Note 89 — Chapter XI · MUNICIPAL PROBLEMS OF TODAY
Reading edition
Sir Robert Peel, who established the first regular police force in England, made himself very unpopular for a time by this step. The members of the new police force, by way of ridicule, were called “peelers” and “bobbies”, and these nicknames persist in England to the present day. They wore (and still wear) blue coats with copper buttons, for which reason the London youngsters also referred to the policeman as “the copper”. In America we have shortened it to “the cop”.