The Masters of Bow Street (70 page)

He studied reports of riots and mass meetings; heard extreme Tories of the Right call for stricter measures in crushing all forms of incipient revolt; heard the Radicals demand new laws, reform of Parliament, better working conditions for the workers. As troops were called in to put down threats of risings, Richard again felt fear that there might be another eruption in London as terrible as the Gordon Riots.

But the real blow fell in the north. The first Richard heard of it was when the Member for Wexford, an elderly man of moderate opinions, came hurrying towards him waving a single news-sheet.

‘Marshall! Have you seen this terrible thing?’ The Member’s voice was so hard that others in the hall came towards him. ‘It’s from
The Northern News
. Eleven people were slaughtered and hundreds were wounded by a sabre charge at St. Peter’s Fields in Manchester. Such dreadful bloodletting!’

‘No trained troops would have behaved so,’ said a red-faced retired colonel. Then, squaring his shoulders, he added, ‘But the rabble must be put down! Men like Hunt should be thrown into prison.’

In a crowded, uneasy House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington congratulated the authorities in Manchester for their firm handling of a grievous situation, but as he spoke, protests came from several Members; cries of ‘Shame!’ and ‘Murder!’ and ‘Nonsense!’ were hurtled across the floor of the House. It became apparent that the government’s information, from a special dispatch, had been incomplete. The newspaper account by an eyewitness was much nearer the truth. Within days Wellington was being jeered both in the House and on the streets.

‘The hero of Peterloo!’ a man bellowed at him.

‘That’s right - Peterloo. It’s a long way from Waterloo to Peterloo!’

Several Members began to laugh.

Nothing in the situation seemed to Richard even remotely a laughing matter. He had come to respect Wellington as a man and was sure he had welcomed the news because he had been misinformed. But could the nation afford a politician among its leaders who was capable of making so serious a gaff? There was a slight easing in Richard’s mind when he learned that the troops had been local yeomanry, only partly trained, but what would happen if a similar situation arose in London before the creation of a strong police force? He knew the answer: the troops would be ordered to attack, and the people might well rise in bloody revolution.

In his fifteenth year in the House of Commons, 1822, Richard was appointed to yet another committee, with Home Secretary Peel as its chairman.

After sitting through several tense weeks of argument, he finally heard the committee chairman say, to the accompaniment of deep approval from most of the Members present, ‘It is difficult to reconcile an effective system of police with that of perfect freedom of action and exemption from interference, which are the great privileges and blessings of society in this country; and your committee think that the forfeiture or curtailment of such advantages would be too great a sacrifice for improvements in police or facilities in detection of crime, however desirable in themselves if abstractly considered.’

Had this been all, Richard’s disappointment would have been acute, but having rejected the concept, the report went on - at Peel’s cunning instigation - recommending the formation of a daytime patrol, to be dressed in the same uniform as the Horse Patrols, to control the principal streets of Westminster and around the City of London. It was to cooperate with the night patrols and, since there was no specific district assigned to it, the Bow Street office should become the official criminal investigation headquarters for the whole country.

For once, no doubt due to Peel’s urging, the recommendations were accepted.

Richard was stunned by the significance of the move. London for the first time in its history had a
day and night
police patrol sponsored by the government.

The next night Richard was to dine with Simon. Despite his general mood of satisfaction, he carried with him the uneasiness he always felt in Hermina’s presence, whilst his relationship with Susan was, in its way, as unsatisfying as his relationship with Hermina. He had taken to her from the beginning and she apparently to him, but she had always been evasive. She seemed to anticipate any attempt he made to talk seriously about their friendship and would invariably introduce some subject that made it impossible for him to proceed. At first he had believed this coincidental but at last he concluded that either he gave himself away by his expression or that Susan was possessed of a remarkable sixth sense. Not unnaturally, this teased him into greater interest. He did not at any time feel passionately in love with her but there was a quality about her face and movements which caught and held his attention. True, he did not see her often, although in the years immediately following Timothy’s death he had visited the house once or twice each month. When at last he managed to break through her evasiveness sufficiently to ask, ‘Susan, do you think you would enjoy spending more time with me?’ she had said, ‘Oh, there is nothing I would like better. But I cannot get away. Hermina needs me.’

