Churchill`s Other Bodyguards - Police Firearms Officers Association
Transcription
Churchill`s Other Bodyguards - Police Firearms Officers Association
Police History Series Churchill’s Other Bodyguards Mike Waldren QPM © 2012 PFOA – Police Firearms Officers Association Head Office: PFOA, PO Box 116, March, PE15 5BA – Tel: 0845 543 0163 – Email: [email protected] Registered Charity No. 1139247 Company No. 07295737 June 2012 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards Protection Duty VIP Protection has long been a serious consideration for the police service. There is anecdotal evidence that the first officers to protect royalty were two ‘Bow Street Runners’ named MacKenna and Sayers who were assigned to the court of King George III. They apparently accompanied the monarch wherever he went and one was always in attendance day and night. In 1836 the Bow Street Police Horse Patrol was made responsible for the protection of all the royal palaces and placed under the control of Colonel Charles Rowan and (later Sir) Richard Mayne. Only members of the Patrol could perform the function but this changed in 1839 when the Metropolitan Police Act made it ‘lawful for [the Met Commissioners,] to administer to any Constable belonging to the Metropolitan Police Force an Oath to execute the Office of Constable within the Royal Palaces of her Majesty [Queen Victoria] and Ten Miles thereof; and every Constable who shall be so sworn shall have the Powers and Privileges of a Constable within the said Royal Palaces and Ten Miles thereof’. As well as undertaking normal policing duty in the 1.88 square miles of Westminster and Whitehall, ‘A’ Division became responsible for providing security at all the royal palaces including Buckingham Palace (in 1837 Queen Victoria had become the first Mayne monarch to use Buckingham Palace as a residence), St James’s Palace, Kensington Palace, the Palace of Westminster (better known as the Houses of Rowan Parliament – although major parts of it had been destroyed in a fire in 1834, parliamentary business was still being conducted there using undamaged or temporarily repaired parts of the structure) and Windsor Castle where a small detachment was permanently based. An inspector (superintendent by the turn of the century) from ‘A’ Division became known as the ‘Head of the Police of the Royal Household’ and a ‘Royal Page 1 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards Theatre Protection Patrol’ made up of ‘A’ Division officers was established for when Queen Victoria decided to have a night out on the town. For many years the division was referred to sardonically by the rest of the Met as ‘The Royal A’. Armed Protection In the early years when the officers needed to be armed they would have carried cutlasses or muzzle-loaded single-barrelled pistols (flintlock at first and percussion later) but from 1868 onwards they would have been issued with Adams .450 calibre Webley .450 ‘British Constabulary’ gate-load revolver revolvers (see Early Police Firearms). In 1884 these were replaced by Webley .450 calibre gate-load revolvers and in 1911 the revolvers were replaced by .32 calibre Webley & Scott M.P. model self-loading pistols. Webley .32 M.P. model selfloading pistol Some ‘A’ Division officers were also detailed to undertake the personal protection of ministers as early as the end of 1882 and Home Office authority for the purchase of twelve revolvers for them was granted on 1 December. The approved weapon was also a Webley .450 calibre gate-load revolver but it had a For Full Document see Appendix I or Click Here shortened barrel so that it could be more easily concealed in a coat pocket and was known as the ‘Webley Bulldog’. The Fenian ‘dynamite outrages’ which started on 15 Webley .450 ‘Bulldog’ revolver March 1883 lasted two years and initially Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officers were drafted in to provide armed security at government and other buildings. According to Scotland Yard and The Metropolitan Police by John Moylan Page 2 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards (1929): ‘When the dynamite outrages began in London, members of the Royal Irish Constabulary were thought to be more competent for the protection of public buildings and the persons of Cabinet ministers than London’s own police, and in their green uniforms and rifles they were seen for a time on sentry-go in the Whitehall neighbourhood’. Obviously officers could the RIC not stay indefinitely and in due course they were replaced by armed ‘A’ Division officers while the task of protecting ‘the persons The ‘Dynamite Outrages’ of Cabinet ministers’ was transferred (along with the ‘Bulldog’ revolvers) to the ‘Special Irish Branch’. Formed in 1883 from Met officers of mainly Irish ancestry and with a nucleus of RIC officers this branch, in addition to providing personal protection, investigated the Fenian attacks to the exclusion of all else. When the terrorist campaign was over the word ‘Irish’ was dropped and the