2024 marks the 200th anniversary of the Spanish “Policia Nacional”, and 25th years of Europol – #policeforces celebrates the establishment of police forces, which have the duty of enforcing the law on a day-to-day basis. A look at how police forces operate throughout history can tell us a lot of the type of governance, and relationship between governments and citizens, in a determined area. This means, basically, that police forces are like archivists!
The first predecessor of the Spanish “Policia Nacional” developed in 1824, with the creation, under the reign of Ferdinand VII, of the General Police of the Kingdom, by Royal Decree of the 13th January. However, several attemps had taken place in the 18th and early 19th century. For example, in 1813, the court tried to set up a police force, constituted by the informers working for the Supreme Central Board; this report explains why this operation failed.
The official regulation of the Madrid police forces (Reglamento de policía de Madrid) was published on the 20th February 1824, created by the Duchy of Osuna (Ducado de Osuna)
Over the following years, its functions and prerogatives were further defined. This is the document that regulates whether employees in the police branch, before proceeding to the arrest of someone, must inform the relevant Intendancy and judges of the towns.
And this regulates when and how police officers can use short and bladed weapons (even the outlawed ones) in the performance of their duties:
By the mid-19th century, the police force was well established, even if its organisation was modified, and its members were civil servants. This is the retirement file for Police Commissioner Antonio Rodriguez, in 1855:
Meanwhile, the revolutions of 1848 were being kicked-off in Europe, causing periodical strong unrest throughout the 19th century. The police played a fundamental role in the Springtimes of the Peoples, repressing them or carrying them forward, depending on the situation. In these documents from the 25 February 1848 and 22nd March 1848 the police prefecture was giving to revolutionary Constantin Pecqueur, an economist and socialist politician, the role of Commissioner, during the unrest that brought to the collapse of the monarchy in July 1848.
A few decades later, in 1886, one of the most prominent members of the Third International, César De Paepe, was called to present at the prefecture of Saint-Gilles, in Belgium, only a few years before he died of consumption
Interestingly, both the papers of Constantin Pecqueur and those of César De Paepe, together with those of thousands of other European socialist, anarchists, and progressive thinkers of the past two centuries, are now held at the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, one of our content providers, and one of the largest archives of labor and social history in the world.
Connected to the political upheaval of the time, freer satirical newspapers started to circulate. Here is a copy of “La Police illustrée” from March 1883, a satirical and political newspaper from the times held at the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, as part of the papers owned by communard and anarchist Louis Michel.
One last document from the Commune, from the personal collection of novelist Lucien Descaves, held at the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis: a letter from E. Méjeau, probably a police officer in the police department of the Necker department in Paris.
The 20h century was the century that saw some of the most horrible times in human history, but also the conquest of many civil rights, which police forces went from sanctioning to uphold. These documents from 1917 show the extent to which British suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst was surveilled by the police. The first is a report in which a detective informs on the latest moves by her and her comrades; the second is a letter to the National Labour Press informing them that the police has the right to enter the premises and seize all copies of the “Workers' Dreadnought”, Pankhurst’s socialist and internationalist newspaper. You can find the complete reports here
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Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Documents regarding Sylvia Pankhurst's surveillance, 1917
Research by Anna Batzeli, Darius Bujokas, Santiago Muriel. Text by APE, Santiago Muriel, Federica Tammarazio
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