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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII). Includes material from the 1976 and 2005 supplements.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

POLICE, n. Also p'leece (Mry. 1908 J. Mackinnon Braefoot Sk. 47; Abd. 1960 Huntly Express (19 Aug.) 7), poleece (Abd. 1882 W. Alexander My Ain Folk 111), polees (Abd. 1874 W. Scott Dowie Nicht 13), poleesh, -eish (Sc. 1829 Wilson Noctes Amb. (1863) II. 195), poliesh (m.Sc. 1827 A. Rodger Peter Cornclips 87), paleece (Sh. 1949 J. Gray Lowrie 126); pol(l)is, poliss. [The 18th c. Eng. pronunciation ′polɪs is still common exc. in n.Sc.] Sc. forms and usages:

1. Now only hist. The civil administration and organisation of a town or community, the public services, such as lighting, cleansing, regulation of traffic, watching, and the preservation of order, necessary in a town. In this sense the word was borrowed from France and passed into official usage in the early 18th c. in Scot., though it was treated as a foreign word in Eng. until late in the same century. When the public services became more departmentalised, the duties of watching and public order devolved on a special body which acquired the name of police in the modern sense of the constabulary. Attempts to form such a body were made in Glasgow as early as 1779 and 1788 (see quots.) and police forces were finally established in Glasgow and Edinburgh soon after the turn of the century. The first permanent body of the kind seems to have been the Marine Police of the Thames, organised in 1798 by Patrick Colquhoun, a former Lord Provost of Glasgow, who appears to have given them the name. The word Police was earlier applied to a Commission consisting of six noblemen and four gentlemen set up in 1714 to supervise the working of the central government in Scotland. The appointment however soon became a sinecure and was abolished in 1782 (see 1714 quot. and combs. (1) and (2)).Sc. 1714 P. W. J. Riley Eng. Ministers & Scot. (1964) 185–6:
The case for a commission of some kind to make Scottish government more effective was accepted by the Whig Ministry which took power at the accession of George I. In 1714 a so-called “Commission of Police” was set up with a membership of a rather different complexion. . . . It was to make recommendations for the Exercise of Crown patronage in the Kirk, and collect information concerning papists and non-jurors. It had the duty of making proposals on various topics: reducing the Highlands to tranquillity, maintaining the poor, repairing the highways and the disposal of the coarse wool money.Sc. c.1730 E. Burt Letters (1815) I. 134:
By the way, this police is still a great office in Scotland, . . . it is grown into disuetude, though the salaries remain.Sc. 1733 P. Lindsay Interest Scot. Title:
The interest of Scotland considered, with regard to its Police, in imploying of the Poor, its Agriculture, its Trade, etc.Sc. 1773 Erskine Institute iv. iv. § 38:
Offences against the laws enacted for the police or good government of a country, are truly crimes against the state.Sc. 1774 T. Pennant Tour 1772 128:
The police of Glasgow consists of three bodies; the magistrates with the town council, the merchants house, and the trades house.Sc. 1779 Burgh Rec. Gsw. (1912) 545:
To consider the expediency of appointing a fitt person to be inspector of the police of the city of Glasgow . . . Those in that office [the magistracy] cannot give that closs attention to the police of the city or the detection of persons guilty of crimes and offences therein as is requisite.Gsw. 1788 Ib. (1913) 278–9:
He ought to have the appointment of police officers under him, not exceeding eight in number, to any of whom he may give a subordinate command over the others, that these officers ought to wear a red uniform, such as the intendant shall fix upon, and badges numbered and inscribed “Police”.Gsw. 1827 A. Rodger Peter Cornclips 83:
A red collar generally forms part of the official dress in Scotland, of an Officer of Police.Sc. 1833 Acts 3 & 4 William IV. c. 46:
An Act to enable Burghs in Scotland to establish a general System of Police . . . To establish such a System of Police, and to adopt such Powers of paving, lighting, cleansing, watching, supplying with Water, and improving such Burghs respectively.Sc. 1838 W. Bell Dict. Law Scot. 746:
Police. This term, in a large acceptation, has been applied to the due regulation and domestic order of the kingdom, though it is more generally applied to the internal regulations for watching, lighting, cleaning, and also for punishing minor delinquencies in great cities. A system of Police has been established both in Edinburgh and Glasgow. . . . The superintendence of the whole system of expenditure and management is intrusted to certain commissioners chosen by the inhabitants paying assessment.Sc. 1949 W. M. Mackenzie Sc. Burghs 162:
In the latter part of the eighteenth century such Acts were procured by many towns, making similar provision by rates for lighting, cleansing, and water-supply, but, town councils being such as will hereafter appear, the application of these measures was placed for the most part in the hands of commissioners, the term “police” used in this connection covering, in the Scottish fashion, as in the manner of France, all the amenities just mentioned.

