraigned before Sussex Spring Assize and sentenced to 11 years transportation. It did no harm whatsoever to Morten’s (and Dadson’s) reputation as detectives. The next month both men went to Battersea to arrest a man and a woman for stealing goods from Charles Seymour’s house in Tunbridge Wells; and in April Morten (and PC Morgan of the town police) went to Maidstone to arrest a man for robbing a farmer at Cowden whilst he was returning from East Grinstead market. Some measure of James Dadson’s achievements as a constable led to him being headhunted, in October 1850, by the West Kent quarter sessional magistrates to become superintending constable for Tonbridge division. According to a local newspaper he rejected the offer as the job would require him to live in Tonbridge or Pembury, and his bakery business was in Tunbridge Wells; the reality may well have been that working with Morten was less restrictive and already more lucrative.[fn15] However, what was probably by then a successful detective business was almost derailed when Morten and Dadson investigated a burglary in the early hours of 9 April 1850 at James Powell’s house in Langton. As burglaries go it was unpleasant: three masked men threatened to kill the occupants and made off with around £20 in cash. Morten and Dadson, called out of bed in the middle of the night, traced them to Crowborough, Rotherfield and Uckfield before the trail went cold. Three weeks later a reward notice appeared in the local press: ‘Superintendent of Police’ Morten had persuaded a magistrate to get the Home Secretary to offer a £50 reward (and a free pardon if necessary to anyone whose evidence secured a conviction). It didn’t work and the offenders were never found, but Morten wasn’t going to let this stop him from at least covering his expenses. James Powell was not a wealthy man; he was bailiff to landowner the Reverend Horace Cholmodley of Hollands Farm, Langton. So Cholmodley got a bill for expenses, and he seems to have expected [pg165]this. But what puzzled him, and the reason why he later got his solicitor to complain to the commissioners’ police committee, was that Morten had left a fairly obvious blank line on the bill for an additional sum for gratuities to be added by the recipient. The police committee, meeting on 13 September 1850, were absolutely certain about one thing: it was not their policy to allow policemen to solicit gratuities and that Morten was wrong. They reinforced an earlier decision of February that year that any payment to the police could only be made with their express consent, and that all reward payments should first be paid into the commissioners’ account. Significantly, they also took no direct action against Morten, and didn’t actually forbid him from seeking gratuities. In any case their records suggest that, whilst the other members of the police force complied, Morten admitted to receiving payments as and when it suited him.[fn16]They sent their conclusions to the General Committee of commissioners, expecting agreement. What they got was a fudge, not least because James Dadson chose to exercise his right to attend and speak. On the matter of the expenses claimed by both the superintendent (and himself, of course) in the Langton case he was unapologetic, and he went on to argue strongly against the police committee’s other suggestion that the permission of either a magistrate or of the commissioners should be obtained before any of the town police went outside the municipal boundary to investigate crime. He also made a pointed comment about Morten’s pay when he suggested that the commissioners might like to bear in mind that ‘to secure the attention of a good and active officer, the remuneration should be such as to prevent temptations being thrown in his way’.[fn17]Commissioner and attorney William Stone, (though the commissioners didn’t realise it at the time), was spot on when he commented that Morten obtained ‘remuneration for his services in anything but a proper manner by the conveyance of prisoners, appearing at prosecutions &c’. Rather than have Morten pursuing fees and expense payments, Stone urged that he should instead be paid a reasonable salary. He got minimal support from his fellow commissioners, who seem to have convinced themselves that whether they liked it or not, their superintendent was, in any case, ultimately answerable to magistrates who could direct him to investigate crimes anywhere.[fn18]Actually, they were probably wrong in this assumption, but it certainly suited Morten (and Dadson) for the commissioners to believe it. The indecisive meeting meant that the two were effectively given great scope to go to investigate crime wherever and whenever they wanted to. Three weeks after this meeting the commissioners addressed the matter of Morten’s salary again and this time, as well as raising his weekly pay to 35 shillings ‘they expected that his time would be wholly devoted to the town, and that he should not give his attention to matters out of the district, unless under peculiar circumstances’. Really, it was just wishful thinking on their part. Nobody connected with the Tunbridge Wells commissioners seemed to know that Morten (and Dadson) were already testing these limits in their active pursuit of a criminal gang that operated across large parts of Surrey and Sussex.[fn19] the uckfield gang John Isaacs was the leader of an estimated 17-strong gang of burglars whose activities lasted perhaps two years at most, and which caused widespread fear [pg166][pg167]due to crimes being committed generally in the early hours of the morning and frequently accompanied by gratuitous violence. They routinely carried firearms and bludgeons with which to reinforce threats and in September 1850 at Frimley Vicarage, the Reverend George Hollest challenged the burglars and was murdered. The press called them the ‘Frimley Gang’ and later, after a burglary there, the ‘Uckfield Gang’. Though around a dozen crimes can be attributed to them the loose working relationships within the gang (albeit with an acceptance that John Isaacs was the ‘captain’ and that his decisions brooked no compromise), and with people joining and leaving from time to time, it is probable that they were responsible for several more (see Fig. 2).

[fg]jpg|Fig. 2 Chronology of offences attributable to the Isaacs Gang, 1850-1. Only those for which gang members were charged or were mentioned by approvers (James Hamilton and Hiram Smith) at assize courts, are listed.|Image[/fg]

Morten and Dadson were doubtless familiar, through the pages of Hue and Cry if nothing else, with their activities, not least the escape, near Turner’s Hill, of two members of the gang from Police Constable Pocock in August 1850. But it was after a burglary on 1 January 1851, at the house of the Misses Farncombe at Uckfield (Fig. 3), that they became even more closely involved, to the point where they probably spent little time in Tunbridge Wells for several weeks. Apart from anything else there were by now several sizeable rewards on offer.

[fg]jpg|Fig. 3 Wanted poster following burglary at Downland House, 2 January 1851. Illustration courtesy of Cuckfield Museum.|Image[/fg]

The beginning of the end for the men who burgled the Farncombe house was almost farcical. The morning after the burglary three of them went to the Crown Inn at Groombridge carrying cash, food and an umbrella stolen from the Uckfield house. There they got drunk and argued amongst themselves. The landlady called the parish constable, 46-year-old farm bailiff James Piddlesden and whilst he was there James Hamilton accused John Smith of stealing a sovereign from him. He felt so strongly about it that he gave him in charge to Piddlesden who took him to the police cells at Tunbridge Wells. Having found out more about the Uckfield burglary Piddlesden returned to Groombridge the next morning (3 January) where he was shown property left by the other two men (who had now left the village) which he then suspected was stolen property. He found them near Ashurst church and after a struggle, James Hamilton and James Smith were arrested and taken to Tunbridge Wells where superintendent Morten took charge.

