99. Cops and Catholics

99. Cops and Catholics

The cops are what Robert Peel’s best remembered for. Thanks to him, the world’s first professional, civilian police force was launched. It hasn’t always lived up to initial expectations, with London’s Metropolitan Police going through particularly difficult times just now but, boy, it’s an initiative that has left its mark. And not just in Britain.

There was controversy about setting up a police force, with some resisting the idea of paying people to keep an eye on them and make sure they behaved. To libertarians, that felt like an incursion on basic freedoms. But far more controversial still was the extension of political rights to non-Anglican religious groups.

First, it was dissident Protestants, and Peel had to change his tune to support their emancipation.

But next it was the Catholics, and his U-turn was even more shocking. Nicknamed ‘Orange Peel’ for is backing for the Protestant (Orange) cause, it was astonishing to see him leading the charge for Catholic Emancipation in 1829. But Peel's dramatic changes of view would astonish a lot of people, a lot of times in his career.


Illustration: Photograph of a ‘Peeler’ of the 1850s. Public domain (PD-US-expired).

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Episoder(274)

209. Aftermath of defeat

209. Aftermath of defeat

We pick up the story just after the defeat of the 1926 British General Strike. It was a bad time for the unions, with strikes accounting for only just over a fifth as many working days lost in the wh...

15 Sep 202414min

208. Taking a break

208. Taking a break

It's time for A History of England to take a short break, until 15 September. So this episode is a brief review of where we’ve got to, after the defeat of the General Strike. That defeat showed the po...

18 Aug 20246min

207. Revolution?

207. Revolution?

It’s the general strike! This time the unions couldn’t push Stanley Baldwin’s government into making concessions to the miners. That was because while, in his own words, in the previous year Baldwin ...

11 Aug 202414min

206. Confrontation

206. Confrontation

The Labour government was kicked out of office at the 1924 General Election, in a campaign marked by the Conservative-leaning Daily Mail engaging in some fake news. It published a forged letter claimi...

4 Aug 202414min

205. The Empire at its peak, the country in the pits

205. The Empire at its peak, the country in the pits

In contrast to the last episode, where we saw how dire the state of the British economy was and how close to violent confrontation society was coming, this episode is the one where we find Britain rea...

28 Jul 202414min

204. Forward to revolution?

204. Forward to revolution?

The promise of building Britain into a ‘land fit for heroes’ never came close to being kept. Instead inflation undermined wages, unemployment rose, and living conditions, with widespread slum housing,...

21 Jul 202414min

203. Carthaginian Peace

203. Carthaginian Peace

Before moving on from the times when Lloyd George held power, we take a look in this episode at one of the major moments of his time as an international statesman: the Paris Peace Conference and, abov...

14 Jul 202414min

202. Fall following the decline

202. Fall following the decline

The Chanak crisis of 1922 brought Britain to the brink of war with Turkey. Saner heads, in particular those of both the British general on the spot and the Turkish leader, Mustafa Kemal, soon to be Tu...

7 Jul 202414min

Populært innen Historie

rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
rss-katastrofe
historier-som-endret-norge
rss-benadet
historier-som-endret-verden
aftenposten-historie
henrettelsespodden
rss-nadelose-nordmenn-gestapo
med-egne-oyne
sektledere
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
rss-frontkjemperne
rss-historiske-romanser-svik-drap-og-kjarlighet
taakeprat
rss-gamle-greier
lille-helvete
liberal-halvtime
historiepodden
rss-historier-fra-gudbrandsdalen
rss-bisarr-historie