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Public Safety and Home Defence: The Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) and Central Government Policy

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Bombardment, Public Safety and Resilience in English Coastal Communities during the First World War

Part of the book series: Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History ((GSSCMH))

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Abstract

This chapter outlines in detail the development of emergency legislation in Britain, paying particular attention to regulations related to public safety and nascent forms of civil defence. Following this outline, the chapter explores emergency measures pertaining to the north-east coast of England, beginning at the turn of the twentieth century and continuing up to and including the First World War. This includes the lists of defended ports developed by the Committee of Imperial Defence. When traced over time, this list and its associated discussions among Admiralty and War Office personnel charts the shifting status of the north-east from 1900. Overall, the role of this chapter is to establish the broad political and legal context within which local authorities on the north-east coast acted and responded to enemy actions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Stephen Broadberry and Peter Howlett, ‘The United Kingdom during World War I: Business as Usual?’ in The Economics of World War I, eds. Stephen Broadberry and Mark Harrison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 210; John Horne, ‘Introduction: Mobilizing for Total War’, 1914–1918’ in State, Society and Mobilization in Europe during the First World War, ed. John Horne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 4–5; Martin Horn, ‘The Concept of Total War: National Effort and Taxation in Britain and France During the First World War’, War & Society, 18 (1) (2000), 1–22; Hew Strachan, ‘The First World War as a Global War’, First World War Studies, 1 (1) (2010), 3–14.

  2. 2.

    Gail Braybon, ‘Winners or Losers: Women’s Symbolic Role in the War Story’ in Evidence, History and the Great War: Historians and the Impact of 1914–18, ed. Gail Braybon (New York: Berghan, 2005), 90–98.

  3. 3.

    André Keil, ‘States of Exception: Emergency Government and ‘Enemies Within’ in Britain and Germany during the First World War’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Northumbria University, 2014), 3; Clinton L. Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in Modern Democracies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948).

  4. 4.

    This includes work by intellectual historians and political philosophers, notably Richard Wolin, Jens Petersen and Giorgio Agamben. See Keil, ‘States of Exception’, 3.

  5. 5.

    Sydney W. Clarke, ‘The Rule of DORA’, Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law, 1 (1) (1919), 36.

  6. 6.

    Patrick Graham, ‘Public Order in Britain’s Wartime Emergency, 1914–18: The Defence of the Realm Act’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Queen Mary University of London, 2015), 6–7.

  7. 7.

    Brock Millman, ‘British Home Defence Planning and Civil Dissent, 1917–1918’, War in History, 5 (2) (1998), 204–32; Charles Townshend, Making the Peace: Public Order and Public Security in Modern Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

  8. 8.

    David Englander, ‘Military Intelligence and the Defence of the Realm: The Surveillance of Soldiers and Civilians in Britain during the First World War’, Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, 52 (1) (1987), 24–32.

  9. 9.

    Christopher Sirrs, ‘Risk, Responsibility and Robens: The Transformation of the British System of Occupational Health and Safety Regulation, 1961–74’ in Governing Risks in Modern Britain: Danger, Safety and Accidents, c. 1800–2000, eds. Tom Crook and Mike Esbester (London: Palgrave, 2016), 251; François Ewald, ‘Insurance and Risk’ in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, eds. Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), 210.

  10. 10.

    Ewald, ‘Insurance’, 208.

  11. 11.

    Panikos Panayi, ‘An Intolerant Act by an Intolerant Society: The Internment of Germans in Britain during the First World War’ in The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth Century Britain, eds. David Cesarani and Tony Kushner (London: Cass, 1993), 71.

  12. 12.

    Keil, ‘States of Exception’, 114.

  13. 13.

    TNA, ADM 1/8397/370, Defence of the Realm Regulations, 12 August 1914, 3–4.

  14. 14.

    Deian Hopkin, ‘Domestic Censorship in the First World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, 5 (4) (1970), 151, 154.

  15. 15.

    ‘The Zeppelin Raid of June 6’, Yorkshire Post, 19 June 1915, 8.

  16. 16.

    Horne and Kramer, 295; Heather Jones, ‘Encountering the ‘Enemy’: Prisoner of War Transport and the Development of War Cultures in 1914’ in Warfare and Belligerence: Perspectives in First World War Studies, ed. Pierre Purseigle (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 134.