[pg168]Morten and Dadson went to Uckfield the same day and got various items found in the prisoners’ possession identified as stolen from Downland House. The next day, Morten, Dadson and Richard Gilbert (the superintending constable for Tonbridge) went to Guildford to get William Hillyer and Thomas Morgan, who had been arrested in the Swan beer shop there by superintendent Hollington of the Guildford borough police. Hollington had long suspected them of being part of Isaacs’ gang. On the way back they found Joseph Carter at Hamilton’s house on Woking Common. James Dadson was then sent on 10 January to search a house in Crowborough where property (‘as much as four men could carry’) from burglaries at the Five Bells Inn at Chailey on 5 December and Thomas Carter’s shop in Storrington on 20 November was found. James and Sarah Edwardes, the occupiers of the house were arrested, and they implicated Elizabeth Olliver who was found standing in a group of people, estimated to be 500 or 600 strong, who had surrounded the Tunbridge Wells town hall whilst the magistrates were examining the other prisoners.

The property recovered now linked the prisoners, one way or another to 8 or more burglaries, but William Brooks, implicated in these burglaries, and known to be responsible for injuries to PC Pocock, was still unaccounted for. Morten and Dadson, ‘disguised as gypsies’, eventually found him in a barn at Woodhams, Chertsey on 17 January; with him was a knife stolen from the Five Bells Inn at Chailey. Morten and Dadson had, according to the Brighton Gazette ‘scoured the counties of Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire’ to find the ten prisoners who were finally committed to Lewes assizes by Tunbridge Wells magistrates on 18 and 25 January.[fn20] Not everyone was pleased. Superintending constable Gilbert had already complained to the Tonbridge magistrates on 8 January about the way in which Morten and Dadson had taken over the investigation when it had been Piddlesden who had made the arrests. Perhaps more to the point, Gilbert was ostensibly upset by being one of the last to find out, though it is difficult not to suspect that he could also see some reward money slipping away. The magistrates made sympathetic noises towards Gilbert and decided to meet again on 22 January, by which time they seem to have decided that, far from being congratulated for making three important arrests, Piddlesden was instead to be criticized for not having told Gilbert as soon as the arrests had been made. As an unpaid constable he must have wondered why he bothered.[fn21] The first trial took place at Sussex Spring Assize on 12 March 1851. Seven men were each transported for life whilst Elizabeth Olliver was sentenced to 14 years (see Fig 2). Because a large number of charges had been put to the prisoners several offences were formally set aside. This was a pragmatic decision to avoid clogging up the court agenda: the outcome was likely to be the same however many charges were put. Nevertheless, the Sussex Advertiser reassured its readers about [pg169]the deterrent effect of the sentences. There was a new punitive regime attached to transportation so that it ‘would not be so lightly thought of as it sometimes is’. So, the ‘Uckfield’ burglars were to be taken first to the House of Correction at Preston, Lancashire to serve 18 months solitary confinement, followed by hard labour on public works until 12 years had passed (the sentence for life transportation being reckoned at 24 years). Only after that would they be transported. The court also awarded rewards to Morten (£12), Dadson (£12) and Pocock (£5). The Tunbridge Wells magistrates were undoubtedly pleased about the anticipated outcome. Soon after they had committed the prisoners for trial, they instituted a subscription fund to ‘reward the constables and others by whose indefatigable exertions eight men have already been apprehended and committed for trial’ (Fig. 4). It was remarkably successful and in just over a month raised £94, at least half the subscribers coming from Tunbridge Wells (Morten, for instance, received £45 from this fund- equivalent to six month’s salary).[fn22]

[fg]jpg|Fig. 4 Example of advertisement showing subscriptions to reward fund established and administered by Tunbridge Wells magistrates, February 1851.|Image[/fg]

John Isaacs, however, remained at large. In particular, he had now been identified as organizing the gang that burgled the White Horse Inn near Hartfield and Downland House at Uckfield on 31 December and 2 January respectively. Morten must have been sure that some reward money would be attached to Isaacs’ capture as he circulated handbills, and even took out a newspaper advertisement at his own expense offering a £15 reward for information (Fig. 5).[fn23]On Thursday 10 April Morten received information from a Frome (Somerset) parish constable, Thomas Payne that a man fitting Isaacs’ description was staying at a house just outside [pg170]Frome. Payne had arrested him, and he was now in the Frome lock-up. Morten and Dadson immediately took the train to Frome. The arrest of Isaacs seems to have been completed with little fuss, and Isaacs was back in Tunbridge Wells late on Friday evening. The next day, however, Payne telegraphed to say that items of jewellery that fitted the description of some stolen from the Uckfield burglary had been found hidden in the carriage used to transport Isaacs after his arrest when it was being cleaned out.

[fg]jpg|Fig. 5 Reward notice published by Superintendent Morten, 25 March 1851.|Image[/fg]

An important feature of all of the enquiries surrounding the Isaacs gang had been the need to show that the prisoners had with them property stolen from particular houses. For the nineteenth century detective this was one of the most important ways of linking a suspect to the scene of the crime. Under questioning Isaacs was already denying any involvement in the burglary at the Misses Farncombe’s house, and the only evidence linking him thus far was that of accomplices and in particular the approver Hamilton. Morten and Dadson again got a train to Frome and this time found that other jewellery stolen from the Uckfield house was in the house of a shoemaker and horse dealer, Charles Whitcomb, but he refused to hand it over. Though he was already in possession of two warrants for Isaacs’ arrest another search warrant was obtained in Frome to enable the local constable, Thomas Payne, to conduct the search. The jewellery was then handed over without a fuss: all of it was positively identified as proceeds of the Uckfield burglary. There was however a bizarre twist to the story. Before Morten left Frome, he was served with a summons to attend Frome County Court. Whitcomb was seeking damages of £10 for trespass and injury due to the fact that they executed the warrant late in the evening. (This case was heard before a jury at Frome County Court on 21 May and lasted nearly five hours. Reports of the trial suggest that the local jury’s verdict in favour of Whitcomb was never really in doubt, and Morten took it seriously enough to bring with him a lawyer from Tunbridge Wells. In the end Morten had to pay damages of £6, though he later reported that his total costs amounted to £21, and he had to borrow £16 from James Dadson to pay these costs).

