But to return to Dogberry and his blue-coated successor. There was a good deal of opposition at first to the idea of a police force under the management of a county body. The idea of disestablishing the parish beadle and the constable was distasteful in itself, and the notion that they could be improved upon was rather laughed at. For years after the "men in blue" came upon the scene they were known as "Peelers," and have hardly got rid of the "Bobby" part of Sir Robert Peel's name even yet.
So divided was public opinion on the subject that the Hertfordshire Quarter Sessions only adopted the new system by one vote—the vote, as it turned out, of Mr. John George Fordham, of Royston, who had been but recently appointed a magistrate, and, I think, went on this occasion and voted for the first time in this division. No man knew better the need of a change, or the general ineffectiveness of the parish constable in the face of the disturbances which had for some years previously been witnessed in many villages. What the first cost of the "man in blue" was I am unable to say, but the first report of the Constabulary Force Commissioners contained the following estimate for a police force for Hertfordshire:—
1 Superintendent at L200 per annum
8 Sergeants at L1 2s. 6d. per week
80 Constables at 17s. 0d. " "
Clothing for 88 men at L5 16s. 5d. per annum
Total cost . . . . L5,132 4s. 8d. " "
1 man to 4,480 acres, and 1,610 persons.
It may be of interest here to make a comparison with to-day, and this shows, I think, that in place of one superintendent there are seven, besides a chief constable, that there are 7 inspectors, a rank unknown in the above estimate, 19 sergeants against 8 fifty years ago, and 136 constables against 80 of fifty years ago, with a considerable improvement in pay, viz., from the 17s. estimate of fifty years ago to the 21s. 7d. to 27s. 5d., according to class—the present pay for constables in the Herts. Constabulary.
We are sometimes reminded of a tendency to extravagance in county expenditure in Hertfordshire compared with Cambridgeshire. I do not know how far this may have held good historically, but certainly there is evidence of it when the policeman came. A few years after the establishment of the forces for Herts. and Cambs. the latter county had 70 police at an annual cost of L4,359 3s. 1d., and Hertfordshire had 71 police at a cost of L5,697 8s. 0d.
The new system was not so sudden a commencement as we may suppose, and at first depended upon the inhabitants meeting the expense if they wished for the luxury of a policeman in their midst. Hence in 1837 it was recorded that "in consequence of petty thefts and depredations committed in Baldock, it has been proposed that a police officer should be stationed there and a subscription has been set on foot by the inhabitants for that purpose."
In 1839 four policemen were sworn in for Royston and the neigbourhood, and yet two years afterwards, in 1841, some persons in Royston appear to have signed a petition against having a force of rural police—against allowing to the village the same police protection that the town and neighbourhood had already obtained for itself. These were, however, exceptional cases, and the system of a county force soon became general. The fact is that the old parish constable was a rough and ready means of dealing with the social and domestic sides of law and order, but on the criminal side he was of little use. He could clap a brawling man in the stocks, or use his good offices in marrying a pauper and getting her off the rates on to those of another parish, but when it came to a question of serious crime he was useless beyond carrying forward the "hue and cry" from his own to the next parish.
But the greatest of all the forces at work, breaking the life of the Reform period from its old moorings, had already begun, and Stephenson's triumph over Chat Moss had determined the great transition in the social life and customs between the Georgian and Victorian eras.
At first the nearest railway station to Royston was Broxbourne on the Great Eastern, and in order to shorten the driving journey to London, gentlemen and tradesmen rose early in the morning and drove from places in Cambs. and North Herts, to Broxbourne to join the new conveyance, the engine of which frightened the passengers as it drew up at the station! It was not an uncommon sight I am told to see a muster of all kinds of vehicles drawn up in rows at Broxbourne from all parts of the north-east of Hertfordshire, and there left to await their owners' return. The start had, of course, to be made at a very early hour in the morning to get to Broxbourne by eight or nine o'clock—"30 m.p. 8" (30 minutes past 8), was the manner of printing the first time tables.