 and George Metzell, the first chief of the New York police, was given authorization to hire a body of 800 men and form a force that would be similar to the London police, who were known popularly as Peelers, after their founder, Sir Robert Peel. There was a large manpower pool of English-speaking candidates in the city at that time in the form of recent immigrants from Ireland, who had been pouring into the city in increasing numbers,