Watchmen have existed since earliest recorded times in various guises throughout the world and were generally succeeded by the emergence of formally organised professional policing.

These rules had for long been underpinned in London and other towns by the curfew, the time (announced by the ringing of a bell) at which the gates closed and the streets were cleared.

And if any stranger do pass them by them he shall be arrested until morning and if no suspicion be found he shall go quit.Later in 1279 King Edward I formed a special guard of 20 sergeants at arms who carried decorated battle maces as a badge of office.

It confirmed the duty of all householders in the City to take their turn at watching in order 'to keep the peace and apprehend night-walkers, malefactors and suspected persons'.

The 1663 act of Common Council left it to the ward beadle or a constable and it seems to have been increasingly the case that rather than individuals paying directly for a substitute, when their turn came to serve, the eligible householders were asked to contribute to a watch fund that supported hired man.

The first involved the gradual recognition that a paid (and full-time) watch needed to be differently constituted from one made up of unpaid citizens, a point accepted in practice in legislation passed by the Common Council in 1705, though it was not articulated in as direct a way.

[15] The fact that the 1705 act of Common Council called for watchmen to be strong and able-bodied men seems further confirmation that the watch was now expected to be made up of hired hands rather than every male house holder serving in turn.

To discourage the corruption that had been blamed for earlier under-manning, it forbade constables to collect and disturbs the money paid in for hired watchmen: that was now supposed to be the responsibility of the deputy and common councilmen of the ward.

One of the leading elements in the regime that emerged from the implementation of the new act was an agreement that every watchman would be paid the same amount and that the wages should be raised to thirteen pounds a year.

The shape of the urban day was being altered after the Restoration by the development of shops, taverns and coffee-houses, theatres, the opera and other places of entertainment.

[20] The watch was affected by this changing urban world since policing the night streets become more complicated when larger number of people were moving around.

And what was frequently thought to be poor quality of the watchman—and in time, the lack of effective lighting—came commonly to be blamed when street crimes and night-time disorders seemed to be growing out of control.

[18] While the societies for the reformation of manners showed there was a good deal of support for the effective policing of morality, they also suggested that the existing mechanisms of crime control were regarded by some as ineffective.

[21] Constable Dogberry's men from Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare, who would 'rather sleep than talk', may be dismissed as merely a dramatic device or a caricature, but successful dramatists nevertheless work with characters who strike a chord with their audience.

Daniel Defoe wrote four pamphlets and a broadsheet on the issue of street crime in which, among other things, he roundly attacked the efficacy of the watch and called for measures to ensure it 'be compos'd of stout, able-body'd Men, and of those a sufficient Number'.

'The late placing and early dischargering' of night-watches concerned Common Council in 1609 and again three decades later when someone sent out to spy on watches reported that they 'break up longe before they ought'.

'The greatest parte of constables' broke up watches 'earlie in the morninge' at exactly the time 'when most danger' was 'feared' in the long night, leaving the dark streets to thieves.

Watchman Edward Gardener was taken before the recorder with 'a common nightwalker' – Mary Taylor – in 1641 after he 'tooke 2s to lett' her 'escape' when he was escorting her to Bridewell late at night.

[26] The watchmen patrolled the streets at night, calling out the hour, keeping a lookout for fires, checking that doors were locked and ensuring that drunks and other vagrants were delivered to the watch constable.

[29] During the 1820s, mounting crime levels and increasing political and industrial disorder prompted calls for reform, led by Sir Robert Peel, which culminated in the demise of the watchmen and their replacement by a uniformed metropolitan police force.