British Transport Police History Group: Open Day

PHOTO: BTPHG

The British Transport Police History Group (BTPHG) are holding an Open Day on Thursday 13th October at Euston. Details below on the link below:

https://www.btphg.org.uk/

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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...

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...

Policing Public Transport: A Neglected History

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