It was always the same, and although Richard had no doubt there was some truth in her answer, he was sure that she used Hermina’s need partly as an excuse. Had he met another woman who attracted him, he would have paid Susan less attention and thought about her seldom, but he was fond of neither parties nor socialising, and his habit of going to the theatre and to concerts by himself was hardly conducive to an
affaire du coeur
.

One day, when he had called and discovered Susan free, Hermina being with Simon, he had asked more boldly, ‘Do you ever think of marrying again, Susan? And if you do, would you—’

He was about to add ‘consider me?’ when she answered quickly, touching his hand and saying, ‘Richard, I feel my responsibility to Hermina very deeply, and although you may not realise it, she is in desperate need of a trustworthy friend. I can tell you, but I ask you on your oath not to reveal it to any human soul, least of all Simon, that she has increasing periods of insanity. When she is taken by an attack only I can do anything with her. We stay in the apartment, sometimes for days on end, until she recovers. It is a very grave responsibility.

Richard could only agree, and there seemed no point in saying that Simon appeared to expect too much of her.

From that time on he was convinced that whatever his future, it was not with Susan. But she did smooth the hours he spent at Simon’s, making him still more conscious of the lack of a permanent relationship in his own life.

The next few years went by comparatively uneventfully, with Richard remaining unmarried. Then, one morning late in 1827, as he walked into the Palace of Westminster, Peel came forward to meet him. Peel - out of office now that Canning had formed a government - was with Lord John Russell, a Whig Richard knew well enough to admire, and a youngish man he didn’t know.

There was a round of introductions and Richard caught the young man’s name: Chadwick.

‘Richard,’ said Peel in an unusually affable mood, ‘do you think you could sit through another committee?’

‘And on what subject is our recommendation to be denied this time?’ Richard asked, and there was a general laugh.

‘To inquire into the causes of crime,’ said Lord John Russell.

‘But we have the answer in at least twelve committee reports and minority reports and abstracts and treatises since 1739,’ Richard said. ‘
Can
there be anything new to say?’

‘If you sit with us you can at least tell us what has been recounted before,’ Peel argued.

‘If you wish it, then I will sit,’ answered Richard. ‘But I warn you, I am no longer a tongue-tied junior Member. When anyone on the committee appears to me to be talking nonsense, I shall say so.’

‘I suspect you are going to talk a great deal,’ young Chadwick remarked dryly.

In fact it was a dull committee, held in a smoke-filled room, every speech interspersed by someone sneezing either from a cold or from snuff. It was obvious from the start that they would get nowhere, and Richard did not understand why Peel had joined the committee.

‘When are we going to accept the truth, eh?’ one of the older Tory Members kept asking. ‘Crime is caused by too much leniency. Harsher punishments, that’s the answer.’

‘Nonsense,’ argued Russell. ‘As far back as the turn of the century Romilly tried to make us see sense. We need fewer crimes liable to capital punishment—’

‘Or none at all,’ interposed Chadwick.

‘Are you mad, sir?’ the old Tory demanded. ‘Take away capital punishment and we’ll all be murdered in our beds. A strong force to see that the scoundrels are caught, and the certainty of hanging -
that
will cut down crime.’

‘I want no more police,’ Russell declared. ‘We have too many as things are. We need to reduce capital crimes, and—’

‘Upon my soul!’ interjected Richard. ‘I have never heard such nonsense in my life - not even from Members of Parliament. Every police reformer from the Fieldings to Colquhoun, Beccaria and Bentham, even back to John Furnival, knew the answer: reduce the severity of punishment but strengthen the police to make sure criminals are caught and no one can make a profit from a capture.’ As they stared at his rare outburst, he went on: ‘If you are a Tory, you stand for harsher punishment and strong police, if a Whig, you want lighter punishment and weak police. Why don’t you forget your parties and think and act like reasonable human beings?’

