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American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS)
The Westminster Impostors: Impersonating Law Enforcement in Early Eighteenth-Century

London
Author(s): Jennine Hurl-Eamon
Source: Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Spring, 2005), pp. 461-483
Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press . Sponsor: American Society for
Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) .
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THE WESTMINSTER IMPOSTORS:
IMPERSONATING
LAWENFORCEMENT
IN
EARLYEIGHTEENTH-CENTURYLONDON
Jennine Hurl-Eamon
Imposture is a common theme in seventeenth and eighteenth-century En-

gland. 1 Stories and plays abound of people adopting different disguises and iden-
tities.2 Dozens of contemporary pamphlets describe great pretenders, who were
able to impersonate men of substantial wealth while disguising their own humble
origins.3 There are also accounts of notorious women who lived as men and man-
aged to fool hundreds of people before their true sex was finally revealed.4 The
prevalence of these con artists has led many modern historians to argue that gull-
ibility was more widespread before the nineteenth century. Richard Aldington,
for example, remarked upon "the easy credulity of the English people at this
period," and argued that they were drawn in by "an imposture and a set of imbe-
cile stories which you would think would scarcely have deceived a congress of the
feeble-minded."5 Richard Swiderski attributes "credulity" as the "charactertrait"
of the eighteenth century, and even Clive Cheesman and Jonathan Williams-
who are generally sympathetic to early modern Englishmen and women-describe
them (albeit fleetingly) as "ignorant populations."6
This article proposes, instead, that early modern gullibility was not greater
than modern, only different. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century con artists at-
tempted ruses that may seem ridiculous to a modern audience, but fit well within
the expectations of their intended dupes. For example, Glennda Leslie has ob-
served that Mary Toft's notorious claim to have given birth to seventeen rabbits
Jennine Hurl-Eamon is an Assistant Professor of History at Trent University in Peterbor-

ough, Canada. She has published articles in London History, the Journal of Family History,
and the Journal of Social History. Her book, Gender and Petty Violence in London, 1685-
1720, is published by Ohio State University Press.
Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 38, no. 3 (2005) Pp. 461-483.
462 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES 38 / 3
in 1726 was informed by the early modern popular and scientific notion that a
pregnant woman's imagination could dramatically affect the form of her fetus.7
In his study of Elizabethan drama, Lloyd Davis noted that, unlike today, "an-
drogynous disguise was... a generic commonplace that audiences anticipated,
understood, and were satisfied to see again."8 Natalie Zemon Davis argued that
the sixteenth-century courts could not imagine a scenario in which Arnaud du
Tihl could have obtained intimate knowledge of Martin Guerre's marriage, so
they believed his imposture. It was inconceivable that anyone else could discover
these private details, because such knowledge "was thought of as a personal pos-
session," known only to the individual concerned, and God, who would inevita-
bly judge all impostors.9 This article builds on these insights, and posits that
identity was often determined in different ways in the past. Rather than the facial
recognition commonly resorted to in our world of photography and identity cards,
dress, demeanor, and other symbols established a stranger's identity in the early
modern world.
Furthermore, the most popular form of masquerade in early eighteenth-
century London was not the dramatic type that crossed class or gender lines. I
have found, buried within the thousands of recognizances returned to the West-
minster Quarter Sessions between 1685 (when they begin to survive in virtual
completeness) and 1720, seventeen cryptic references to twenty-nine men caught
impersonating law officers in various ways. Unlike the heroes of their contempo-
rary pamphlets and broadsides, these false officials were not stretching the bounds
of the possible, but were instead taking advantage of very common identities for
men of their class and backgrounds. Hitherto unrecognized by historians, this
distinct type of imposture was more common than any other. The seventeen cases
amount to almost one every two years in Westminster, which is far more preva-
lent than the cross-class or cross-gender disguises depicted in popular literature.
As the most common form of imposture therefore, these twenty-nine men
can illuminate much about the nature of law enforcement and identity in early
eighteenth-century London. This type of impersonation was comparatively new
in the metropolis, illustrating, among other things, that by the end of the seven-
teenth century local officers were seen by their fellow parishioners as more dis-
tant, professional figures. Perception lagged behind reality however, because met-
ropolitan London's population grew faster in the first half of the seventeenth
century than in the second, making many urban parishes fairly anonymous long
before our period.10Nevertheless, before 1685, almost no London impostors chose
to act as parish officials. In the extant court rolls for the Middlesex County Ses-
sions (which includes Westminster) from the reign of Edward VI to James II-a
time spanning more than one hundred years-there are only ten records of men
impersonating officials.11 Of the ten, all but one describe con artists who imper-
sonated officials above the parish level. This is in direct contrast to the 1685-
1720 material, where many of the "official" acts of the impostors were in keeping
with those of local officers. Thus, the Westminster impostors reveal the increasing
perception of anonymity in urban government, and the changing behavior of
London's law enforcement officers.
/ The Westminster Impostors
HURL-EAMON 463
THE CASES
These men were not impersonating law officials in the modern sense be-
cause authority was a more fluid category in the early modern period. At the
outset, we must recognize that the seventeen cases here are a social, rather than
legal grouping. In other words, these men were charged with very different of-
fences, and contemporaries would not have understood them to be impersonat-
ing a law officer in the same way that we would today.12 All of the records are in
the form of recognizances, bonds to appear and answer a charge.13They give the
defendant's name, and usually his occupation as well, along with a sentence de-
scribing the offence of which he is accused. Four of the seventeen recognizances
recount men pretending to be constables, Marshalsea, or sheriff's officers, and a
fifth was caught wielding a constable's staff, "having no Right so to doe."14 Five
others were depicted in various ways as pretending to have the power to press
men into military service.1s To modern eyes, these can all be considered classic
cases of impersonating an official.
The remaining seven cases are slightly more ambiguous, given the nature
of law enforcement in early modern England. One man was charged with false
imprisonment, and another with using "pretense to search for prohibited goods."'6
Three more described arrest with a sham writ, while two others simply accused
the offender of attacking their victim "under pretense of arresting" them.17The
powers of arrest were held much more widely in early modern England, so it is
possible to argue that men who "falsely imprisoned" someone may not have been
perceived (and may not have perceived themselves) as impersonating a law offic-
er. However, by this period the powers of arrest of ordinary citizens were consid-
erably less than those of constables.18 Thus, these five offenders-faced with the
task of convincing their victims to comply with their demands-would undoubt-
edly have preferred to appropriate an official identity rather than rely on the
already dubious authority of a citizen's arrest.'9 The courts also did little to deter
such a choice, as we shall see, having no severe public punishments for such a
crime, as they did for many forms of theft by this period. Legally therefore, these
cases fall under a variety of categories, but this essay will argue that all bear
similar significance to the social history of imposture and law enforcement in
early eighteenth-century Westminster.
All of the cases depict scenarios where the defendant probably adopted
an official disguise to frighten the complainant into obeying his demands, and
these demands were almost always monetary. Laborer John Cope arrested a man
"without any warr[an]t for so doing," and then released him after he gave him
some money.20 Thomas Moore pretended to be "an officer of the Marshalsea
Court when in reality he was no officer," and took 19s. 6d. from Mary Fox for
releasing her husband from his custody.21 In 1718, Thomas Gale, John Stockwell,
and Thomas als George Scrivener arrested John Westell "in a sham action &
Extorted money from him & put him to twenty two Shillings Charge."22 There
are many other examples to indicate that money was a strong incentive in adopt-
ing an official identity.23
To be credible, these counterfeit officers of the law had to make use of
popular images of early modern London's law enforcement officers. Thus, these
records of their activities can reveal much about the contemporary perception of
the policing bodies in the early eighteenth century. Clearly, the impersonators felt
safe in portraying a corrupt officer, suggesting that many Londoners expected
these officials to be willing to look the other way for a fee.24 They would not have
bothered to disguise themselves as constables if they felt that people saw Lon-
don's police as incorruptible. When William Alstin pretended "to be a Constable
and t[ook] upon him [self] the authority thereof," for example, he was able to
convince Rebecca Crowther that she could bribe him for three shillings.25 Alstin,
and the others like him, made use of these officers' reputation for venery.26That
they were able to dupe their victims (even though they were later caught), attests
to the fact that the early eighteenth-century police had a reputation for corrup-
tion.
People also knew of constables who were willing to ignore wrongdoing
in return for sex, and John Hoskinson's imposture reflects this. Hoskinson, a
victualler, was caught by real constable Thomas Peake, "personating himself to
be a constable" in April of 1712.27 According to Peake, Hoskinson had used his
false identity for "picking up a woman," and he caught him "with his hand under
her petticoates."28 Hoskinson had taken advantage of the vulnerability felt by
any woman who found herself out after dark in early modern London. Any peo-
ple caught by the watch after dark who were unable to account for their presence
could be arrested for nightwalking, and women were especially vulnerable to this
offence.29 This vulnerability is particularly well-illustrated in an accusation of
rape brought by thirteen year-old Jane Allridge in 1707. The girl was "sitting
upon a pair of staires and being afraid of the watch being a late hour," when she
was approached by "a stranger" who "told her he would take Care of her and
secure her from the watch" if "she would suffer him to lay upon her."30He then-
according to Allridge-took her into a field and raped her. Hoskinson falsely
appropriated authority in order to take advantage of a woman who feared arrest
for nightwalking.
Again, this fits with other accounts of real constables. In October of 1705,
Constable Thomas Bayly was bound to appear at the Westminster Quarter Ses-
sions, and answer Mrs. Elizabeth King for "using her in an Undecent manner of
rudeness" after "having taken her upp for a common Nightwalker and ... offer[ed]
to put his hands up her coats."'31Bayly, and others like him, helped to perpetuate
the image of the lascivious constable, and Hoskinson and others drew their inspi-
ration from infamous officials like Bayly.32Thus, the records of imposture have
significant historical value in highlighting popular perceptions of real constables'
potential for lasciviousness and corruption.
AUTHORITY
However, these records can tell us as much about the perceived effective-
ness of the early modern legal system as they can about its corruption. These
women lifted their petticoats, and other duped victims opened their purses for
these false constables, because they feared the real arm of the law. By choosing to
appropriate official identities, these impostors were ironically reinforcing the au-
thority of the legal system. When George McKay "with two other p[e]r[s]ons
unknown" entered widow Katherine Atkinson's room, showed her a writ against
HURL-EAMON
/ The Westminster Impostors 465
her, and took her into their custody, she was sufficiently frightened by the power
of the law to pay a fine of "twelve shillings ... and upwards," in order to obtain
her freedom.33 By disguising themselves as constables and creating false writs,
McKay and other impersonators revealed their belief in the power and authority
of the law as well as its venality.
At first glance, it might be surprising that at least five of the 29 men who
impersonated law officers chose ruses involving press warrants for military ser-
vice. Impressment officers were some of the most hated men in English society in
the eighteenth century, and Nicholas Rogers has investigated the many riots and
protests related to press-gang activities.34 There were two wars during the period
1685-1720, and the operations of various press-gangs in the capital aroused par-
ticular ire. Westminster JPs heard numerous complaints from men serving press
warrants. In case after case, they claimed to have been assaulted or abused by
Londoners while they were trying to perform their duties.3s One press officer was
dragged through the mud of the Thames, and had the "Coals out of the Lighters"
thrown at him, while people threatened to tear out his liver.36Why would impos-
tors choose to appropriate the identity of an official so widely hated?
Impressment officers were hated because they were feared. If revenge were
the goal, the authority of the impress would have great appeal for an impostor.
This is certainly the case in the recognizance binding Isaac Bowler to answer for
trying to press Thomas James "into the kings service" in January of 1694. 37
There was strong animosity between James and Bowler, as the latter was living
"in publick adultry" with James' wife, and had already "threatn[ed] to kill him &
way lay[ed] him in order thereto."38 Bowler most likely saw a false impressment
as a convenient way of removing James from the city. Those recruiting for the
merchant marine also found imposture a useful tool. Thomas Naylor adopted the
disguise of a press officer for the Royal Navy, though he was in fact recruiting
soldiers for the East India Company.39 His victims charged him with "cheating
them of her Majesty's Bounty mony."40 Though Bowler's goal was revenge, and
Naylor was motivated by career aspirations, both examples illustrate that the
Naval press had a reputation for efficiency, which made it attractive to impostors.
The press officer was a favorite identity choice for impostors of official-
dom both before and after our period as well. Of the ten cases of official impos-
ture in the Middlesex court rolls for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, sev-
en described false impressments, and they also appear in London's Old Bailey in
the 1740s and 50s. Clearly, the impress service had long been a strong preference
of counterfeit officials. As early as 1620, Thomas Branch was bound to appear
and "answer for offering to presse divers of His Majesties subjects to serve him in
the Warres, pretending that hee had power and authority soe to doe."41 Though
the Old Bailey heard almost no cases of impersonating officials, the two men-
tioned in the eighteenth-century accounts involve press-gangs. In 1748, according
to the Old Bailey Proceedings, "four or five fellows" attempted to impersonate a
press-gang in order to avoid detection and capture for theft. Their victims testi-
fied that they "resisted, and asked whether [the impostors] had any authority,"
which of course they could not produce and immediately tried to escape.42 Seven
years later, another Old Bailey trial (this time for felonious assault) heard testimo-
ny that "the prisoner and his confederates were a sham press-gang, and extorted
money from people."43 This remark appears almost as an afterthought in The

