Why 1829? 135delivering £300 to the thieves. Writing to the magistrates at Bow Street, S.M.
Phillips stated· that Peel:
considers this a disgraceful transaction directly calculated to promote the
commission of Robberies and to destroy the confidence of the public in
those institutions which were intended for the suppression of crime and
protection of property .... If a subordinate Officer of the Police can be
engaged in a matter of so much importance as the recovery of Stolen
Property of the value of several hundred pounds and if 'during no part of
the negociation does he communicate any thing to any of the Magistrates
upon the subject' what controul [sic] can there be on the part of the
Magistrates over their subordinate Officers, or what knowledpe can the
Magistrates have of the real state of crime in the Metropolis!^4
Such revelations can only have strengthened Peel's resolve to centralize
policing apart from the police magistrates. The Select Committee obligingly
recommended that the supervision be given instead to a new 'Office of
Police'. The magistrates at this new office
should be relieved from the discharge of those· ordinary duties which
necessarily occupy so much of the time of the present Police Magistra-
tes .... the Police Magistrate in a great city may be considered as an
executive as well as judicial officer, and one of the chief advantages of
the Establishment of a Head Office of Police, would consist ... in its
possessing a general superintending authority in matters of Police, which
should remedy the inconvenience that at present results from the inde-
pendent and unconnected action of the several Police Offices.^44Thus, 1828 represented an opportune time to address the need for reform of
the police office system and the role of magistrates.
A third reason for increased support for centralization in 1828 is that more
local watch officials favoured it. They too became convinced that centraliza-
tion could improve efficiency. These men were increasingly tired of the
burden of administering the night watch. The migration theory was increas-
ingly invoked to suggest that local reforms could be detrimental to the
metropolis as a whole. Ironically, the conscientious efforts of some parishes
to police their nei,Fsbourhoods was turned into an argument for ending
parochial policing.^5 Parochial officials who had made improvements in
their policing pointed to rising crime rates in neighbouring parishes as
proof of their success. Richard Gregory, treasurer for the night watch of
Spitalfields, agreed when asked: 'Is it your apprehension that those bad
characters who reside in Spitalfields, do not commit depredations in Spital-
fields on account of the activity of the police in that district, but that they
commit depredations in other parts of the Metropolis?'^46 Whether this was
true is hard to tell but the officials from most quarters of the metropolis who