Apart from a couple of ‘examinations’ of Isaacs and Harwood before Horsham magistrates, and a formal committal by the Tunbridge Wells bench there seemed little to do except wait for the Sussex Assize in August 1851. In one sense Morten seemingly could do no wrong: the local press contained repeated announcements eulogizing him (and Dadson) and he was the regular recipient of rewards (Fig. 6).[fn24] But whilst the Tunbridge Wells authorities were broadly pleased about the favourable publicity that Morten and Dadson, and the committal hearings for such notorious criminals, had brought to the town, some at East Sussex quarter sessions didn’t share their enthusiasm. At the Easter sessions magistrate Alexander Donovan (of Framfield Place, who sat on the Uckfield bench) complained of the costs (just under £500) of prosecuting the ‘Uckfield’ burglary gang, and though he congratulated Morten ‘whose perseverance, tact and ingenuity entitled him to the thanks of the court’ he also suggested that he seemed ‘to have some jealousy of East Sussex Constabulary’ and tried to keep them out of the investigations. Donovan was probably right: there was more than a little ill-feeling between Morten and superintendents Biddlecombe and Hollington as well. But, perhaps presciently, Donovan also commented on the amounts of expenses being charged to the East Sussex sessions by James Dadson who had ‘made the most of’ transporting the [pg171]prisoners’ between hearings at Horsham and Tunbridge Wells and the prison at Lewes ‘in his own cart’. Quarter sessions seemed unable to reach a conclusion, and apparently unwilling to criticise fellow magistrates in Tunbridge Wells, the matter was left to be debated again at the summer sessions in July. At the next sessions, as well as complaining about expenses being claimed by Tunbridge Wells constables another Uckfield magistrate, William Morgan, also objected to the inconvenience caused to witnesses from the Uckfield area having to travel to Tunbridge Wells to give evidence at the committal hearings, but his arguments drew little support. As the chairman of sessions pointed out, there was no point in them debating something that they couldn’t change anyway.[fn25]

[fg]jpg|Fig. 6 Rewards known to be offered during 1851.|Image[/fg]

Unwanted publicity

Unsurprisingly, given the amount of time both Morten and Dadson had spent away from Tunbridge Wells between January, and May there was no reported criticism of their activities from either the commissioners or the local magistrates: they had probably enjoyed the reflected glory. But in July 1851 the disappearance ‘under circumstances of more than suspicion’ of the commissioners’ clerk Benjamin Lewis brought press attention that was much less welcome, not least because it again exposed the style of the commissioners’ management (or, rather, lack of it). The commissioners had been fortunate to avoid press criticism over their appointment of superintendent Bailey in June 1847, but this time their luck ran out. Lewis, apparently, was someone ‘who was all but universally respected, and who had all the honours of the town and district thrust upon his shoulders’; but not any longer.

[pg172]At a meeting of the Speldhurst vestry on 11 June he was accused, as treasurer, of appropriating vestry funds. Lewis denied this, but agreed nevertheless to resign his post, hand over the treasurer’s books, and never work for a vestry again. Two days later he suddenly left Tunbridge Wells and was rumoured to have gone to France. The vestry then found that £500 was missing. Lewis held a number of treasurer posts and was responsible for collecting government tax as well as being in charge of collection of town rates. In total it was reckoned that some £4000 had been embezzled. Although superintendent Morten was authorised to go to the Home Office to get a ‘government arrest warrant’, and then he and Dadson set off for the continent in pursuit, they were only away from Tunbridge Wells for a few days. Wherever he went, (and Lewis’ son William knew full well where he was, as he later acted as an intermediary when his father tried to negotiate his return to England), Morten and Dadson were unsuccessful. Strangely, on 29 June, on the recommendation of their chairman, (and despite him having kept quiet about his father’s whereabouts) the commissioners appointed William as their temporary clerk in early July, albeit he lost the vote (25 to 45) for the permanent job in late August. Apart from collecting rates on behalf of the commissioners Benjamin Lewis also collected some government taxes and these still sat in the commissioners’ accounts. As parish constable James Dadson had been sent a warrant requiring him to take action over the missing cash and he wrote to the commissioners about it as it was, in theory, still sitting with them. The commissioners were dismissive and said that any debts owed by Lewis were his not theirs. Dadson attended their meeting (as a town commissioner he was entitled to) and despite a veiled threat to ‘enforce the law’ the impasse remained. In the event the commissioners backed down and agreed to hand over some commission due to Lewis in part payment. Within a week of their meeting Dadson had arranged for Lewis’ house contents to be seized and put up for public auction.26 Although Morten and Dadson were well known as detectives as a result of their work on the ‘Isaacs’ gang case, their work in recapturing Johnny Broome in Belgium in July 1852 led to them being once again being commended by the press. Broome, (a prize fighter with a national reputation: hence much of the press coverage), and two others had been arrested by the Brighton police during Brighton Races week in August 1851 for running fraudulent games of cards. The case was beset with legal argument and eventually the prosecutor’s solicitor, in an unusual move, applied to be released from his obligation by Brighton magistrates (there were suggestions that the prosecutor wasn’t paying the solicitor’s costs on time). The chief officer of Brighton police, Thomas Hayter Chase, was then ‘bound over’ to ensure the prosecution. The three defendants were bailed to appear at Sussex Assizes. The bail sums were huge. Each defendant had to provide a personal security of £200 with two further securities of £100 each. But Broome, having been seen in Lewes on the day of the assize, went on the run and Chase telegraphed William Morten to warn him that he was headed for Tunbridge Wells to catch a train for Dover. Broome was just a bit too fast, (the horse he had hired in Lewes was ridden so hard that it dropped dead), and though he bought a ticket he didn’t use it, albeit he sent some luggage onwards to one of the French ports to lay a false trail. Morten believed that Broome was still in England, but having received some information from the Brussels police, headed for Belgium with James Dadson pausing only to [pg173]pick up a warrant issued by the judge at Lewes assize and a supporting letter from the Home Office to the British consul in Belgium. Broome wasn’t there but Morten was assured of help from the head of the Brussels police, and both men returned to Kent after also visiting France. A few days later, when told that the Brussels police now had Broome under surveillance, they returned to find him having dinner in a restaurant. Broome was confident of avoiding extradition; fortunately, the head of the Brussels police was equally determined that he wouldn’t, and he was returned to England on 13 August 1852. The fact that Morten had developed this sort of intelligence network, and co-operation with a continental police force was, by mid-nineteenth century standards, remarkable.[fn27] But there were already signs that the town commissioners were again growing frustrated through their belief that the town police weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing, coupled with a suspicion that the police committee’s management was only cursory. In October 1852 the General Committee reluctantly agreed to the police committee’s suggestion that sergeant Swift should be reimbursed £3 12s 2d in damages arising from county court action taken following a case (over an argument about horse ownership), that he and PC Heaver had investigated ‘with great zeal but with some want of discretion’. The commissioners were concerned that it was ‘20 or 30 miles from Tunbridge Wells’, and that Swift had already appeared at the county court without bothering to tell anyone. Commissioner Henry Delves summarised their ire, commenting that the town police ‘attended to matters with which they had nothing to do and to the entire neglect of … the town they were paid to protect’. He had a point. In the year ending Michaelmas 1852, 111 vagrants had been put before East Sussex quarter sessions.[fn28] Though this excluded the town of Brighton, an extraordinary 47 per cent of them originated from that small part of Frant parish included in the Tunbridge Wells local act area. The underlying reasons were undoubtedly pecuniary: better expenses could be claimed from a trip to Lewes rather than to Maidstone. The next month, at their meeting of 1 November, the commissioners complained that the police ignored ‘more serious things’ in the town, whilst they spent too much time in public houses’. The debate might have been more one- sided except that, once again, James Dadson spoke as a commissioner in defence of the police. And in December they complained about Morten’s expenses claim but paid it anyway. Although William Morten was supposed to be relatively poorly paid, he had become a registered voter, (his property qualification being freehold land that he owned in Quarry Road). Yet, none of the town commissioners seemed (publicly at least) to have wondered where the money to buy land, and at least two houses he also owned, had come from. When Morten asked for another pay rise at the commissioners meeting in February 1853 the commissioners, whilst agreeing that there seemed to be less crime since he arrived in the town, went through the almost-ritual request that he ‘should spend more time in the town’ before increasing his pay from 35 shillings to £2 weekly.[fn29] policing standards On the morning of 10 October 1852, a corn stack valued at more than £100 was set on fire at Pens Court Farm, East Farleigh (Fig. 7). The farm was also known locally [pg174]as Pympes Court or Pimps Court. Seen in the vicinity was 20-year-old farm labourer Ambrose Boon. Later the same day (according to Morten and Dadson’s later testimony at the assize court) the superintendent saw Boon walking through Tunbridge Wells and, having asked him what he was doing, Boon then, unprompted, confessed to firing a rick near East Farleigh. Boon was put before Tunbridge Wells magistrates the next day and remanded for a week at Maidstone prison. On 18 April, whilst being brought by James Dadson back to Tunbridge Wells for another hearing before the magistrates Boon apparently made further admissions and offered to identify the exact site of the fire. So far, so good: using contemporary standards of proof this evidence was more than enough to secure a conviction.