Proceedings, and apparently did little to affect the outcome, as the accused was
acquitted of the assault charge. Nevertheless, its very casualness suggests its com-
monality.
This is born out in the recognizances for 1685-1720. Most often, those
impersonating press officers were probably like laborer Joseph Twiner, who, with
"divers other persons" went "about pretending they had a press warrant and did
press severall persons with an intent to extort mony from them for their releas-
ment."44 Impressment meant removing a man from his home and family, and
these impostors probably realized that many would have been willing to pay highly
for their freedom. Again, these false officials mimicked the behavior of real press
officers, who were often reputed to "carry away the best and ablest men in their
purses."45 The power of the press warrant was undeniable. By adopting the iden-
tity of the dreaded enforcer of a press warrant, these men paradoxically under-
score the authority of impressment.
In all of the cases of impersonation, including those involving impress-
ment, the victims were clearly intimidated by the threat of entanglement with the
law. These events occurred at a significant time in the history of England's crimi-
nal justice system. By this period, benefit of clergy had been removed from a wide
range of offences, putting in place the foundation for the notorious eighteenth-
century 'bloody code', and the lower courts and policing bodies were becoming
increasingly professionalized and pervasive within the parish.46 Many historians
have observed the highly discretionary nature of the criminal law at this time, and
Douglas Hay in particular has laid the groundwork for understanding the terror
with which many property offenders approached the courts, hoping for mercy,
but fearing death.47 The records of impersonation illustrate the small-scale work-
ings of this arbitrary system, and reveal the way in which people simultaneously
respected the authority of the law, and also understood its capriciousness. In each
case, people-most of whom must have known they were innocent-were initial-
ly willing to pay the law officer for their freedom, rather than taking their chances
before the courts.
We would never know of these cases if the impostors had not been caught
however, and thus they do provide something of a caveat on the histories of the
terror of the eighteenth-century criminal law. In every case, the men and women
who were initially duped by the false officer were not so frightened that they
failed to ultimately question their true identity, and chose to seek satisfaction
before a JP. Their prosecutions further support the scholarship that has augment-
ed Hay, and put a more humane face on the eighteenth-century magistracy.48
Thus, viewed from every angle, these records of impersonating law officers reveal
early modern men's and women's respect for, or fear of, the authority of the En-
glish criminal justice system.
LAW ENFORCEMENT
Such rather mundane cases of imposture are a window into the very dif-
ferent nature of law enforcement in early eighteenth-century London. These men
attempted this ruse because it was well within their repertoire as ordinary citi-
HURL-EAMON/ The Westminster Impostors 467
zens. Unlike today, many private individuals had the opportunity to participate in
law enforcement in early modern London.49 Londoners were expected to respond
readily to cries of "stop thief!" and "murder!" and attempt to apprehend the
offender and bring him or her to justice. For example, in 1705, two men walking
"in a Field between Islington and Holloway . . heard a woman calling out for
help, or else her husband would bee murderd," and they went immediately to her
assistance, though she had hitherto been a stranger to them.s Far more London-
ers actively participated in fighting crime in the early eighteenth century than
today.
Cynthia Herrup has studied depositions to determine the pre-trial activi-
ties behind accusations of theft in seventeenth-century East Sussex, and she ar-
gues that victims and other members of the community generally bore the brunt
of criminal investigation, with constables serving only on the periphery.51Simi-
larly, Peter King argued that "the key decision-maker in the eighteenth-century
criminal law was the victim himself," with the power to choose whether to bring
an offender to justice at all.52 More recently, Malcolm Gaskill took a very cre-
ative approach to argue that, by referring to supernatural signs, murder witnesses
subconsciously crafted their stories to ensure a guilty verdict against an individu-
al whom the community strongly suspected of guilt.53 Although these studies deal
primarily with villages, there are countless primary source examples that demon-
strate private citizens' extensive participation in the justice system of early mod-
ern London as well.54
Londoners also might have occasion to act directly with law officials,
similar to being deputized into service. During the morality campaign of the Soci-
eties for the Reformation of Manners, which ran between 1690 and 1730, the
private citizens who were members of the societies accompanied the constables in
their raids on bawdy houses. The law allowed the constable to "take company
with him" if he had reason to believe that "a man and woman of evil report
[we]re gone to a suspected house together in the night," and the reformers pledged
to "assist officers in ... Discovering Disorderly Houses,... taking up of offend-
ers, and carrying them before the magistrates."55ssThe members of these societies
were a significant presence in the enforcement of the anti-vice laws, bringing tens
of thousands of offenders before JPs during their four decades of operation.s6
Citizens also assisted officers in a more immediate capacity, such as when Shor-
land Adams heard "the watch cr[y] out stop theife," and chased down a man on
the street, or James Peareson claimed to have arrested a woman for nightwalking
while helping the night watchmen and constable on their rounds.57
Though public participation in law enforcement has a long tradition in
English history, it is only by the eighteenth century that constables' or watch-
men's identities would have been tempting to London impostors. As I mentioned
in the introduction, those who appropriated official identities before this period
tended to act as officers of institutions far above the parish level. In the reign of
Elizabeth I, a group of con artists donned the garb of Privy Council messengers in
order to extort money from innocent victims.58 In 1622, London's courts heard
that Thomas Williams "counterfeit[ed] himself to be a sworn messenger to the
high commission court, and the Archbishop of Canterbury"-an ecclesiastical
district that comprised half of England-and in 1657 James Fletcher claimed to
be "Surveyour-General of the affaires of Custom and Excise in Ireland."59 Lon-