The Tory Member spluttered with rage, while Russell said dryly, ‘You have made your point, Mr. Marshall.’

‘I will tell you what we
won’t
make,’ retorted Richard. ‘A recommendation which will do the slightest good.’

In one way, he was right. The committee’s first report was simply a stopgap.

But after one of the meetings, young Chadwick came to him in the lobby and asked, ‘Would you do me a service, sir?’

‘If I can, gladly.’

‘I have prepared a memorandum on the use of a preventive police force and would be glad indeed if you would read this. And if you are in general agreement, then I think when the committee meets again we may be more effective.’

Chadwick’s memorandum was brilliant. Praise came from all sides and his future was assured, while the committee’s second report left the situation in Peel’s hands.

‘I am strongly in favour of a vigorous preventive police, Mr. Marshall, even though you may not always have received this impression from me,’ he told Richard. ‘I would be afraid to meddle with the City, but if we were to work out a plan for the nucleus of a single police system in the rest of the metropolis this
might
gain the favour of the House. Will you accept the task of preparing such a plan, Mr. Marshall?’

‘I will accept it eagerly,’ Richard promised. He could not know that his heart now thumped as his grandfather’s had when, long ago, the accomplishment of the dream seemed nearer. ‘May I invite help - from Lord John Russell, for instance?’

‘You may call on all who you think would be of value,’ replied Peel. ‘What I want, Mr. Marshall, are the facts of the situation as it is, and as precise a proposal as possible. Once I am satisfied that this has good prospect of being approved by the House, then I will present it. I do desire such a police force, Mr. Marshall. Indeed - and in strict confidence - I desire a supplementary bill which will lead eventually to a national police force, a sort of Ministry of Police. I have felt the need ever since reading the pleas made to the government by Sir John Furnival and the Fielding brothers. Your grandfather’s efforts and your own have not been entirely wasted, you perceive.’

‘I could not be more deeply gratified,’ Richard managed to say.

Peel remained silent for a moment, then leaned forward in his chair. ‘Mr. Marshall,’ he said at last, ‘I must offer a word of caution. We have not yet persuaded the House to pass such a bill into law. There is much to do. And if we are blessed with good fortune in timing - I would not like to present the bill on such a day as
you
first presented one to the House, Mr. Marshall; that might indeed be its Waterloo! - we have to create a police force which will overcome all public prejudices. When the time comes, I predict that such prejudices will be much stronger and more hostile than any we shall meet here at Westminster.’

‘May I ask who else has your confidence?’ asked Richard.

‘So that you may discuss the matter,’ Peel remarked shrewdly. ‘You are at liberty to talk freely with Edwin Chadwick.’

‘You know the truth as well as I do,’ Chadwick said, when he and Richard met for coffee two mornings later. ‘Pitt failed because his bill tried to do too much; Peel hopes to succeed because he asks so little - at the first bite, in all events.’

‘He will have all the support I can give him,’ promised Richard.

Chadwick chuckled as he said, ‘Can you be unaware that your example has been his inspiration?’

‘Oh, nonsense!’ Richard actually flushed.

‘No more nonsense than his warnings that we shall have opposition from all sides,’ Chadwick rejoined.

But no warnings dampened Richard’s enthusiasm, and on that same evening he called on Simon, who, despite obvious preoccupation, appeared delighted.

By now the pressures and responsibilities weighing upon Simon could be made no easier by the problem of Hermina. The stamp of added years marked his face, and he remarkably resembled a portrait of Sir John Furnival of Bow Street. Although Richard seldom went to the Thamesside building and had little to do with others of the family or the company, he knew several Members of Parliament who were sponsored by them, and was acutely aware of the enormous extent of their power and influence. Furnival’s had become one of the three most wealthy banking houses in the City, which meant in the world. Its holdings in the Bank of England had doubled; its share in the East India and the West India companies grew; and its holdings and estates in the United States became enormous.