{"id":10260,"date":"2025-11-25T00:26:45","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T08:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/?p=10260"},"modified":"2025-11-25T00:26:45","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T08:26:45","slug":"facing-down-a-rival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/2025\/11\/facing-down-a-rival\/","title":{"rendered":"Facing down a rival"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1855, five years after the death of Sir Robert Peel, a statue of him was erected in Cheapside, near St. Paul’s Cathedral.<\/p>\n

Peel was a Prime Minister and is known for creating the modern Metropolitan Police, which is famously why constables are called “bobbies”. What I found odd was the location of the statue.<\/p>\n

Despite the novelty of police forces in London in the mid-19th century, there were actually two: the City of London Police, who controlled the Square Mile, and the Metropolitan, which covered everything else. The City of London Police, like the City of London itself, was fiercely independent. Even today the local government and traditions of the City, now, as then, the financial heart of London, are different from the rest of the metropolis.<\/p>\n

The City Police and the Met were rivals in many ways, as I learned on my visit to the City Police Museum<\/a> a number of years ago. For example, the City Police height requirement was taller than that at the Met. That museum had a coat rack from the Snow Hill station where the coat rack height was chalked in as a dig.<\/p>\n

\"Coat<\/p>\n

The higher hook is labeled “For City Police”, the lower “For Met Police”.<\/p>\n

Writing my upcoming novel, Murder at the Gasworks<\/em>, I made use of this rivalry. My sergeant works for the City Police but ends up having to collaborate with an inspector from the Met. It makes for some tension and gave me an opportunity to explore the intricacies of the relationship between the two forces.<\/p>\n

So when I recently discovered images of the Peel statue, I had a suspicion that it was facing toward the City. And sure enough, when I looked on maps, that’s where Sir Robert is looking, toward the jurisdiction zone of the rival City Police.<\/p>\n

\"Postcard<\/p>\n

The Met was founded with the intention of serving all of London, and I’m sure the independence of the City force would have stuck in Peel’s craw, so I found the placement amusing and delightful.<\/p>\n

And don’t worry, the statue, although no longer facing the City, is ensconced at Hendon<\/a>, where the Met police are trained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1855, five years after the death of Sir Robert Peel, a statue of him was erected in Cheapside, near St. Paul’s Cathedral. Peel was a Prime Minister and is known for creating the modern Metropolitan Police, which is famously why constables are called “bobbies”. What I found odd was the location of the statue. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[84,4,145,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-history","category-mg","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10260"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10272,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10260\/revisions\/10272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}