doners expected this type of official to be from outside of the parish, and six-
teenth- and seventeenth-century impostors tended to choose this guise. By the
turn of the century, as we have seen, there are more counterfeit officials perform-
ing the more ordinary duties of the parish constable or watchman. This shift in
the type of official chosen seems to be the result of a change in perception. In the
final decades of the seventeenth century, con artists clearly believed that even
local officers would not be recognized in the metropolis.
Parish constables often served on press-gangs, and some of our early eigh-
teenth-century false impressment officers were probably pretending to act in this
capacity as constables. Clive Emsley has recognized "military recruitment" as
one of the key responsibilities of the parish constable, after that of maintaining
the king's peace.60 Assisting with impressments was prominent enough in lists of
constables' duties that there are several records of their attempts to avoid it. In
1709, for example, Constable John Eason refused to execute the JP's press war-
rant unless the Justice could guarantee his safety.61Thus, the Westminster impos-
tors who pretended to be constables would have found little difficulty in stretch-
ing their ruse to include enforcing a press warrant.
Interestingly, many earlier fake press officers chose not to act as a parish
constable serving a press warrant. Unlike the later examples, two cases from 1667
and 1672 indicate clearly that the impostors were pretending to be press-mas-
ters.62Press-masterswere generally current or former members of the Royal Navy,
understandably not recognizable to parishioners. 63 Though it does not explicitly
claim the counterfeit identity as a press-master, another Middlesex record (this
time from 1666) indicates that the sham officer operated in small communities
such as Soam and Stamford, where parish constables would undoubtedly be bet-
ter known, and thus a poor identity choice again.64 By 1685, it is not as clear that
false press agents were acting only as royal navy emissaries. Though none of the
records explicitly state that the sham press-gang comprised local parish officers,
they do not-unlike earlier examples-clearly show that the impostors were not
acting in this capacity.
That later impersonators chose from a wider range of official identities in
the metropolis is further borne out in the Old Bailey records. In the 1755 assault
trial mentioned earlier, where the prisoner and his friends were reputed to be
frequent participants in "a sham press-gang," they adopted other official guises
as well. According to testimony, when one member of the group was approached
by someone with a warrant for his arrest, another group member immediately
assumed the role of a court officer, telling the stranger "this is my prisoner al-
ready, and he shall not go with you.""6 When questioned for a warrant however,
the impostor was unable to comply, and his ruse was uncovered. This example
clearly illustrates the ease with which the impersonator of a press officer may
shift roles to become a constable or bailiff. These impostures were facilitated by
the multiplicity of duties that the genuine officials were expected to fulfill.
The records of imposture reflect another reality of the eighteenth-century
London constabulary: their lowly status. Constableship was a temporary, unpaid,
appointed position in early eighteenth-century England, and many men in the
metropolis were reluctant to serve.66 London had a reputation for the low social
HURL-EAMON
standing of its law officials.67 Even outside of the metropolis, the constable's job
was often taken by poorer men or paid substitutes, many of whom had a lowly
reputation.68 The position came with a substantial amount of authority, and in
principle, was meant to be held by an "able Man, both in Body and estate, and
not of the meaner sort."''69In reality however, constableship was within the reach
of a wide variety of Londoners. According to their prosecutions, the counterfeit
law officers were well within the social status of their genuine counterparts.70 Of
the fourteen whose occupations can be determined in the record, two were de-
scribed as gentlemen, two as sailors, two in the transportation trade, five as trades-
men of varying status, and only two as laborers.71
The fourteenth was, interestingly, an "officer to the high Bailiff."72 His
name was William Gwatkins, and he was charged with "Extorting... money
through ye pretence of being a sheriffs officer."73 Gwatkins serves as a window
into another distinct avenue to imposture. Men like Gwatkins had the tools to
appropriate officialdom because they served as city officials in other capacities.
Gwatkins clearly moved in the right circles and heard enough gossip to be con-
vincing, but he had no authority in and of himself to be a sheriff's officer.74Gwat-
kins also appeared as a defendant before the Westminster JPs on several other
occasions, and was clearly no stranger to transgression.75 The alternative identity
may have been attractive to him because it allowed more lucrative gains, since
sheriffs had powers to collect extra-parliamentary revenues for the king, and were
known to leave such work to their notoriously corrupt officers.76 In an age before
the professionalization of law enforcement, official identity was much more murky
and transitory, and all of these impostors benefited from this.
London's large population also created a unique environment for law
enforcement. At more than half a million by the end of the seventeenth century,
London's population was fundamentally fueled from without, rather than within,
by huge waves of migration-London's high mortality rate, combined with the
substantial exodus of disenchanted Londoners-had to be exceeded by a high
rate of migration into the city.77 Unlike smaller towns and villages, where one
would have known one's parish constable by his face, Westminster's constables
may not all have been well-known to parishioners. With a population of about
130,000 in our period, Westminster had eighty constables scattered among its
nine parishes.78 In such an anonymous environment, Londoners had to rely upon
non-facial systems of recognition of their various law enforcement officials.
IDENTITY
How, then, was identity established in early modern cities? At the outset,
we must recognize that the construction of identity was very different in early
modern England than it is today. Imposture, in the early modern period, was
more than good acting: it was a diabolical show of contempt for the divine order.
According to the early modern mentalit, "God hath appointed every man his
degree and office, within the limittes whereof it behoveth him to keep himselfe[,
and] Therefore all may not looke to weare like apparell, but every one according
to his degree, as God hath placed him."79 Furthermore, our modern age, with its
bright lighting (indoors and out), television, and photography, makes facial rec-
ognition far more prevalent than it was in the early modern period. Until the
twentieth century, most prominent figures were not recognized by their faces, but
rather by their regal bearing, costume, and entourage. Urban environments, in
particular, demanded non-facial systems of identification.
First, Londoners identified people by their general appearance and bear-
ing, which they considered to be a product of heredity and divine right, and thus
inimitable.80 Contemporary pamphlet accounts of infamous cheats record people
who were deceived by "wit and Breeding, and a hundred other genteel qualities,"
"a Magisterial Behaviour," or even "the alamode Shrug-cringe, and some other
Mimick Deportments," into mistaking a commoner for a gentleman.81 One con-
duct manual recognized the power of costume in effecting an identity, warning
potential victims that the London cheat "takes great care in keeping good clothes
on his back...; for they not only usher him into better company than himself,
but likewise procure him estimation where ere he goes."82 Aping the demeanor of
a law enforcement officer was even more accessible to common impostors, be-
cause, as we have seen, many Londoners had the opportunity to both observe and
participate in law enforcement activities. Similarly, where the more infamous im-
postors used dramatic changes of costume to effect a new identity, our impostors
did not have to make a class transformation or wear a uniform, and could imper-
sonate officialdom wearing the clothes already on their backs.83
Finally, Londoners looked for symbols of occupation or status to deter-
mine identity. One con artist adopted "an old suit of black clothes, and an old
tatter'd canonical Gown," in order to pass himself off as "a poor scholar."84
Another pamphlet talks of quack doctors carrying a caduceus, "with which they
walk[ed] with as much Gravity as a Spaniard," to convince people of their medi-
cal knowledge.8s Erick Berry has written about the significance of these symbols
in contemporary art, offering the example of an early modern hiring fair, where
seamstresses walked with scissors hanging from a ribbon at their waist, "carters
carr[ied] a whip[,] and maids[,] a broom."86 Everyone knew that men with swords
must be gentlemen, because this symbol of identity was enforceable by law, which
dictated that "no ... artificer, victualler, or labourer, shall wear sword or dag-
ger."87In the case of law enforcement officers, however, the symbols of identity
were all too few, or too easily accessible.
London's constables and watchmen, for example, were identified by very
few symbols of office. The latter bore very distinctive staffs, rattles, and lanterns,
and there are several records which indicate that impostors made use of these
symbols of identity to impersonate watchmen. A 1678 petition by City constable
Robert Wilkins observed that, by donning "halberds and lanthorns similar to the
watchmen's," criminals were able to pass by the City watch by claiming to be
fellow watchmen from another parish.88 One contemporary play performed in
Covent Garden saw a group of ruffians "strip the [real] Watchmen, and take their
poles and lanthorns," in order to successfully pass themselves off as law enforce-
ment officers.89 Parish constables were expected to carry a staff of office, which,
according to historian J. J. Tobias, was "the visible badge of authority and (in a
non-literate age) the equivalent of a warrant card."90 The London Spy of 1709
talks of a constable "clapping his painted sceptre to the ground," to proclaim his
position.91 However, our false officials may have been able to perpetrate their
fraud without a staff of office. The City of London's court of Alderman had to
HURL-EAMON
make repeated requests that its constables keep their staff of office on their per-
son or prominently displayed outside their doors, because many constables served
so reluctantly that they failed to use it.92 The staff was elaborately painted to
indicate the ward the constable served so it would have been difficult to counter-
feit, though-like the group of four men in our sample-some impostors may
have stolen one.93 If an impostor held a staff, Londoners would have undoubted-
ly gained assurance of his official identity from the complex parish marker it
bore.
With the proper equipment, our impostors could gain further advantage
by perpetrating their ruse along ward boundaries. Although none of the recogni-
zances mention a location for any of the crimes, streets that bordered or crossed
two wards would undoubtedly have been attractive to those wishing to imperson-
ate parish officers. In 1678, City Constable Robert Wilkins mourned the fact that
criminals carrying watchmen's equipment were able to dupe the night watch by
pretending to be watchmen "from another part of the City."94 Several decades
later, John Gay's play about felons impersonating watchmen had the scoundrels
decide to "improve the Jest," by going in their disguise "before some Justices of a
ward where [the real officers] are unknown.""9 London's population and com-
plex jurisdictional divisions only served to the advantage of those trying to im-
personate parish officers, and many probably acted outside of the ward with which
they claimed to be identified.
London's false officials took advantage of yet another symbol of identity:
the arrest warrant, or writ. Any officers in early modern England, who were not
"sworn and commonly known to be officers and act[ing] within their own Pre-
cincts," had to "shew their Warrants" upon demand.96 If they failed to do so,
"the party may make resistance, & needs not to obey it," according to early
modern Lawmakers.97 These proofs of identity were taken very seriously. By the
criminal law, even to be charged with fraudulent behavior in the early eighteenth
century, one had to have used an object. This "false 'privy token'" could be any
"visible mark or thing, as a key, a ring, etc. .. . [and] must be such as is calculated
to gain the party some additional credit and confidence beyond his own asser-
tion. "98
A constable's staff would have fallen under this definition, but almost
none of our recognizances describe the use of such a false token. In those other
cases, the use of a forged warrant would have sufficed as a false token to merit a
charge of fraud. Victims could not charge impostors in the criminal courts only
with "making a fool of" them; the impostor had to show a "voucher or token" to
back up his claims.99 Thomas Falconer used "a sham Marshalsea writt" to im-
prison Mary Harwood, for example.100Even when the recognizances do not men-
tion a false token however, the legal definition of fraud leads us to assume that
these impostors made use of a constable's staff or a forged warrant.
APATHETIC LEGISLATORS?
Let us consider the legal considerations behind this type of imposture.

