POLICE HISTORY
KEEPING BRITAIN’S POLICE HISTORY ALIVE
LOOKBACK:
To mark the Police History Society’s 38th anniversary, POLICE magazine celebrates the dedication of a growing network of enthusiasts who ensure the service’s unique past lives on. By Sophie Garrod
Britain has a rich policing history dating back almost 200 years to when the Metropolitan Police Service was created. We know much about the service’s past, thanks to police historians who have devoted time and effort unearthing and preserving precious archives. But, as with any historical subject, there is always more we can learn. The Police History Society, a registered
charity, has provided grants to allow new research to go ahead. Recently, it funded a project on how policemen helped save the nation from starvation in 1917. Officers were released to plough the fields from across Britain in the severe food shortages of 1917- 1918, which occurred during World War One. The society has its own history too. In the
46 | POLICE | APRIL 2023
early 1980s, West Mercia Assistant Chief Constable Bernard Drew, and Elizabeth Lally, the Museum Curator of West Mercia, explored the possibility of forming an organisation of police museums. Then, in 1984, Superintendent Les Waters from Cambridgeshire, and Chief Inspector Robert Bartlett from Northamptonshire, had the idea of forming a police history society. They teamed up with ACC Drew and Elizabeth Lally and the Police History Society was born. Launched in the Police Review on 29 March 1985, annual membership was offered for £5, with the funds used for meetings, seminars, an annual conference, and a proposed journal. Its first president was Barry Pain, CBE,
QPM, commandant of the Police Staff College. ACC Drew was the chair, Supt. Waters was the secretary and CI Bartlett was the treasurer and editor, editing the first journal in 1986 and the following six editions. The journal features research articles on nearly every aspect of policing history, as well as personal recollections. In addition, the society has published, and supported the publication of numerous books, most notably The British Police: Police Forces and Chief Officers 1829-2012, a monograph listing every force known to have existed in the British Isles and their chief constables. This year, the society will publish its most ambitious project yet: Women in Policing – A History Through Personal Stories,
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