  17. 17.

    Jerry White, Zeppelin Nights: London in the First World War (London: Vintage, 2014), 50.

  18. 18.

    David Wall, The Chief Constables of England and Wales: The Socio-legal History of a Criminal Justice Elite (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1998), 52–3.

  19. 19.

    TNA, HO 45/10940/227740, ‘G.H.Q., Home Forces’ file, ‘List of Police Forces, with Addresses of Chief Officers’; TNA, HO 45/10751/266118, ‘Scarborough Chief Constable’ file, Henry Windsor, Chief Constable of Scarborough (Borough Police) to the Under Secretary of State (Edward Troup), Home Office, 25 November 1914; Anon, ‘Scarborough Borough Police’, British Police History, http://british-police-history.uk/show_nav.cgi?force=scarborough_borough&tab=0&nav=alpha (accessed 25 January 2019).

  20. 20.

    Ian F.W. Beckett, ‘The Stanhope Memorandum of 1888: A Reinterpretation’, Historical Research, 57 (136) (1984), 240.

  21. 21.

    David G. Morgan-Owen, The Fear of Invasion: Strategy, Politics, and British War Planning, 1880–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 62, 70.

  22. 22.

    Graham, ‘Public Order’, 10.

  23. 23.

    T. Baty and J.H. Morgan, War: Its Conduct and Legal Results (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1915), 50–1.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., 50.

  25. 25.

    The Director of Military Intelligence George MacDonogh and head of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) Vernon Kell played prominent roles in this process. See Keil, ‘States of Exception’, 116.

  26. 26.

    J.M. Bourne, Britain and the Great War 1914–1918 (London: Edward Arnold, 1982), 192.

  27. 27.

    Keil, ‘States of Exception’, 4.

  28. 28.

    Graham, 2.

  29. 29.

    Ibid.

  30. 30.

    TNA, ADM 1/8397/370, Defence of the Realm Bill, 7 August 1914.

  31. 31.

    Englander, ‘Military Intelligence’, 25.

  32. 32.

    Charles Townshend, Making the Peace: Public Order and Public Security in Modern Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 57.

  33. 33.

    Townshend, Making the Peace, 62–63.

  34. 34.

    Keil, 122; Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

  35. 35.

    Keil, 117.

  36. 36.

    Keith Ewing and Conor Anthony Gearty, The Struggle for Civil Liberties: Political Freedom and the Rule of Law in Britain, 1914–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 39–41.

  37. 37.

    Wall, Chief Constables, 52.

  38. 38.

    Charles Cook, Defence of the Realm Manual, Seventh Edition (London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1919), 100. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/manualrealm00grearich (accessed 24 January 2019); ‘To Help in Defeating Zeppelins’, Whitby Gazette, 13 October 1916, 2.

  39. 39.

    Brock Millman, ‘British Home Defence Planning and Civil Dissent, 1917–1918’, War in History, 5 (2) (1998), 228.

  40. 40.

    TNA, HO 45/10753/266118, Edward Troup, circular to chief constables, 10 May 1915.

  41. 41.

    Reg. 14. See Cook, DORA Manual, 101. ‘Special administrative areas’ redrew the boundaries of military districts to correspond with police districts. See Millman, 228.

  42. 42.

    Englander, ‘Military intelligence’, 30.

  43. 43.

    TNA, AIR 1/564/16/15/79, J.A. Ferrier to Headquarters Northern Command, 10 June 1915; TNA, AIR 1/564/16/15/79, Commanding Hartlepool & Tees Garrison to Headquarters, Northern Command, 15 April 1915.

  44. 44.

    These took the form of ‘commands’: Scottish Command, Northern Command (Berwick-upon-Tweed to the Wash) and Eastern Command (The Wash to the South Foreland, including London). See TNA, WO 32/5273, Field Marshal French, Commander-in-Chief of Home Forces, ‘Defences of the United Kingdom’, 13 February 1916.

  45. 45.

    TNA, ADM 1/8397/370, Defence of the Realm Regulations, 12 August 1914, 1.

  46. 46.

    Ewing and Gearty, Civil Liberties, 50; Ludwik Ehrlich, ‘British Emergency Legislation during the Present War’, California Law Review, 5 (6) (1917), 445.

  47. 47.

    Englander, 25.

  48. 48.

