100 Before the BobbiesHigh Constable would send an abstract of the daily reports to Bow Street. Th
improve detection, the 1812 bill stipulated that while no police officer was to
share in the usual Parliamentary rewards, the magistrates would be given an
annual discretionary reward fund of £500.^96
Many reforms mandated by this bill were already in use in some parishes,
including shifts and supervisory officers. What was new was the comprehens-
iveness of inspection, accountability, and reporting in the hands of govern-
ment, not parish, officials. Whigs like Sir Samuel Romilly and Henry
Brougham were quick to notice and object. Romilly 'remarked, that the
Bill gave new and extraordinary powers to the police magistrates' and
Brougham complained that the magistrates 'had power and patronage
enough already'.^97 This view continued to find support among many back-
benchers.98 Given the government's attack on radical and reform move-
ments, these fears about the power of the executive and the uses to which
a government-controlled police force might be put were not unreasonable in
1812.
Parishes were also quick to realize the implications of this bill. 1\velve local
authorities, led by St Luke, Old Street, argued that the bill could not be
justified on the grounds of 'any neglect of duty discovered by the Police
Committee, in the Boards acting under Local Acts of Parliament, or from
any defect in the system of Watching adopted by them'.^99 Because those local
boards consisted of 'the most respectable Inhabitants of the Districts, whose
protection is the object of the Bill, [they] must be the best judges of the
necessity of a more or less expensive establishment:.^100 St Marylebone's
vestry unanimously resolved:That this Parish does not require any additional Security in Watching the
same and that the Vestry of this Parish is already fully competent under
the Powers vested in it under the Local Act ... to supply any Additional if
at any time wanting ....At first, the St Marylebone vestry tried to have the parish excluded from the
provisions of the bill. That effort failed so the vestry tried proposing an
amendment to the bill 'to do away with every compulsory part of it, except
that of reporting every thing to and communicating with the Bow Street
Police Office'. This would not 'interfere with any Local Powers but to afford
such an Opportunity of applying its regulations and suggestions in aid of
them ... '. When the amendment also failed, St Marylebone put its consider-
able clout in opposition to the bill.^101
Watch authorities were not merely concerned about preserving their
authority, as important as that was. They argued they had always been
ready to assist ministers in preserving the public peace, 'either by making
additions to the Nightly Watch, or by their own personal attendance'. The
current bill, however, required that 'one uniform system must be practised in