- September 29, 1829: the first "bobbies" walk the beat — Sir Robert Peel's Metropolitan Police Act creates London's Metropolitan Police.
- London's lawless pre-1829 world: dozing night watchmen, corrupt thief-takers, the Bow Street Runners.
- Peel's radical founding philosophy: "the police are the public and the public are the police"; legitimacy through public approval, not force.
- The deliberate civilian design: blue tailcoats and top hats (not scarlet soldiers), wooden truncheon, handcuffs, and rattle — no firearms.
- Recruit standards and the first force: 895 constables under commissioners Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne; £1 a week, seven days a week; seven-mile radius of Charing Cross (excluding the City of London).
- How headquarters' back entrance on Great Scotland Yard gave the world's most famous police force its nickname; "Peelers" and "Bobbies" after Peel himself.
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