Typewriters and staff.

[Phil Carter]

Hello all,

I quote from "The Rise of Scotland Yard" by Douglas G Browne, G.P.Putnam and Sons, New York.

" In 1886, when the strength of the force was almost what it is now, and when there were no typewriters and other modern aids to speed and efficiency, the clerical staff at Scotland Yard totalled 66, including 12 civilian clerks in the Receiver's Office. The 54 policemen were distributed as follows: Executive Branch 26; Public Carraige Branch 13; Lost Property Office 6; CID 7; Convict Office 2. It was still the age of simplicity-and cheaponess. The annuakl cost of the Metropolitan Police was nmore than £500,000."

(from Chapter 16, The Commissioners and The Home Office, pages 198-199)

For the issue of staffing, Dicken's London 1888 gives the up to date fugures.
However, the point of typewriters happened to intruige me. If they did not have them in 1886, as Browne claims, then does anybody know exactly when they did acquire them? I would be nmost interested to know.

best wishes

Phil

[Errata]

When I picture a bunch of beefy policemen in the Victorian Age sitting around and laboriously poking at an old typewriter, the words "speed" and "efficiency" do not leap to mind. In fact I may have slightly howled with laughter. It probably did wonders for the general legibility of reports, but I'm not sure it would have significantly picked up the pace.

I imagine they got typewriters when they finally sat all the cops down and told them that they were going to type, and they were going to LIKE it by god, no matter that it was considered a womanly art. So that could have been 1970 really.

[Tom_Wescott]

I'm sure they had a clerical staff of women in 1886, just without typewriters. I'm also bewildered by the fact that Scotland Yard did not have telephones in 1888, even though some of the men in charge would have had them at home. You would think that a policing body would be among the first to see the need for telephones, to say nothing of typewriters.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Monty]

Assistant Commissioner Sir Edward Henry bought in the first typewriters to Scotland Yard around 1901.

A telegraph system was in use between Stations in 1888.

Monty

[Robert]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that originally the word "typewriter" denoted the person who typed. Later on the word's application was limited to the machine typed on, while the person doing the typing became a typist.

[mariab]

I've worked with Italian typewritten sources from 1904.

[Tom_Wescott]

You've been at it a long time, Maria.

Monty,

Any insight as to why the police took SO LONG to catch up to the Joneses?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Supe]

Tom,

Any insight as to why the police took SO LONG to catch up to the Joneses?

Same reason, I suppose, the FBI is still years behind with computers, as is the New York Police Department. In a large part that is the unwillingness (or even inability in some cases) of those forces' members to learn to use new technology. Some of that is a general antipathy to "paperwork," be it generated by hand, typewriter or computer. Then, too, many law enforcement professionals have rather macho attitudes toward nerds, geeks and others skilled with computers.

Don.

[Supe]

As a bit on incidental information, I had thought that Mark Twain was the first author of note to submit a typewritten manuscript (Tom Sawyer in 1874). Evidently Twain did begin writing letters on a typewriter in 1874, but some historians suggest his first typewritten book manuscript was Life on the Mississippi in 1882.

Don.

[mariab]

You've been at it a long time, Maria.

3 years ago, actually. ;-)

As a bit on incidental information, I had thought that Mark Twain was the first author of note to submit a typewritten manuscript (Tom Sawyer in 1874). Evidently Twain did begin writing letters on a typewriter in 1874, but some historians suggest his first typewritten book manuscript was Life on the Mississippi in 1882.

Wow! That's early.

[Tom_Wescott]

Typewriters were exceptionally hard to manage back then, so it's no wonder they didn't catch on right away. Very hard keys, and a different layout of the keyboard than what we have today. My grandmother was an antique collector, so I grew up surrounded by ancient cameras (by the truckload), typewriters, and Coke bottles, to say nothing of really cool stuff that passed through her store, such as a pen owned by Laura Engels-Wilder and a coffee table hand-carved by the Wilder outlaw gang, which is still in my family. There was other cool stuff if I think about it. I was only 9 or so when she closed her shop, so unfortunately too young to care about most of it.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[mariab]

Is the Wilder outlaw gang the same as the Oklahombres or Dalton gang, the one that made it into the Lucky Luke comics?
Most typewritten letters from the 1900s I've seen are written in a really cool looking blue ink instead of black. (Also the French secret police reports about the Whitechapel anarchists are typewritten, sometimes in blue, sometimes in black ink.)

[Errata]

I imagine the thing with phones would not have been any problems with using phones, but in getting the wiring to all the police stations. When my grandfather was growing up he lived a few miles from the police station, which did not have a phone, but his house did because the previous tenant was a doctor, and paid to bring the wire across the river. So people would call his house when they needed the police, and someone would jump in the truck and drive to the police station to relay the message. Gotta love small town southern living.

[Supe]

Errata,

Gotta love small town southern living.

Gotta love small-town living anywhere. In our New England village there was no police station through the 20s and if you wanted to report anything you rang the outdoor pay phone near the chief's home -- somebody would answer and get the message to Chief Otto Schmidt.

For that matter, my old high school hockey coach and math teacher moved back to his home village in New Hampshire and was elected First Selectman (and for those not from New England that is equivalent to mayor). I remember his complaining to me later that he would not run for a third term because "Every Saturday night there's a fight in the local bar and they call me up to come down and break it up -- and I'm getting too old."

He was 81 at the time and that was only 25 years ago. Gotta love those small towns.

Don.

[Errata]

Errata,

Gotta love small-town living anywhere.
Don.

I amend my statement. I thought of it as southern living because when everyone was working on the farm, the two youngest (my grandfather and Aunt Mamie) at 5 and 8 would hop in the truck with my grandfather steering and shifting, and Aunt Mamie on the pedals to run to the police station. While most likely not a solely southern phenomenon, somehow when I picture it in my head it's always a deep south setting.

Of course, when my grandfather taught my sister and I this trick, it was also in the deep south. As the method involves the steering child kicking the pedal child when they need to brake, as the youngest I had less fun with this new skill than my sister did.