branch became formally established as the ‘Special Branch’ at the end of 1886. Although the RIC officers returned home the practice of appointing personal protection officers for some cabinet ministers from within its ranks continued and Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee procession Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee procession in June 1887 (with RIC officers complete with rifles again brought over, this time to line the route) and her Diamond Jubilee procession in June 1897 saw the Special Branch involved in providing personal protection to royalty as well. Caution must be exercised before attributing modern ‘bodyguard’ methods to the personal protection officers of those days. The expression used at the time to explain their duty was that they provided ‘protective surveillance’. In other words, although they were there to protect their principal, they were expected to keep their distance and the less they Page 3 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards were actually seen the better. In the main, protection was left to the armed uniform officers at residences and public buildings and personal protection was only provided when the principal was out on official public duties. Also, the numbers engaged on personal protection could have been no more than a handful because the dozen ex-‘A’ Division ‘Bulldog’ revolvers available was considered sufficient and the Special Branch also had what were described as ‘other important and strictly confidential duties in the general interests of the whole nation’. This mainly involved keeping a watchful eye on assorted anarchist groups, the growing suffragette movement and revolutionary exiles from Russia such as Vladimir Uljanov (Lenin) and Leib Bronstein (Trotsky). It was not until 18 February 1909, three weeks after the ‘Tottenham Outrage’ had resulted in a review of the Quinn weapons available to the Met as a whole, that the head of the Special For Full Document see Appendix II or Click Here Branch, Superintendent Patrick Quinn, called ‘attention to a case of ten revolvers [the other two had probably become unserviceable over the years and been scrapped] which are the only ones available for the use of Officers of Special Branch, when engaged on protection or other dangerous duties. They are of an obsolete pattern called “The British Bull Dog”, and were supplied some thirty or more years ago for the use of officers engaged in connection with the Fenian movement. There is no record of the actual purchase, but they were probably paid for out of some special fund’. He went on to explain that he had taken advice from the gunsmith, Robert Churchill (no relation to Winston Churchill), who was Colt Model 1903 selfloading pistol frequently consulted by Scotland Yard on firearms matters at the time, and he had been told that the weapons were out of date, were quite worthless and were ‘a positive danger in a melee, except at very close quarters’. Robert Churchill had advised Quinn that the ‘Colt automatic pocket pistol’ was a suitable replacement and this was probably the Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless pistol in .32 calibre. Page 4 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards A week later Quinn took his problem direct to the Met Commissioner, Sir Edward Henry, and on 27 February he reported that the Commissioner ‘has authorised the purchase of 2 Colt’s Automatic Pocket Pistols at £3-3-0 [£3.15p] each, and to be charged on my account (form 292) when submitted for the protection of His Majesty the King’. The file was marked on 21 July 1909 (and later initialled by Henry) that the cost was charged to the ‘expenses incurred by Superintendent Quinn and Inspector Riley while protecting H.M. The King at Biarritz and other foreign places on the continent’ and it is strange that Quinn did not ask Henry for a change of weapons for the rest of his branch as well. The numbers engaged on personal protection would gradually increase over the next twenty years but, curiously, there is no mention of these two weapons in a return of firearms held by the Met in 1926 which shows that Special Branch had 92 of the (by then) force issue .32 Webley & Scott pistols for its (by then) establishment strength of 136 officers. The two officers may have taken the concept of ‘personal issue’ quite literally, a practice that was commonly found among retired army officers who had given valuable service to the Empire at the time. Quinn had been Monarchs from around the world attend the funeral of King Edward VII in 1910. Indicated by arrows are Superintendent Quinn (left) and Superintendent Spencer (right) of the Met Special Branch a sergeant in the Met when he applied to join the original ‘Special Irish Branch’ and he had made his way up through the ranks before being promoted to superintendent and head of the branch in 1903. He would later (in 1919) receive a knighthood and as much as anything else it was probably his services as a protection officer to King Edward