    As a comparator, this figure stood at 92 per cent for officers and soldiers tried on home soil. See War Office, Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire (London: HMSO, 1922), 644.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., 647, 655.

  50. 50.

    Francis Dodsworth, ‘Risk, Prevention and Policing, c. 1750–1850’ in Governing Risks in Modern Britain: Danger, Safety and Accidents, c. 1800–2000, eds. Tom Crook and Mike Esbester (London: Palgrave, 2016), 30, 43.

  51. 51.

    Maurice Wright, ‘Effect of War on Civilian Populations’, The Lancet, 28 January 1939, 191.

  52. 52.

    Dodsworth, ‘Risk’, 39.

  53. 53.

    NYCRO, ZW (M) 15/2, Emergency Committee for the Whitby Petty Sessional Division, ‘Notice: Bombardment or Raids’, 7 October 1915.

  54. 54.

    C.S. Dobinson, ‘Coast Artillery: England’s Fixed Defences Against the Warship, 1900–56’, Twentieth Century Fortifications in England, Vol. VI.I (York: Council for British Archaeology, 2000), 11–28; Andrew Saunders, Channel Defences (London: Batsford/English Heritage, 1997); Martin Brown, First World War Fieldworks in England (Portsmouth: Historic England, 2017).

  55. 55.

    Norman Longmate, Island Fortress: The Defence of Great Britain 1603–1945 (London: Random Century, 1991); K.W. Maurice-Jones, The History of Coast Artillery in the British Army (Uckfield: Naval & Military Press, 2005/1957); Joe Foster, The Guns of the North-East: Coastal Defences from the Tyne to the Humber (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2004).

  56. 56.

    Matthias Schulz, ‘Did Norms Matter in Nineteenth-Century International Relations? Progress and Decline in the “Culture of Peace before World War I’ in An Improbable War? The Outbreak of World War I and European Political Culture before 1914, eds. Holger Afflerbach and David Stevenson (Oxford: Berghan, 2007), 43, 54.

  57. 57.

    Morgan-Owen, Fear of Invasion, 78, 89.

  58. 58.

    Ibid., 74, 78.

  59. 59.

    TNA, CAB 3/2, Committee of Imperial Defence, Home Defence “A” Series, Vol. 1, 56, ‘Report of a Conference between Admiralty and War Office Representatives to consider the Strategic Conditions governing the Coast Defence of the United Kingdom in War as affected by Naval Considerations’, November 1903, 1; Richard Dunley, ‘Invasion, Raids and Army Reform: The Political Context of ‘Flotilla Defence’, 1903–5’, Historical Research, 90 (249) (2017), 613.

  60. 60.

    TNA, CAB 3/2, Committee of Imperial Defence, Home Defence “A” Series, Vol. 1, ‘Coast Defence’, November 1903, 2.

  61. 61.

    Ibid., 4.

  62. 62.

    Joe Foster, The Guns of the North-East: Coastal Defences from the Tyne to the Humber (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2004), 143–67.

  63. 63.

    Jan Rüger, Heligoland: Britain, Germany and the Struggle for the North Sea (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 124.

  64. 64.

    TNA, CAB 3/2, Committee of Imperial Defence, Home Defence “A” Series, Vol. 1, 97, ‘Memorandum of the Military Policy to be adopted in a War with Germany’.

  65. 65.

    Dunley, ‘Invasion’, 618.

  66. 66.

    Ibid.

  67. 67.

    Kennedy, Anglo-German Antagonism, 266.

  68. 68.

    TNA, CAB 3/2, Committee of Imperial Defence, Home Defence “A” Series, Vol. 1, 97, ‘Memorandum of the Military Policy to be adopted in a War with Germany’, 23 February 1904.

  69. 69.

    TNA, CAB 3/2, Committee of Imperial Defence, Home Defence “A” Series, Vol. 1, 101, ‘The Strength of the Regular Army and Auxiliary Forces, having regard to Peace and War Requirements’, 1 May 1904, 6.

  70. 70.

    Cunningham, Volunteer Force, 132–135.

  71. 71.

    Winston Churchill, quoted in Cunningham, 136.

  72. 72.

    Peter Dennis, The Territorial Army, 1906–1940 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1987), 9.

  73. 73.

