CMP members during the 1940s – all vital in increasing our knowledge.
With a funding grant, the “Was there a Redcap in your family?” website at
www.rmpmuseum.com was created in collaboration with Scott’s Marketing Ltd. Today nearly 105,000 individuals are recorded with over 687,000 items of information recorded. Alongside military information including Provost Company, enlistment and discharge dates, medal awards and wounds, personal biographical details are also recorded. The 1813 creation of the Staff Corps of Cavalry (Wellington’s Military Police) was the starting point, with the cut-off date of 1950. In future, this date will be brought forward, with new profiles added in five-year blocks. Sensitivity is important, therefore some personal details are not recorded. A relative once enquired about her grandfather whose CMP service included some time spent “undercover” in a military prison. We explained as diplomatically as possible that he wasn’t undercover, but was actually serving a sentence in prison!
Using the site is simple. After registering an email address, a name is entered. Possible candidates are then displayed narrowing down the field. A profile is then purchased for £2.50 - the purchaser can obtain 10 records for the same sum (£25) the Museum previously charged for research enquiries. Once purchased, the buyer has ongoing access to that individual record, and to view additions, photographs etc.
The site is a two-way conversation, with many purchasers providing additional information and even photographs to add to their relative’s profiles, helping build a more complete picture of the soldier’s life.
The database is proving its worth as social as well as military history. Birthplace, age, religion and marital status are recorded where known. Occupations are hugely illuminating - the occupations of 9,700 out of 23,000 men who served in the MPC between 1900-20 are recorded. In contrast, only 270 occupations of the 50,000+ men who served between 1939- 50 are known.
The British Army used tens of thousands of horses, both as Cavalry mounts, and as draught animals for the Artillery and support services. Within the Corps, the 209 former grooms would be used to working closely with horses – over 60% of them served in the Military Mounted Police.
Over 250 different occupations are recorded - some exist in 2022, whereas other are long-vanished. Who today works as a Rullyman? (actually, the equivalent of today’s van man). Others are somewhat exotic – we have one Underhand Puddler (an iron furnace worker), as well as a number of Music Hall Atistes. Perhaps the most peculiar are the eight Billiard Markers – serving drinks and keeping scores in billiard and snooker halls. Over 1200 men were Labourers, 200 involved in agriculture,125 were Gardeners, 137 Butchers, 120 Bakers (and 1 candle maker), and over 60 men described themselves as Musicians.
A significant proportion of the MPC had previous service in the civil police. The 1914 strength of the Metropolitan Police
54 AGC JOURNAL 2022
Constable Thomas Downs Stuart of the Manchester City Police.
was over 18,000 - more than 4,500 would serve with the armed forces during between 1914-18. Of this number at least 350 served in the Corps.
Over 2,430 civil policemen have been identified serving in the Corps, making up over 12% of its wartime strength. Most English forces had former members serving as MPs. Scottish and Welsh forces are less well represented, and only a handful from Irish forces. Manchester City Police provided 103 men, Birmingham City 99, and Leeds City a further 66. Of the 29 Constables who joined from the Portsmouth County Borough Police, five were awarded the Military Medal. All ranks served from Constables to Chief Constables (Blackpool’s Chief Constable served as a Lance Corporal with at least one of his former Constables serving over him as a Sergeant).
A work in progress, the database is continually updated. Although relatively new, it has seen over 1400 registrations, and 530+ profiles purchased with the resulting income helping cover the Museum’s running costs. It is the result of teamwork, with staff, volunteers and various outside organisations all playing their part.
The answers to the opening question? They all appear in this database. George Frederick Myddleton Cornwallis-West - APM in 1917 - married Jeannie, Winston Churchill’s mother in 1900. David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford served in France as a Provost Officer during the First World War and was the father of the famous Mitford sisters. Colonel James Rooke, a member of Wellington’s Staff Corps of Cavalry would be killed in action, fighting with Simon Bolivar for Colombian independence (a Chilean Army Regiment is named after him). Henry Saul was one of four CMP who guarded Josef Jakobs – the last German spy executed at the Tower of London.
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