9 Charlies to Bobbies
The night watch did not disappear overnight. It took months to organize the
new police and a year to implement fully the Metropolitan Police Act. The
debt that the New Police owed to the old is evident in the initial structure,
tactics, and personnel of the Metropolitan Police. The protesting voices of
parochial officials, muted when the Metropolitan Police Act was passed,
were finally heard, complaining about the expense, efficiency, and constitu-
tionality of the police. However, there were more complaints about efficiency
and expense than about constitutionality. The Metropolitan Police had to
adjust to local and national expectations, just as the night watch had. This
dynamic between communities, police, and central government allowed solu-
tions to be found to the problems of cost and efficiency. When it became
clear that the new Whig government of 1830 was not going to repeal the
Metropolitan Police Act, constitutional arguments died. A favourable Select
Committee Report on the police in 1834 set a seal of approval on the new
police.
The establishment of the Metropolitan Police in 1829, headquartered at the
Commissioners' offices in Scotland Yard, is familiar territory for police
historians.^1 The first Commissioners were Charles Rowan, a Napoleonic
war veteran, and Richard Mayne, an Anglo-Irish barrister. They worked
closely and harmoniously for 21 years? They were joined by John Wray, a
solicitor, as Receiver, who had the challenge of collecting the police rate
from the parishes.^3 The act designated·by name those parishes and places
included in the Metropolitan Police District. It then stated:
a sufficient Number of fit and able Men shall from Time to Time, by the
Directions of One of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, be
appointed as a Police Force for the whole of such District ... to act as
Constables for preserving the Peace, and preventing Robberies and other
Felonies, and apprehending Offenders against the Peace.^4This vagueness contrasts with previous legislation, such as the 1774 West-
minster Night Watch Act, which detailed numbers of men, their hours of
duty, and the way in which that duty was to be carried out.^5
Peel had long planned to implement his new system gradually. He wrote to
Henry Hobhouse that when the new police were ready to take over from the
night watch, each parish would be notified and
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