Police Service Records

[ruthrrr]

Hi

One of my ancestors James Barham was a policeman from roughly 1871 - 1901, living in turn in Upwell, Coveney and Haddenham.

Can anyone suggest where I could look to find his service record or pension records?

Ruth


(crossposted on beginners forum).

[Geoffers]

One of my ancestors James Barham was a policeman from roughly 1871 - 1901, living in turn in Upwell, Coveney and Haddenham.
Can anyone suggest where I could look to find his service record or pension records? Ruth
Hello Ruth
You won't find a service record as exists for the armed forces and unfortunately a lot of the everyday interesting stuff (e.g Occurrence Books) has often been destroyed.

What survives is usually in one of two places, either the County Record office, or sometimes a force will have its own archivist and small museum containing a representative selection of records.

Geoffers
Charlbury, Oxfordshire

[ruthrrr]

Hi Geoffers

Thanks for the tip - I think I will give the local records office a ring, or find someone at the local studies library.

Ruth

[Jan1954]

You may also find this useful:

http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/history/policing/police-archives-guide/index.html

Jan

[Eiton]

Hi there Ruthrrr;

hi my husbands rfelative was a polkiceman in London with The Metropolitan Police. I traced him by actually writing to the metropolitan site; A lady replied with his record telling us he was thrown out the force in 1909 through an incident where he was accused of taking fruit trees and selling them on. He lost his rank and pension for this and all the years he served were ignored. even she said. This seemed harsh for those times but they had toi be seen to punish all crimes; Eiton|scold|

[Lindad]

The is a limited amount of information available at the National Archives too. Umpteen of my lot were in the Police, including Chief Inspector James Berrett of Scotland Yard who solved quite a famous murder...

However, I thrilled to bits to find this entry about one of my other Berrett men:

MEPO 2/136 (National Archives)
HENRY RYLING BERRETT
Height - 6' 1''
Hair - dark brown
Eyes - Hazel
Complexion - fresh with scar on right cheek
Joined Metropolitan Police 27/4/1874 and resigned 8/6/1903 on a pension of £58.5s.4d. 57819 X GN Woolwich Dockyard.

[websterbfc]

I found a record of my great grandfathers joining records for MET police at Kew and with it his examination from the candidates book which gave info like height weight, chest measurement, skin complexion, eye colour, trade, previous employer etc