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Containment: Managing Street Prostitution in London, 1918–1959

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Stefan Anthony Slater
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , April 2010 , pp. 332 - 357
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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2010

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References

1 Gosling, John and Warner, Douglas, The Shame of a City: An Inquiry into the Vice of London (London, 1960), 7.Google Scholar

2 Daily Express, Daily Herald, Daily Mirror, News Chronicle, 15 March 1951; People, 1 July 1951; News of the World, 13 September 1953.

3 Self, Helen J., Prostitution, Women and Misuse of the Law: The Fallen Daughters of Eve (London, 2003), 104Google Scholar; The National Archives (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), Home Office (HO) 345/12, CHP/TRANS/1, statement of P. Allen, Home Office assistant under-secretary, Criminal and Police Division, 15 October 1954, 14, q. 133; TNA: PRO, HO 345/12, CHP/TRANS/10, statement of Paul Bennett, Marlborough Street Police Court magistrate, 5 January 1955, 760, q. 1; A. C. Bridge, vicar of Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, to the editor of The Times, 15 October 1958; House of Commons Debates, 5s., vol. 598, comment of R. A. Butler, home secretary, 29 January 1959, col. 1271, and comment of Walter Edwards, MP for Stepney, 29 January 1959, col. 1342.

4 TNA: PRO, Records of the Metropolitan Police Office (MEPO) 2/9367, Chief Superintendent “C” minute, 30 October 1952.

5 Young, Edwyn, Farrington, H. E., Ramsay, Edith, Paterson, M. C., and Williamson, Joseph, Vice Increase in Stepney (London, 1957)Google Scholar, quotation at 1. Father Joseph Williamson (vicar of St. Paul’s, Dock Street, London Docks), another coauthor, credits Ramsay as being “entirely responsible” for the report (Lambeth Palace Library, Fisher Papers, vol. 239, Williamson to the secretary of the archbishop of Canterbury, 1 [?] May 1960, fols. 213–14).

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8 Dench, Geoff, Maltese in London: A Case-Study in the Erosion of Ethnic Consciousness (London, 1975), 92.Google Scholar For a harrowing account of prostitution in the Cable Street area of Stepney, see Worth, Jennifer, Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950s (London, 2002), 160–89.Google Scholar

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11 Ibid., 322. Other studies that adopt the notion of such decline and rise without critical comment include Pugh, Martin, “We Danced All Night”: A Social History of Britain between the Wars (London, 2008), x, 105Google Scholar; Smithies, Edward, Crime in Wartime: A Social History of Crime in World War II (London, 1982), 142Google Scholar; and Thomas, Donald, Villains’ Paradise: Britain's Underworld from the Spivs to the Krays (London, 2005), 265.Google Scholar

12 In a rare example of dissent, Dominic Sandbrook (White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties [London, 2006], 486) states that there were fewer prostitutes in London during the 1950s than before the war.

13 Following on from his journalistic exposés, Duncan Webb continued to write about the Messina brothers in his Crime Is My Business (London, 1953), 128–69Google Scholar, and in his Deadline for Crime (London, 1955), 78–118.Google Scholar Historians who write in this vein include Fergus Linnane (London's Underworld: Three Centuries of Vice and Crime [London, 2003], 245–49, 322–23), Morton, James (Gangland Soho [London, 2008], 123–31)Google Scholar, and Murphy, Robert (Smash and Grab: Gangsters in the London Underworld, 1920–60 [London, 1993], 105–12).Google Scholar

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29 Public General Acts, 2 and 3 Vict., cap. 47.

30 Public General Acts, 5. Geo. V., cap. 83.

31 TNA: PRO, HO 45/12663, Police Commissioner W. Horwood to the Home Office under-secretary, 4 February 1925. A former clerk at Bow Street Police Court remarked: “I never once … in those days saw the previous conviction proved as required by the law, so that every one of these adjudications as rogue and vagabond was illegal and could have been quashed on certiorari” (Lieck, Albert, Bow Street World [London, 1938], 220Google Scholar).

32 Indeed, men were never viewed as objects for reform in the same way that women were. Official concerns with homosexuality involved anxiety over their behavior as opposed to the commercial nature of the act. Moreover, from a cultural perspective, the use of male prostitutes is classified historically as part of gay male behavior. See Bartley, Paula, Prostitution: Prevention and Reform in England, 1860–1914 (London, 2000), 25Google Scholar; Henderson, Disorderly Women, 3; and Jeffreys, Sheila, The Idea of Prostitution (Melbourne, 1997), 92.Google Scholar The policing of gay male practices is covered in Houlbrook, Queer London.