One might expect to find false constables or other law enforcement officers in-
cluded in the laws against cheats or false pretenses, but the literature is almost
472 STUDIES 38 /
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY 3
entirely silent on this special category. Under certain circumstances, the offence of
"falsely personating another" was a felony, rather than a misdemeanor, but the
closest felonious offence listed under this heading was that of "acknowledging
deeds, fines, bail &c. in another name."101
Early modern lawmakers were certainly concerned about genuine law
officers extorting money from innocent citizens, but they did not extend this con-
cern to include similar practices by those falsely impersonating officials. William
Hawkins wrote that "Extortion in Sheriffs, Escheators, Bailiffs, Gaolers,... and
other inferior ministers and officers of the King whose offices do in any way
concern the Administration or Execution of Justice . . . have a farther additional
punishment" than other Englishmen convicted of the offence, but he did not go
on to observe that counterfeit officers might be guilty of a comparable crime.102
Similarly,there were various statutes against "particularkinds of frauds or cheats"
that were specifically perpetrated by "goldsmiths, ... servants, . . . officers of the
bank and of other public companies,... manufacturers, ... lodgers,. . . [and]
naval and military forces," but they offered nothing specifically about press offic-
ers or constables, and especially nothing about their impersonation.103
Thus, while the courts were interested in prohibiting corruption among
their officers, the impostures that we are examining did not receive any special
attention or legislation. There are several interesting glimpses into fairly similar
types of cases, however, and hints that judges had the potential to exhibit the
concern we would have expected over such abuse of the system of law enforce-
ment. A century earlier, Elizabeth I had concerns about her officers, and issued a
proclamation "ordering punishment of persons with forged credentials."104As
noted earlier, certain "deceitful persons" had been discovered impersonating
"messengers of her majesty's chamber," by "wearing boxes or escutcheons of
arms as the messengers do."105 They delivered false Privy Council warrants to
innocent victims, demanding their appearance before the Council, and "exact[ing]
fees of them for their labor and travail as though they had been expressly sent
from the court."106The Queen told her people that, henceforth, her true officers
would no longer request these fees, hoping that the false officials would then be
more readily discovered.
The Old Bailey-to the metropolis what the Assize Courts were to the
counties-also bears only cryptic hints to the existence of official impostors. The
trial descriptions were printed in a publication known as The Old Bailey Pro-
ceedings (OBP), which are now in electronic format. Unfortunately, keyword
searches allow little insight into this unique type of crime. Several different search
avenues produced very few interesting cases, most of which took place long after
our period. Furthermore, I have found no cases where an offender was brought
before the Old Bailey explicitly because of his imposture; instead, defendants were
on trial for unrelated crimes like theft or assault. The indirect nature of the OBP
accounts of impersonating authority made them even more difficult to uncover.
Those that have been located suggest that the Old Bailey had very little interest in
combating this type of crime. One witness' claim that "the prisoner and his con-
federates were a sham press-gang, and extorted money from people" appears in
the record as an afterthought, as I have observed earlier.107It is the penultimate
sentence in the case description, the bench did not ask the witness to elaborate on
HURL-EAMON 473
his charge, and the jury acquitted the prisoner.108The court displayed a similar
attitude in a 1748 case where a man charged with theft attempted, without any
proper authority, to impress his accusers. Again, the magistrates asked for no
elaboration on the witness' testimony that the defendant had impersonated a press
officer. They were interested only in the theft charges for which he was on trial.109
However, there are several examples to suggest that the Bench could find
the impersonation of authority repugnant. An Old Bailey trial of 1683 recounted
a group of middling tradesmen, who "would sometime, according to the Season
of the year, Travil the Circuits, and repear to Inns in Towns appointed for the
Assizes, and pretend to take up Lodgings for the Judge's Attend[ants]."110 The
men were actually on trial for theft, but the testimony about their aping of au-
thority may have helped to withhold the court's mercy. In previous cases, these
"notorious malefactors'" middling status had enabled them to receive "the Mer-
cy of the Court for past offences," according to the trial account. This time how-
ever, the jury brought in a guilty verdict.
Similarly, in 1725, the Court of King's Bench heard a case where a man
(rather ironically named Dupee) "took upon him to personate" a JP's clerk, "with
an intent to extort money from several people, in order to procure their discharge
from some misdemeanors for which they stood committed."111Dupee was asking
them to overturn his indictment because it only charged him with falsely imper-
sonating the clerk, and did not add that he had used any false token. The court
refused to quash it, however, and William East argued that "it might probably
have occurred to the Court that this was something more than a bare endeavor to
commit a fraud by means of falsely personating another; it was an attempt to
pollute and render odious the public justice of the Kingdom, by making it a han-
dle and pretence for corrupt practices."112Along with Elizabeth's proclamation,
these two examples suggest that there had long been an awareness of the poten-
tial for this type of abuse within the criminal justice system, and that law and
government attempted, at various times, to address the problem.
However, these periodic concerns over false law officials fail to generate
any systematic attempt to group such offences and legislate strongly against them.
Indeed, explicit concerns over "public cheats," or the particular type of fraudu-
lent behavior "leveled against the public justice of the kingdom," did not ac-
knowledge those impersonating law officials as a distinct factor in eroding the
effectiveness of the criminal justice system.113Sir Leon Radzinowicz, who pub-
lished a comprehensive five-volume treatise on the development of criminal law
in the eighteenth century with the assistance of an army of researchers, also failed
to note any visible concern with this type of imposture in undermining the sys-
tem. In a section entitled "Offences against the Administration of Justice," he
mentioned the false impersonation of those acknowledging bail and judgment,
but not the impersonation of a court officer.114This is further supported by East,
who cites four precedents relating to this special category of fraud against public
justice, none of which relate to the impersonation of a law officer.115Thus, it
seems clear that our impersonators evoked very little concern from lawmakers in
early eighteenth-century England.
The seventeen prosecutions themselves further support this lack of con-
cern. Recognizances were one of the mildest forms of prosecution in the English
474 STUDIES
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY 38 / 3
criminal justice system. In and of themselves, they are not an official prosecution
at all, representing little more than a bond to guarantee appearance at court. As
Robert Shoemaker has argued however, they were very popular among those pros-
ecuting misdemeanors in the metropolis, and were frequently used on their own,
without the indictment, against offenders.116Nevertheless, only by prosecuting
by indictment-a more serious, and more expensive, form of prosecution-could
victims see the offender tried and punished by the courts.117
Recognizances, by contrast, did not substantially punish offenders. At
best, they were inconvenienced, having to find sureties willing to post bonds,
usually for at least £10-a significant sum, given that a laborer might have earned
20 d. per day in 1700.118 Because of their amount, most people so bound made
the necessary appearance, or did everything they could to ensure that they were
not estreated, according to Norma Landau.'19 Still, however, prosecutions by re-
cognizance were not a very serious form of prosecution. It is thus significant that
fifteen of the seventeen cases of impersonation studied here did not go beyond a
recognizance-only two men of the twenty-nine might have served the spell in the
pillory that was the usual punishment for such false pretences.120One has to
assume then, that impersonating a law enforcement officer was not of sufficient
concern to the courts, or to prosecutors, to see offenders punished more severely.
The courts' lack of interest in punishing these offenders helps to explain
why more men would have chosen to impersonate parish officers in the early
eighteenth century. As we have seen in the previous section, it was comparatively
easy to counterfeit these sorts of official identities in London by this period, but a
vigilant and concerned justice system may have deterred our miscreants from
perpetrating this sort of fraud. Instead, many men probably got away with it.
There are several hints in the prosecution records to indicate that, even when the
ruse was uncovered, some eluded capture. Certain recognizances mention collab-
orators by name who were not visible in any other recognizances.121Even more
telling, George McKay was said to have committed his crime "wth two other
p[ers]ons unknown," and George Hearle also allegedly acted "wth Two other
persons" who probably evaded arrest.122Similarly, laborer Joseph Twiner "did
go about pretending" to have the authority to impress people for military service
"together wth diverse other persons" who remained unnamed.123The rapid ur-
banization of seventeenth-century London, combined with legislators' apathy to-
ward this type of impersonation, provided fertile ground for the Westminster
impostors.
CONCLUSION
In and of themselves, the twenty-nine men who appear in the Westmin-

