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Towns, government, legislation and the ‘police’ in Jamaica and the British Atlantic, 1770–1805

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2019

Aaron Graham Open the ORCID record for Aaron Graham [Opens in a new window]
Aaron Graham*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: aaron.graham@ucl.ac.uk
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Abstract

Urban renewal in the British Isles in the long eighteenth century was based on new municipal powers made possible by parliament. Focusing on Jamaica between 1770 and 1805, which passed legislation for the ‘policing’ – in the broader Scottish sense – of its towns, demonstrates that it was a global phenomenon common to the whole British Atlantic. However, the solutions it produced were also specific to local circumstances. Jamaican elites feared invasion, revolt and the dissolution of the slave society. Their police acts reflected these concerns, and demonstrate the alternative pathway that urban modernity took in this part of the British Atlantic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 41 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

†

I am grateful to Trevor Burnard, Rosemary Sweet and the reviewers at Urban History, and the attendees at the Urban History Conference 2018, for their advice and encouragement in writing this article. The research was supported by a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, with further assistance from a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship.

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72 The Laws of Jamaica, vol. 3, 108.

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74 The Laws of Jamaica, vol. 2, 387–8, vol. 3, 49–50, 114–15, 124–5, vol. 4, 107–9, 119, vol. 5, 55–6.

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