    TNA, CAB 3/2, Committee of Imperial Defence, Home Defence “A” Series, Vol. 2, 5, ‘Invasion’, 20 July 1907, 4.

  74. 74.

    Longmate, 398.

  75. 75.

    Dennis, Territorial Army, 29.

  76. 76.

    Ibid., 31.

  77. 77.

    TNA, CAB 17/31, ‘Coast Defences’ (1912), M.P.A. Hankey to Lord Haldane, 18 September 1912.

  78. 78.

    TNA, CAB 3/2, Home Ports Defence Committee memorandum, ‘The Humber’, April 1912.

  79. 79.

    TNA, CAB 17/31, ‘Coast Defences’ (1912), M.P.A. Hankey to General Henderson, 29 October 1912.

  80. 80.

    TNA, CAB 17/31, ‘Coast Defences’ (1912), ‘Report and Proceedings of the Standing Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence on the North-East Coast Defences’, 29 November 1912, 48.

  81. 81.

    TNA, CAB 17/31, ‘Coast Defences’ (1912), M.P.A. Hankey to Sir Robert Chalmers, 31 October 1912; Hankey was also Secretary of the Committee for Imperial Defence (CID), 1912–38. See Graham, 10, fn. 40.

  82. 82.

    Kathleen Burk, War and the State: The Transformation of British Government 1914–1919 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982), 17.

  83. 83.

    TNA, CAB 17/31, ‘Coast Defences’ (1912), Hankey to Churchill, 20 November 1912.

  84. 84.

    TNA, CAB 17/31, ‘Coast Defences’ (1912), ‘Report and Proceedings of the Standing Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence on the North-East Coast Defences’, 29 November 1912, 8–10.

  85. 85.

    Burk, The State, 13.

  86. 86.

    TNA, CAB 17/31, ‘Coast Defences’ (1912), ‘Report and Proceedings of the Standing Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence on the North-East Coast Defences’, 29 November 1912, 18, 32.

  87. 87.

    TNA, ADM 116/3107, ‘East Coast Defences, 1913’, 5 August 1913; TNA, CAB 3/2, Committee of Imperial Defence, Home Defence “A” Series, Vol. 1, 58, ‘Report of a Conference between Admiralty and War Office Representatives to consider the Strategic Conditions governing the Coast Defence of the United Kingdom in War as affected by Naval Considerations’, November 1903.

  88. 88.

    TNA, ADM 116/3107, ‘East Coast Defences, 1913’, 5 August 1913.

  89. 89.

    Ibid.

  90. 90.

    Ibid.

  91. 91.

    TNA, CAB 3/2, CID, ‘Attack on the British Isles from Oversea’, 14 September 1914.

  92. 92.

    TNA, CAB 3/2, CID, ‘Instructions to Local Authorities in the Event of Belligerent Operations in the United Kingdom’, 6 October 1914.

  93. 93.

    There were 3504 men and 87 officers at the Humber, compared to 1168 men and 29 officers at the Tees. See Ibid.

  94. 94.

    TNA, ADM 116/3107, ‘Proceedings of a conference held at the War Office in the room of the Secretary of State for War at 10 a.m. 10th December 1913’. Present were the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Secretary of State for War, the First Sea Lord, the Master General of the Ordnance, the Chief of Staff, the Director of Military Operations and the Assistant Director of Operations.

  95. 95.

    Ibid.

  96. 96.

    Morgan-Owen, 217.

  97. 97.

    TNA, ADM 116/3107.

  98. 98.

    Foster, 149.

  99. 99.

    TNA, WO 32/5273, Field Marshall French to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, 13 February 1916, 3.

  100. 100.

    Ibid.

  101. 101.

    The 1913 plans covered as far south as Harwich but did not stretch to London and the South Foreland. See ADM 116/3107, ‘East Coast Defences, 1913’, 5 August 1913; Marder, 409.

  102. 102.

    TNA, WO 32/5273, Field Marshall French to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, 13 February 1916, 6.

  103. 103.

    TNA, ADM 116/3107, ‘East Coast Defences, 1913’, 5 August 1913.

  104. 104.

    ‘Strength’ in Tables 4.1 and 4.2 refers to the numerical strength of the potential force raised in terms of men.

  105. 105.

    Marder, 409.

  106. 106.

    Ibid., 410.

  107. 107.

