The first CCTV camera?
Sunday, October 18th, 2009

banksy-cctv

For anyone wanting some historical perspective on our technological age, I can highly recommend the splendid Glasgow Mechanics’ Magazine.  This article may be the very first to propose the use of a camera for public surveillance.

An occurrence originated in a Camera Obscura exhibited here during Fair Week, which shows the important use to which this amusing optical apparatus may be applied.  A person happened to be examining, with great interest, the various lively and ever shifting figures which were portrayed upon the white tablet during the exhibition, when he beheld, with amazement, the appearance of one man picking another man’s pocket. He opened the door and recognising the culprit at a short distance, ran up to him and seized him in the very act of his crime. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to add, that he was immediately handed over to the Police.

From this circumstance, the utility of placing such apparatus in all places of public amusements and exhibitions, must be obvious. Whether it might be proper to erect it in the streets of a populous city like this and to place it under the inspection of an Officer for the detection of mischief and crime, is a matter worthy of consideration by the local authorities. Would it not be an eligible plan, indeed, to employ the Camera Obscura to take a view of what is passing in the streets of the town, and to communicate the result, if necessary, to the Police Office, or the Jail, by means of the telegraph?  If any impropriety or misconduct were observed, it would only be necessary to send a posse to the particular spot where it happened.

The startling thing about this article is the date. It was published in the Glasgow Mechanics’ Magazine in 1824.  And whatever happened to the posse?