130 Before the Bobbiesby returning to committal statistics, reiterating that property crime in parti-
cular was on the rise.^19
This speech outlined Peel's strategy. First, he dwelt on the ordinary,
everyday crimes against property or, as George Rude has classified them,
acquisitive and survival crimes. Peel listed those crimes increasing most
rapidly as measured by committals: housebreaking; cattle, horse, and sheep
stealing; forgery and coining, robbery, larceny, embezzlement and fraud; and
receiving stolen goods. These were not normally crimes of political protest.
Peel was not presenting police reform as a protection against sedition or
radicalism but ordinary crime.^20
By reforming the criminal law, Peel had turned aside the argument that
only the criminal law, not the police needed extensive reform. Yet, up to this
time, locally controlled policing had been widely perceived as adequate
protection against ordinary crime. So Peel had to convince Parliament that
the system was not providing basic protection and this explains his emphasis
on crime statistics. Second, Peel took great care when he addressed central-
ization. He did not attack local authorities as incompetent or corrupt.
Instead, he argued that the system was inherently flawed: 'The defect pro-
ceeds from the want of a uniformity of system ... It necessarily follows, that
separate establishments must be imperfect. ... m No matter how efficient the
police were in any individual locality, the existence of multiple authorities
meant metropolitan policing was inescapably flawed. The issue was thus one
of local versus centralized control, not because of local incompetence or
corruption, but because of the way Peel defined good policing.
The charge to the 1828 Select Committee was more specific than that to
the 1822 Committee. It was 'to inquire into the cause of the increase in the
number of Commitments and Convictions in London and Middlesex, and into
the State of the Police of the Metropolis, and of the districts adjoining
thereto'. Like the previous one, the Committee included MPs who repres-
ented the metropolis (George Byng, MP for Middlesex), reformers (Thomas
Spring Rice) and government adherents.^22 The last included Viscount Low-
ther, an old school friend of Peel's and head of Metropolitan Road 'Ihlst.
The City of London's interests were represented by Aldermen Wood and
Thompson. The Select Committee was chaired by Peel's fellow MP for
Oxford University, T.G.B. Estcourt.^23
This Select Committee called a very different range of witnesses from
previous ones. The great majority were not connected to the Police Office
establishment. Forty-six out of the 54 heard were either interested indivi-
duals or local officials - vestrymen, vestry clerks, watch committee members,
City of London officials, turnpike trustees, magistrates from the Home
counties, officers from charitable organizations, and prosecution societies.
Significantly, a few parish constables and watch officers were allowed to tell
their side of the story, including William Chapman, Inspector of the Watch