Henry Fielding – Tom Jones

F Magistrate

Fielding took the oaths for the Commission of Westminster on 25 October 1748;⁵⁰ and after meeting the property qualification,⁵¹ he took the oaths for the adjacent Commission of Middlesex on 13 January 1749. ⁵² As magistrate, Fielding responsibilities included maintaining public order and detecting crime, as well as day to day administration of justice.⁵³ The position was unpaid; income came from the fees associated with various tasks, and unofficially from bribes.⁵⁴ Unlike his predecessor, Sir Thomas de Veil, Fielding did not become rich in the job. Fielding was a tough but just magistrate, and there is no evidence he used the position for personal gain.⁵⁵

Fielding did use his position to advocate for law reform, sending the Lord Chancellor a draft bill “for the better preventing street robberies” in July 1749,⁵⁶ and writing several pamphlets urging criminal law and social reform.⁵⁷ Fielding

⁴⁵ Battestin, above n 7, 271–72. Davidge Gould, Sarah Fielding’s brother, was a Master of the Bench at the Middle Temple.

⁴⁶ Rogers, above n 1, 101.
⁴⁷ Godden, above n 11, 109.
⁴⁸ Rogers, above n 1, 101.
⁴⁹ Bree, above n 41, 11.
⁵⁰ Rogers, above n 1, 165.
⁵¹ Another of Fielding’s benefactors, the Duke of Bedford, agreed to lease him the property valued at over £100 required by the property qualification. Fielding acknowledges his “… gratitude for the princely benefactions of the Duke of Bedford” in the Dedication to Tom Jones. Bedford charged Fielding a nominal £30 per annum rent, but nothing was paid and a total debt of £712 was wiped after Fielding’s death. See Rogers, above n 1, 171.
⁵² Ibid.
⁵³ Ibid, 172. The role was more like that of a continental superintending magistrate, as opposed to the purely judicial role of modern English magistrates.
⁵⁴ At this time, the magistrates of Westminster were pejoratively known as the “trading Justices”.
⁵⁵ Rogers, above n 1, 174.
⁵⁶ Ibid, 179. Among other things, this bill advocated that receivers of stolen property be treated the same as the original thief.
⁵⁷ Bree, above n 41, 13. Fielding’s influential works included An Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers (1751), and Proposal for the Making of an Effectual Provision for the Poor (1753).
used his editorship of The Covent-Garden Journal to highlight “public and private evils” beyond his reach as a magistrate.⁵⁸ One of Fielding’s enduring legacies was the establishment of the Bow Street Runners, London’s first permanent, salaried police force.⁵⁹

Fielding’s health, already poor, deteriorated rapidly under the pressure of work. Suffering from gout, jaundice, dropsy, and asthma, an “emaciated” Fielding heard his last case at Bow Street in May 1754.⁶⁰ Acting on medical advice, Fielding set sail for Lisbon where he died on 8 October 1754, aged 47.

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