Last week I was at the National Archives working on some
papers relating to an RAF Bomb Disposal Flight during the Second World
War. Naturally I found myself reading
the Home Secretary’s correspondence file for 1839. These research leaps will be very familiar to
those who spend time in archives and libraries.
I have (mostly) given up researching the history of the railway police
but it is hard to resist the temptation of surfing a catalogue and ordering a
few extra files to pad out the task in hand.
On this occasion I found myself reading letters that had been sent to
Lord John Russell (1) and in particular a of a letter sent by the Great Western
Railway to the Justices of the Peace in Reading which had been copied to the
Home Secretary.
The early days of the railway police coincide with the
earliest days of policing. It is not
surprising that the two sometimes clashed.
Most famously was the strong opposition to the railway forces from the
first commissioners of the Metropolitan Police (2).
Elsewhere the opposition took time to build as in many
places there were railway police before there was much in the way of a local
constabulary. Equally there are plenty
of cases of a highly co-operative relationships from the very start. However one of the stumbling blocks was that
local forces and their colleagues in the railway police derived their right to
exist from different pieces of legislation, even though they largely shared the
powers given to the holder of the office of
constable, within their respective constablewicks. This block has only grown over the last 170
years and continues to be a problem for the modern British Transport Police who
grapple with a complex legislative backdrop that has no grounding in justice or
commonsense, but which retains a very firm streak of unhelpful history.
The first few years of the Great Western Railway (GWR) were
not without some serious problems. The
challenges of construction, serious accidents, large scale disorder and even
the suicide of its chairman presented problems that would tax any corporation. Even
the small police department found itself being criticised by members of a Royal
Commission, some of its members being convicted of assault (including a
superintendent) and one senior officer having to write to the Times justifying
the arrest of children for picking flowers on the lawn at Paddington. (3).
The GWR Act 1835 (4)
is a very detailed piece of legislation. Most of it is taken up with the
process of land transfer and the construction of the permanent way. But one
section allowed:
“CCX And be it further enacted
, that it shall be lawful for Two or more Justices of the Peace acting within
their jurisdiction from time to time to appoint such fit and proper persons as
shall be nominated to them by any three of the directors of the said company
for that purpose to be special constables within the said railway and other
works, and every and any part thereof;
and every person so appointed shall take an oath, to be administered by the said
Justices of the Peace, duly to execute the office of a constable for the said
premises; and every person so appointed and sworn as aforesaid shall have power
to act as a constable for the preservation of the peace, and for the security
of persons and property against felonies and other unlawful acts, within the
limits of the said premises, and shall have, use, exercise and enjoy all such powers,
authorities, protections, and privileges
for the apprehending of offenders
as well by night as by day, and for doing all acts, matters and things for the
prevention, discovery and prosecution of felonies and other offences, and for
the preservation of the peace, as constables duly appointed now have by the laws and statutes of this
Kingdom; and it shall be lawful for the said Justices or three or more Directors of the said company,
to dismiss or remove any such constable from his office of constable and upon
such dismissal or removal all powers authorities, protections, and privileges
by virtue of such appointment as aforesaid, vested in any person so dismissed or
removed shall wholly cease” (section 210 Great Western Railway Act 1835)
It is important to note that this power did not give rise to
the creation of a police force in the modern sense, it merely enabled the
company to nominate persons to the Justices to be appointed as special
constables for the premises of that railway.
The phrase special constable has a rather different meaning to that
which is now used and had no effect on the powers of the individuals holding
the office. It is worth noting that the
phrase continued to be used until the creation of the British Transport Commission
Police in 1949 (which was still not a force).
(5).
The relationship between the local justices and various
forms of ‘policing’ was a close one, especially before police forces were
established and for a long while afterwards.
Indeed the role of Justices of the Peace was, as the name implies,
created in the fourteenth century to deal with law and order in a practical way
as well as in a judicial sense. The
first Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police were magistrates, not police
officers.
The document (6) that
diverted my attention was a letter of complaint from the Secretary to the Board
of the GWR to the local justices. The
bench in Reading had decided that it was necessary to have police officers
concentrate on the new railway, but they had decided that the task should be
undertaken by ‘their’ police, ie the new Borough Police but with the provisio
that the GWR should pay all costs to the tune of 5/- a day. The letter reminds the bench that the company
were willing to nominate further individuals under the 1835 Act to perform the
required duties. Unsaid is the issue of jurisdiction. Borough force constables had powers only in
their district (the only area of concern to the Reading Bench) whereas GWR
constables could be deployed anywhere on the line between Paddington and
Bristol (and eventually from Farringdon to West Wales, the Midlands, parts of
the North West and Cornwall. Moreover
railway constables could also be used for other purposes, most especially at
this time for signalling trains.
How this disagreement was resolved is unknown. Nor is it clear why the Home Secretary became
involved. What we known is that the
constables of the Great Western Railway went on to be a large body of men that
only disappeared in 1949. The Chiefs of
Police from the mid nineteenth to the mid twentieth centuries supervised
policing that had its ups and downs but eventually encompassed a significant
proportion of the railway and dock systems of England and Wales. A far more extensive constablewick than that
owned by the good officers of the Reading Borough Police and their protective Justices. GWR were the first railway police to secure a
Royal Train and (probably) the first to wear a crown on their helmet badge. (7).
As a researcher I would suggest that letters like this one are pinholes into
the past that help build a much bigger picture
Can geographically tied forces ever have the strategic
perspective to police a national (and international) network? Local forces now have unrestricted
jurisdiction unlike the officers of the BTP whose powers are still largely tied
to a railway that has lost its docks, much of its metal and most of its goods
traffic. The debate started in the 1830s
will continue. In the meantime there is
a lot more work to be done to find out what the governments of the nineteenth
century thought of the railway police.
Philip Trendall
August 2025
NOTES
(1)
Lord John Russell was one of the towering
politicians of the Victorian period. He
was one of the driving forces behind the Reform Act 1832 and the Police Acts of
1839. He later served as Prime Minister
and entered the House of Lords when he became 1st Earl Russell. He was the son of the Duke of Bedford.
(2)
S1 Metropolitan Police Act 1829. 1829 Ch 44 10
Geo 4
(3) The Royal Commission of 1836-39 were keen that the local model of policing, as typified by the Metropolitan Police, was the only format for policing. One of the Royal Commissioners, Sir Charles Rowan, was also one of the two Commissioners of the Metropolitan Force. There is research to be done into the correspondence and administrative paperwork of the Commission to see what material touches on the railway police that did not make it into the formal report.
GGreat Britain. Commissioners Appointed to Inquire as to the Best Means of Establishing an Efficient Constabulary Force in the Counties of England and Wales. First report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire as to the best means of establishing an efficient constabulary force in the counties of England and Wales. Printed by W. Clowes and sons, 1839
Part of the
concourse at Paddington is still described as ‘the lawn’.– although it now
provides few opportunities for the collection of flora.
(4)
Great Western Railway Act 1835 5& 6 Gulielmi
IV Cap. Cviii
(5)
The use
of the description ‘special constable’ for full time professional police
officers continued to be applied to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority
Constabulary until that force became The Civil Nuclear Constabulary in 2005.
(6)
The National Archives HO 44/34/55
(7)
See Blog dated 02 Sep 2023.
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