The pamphlets of the two Fieldings, and the exertions of other minor reformers who succeeded them, had no doubt done something to stir up public opinion and to pave the way for a better system, but their combined influence was only effectual up to a certain point, and the virtue of the remedies they proposed was not sufficiently potent to get to the root of the all-pervading mischief. The credit of being the first to perceive the true functions of a rational police force, as it should be, belongs to Bentham,[172] and the credit of formulating the details and presenting them in a tangible and practical shape to his contemporaries is due to Dr Colquhoun, who, in 1796, published his famous treatise "On the Police of the Metropolis."

If we think of Colquhoun as the architect who designed our modern police, and of Peel as the builder who constructed its framework, we must remember that there were others who had a hand in the good work, and that a long time elapsed between the drawing of the plans and the erection of the edifice. If it is allowable to carry the simile a stage further, we may say that the Government pigeon-holed the draughtsman's plans for many years before the order was given for the foundation stone to be laid. This delay must not be attributed to indifference, but rather to necessity. It is, perhaps, a truism to say so, but in order to carry any valuable reform to a successful issue, thought must precede action. Law is the public opinion of yesterday put in force to-day, and as Professor Dicey has somewhere pointed out, legislation has almost always been the outcome of the opinion of thirty years before. No better example of the truth of this general formula could be instanced than the case of the police reforms of the nineteenth century: Bentham, Colquhoun, Romilly and others did the necessary thinking and sowed the seed in the public conscience; a period of thirty years elapsed whilst the seed was coming to maturity; meanwhile Peel and the Duke of Wellington watched the gradual ripening of public opinion and provided the necessary legislation as soon as the people were ready for it.

Colquhoun, who, like Fielding, was a Middlesex magistrate, saw that the essential need was method. He recognized that before any material improvement could be looked for, or any real security obtained, the miserable jumble of wards, parishes, hundreds and boroughs, each with its private establishment of watchmen and constables, who were debarred from acting one yard outside their own boundaries, would have to be swept away, and a centralized agency substituted under the superintendence of "able, indefatigable and intelligent men."

The criminal classes, at this time, had an organization far superior to any that Society could oppose to it; in fact, if a committee of pickpockets and burglars had been entrusted with the task of creating and arranging a system of police, they could hardly have devised any scheme under which they would have secured to themselves greater freedom from molestation. Colquhoun pointed out how all this might be changed: he would have a register prepared of all the known offenders, containing a complete history of their connexions and haunts, together with a list of all property stolen; he would establish such a correspondence between the town and country magistrates that the movements of suspected persons might be effectually watched, and finally would "interpose those embarrassments which a vigilant and active police may place in the way of every class of offenders, so as to diminish crimes by increasing the risk of detection." He also collected a mass of evidence bearing on the causes that were responsible for the prevalence of crime, and proposed that a scientific campaign against the enemies of Society should be inaugurated, under the direction of experts, who should be free to devote the whole of their time and energies to the task. His proposition, in fact, amounted to the creation, if possible, of a centralized police, related to the general government through the Home Office, and officered both in the superior and subordinate grades, by men specially trained for the purpose. It was on these lines, of course, that Peel set to work twenty years later, but there is little doubt that he would have failed to carry his measure, in the face of the opposition which it aroused, if men's minds had not been to some extent prepared beforehand by the convincing arguments brought forward in "The Police of the Metropolis."

It must not be imagined that the period immediately preceding the formation of the new police was a time of expectant idleness, or that nothing was being done beyond the publication of treatises. Experiment and legislation were both at work; Parliamentary Committees, which sat in the years 1812, 1826, 1818, 1822 and 1828, to investigate the subject of police, collected a mass of evidence, much of which was useful; and the Select Committee on Vagrancy, appointed in 1821, performed a necessary and valuable task. Distinct progress was also made towards the correction of prison abuses and in the direction of the reform of the penal code, whilst several statutes which were out of sympathy with the new standard of humanity were very properly repealed. The pillory was virtually abolished in 1816, public flogging of women was made illegal in 1817,[173] that anomalous institution "benefit of clergy" disappeared in 1826, and the death penalty could not be inflicted on persons convicted of forgery after 1830. Of new enactments belonging to this period, the most important was the "Alehouse Act" of 1828,[174] which reduced to one statute all the licensing laws passed in former years, and which to this day remains the foundation of our present system. Broadly speaking the object of the Act was decentralization, and its effect to place the whole licensing jurisdiction in the hands of the Justices of the Peace in their several districts.[175] The laws relating to remedies against the Hundred were amended and consolidated in 1826,[176] and shortly afterwards regulations affecting the jurisdiction of Courts of Quarter Sessions came into force.[177]

Colquhoun's activity did not stop short at the production of his first book, a work which roused the Government from its lethargy, and which even awakened the interest of the King, he issued a police gazette containing a full description of all known offenders, which circulated in all parts of the kingdom, and was the means of bringing many miscreants to justice; he strongly endorsed Bentham's suggestion that a public prosecutor should be appointed, in order that private persons should be relieved of the odium and expense of coming forward to prosecute offenders, who might enjoy a measure of popularity, or whose conviction might be desirable on public grounds, even if no individual had suffered specific injury; and in the year 1798 he was induced to turn his attention to the question of river-police. The rich cargoes of West India merchantmen lying in the Thames had long offered temptations, and the absence of police gave frequent opportunities which London thieves could not resist. Robberies were of daily occurrence, and the value of the property annually stolen from ships and wharves has been computed at half a million sterling.[178] Under these circumstances, the principal ship-owners, despairing of ever obtaining protection from Government in return for the heavy taxes they paid, applied to Colquhoun to help them to defend their goods. He assented, and produced a work called "A Treatise on the Commerce and Police of the River Thames," which was soon followed by the establishment by Government[179] of an efficient water-police, with headquarters at Wapping, and composed, for the most part, of sailors who had served their time in his Majesty's Navy.

In 1821 the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, who had given much attention to police questions, determined if possible to put an end to the discreditable state of the London streets, where of recent years robberies had increased to an alarming extent. With this object in view, he decided to confine the services of the Bow Street patrols to the Metropolis, and gave orders that, in future, the wide circuit they had previously guarded was to be reduced, and their energies concentrated within the circumference of the central region. Dividing this limited area into sixteen districts, he attached to each a party of four men under a Conductor, and retained at Bow Street a reserve of one Conductor and fourteen men at the disposal of the Inspector there, for use in any sudden emergency. The suburbs and outlying districts were momentarily left unprotected by this withdrawal of the Bow Street Officers; so to repair this defect, the Horse Patrol, which in 1805 had been reorganized by Sir Richard Ford, was further improved and its numbers increased. The force was now divided into two branches, the mounted and dismounted, each of which was again split up into four divisions: the strength of the establishment was fixed at 161 of all ranks, apportioned as follows—