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%.

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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...

Law and History 2: JUST THE SAME AS OTHER FORCES?

Reading through this before posting makes me fear that it is not historical enough for this blog and trespasses into contemporary issues. So be it. But I do feel it necessary to remind readers that this blog does NOT represent the view of the BTPHG. These ramblings are mine alone. It is rarely accurate to say that history repeats itself, but it is true that somethings that we think are settled in the past return to challenge us again. When I was a serving police officer in BTP I saw a steady evolution in the status of the force. The achievements of officers, particularly in facing the ‘decade of disasters’ (1980s) and the acknowledged expertise of BTP in dealing with certain classes of activity (terrorism, theft person, theft of goods in transit, major incident response, football disorder etc) all led to an increasing recognition that BTP was an equal member of the police family. In concrete terms this had been marked by the recommendation of ...

The Oldest Railway Policeman?

Photograph: Police Review and Parade Gossip 03 Sep 1897 In 1898 Superintendent James WRIGHT, Chief of the Great Central Railway Police, died. He was 77 years old, (but see below). At the time of his death the newspapers proclaimed that he was the oldest serving railway policemen in the country. It’s a well know fact that Superintendents have an easy life but 77 is a bit much, especially in a time when the average life expectancy for a male infant aged one year was 46. Of course, life expectancy figures are skewed by high rates of infant mortality. At birth James WRIGHT had a life expectancy of just 41 years. The railway police were not covered by the pension provisions of the Police Act 1890 and instead each railway company made its own arrangements with special benevolent funds bei...

Policing Public Transport: A Neglected History

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