Keeping law and order was the responsibility of parish constables and nightwatchmen, few in number and part-time. They were paid out of the rates, but their wages were so low that only those who could find no other work applied. A mock advertisement of 1821 shows how the watchmen, who were nicknamed "Charleys", were viewed by the public:

"Wanted, a hundred thousand men for London watchmen. None need apply for this lucrative position without being the age of sixty, seventy, eighty, or ninety years; blind with one eye and seeing very little with the other; crippled in one or both legs; deaf as a post; with an asthmatical cough that tears them to pieces; whose speed will keep pace with a snail, and the strength of whose arm would not be able to arrest an old washerwoman of fourscore returned from a hard day's fag at the washtub."

Thief-takers

The arrest of criminals was left to private "thief-takers", who were like bounty hunters, working for rewards. Many were in league with the thieves themselves. Most notorious was Jonathan Wild (1683-1725), who styled himself the "Thief-Taker General of Great Britain and Ireland". Wild was a criminal mastermind, whose gangs stole valuables, which he would then "recover" for a fee from the victim. When a thief outlived his usefulness, Wild turned him in to pocket the reward. After sending 60 men to the gallows, Wild was unmasked and hanged himself.

Bow street runners

In the 1740s, the novelist and magistrate, Henry Fielding, formed the Bow Street Runners, a group of seven constables based in his London office. These were early detectives, who tracked down criminals and served writs. Unlike private thief-takers, the runners worked directly for the magistrate. They were forerunners of the police, though they did not patrol the streets or attempt to prevent crime.

River police

In the 1790s, merchants trading with the West Indies were losing vast sums of money each year, through the theft of rum and sugar from their ships in London's docks. In 1798, they clubbed together to fund a River Police force, based at Wapping. This employed 220 men, who wore no uniforms yet were heavily armed. For the first time, there was a police force whose presence acted as a deterrent to crime. In the first year of operation, over 2,000 people were found guilty of offences committed on the river. The force was so successful that, in 1801, it was taken over by the government. In 1839, the River Police would be merged with the Metropolitan Police, and renamed Thames Division.

Robin redbreasts

The success of the River Police encouraged the magistrate Richard Ford to set up a second London police force in 1805. This was the Bow Street horse patrol, established to combat highwaymen. It comprised 54 men, who wore blue coats and scarlet waistcoats, earning them the nickname "Robin Redbreasts". Armed with pistols, cutlasses and truncheons, the patrolmen galloped in posses along the roads leading to London. These were the first uniformed policemen in Britain.

Using the military

In times of serious civil disorder, the authorities sent in the army, often with disastrous results. In 1780, there was a six-day riot in London, sparked off by a proposal to grant greater rights to Catholics. The rampaging mob burned down prisons, Catholic chapels and houses, and looted breweries, distilleries and taverns. It took 10,000 troops to restore order and more than 280 people were killed before the rioting ended.

More shocking was the use of troops to break up a peaceful political demonstration. On August 16, 1819, a crowd of 80,000 people gathered at St Peter's Field, Manchester, to listen to the radical orator, Henry Hunt. The magistrates sent in mounted troops, who charged the crowd waving their sabres, killing 15 and injuring hundreds more. Three days later, a Times editorial described it as a "dreadful fact that nearly a hundred of the King's unarmed subjects have been sabred by a body of cavalry in the streets of a town of which most of them were inhabitants, and in the presence of those magistrates whose sworn duty it is to protect and preserve the life of the meanest Englishmen."

Public outrage over the Peterloo Massacre, as it was called, forced the government to look at alternative methods of maintaining law and order. The need was for a civilian police force that did not wear military uniforms, whose members would not be hated and feared, but respected as public servants.