[fg]jpg|Fig. 7 Report of fire at Pens Court Farm (also known as Pympes Court or Pimps Court), East Farleigh and the arrest of Ambrose Boon, October 1852.|Image[/fg]

Whilst in custody at Tunbridge Wells town hall Boon told PC Thomas Barfoot the full story of his involvement with Morten and Dadson. Morten, he said, had told him about the rick and persuaded him to set fire to it, with the promise that when he got to court, (and provided he pleaded ‘guilty’), Morten would use his influence as a superintendent of police to make an arrangement with the judge. Boon would then receive only a very short prison sentence, following which he would receive a third share of any rewards. Boon claimed that Morten and Dadson had also been paying him regular sums of money for other arranged crimes. Barfoot, wisely as it transpired, made a contemporaneous note of Boon’s admission, and advised him to tell the magistrates. He also told Morten, who then brought it to the notice of the police committee; they sat in secret and failed to reach any judgement because, they said, both Morten and Barfoot had given different accounts. Morten suggested to the committee that Barfoot had told Boon that making a statement would get him discharged at court, thus causing trouble for the superintendent. The problem, for Morten, was that Boon might now repeat his accusations at the assize.30 Boon appeared before Maidstone assizes on Thursday 10 March 1853. In the court cells Boon couldn’t resist telling ‘some old acquaintances’ about the deal that he still thought he had struck. His ‘acquaintances’ knew better, and soon disabused him. Arson, though no longer a capital crime, always attracted a long sentence; if he pleaded ‘guilty’ then were no deals to be made. He changed his plea to ‘not guilty’ and after the prosecution evidence (largely provided by the Tunbridge Wells officers), he handed in a written statement alleging that Morten and Dadson had incited the whole thing. Only part of his statement was read to the court and Morten and Dadson denied the allegations when questioned in the court, so Boon was convicted and sentenced to 15 years transportation. Since Boon was [pg175]illiterate Morten resolved to find out who had prepared this statement. Suspicion fell on PC Barfoot. Morten, for reasons of self-preservation if nothing else, needed to discredit him. Immediately after the assize the six other police constables in the force were persuaded by Morten to sign a joint (and, in the circumstances, exceedingly vague) letter of complaint alleging that they found themselves ‘in danger in doing duty with PC Barfoot, various attempts have been made by him to injure some of the men as well as the Superintendant’ (sic).[fn31] The police committee met again in secret on 11 March; the meeting went unrecorded in their minute book but was leaked to the local press. They needed to discuss an unexpected report about the assize from magistrate and police committee member Arthur Pott, who happened to be at the assize when Boon gave his testimony. Having heard this, they considered the evidence from the six complaining PCs and found it to be contradictory and uncertain. Three of them, saying that they were pressured to sign, withdrew their complaints almost immediately. One member of the committee later described it to the full body of commissioners in excoriating terms: ‘well, gentlemen, upon inquiry, I must say that I never listened to so base and treacherous a charge. Not a single thing against could be substantiated…’ Two of the PCs who persisted with their allegations against Barfoot were suspended for a month without pay, whilst a third was suspended for a fortnight. But the superintendent wasn’t about to give up. On 18th March the police committee met again, this time formally. They considered letters sent by Morten and Dadson both demanding Barfoot’s dismissal. Morten described Barfoot as ‘a jealous and spiteful man’, and if he remained in the force, even he as superintendent would ‘consider myself not safe anywhere’. Dadson was moved to write again to the committee the day before they met in even more trenchant style. As well as demanding Barfoot’s immediate dismissal he curiously called attention to Boon’s evidence at the assize: ‘the prisoner’s statement was alarming, and would, if it had been true, subject myself, Morten and Colman to transportation’: how right he was. Having dealt with the six PCs the police committee were unreceptive to Morten and Dadson’s testimony and rejected any suggestion that Barfoot should be punished, let alone dismissed as Morten was demanding. Yet throughout all of this the police committee had still left one issue largely unaddressed, the allegations made by Boon and whether or not Morten and Dadson were culpable.[fn32] Whilst the police committee might be responsible for Morten, any questions about James Dadson’s conduct were within the purview of local magistrates. Two justices, Arthur Pott, and William Elers wrote to the Home Secretary to get permission to have Boon interviewed in Millbank prison. They also contacted two other magisterial divisions in Kent to see if either of their respective superintending constables could conduct an independent investigation into the allegations against Dadson. Both refused and instead sergeant Henry Smith of Scotland Yard’s detective department was retained, and he interviewed Boon at length on 16 and 17 March.[fn33] Smith reported back nearly three weeks later saying that he had got a list from Boon of all of the crimes allegedly arranged by Morten and Dadson and, crucially, everything that Boon was saying could be verified. The plan that had been dependant on discrediting both Ambrose Boon and Thomas Barfoot was falling apart. In the meantime, Morten and Dadson, almost as if nothing had happened, [pg176]carried on as before, arresting a man who was suspected of stealing money from the Bank of England, going to Hastings to arrest a man for stealing a large sum of money from a widow in Tunbridge Wells, and arresting some men for burglary.[fn34] The police committee finally reported to the full meeting of commissioners on 4 April. Yet, for whatever reason the commissioners seemed determined to avoid discussing Morten and Dadson’s behaviour. At first, they seemed to be fixated on whether or not the police committee had power under the local act to suspend policemen who had made false allegations against PC Barfoot. Then they moved on to criticising the police committee (whom they, of course, had chosen in the first place), for allowing the police to get into a poor state. As a commissioner, James Dadson was entitled to participate in this meeting, and he did. His obvious conflict of interest went unchallenged, and he raised numerous points of order in the debate as well as a personal observation (which seemed to get some support from other commissioners) that with so many town policemen suspended he hoped that Morten wouldn’t get suspended as well because word would ‘quickly get round about the deficiency of police in the town’. And whilst the commissioners as a whole got their first official information about the charges levelled against Barfoot, (and incidentally also realised just how little they knew about what was going on in the police committee), they actually took no decisions and instead asked the police committee to report further, especially about their investigations into Boon’s testimony at the assize.[fn35]

