POLICE REVIEW AND PARADE GOSSIP

 

                                          

                                            The title page of the first edition of Police Review

Police Review, or Police Review and Parade Gossip to use its original title, was the most important magazine of its type for well over a century.  From 1893 to 2011 it covered news stories and other subjects relating to the police.  It is still missed by serving and retired officers.  At first it proclaimed that it was the ‘Organ of the British Constabulary’.  It never claimed to be the ‘official organ’.  It was an independent voice.  Independent of the government, independent of Chief Constables, Watch Committees, Police Authorities and the Federation.  At various times it upset all of those groups and perhaps this was the true measure of its success.

Within three years of its first publication the format of the magazine settled into a pattern that changed little in a century.  Each edition contained news, features, articles on the law, Q&A columns, examination courses and letters to the editor.  Of course, the style changed to keep up with the times.  The Victorian numbers now seem rather pompous, or at least a tad formal.  Few letter writers are named.  The use of pseudonyms was essential to protect serving officers from the wrath of their chief constables.  Some of the issues that concerned correspondents will be familiar to police officers of all generations.  Conditions of service, pensions, equipment, sentencing and the irritation caused by direct entrance to the service at a senior level by those otherwise qualified by other means, are subjects that never went away.    

In reading the early magazines I am struck by how difficult life was for our Victorian ancestors.  Police officers were not well paid.  They were subject to the whims of those set over them.  They were the victims of violent assaults on a regular basis.  Discipline was universally firm and under some Chiefs very harsh.  I was shocked by the short sentences given for assaulting officers and by the number of suicides and attempted suicides of officers.  The stresses of the job were, and of course remain, considerable.  It does not do to forget that an officer who attempted suicide was likely to lose his job and would probably be prosecuted for attempting to take his own life.  Before the welfare state (a phrase one doesn’t hear much these days) an inability to earn a living meant disaster for a man and his family.  As now, police officers who left the force with a bad ‘character’ did not find getting a new job at all easy.

The backdrop to policing in 1893 was of course very different to the present day.  Most forces were small and offered little training.  There were many forces and the national structure was more akin to the situation we see in the United States where numerous forces and agencies have a law enforcement role.  Just by reading a couple of magazines from the mid 1890s and, without looking at any other sources, I would guess that there were at least a dozen forces, or bodies of constables in London alone.

The back numbers of Police Review have not been fully digitised.  Some years have been microfilmed.  Complete runs are rare.  Many of the older editions are in poor condition.  They represent an important source for police historians.  The pandemic has increased our reliance on digital and on line sources, but if we are to do our job properly as historian we still have to go back to basics.  This means visiting archives and wading through unindexed, or poorly indexed material.  One of the problems in trying to research the history of railway and dock policing is the fact that so much of what is cited relies on secondary sources or oft repeated stories.  Police Review is an excellent source.  Therefore I intend going through the first decade of the magazine and extracting items of interest to students of the history of transport policing.  In doing this I have the welcome support and expertise of the British Transport Police History Group (BTPHG).  If the process is productive the project could be expanded.  The material found will be made accessible via the BTPHG.  I have no doubt that, if nothing else, it will give me something to blog about.