![]() |
The Peel Web |
I am happy that you are using this web site and hope that you found it useful. Unfortunately, the cost of making this material freely available is increasing, so if you have found the site useful and would like to contribute towards its continuation, I would greatly appreciate it. Click the button to go to Paypal and make a donation.
As Home Secretary in Lord Liverpool's government (1822-27), Peel had undertaken an overhaul of the criminal code and an improvement in the prisons. His next step was to implement legislation to establish a civilian, unarmed police force. The two extract that follow show his thoughts on the topic.
On 12 December 1828 the Home Secretary, Robert Peel, wrote to Henry Hobhouse setting out his (Peel's) ideas about a new police force for London. The Metropolitan Police Act (10 Geo IV, c.44) of 1829 was the start of the modern police force in England.
I have under my consideration at present very extensive changes in the Police of the metropolis.
You perhaps have read the Police Report of last Session. I am now employing Gregson in drawing up a Bill to give effect to the recommendations of the Report, so far as they concern the constitution of the nightly watch.
My plan is shortly this - to appoint some authority which shall take charge of the night police of the metropolis, connecting the force employed by night with the existing police establishments now under the Home Office and Bow Street; the authority which has charge of the police establishments, horse patrol, day patrol, night patrol, to act under the immediate superintendence of the Home Office, and in daily communication with it.
I propose that charge of the night police should be taken gradually. I mean that my system of police should be substituted for the parochial system, not per saltum, but by degrees.
I will first organise a force, which I will not call by the name of 'watchmen', which shall be sufficient to take charge of a district surrounding Charing Cross, composed, we will say, of four or five parishes. It shall extend on the City side as far as Temple Bar and the boundary of the City on that side, having the river as far as Westminster Bridge as the limit on another side. When it is notified to the parishes that comprise this district that this force is ready to act, and prepared to take charge of the district, the functions of the parochial watch in each of the districts shall terminate, and no rates be thereafter leviable on that account.
In the same way, as a little experience shall enable us to manage a more numerous force of nightly police, I propose to signify to other parishes from time to time that the police will take charge of them. Their present watch will continue to act until such signification be made, and will cease when it is made.
The present amount of money issued from the public funds for maintaining horse patrol, foot patrol, magistrates &c. shall continue to be issued, but the surplus that may be requisite to maintain the night police, or to improve and extend the existing patrols, shall be levied from the district within which that night police may act.
Police Rate will be levied instead of the Watch Rate. ...
Now the out-parishes such places as Brentford, Twickenham Isleworth, Hounslow, and so forth - in all which the police at present is scandalous, will feel, and very justly, that if the new police system succeeds for London, it will injure them, by driving a fresh stock of thieves from the heart of the metropolis into the environs, and it will be a great object to me, as well as to them, to devise some mode of improving their police. If I undertook the immediate change my force would be too large, the machine would be too cumbrous and complicated to be well managed by one authority. How, therefore, shall I proceed to provide for these out-parishes?
My notion is to take power for the Secretary of State to consolidate parishes bordering on the metropolis into a district for police purposes, to appoint Commissioners of Police, two for instance, resident in each parish within the district, who shall have the general superintendence of the district police...
In this extract, Peel's letter of 11 May 1829 to the Duke of Wellington outlines the proposed legislation for the establishment of a police force and urges the Duke to ensure that the law is passed by the House of Lords.
Just conceive the state of.. . one parish, in which there are eighteen different local boards for the management of the watch, each acting without concert with the other! ... Think of the state of Brentford and Deptford with no sort of police by night! ...
My Bill enables the Secretary of State to abolish gradually the existing watch establishments [and to substitute in their room a police force that shall act by night and day, under the control of two magistrates, who will be executive officers, and be relieved from the ordinary duties of justices, such as attending at Quarter Sessions, transacting parish business, &c. There is power to place the present Government establishments of police, the horse and foot patrols, under their superintendence.
I propose to substitute the new police gradually for the old one, not to attempt too much at first; to begin perhaps with 10 or 15 parishes in the centre of the City of Westminster, and gradually to extend the police district. The present watch and the present watch rate are to continue until the Secretary of State notifies to a parish that he is ready to undertake the superintendence of it. From that time the present watch and the watch rate are to cease.
I defray the expense by a rate in the parishes that are actually included within the new police, the new rate to be paid when the present rate ceases. The new rate is to be collected exactly like the poor rate, the same property to be assessed to each. The maximum of the new police rate is 8d. in the pound...
Pray pass the Bill through this Session, for you cannot think what trouble it has given me.
Meet the web creator | These materials may be freely used for
non-commercial purposes in accordance with applicable statutory allowances
and distribution to students. |
Last modified
4 March, 2016
|