VII that earned him this (for a police superintendent) unique honour. Page 5 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards Walter Thompson Perhaps the most well-known protection officer is Walter Henry Thompson, mainly because of the thirteen-part television documentary made in 2005 about his experiences entitled ‘Churchill’s Bodyguard’. Police Constable 549 ‘D’ Thompson applied for duty in the Special Branch in 1913 and from 1917 until 1920 he was assigned as a protection officer to the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. Early in 1921 he was assigned to Winston Churchill and although he retired as an inspector in 1936, Churchill asked for him back in 1939. Thompson re-joined the Met and after being reissued with a .32 calibre Webley & Scott self-loading pistol he stayed with Churchill for the duration of World War II. In 1921 Churchill had become Secretary of State for the Colonies and he was a signatory to the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty which saw the creation of the Irish Free State as an autonomous dominion within the British Commonwealth, with Northern Ireland exercising its option to opt out (in December 1922) and remain within the United Kingdom. Hostility to the provisions of the Treaty was such that there were outbreaks of Churchill murder and intimidation by opposing pro- and anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army (IRA) factions all over the south of Ireland and Churchill was seen by the anti-Treaty militants as being a serious obstacle to the creation a totally independent and united Ireland. Churchill made no secret of his views, saying in a speech in the House of Commons on 12 April 1922 that: ‘Whatever happens in Ireland, however many years of misfortune there may be in Ireland, whatever trouble, the Treaty defines what we think should be the relations between the two countries, and we are prepared, and will be prepared, to hand over to any responsible body of Irishmen capable of governing the country the full powers which the Treaty confers. Further than that, in no circumstances will we go, and if a republic is set up, that is a form of government in Ireland which the British Empire can in no circumstances whatever tolerate or agree to’. Two days later about 200 well armed IRA militants took over Page 6 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards several official buildings in Dublin including the main court building known as the ‘Four Courts’, believing that if the British Army could be induced to respond with force then this would reunite the two factions of the IRA against ‘the common enemy’ and the Treaty would be effectively scrapped. On 22 June the security adviser to Northern Ireland, Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson, was assassinated by two gunmen in London (see The Nineteen Twenties). On 26 June Churchill told the House of Commons that: ‘The presence in Dublin, in violent occupation of the Four Courts, of a band of men styling themselves the Headquarters of the Republican Executive, is a gross breach and defiance of the Treaty. From this nest of anarchy and treason, not only to the British Crown, but to the Irish people, murderous outrages are stimulated and encouraged, not only in the 26 Counties, not only in the territory of the Northern Government, but even, it seems most probable, here across the Channel in Great Britain. ... The time has come when it is not unfair, not premature, and not impatient for us to make to this strengthened Irish Government and new Irish Parliament a request, in express Free State forces shell the ‘Four Courts’ terms, that this sort of thing must come to an end. If it does not come to an end, if either from weakness, from want of courage, or for some other even less creditable reasons, it is not brought to an end and a very speedy end, then it is my duty to say, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, that we shall regard the Treaty as having been formally violated [and] ... we shall resume full liberty of action in any direction that may seem proper and to any extent that may be necessary to safeguard the interests and the rights that are entrusted to our care’. The implied threat that if the Irish Free State did nothing to deal with the militants then Great Britain certainly would was obvious and two days later Free State forces began shelling the ‘Four Courts’ using borrowed British Army artillery starting what has become known as the ‘Irish Civil War’. Page 7 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards Constables Smith And Brook All this made Churchill a prime terrorist target and the Special Branch asked for assistance with his protection. Two additional armed ‘A’ Division officers were assigned to the Colonial Office (part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) and another two officers, Police Constables 711 ‘A’ Reginald Smith and 682 ‘A’ Brook, were assigned to Churchill personally to act in plain clothes from 9 o’clock in the morning