When Sir Robert Peel created the New Police in 1829 he envisaged a force of men that would be uniformed, follow orders, and operate under a clear hierarchy. Some of those serving as members of the old watch or parish constables joined up in the first months of the Metropolitan Police but many of these were soon weeded out as unsuitable.

The call then went out to the sorts of men that had served the British army so well in the wars against Napoleon – the agrarian working class men of England, Wales and Scotland.

The New Police concentrated on the beat system, a dull routine of daily and nightly meanders along a set route which was carefully supervised by sergeants. London was divided into police districts (Divisions) with each division broken up into station houses from which patrols were despatched daily and nightly.

When one of the duty sergeants for N Division (Sgt 37N) paraded his men ahead of the night patrol at 10 o’clock on the evening of the 8 December 1874 one of his team was missing. PC William Pitcher (193N) , who was just 23 years old, was nowhere to be seen and so some quick enquiries were made.

Asking around the sergeant soon discovered that the constable had been to the St George’s Street military barracks  and had joined the 10 (North Lincoln) Regiment of Foot. He was traced to Colchester where his battalion (the second) were billeted and fetched back to London by warrant to face the music at the Clerkenwell Police Court.

When he was arrested PC Pitcher held his hands up. He said he expected nothing less. In court he explained that he ‘had gone out with some friends, had taken a little too much to drink, and then had enlisted for a soldier’.

The magistrate fined him 40s (or 14 days in the house of correction at Clerkenwell) and dismissed him. Did he remain a soldier or return to the police? Sadly, this source doesn’t tell me that.

[from The Morning Post, Friday, December 18, 1874]