Skip to main content

Nicely Decorated

 


It appear that Horwood's decorations ended up in a sale in the USA in 2018 - this image (Copyright owner unknown) is from a set of images posted on line by the purchaser together with pictures of Horwood's  sword and original army commission.   Note this image will be removed at the request of the copyright owner.




We are used to seeing senior officers bearing a few medals and decorations but none in living memory have been in the same league as the most famous railway police chief.

By the time of the First World War the North Eastern Railway Police were among the best organised in the country.  At  start of war the Chief,  Captain William T F HORWOOD, was soon back in the army and rose quickly through the ranks ending up as Provost Marshall with the rank of Brigadier General.  His swift upward progress during the war is frequently mentioned in the newspapers.  The NER kept his job open until the end of the war but he was headhunted into a post at New Scotland Yard as an Assistant Commissioner and then in 1920 becoming Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis.   I might write a few pieces about him another day but for now I record that he was the most decorated railway and ex-railway police officer in our history.  Although his knighthoods came after he had left the NER many of his other awards and medals stem from his service in the war while he was still Chief of Police for the NER:

Knight Grand Cross Order of the British Empire

Companion of the Bath (Later Knight Commander of the Bath)

Distinguished Service Order

During the war he was Mentioned in Dispatches seven times

He was also awarded:

Croix de Guerre (France)

Croix de Guerre (Belgium)

Officer Legion d’honneur (France)

Officer Order of Leopold (Belgium)

Officer Order of the Crown (Belgium)

Commander Order of Dannebrog (Denmark)

Member (2nd Class) Order of the Rising Sun (Japan)

Grand Cordon, Order of the Crown (Romania)

Member Order of the Crown (Italy)

Member Order of the Star of Ethiopia (Ethiopia)

Member Order of the Nile (Egypt)

He might also have collected the odd jubilee, first aid and coronation medal along the way. 

Although he went on to greater things he never forgot his role in the NER police and remained an advocate for the promotion of railway policing and for improvements in conditions for railway police officers. As I have written elsewhere he was responsible for establishing the link between the railway forces and the Security Service (Mi5).    During his time at Scotland Yard he was a regular attender at social events run by the various railway police forces.  As these were often formal dinners I imagine his ’mess dress’ was pretty impressive!

 

Phil Trendall

Feb 2024

 

Refs

Dictionary of National Biography

Police Review 12 Jan 1917 p9

 

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
1 comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
2 comments
Read more