of Wednesday 28 June 1922. The selection of Smith and Brook had not been made at random. Smith possessed one highly desirable attribute – a motorcycle with a sidecar. The original request was for a police motorcyclist to be assigned but Superintendent Abbott in A3 Branch (a Scotland Yard department responsible amongst other things for organising ‘aid’ from one part of the Met to another) thought that ‘it was impossible for a cyclist riding a solo machine to effectively carry out the duty’ and so Smith’s privately owned vehicle was pressed into service. Brook also had a valuable qualification but in his case it was a lot less tangible – he was described as being ‘an expert rifle shot’, although understanding quite how this was determined is problematic because the Met did not have rifles at the time and even the opportunity for the two officers to actually train with the pistols they were carrying would only have been a very recent innovation. Official Firearms Training Since April 1885 all officers in the ‘exterior divisions’ (the suburbs) of the Met who carried a firearm had to take part in an annual ‘firing practice’. Only six rounds were fired and the distance to, and the size of, the target was left unspecified. This was at a time when the force instructions allowed officers in the Met to carry a firearm at night at their own request (see Armed Burglars – The 1880s) but there seems to have been a clear distinction made between officers in the suburbs and officers in the inner London Page 8 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards divisions such as ‘A’ who could be posted to protection duty and ordered to carry a gun whether they wanted it or not. In fact, there is no mention at all in force orders of any policy relating to when officers could be issued with a firearm during the daylight hours even for any form of protection duty (see Rules and Regulations). It seems to have been taken as read that firearms were necessary and so no instructions were needed but why only officers in the suburbs were given the opportunity to take part in the annual practice remains unexplained. In 1902 in became policy that all new recruits to the Met had to be given instruction in how to load and unload the force issue handgun and this continued until 1936. The Chief Inspector (Superintendent from 1914 onwards) in charge of the ‘Preparatory Class’ had a supply of revolvers (pistols from 1912 onwards) for that purpose. Also in 1902, the target distance for the annual practice was set at thirty paces but, as before, no target size was specified. In 1906 the limitation on the expenditure of practice ammunition to six rounds was repeated in force orders and once again it was only for officers who were in the ‘exterior divisions’. Attempts were made to correct this anomaly on 15 December 1914 after which it was intended that all officers who could be called upon to carry a firearm, whether they were in an inner division, an exterior division or posted to Scotland Yard, would take part in the annual practice. The amount of ammunition expended was increased to twenty-four rounds and the target reduced to distance twenty yards. For the first time, eight of the twenty-four rounds were for a ‘proficiency test’ with the required ‘standard of efficiency’ being four hits out of the eight within a fifteen inch ring. Unfortunately it was a bad time to introduce a new system because it had to be suspended almost immediately due to wartime ammunition shortages. It was announced in force orders on 11 May 1920 that it was to be restarted and in the case of Smith and Brook (and Thompson as well of course) this would have been their first opportunity for official training with the weapon they were actually carrying before they were assigned to Churchill. Page 9 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards It is highly unlikely that the required standard was rigidly enforced. Some officers would have been unable to pass the test despite their still being needed for protection duty and when another revised system of pistol practice was introduced in Confidential Memorandum No. 13 on 24 July 1933 (and reproduced in force orders in July 1936), as well as ammunition increasing the expenditure to thirty-two rounds and reducing the target size to twelve inches, it became official policy that: ‘It is not absolutely essential for all the selected officers to pass the proficiency test, so long as each proves clearly that he is capable of handling a pistol’, thereby officially approving what had probably been common practice up until then anyway. One surviving record shows that in 1950 only 78 out of 191 ‘A’ Division officers achieved the 50% score. Police Shooting Clubs Nevertheless Brook may have been a member of a divisional shooting club and it was in this milieu that his shooting skills were noted. Since September 1914 the Commissioner had provided ‘Miniature Cartridge Ranges’ at several police stations and section houses around the Met at which officers could use