In the meantime, probably only around half a dozen people in Tunbridge Wells knew about the investigation now being conducted by detective sergeant Smith of the Metropolitan Police and superintending constable Gilbert of Tonbridge, and they were all magistrates. On 27 April the Tunbridge Wells bench met to consider reports from Gilbert and Smith. As well as further verification of the claims made by Ambrose Boon, they had identified prima facie evidence of withholding expenses payments due to members of the town police, claiming witness expenses for quarter sessions when witnesses hadn’t attended, and bribing vagrants taken to quarter sessions to ensure ‘guilty’ pleas. At 6pm the same day the arrest warrant (issued by the secretary of state) was countersigned by five magistrates and given to Gilbert to execute. However, after one magistrate had said that they would grant bail if arrests were made that evening (and others concurred) Gilbert agreed not to do anything until the next morning, although he did now tell the chairman of the commissioners’ police committee that he held the warrant.

Morten and Dadson knew something was up. Dadson had been at the magistrates’ court on the morning of 27 April as they were dealing with liquor licence transfers, and he normally proved service of documents to the court. It wouldn’t have taken him long to work out why the magistrates went into secret session with Gilbert and detective sergeant Smith. The local press later reported that on the day the magistrates met Dadson had been seen transacting business throughout most of the day, cashing cheques with several tradesmen, and selling off interests in land. On the morning of Thursday 28 April, he was seen doing more deals, selling off interests in property that he owned. Though he hadn’t been seen in Tunbridge Wells after 9.10am, he was reported to be with his bankers in London that afternoon. Likewise, Morten was at his house, and not at the town hall police station, apparently ready to leave at a moment’s notice. He, too, had been disposing of property assets during [pg177]the previous day or two. Gilbert had put a number of constables from adjoining parishes on notice that they might be required. Even if he hadn’t told them why, they probably guessed that something was afoot. For whatever reason, although he set out to meet his parish constables at 8am, he didn’t meet sergeant Barton of the town police until 10am, and they then set off in two groups. And though ‘posse of constables’ surrounded Dadson’s house, he had seen the activity in the town earlier, and caught the next train to London. The second group approached Morten’s house, but his wife saw them coming and he left by the rear door into a waiting carriage and was last seen on the road to Frant. It was all fairly chaotic and unsurprisingly, recriminations soon followed. PC George Colman was accused of forewarning Morten (but was later wholly exonerated). Superintending constable Gilbert was accused of tardiness and incompetence (despite him being encouraged by the magistrates to delay execution of the warrant) and subjected to a magisterial hearing for neglect of duty on 25 May; fortunately they concluded that he had ‘done his duty to the best of his judgement’.[fn36]The magistrates blamed the commissioners, the commissioners blamed their police committee, and two local newspapers raised serious doubts about the plausibility of the charges against Morten and Dadson. The police committee, determined to exert even a modicum of authority, met on 29 April to record Morten’s dismissal for ‘not making an entry in his report book when he had left the town’.[fn37]

In the immediate aftermath there were at least two reported sightings of Dadson (but these turned out to be his brother, who was visiting family in Tunbridge Wells and Cranbrook). Rumours that neither of them had actually left England contributed towards a febrile atmosphere in the town. This was fuelled by the fact that both men had, for the time being, left their families in Tunbridge Wells. Morten and Dadson even wrote a jointly signed letter to Gilbert in mid-May, from Ostend, suggesting that Morten had remained, undetected, in Tunbridge Wells until 8 May, when he left with his family. Moreover, the superintendent claimed to have travelled back by train a few days later, even getting off at Tunbridge Wells railway station on his way to a Channel port but remained unrecognized. To top it all, both men, they said, were prepared to return to England provided they could get bail pending the next assizes and could surrender to magistrates rather than police. Really, it constructed a fanciful, and undoubtedly self-indulgent, story but it did nothing to diminish the gossip around the town. In the same week the Tunbridge Wells magistrates, (now believing that both men were definitely in Belgium), unsuccessfully applied for an extradition warrant. It was worth a try, and at least gave the impression that something was being done. But the extradition treaty with Belgium didn’t include the offences for which Morten and Dadson were charged (something which, as several local papers pointed out, they would have known only too well from their experience in the Johnny Broome case in 1852). Nevertheless, the Home Office did agree to offer a sizeable reward of £100 for the arrest of both men.

