CHAPTER XVI
CO-OPERATIVE POLICE AND THE SUPPRESSION OF RIOTS
When the new police was first introduced, the promoters of the scheme did not look beyond the creation of a local force, sufficient to protect life and property in the metropolis and its immediate neighbourhood. No doubt Peel intended that his police should serve as a model to other forces which he hoped to see established throughout the kingdom; but it was no part of his plan that the Metropolitan Police should be extended until the whole of England was policed by a homogeneous organization administered from a central bureau in London. Such a result, however, was at one time imminent, and would have become inevitable if the process had not been arrested by the timely reforms in County and Borough, described in the last chapter; reforms which, besides helping towards the general reduction of crime, prevented also the threatened centralization, by securing to provincial districts the control of their own police.
As the Metropolitan Police increased in numbers and efficiency, it began to lose its strictly local character, and to become a national police. Up to a certain point this was to the public advantage, but it would have been calamitous if the tendency had been allowed to continue beyond that point. It is obvious, however, that after the failure of the Permissive Act in 1839, the retention of local control, so desirable on many grounds, was only rendered possible by making the abolition of the parochial system universally compulsory.
As a matter of fact, the powers of making additions to the Metropolitan District, acquired in 1839,[216] were only taken advantage of to a very small extent, and the growth of the Metropolitan Police was almost entirely confined within the limits originally assigned to it. In 1840 the Houses of Parliament and the London Docks were taken over; next came the Woolwich and Deptford Yards; Woolwich Arsenal, and Greenwich were incorporated in 1843; then the Tower of London, and finally the Royal Dockyards (Portsmouth, Devonport, Chatham, and Pembroke Dock) were policed by the Metropolitan force in 1860. The entire establishment, which in June 1830 was 3314 of all ranks, had risen to 5625 in 1852, and ten years afterwards a new division (X) was created to deal with the crowds which were expected to visit the second International Exhibition. In 1864 the total strength was 7113. Colonel Rowan resigned in 1850, and in 1856 the two Commissioners were replaced by one Commissioner (Sir R. Mayne) and two Assistant Commissioners.
At first no steps were taken to fill the gap caused by the disappearance of the Bow Street Runner, and the Popay incident discouraged the Commissioners from venturing on what was felt to be dangerous ground. The lack of a detective service was a great source of weakness, and so in 1842 a new department, especially devoted to this very necessary branch of police work, was instituted by Sir James Graham, and attached to Scotland Yard.
A small staff was selected out of the uniform branch to form a nucleus. At first the department only consisted of three inspectors and nine sergeants; soon afterwards six constables were added, and gradually the numbers were increased until in 1878 the whole detective service was reorganized, and the Criminal Investigation Department created.
At the time when the Metropolitan force was the only efficient police in the kingdom, individual officers, it may be remembered, were often sent to the provinces, on loan or permanently, to assist in the formation of similar organizations in other parts of England; this of course was right and proper, and was attended by the best results. Subsequently, the practice arose of temporarily drafting large bodies of London policemen to keep the peace in distant districts wherever disturbances were feared, a course of action sound enough in theory perhaps, but seldom found effectual when put to the test of experience. An English mob quickly resents high-handed interference, and will not tolerate at the hands of strangers the same degree of repression it would quietly submit to from local peace officers.
Several examples might be given of the ill-success which has almost invariably attended the employment of London police in the provinces; but the following is selected as a particularly well-defined instance. In the summer of 1839 a force of Metropolitan policemen, about ninety strong, were dispatched to Birmingham, to over-awe the turbulent crowds which, it was feared, might proceed to extremities if their demands were not complied with. When the police arrived in the town, a noisy public meeting was in progress at the Bull Ring, but no overt act of violence had as yet been committed. The Superintendent in charge of the constables peremptorily ordered the crowd to disperse; his summons was as positively disregarded, and within five minutes blows were exchanged. In the melée which followed, the police were worsted, and the situation was barely saved by the opportune appearance of the military. On the ensuing Monday evening, a second conflict took place, in which the policemen were victorious, though at the expense of an increase of bitterness on both sides. A spurious semblance of peace having thus been restored, fifty constables returned to London, and only forty were left to deal with any recrudescence of disorder; for this they had not long to wait, as an attempt to break up a public meeting, a few days later, was followed by the most serious consequences. After destroying some iron palisading which surrounded the Nelson Monument, the crowd, now animated by a worse temper than before, made weapons of part of the débris, and drove the small force of constables to take refuge in the police-yard. For the next hour and a half the town was at the mercy of the rioters, who, having begun by smashing lamps and windows, ended by pillaging shops and warehouses.[217] Eventually the police charged the mob with drawn cutlasses, and, assisted by dragoons, got the upper hand; shortly afterwards the police were withdrawn, and the task of keeping order was entrusted to a strong levy of special constables locally enrolled, who succeeded in maintaining the peace where their more professional confrères had failed. There is little doubt but that these riots might have been avoided, or at least mitigated, had no strangers been introduced to quell them.[218]
An isolated fact seldom proves anything; but it will be allowed, without the production of additional evidence, that the Birmingham fiasco affords sufficient proof that the Metropolitan Police had not yet learnt the art of managing an angry crowd. There are, no doubt, many occasions on which it is desirable to transfer bodies of police from one place to another in order to concentrate the forces of law and order at some threatened or strategic point, but in so doing the danger to be apprehended from the resulting increase of local animus, ought to be taken into account, and adequately provided for.