British police are called bobbies because of Prime Minister Robert Peel
London's police officers got their nicknames, bobbies and peelers, from the man who created the force: Robert Peel. He also had a habit that infuriated his own party. Again and again he opposed a reform, changed his mind and then led it through, most famously the repeal of the Corn Laws, which cost him office.
Peel was born in 1788 in Bury, Lancashire, son of a textile maker who ranked among the wealthiest men the early Industrial Revolution produced, and became the first prime minister from an industrial business family. His father reportedly dedicated him to national service at his baptism and later threatened to disinherit him if he never became prime minister. Lord Byron, a schoolmate at Harrow, remembered that he was always in scrapes while Peel never was, and in 1808 he became Oxford's first double first, winning top honours in both classics and mathematics.
He entered Parliament at 21 for the Irish borough of Cashel, which had just 24 electors, and his first speech was hailed as the best debut since the younger Pitt. As Chief Secretary for Ireland he created paid special constables in 1814, the start of what became the Royal Irish Constabulary. As Home Secretary from 1822 he cut the number of crimes punishable by death, consolidated criminal statutes and introduced pay for jailers and schooling for prisoners, and he later founded London's Metropolitan Police.
He fiercely opposed Catholic emancipation in 1817, then helped pass it in 1829, judging civil strife a greater danger than reform. Briefly prime minister from 1834, he issued the Tamworth Manifesto, which set out the principles of the modern Conservative Party. His second government, from 1841, cut tariffs to boost trade, introduced a 3 percent income tax to make up the revenue, and passed laws on mines, factories and railways.
When the Great Irish Famine began, Peel allied with Whigs and Radicals to repeal the Corn Laws, which protected domestic grain prices. The split in his party forced his resignation in 1846, and he led a breakaway Peelite faction until his death in 1850. The historian A. J. P. Taylor ranked him among the first rank of 19th-century statesmen.
Source: Robert Peel