In the meantime, the local blame game continued. There was still little love lost between the commissioners and their police committee. On 6 May the commissioners’ clerk sent a request on behalf of the committee to the Metropolitan Police commissioner for the assistance of ‘an officer ‘thoroughly conversant with the management and discipline of a police force’. Inspector Bray of A Division had the task of preparing the report, and he sent this to the police committee [pg178]on 17 May. Unsurprisingly it made for gloomy reading: ‘I beg to report, having carefully examined the whole of the Tunbridge Wells police arrangements, and find every department connected with it in a very disorganized state, no one properly understanding his position’. The police station itself was ‘in a filthy state, having more the appearance of a lumber room than a police station, articles of all descriptions lay scattered about, police clothing and property of various description which has been found at different times by the police’. The police committee accepted it (really, they could do little else) and passed it to the commissioners meeting of 28 May who did the same and agreed to appoint a new chief officer. As if to reinforce the ill feeling between the commissioners and their committee they made it clear that whilst the committee could interview candidates a full commissioners meeting would make the final choice. So, the police committee interviewed a suitable candidate (Cyril Onslow) and, despite being told not to, offered him the job before presenting it as a fait accompli. The commissioners were not best pleased.[fn38] In fairness to inspector Bray, when he was asked to enquire into the state of the police, he was only asked to report on the way in which the Tunbridge Wells police were organized and managed; other external factors were largely outside his remit. He could, for instance, do nothing about the parochial structure of the town area, or the fact that the ‘improvement area’ crossed county boundaries. Yet these were the very geographical and political features that were exploited by Morten and Dadson. The full commission thought that Morten was ultimately responsible to magistrates (he probably wasn’t, as it happens) and the police committee believed they were empowered to direct Morten’s activities, (as they were according to the local Act), and then consistently failed to do so. There can be little doubt that many of the 60 or so commissioners were more in thrall of superintendent Morten than he was of them. Likewise, James Dadson was theoretically responsible to both the parish vestry and the local magistrates, but like all the parish constables in the area remained responsible for service of summonses and warrants and transport of prisoners and the important fees and expenses that these services attracted; until 1856 the town police did none of these things. If there was a day-to-day supervisory structure that applied to Dadson (and that in itself is doubtful) then it was easily circumvented. Being a parish constable was a notoriously unpopular job, and it is probable that the vestry members considered themselves fortunate to have someone like Dadson who did the job for so many years in succession and was fairly competent. Maybe the unstated quid pro quo was that Dadson was allowed just to get on with it as he saw fit? police reform Perhaps the most unusual feature of the Morten/ Dadson partnership of professional policeman and largely amateur parish constable is that it happened at all. Police reform, a political imperative in the mid-nineteenth century, frequently included the construction of a false dichotomy between amateur and professional policing. Clive Emsley succinctly challenges this historiographical assumption: ‘if the old police had all been like Dogberry and Elbow, and if the new police had all been the paragons intended by Chadwick, then there would be no problem; but such [pg179]was not the case.’39 That aside, and however mercenary it may seem, the way in which they investigated crime together also represented the reality of crime detection in the 1850s. Despite the arguments from contemporary proponents about a professional disinterested police the investigation of crime was, largely through necessity, a pecuniary, even commercial, enterprise. Rewards were a crucial precursor to most crime investigations. Though fees could be claimed for a range of administrative tasks connected with courts, the actual investigation itself, until an offender was put before a magistrate, attracted zero financial support from county rates, Victims, family, charitable neighbours, or a prosecuting society had to fund it. Tunbridge Wells, for instance, was not immune to market pressures and the need to offer rewards, and in February 1816 (and in the absence of a paid town police) a prosecuting society was formed. As one might expect it was ‘under the management of a Committee of gentlemen’ and was still offering rewards in 1859.[fn40]The known rewards offered for the ‘Isaacs’ gang, for instance constituted a powerful inducement; had Morten only been entitled, say, to only one-fifth of these (Fig.6), they would have represented something close to £12000 in 2023 values. But this was only part of it: back in 1851, in a letter to the London Standard (challenging criticism levelled against him at East Sussex quarter sessions over his pursuit of rewards and expenses), he noted that he was still waiting for promised rewards from ‘several prosecuting societies who were yet to meet’. A successful detective could make money, which is perhaps how Morten (on a comparatively low salary from the improvement commissioners) managed to acquire property, and how Dadson (ostensibly a humble miller and baker) collected wealth estimated by the local press at close to £1 million in 2023 values.[fn41] In law, of course, whilst there were many allegations of impropriety levelled against William Morten and James Dadson (especially after they hurriedly decamped), they were never actually convicted of anything. Clearly, they weren’t wholly innocent either. When James Dadson wrote to the police committee on 17 March, mentioning Boon’s statement and possible transportation if it was believed, it is hard to doubt that Dadson knew far more than he was prepared to admit. And at that time, of course, neither he nor the committee knew anything of the investigation made by detective sergeant Smith which ‘vindicated’ all of Boon’s claims. A few weeks after they had decamped, Morten and Dadson wrote a letter to Gilbert in which they implied that they would be content to return to face an assize trial provided they were given bail beforehand. Their apparent bravado was all very well, but whilst they remained in Belgium, they knew their bluff couldn’t be called. Despite his apparent enthusiasm for returning to England (albeit with conditions attached) Morten and his family seem to have stayed abroad. James Dadson, his wife and four of their children later emigrated to Brooklyn, New York, where he ran a bakery and bought his own house. Dadson died in the United States in February 1873. His eldest son George (a 14-year-old pawnbroker in the 1851 census) took over the bakery business in High Street, Tunbridge Wells (Fig. 8) and also had a successful local political career. PC Thomas Barfoot remained in the Tunbridge Wells police until he retired in 1869. He was granted a special pension from town funds as the police superannuation scheme had only been established a few years earlier. Ambrose Boon was transferred from assizes to Millbank prison and then to a transportation hulk at Gosport in June 1854. But he was never [pg180]transported, and the next year he was moved to Dartmoor prison whilst his case was reviewed by the Home Secretary, and in April 1856 released on licence.[fn42]

[fg]jpg|Fig. 8 James Dadson’s son George took over the family business. It did not seem to suffer as a result of the events of 1853 and prospered thereafter.|Image[/fg]

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Nigel Coles and Dr David Cox for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and for information on the extent to which enquiries in European countries were undertaken by mid-nineteenth century English detectives. Also, to Robert Bartlett for his comments on the activities of the ‘Isaac Gang’ and for allowing use of some of his research on crime in Surrey during the 1850s. Dr Ian Bevis is thanked for facilitating access to the Tunbridge Wells Commissioners’ papers held by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, and for his useful comments on early local government in that town.

[fn]1|Sussex Advertiser, 3 May 1853, Reynolds News, 1 May 1853.[/fn]

[fn]2|Sussex Advertiser, 15 February 1853 8, and 22 April 1851.[/fn]

[fn]3|Sussex Advertiser, 13 January 1852, Brighton Gazette, 12 August 1852, Canterbury Journal, 14 August 1852, London Weekly Despatch, 15 August 1852.[/fn]

[fn]4|This subscription fund was in addition to a reward of £50 offered by Chailey prosecuting society and another offered by the prosecuting society at Uckfield. The fund raised £94 and received contributions not only from the areas directly affected but also many from many Tunbridge Wells residents. By way of comparison, Superintendent Morten’s pay was raised from 35/- to 40/- a week in February 1853. Sussex Advertiser, 7, 14, January 4, 18, 25 February, 18 March, 12 April 1851). Though the membership of the gang changed from time to time it was, insofar as these things go, a cohesive structure. The local press, however, used several different names for what was effectively the same organization. At different times they were known as the Isaacs gang (after its leader), the Uckfield gang (after burglaries in Uckfield and Chailey), the Frimley gang (after the murder of Rev Hollest), and the Sussex Burglars. See Fig 2. Unless a direct quotation from a contemporary source is used the term ‘Isaacs gang’ is used in this paper. 181 DEREK OAKENSEN[/fn]

