Charlies to Bobbies 157demands of the Commissioners 'greatly exceeds the charge which ... it was
the intention of the Legislature in passing the Metropolitan Police Act .. .'.^52
St Marylebone and St Nicholas, Deptford, represented extremes, but vir-
tually every parish paid more, often substantially more, for the new police
than they had for the old in those first years. 53 By October 1831, 47 of the 80
local authorities in the Metropolitan Police District were in arrears.^54
When the 1834 Select Committee on the Police reviewed funding prob-
lems, its Report gave two examples to support the argument that the Metro-
politan Police was cost-effective. One example was hypothetical - the
Committee calculated the savings that would result to the City of London
if it was added to the Metropolitan Police District. The other example was
Hackney, a parish strongly opposed to the police on constitutional grounds
and singled out by Peel as a parish that was well policed.^55 In 1825-27,
Hackney averaged an annual watch budget of £3365. By 1832, Hackney's
share of the police rate, at 6d. in the pound, was £2496.^56 In an appendix to
the Report, using 1830 figures, 23 out of 86 parishes rated for the police
showed a decrease in cost under the new system. All were either very small
places, close to the City where residential population had been declining, or
were poor parishes in the East End or Southwark, except Hackney; St Luke,
Old Street; St John, Oerkenwell; and New Brentford. The first group
included the Inns of Court, the Liberty of East Smithfield, Charterhouse,
and the Old Artillery Ground. The second included Wapping; Shoreditch;
Spitalfields; St Saviour, Southwark; and Lambeth.^57 The savings these
parishes enjoyed ranged from £45 for St John, Oerkenwell to £1434 for St
Olave, Southwark. What this reveals is that the wealthier parishes of the
West End and outer suburbs were subsidizing the policing of these poorer,
less residential districts. For supporters of centralization, this was justified by
the migration theory. Peel argued that it was in the wealthier parishes'
interest to help fund better policing for the district as a whole because of
the increased efficiency that 'unity of design' would provide.^58 Overall, the
1834 Select Committee found in the late 1820s that the parochial watch
system averaged a yearly cost of £137 000 but, in 1830-32, the Metropolitan
Police cost Londoners annually £207 000.^59
Parishes continued to default on rate payments and some began submit-
ting lowered rentals for the county rate, to lower their share of the police
rate.^150 John Wray, the Police Receiver, was borrowing from the 'freasury on
a regular basis in order to meet the operating costs of the force, while
struggling with rate collection. He borrowed nearly £30,000 in the first
year.^61 A new statute was passed in 1833, allowing the government to pay
a quarter of the cost of the new police from the consolidated funds. A parish
was still rated for the full amount but if the overseers paid three-quarters of
the full assessment by the 40-day due date, the government would pay the
remaining quarter. Otherwise, the overseers would owe the full amount.^62 By