ABSTRACT
The recruits Sir Robert Peel had very clear ideas about the men that he wanted for his new police in 1829. Applications from military officers on half pay and from gentlemen in reduced circumstances were rejected. The recruits were to be respectable young men from the working class. They were to be at least 5 feet 9 inches tall and aged under 35 years, fit, literate, and blessed with a perfect command of temper. Such men were to fill all of the ranks up to commissioner; ability and merit were to be the sole criteria for promotion. The legislation establishing the county constabularies made similar requirements, though initially permitting the recruitment of men up to the age of 40. The height requirement in the Metropolitan Police was raised by two inches towards the end of the nineteenth century, but the recruitment regulations drafted in the beginning largely governed police recruitment for the next century and a half; the first commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to rise from the rank of police constable was Sir Joseph Simpson, who was appointed to this rank in 1958.