    Ibid., 412; Millman, ‘British Home Defence’, 212.

  108. 108.

    TNA, WO 32/5274, B.B. Cubitt to the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Forces in Great Britain, 21 October 1918.

  109. 109.

    Ibid.; Graham, 21.

  110. 110.

    TNA, WO 32/5274, Henry Wilson to General Staff, 2 October 1918.

  111. 111.

    Ibid.

  112. 112.

    Morgan-Owen, 204.

  113. 113.

    TNA, WO 32/5274, General Headquarters to War Office, 7 June 1918.

  114. 114.

    TNA, ADM 137/966, Admiral of Patrols to the Secretary of the Admiralty, 31 October 1914.

  115. 115.

    Millman, 208–209.

  116. 116.

    Ibid., 219.

  117. 117.

    Brett Holman, ‘Constructing the Enemy Within: Rumours of Secret Gun Platforms and Zeppelin Bases in Britain, August-October 1914’, British Journal for Military History, 3 (2) (2017), 32.

  118. 118.

    See TNA, HO 45/10751/266118.

  119. 119.

    The specific measures devised in the north-east coastal region are explored in the chapter that follows.

  120. 120.

    SL, UBC, Harry W. Smith to F.W. Spurr, 10 February 1915.

  121. 121.

    E.P. Hennock, ‘Central/Local Government Relations in England: An Outline 1800–1950’, Urban History Yearbook, 9 (1982), 47.

  122. 122.

    TNA, HO 45/10753/266118, ‘Restriction of lights on approach of hostile aircraft’ file, Home Office to chief constables, 10 May 1915.

  123. 123.

    Ibid.

  124. 124.

    SL, UBC, George Clark & Sons to Harry W. Smith, 18 January 1915.

  125. 125.

    TNA, HO 45/10883/344919, ‘Possible use of poisonous gasses from Enemy Aircraft’ file, ‘Air Raid Precautions: Summary of Official Recommendations for the Guidance of the Public’, August 1917; NYCRO, Z.1028 ‘North Riding Lieutenancy: Forewarned is Forearmed’ pamphlet, February 1918.

  126. 126.

    White, Zeppelin Nights, 31; Credland, 53; ‘Alarm Nights: A Plea for Self-Control’, Hull Daily Mail, 10 September 1915, 6.

  127. 127.

    TNA, HO 45/10750/266118, ‘An Order Under the Defence of the Realm Regulation, 1914’, poster (dated 1 October 1914); ‘Raid Precautions’, Whitby Gazette, 26 January 1915, 8.

  128. 128.

    TNA, HO 45/10751/266118, Admiralty to Home Office, 1 December 1914.

  129. 129.

    Ibid.

  130. 130.

    Ibid.

  131. 131.

    ‘An Air Raid Invitation’, Daily Mirror, 20 July 1917, 12.

  132. 132.

    TNA, HO 45/10751/266118, ‘Reduction of Lighting in Coast Towns’ file; ADM 1/8397/370, ‘Defence of the Realm Regulations’ file.

  133. 133.

    Anthony Pagden, The Enlightenment: And Why It Still Matters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 22.

  134. 134.

    Chris Otter, The Victorian Eye: A Political History of Light and Vision in Britain, 1800–1910 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 99, 194; Shane Ewen, What is Urban History? (Cambridge: Polity, 2016), 73.

  135. 135.

    Martin Daunton, ‘The Consciousness of Modernity? Liberalism and the English National Character, 1870–1940’ in Meanings of Modernity: Britain from the Late-Victorian Era to World War II, eds. Martin Daunton and Bernhard Rieger (Oxford: Berg, 2001), 126.

  136. 136.

    Otter, Victorian Eye, 221.

  137. 137.

    Rieger, “Modern Wonders”, 167.

  138. 138.

    Daunton, ‘Consciousness’, 119.

  139. 139.

    ‘Come to Hull’, Hull Daily Mail, 26 June 1914, 3.

  140. 140.

    TNA, WO 32/5274, B.B. Cubitt to the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Forces in Great Britain, 21 October 1918.

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    Michael Reeve

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Reeve, M. (2021). Public Safety and Home Defence: The Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) and Central Government Policy. In: Bombardment, Public Safety and Resilience in English Coastal Communities during the First World War. Global Studies in Social and Cultural Maritime History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86851-2_3

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