Should detectives be trusted?

One Met police superintendent made clear his views; other Londoners did the same....

In 1881, Superintendent William Harris, of S Division of the Metropolitan Police, expressed his concern about private detective agencies (his feelings can be summed up by the fact that he put inverted commas around the phrase). Harris - who on his death in 1889, was described as a ‘very popular man’ - noted that within the previous couple of years, the number of such agencies had vastly increased, and that they were sometimes owned by less than honest characters.

In at least one instance recently, he noted, men set up as private detectives claiming to have been former police detectives, thus hoping to give themselves the aura of respectability and experience. In such case, the detectives were subsequently found guilty of illegal conduct, and 'such personation of necessity' did harm to the whole profession. Superintendent Harris argued that the growth in private detective agencies should be closely watched by the police, and that if a detective was found to have been engaged in illegal activities, the law should be rigidly enforced.

Superintendent Harris in the 1881 census for Kensington (TNA/TheGenealogist)

Such concern was, as regular readers of this substack will know, was not unfounded. Private detectives could, and did, claim experience they did not have; and they did engage in illegal activity (others posed as private detectives when they were no such thing). But this suspicion of private detectives, and a watching out for unusual activity, could lead to unexpected outcomes.

In 1883, a man was spotted on the North Circular Road one Saturday afternoon, and he appeared to be watching the home of a police inspector. This inspector came out to question the man, who ran off. He was chased, captured, and taken to Bridewell Lane Station, charged with loitering with intent. It emerged that the man was a private detective employed by a London detective agency, and had been given the task of watching the inspector's house.

Dorset Street, where private detectives engaged on work were not highly thought of

Five years later, in East London - an area on edge thanks to the Whitechapel Murders - a man was arrested in Dorset Street, after residents decided he had been exhibiting 'strange behaviour'. A rabble had formed, and the man was about to become a victim of violence, when the police turned up. It emerged that the man was a private detective, and he was released from custody.

The suspicion of private detectives could be well-founded; but similarly, a distrust of strangers in an area could also lead to real private detectives being exposed. It was, it is clear, a hard job for professional detectives to do well, when others automatically assumed whatever they were doing was wrong.