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

Why 1829? 129

interdependence of the three topics of crime, police, and penal reform; and

of the futility of pursuing reform in isolation from the other aspects'.^13 Peel's

plans to reopen the topic of policing were postponed because of the reshuf-

fling which accompanied Lord Uverpool's crippling stroke and retirement in

1827. Unable to serve under George Canning, because of differences over
      Catholic Emancipation, Peel resigned from the Home Office in April1827.
      Peel asserted: '"Tory as I am, I have the ... satisfaction of knowing, that there
      is not a single law connected with my name which has not had for its object
      some mitigation of the severity of the criminal law; some prevention of abuse
      in the exercise of it; or some security for its impartial administration." '^14
      Sir Robert Peel returned to the Home Office in January 1828 after the
      death of George Canning and the formation of a new government under the
      leadership of the Duke of Wellington.^15 In early February 1828, Peel wrote
      to Henry Hobhouse, retired Under-Secretary of State:

It has always appeared to me that the Country has entirely outgrown its

Police Establishment - the difficulty in this ... is to divine any general rule

which ... [applies] to a society so varying in its subdivisions as ours is.^16

But Peel was ready in 1828, as he had not been in 1822, although his speech

to the House of Commons was crafted to be low key.

His opening remarks, on the causes of increased crime, included a lengthy

and somewhat dry discussion of the number of people committed for trial in

criminal cases. Peel downplayed his hopes: 'I must confess that I am not very

sanguine with respect to the benefits to be derived by this committee.'

Moreover, Peel spoke modestly about his actual goal:

An amendment of the police system, although it cannot prevent the evils

we complain of, may yet go far towards correcting them. But ... I must

confess that I despair of being able to place our police upon a general

footing of uniformity; I cannot hope to take St. Paul's as a centre, and have

a radius of ten miles, in which our police could be able to act in unionP

The key obstacle, he argued, was 'discordant jurisdictions':

Allowing, for the sake of argun1ent, that we have a tolerably good police

during the day, ... I must be permitted to observe that at night, when we

stand most in need of its protection, it is most defective. The defect

proceeds from the want of a uniformity of system; each parish proceeding

for itself during the night, in a manner that is very imperfect. It necessarily

follows, that separate establishments must be imperfect; ... [Emphasis

added].^18

Finally, Peel emphasized 'that the country has outgrown her police institu-
tions, and that the cheapest and safest course will be found to be the
introduction of a new mode of protection [Emphasis added]'. Peel concluded