A History of Police in England

by W. L. Melville Lee

CHAPTER XII
"THE NEW POLICE"

The depth of lawlessness under which London lay submerged, and the deplorable condition of the feeble bulwarks that the richest city in the world had so long been content to rely on, have been considered at some length, because it is only by contrasting the security of recent years with the lawless confusion previously existing, that an intelligent appreciation of the debt we owe to Sir Robert Peel is made clear.

The evidence given before the various Parliamentary Committees reveals to us an impartial contemporary view of things as they then were, and it requires but little acumen to see for ourselves how well we are served by our police to-day. The improvement that has taken place has been something more than a well-defined instance of the general amelioration in our institutions, which was the feature of the nineteenth century: the year 1830 saw an almost instantaneous change in the police of London, a transformation from an inconceivably rotten and antiquated system into one which immediately became an example to the world, and one which still remains a credit to our civilization. Simultaneously with the police revival there suddenly dawned an unwonted era of security out of the dark and dangerous shadows of the past: that this was due to Peel's Act, and to no other cause, is conclusively proved by the fact that the rural parts of England, to which the Act did not apply, had no share in the improvement which was at once manifest in the metropolis. The sharp contrast between the state of London under the old régime and its condition under the new administration is well illustrated by a comparison of two critical articles taken from the leading reviews of the day. A year before the introduction of Peel's bill the Quarterly Review said—"There can be no doubt that the whole of the existing watch system of London and its vicinity ought to be mercilessly struck to the ground. No human being has the smallest confidence in it.... Their existence is a nuisance and a curse"; and some years afterwards, when people had begun to realise how indispensable their police had become, the Edinburgh Review refers to the Metropolitan force in these words: "The arrangements are so good, the security so general, and the complex machinery works so quietly, that the real danger which must always exist where the wealth and luxury of a nation are brought into juxtaposition with its poverty and crime, is too much forgotten: and the people begin to think it quite a matter of course, or one of the operations of providence, that they sleep and wake in safety in the midst of hordes of starving plunderers."

The change was the more sudden because it had been so long deferred. When the transition stage was over there could be no sustained conflict between the new champions of order and the old allies of disorder, because the latter had been allowed to hold the boards until their charlatanism and worthlessness were thoroughly exposed. People might, and actually did, say that the new system was bad and would lead to all kinds of disaster, but no one was bold enough to assert that the old system was good. Population had increased enormously, people were richer, more civilized and more humane than they had ever been before, and yet they put up with the same old apology for police that their grandfathers had been dissatisfied with and ashamed of. In some respects it is fortunate for us that this was so; for when the inevitable change was brought about, we got a better article than we should have done if an earlier model had been adopted, or if the abuses had not been allowed to flourish until they had become sufficiently glaring to demand radical measures for their removal.

Of the many Parliamentary Commissions, which since the year 1770 had investigated the police problem, the only one which did its work in a satisfactory manner was that convened on Peel's initiative in 1828. This Commission went into the question very thoroughly, and came to the conclusion that "it was absolutely necessary to devise some means to give greater security to persons and property." As soon as the Commissioners' report was issued, Peel decided to act upon it immediately, and on the 15th April 1829, introduced his bill in the House of Commons. After briefly reviewing the prevailing state of insecurity, and commenting upon the notoriously defective police arrangements in vogue, he declared that no longer must petty parochial jealousies be allowed to outweigh higher and more extended principles. He then unfolded to the House his general plan. Recognizing the impossibility of simultaneously providing the entire metropolis with trained policemen, he proposed, in the first instance, to start on a modest scale, hoping that by the gradual absorption of parishes, the central agency would become exercised in the management and control of the police, until in course of time it should be competent to take charge of the whole constabulary of London:[180] the first experiment would begin with Westminster; Kensington and Hammersmith would come next; and eventually every parish, any part of which was within fifteen miles of Charing Cross, would be taken over.

Most recent attempts to reform the police had been entered into under the influence of panic, and when some patched-up defence could be extemporised against the danger that threatened, those responsible for the public quiet had been content. Peel's aims were more comprehensive: he set himself to design a framework sufficiently rigid to withstand the stress of the moment, and elastic enough to admit of expansion along the lines of future development.

A nice judgment was required to determine how far the old materials could be made available for the reconstruction, to decide how much to retain and how much to discard. Certain sound and well-proved principles, admirably suited to the national temper, underlay the structure which he was bent on modernizing, and these, he saw, could not be dispensed with. No mania for novelty blinded him to the value of much of the groundwork of the old system; and his reforms, therefore, were in the best sense conservative, for whilst there was no break in the continuity of whatever was good, neither was there any deliberate retention of anything that was bad. It is largely due to Peel's moderation that, the more one studies the anatomy of modern English police, the more one discovers birthmarks of its Anglo-Saxon parentage.

Two months after its introduction, Peel's measure became law. The famous Act of Parliament[181] creating the Metropolitan Police Force was entitled "An Act for improving the Police in and near the Metropolis." The preamble declared that, it having been found expedient to substitute a more efficient system of police for the local establishments of nightly watch and nightly police which had proved inadequate for the prevention and detection of crime, a new office of police was to be constituted, under the immediate authority of the Home Secretary. The Act is a long one, but its main provisions are simple and concise. His Majesty appoints two Justices of the Peace to conduct the business of the Police Office, and to frame regulations for the management of the force, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. The financial department is placed under an official called the Receiver, and the Police Rate (which must not exceed eightpence in the pound) is to be collected by Overseers like the Poor Rate. The existing watch shall continue to discharge its duties in the various parishes until notification is made that the new police is appointed, and then all watch-boxes, arms, etc., shall be handed over, and the present watch rates shall cease. The limits of the "metropolitan police district" are defined to comprise Westminster, and such parishes in Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, as are enumerated in the Schedule of the Act. The Metropolitan police district is partitioned off into various "divisions" according to counties, those of Middlesex being as follows, Westminster, Holborn, Finsbury, Tower, Kensington, Brentford, and a division comprising certain extra-parochial places such as Grays Inn, Furnivals Inn and Ely Place. A short supplementary Act[182] relieves the chief magistrate at Bow Street of the direction of the Horse and Foot Patrols, and places them under the new police office.

This Office, as created by the Act of Parliament, the chief provisions of which are above detailed, was situated in Westminster and was called Scotland Yard. It differed from the older Offices in many respects, for whilst it was given no judicial functions to perform, it was charged with the duty of supervising the police machinery of the metropolis. It thus became a centre from which to amalgamate the heterogeneous elements that went to make up London's police, and from which to administer the reclaimed territory in an ever-widening circle, until the whole metropolitan area, amounting to nearly seven hundred square miles, was freed from the trammels of Bumbledom, and brought under the control of a bureau directed by "able, indefatigable, and intelligent men."