An occasional blog on the history of policing the railway and other transport undertakings.

As an amateur historian of transport policing I often come across snippets of information that I think are worth sharing. I am an active member of the British Transport Police History Group (BTPHG) but this is NOT an official product of that Group. BTPHG's website: www.btphg.org.uk is full of useful information and links and I recommend that anybody with an interest in the subject visits it regularly. I also intend to use this blog to give my own views on related subjects. The study of police history is not without controversy and it may be that I will sometimes touch on areas where there is not a general consensus. So be it, but I will always seek to avoid offence and I will be interested in hearing alternative views.

The railways and docks of Great Britain have played, and continue to play, an important role in society. It is rather surprising therefore that the policing of these locations is somehow seen as secondary to the history of crime and policing in the towns through which railways pass and docks serve. It could be said that this is a product of the fact that the police that operated on railways and docks weren't (or aren't) 'real'. I once heard a magistrate tell a defendant that he might not think that the police officer who arrested him wasn't real and, if it helped, he could pretend that the prison he was about to go to wasn't real either. He gave him six months to consider whether he should adopt the philosophical stance of Bishop Berkeley or that of Dr Johnson. The defendant's response employed a number of phrases that might have been familiar to our Anglo Saxon forebears.

95% of the history and experience of policing is the same, whether it takes place on the street or on a railway platform. For the purposes of this blog I am interested in the 5%.

Comments

Why Do Non Home Department Police Forces Get Missed When Legislation is Being Drafted

WHY DO NON HOME DEPARTMENT POLICE FORCES GET MISSED WHEN LEGISLATION IS BEING DRAFTED? Note: The Home Department is the traditional name for the Home Office and the Home Secretary is technically the Secretary of State for the Home Department. In this and other pieces I tend to use the titles interchangeably. I hope that by confusing my readers I can distract them from the boring nature of the blog itself. One part of my work lies in the field of research. This is not well paid and is a somewhat lonely pastime, but I do enjoy the thrill of tracking down information in archives, dusty corners of the internet and guiding people around bits of London. I find that there is often an overlap between the past and present, indeed life is a continuum. The present is a product of the past. The influence of what has come before is often apparent in what is done today. Frequently to understand the modern operating context we have to get pa...

Films for Thought

While searching the index to the material held by the Imperial War Museum (IWM) I stumbled across a couple of items relevant to this blog. Film footage can sometimes feel like a peep hole into the past. Each individual that appears would have had their own story to tell. Perhaps this is a theme I will return to in relation to the footage which catches – sometimes only in passing – railway, dock or canal police officers. The two IWM clips that caught my eye were: A 1942 film showing war work being carried out by women on the Southern Railway. Includes a shot of a member of WPC, Southern Railway Police directing traffic at Waterloo. The commentary reflects the social assumptions of the time. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060021182 A silent 1940 film about the evacuation of children. Shows footage at the front of St Pancras Station with police officers including an LMS Sergeant. https://www.iwm.org...

Second World War 4: Trapped in the Railway Police

Sergeant Phil Longland: Southampton Docks June 1943 (Photo: British Transport Police History Group) In the National Archives sits a rather tatty file from the Railway Executive Committee (1939-1945). It is accompanied by a note that says that the conservation department has been advised of its condition and that it will be subject of further evaluation. The note was added over twenty years ago. Looking after our national records is a long term process. The contents of the file shed much light on the under researched subject of the arrangements for policing the railways and docks of the UK during the Second World War. National emergencies create the need for emergency legislation. This was not an area of government that was particularly well handled in the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic but a war that included a very real risk of invasion meant that the scale of emergency powers granted to government ministers and officials is hard now to imagine. Not...

Policing Public Transport: A Neglected History

Search This Blog