Before the Bobbies. The Night Watch and Police Reform in Metropolitan London, 1720-1830

Night Watch to Police, 1811-28 107

every sort of iniquity was the common practice of the Police officers. I do

not complain that ... he looked at the Police with a suspicious eye; but that

he constantly applied to a quarter for information which was certain to

mislead him.

After three years of work, the Committee made no recommendations for

the night watch. It referred to the 1812 'Report on the Nightly Watch and

Police of the Metropolis', stating that 'the system, such as it was, remains',

and made no further recommendations regarding the watch.^23 The Commit-

tee did conclude:

The offices of high constable and constable are duties of labour performed

without rewards; and persons are selected to fill them, who, whatever may

be their other qualifications, have no motive beyond mere public duty to

discharge faithfully the arduous and troublesome offices with which they

are invested. Complaints have been made ... of the inadequacy of the

allowances which are made to the inferior constables, for loss of time

and attendance on the different sessions and courts; and a want of suffi-

cient remuneration is expressly stated to be the foundation of that neglect of

duty which is every where apparent [Emphasis added).

While recognizing the 'office of constable is of great antiquity; and though it

is in many respects admirably suited to the wants of a free people', the

Committee recommended high constables be paid a salary. Regarding parish

constables, the Report acknowledged it was not possible to end the use of

hired deputy constables, recommending steps be taken to insure the hiring of

qualified substitutes.^24 The 1818 Report thus endorsed increased profess-

ionalization.

But the Select Committee rejected centralization. Its concluding remarks

admitted the prevention of crime was an important subject, however,

the difficulty is not in the end but the means, and though your Committee

could imagine a system of police that might arrive at the object sought for;

yet ... such a system would of necessity be odious and repulsive, and one

which no government could be able to carry into execution ... it would be a

plan which would make every servant of every house a spy on the actions

of his master, and all classes of society spies on each other.^25

The choice of words here was crucial because the Committee assumed 'a
police' would be controlled by the central government and it equated police
with clandestine surveillance.
The country had been shocked only a year earlier by the revelations about
government spies. These men had infiltrated radical working-class groups,
reporting on their activities to the Home Office. They had also acted as agent
provocateurs, encouraging working-class radicals to commit serious offences.