WITH reference to the appointment of Dave Jones, assistant chief constable in Northern Ireland, to the top job in North Yorkshire, this would seem to be an ideal choice in troubled times (The Press, April 20).

They do say history repeats itself and reflects the first appointments made by Sir Robert Peel in 1829 in recruiting the first 1,000 new police.

After much opposition by the then Whigs party, he made his selection along with the phrase “the primary objective of any police force is the prevention of crime, the detection and punishment of offenders if a crime is committed to these ends all the efforts of the police must be directed”.

There were two joint commissioners appointed; Colonel Charles Rowan, an Ulsterman, and Richard Mayne, a barrister, from Dublin, who made his name on the northern circuit in England.

The first receiver was John Wray, who undertook the task in London, finding accommodation for housing the men and providing the first station houses and control of finances, ministration and legal business, provincial forces followed during that period.

The uniform was not to be of military bearing and constables were unarmed, apart from a truncheon and rattle; a civil force in all but name.

Kenneth Bowker, Vesper Walk, Huntington, York.