Establishing a police force

Before 1829 the maintenance of Law and Order was haphazard.

1. Authorities had few resources to cope with riot, crime and disorder. Magistrates could read the Riot Act calling for rioters to go home.
2. Country parishes and smaller market towns had constables and the local watch and ward. This was the old Tudor system.
3. In London, the Bow Street Runners were set up in 1742.
4. Troops were used to keep order. They were used across England to keep order in the 1790s and 1810s.
5. Local militias were used for local problems. These troops were often inexperienced and drawn largely from the middle classes. The Peterloo Massacre of August 1819 shows just how inexperienced they could be.
6. Spies were used to track down those who were suspected of plotting revolution. These were particularly used in the 1815-1820 period. Spies were paid for their information and had a vested interest in making things seem worse than they in fact were – they were paid more.

Setting up the Metropolitan Police

Debate about the creation of a standing police force in England raged during the early part of the 19^th century. Confronted with political objections and fears of potential abuses Sir Robert Peel sponsored the first successful bill creating a bureaucratic police force in England. The establishment of Peel's Metropolitan Police in 1829 embodied a new conception of policing at odds with the discretionary and parochial procedures of eighteenth century law enforcement. Full-time, professional, hierarchically organised, they were intended to be the impersonal agents of central policy[1]. The 1829 Metropolitan Police Act applied only to London. The jurisdiction of the legislation was limited to the Metropolitan London area, excluding the City of London and provinces.

• All London's police were the responsibility of one authority, under the direction of the Home Secretary, with headquarters at Scotland Yard.
• 1,000 men were recruited to supplement the existing 400 police.
• Being a policeman became a full-time occupation with weekly pay of 16/- and a uniform.
• Recruits were carefully selected and trained by the Commissioners.
• Funds came from a special Parish Rate levied by the overseers of the poor.
• Police were responsible only for the detection and prevention of crime.

Crime and disorder were to be controlled by preventive patrols and no reward was allowed for successful solutions of crimes or the recovery of stolen property. Crime prevention was not the only business of the new police force. They inherited many functions of the watchmen such as

• lighting lamplights
• calling out the time
• watching for fires
• providing other public services

The Bobbies in action

"Bobbies" or "Peelers" were not immediately popular. Most citizens viewed constables as an infringement on English social and political life, and people often jeered the police. The preventive tactics of the early Metropolitan police were successful, and crime and disorder declined. Their pitched battles with (and ultimate street victory over) the Chartists in Birmingham and London in 1839 and 1848 proved the ability of the police to deal with major disorders and street riots. Despite the early successes of the Metropolitan police, the expansion of police forces to rural areas was gradual. The Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 ordered all incorporated boroughs to set up police forces under the control of a watch committee, but it was not until 1856 that Parliament mandated that provinces establish police forces.

The Metropolitan Police Act established the principles that shaped modern English policing.

1. First, the primary means of policing was conspicuous patrolling by uniformed police officers.
2. Second, command and control were to be maintained through a centralised, pseudo-military organisational structure. The first Commissioners were Charles Rowan (an ex-Colonel) and Richard Mayne (a lawyer). They insisted that the prevention of crime was the first object of the police force.
3. Third, police were to be patient, impersonal, and professional.
4. Finally, the authority of the English constable derived from three official sources-the crown, the law, and the consent and co-operation of the citizenry.

It has been suggested that as London's crime-rate fell, that of nearby areas increased. The number of offences did seem to increase in areas of London where the police were not allowed to go: Wandsworth became known as "black" Wandsworth because of the number of criminals who lived there. As the 1839 Royal Commission pointed out: ... criminals migrate from town to town, and from the towns where they harbour, and where there are distinct houses maintained for their accommodation, they issue forth and commit depredations upon the surrounding rural districts; the metropolis being the chief centre from which they migrate

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[1] Most critical studies of policing stop around 1870-80: W.R. Miller Cops and Bobbies: Police Authority in New York and London 1830-1870, Chicago, 1977, Clive Emsley Policing and its Context 1750-1870, Macmillan, 1983 and C. Steedman Policing the Victorian Community: The Formation of English Provincial Police Forces 1856-1880, Routledge, 1984. Later themes can be teased out of the uncritical narratives of T.A. Critchley A History of Police in England and Wales 900-1966, Constable, 1967, C. Emsley The English Police, Longman, 2^nd ed., 1996 and D. Ascoli The Queen's Peace: The Metropolitan Police 1829-1979, 1979.

Policing before 1829

The policing of towns and the countryside before the nineteenth century was based on a system established in the Middle Ages. In charge were the Justices of the Peace appointed by the Crown. Constables and watchmen helped them.

• Constables were appointed by Quarter Sessions. The high constable of a hundred was in effect a servant of the JPs. Appointed for between three and ten years, the constable faced a heavy fine if he refused to serve. The person appointed constable could pay someone to do the job for him. This became widespread in the sixteenth century and meant that, in some places, almost permanent ‘professionals’ were at work. The constable had to report to JPs on the state of roads and on public houses. He relied on his petty constables, operating in town and village, for his information. The constables had to use their own initiative and make regular presentments [reports] to the court. They had no uniform or weapons.
• In towns, but also in some villages. Watchmen patrolled the streets at night. In London there were also two provost marshals whose job was to arrest vagrants. In larger towns, like London, parish councils appointed paid beadles whose job was to organise the night watchmen. In theory all male citizens had to take it in turn to act as unpaid watchmen. In practice most prosperous people paid someone else to do the job.

Maintaining law and order depends on some form of policing. By the early eighteenth century this medieval system of policing was increasingly unable to cope with the rising population and the rising tide of crime. The only national police force that existed was the revenue or customs officer force that specialised in catching smugglers. The major problems were:

1. The old constable system was cheap to run and the government continued with it. However, it could not cope with the size of the new industrial towns like Birmingham, Manchester and Sheffield. What existed was a medieval system of policing in a modern world.
2. Watchmen were poorly paid. Patrick Colquhoun, a critic of the system, argued that “the old and infirm were thus employed to keep them out of the workhouse”. The City of London employed 1000 night watchmen so it was an important source of employment. Some watchmen were in league with criminals. They were rarely efficient in dealing with criminals and usually gave up the chase when a criminal went into a neighbouring parish.
3. Some large towns employed thief-takers like Jonathan Wild. They pocketed reward money after the successful prosecution of criminals.
4. Large-scale disturbances or riots were deal with either by the professional army or by the local militia or yeomanry.

The problem of policing was at its most severe in London. In 1730 the government decided to appoint a chief magistrate for London to hold court at Bow Street. The first was Sir Thomas de Veil. He was followed by two half brothers, Henry and John Fielding. Henry Field had little faith in petty constables or watchmen and he appointed six men to act as full-time ‘runners’ or thief-takers. They were paid a guinea a week plus a share of the reward for each successful prosecution. Later the blind[1] Sir John Fielding, who succeeded his brother, established the Bow Street Runners[2] on a permanent basis and ran it from 1754 to 1780. They could be called on to investigate any crime committed in London. He also began a system of publishing information about serious crimes committed in London with descriptions of wanted criminals. In 1772 he called for the collection, collation and circulation of information on a national basis. This was published as The Hue and Cry and Police Gazette and is still published today. The Thomas river police was set up in 1800 to police the river and its banks.

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[1] It was said that Sir John could recognise 3,000 criminals by their voices and that they were unnerved by this talent.

[2] In 1805 some of the runners were issued with blue coats and trousers, black boots and hats, white gloves and scarlet waistcoats – hence the name ‘Robin Redbreasts’. Each carried a pistol, cutlass and truncheon.