The rise of the police force

Peel creates the first police force in England

1) As home secretary, Peel sponsored the first successful bill to create a professional police
force in England. The Metropolitan Police Act (1829) established the London Metropolitan
Police Department, an organization that would become a model for future police
departments in Great Britain, the British Commonwealth, and the United States. The “New
Police,” as the force was called, was organized into a hierarchy of ranks in military fashion.
Ranking officers were to be promoted from within, on the basis of merit. The basic police
officer, the uniformed constable, was unarmed and had limited authority.

2) London Metropolitan Police Department was designed to maintain close ties with and to
draw support from the people it policed. The primary function of the force was crime
prevention, and officers were instructed to treat all citizens with respect. Crime was to be
controlled and public order maintained by preventive patrols; police were to be paid regular
salaries; and no stipends were to be permitted for solving crimes or recovering stolen
property.

3) Nicknamed “bobbies” (in reference to Peel), the metropolitan constables were not
immediately popular. Most citizens viewed them as intrusive and illegitimate, and they were
often jeered. However, they eventually overcame the public’s misgivings, and they gained a
worldwide reputation for the excellence of their leadership. Peel appointed Charles Rowan,
an army colonel, and Richard Mayne, an Irish barrister, as the first commissioners of the
force; both men were strong leaders and effective administrators who instilled in their
officers the values embodied in a mission statement popularly known as Peel’s Principles.
According to those principles, police should demonstrate impartiality, focus on crime
prevention, carry out their duties within the limits of the law, work in cooperation with the
public so that the public voluntarily observes the law, and use force only to the extent
necessary to restore order and only when other means have been exhausted. Contemporary
police scholars consider Peel’s Principles to be as relevant a guide for police departments in
the 21st century as they were in the 19th.

4) The preventive tactics of the metropolitan police were successful, and crime and disorder
declined. The force’s pitched battles with (and ultimate victory over) the Chartists
(see Chartism) in London and in Birmingham (where a group of London officers was specially
dispatched) proved the ability of the police to deal with major public disturbances and street
riots. Yet, despite those early successes, the expansion of police forces to rural areas was
only gradual.
The Municipal Corporations Act 1835

The Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 ordered all incorporated boroughs to set up police forces
under the control of a watch committee, but police forces for the provinces were not mandated until
1856, when Parliament passed the County and Borough Police Act.