Catalogue description POLICE [IMPROVEMENT] COMMISSIONERS

Patrol Book; Minute Book; Account Book

For records of the police in Chester from 1835, and the destruction of earlier police records see CITY OF CHESTER POLICE, DPC

Police Commissioners

• Cheshire

Commissioners appointed under the Acts of 2 George III, cap. 45, 1762 and 43 George III, cap. 47, 1803. The 1762 Act authorised:

1. The Mayor, Recorder and certain Aldermen, together with a defined number of persons from each of the nine city parishes to be incorporated as Guardians of the Poor within the City, with power to levy a rate in each parish for the maintenance of the same.

2. The Mayor, Recorder and Justices of the Peace, together with six defined persons from each of the twelve wards of the city to be chosen as Commissioners to appoint night watchmen, keepers of lamps, keepers of firemen, cleaners of streets etc., with power to levy a rate in each ward to carry out the same.

The Act of 1803 altered and amended the 1762 Act relating to the Commissioners for watching, lighting etc., and extended the powers of the Commissioners to prevent encroachments and nuisances and to the making of drains and sewers etc.

The powers of these Commissioners relating to the police were, under the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act, transferred to the new Watch Committee of the Council in Feb. 1836. The 1835 Act also permitted these Commissioners to merge their other functions with the reformed Corporations, and their minutes record that these powers were transferred to the Council on 22 Dec. 1837.

The only surviving record of the 1762 Commissioners is a patrol book of the Watchmen for the period Oct.-Dec. 1783, but both minute books and account books survive of the 1803 Commissioners, who were usually described as Police Commissioners