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Horses, hiking, bits and Bobbies -
England
 London's Bobbies
London's Bobbies are the most charming and
helpful group of men and women I've ever had the pleasure to meet.
This trio, Dave on left, Mark on right, and Alan in the centre, who says
he's not a Bobbie- he just works there, are gentlemen I met in front of
St. Paul's Cathedral on a beautiful Wednesday morning. I heard them called
the "most photographed Bobbies in England". (What I saw over the next
while may have proved that statement.) You can see more of these charming
fellows in other places on this site.
History of the London Bobbies
In 1829 Prime Minister Robert Peel established the Metropolitan Police
Service. The group were quickly nicknamed "bobbies" or "peelers" after his
name. The MPS, the Bobbies, were the first professional and permanent
police force in the world.
Prime Minister Peel had strong and revolutionary ideas about how his
police force should work. He believed that they needed to operate from a
centrally located headquarters, that they needed to be easily accessible
to the public, carefully selected, and properly trained. He wanted them
paid a full time wage, to wear professional uniforms, and have a chain of
command in place to ensure both proper training and that the men in his
force would remain patient, impersonal, and very professional in their
dealings with the public.
Prime Minister Peel also felt that crime prevention should be just that,
the prevention of crime if possible and not just a reaction to crime after
it had been committed. He created and established a system to track crime
rates so that he could measure the effectiveness of his new force and he
placed his Bobbies on regular patrols of specific areas, or beats. His
thought was that having the local populace know his officers, and more
importantly having his officers know their beats intimately, would help in
the prevention of crime.
He was right. And while the Bobbies were not immediately welcomed by the
general populace, their outstanding success in reducing crime and their
more friendly duties of lighting street lamps, calling out the time, and
watching for fires, quickly changed their welcome on the streets of
London. In short order the pattern was copied throughout Britain and
almost as quickly, around the world.
Today's Bobbies are much loved and show the same patience, kindness, and
professionalism envisioned by Prime Minister Peel so many years ago. The
idea of crime prevention has not changed either in the many years since.
The ongoing effort to make London "the safest major city in the world"
continues today with such things as the 2006 Safer Neighborhoods campaign.
You may find out more about policing in London before the Bobbies at the
Old Bailey website.
You may find out more about policing in London today at the
Metropolitan Police
Service website.
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