33 Inwood, Stephen, “Policing London's Morals: The Metropolitan Police and Popular Culture, 1829–50,” London Journal 15, no. 2 (1990): 129–67, 130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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38 Dixon, From Prohibition to Regulation, 227. For examples of hostile policing, see Cohen, Phil, “Policing the Working-Class City,” in Capitalism and the Rule of Law: From Deviancy Theory to Marxism, ed. Fine, Bob, Kinsey, Richard, Lea, John, and Young, Jock (London, 1979), 118–36, 121–23Google Scholar; Lopian, Jonathan B., “Crime, Police and Punishment, 1918–29: Metropolitan Experiences, Perceptions and Policies” (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 1986), 37Google Scholar; and White, Jerry, Campbell Bunk: The Worst Street in North London between the Wars, 2nd ed. (London, 2003), 114–21.Google Scholar

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42 Benson, Catherine and Matthews, Roger, “Police and Prostitution: Vice Squads in Britain,” in Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography and the Sex Industry, ed. Weitzer, Ronald (New York, 2000), 246.Google Scholar

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44 Godfrey, Barry, “Changing Prosecution Practices and Their Impact on Crime Figures, 1857–1940,” British Journal of Criminology 48, no. 2 (March 2008): 171–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For an example of these practices in the interwar years, see Metropolitan Police Historical Collection (MPHC), Charlton, Edward Lyscom, “London Policeman” (unpublished, ca. late 1970s), 87–88.

45 Bartley, Prostitution, 162; Storch, Robert D., “Police Control of Street Prostitution in Late Victorian London: A Study in the Contexts of Police Action,” in Police and Society, ed. Bayley, David H. (Beverley Hills, CA, 1977), 49–72.Google Scholar

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48 Bartley, Prostitution, 164–65.

49 White, London, 314.

50 Among contemporary “experts,” there was a consensus over such decline. Expert testimonial to the street offenses committee is the best example of this: TNA: PRO, HO 326/7 SOC 15, evidence of Mr Robbens of the Howard League for Penal Reform, 2 March 1928, 21, q. 7324; TNA: PRO, SOC 1, evidence of Sir Ernley Blackwell, Home Office assistant under-secretary (legal), 17 November 1927, 47, q. 347; TNA: PRO, SOC 12, evidence of Alison Neilans, AMSH (Association for Moral and Social Hygiene) secretary, 17 February 1928, 43, q. 6170. The standard work on the subject is Rolfe's, Sybil Neville “Sex-Delinquency,” in New Survey of London Life and Labour, vol. 9, Life and Leisure, ed. Smith, Hubert Llewellyn (London, 1935), 288–89, 295, 300.Google Scholar Her argument has been accepted by pioneering historians in the field of sex and sexuality. Seminal works include Walkowitz, Judith R., Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State (Cambridge, 1980), 212Google Scholar; and Weeks, Jeffrey, Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800 (London, 1981), 207–8, 219–20.Google Scholar

51 See, e.g., Engel, Arthur J., “‘Immoral Intentions’: The University of Oxford and the Problem of Prostitution, 1827–1914,” Victorian Studies 23, no. 1 (Autumn 1979): 79–107, 103–4.Google Scholar

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54 MPHC, reports of the superintendent of “E” Division to the commissioner, 1875–86.

55 Mannheim, Hermann, Social Aspects of Crime in England between the Wars (London, 1940), 164.Google Scholar For an analysis of the decline in alcohol consumption, see Dingle, Anthony E., “Drink and Working-Class Living Standards in Britain, 1870–1914,” Economic History Review 25, no. 4 (November 1972): 608–22.Google Scholar

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57 TNA: PRO, HO 326/7, SOC 6, evidence of Superintendent Morton, 20 December 1927, 63, qq. 2873, 2877–78.

58 Jackson, Women Police, 172.

59 City of Westminster Archives Centre (CWA), minutes of the watch committee, 1935–37, meetings of 17 January 1935 and 14 February 1935.