[fn]5|When referring to individuals, the term ‘constable’ is used in this paper to refer to parochial constables (appointed by the respective vestry and approved by local magistrates). ‘Police constable’ or ‘PC’ is used for those of Constable rank employed full-time by (in this case) either the Tunbridge Wells commissioners’ police or the East Sussex County constabulary.[/fn]

[fn]6|On relative sizes of police forces, see Stallion, M and Wall, DS, The British Police: Police Forces and Chief Officers, 1829-2000, (1999), Police History Society.[/fn]

[fn]7|Tunbridge Wells Borough Council Archives, Tunbridge Wells Commissioners’ Minutes (hereafter TWBCA, TWCM). The acquiescence of the commissioners as a whole, and the expectation by the Police and Lighting Committee that they would have unfettered authority to make decisions where the police were concerned, was to lead to some interesting power dynamics as problems with the police later unfolded. Though much smaller than the commissioners’ General Committee there were usually more members on the police committee than there were men in the police force, something to which pointed reference was made in the local press when problems with the police developed in 1852/3.[/fn]

[fn]8|As Rachael Griffin argues: ‘Metropolitan Police records indicate that the commissioners often had trouble in limiting the number of plainclothes men on duty because divisional superintendents ignored the rules and placed men in plainclothes at their own discretion. An exasperated police commissioner Rowan reminded his superintendents in 1845 “there shall be no particular men in the Division called Plain Clothes men”. In spite of these exhortations, however, undercover constables were constantly on duty throughout the metropolis, with or without official approval. (Griffin, R, ‘Detective Policing and the State in Nineteenth-century England: The Detective Department of the London Metropolitan Police, 1842-1878’, (2015), unpublished PhD thesis, university of Western Ontario). Hitchcock, T, Shoemaker, R, Emsley, C, Howard, S and McLaughlin, J, et al., The Old Bailey Proceedings Online, 1674-1913 (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.0, 24 March 2012).[/fn]

[fn]9|Morning Post, 2 December 1846; Evening Standard, 2 December 1846; Hampshire Chronicle, 5 December 1846; Brighton Gazette 10 December 1846.[/fn]

[fn]10|Morning Advertiser, 11 June 1847, Reading Mercury, 12 June 1847, Morning Post, 17 July 1847, Berkshire Chronicle, 17 July 1847. As well as circulating details of wanted criminals and unsolved crimes, Hue, and Cry (later renamed Police Gazette) identified the rewards payable to those who arrested wanted criminals. Arguably this was the most important part: rewards motivated a large proportion of Victorian crime detection. On additional rewards and gratuities that were actively sought by police officers in London, see Radzinowicz, L, ‘Trading In Police Services: An Aspect of the Early Nineteenth Century Police in England’, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, November 1953, vol. 102, no.1, 1-30.[/fn]

[fn]11|The Standard, 24 August 1847, Brighton Gazette, 26 August 1847, London Daily News, 4 September 1847; South Eastern Gazette, 14 September 1847; Morning Advertiser, 23 September 1837; The Old Bailey Proceedings Online, cases of Thomas Foster and Eliza Eaton, 16 August, and 20 September 1847.[/fn]

[fn]12|Dadson first qualified as a commissioner in January 1845, when he occupied Calverley Mill as a tenant. In April of that year, he was appointed to the committee appointed to consider the question of a new police station and “lock-up house” (what was to become part of the new Town Hall). His enthusiasm lasted, however, for only a few months, and then he failed to attend any meetings as a commissioner for nearly four years until December 1849. Later, he did occasionally attend General Committee meetings (he was never a member of the police committee) primarily to defend the actions of the police in general and Morten in particular when they were being criticized, especially during 1852/3, (TWBCA, TWCM, 6 January, 7 April 1845, Sussex Advertiser, 5 April 1853).[/fn]

[fn]13|Tunbridge Wells Improvement Act, 1835, (5&6 Will.IV, c.72). The Commissioners powers were extended by a further Act of 1846 (9&10 Vict, c.349). The franchise was limited to owners of property valued at £50 a year, and only men could vote. Policing powers under the 1835 Act extended to one mile beyond the rated area of the town. This was increased to 5 miles in 1846. Dadson later further qualified as a commissioner (and as a County Voter) through his ownership of freehold houses in Sion Terrace (Kent County Poll Books, 1847 & 1850). In a letter to the commissioner’s police committee in April 1853 Dadson claimed to have been a constable in the town for 12 years; Sussex Advertiser, 5 April 1853.[/fn]

[fn]14|Maidstone Journal, 3 August 1847; South Eastern Gazette, 31 August 1847; Brighton Gazette, 31 October 1847; Sussex Advertiser, 14 December 1847, 5 November 1850, 15 February 1852. 182 HEROES AND VILLAINS: THE TUNBRIDGE WELLS POLICE SCANDAL OF 1853 [/fn]

[fn]15|On the Mayfield case, see Sussex Advertiser, 8 February and 28 March 1848; on the Seymour case, see South Eastern Gazette, 7 March 1848; on the Cowden case see Sussex Advertiser, 14 March 1848, South Eastern Gazette, 14 March and 4 April 1848 and 15 October 1850, Brighton Gazette, 16 March 1848; on the Tonbridge constableship see South Eastern Gazette, 15 October 1850[/fn]

[fn]16|TWBCA, TWCM, 10 January, 15 February, 13 September, 15 and 18 October 1850.[/fn]

[fn]17|Sussex Advertiser, 15 October 1850.[/fn]

[fn]18|Sussex Advertiser, 5 November 1850. This ambiguity may well have arisen in part because the commissioners’ own police committee had kept the remaining commissioners at arm’s length from most decisions concerning the police. And it may in part have been uncertainty over Morten’s legal position as ex officio superintending constable for the Tunbridge Wells Division, an appointment made by West Kent quarter sessions under the provisions of the Parish Constables Act 1842 and 1851. It is unlikely that these two Acts would have taken precedence over the commissioners’ particular powers contained within the 1835 and 1846 local Improvement Acts.[/fn]

[fn]19|What Morten didn’t say at the time was that he strongly suspected that the burglary at Hollands Farm, Langton, was the work of members of the Isaacs gang; but because only cash was taken and, as none of the gang mentioned it when they were arrested in early 1851, they could not be linked to it. South Eastern Gazette, 9 April 1850; Sussex Advertiser, 9 and 30 April, 22 October, and 5 November 1850.[/fn]

[fn]20|Brighton Gazette, 9 and 23 January 1851; Sussex Advertiser, 7, 14, 21 and 28 January, 4 February 1851[/fn]

[fn]21|Sussex Advertiser, 14 & 28 January 1851; South Eastern Gazette, 28 January 1851. TWBCA, TWCM, 3 June and 25 October 1847. The letter was from the rector of Speldhurst, the Rev J Saint. He shrewdly indentified that behind it all was posturing by the magistrates and concern about the diversion of reward monies away from Tonbridge constables and into the hands of Morten and Dadson. In any case there was probably little love lost between Gilbert and Morten. In theory, Gilbert’s status was roughly equivalent to that of Morten as they were both superintending constables appointed by quarter sessions. Morten acted as if Gilbert was a subordinate and was dismissive of the part he had played in arrests in Surrey.[/fn]