ster recognizances for various forms of deception are a disparate and insignificant
group. Taken together however, they reveal many facets of early modern concepts
of identity and systems of law enforcement. Not all of these men were trying to
impersonate constables, and not all were charged with the same offence, but they
are all similar in the fact that they attempted to appropriate an official identity to
achieve some form of personal gain. Moreover, all of the scenarios used by the
impostors reflect the realities of early eighteenth-century law officers. Those en-
forcing press warrants and keeping parish peace were sometimes subject to ven-
HURL-EAMON 475
ery and susceptible to bribes, and the impostors made use of these perceptions.
Each of the accounts of imposture could be matched with literary and legal records
of real officers acting in a similar manner.
Ironically, these men who mocked and aped officialdom reinforced and
exposed the authority of those they impersonated. Historians have often looked
at records of transgressive behavior in order to discern the rules of conformity. In
the words of Margaret Hunt, "outsiders often have a more critical and a more
sophisticated view of a given society than insiders do," and, by breaking the "un-
spoken rules" of their society "they tell the historian a great deal about what
those rules were."124Just as transgressors are a window into conformist behavior,
this special group of law-breakers are a window into the legitimacy and power of
the law. Though the group studied here are only known to us because they were
later caught, these false officers were clearly able to command obedience in their
victims. Money, sex, or-at the very least-fear, are visible in the records, and
reveal early modern Londoners' regard for the law. At the same time of course,
their prosecution suggests that there were limits to the terror of the eighteenth-
century justice system, and victims could turn to it as well as be frightened by it.
This paper contradicts the popular historical sense that early modern
men and women were more credulous than their modern counterparts. By outlin-
ing the very different concepts and signifiers of identity in the early modern world,
it has hopefully shown that skepticism was just as present in early eighteenth-
century London as it is today. In the rapidly growing metropolis, people adopted
alternative techniques of identification. Before the age of photo I.D., they looked
for different signifiers. Rather than faces, style of dress and manner identified
individuals to their contemporaries. Officials were recognized by the symbols of
office they carried or the warrants they purported to enforce, and the significance
of these tokens was entrenched in the law of fraud.
In this period, the appropriation of authority was also accessible to a
wider range of men. Private citizens acted as constables, and many Londoners
had pursued and even arrested criminal suspects of their own accord. In an age
before the professionalization of law enforcement, official identity was much more
murky and transitory. Men might be hired to serve as bailiff or sheriff's assistants,
having pseudo official status, but no real power in and of themselves. From a
legal perspective, these men would not be considered to be impersonating officers
as much as acting beyond their authority. They did not elicit special vigilance
from the courts. Although there is evidence that the state was periodically aware
of this special category of imposture, there is no evidence of a systematic attempt
to address it, nor of a desire to link it to other offences that undermined the
administration of justice. These cases are a lens through which many aspects of
the eighteenth-century criminal justice system are visible.
In addition, the seventeen recognizances describing episodes of impos-
ture are significant to the historiography of fraud. It is widely recognized that the
opportunities for white-collar fraud increased dramatically by the nineteenth cen-
tury. In the words of George Robb, "fraud has been characterized as the growth
industry of our times."125The form of fraud constituted by those impersonating
constables however, has declined. Although Hillel Schwartz argues that impos-
ture can thrive in a modern age where "embossed papers substitute for person-
476 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
STUDIES 38 / 3
hood, identification cards for identity, [and] licenses for learning," our world has
in fact decreased opportunities for certain types of deception.126A professional-
ized police force has meant that impersonating a law official is a much more
extreme leap. Similarly, Britain's modern police force has less of a reputation for
bribery and corruption than its early modern counterpart, so the potential in
using the office for extortion is considerably lessened.
The evidence of the Westminster impostors also invites other compari-
sons beyond the scope of the current study. For example, similar research on the
French context would yield some interesting insights. It seems likely that oppor-
tunities for official impersonation would be even higher in France, where provin-
cial policing was carried out by ex-soldiers, most of whom would have been en-
tirely unknown to locals.127 Even within England, the investigation could be
broadened to determine with certainty that this type of imposture was unique to
the urban environment. More research is needed to fully assess the effect of loca-
tion upon this type of imposture.
This paper has argued that the late seventeenth century was a significant
period in the history of impersonating the law in Westminster. By this time, the
size of the metropolis created more anonymity, and Londoners had to look for
other signifiers of identity to determine authority. Similarly, the impostors could
take advantage of the potential for low status among urban constables, and the
many opportunities of private citizens to aid in law enforcement. They also ben-
efited from a criminal justice system that largely ignored this type of crime, and
allowed it to flourish. Ultimately, the Westminster impostors serve as a window
into authority, law enforcement, and identity in early eighteenth-century London.
NOTES
The research and writing of this essay was generously funded by Doctoral and Post-Doctoral Fellow-
ships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada. Many thanks to Nicholas Rogers,
John Beattie, and Barry Wright for offering their thoughts on the topic. Thanks also to all of the
attendants at the Modern British History Seminar in April 2003, McMaster University, and the
participants in the Politics, Patronage and Piety Conference at Dalhousie University in May 2003.
The anonymous reviewer and editors of Eighteenth-Century Studies also suggested significant revi-
sions to strengthen the article. Although former versions of this paper greatly benefited from all of
these insights, I take full responsibility for its weaknesses.
1. This article uses the term "imposture" as synonymous with "impersonation," and does not
identify the former with "the compulsive assumption of invented lives" and only the latter as "the
concerted assumption of another's identity, as does Hillel Schwartz, The Culture of the Copy: Strik-
ing Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimiles (New York: Zone Books, 1996), 72. Schwartz, 73, sees
imposture as a psychological disorder: "impostors want attention and love, and we betray them;
impersonators want our money,... and they betray us." For our purposes, both terms are taken to
mean the latter.
2. The examples are far too numerous to mention, ranging from Elizabeth Boyd's The Happy
Unfortunate, or the Female Page (1739) to Day and Chettle's The Blind Beggar of Bednal Green and
Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. For secondary sources on this seventeenth and eighteenth-
century literary theme, see Lloyd Davis, Guise and Disguise: Rhetoric and Characterization in the
English Renaissance (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1993); Victor Oscar Freeburg, Disguise Plots
in Elizabethan Drama: A Study in Stage Tradition (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1965); and Mary
Anne Schofield, Masking and Unmasking the Female Mind: Disguising Romances in Feminine Fic-
tion, 1713-1799 (Toronto: Associated Univ. Presses, 1990).
HURL-EAMON / The Westminster Impostors 477
3. These include A False Jew ... (1654); [Elkanah Settle], The Life and Death of Major Clancie,
the Grandest Cheat of this Age ... (London, printed by D. Mallet, 1680); Jean Baptiste de Rocoles,
The Lives and Actions of Several Notorious Counterfeits (London, Printed for William Whitwood,
1686); Diego Redivivus: Or, the Last Will and Testement of the Pretender Humprey Wickham Esq ...
(London, Printed for Abel Roper, 1692); Alexander Smith, The History of the Lives of the Most
Noted Highway-men ... (London: Printed for J. Morphew, 1714); The Life ... Of William
Fuller ... The Notorious English Cheat... 2nded. (London, Printed for A Bertesworth, 1719); The
German Rogue (London, 1720); The Jamaica Lady ... (London, Printed by Thomas Bickerton,
1720); and The Matchless Rogue ... (London, Printed for A. Moore, 1725).
4. See, for example, The Female Hector, or the German Lady Turn'd Monsieur (1663); General
History of the Pyrates ... (1724); Henry Fielding, The Female Husband (1746), and The Female
Soldier (1750). Patricia Crawford and Sara Mendelson have also unearthed a fascinating case in the
Bishop of London's Consistory Court in 1682, which recounts a marriage between Arabella Hunt
and Amy Porter, disguised as James Howard. Patricia Crawford and Sara Mendelson, "Sexual Iden-
tities in Early Modern England: The Marriage of Two Women in 1680," Gender and History 7.3
(November 1995): 362-77.
5. Richard Aldington, Frauds (Toronto: William Heinemann Ltd., 1957), 31.
6. Richard M. Swiderski, The False Formosan: George Psalmanazar and the Eighteenth-Centu-
ry Experiment of Identity (San Francisco: Mellen Research Univ. Press, 1991), 1, and Clive Chees-
man and Jonathan Williams, Rebels, Pretenders and Impostors (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000),
12.
7. Glennda Leslie, "Cheat and Impostor: Debate Following the Case of the Rabbit Breeder," The
Eighteenth Century 27.3 (1986): 269-86. Stephen Orgel, Impersonations: The Performance of Gen-
der in Shakespeare's England (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996), 127, advances a similar
point about women adopting masculine identities in sixteenth-century England. According to Orgel,
the early modern idea that women were imperfect versions of males meant that they could be thought
of as "masculine" when they acted in the public sphere. He offers the famous example of Elizabeth I
claiming to have the heart and stomach of a King for illustration.
8. Davis, 130.
9. N. Z. Davis, "On the Lame," American Historical Review 93 (1988): 602.
10. E. A. Wrigley, "A Simple Model of London's Importance in Changing English Society and
Economy, 1650-1750," Past and Present 37 (1967): 44.
11. These records can be found in John Cordy Jeaffreson, ed., Middlesex County Records (Old
Series), 4 vols. (1886, reprinted London: Greater London Council, 1972).
12. Indeed, there were no separate laws similar to the Police Act of 1964, Ch. 48 s. 52, which
specifically punishes "any person who.. . impersonates a member of a police force" with a maxi-
mum fine of £100. This was raised to £1000 in the Criminal Justice Act of 1982, Ch. 48 s. 39, sch.
3.
13. The legal implications of recognizances will be described in more detail later. For more on
recognizances as a source, see N. Landau, "Appearance at the Quarter Sessions of Eighteenth-Centu-
ry Middlesex," London Journal 23.2 (1998): 30-52, and R. Shoemaker, "Using Quarter Sessions
Records as Evidence for the Study of Crime and Criminal Justice," Archives XX, no. 90 (October,
1993): 145-57.
14. MJ/SR2187 R28, 18 Apr. 1712; MJ/SR2260 R212 7 Nov. 1715; MJ/SR2216 R130, 8 Sept.
1713; MJ/SR2211 R78, 20 June 1713; and MJ/SR1713 unnumbered, 8 Sept. 1687, respectively.
Note that all of the Westminster Quarter Sessions Records cited are from the London Metropolitan
Archives.
15. MJ/SR1831 R98, 31 Jan 1693/4; MJ/SR2047 R59, 16 Jan. 1704/5; MJ/SR2088 R5, 7 Mar.
1706/7; MJ/SR2128 R39, 12 Mar. 1709; and MJ/SR2348 R99, 10 May 1720.
16. MJ/SR1997 R62, 6 Oct. 1702 and MJ/SR1912 R47, 27 June 1698, respectively.
17. For arrest with a sham writ, see MJ/SR2078 R186, 27 July 1706; MJ/SR2138 R150, 6 Oct.
1709; and MJ/SR2305 R161, 12 Apr. 1718. For pretence of arrest, see MJ/SR1868 R130, 27 Mar.
1696 and MJ/SR2270 R9, 16 Apr. 1716.
18. Sir William Holdsworth, A History of English Law, Vol. III, 5thed. (London, Methuen and
Sweet & Maxwell Ltd., 1942), 601, observes that "in the latter half of the seventeenth century, the
law begins to emphasize the distinction between the powers of officials and the powers of private
citizens, and to give larger powers to officials."
19. It is likely that the victim of arrest would be more likely to question the arrest if the individual
attempting the incarceration did not impersonate an officer, as Holdsworth (pages 603-4) states that,
by our period, a constable's power to arrest on suspicion was widely "supposed to be inherent in his
office." In contrast, private citizens could only arrest "if the felony has taken place." Also, private
individuals only had power to arrest for felonies, where constables could arrest for "a mere breach of
the peace"-if one was trying to arrest falsely, it is unlikely that one would be able to convince
victims that they were under arrest for felony. Their suspicions would be less aroused if one simply
impersonated a constable and attempted to falsely imprison them for a breach of the peace. Accord-
ing to Matthew Hale, Historia Placitorum Coronae: The History of the Pleas of the Crown ... ,vol.
I (London, 1736), 583, if the arrest victim demands to see a warrant, constables, unlike private
citizens, are not obligated to produce it: "it is sufficient to notify, that he is the constable, or that he
arrests in the King's name."
20. MJ/SR1997 R62, 6 Oct. 1702.
21. MJ/SR2216 R130, 8 Sept.1713.
22. MJ/SR2305 R161, 12 Apr. 1718.
23. See MJ/SR2078 R186, 27 July 1706; MJ/SR2211 R 78, 20 June 1713; MJ/SR2260 R212, 7
Nov. 1715; and MJ/SR2348 R99, 10 May, 1720.
24. The words recounted in the Old Bailey Proceedings (OBP), spoken by a "gentleman" to "the
Watch," revealed his opinion of their venality: "you'll dance all Day long after a Gentleman to get a
Pint of Drink of him." OBP, 11-14 Jan. 1716/17 (London, printed for J. Phillips by M. Jenour), 3.
25. MJ/SR2260 R212, 7 Nov. 1715.
26. Keith Wrightson, "Two Concepts of Order: Justices, Constables and Jurymen in Seventeenth-
Century England," in John Brewer and John Styles, eds., An Ungovernable People: The English and
Their Law in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century (London: Hutchinson, 1980), 29, notes that
"some officers might abuse their public office by maliciously prosecuting private enemies or rivals or
by otherwise turning their brief authority to private advantage." He offers the 1625 example of an
Essex constable who ran an alehouse, and impressed its patrons for military service. The fake consta-
bles were simply imitating the dishonest among their genuine counterparts. Many among the con-
stabulary were very upstanding however, and Joan Kent, The English Village Constable, 1580-1642:
A Social and Administrative Study (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1986), offers a more positive
portrayal.
27. MJ/SR2187 R28, 18 Apr. 1712.
28. Ibid.
29. Paul Griffiths has observed a "feminization" of the offence of nightwalking by the mid seven-
teenth-century in London, when the vast majority of those charged were women suspected of prosti-
tution. Paul Griffiths, "Meanings of Nightwalking in Early Modern England," The Seventeenth Cen-
tury 13.2 (1998): 212-38.
30. MSP 1707 Jy/81, Information of Jane Allridge, "late a servant to Richard Volpey of St. Johns
Waring," 9 July, 1707.
31. MJ/SR2062 R100, 30 Oct. 1705.
32. The lascivious constable is visible, for example, in the seventeenth-century play about a con-
stable who arrested "a comely girle" for prostitution, and-"Though it may impaire his health, He
sleeps with her for th' good oth' Common-wealth." Henry Glapthorne, Wit in a Constable: A Com-
edy Written in 1639 (London: Printed by Jo. Okes, for EC., 1640), Act 5, Scene 1.
HURL-EAMON
33. MJ/SR2078 R186, 27 July 1706.
34. See N. Rogers, Crowds, Culture and Politics in Georgian Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1998), 85-121, for popular attitudes toward impressment for England as a whole over the eighteenth
century. Clive Emsley, The English Police: A Political and Social History, 2nded. (London: MacMill-
an, 1971), 16, also notes that "military recruiters... looking for men" were an important cause of
riots in the Georgian period.
35. See, for example, MJ/SR1831 R 125, 2 Feb. 1694/5; MJ/SR2047 R34, 10 Feb. 1704/5; MJ/
SR2073 R23, 28 May 1706; MJ/SR2078 R41, 24 Sept. 1706; MJ/SR2098 R134, 26 Aug. 1707; and
MJ/SR2265 R94, 19 Jan. 1715/6. Note that, although the latter case takes place during peacetime,
there were impressments in years of peace. Daniel Baugh, British Naval Administration in the Age of
Walpole (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1965), 151, refers to "about a dozen minor mobiliza-
tions" in the peacetime leading up to the War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739, "most of which could not be
completed without resorting to impressment."
36. MJ/SR2286 R102, 16 Mar. 1717.
37. MJ/SR1831 R98, 31 Jan. 1693/4. The recognizance also notes that James was "noe sailer."
38. Ibid.
39. MJ/SR2128 R39, 12 Mar 1709.
40. Ibid.
41. Jeaffreson, Vol. II, 156, 25 August 1620. See also Vol. III, 169, 16 and 19 April 1639; 248, 6
March 1656; 383, 1 July 1666; Vol. IV, 2, 30 May 1667; 35, 11 June 1672.
42. OBP, 15, 16, and 18 Jan. 1748, page 79.
43. OBP, 15-17 May 1755 (London, printed for M. Cooper), 195.
44. MJ/SR2348 R99, 10 May, 1720.
45. D. Kennedy, (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1959), quoted in N.A.M. Rodger, The Safe-
guard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain, Volume I, 660-1649 (London: Harper Collins, 1997),
400. Nicholas Rogers, 89n, notes the 1757 case of "a regulating officer... court-martialled at Ply-
mouth for impressing the sons of farmers and releasing them for money, by which he was said to
have collected £700."
46. John Briggs, et al., Crime and Punishment in England, 1100-1990: An Introductory History
(London: UCL Press, 1996), 74 and 57, respectively. On the professionalization of the legal system,
see also John Beattie, Policing and Punishment in London, 1660-1750: Urban Crime and the Limits
of Terror (Oxford; Oxford Univ. Press, 2001).
47. Douglas Hay, "Property, authority, and the criminal law" in Albion's Fatal Tree, edited by D.
Hay, P. Linebaugh, et al. (London: Allen Lane, 1975). See also E. P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters:
The Origins of the Black Acts (London: Alen Lane, 1975).
48. See, for example, Peter King, "Decision-makers and Decision-making in the English Criminal
Law, 1750-1800," The Historical Journal 27.1 (1984): 43-74; Cynthia Herrup, "Law and Morality
in Seventeenth-Century England," Past and Present 106 (1985): 102-23; and John Brewer and John
Styles, eds., An Ungovernable People: The English and their Law in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries.
49. By the eighteenth century, the state had a system of monetary rewards to encourage more
private citizens to capture thieves. Beattie, 401-6.
50. MSP 1705 Ap/52, "The Informacon of Job Fornworth of the Parish of St. James," dated 12
Apr. 1705. For a similar incident, see also MSP 1697 Dec/27-29, ff 27, "The Informacon of Elizabeth
Webster daughter of Mathew Webster," dated 1 Nov. 1697.
51. Cynthia Herrup, "New Shoes and Mutton Pies: Investigative Responses to Theft in Seven-
teenth-Century East Sussex," The Historical Journal 27.4 (1984): 811-30.
52. King, 27.
53. Malcolm Gaskill, "Reporting Murder: Fiction in the Archives in Early Modern England,"
Social History 23.1 (January 1998): 1-30.
54. For example, Hester Pepper deposed before the Old Bailey that, when a man tore her pocket
and ran away with it, she cried "stop thief," and people nearby gave chase and "carry'd" the offend-
er "before a Justice." OBP, 27-29 Apr. 1720. MSP 1711 Jy/71, "Informacon of James Mortimer of
Kingsland Comon in the Parish of St. Mary Islington," dated 2 June 1711, described a Middlesex
cowkeeper who spotted a man whom he "suspect[ed] ... to be a Horsestealer." The cowkeeper "de-
sired some Haymakers thereby to assist him in apprehending" the alleged horsethief, which they did
and immediately discovered a halter, a "set of Picklock Keys," and various weapons on the man,
resulting in his arrest for horsetheft.
55. Richard Burn, Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer V. III, 2nded. (London, Printed by A.
Strahan, 1814), 278, and A Help to A National Reformation ... (London, Printed and sold by D.
Brown, B. Aylmer, T. Parkhurst..., 1700), respectively.
56. See Robert Shoemaker, "Reforming the City: The Reformation of Manners Campaign in Lon-
don, 1690-1738," in Davison, L. et al., eds., Stilling the Grumbling Hive: The Response to Social
and Economic Problems in England, 1689-1750 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), 105, Table
6.1, for the substantial numbers of people prosecuted by the societies.
57. MSP 1707 Sept/16, "Informacon of Shorland Adams," dated 28 Aug. 1707, and MSP 1707
Jy/80, Examination of James Peareson, 9 July 1707, respectively.
58. Proclamation 779, in P.L. Hughes and J.F. Larkin, eds., Tudor Royal Proclamations, Vol. III,
1588-1603 (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1969), 159-60.
59. Jeaffreson, Vol. II, 166, 6 May 1622 and Vol. III, 261-2, 10 August 1657. See also an account
from Taunton Assizes, August 1657, of "several men that go up and down fourteen hundreds of the
eastern side of this county under the notion of water bailiffs, eyslaying fines and receiving monies
from several poor people there." Andrew Barrett and Christopher Harrison, eds., Crime and Punish-
ment in England: A Sourcebook (London: UCL Press, 1999), 96-7.
60. Emsley, 12.
61. MJ/SR2128 R90, 25 Mar. 1709. Many local government officials could refuse to cooperate
with press-gangs. Nicholas Rogers, 93-4 gives examples of JPs and even a Mayor who vocally op-
posed impressment. N.A.M. Rodger, 399, describes a High Constable who first pretended to be
away from home, and then told the press-master that "he had friends to supper and could not assist"
them.
62. Jeaffreson, Vol. IV, 2, 30 May 1667; 35, 11 June 1672.
63. Rodger, 399.
64. Jeaffreson, Vol. III, 383, 1 July 1666.
65. OBP, 15-17 May 1755, page 194.
66. These men would often pay deputies to take their place, and Beattie, 140-9, has argued that
this resulted in a group of 'professional', full-time constables, who simply served as paid substitutes
for each appointed constable in turn.
67. Beattie, 139, in his study of the City of London found that the wards "with a larger and more
diverse population [had] more ... constables . . . among the poorer householders." Though he took
care to stress that it was "only a part of the picture," Clive Emsley, 11, stated that "the courts show
that there were corrupt, ignorant and poor constables during the Tudor and Stuart periods."
68. Wrightson, 26-9.

