In the late eighteenth and early years of the nineteenth century, considerable attention was paid to the policing of the Metropolis, an area centred on the Cities of London and Westminster but containing many more parishes outside of these two Cities. A key concern was that of the overall governance of policing throughout the area. This chapter will thus consider the views on this matter raised in the Select Committee Reports of 1798, 1812, 1816, 1818, 1822 and 1828. It will examine the suggestions regarding police reform raised in these reports, focusing on the nature of overall police governance and how this might be improved. These reports paved the way for the 1829 Metropolitan Police Act which provided the Home Office with a significant role in the governance of policing in the Metropolis. To ensure the legitimacy of the new force, the philosophy of policing by consent was advanced that emphasised the police acted as the servants of those they policed—a mode of governance that was enshrined in Peel’s ‘Nine Principles of Policing’. The chapter will also examine arguments that were put forward in the early decades of the nineteenth century to incorporate the City of London police into the Metropolitan police, in particular those put forward in Select Committee reports in 1834 and 1838. Here the key issue was the City wishing to retain control over its own policing arrangements. The chapter will examine the arguments for and against the continued existing of a separate police force for the City.