60 See Dixon, From Prohibition to Regulation, 243; and Laithe, “Taking Nellie Johnson's Fingerprints,” 101.

61 London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), Bow Street Police Court Registers, PS/BOW/A1/83–8 (1922), 170–76 (1937); LMA, Marlborough Street Police Court Registers, PS/MS/A1/53–8 (1922), 154–61 (1937).

62 TNA: PRO, HO 345/12 CHP/TRANS/2, evidence of Police Commissioner Sir John Nott-Bower, 8 November 1954, 5, qq. 228–29.

63 Fitch, Herbert T., Traitors Within: The Adventures of Detective Inspector Herbert T. Fitch (London, 1933), 228Google Scholar; Thorp, Arthur, Calling Scotland Yard: Being the Casebook of Chief Superintendent Arthur Thorp (London, 1954), 105Google Scholar; Cherrill, Frederick, Cherrill of the Yard (London, 1954), 131Google Scholar; Higgins, Robert, In the Name of the Law (London, 1958), 111–22Google Scholar; Savage, Percy, Savage of Scotland Yard: The Thrilling Autobiography of Ex-Superintendent Percy Savage (London, 1934), 134Google Scholar; Sharpe, Frederick D., Sharpe of the Flying Squad (London, 1938), 108Google Scholar; Cornish, George W., Cornish of the Yard: His Reminiscences and Cases (London, 1935), 243Google Scholar; Fabian, Robert, London after Dark: An Intimate Record of Night Life in London, and a Selection of Crime Stories from the Case Book of Ex-Superintendent Robert Fabian (London, 1954), 12Google Scholar; Harvey, Sydney C., London Policeman: Being Opinions, Sentiments, and Experiences of an Ordinary London Policeman (London, 1958), 40Google Scholar; Wyles, Lilian, A Woman at Scotland Yard: Reflections on the Struggles and Achievements of Thirty Years in the Metropolitan Police (London, 1952), 67.Google Scholar

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65 Winter, James, London's Teeming Streets, 1830–1914 (London, 1993), 113.Google Scholar

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67 Best, William C. F., “C” or St. James’s: A History of Policing in the West End of London, 1829 to 1984 (Kingston-upon-Thames, 1985), 28.Google ScholarPubMed

68 TNA: PRO, HO 326/7, SOC 6, evidence of Horwood, 20 December 1927, 19, 46, qq. 2421, 2715.

69 Waddington, P. A. J., “Police (Canteen) Sub-Culture: An Appreciation,” British Journal of Criminology 39, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 297–309, 293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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71 For the maintenance of public order on the streets as a ritual, Weinberger, see, The Best Police in the World, 164–67.Google Scholar A first-hand account of serious corruption in the policing of street betting is in Daley, Harry, This Small Cloud: A Personal Memoir (London, 1986), 92–95.Google Scholar

72 Weinberger, The Best Police in the World, 168. See also Jackson, Women Police, 175, and observations from the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene: Women's Library, London Metropolitan University (WL), 3/AMS, box 45, minutes of the executive committee of the AMSH (MEC), 12 June and 17 July 1934, for suggestions that named prostitutes were arrested on a regular and fixed basis.

73 Daley, This Small Cloud, 149.

74 TNA: PRO, HO 326/7 SOC 13, Morton evidence, 18 February 1928, 8–9, qq. 6572–94; SOC 17, evidence of A. H. Lieck, chief clerk, Marlborough Street Police Court, 9 March 1928, 16, q. 8101.

75 RCPM, 1922, Cmd. 1904 (1923); RCPM, 1928, Cmd. 3335 (1929).

76 TNA: PRO, HO 326/7 SOC 6, evidence of Horwood, 20 December 1927, 35, q. 2582.

77 TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Assistant Commissioner A, J. F. C. Carter minute, 3 December 1938.

78 Ibid., Superintendent “C” to DAC 1, 30 November 1938.

79 LMA, Bow Street Police Court Registers, PS/BOW/A1/83–88 (1922), 170–76 (1937); Marlborough Street Police Court Registers, PS/MS/A1/53–58 (1922), 154–61 (1937).

