like the Old Vic were established outside the boundaries of London to produce new plays. In 1843, Parliament repealed the Licensing Act 1737, ending the duopoly of the Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres, while the Theatres Act 1843 allowed straight plays to be produced in all licensed theatres. Aided by the promotion of theatre as a respectable medium, and new technologies which made staging plays more sophisticated, 19 theatres were in operation by 1851. By 1899 there were 61 theatres across London, 38 of which were in the West End. The music hall was a form of live entertainment which developed gradually during the first half of the 19th century. By the 1830s many hybrid pub/performance venues, known as "Free and Easies", existed where customers could enjoy live entertainment from amateur singers. These were disreputable establishments, which led some public houses to offer Song and supper rooms as a respectable middle-class alternative. Song and Supper Rooms of the 1830s and 40s offered patrons, for a surcharge, the opportunity to dine and drink while enjoying live musical acts of a higher caliber than the "Free and Easies". The 700-person capacity Canterbury Music Hall, which opened in 1852 in Lambeth, was the first purpose-built music hall, establishing the model with its large auditorium packed with tables for dining, generally offering bawdy musical revues or individual acts. By 1875 there were 375 music halls across the city, with the greatest number concentrated in the East End (around 150 had been established in Tower Hamlets by midcentury). Music halls became an integral part of cockney popular culture, with performers like George Robey and George Leybourne famous for their comic characters and songs. Two of the largest and most famous music halls were in Leicester Square – the Alhambra and the Empire – both of which were also notorious for the prostitutes who plied their trade in the galleries. Government In 1829, Home Secretary Robert Peel established the Metropolitan Police as a police force covering the entire urban area, with the exception of the City of London, which formed its own police force under a separate jurisdiction in 1839. In 1839, the two small forces which pre-dated the Met – the Bow Street Runners and the Marine Police Force – were absorbed into it once and for all. The force gained the nicknames of "bobbies" or "peelers" named after Robert Peel, and initially numbered