69. W. Nelson, The Office and Authority of a Justice of the Peace, 5thed. (London, 1750), 176.
70. Genuine law officials' other trades are often only discernable when they appear as defendants.
One petty constable was listed as a "taylor" in James Harvey, A Collection of Precedents Relating to
the Office of a Justice of Peace (London, 1730), 162. MJ/SR1734 R5, R4 & R2, 5 Oct. 1688 and
MJ/SR2138 R101 & R100, 23 July 1709 bind watchmen to appear and list them as fishmongers,
HURL-EAMON
tailors, distillers, and laborers, respectively. Constable Gabriel Pilkington was a pastry cook, and
once refused to serve a warrant because he "was then making Pyes." MJ/SR2290 R205, 8 May 1717.
71. Other than "gentleman" and "laborer," which appear as such in the record, "mariner" and
"seaman" have been classed as sailors; "coachman" and "chairman" have been classed as transpor-
tation trade; and "vintner," "butcher," "chandler," "shoemaker" and "victualler" have been classed
as tradesmen.
72. MJ/SR2211 R78, 20 June 1713.
73. Ibid.
74. I am grateful to Professor John Beattie for offering this possibility.
75. Gwatkins' recognizance is also marked "defalt" indicating that he failed to appear and meet
the conditions of his bond. A "William Gwatkins Jun" is also listed as an accessory in an imposture
in 1709 for "arresting [a woman] in a sham Marshalsea writt" and falsely imprisoning her. MJ/
SR2138 R150, 6 Oct. 1709. It seems safe to assume that it is the same William Gwatkins. A man of
the same name was charged with six violent attacks before Westminster Quarter Sessions between
1685 and 1720, although not all of these may relate to the same man: the final appearance indicates
that there was a William Gwatkins, Senior. MJ/SR1841 R82, 16 Aug. 1694; MJ/SR1897 R159, 7
July 1697; MJ/SR2032 R80, 3 July 1704; MJ/SR2143 R91, 6 Jan. 1709/10; MJ/SR2245 R165, 21
Mar. 1715; and MJ/SR2290 R31, 18 June 1717.
76. Cyrus Harreld Karraker, The Seventeenth-Century Sheriff, A Comparative Study of the Sher-
iff in England and the Chesapeake Colonies, 1607-1689 (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press,
1930), 19, 59.
77. Wrigley, 44, 46-9.
78. Sir Leon Radzinowicz, A History of English Criminal Law and its Administration from 1750,
Vol. II (London: Stevens & Sons Ltd., 1956), 173, 187.
79. "Homilie against Excesse of Apparell" quoted in Davis, 131.
80. This is visible, for example, in a seventeenth-century depiction of Perkin Warbeck (a man "of
the meanest Birth"), who was trained by a duchess to impersonate the Duke of York, which argued
that "Persons of... Quality and birth have an Instinct not to be described, to follow in the steps of
their Glorious Ancestors .. ." Jean Baptiste de Rocoles, The Lives and Actions of Several Notorious
Counterfeits (London, Printed for William Whitwood, 1686), 79.
81. Elkanah Settle, The Second Part of the Notorious Impostor ... (London, printed for Abel
Roper, 1692), 18; The Life . . . of William Fuller ... 2nded. (London, Printed for A Bertesworth,
1719), 7; and W.J., Youths Safety ... (London, Sold by E. Whitlock, 1698), 11, respectively.
82. [Richard Head], Protesu Redivivus: The Art of Wheedling, or Insinuation ... (London, printed
for W.D., 1684), 159.
83. I can find no record of any of the officials in question wearing uniforms, although Beatrice
and Sidney Webb, English Local Government: A Series . . . on the Growth and Structure of English
Local Government (1903, reprinted London: E Cass, 1963), 207, note that an early modern Beadle
has both a coat and staff of office.
84. Alexander Smith, The History of the Lives of the most noted Highway-men... (London:
Printed for J. Morphew, 1714), 193.
85. The Young man's Counsellor ... 2nded. (London, printed for Robert Gifford, 1713), 110.
86. Erick Berry, The Four Londons of William Hogarth (New York: David McKay Company,
Inc., 1964), 81.
87. The Compleat Justice (London: 1656), 17. See also Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice
(London: 1655), 38.
88. Donald Rumbelow, I Spy Blue: The Police and Crime in the City of London from Elizabeth I
to Victoria (London: MacMillan, 1971), 55.
482 STUDIES
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY 38 / 3
89. Gay, 84 and 95 respectively.
90. J .J. Tobias, Crime and Police in England, 1700-1900 (Dublin: Gill and Mamillan, 1979), 30.
91. Edward Ward, The London Spy: The Vanities and Vices of the Town Exposed to View (1709,
reprinted London: Cassel and Co. Ltd., 1927), 32.
92. Beattie, 122.
93. MJ/SR1713 unnumbered, 8 Sept. 1687.
94. Rumbelow, 55.
95. Gay, 89.
96. William Hawkins, A Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown, Book II (London, Elizabeth Nutt,
1716), 85-6.
97. Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice ... (1619, reprinted London: Professional Books Ltd.,
1973), 304.
98. Edward Hyde East, A Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown, Vol. II (London: A. Strahan, 1803),
826. Interestingly, as Tom Hadden observes, "the use of some false token was the crucial test both at
common law and under the Act" of 1541-42, but finally began to decline after the false pretences act
in 1757, and "a mere lie," was increasingly indictable under the fraud laws. Tom Hadden, "The
Origin and Development of Conspiracy to Defraud," The American Journal of Legal History 11, no.
1 (1967): 26-31.
99. Burn, Vol. I, 641. See also 642, and East, Vol. II, 819.
100. MJ/SR2138 R150, 6 Oct. 1709.
101. East, Vol. II, 1009.
102. Hawkins, Book I, 171.
103. East, Vol. II, 834.
104. Proclamation 779, in Hughes, 159.
105. Ibid., 159-60.
106. Ibid, 160.
107. OBP, 15-17 May 1755, page 195. See note 38, above.
108. After his acquittal, the defendant was detained to be tried at Quarter Sessions in Hick's Hall
for a misdemeanor which was unrelated to the witness' charge of impersonating a press officer.
109 OBP, 15, 16, and 18 Jan. 1748, pages 77-80.
110. One of the accused "was taken at a Hatmakers," and worked in that trade and "several" of
the others "are suspected to follow the said course of life" according to testimony. OBP, 10-12
October, 1683 (London), 3.
111. Rex v. Dupee, M. 12 Geo. I 2 Sess. Cas 11.
112. East, Vol. II, 1011.
113. Ibid., 821.
114. Sir Leon Radzinowicz, A History of English Criminal Law and its Administration from 1750,
Vol. I (London: Stevens and Sons Ltd., 1948), 622-4, also included offences for allowing prisoners to
escape, returning from transportation before one's time was up, taking rewards "to help stolen goods,"
etc.
115. East, Vol. II, 821. The precedents included standing for bail with a feigned name, acknowl-
edging a fine of someone else's lands in their name, acknowledging a judgment in someone else's
name, and impersonating someone else when standing bail.
HURL-EAMON 483
116. Robert Shoemaker, Prosecution and Punishment: Petty Crime and the Law in London and
Rural Middlesex, c. 1660-1725 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991), 25, 27. I have taken a
similar position in my own work. Jennine Hurl-Eamon, "'She being bigg with child is likely to mis-
carry': Pregnant Women Prosecuting Assault in London, 1685-1720," London Journal 24.2 (De-
cember 1999): 18-33, and idem, "Domestic Violence Prosecuted: Women Binding Over their Hus-
bands for Assault at Westminster Quarter Sessions, 1685-1720" Journal of Family History 26.4
(October, 2001): 435-54.
117. Even then, he or she would only face a trial if there was sufficient evidence to cause a Grand
Jury to declare the indictment a "true bill," and the defendant would only be punished if he or she
received a guilty verdict.
118. The money wage of a building laborer. L.D. Schwartz, London in the Age of Industrialization:
Entrepreneurs, Labor Force and Living Conditions, 1700-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press,
1992), 170.
119. N. Landau, "Appearance at the Quarter Sessions of Eighteenth-Century Middlesex," London