80 TNA: PRO, MEPO 10/9, County of London Sessions, 10 November 1922.

81 RCPM, 1922, 9.

82 RCPM, 1923, Cmd. 2189 (1924), 21.

83 Report of the Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedures, Cmd. 3297 (1929); RCPM, 1928, 9.

84 Emsley, Clive, “Sergeant Goddard: The Story of a Rotten Apple or a Diseased Orchard?” in Crime and Culture: An Historical Perspective, ed. Srebnick, Amy G. and Lévy, René (Aldershot, 2005), 85–104.Google Scholar

85 RCPM, 1931, Cmd. 4137 (1932), 43.

86 RCPM, 1929, Cmd. 3600 (1930), 8.

87 Houlbrook, Queer London, 32.

88 TNA: PRO, HO 45/21766, minute, 31 October 1930 (signature illegible); and Amendments to General Orders 7, 7 May 1930, 485–86, paras. 19–33. For the background to the passing of this amendment, see TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/3231, F. A. Newsam to Byng passing on concerns that Parliament wishes to hear the views of the commissioner, 23 April 1929; Deputy Commissioner C. Royds, memorandum prohibiting the employment of plain clothed officers, 17 June 1929; and Laurie to all superintendents, 24 January 1934.

89 TNA: MEPO 2/3231, Inspector J. Still to Sub-Divisional Inspector P. Hemphrey “E” Division, 30 January 1929; Conser to Concannon, 31 January 1929; and Still to Hemphrey, 31 January 1929.

90 TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Carter minute, 3 December 1938; TNA: PRO, HO 45/24902, Deputy Assistant Commissioner C, Ronald Howe, minute, 24 February 1939.

91 CWA, minutes of the watch committee, 1935–37, meeting 3 October 1935.

92 CWA, minutes of the watch committee, 1938–39, meeting of 19 January 1939. Letters of complaint were sent to the Council by J. C. Durran, Brettenham House, Lancaster Place, 9 December 1938; Messrs Nicholson, Freeland, and Shepherd and 18 signatories on a petition by residents and ratepayers, 14 December 1938; and directors of the Third Church of Christ Scientist, 21 December 1938.

93 WL, 3/AMS, box 46, MEC, 13 June 1939.

94 LMA, Bow Street Police Court Registers, PS/BOW/A1/ 170–176 (1937); Marlborough Street Police Court Registers, PS/MS/A1/154–61 (1937).

95 News of the World, 4 October 1936; John Bull, 17 October 1936.

96 MPHC, Secret Foreign Prostitutes and Associates Album (the album was produced in 1936; for creation of this document, see TNA: PRO, MEPO 3/988); LMA, Bow Street Police Court Registers, PS/BOW/A1/170–6 (1937); Marlborough Street Police Court Registers, PS/MS/A1/154–61 (1937).

97 Slater, “Pimps, Police and Filles de Joie.”

98 Daley, This Small Cloud, 166–67; MPHC, “Anecdotes: Memoirs of Charles James Hanslow” (unpublished, 1986), 10, 14, 40. Brogden notes that, with prostitution,“convictions were easy, as a means of keeping your streets clean and of filling the unwritten quota of arrests” (On the Mersey Beat, 127).

99 TNA: PRO, MEPO 3/2138, Superintendent Cole, “C” Division, to ACA, 27 August 1942.

100 Sharpe, Sharpe of the Flying Squad, 321.

101 The Jewish Museum, London, Oral History of the West End Project, tape no. 370.

102 LMA, Bow Street Police Court Registers, PS/BOW/A1/83–88 (1922), 170–176 (1937); Marlborough Street Police Court Registers, PS/MS/A1/53–8 (1922), 154–61 (1937).

103 CWA, London County Council, London Statistics (1918–35).

104 TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Carter minute, 3 December 1938; all the figures from 1937 in this minute were added at a later date.

105 Jenkins, Phillip and Potter, G. W., “Before the Krays: Organized Crime in London, 1920–60,” Criminal Justice History 9 (1988): 209–30Google Scholar; Storch, “Police Control of Street Prostitution,” 66.

106 Laithe, “Taking Nellie Johnson's Fingerprints,” 111–12.

107 Slater, Stefan A., “Street Sex for Sale in Soho, 1918–39: Experiences, Representations and Attempts at Control” (PhD diss., University of London, 2007), 35–74.Google Scholar

108 RUL, MS 1416/1/1/1545, notes, interview with Sir Philip Game, 17 June 1937, and Neilans to Lady Astor, 15 July 1937.

109 Gilfoyle, Timothy J., City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790–1920 (New York, 1992), 120.Google Scholar

110 TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Carter minute, 3 December 1938; and Game to F. A. Newsam, 6 December 1938.

