History
The Liberty of St Peter and Peter Prison was formed in 1106, and appointed its own officers (including constables) quite separately from the rest of the city of York. Following the Minster fire in 1829, the Chapter of the cathedral ordered that "'Henceforward a watchman/constable shall be employed to keep watch every night in and about the cathedral", and bemoaned the lack of one previously.
The Liberty was abolished in 1839, as a result of which any constables appointed for the Liberty would have been transferred to the new municipal borough of the city of York, and as the liberty ceased to exist it could no longer appoint constables. It is then that the first record is available of the employment of Thomas Marshall as a watchman, which lasted until 1854 at the salary of forty-one pounds and twelve shillings per year. The title of "Minster Police" was first recorded in 1855, when William Gladin replaced Marshall.
Read more about this topic: York Minster Police
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)