Blake’s “Watchman”: Los and the London Police

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 created a centralized police force in London, formally ending the tenure of the parochial watchman—a recognizable figure in the capital for centuries—and replacing him with the uniformed “bobbies” still visible today. This change, however, was far from an inevitability. The proto-centralization embedded in the Middlesex Justices Act of 1792, and the various textual and pictorial works defending the watchman’s role as a local guardian, reflect the conflicting approaches to policing London’s spaces which competed in the decades preceding 1829. This essay explores points of interaction between these debates and the works of William Blake. After examining Blake’s 1807 letter to publisher Richard Phillips, which condemns the activities of the Hatton Garden Police Office, I probe how a distrust of centralized authority manifests itself within Blake’s work through the figures of the “Watch-fiends.” From here I explore how Blake’s depiction of Los as “Albions Watchman” in Jerusalem (c.1804–20) shares similarities with contemporary works celebrating the symbolic opposition of the parochial watchman to central tyranny. Ultimately, I show that Blake’s utilization of a recognizable London type allows us to draw productive parallels between his works and the city spaces in which they were formed.