Skip to main content

Midland Railway Police - A New Chief for 1910

 







I recently gave way to temptation and bought a couple of cheap historic items on ebay.  The first is a cyclostyled letter from the General Manager’s office of the Midland Railway at Derby dated December 1910.  It advises the recipient that Major J A Henderson had been appointed as Superintendent of Police for the Midland Railway in place of Major L Sandwith. 

Clearly the outgoing and incoming Chiefs knew each other – 8 years earlier Major Sandwith had taken over the post held by Henderson in the 8th Hussars (1).  Henderson had served in the Boar War and had been a career soldier.   Major Sandwith appears to have continued with the Midland Railway in an administrative role after retiring as Chief of Police.

Major John Acheson Henderson DSO OBE (always know as J A Henderson) served as Chief of Police for the Midland until 1923.  After the creation of the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) he was, for a short period, in command of the Midland Division of the new LMS Police (2).  He led the force through the period in the lead up to, and recovery from, the First World War as well as the unsettling preparations for the company and force mergers that occurred in 1923.

During the Great War he had returned to serve in the army, being mentioned in dispatches four times in addition to the awards of DSO and OBE.

He was born in Ireland and could be described as being rather well off.  He was the son of a senior barrister (KC) and he was educated at a fairly well known public (ie private) school –  at the time of his death he left over £37,000.

Like many police forces at the time the Midland Railway Police had been commanded by several ex-military officers.  Thirty years earlier the company had appointed an experienced police officer from the Metropolitan Police, John Meiklejohn, to lead the railway detectives. This proved to be a disaster when he was convicted of corruption offences at the Old Bailey as part of the Turf Fraud Scandal.

Henderson was 60 when he left the railway police.  At the time of the 1921 census he was the only occupant of a flat in Mayfair, although his place of work was given as Derby (the HQ of the Midland Railway) (3).  He was paid £985 pa, a reasonable amount to supplement his army pension, it was just less than the pay of a railway Assistant District Goods Manager. (4).  He was a single man when he retired but married for the first time at the age of 66 in 1930 (5)  He died in Devon in 1946 (6)

 

Philip Trendall

May 2024

 

 

(1)    Evening Standard 25 Oct 1902 p2

(2)    Nottingham Evening Post 02 Feb 1924 p5

(3)    1921 Census: 6 Albermarle Street RG15 00449 Viewed Find My Past 13 May 2024

(4)   The National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England; Collection: London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company: Staff Records; Class: RAIL426; Piece: 10

Ancestry.com. UK, Railway Employment Records, 1833-1956 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. – Viewed 14 May 2024

(5)   London Metropolitan Archives; London, England, UK; London Church of England Parish Registers; Reference Number: P69/BAT3/A/01/MS6779/9 – viewed on line at Ancestry.co.uk, 14 May 2024

(6)  GRO:  Deaths 1946: Mar Devon Central 05B 80

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 horror...
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

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 ...
1 comment
Read more