111 TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Carter minute, 3 December 1938.

112 Sharpe, Sharpe of the Flying Squad, 108.

113 Scott, George Ryley, A History of Prostitution from Antiquity to the Present Day (London, 1936), 128.Google Scholar

114 LMA, A/PMC/68 [?]—bottom of letter cut off—to the Rev. Prebendary R. W. Beresford-Peirse, Rural Dean of Paddington, 23 July 1938. Such was the concern that the London Public Morality Council pursued the issue (Howard M. Tyrer, secretary to the LPMC, to the bishop of London, 23 May 1939, London Metropolitan Archives).

115 MPHC, “D” Division Register of Special Observation upon Suspected Brothels, or Houses used for Habitual Prostitution, 45–58. Only four of the thirty-four requests came from Marylebone Council; the rest originated from Paddington.

116 Evening Standard, 11 May 1939.

117 Houlbrook, Matt, “Towards a Historical Geography of Sexuality,” Journal of Urban History 27, no. 4 (May 2001): 497–504, 501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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119 LMA, Tower Bridge Police Court Registers, PS/TOW/A1/149–52 (1922) and 193–96 (1937); Westminster Police Court Registers, PS/WES/A1/108–12 (1922) and 164–69 (1923). The figure for 1922 is underestimated as the court book dealing with charges for January and the first half of March at Westminster police court is unfit for inspection.

120 Gosling and Warner, Shame of a City, 19–20.

121 Charles Booth, Life and Labour of the People of London. Final Volume, Notes on Social Influences and Conclusion (London, 1902), 137.Google Scholar For further elaboration on “situational” policing, see Hobbs, Dick, “A Piece of Business: The Moral Economy of Detective Work in the East End of London,” British Journal of Sociology 42, no. 4 (December 1991): 597–608.Google Scholar

122 TNA: PRO, HO 326/7 SOC 6, evidence of Horwood, 20 December 1927, 12, qq. 2232–33, 2235; and SOC 3, evidence of J. A. R. Cairns, Thames police court magistrate, 1 December 1927, 49, qq. 1371–73.

123 LMA, Old Street Police Court Registers, PS/OLD/A1/75–79 (1927).

124 TNA: PRO, HO 326/7 SOC 3, evidence of Cairns, 1 December 1927, 66–67, q. 1511.

125 Police estimates of the extent of prostitutes in the mid-Victorian East End are to be found in Hemyng, Bracebridge, “Prostitution in London,” in London Labour and the London Poor, vol. 4, Those That Will Not Work, ed. Mayhew, Henry (1862; London, 1967), 266.Google Scholar For an insightful social history of the life of Jewish prostitutes, see Marks, Lara, “Race, Class and Gender: The Experience of Jewish Prostitutes and other Jewish Women in the East End of London at the Turn of the Century,” in Women, Migration and Empire, ed. Grant, Joan (Stoke-on-Trent, 1996), 31–50.Google Scholar A firsthand testimony to the improvement in social conditions and the decline in criminal activities in this district is to be found in Wensley, Frederick P., Detective Days: The Record of Forty-Two Years’ Service in the Criminal Investigation Department (London, 1931), 290–91.Google Scholar

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128 LMA, Old Street Police Court Registers, PS/OLD/A1/51–54 (1920), 57–60 (1922); Thames Police Court Registers, PS/TH/A1/149–54 (1920), 157–61 (1922). The number of women still involved in prostitution is underestimated since the figures do not account for arrests by other police divisions within the bounds of these two courts, especially “G” and “K” (Bow). Nor do the figures take into account arrests for disorderly offenses.

129 For a discussion of the relationship of prostitutes to their wider community, see Slater, Stefan A., “Prostitutes and Popular History: Notes on the Underworld,” Crime, Histoire and Sociétés/Crime, History and Societies 13, no. 1 (2009): 25–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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131 Kops, Bernard, The World Is a Wedding (London, 1963), 13.Google Scholar

132 LMA, Old Street Police Court Registers, PS/OLD/A1/61–3 (1923); Thames Police Court Registers, PS/TH/161–5 (1923). The figure is an underestimate since one of the court books is damaged beyond repair. It is unlikely that the total would be much higher.

133 T. Faulkner was superintendent at “H” Division from 17 June 1921 to 5 April 1928 (MPHC, Book 1048, “List of Superintendents of ‘H’ Division from Sept. 1829”).