Journal 23.2 (1998): 23-52, reveals that the principals to recognizances and their sureties scrambled
to pay the resulting fines in order to avoid being liable for their very expensive bonds. If the offenders
were unable to comply at any stage in the process, they risked imprisonment. If they did appear, they
still had to pay a fee-though a smaller amount (2s.)-which went to the quarter sessions clerk, plus
an additional 4d for the town crier.
120. Only MJ/SR2088 R5, 7 Mar. 1706/7 and MJ/SR2260 R212, 7 Nov. 1715 bore clerical anno-
tations to indicate that the prosecution had generated an indictment. The former defendant entered
a plea of guilty and the latter, not guilty. For the punishments for fraud, see Hawkins, Book I, 188.
121. See, for example, MJ/SR2138 R15, 6 Oct. 1709 and MJ/SR2305 R161, 12 Apr. 1718. The
named accomplices may still have been prosecuted-they might not have had sufficient resources or
contacts to enter into a recognizance, and would thus have been committed to gaol to ensure their
appearance at the next Quarter Sessions. This was probably not the case in at least one instance
however, as the former example lists William Gwatkins Junr as a defendant, and he was able to enter
into recognizances on other occasions.
122. MJ/SR2078 R186, 27 July 1706 and MJ/SR2270 R9, 16 Apr. 1716, respectively.
123. MJ/SR2348 R99, 10 May 1720. MJ/SR1912 R47, 27 June 1698 also mentions the offender
acting "with several others," unnamed.
124. M. R. Hunt, The Middling Sort: Commerce Gender and the Family in England (Berkeley:
Univ. of California Press, 1996), 94.
125. George Robb, White-Collar Crime in Modern England: Financial Fraud and Business Moral-
ity, 1845-1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992), 1. See also, Randal McGowen, "From
Pillory to Gallows: The Punishment of Forgery in the Age of the Financial Revolution" Past and
Present 165 (1999): 107-40.
126. Schwartz, The Culture of the Copy, 71.

