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The Coronation

 

(Photo:  BTPHG)


Yesterday I overheard a couple of police officers discussing their entitlements to leave and pay in respect of the Coronation of TMS The King and Queen. 

  By co-incidence an hour later I later came across this memorandum from the Chief of the North Eastern Railway Police to his Inspectors on exactly the same subject, although he was writing about the Coronation of 1911.  By the standards of the time the leave or pay arrangement was generous.

The Chief in question was the famous Captain (later Bgdr General) HORWOOD.  Known for the reforms he introduced into the railway police, he later went on to be the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis (1920-1928).  Nicknamed the ‘chocolate soldier’ in the Met after an attempt to assassinate him using arsenic laden Walnut Whips.

The Coronation 2023 will see a large police operation.  I have no doubt that HORWOOD would be proud of both the Metropolitan and British Transport Police (as successors to the railway police) contribution to the event

20th April 2023

 

Philip Trendall


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