134 Waddy, Henry T., The Police Court and Its Work (London, 1925), 188.Google Scholar

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140 Green, Joseph, A Social History of the Jewish East End in London, 1914–1939: A Study in Life, Labour and Liturgy (Lewiston, NY, 1991), 101Google Scholar; White, London, 191.

141 Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, SA/BSH/A.2/5, box 5, British Social Hygiene Council, Executive Committee minutes, 2 November 1921.

142 THLHL, Metropolitan Borough of Stepney, Minutes of the Proceedings of the Council, 1917–39.

143 London Library, Montefiore Pamphlets, M 600, Report of the Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women for the Year 1930 (1931), 47.

144 LMA, Old Street Police Court Registers, PS/OLD/A1/106–10 (1937); Thames Police Court Registers, PS/TH/A1/202–7 (1937).

145 Forbes, Ian, Squad Man (London, 1973), 8.Google Scholar Police reorganization of divisional boundaries led to the transfer of the Commercial Street area from “H” to “G” Division (MPHC, Police Orders, 30 May 1933, 509–10).

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149 TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/9715, memorandum on the Young report, no. 2B, n.d., 1957; and Superintendent Starkey, Leman Street, to Chief Superintendent, 26 June 1958, and Starkey to Superintendent, 6 April 1959.

150 TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/9713, Chief Superintendent “C” to Commander 1, 24 August 1954; and Superintendent Newstead to Deputy Commander, 23 August 1954.

151 Sandbrook, Dominic, Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles (London, 2005), 442–53Google Scholar; RCPM 1956, Cmnd. 222 (1957), 7; RCPM 1957, Cmnd. 487 (1958), 7. For a consideration of crime in the East End during the interwar years and the impact of economic and social changes on the environment in the area in the postwar years, see Hood, R. and Joyce, K., “Three Generations: Oral Testimonies on Crime and Social Change in London's East End,” British Journal of Criminology 39, no. 1 (Winter, 1999): 136–60, esp. 146–51.Google Scholar

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153 Bland, Lucy, McCabe, T., and Mort, Frank, “Sexuality and Reproduction: Three ‘Official’ Instances,” in Ideology and Cultural Production, ed. Barrett, Michele, Corrigan, Philip, Kuhn, Annette, and Wolff, Janet (London, 1979), 78–111Google Scholar; Rose, Sonya O., “Sex, Citizenship and the Nation in World War II Britain,” American Historical Review 103, no. 4 (October 1998): 1147–76.Google Scholar

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155 TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Commander A to commissioner, 14 September 1957.

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157 TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/9713, corres. 46/43/17, divisional arrests for prostitution, from 1947 to June 1954.

158 TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/6622, Commander A to ACA, 10 February 1948 and 31 January 1949; ACA minute, 7 March 1949; ACA to Commander A, 1 February 1949; “Commanders Conference,” 14 June 1949. By 1958, over 10,000 out of 12,000 constables in the Metropolitan Police had been recruited since the war. The commissioner noted that “it is only now beginning to acquire once more a substantial backbone of experienced men” (RCPM, 1958, Cmnd. 800 [1959], 15).

159 TNA: PRO, HO 345/12 CHP/TRANS/5, evidence of PC 570 Anderson, 8 November 1954, 14, q. 494.

160 TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/9713, Sub-Divisional Inspector's Office memo, 3 July 1948; TNA, PRO, HO 345/12 CHP/TRANS/2, evidence of Nott-Bower, 8 November 1954, 33–34, q. 310.

161 TNA: PRO, MEPO 2/9367, Chief Superintendent “C” minute, 30 October 1952.

162 TNA: PRO, HO 326/7 SOC 2, evidence of H.L., cancellor, Marlborough Street magistrate, 18 November 1927, 59, q. 988.

163 Neville Rolfe, “Sex-Delinquency,” 299.

164 Hall, Lesley A., “Impotent Ghosts from No Man's Land, Flappers’ Boyfriends or Crypto-Patriarchs? Men, Sex and Social Change in 1920s Britain,” Social History 21, no. 1 (January 1996), 54–70, 59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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169 Bartley, Prostitution, 155–69; Davidson, “The Sexual State,” 520.

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171 Newburn, Tim, Permission and Regulation: Law and Morals in Post-war Britain (London, 1992), 161.Google Scholar

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