98 Before the Bobbies
One meaning was the very broad, eighteenth-century one, encompassing the
whole of the criminal justice system. Romilly also referred to the magistrates -
and officers of the Police Offices as 'the police'. So when he asked the
Commons to enquire into 'police', it was because he wanted to see the
justice system as a whole reformed, not just the night watch. But he also
spoke of the police magistrates and their constables, as having been 'new to
the constitution' and a body from which he had expected 'that some great
benefit would be derived ... which would justify parliament in departing from
those principles by which they had, until that period, been guided on the
subject'. Romilly obviously felt that it was time to decide if that benefit had
indeed accrued.^88
Sir Francis Burdett, Radical MP for Westminster, used the term police
only to refer to the police 'establishment', the stipendiary magistrates and
their officers. Burdett considered the night watch and the police separate
institutions: 'he was convinced that if the system of nightly watch were made,
what in his opinion, it could easily be made, the necessity of any police
whatever might be precluded ... '. Burdett reaffirmed traditional concepts of
community-based security and personal obligation. He stated:
But if the country chose, to revive the old law of Edward the first, by which
every county and parish was made responsible to every householder for
the losses he might sustain, and by which every householder was com-
pelled in his tum to watch for the protection of others, effectual security
would be afforded to the community at large, without the interference of
any police ....^89Lord Cochrane, another Radical and member for Westminster, believed the
real problem was corruption. He and other Radicals shifted the debate from
crime to government patronage. Cochrane blamed rising crime rates on 'the
Pension List and ... the various other modes by which individuals of the
higher classes, and particularly members of that House [of Commons],
partook of the public money'. Burdett agreed: 'it was dishonest in public
men to receive public money without performing any public service. This
example of dishonesty must spread through the whole community, and must
have the effect of undermining every sound principle of justice and moral-
ity.'90 At the national level, then, the debate about policing continued to be
couched in similar terms to those used in 1785 and 1792. Tories and govern-
ment supporters were worried about 'law and order'; Opposition Whigs and
Radicals were wary of an encroaching executive.
The debate in 1812 also reflects the influence of speculative reformers like
Bentham and Colquhoun, as well as 'economical reform'. Colquhoun and
those who were influenced by his ideas emphasized the preventive and
detective function of a police force and the need for centralized government
control. An example is quoted above, in the letter from the two Shadwell