rifles (either privately owned or purchased by a club for general use by its members) and, ‘where the conditions are suitable’, the officially supplied .22 calibre single-shot training versions of the force issue pistols as well. A ‘miniature cartridge’ was ‘rim fire or central fire, with a projectile of any calibre not exceeding .23 of one inch or 6mm, and, in the case of bottle-shaped cartridges, the shells may not exceed .297 of one inch [to allow for the use of a Morris tube converter in a rifle such as the Martini Henry .577/450]. The powder charge may not exceed 7 grains of black powder, or its equivalent in any other explosive. The projectile must be of lead, not cased with other metal, and not exceeding 50 grains avoirdupois in weight’. Page 10 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards The intention was to improve shooting standards by getting officers to adopt shooting as a recreational sport and this would have seemed a perfectly natural if not a long overdue development in 1914. Similar arrangements for similar reasons were already in place for many members of the armed forces after what was considered by senior army officers (along with such luminaries as Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle) to be the poor standard of marksmanship displayed by British soldiers when compared to that of the enemy during the Boer Wars (1880 – 1881 and particularly 1899 – 1902). In addition, the Society of Miniature Rifle Clubs (SMRC) had been founded in 1903 with a national hero, Field Marshal Earl Roberts, as its first president. Roberts was a strong advocate of the mass training Roberts of civilians in rifle shooting and members of the public were actively encouraged to join a club, the argument being that it was their patriotic duty to be ready and able to answer their country’s next call. The society would become the National Small-bore Rifle Association (NSRA) in 1947. The date when individual officers in divisions and branches in the Met first formed shooting clubs is not recorded but in 1911 they were all brought together under one umbrella organisation known as the Metropolitan Police Shooting League. When the force adopted the .32 Webley & Scott M.P. model pistol at the end of 1911 a number of officers (in all probability these would have been club members) were selected from each division and sent to the Army Inspection Department at Enfield Lock so that they could be trained as instructors. The League then drew up a pamphlet describing how the .32 and the newly arrived .22 single-shot training pistols Webley & Scott .22 single-shot should be used and Henry issued instructions on 25 June 1912 that practice with them ‘is only to commence when Superintendents consider that sufficient knowledge of the weapon has been attained under the guidance of officers who have received instruction at Enfield or elsewhere’. A free grant of 10,000 rounds of .22 calibre ammunition was made to the League ‘to enable the practice to be begun at once’ and the Home Office Page 11 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards subsequently sanctioned the payment of ‘a sum not exceeding £50’ (equivalent to about £3,000 today) to be paid to the League annually so that it could provide training ammunition for use by the clubs. Many police forces set up shooting clubs affiliated to the For Full Document see Appendix III or Click Here SMRC in the early 1900s. One of the first SMRC vice-presidents, Colonel Sir Howard Vincent, was a former Director of Criminal Investigation in the Met and chief officer ranks elsewhere were also dominated by retired army officers. They would have encouraged the idea and the contribution made by the clubs to police firearms training over the years should not be underestimated. They would play an important behind-the-scenes role in many forces including the Met. On occasions it was even thought that promoting shooting as a hobby was to be preferred over the provision of formal training. An early example occurred in February 1920. Questions were Vincent asked in the House of Commons about whether, in view of the ‘numerous crimes of violence recently committed steps would be taken to provide the police with something more effective than wooden truncheons’. The Home Office forwarded the question to the then Commissioner of the Met, General Sir Neville Macready, and he replied that: ‘I think the number of pistols might with advantage be suitably increased, providing that it is possible to give the men sufficient practical instruction. The present course of instruction is, in my opinion, quite useless and should be increased [as we have already seen it was actually non-existent at the time and had been for the previous five Macready years]. ... I have been considering this matter for some time and have come to the conclusion that it would be inadvisable to make pistol practice too public, as we might lay ourselves open to the accusation of training the police to shoot down their fellow creatures in case of