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

Give me a firm place to stand.........

Is policing better today than it was 50 years ago? Is this even a valid question? My answer to both is straightforward: ‘I don’t know’. I suspect that most things are better and some things have declined but generally it is the sort of question that can take up a lot of time and enough hot air to power a dirigible. I really DON’T want to start a debate on this because what concerns me most is my own shifting perspective. As a grumpy git I find the sight of scruffy police officers looking bored and staring at their telephones really annoying. I don’t understand why wearing a traditional helmet is so difficult and I don’t like the rather lightweight approach to discipline. On the other hand my professional dealings with police officers show me that modern officers are bright, caring, thoughtful and determined to do the right thing. As events demonstrate there is no shortage of brave people in today’s service. The horrors of racism and misogyny still haunt the service

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 Wright Committee into the

Police Review & Parade Gossip 1902/3

I have, at long last, returned to my project of searching early editions of Police Review & Parade Gossip for items relating to the Rail, Dock and Canal (RDC) Policing. I have run into a couple of years where the index (which was compiled at the end of end calendar year) is missing which means I have had no choice but to go through every page of every edition. Police Review was a weekly publication that described itself as ‘The Organ of the British Constabulary’. It provides a valuable insight into the issues that concerned police officers and the public. So, what were the big questions of the early Edwardian period? Well, questions of law make a frequent appearance together with operational demands. The delay to the Coronation of Edward VII in 1902 (he was ill) led to a lot of operational angst. Even today mutual aid brings challenges but imagine what it was like when there were 243 forces (i) covering England, Scotland and Wales. Assaults on officers were at a v

Policing Public Transport: A Neglected History

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