It is fitting that we have come back to the Bow Street Runners and that J. M. Beattie is taking us there. For a time, the Runners were the only segment of the pre–Scotland Yard policing system that most historians knew. New scholarship over the past decades has added considerably to our understanding of the complexity of crime and policing in early modern London, much of it done by Beattie and his students. Now, Beattie takes a fresh look at Sir John Fielding and “his people,” the Bow Street Runners. The Runners were paid constables who assisted Henry and John Fielding in their work as magistrates at their office/courtroom in Bow Street from the 1750s until 1839. Beattie argues that these officers represented a new type and level of central government involvement in the policing of metropolitan London—a detective police. This part of the Runners’ history is not new. Beattie's work, however, offers a more nuanced and in-depth study of who the Runners were and what they did. For example, using a careful analysis of the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Beattie shows how the Runners’ investigative work affected prosecutions. The expertise and improved reputation the Runners brought to “thief-taking” led to significant changes in criminal trial procedure, including the increased use of defense lawyers. Some officers became public celebrities. One was John Clarke, whose specialty was coining, on whom the Royal Mint came to rely for expert testimony. Over a twenty-four-year period, Clarke appeared in 106 trials for coining at the Old Bailey; those trials resulted in a conviction rate of 90 percent. That the Runners were able “to investigate coining operations, collect evidence on the spot, bring it to court and explain its significance to the judge and jury . . . transformed the detection and prosecution of coining offenses” (119).

Sir John Fielding was the key figure in the evolution of the Runners as detectives. Able to garner better funding from the Treasury, Fielding put more officers on the job and was able to send them on cases all over and outside of the metropolis. Fielding was adept at using publicity to enhance the reputation and public profile of his men. Beattie also makes a strong case for the place of Fielding in the larger political debates about policing and crime, even if some of his ideas for improved policing would only appear after Fielding's death in 1780—the most important of which was the Middlesex Justices Act of 1792. It created seven additional offices, modeled on Bow Street, each with its compliment of paid constables. Beattie states: “The 1792 Act was in many ways evidence of the success of John Fielding's innovations at Bow Street” (166). The Middlesex Justices Act ironically diminished the unique status of the Runners. They were less visible in the witness box at the Old Bailey but more prominent in investigations of political radicals and as protectors of royalty. John Townshend and John Sayer acted as royal bodyguards from the early 1790s until they died, both in 1832.

After 1815, the usual postwar increase in property crime focused attention on the issue of crime prevention and the role of policing. Parliamentary committees on “the Police of the Metropolis” met in 1816–18, 1822, and 1828. When Robert Peel became home secretary in 1822, his attention to crime and policing included a close look at the Runners. By 1828, he was able to implement the centralization of London's police, emphasizing prevention. Peel used statistics about rising committal rates to obliquely point to the failure of Bow Street and the other police offices to prevent crime. Beattie argues as well that historians have not given enough weight to Peel's concern for policing areas that bordered on Greater London. Peel was bothered by what he saw in outlying parishes like Deptford and Putney, areas in his view that were woefully underpoliced.

Bow Street did not shine in Peel's inquiries. Evidence of corruption and lax supervision appeared in the press and the testimony of magistrates before Peel's committee. Still, the Metropolitan Police Act replaced the parish night watch, not the Runners. The latter's role as police officers, however, was increasingly limited. Peel's successor, Lord Melbourne, cut the funds allotted to Bow Street. Friction between the Runners and bobbies, including questions about jurisdiction, were not resolved in Bow Street's favor. The renewal of the Metropolitan Police Act in 1839 required constables from Scotland Yard to be assigned to the police offices to execute warrants and other magisterial orders. The police offices, including Bow Street, thus became solely police courts. Separation of the magistrates’ judicial (court) duty from their administrative (police) functions ended the need for the Runners. Little notice was taken of their passing in the press. “The runners left the public stage as quietly as they had entered” (258).

The strengths of this book are ones we have come to expect from Beattie. The research is deep, in primary and secondary sources. He has clearly learned his way around digital sources such as the Old Bailey Sessions Papers. His wide reading in the most recent scholarship makes this account particularly compelling. The prose is crisp and persuasive, with a judicious mix of statistics, illustrations, and anecdote. It is a shame that the price of the book is so high, but it says more about the state of academic publishing than about the quality of the work. At one time, the Bow Street Runners were all some historians knew of policing in London before Scotland Yard. Recent scholarship has widened our understanding beyond them considerably. And now J. M. Beattie has brought the Runners back into the fold and again helps us see a more complete picture of London and its police.