2. Combs. and phrs.: (1) Commissioner of Police, (i) a member of the 1714 Commission (see 1. above); (ii) a member of a popularly elected body in a burgh who supervised the watching, lighting and cleansing of the town. Their duties were gradually taken over by the Town Councils, see also (5); (2) Lord of Police, = (1) (i); (3) police book, an official book in which were listed the names of persons applying for financial benefit or compensation from the civic authority (see quot.); (4) police burgh, see quots.; (5) police commission(er), see (1); (6) police dung, dung and waste material collected in the streets of a city (Abd. 1839 Abd. New Shaver (Jan.) 54). Cf. (9); (7) police judge,a magistrate in a police court, now esp. one of a rota of councillors who have formerly served as Bailies and who deputise for the sitting Bailies in the large burghs. Bailies have been replaced by lay magistrates sitting as justices of the peace under the local government reorganisation in 1975; (8) polisman, police-, as in Eng.; fig., in a coalmine: “a moveable guard over or round a pitmouth or at mid-workings, safety gates” (Sc. 1886 J. Barrowman Mining Terms 51; Lth. 1958); (9) police manure, = (6); (10) police midden, a dumping ground for street refuse. See also Midden, and cf. (6).(1) (i) Sc. 1716 London Gaz. No. 5449 3:
Charles Cockburn, Esq. to be one of the Commissioners of Police in North Britain.(ii) Sc. 1830 W. Chambers Bk. Scotland 86:
The whole inhabitants, or householders, who pay annual rents to a specified amount . . . are entitled to nominate representatives, who, when deputed, form a committee of management, under the title of the Board of Commissioners of Police.Sc. 1845 E. Henderson Dunfermline 655:
A night-watch of twelve policemen was this year permanently established by the Commissioners of Police.Sc. 1927 Encycl. Laws Scot. II. 474:
Commissioners of Police were elected under the Burgh Police Acts or Private Police Acts to carry out the police administration of the Burghs in which they held office.(2) Sc. 1754 Scots Mag. (April) 204:
Alexander Earl of Leven, one of the Lords of Police, in the room of the Lord Torphichen, deceased.Sc. 1782 Acts 22 Geo. III. c. 82. § 1:
The offices of lords of police in Scotland . . . are hereby utterly suppressed, abolished and taken away.(3) Sc. 1781 Caled. Mercury (27 Jan.):
The Police-books for the City and Shire of Edinburgh are now open, and will continue so till the 1st of May next. Subscription-books will be sent round, and a general one left at the Sheriff-clerk's office as usual — But as, of late, many people who had not subscribed, though in use to do so formerly, have, when injured, insisted to be admitted to the benefit of the scheme, upon paying up the subscriptions for the years in which they were deficient: This is to give notice, That no applications of this nature, on any pretence, will be listned to in time coming, as such a practice, if permitted to become general, must ruin the fund and annihilate the institution.(4) Sc. 1889 Acts 25 & 53 Vict. c. 50 § 105:
The expression “police burgh” means a populous place, the boundaries whereof have been fixed and ascertained under the provisions of the General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act, 1862, or of the Act first therein recited, or under the provisions of any local act.Sc. 1927 Encyl. Laws Scot. II. 452:
Later public Acts, especially the General Police (Scotland) Act, 1862, and the Burgh Police Act, 1892, enabled populous places to be formed into police burghs.Sc. 1963 North-East of Scotland 204:
An Act of that year [1850] enabled the inhabitants of a populous place to form the community into a burgh in which magistrates and police commissioners could then be elected to undertake the administration of the police and other functions previously made available to the councils of the existing burghs. The community was then termed a Police Burgh.(5) Sc. 1921 J. Mackinnon Social and Industrial Hist. 247:
Improvements in sanitation and housing in burghs were at first entrusted by local Police Acts to local bodies of Police Commissioners, and not to the Town Councils. It was not till 1833 that the first general Burgh Police Act was passed, and not till 1900 that the Police Commissioners were generally merged in the Town Councils.Sc. 1929 Edinburgh 1329–1929 174:
Police Commissions were set up by a number of Acts of Parliament for the purpose of cleaning and lighting different districts in and about Edinburgh and Leith [c.1771].(6) Sc. 1844 Sc. Farmer (Oct.) 84:
The refuse of towns, or as it is commonly called in Scotland, police dung, is a very variable mixture of all kindls of waste matter.Sc. 1845 Stat. Acc.² I. 544:
The manure in use . . . consists of guano, compost of lime, or the police dung of Edinburgh.(7) Sc. 1820 J. Stark Picture Edb. 161:
A police court [was] opened in Edinburgh, on 15 July 1805 . . . under the superintendence of a . . . Judge of Police.Sc. 1862 Acts 25 & 26 Vict. c. 35 § 25:
If adjudged by any magistrate or police judge of any royal or parliamentary burgh.(9) Sc. 1844 H. Stephen Bk. of Farm (1855) II. 413:
The manure derived from towns was called street or police manure.Sc. 1883 Trans. Highl. Soc. XV. 38:
The whole was manured with police manure — about 30 tons per acre.(10) Sc. 1833 J. Jackson Essays Agric. Subjects 256:
The tenants of this estate are indebted for any extraneous supply of manure they may require to the Police middens of Edinburgh.