127. Though "roughly three-quarters... were serving in their province of origin," Clive Emsley
notes that "the central government went out of its way to reduce informal contacts between the
marechaussee ... by putting the brigades in barracks, emphasizing the military nature of the corps
and by reducing the number of men serving in their birth-place." Certain provinces, such as Brittany
and Aunis, were policed by a much higher proportion of outsiders. Clive Emsley, Policing and its
Context, 1750-1870 (London: Macmillan Press, 1983), 16.

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The Westminster Impostors: Impersonating Law Enforcement in Early Eighteenth-Century

You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

Imposture is a common theme in seventeenth and eighteenth-century En-

Jennine Hurl-Eamon is an Assistant Professor of History at Trent University in Peterbor-

Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 38, no. 3 (2005) Pp. 461-483.

money from people."43 This remark appears almost as an afterthought in The

be "Surveyour-General of the affaires of Custom and Excise in Ireland."59 Lon-

Let us consider the legal considerations behind this type of imposture.

In and of themselves, the twenty-nine men who appear in the Westmin-

5. Richard Aldington, Frauds (Toronto: William Heinemann Ltd., 1957), 31.

9. N. Z. Davis, "On the Lame," American Historical Review 93 (1988): 602.

20. MJ/SR1997 R62, 6 Oct. 1702.

21. MJ/SR2216 R130, 8 Sept.1713.

22. MJ/SR2305 R161, 12 Apr. 1718.

25. MJ/SR2260 R212, 7 Nov. 1715.

27. MJ/SR2187 R28, 18 Apr. 1712.

31. MJ/SR2062 R100, 30 Oct. 1705.

33. MJ/SR2078 R186, 27 July 1706.

36. MJ/SR2286 R102, 16 Mar. 1717.

39. MJ/SR2128 R39, 12 Mar 1709.

42. OBP, 15, 16, and 18 Jan. 1748, page 79.

44. MJ/SR2348 R99, 10 May, 1720.

52. King, 27.

60. Emsley, 12.

62. Jeaffreson, Vol. IV, 2, 30 May 1667; 35, 11 June 1672.

63. Rodger, 399.

64. Jeaffreson, Vol. III, 383, 1 July 1666.

65. OBP, 15-17 May 1755, page 194.

68. Wrightson, 26-9.

72. MJ/SR2211 R78, 20 June 1713.

74. I am grateful to Professor John Beattie for offering this possibility.

77. Wrigley, 44, 46-9.

79. "Homilie against Excesse of Apparell" quoted in Davis, 131.

89. Gay, 84 and 95 respectively.

92. Beattie, 122.

93. MJ/SR1713 unnumbered, 8 Sept. 1687.

94. Rumbelow, 55.

95. Gay, 89.

100. MJ/SR2138 R150, 6 Oct. 1709.

101. East, Vol. II, 1009.

102. Hawkins, Book I, 171.

103. East, Vol. II, 834.

104. Proclamation 779, in Hughes, 159.

105. Ibid., 159-60.

106. Ibid, 160.

109 OBP, 15, 16, and 18 Jan. 1748, pages 77-80.

111. Rex v. Dupee, M. 12 Geo. I 2 Sess. Cas 11.

112. East, Vol. II, 1011.

113. Ibid., 821.

119. N. Landau, "Appearance at the Quarter Sessions of Eighteenth-Century Middlesex," London

126. Schwartz, The Culture of the Copy, 71.

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