Night Watch to Police, 1811-28 105and rising crime. In 1812, Sir Samuel Romilly noted: ' ... it was a received
maxim, that fewer offenses were committed in a period of war than in a
period of peace; seeing that many bold and daring characters were embarked
in the service of their country, instead of becoming dangerous at home'.^6 The
dislocation caused by the return of 300,000 men to England in 1816 exacerb-
ated already high levels of unemployment. The distress caused by the trade
depression and unemployment was intensified by high food prices when they
rose to near famine levels in 1817 and 1818.1 Another 'maxim' was that high
levels of unemployment and food prices also generated rising crime rates.^8
England experienced very high crime rates in the post-war years, especially
for property crime.^9
What gave a particular edge to this post-war anxiety was the continued
fear of revolution and the dramatic re-emergence of radical mass politics.^10
Radicalism had been successfully stifled during the war, when its leaders
were jailed and organizations like the London Corresponding Committee
lost members.^11 But after 1815 demonstrations in London and northern
industrial areas became almost yearly events, starting with the protests over
the Com Laws. London streets were filled in December 1816 at the time of
the Spa Fields reform meetings. Mass meetings were held in Westminster in
1818 during the parliamentary election campaign. More reform meetings
were held in the East End and Henry 'Orator' Hunt drew another large
audience when he spoke at Smithfield on Bastille Day in 1819.^12 The people
of London turned out in 1820-21 to support Queen Caroline, the 'injured
queen' of George IV, when the king tried to divorce her.^13
Historians of London's police have usually argued that it was the post-war
riots and disturbances that finally convinced England's ruling classes of the
desirability of professional, centralized, uniform policing.^14 Conservatives,
like Lord Sidmouth, were convinced by the problem of public order that
reform was desirable. But what was true for eighteenth-century London was
still the case -not all crowds resulted in riots and the meaning of crowds for
contemporaries depended on circumstances.^15 Between 1812 and 1820 there
were at least eighteen official processions through the streets of London that
did not result in riots.^16 The crowds that cheered the coronation of George
IV in 1820 were described not as a mob but as 'a spectacle, calculated to
arouse at once, feeling of pride and exultation and hope .. .' P Even when
crowds did produce riots, causing death and destruction, there was no
massive outcry for police reform. Mark Harrison has studied Bristol, Nor-
wich, Liverpool, and Manchester for the period 1790-1835 and concludes
that 'although issues of policing and public order were raised and discussed,
they were not seen as overwhelmingly important, or necessarily defined in
terms of suppression of mass activity .... insofar as local and national dis-
turbance did generate questions of the official response to violence, a pro-
fessional police force was by no means regarded as the obvious answer'.^18