3. (1) A policeman, police-officer. Gen.Sc. Comb. polisman, Sc. form of Eng. policeman. Also in reduced jocular forms polly, polie, and deriv. polisher, id.Rnf. 1835 D. Webster Rhymes 182:
Some polishers had catch'd the bridle.Ags. 1890 J. Kerr Reminisc. I. 98:
Then for a while the loon to jail Was taken by a polie, O.Mry. 1896 J. Mackinnon Braefoot Sk. 121:
The first winter 'at Donal' M'Clue, the p'leece, wis here.Gall. 1896 Scots Mag. (Jan.) 109:
“She wis thinkin' of ganging doon to Polly Johnston, doonby, to traivel in search o'm.” “Polly” was Gallovidian for policeman.Edb. 1900 E. H. Strain Elmslie's Drag-Net 115:
“The poliss is no far awa,” quo he.Abd. 1915 H. Beaton Benachie 95:
I wis in Aiberdeen for aboot a week wi' ma bridder Tam, wha is a polis there.Rnf. 1925 G. Blake Wild Men xxiv.:
A polis at the Cross tel't me.Arg. 1952 N. Mitchison Lobsters on the Agenda vi.:
“Isn't it as well the polis wasna there!” said Malcie. That some way was always the general thought in Port Sonas about Sinclair the policeman.Abd. 1960 Huntly Express (19 Aug.) 7:
It was all over the market that “the unco man wis a p'leece wi' plain claes.”wm.Sc. 1991 James Russell Grant in Tom Hubbard The New Makars 58:
Thon weemin are no that evil haein thir worries but
They've a' tormentit thir lover doun tae the maist ugly
An she a Jersey polisman's dochterAbd. 1995 Sheena Blackhall Lament for the Raj 24:
Soo-moued, ringle-eed Jock McBride
Is socht bi polismen far an wide
An identikit o his coorse physog
'S bin sent frae Turra tae Auchenshog.m.Sc. 1996 Christopher Brookmyre Quite Ugly One Morning (1997) 11:
Surveying the attendant chaos, he pitied the poor bastard polisman that had to figure this one out, ... Edb. 1998 Gordon Legge Near Neighbours (1999) 9:
' ... What a mess it was and all. Blood and brains all over the shop. Never get that cleaned. That's what the polis said. ... ' Ayr. 1999:
He wiz a polis fae Livingstone. em.Sc. 2000 James Robertson The Fanatic 87:
The polis stood up, turned and got out his radio. 'Think this boy's gaun for a hurl,' he said. 'Get himsel pumped oot.' He spoke into the radio, requesting an ambulance.

(2) Sc. form of Eng. police.Gsw. 1985 Michael Elder Stookie 28:
" ... Yon pub the polis closed three months syne. Try there. I mind the place and there should be plenty rubbish comin' oot o' that to burn."m.Sc. 1989 James Meek McFarlane Boils the Sea 173:
'... So I asked the junkie how he knew it was the drug squad van. He said it always appeared before a raid and anyway if you put your ear against it you could hear a kind of humming and polis playing pontoon inside. ...'Gsw. 1989 Scotsman 9 Dec 4:
... by joining in an anti-fascist demonstration in Edinburgh a week ago today. Practice the old community shouting, refine my polis-withering glare, that sort of thing.m.Sc. 1996 Christopher Brookmyre Quite Ugly One Morning (1997) 8:
'Polis!' he breathed, and shut the curtains again hurriedly.
'Fuck.'
Not now, not already.m.Sc. 1996 Christopher Brookmyre Quite Ugly One Morning (1997) 1:
Islay. Quiet wee island, quiet wee polis station. No more of the junkie undead, no more teenage jellyhead stabbings, no more pissed-up rugby fans impaling themselves on the Scott monument, no more tweed riots in Jenners, and, best of all, no more fucking Festival.w.Lth. 2000 Davie Kerr A Puckle Poems 19:
This deep concentration wis lik naethin, compared,
Ti the cry, "It's the Polis", the tossin school heard.