At the very centre of Sir Robert Peel’s idea of policing was the constable’s beat: a few streets, shops and families that he must know and care about.
Whenever newspapers print letters from anxious correspondents demanding more ‘constables on the beat,’ letters are sure to follow reminding us that patrolling a beat is an archaic model of policing not seen in this country for a generation. But back in 1862, the Metropolitan Police still clung to their founding principle that prevention is better than cure.
The Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police reiterated that what they liked best was a policeman who never arrested anyone.
In 1829, Sir Robert Peel’s Metropolitan Police Act passed into law with the blessing of Prime Minister Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, and King George IV. Sir Richard Mayne, a barrister, drew up guidelines emphasising that the measure of success was not arrests and prosecutions, but tranquil communities, and thirty-three years later the Met saw no reason to change them.
There was one form of power that self-taught engineering genius George Stephenson never harnessed.
Robert Peel, the Prime Minister, had to invite Stephenson to his private residence three times before the Tyneside engineer accepted, pleading that he was not suited to fancy company. His visit, when it finally took place, only confirmed something he had long suspected.