[fn]22|Sussex Advertiser, 4 and 25 February, 11 and 18 March, 15 April 1851; Brighton Gazette, 13 March 1851. The addition of solitary confinement and hard labour was one of several changes to sentencing introduced by the Penal Servitude Act, 1853 (16 & 17 Vict, c.99). Transportation as a sentence was ended by the Penal Servitude Act 1857.[/fn]

[fn]23|This was not the first time that Morten had offered his own reward, knowing that if the offender were captured, he could then claim much more than the reward he was offering. In March 1849 John Young was released from Maidstone prison having served two years for housebreaking. Morten obviously thought he was carrying on as he left off. But he seems not to have been found and in any case the reward offered was only £1. Sussex Advertiser, 17 April 1849.[/fn]

[fn]24|Sources for rewards paid to Morten: Sussex Advertiser, 23 July, 6 August, 26 November, 17 December 1850, 14 January, 18 March, 1 April, 6 May, 10 June, 12 August 1851, Kentish Independent, 10 August 1850; The Standard, 9 June 1851.[/fn]

[fn]25|East Sussex magistrate Morgan, it would seem, had been a fairly strong critic of Morten throughout much of 1851 and his latest views expressed in the relative safety of the quarter sessions led to Morten writing a letter, dated 5 July which directly challenged much of what Morgan had said and drew attention to flaws in arguments he had expressed at the quarter sessional meeting. Interestingly, Morgan then seems to have said no more on the matter. Sussex Advertiser, 8 April, 1 and 15 July 1851. Disputes between early police forces were perhaps more common than some conventional historiographies identify.[/fn]

[fn]26|South Eastern Gazette, 24 June, and 1 July 1851; Sussex Advertiser, 1 and 15 July, 26 August 1851; Kentish Times, 12 July 1851; Kentish Gazette, 15 July 1851. Carwardine, A, ‘1851. The Crooked Clerk’, at https://tunbridgetales.com/2015/02/22/1851-the-crooked-clerk/ £4,000 then is equivalent to just under half a million pounds today.[/fn]

[fn]27|Brighton Gazette, 12 August 1852, Canterbury Journal, 14 August 1852, Weekly Dispatch (London), 15 August 1852, Sussex Advertiser, 19 August 1852. On the difficulties encountered by early detectives pursuing criminals on mainland Europe see, for example, Cox, D, ‘The origins of 183 DEREK OAKENSEN transnational policing: the continental activities of the Bow Street Runners, 1749-1839’, chapter 2 in McDaniel, J, Stonard, K, and Cox, D (eds), The Development of Transnational Policing, Past, Present and Future, (2020), Routledge.[/fn]

[fn]28|Dealing with vagrants was a major preoccupation of both the town police and their political masters. In the two years from November 1850 the commissioners’ own records show that over two- thirds of all arrests made by the Tunbridge Wells police were for vagrancy, whilst fewer than 1 in 10 were for felonies. TWBCA, TWCM, 28 November 1851, 19 March, 15 October, 19 November 1852.[/fn]

[fn]29|Sussex Advertiser, 13 April, 12 October, 9 November, 14 December 1852, 11 January, 15 February, and 3 May 1853. Morten had been appointed as Inspector of Common Lodging Houses, at an additional salary of £10 a year, in April 1832. As well as a pay rise for Morten, his de facto deputy, sergeant Swift, got one from 22 to 24 shillings a week. The constables were mainly paid 18 shillings weekly.[/fn]

[fn]30|Sussex Advertiser, 19 October 1852, South Eastern Gazette, 15 March 1853, Reynolds News, 1 May 1853.[/fn]

[fn]31|South Eastern Gazette, 15 March 1853, Sussex Advertiser, 5 April 1853, South Eastern Gazette, 25 March 1853.[/fn]

[fn]32|PC George Colman was, it appears, the officer who organised the letter that supported Morten and disparaged Barfoot.[/fn]

[fn]33|The Tonbridge magistrates did, however, agree to allow superintending constable Richard Gilbert to assist sergeant Smith.[/fn]

[fn]34|Sussex Advertiser, 22 March and 5 April 1853, Maidstone Journal, 22 March 1853.[/fn]

[fn]35|Sussex Advertiser, 5 April 1853, South Eastern Gazette, 12 April 1853. [/fn]

[fn]36|Sussex Advertiser, 31 May 1850; South Eastern Gazette, 31 May 1850. The actual enquiry into Gilbert’s culpability was conducted by the Tunbridge Wells magistrates, which was a bit rich considering that they had given him specific instructions to delay execution of the warrant in the first place. Though a few Tunbridge Wells magistrates had behaved creditably, the Tunbridge Wells bench as a whole were fairly supine. Gilbert, in any case, was responsible to the Tonbridge bench, and in the aftermath of the disappearance of Morten and Dadson the Tonbridge bench allowed Gilbert to spend time to help resolve some of the longstanding faults in the commissioner’s police.[/fn]

[fn]37|Sussex Advertiser, 3, 10 and 31 May 1853, South Eastern Gazette, 10 May 1853, Kentish Mercury, 7 May 1853. Despite by then knowing about detective sergeant Smith’s investigation there was still considerable support for Morten and Dadson from some newspapers. Amongst the arguments put forward were that complaints were largely being ‘made by Barfoot and his friends and whose statements must therefore be received with caution’ or that charges brought on the evidence of Boon came from someone ‘who has passed no small portion of his life in prison for various offences and is totally uncorroborated’. In fact, as later prison records showed, Boon was not the hardened criminal that Morten’s supporters wanted to believe he was; though he had four previous convictions, all of them were at petty sessions for misdemeanours.[/fn]

[fn]38|Sussex Advertiser, 17 and 31 May, 7 and 14 June 1853, West Kent Guardian, 21 May 1853.[/fn]

[fn]39|Emsley, C, The English Police: A political and social history, (1991), Harvester Wheatsheaf, 56.[/fn]

[fn]40|Colbran’s New Guide to Tunbridge Wells (1840); Brighton Gazette, 10 September 1829, 18 November 1830, 10 May 1838; Maidstone Journal, 8 January 1859.[/fn]

[fn]41|London Standard, 9 June 1851; what Morten claimed in the letter was that he and Dadson had already shared at least £130 (equivalent in 2021 terms to nearly £9000 each). And this was just those rewards and ‘expenses’ that he was prepared to identify in a letter to the press.[/fn]

[fn]42|Sussex Advertiser, 5 April 1853; Maidstone Journal, 8 August 1870.[/fn][pg184]