The Bow Street Runners have been called London's first professional police force. The force was founded in 1749 by the author Henry Fielding and originally numbered just six. Bow Street runners was the public's nickname for these officers, "although the officers never referred to themselves as runners, considering the term to be derogatory". The Bow Street group was disbanded in 1839.
Famous quotes containing the words bow, street and/or runners:
“If you bow at all bow low.”
—Chinese proverb.
“The sturdy Irish arms that do the work are of more worth than oak or maple. Methinks I could look with equanimity upon a long street of Irish cabins, and pigs and children reveling in the genial Concord dirt; and I should still find my Walden Wood and Fair Haven in their tanned and happy faces.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Why runners make lousy communists. In a word, individuality. It’s the one characteristic all runners, as different as they are, seem to share.... Stick with it. Push yourself. Keep running. And you’ll never lose that wonderful sense of individuality you now enjoy. Right, comrade?”
—quoted in Guardian (London, Dec. 29, 1984)