Welch, an energetic former grocer elected High Constable of Holborn. Eventually, the government agreed to establish a separate magistrate office from which Welch could operate, leaving Fielding as the dominant presence in Bow Street. Over the years, the government subvention raised from the initial £200 to £400 in 1757 and to £600 by 1765, as Fielding managed to persuade the Duke of Newcastle, now First Lord of the Treasury, of the increasing costs of an active policing and advertising, as well as of the need of recruiting a permanent clerical staff for the office. The administration of the funds was left largely in Fielding's hands. He provided payments to six officers, for investigating and attempting to apprehend offenders, and occasionally to a few assistants. During John Fielding's time as a magistrate, the Bow Street office seems to have been open for most of the day and for most days of the week, even when Fielding was not himself in the office, and there was always a so-called 'ordinary' to whom one could report offences also during the night-time. One of the main activities carried out by clerks and assistants in the office was to collect and record information about offences and offenders, therefore creating a sort of criminal database that could turn useful to officers in their investigating activities. Fielding believed that a national system of criminal information circulating throughout not only the metropolis of London but also the entire country would ensure that offenders would be arrested and brought to justice; moreover, anyone contemplating an offence would be deterred from doing so. In addition, he introduced innovations at the Bow Street office that would have a great effect on the first procedures of criminal prosecution. Fielding created a court-like setting that could attract and accommodate a large audience for his examinations of suspected offenders, opened and available for the public for long and regular hours. In doing so, he turned the office from being the mere house of a magistrate to being the Bow Street Magistrates' Court in which several justices were employed in rotation in order to keep the office open for long hours every day. This process of transformation was further amplified by Fielding's success in encouraging the London press to attend and provide their readers with a weekly report on his activity. John Fielding's legacy (1780–1815) Just after John Fielding's death in 1780, the crisis of