labour troubles. As an alternative I have arranged for Pistol Competitions to be held in the various Divisional Shooting Clubs this summer, with a view to Page 12 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards encouraging the use of the Service pistol by the men and I hope this will increase the numbers of those who are adepts in its use’. The provision of the £50 annual subsidy to the League had been stopped during World War I and the level of financial constraint imposed during the post-war period meant that there was no possibility of getting it reintroduced. On 16 June 1920 in the House of Commons, after it had become public knowledge that the annual practice in the Met was to be restarted, Major John Baird, the Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office, said that: ‘No new departure is being made with regard to the arming of the Metropolitan Police or their instruction in the use of Baird firearms. For nearly 40 years officers on night duty have been permitted, if they wish, to carry revolvers [sic] for their own protection. The police have also for many years had Miniature Rifle Clubs which are run by the men themselves for purposes of sport. It is obviously desirable that firearms should be carried only by men practised in the handling and use of them, and steps are now being taken to revive the firing practice which had been suspended during the War. Practice ammunition for the Miniature Rifle Clubs is purchased in bulk in order that the men may be able to obtain it at the lowest cost’. This was then sold on at cost price plus ‘departmental charges’ to the League and although individual officers thereafter had to pay for the ammunition themselves it was still cheaper than it would have been ‘outside’. Police clubs around the country prospered and in 1925 a new annual shooting competition using the .32 Webley & Scott pistol was introduced at Bisley at the instigation of Sir Lionel Fletcher who, although primarily a rifle shot and later the captain of the Great Britain rifle team, took a particular interest in encouraging competition pistol shooting in the police. It was originally only open to teams of four from any police force and at the first meeting there were twenty teams competing for the Mander Challenge Cup, named after Captain John Harold Mander, the Chief Constable of Norfolk County Constabulary, who was himself a shooting devotee. In the years to come more competitions would be added for such trophies as the Portman Cup, the Jay and Attenborough Trophy and the Commissioner’s Cup. In many forces the shooting clubs provided the bulk of the available training well into the post-World War II period. In March 1965 a survey of all forces by Her Majesty’s Page 13 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards Inspector of Constabulary found that seventeen provincial forces still had no official training and relied on former soldiers or officers who were members of clubs to provide their entire armed capability. Even as late as June 1997 Austin Mitchell MP, speaking in the House of Commons in a debate about another Firearms Bill which would complete the ban on the private ownership of handguns in the wake of the Dunblane shooting the previous year, said that: ‘We should not ignore the effect of the Bill on the police. The Bill will have an impact on the proficiency of police firearms squads. ... Officers have supplemented their official training by joining gun clubs, at their own expense, and buying weapons. They have become more proficient, versatile and skilled and, therefore, much safer in their possession of weapons. That will stop and will be a severe setback for the squads’. There had, of course, been major improvements in official police training by then and the need for the clubs was considerably less than it had been in the past. This was just as well because the argument in favour of some kind of exemption for police pistol clubs was not accepted and they were forced to shut down. However, back in 1922 some officers would undoubtedly have excelled at the sport they were being encouraged to take up and this may well have been behind the observation that Brook was ‘an expert rifle shot’. A Brief Career In Personal Protection As far as Smith and Brook are concerned all went well for the first week with the two officers returning to ordinary duty on 4 July 1922 after Thompson (now a sergeant) had been told by Churchill that: ‘he would not require the services of the motor-cyclist and the officer on the sidecar as he has been given the use of an armoured Rolls-Royce motor’. The vehicle then seems to have been required by someone else because the two officers resumed their special duty on Sunday 9 July and again all went well, this time for nearly two weeks. Unfortunately, on Saturday 22 July disaster struck. Churchill was on route by car to London at about 11.10 in the morning (there is nothing in the reports to indicate whether or not his driver was complying with the national 20 mph maximum speed limit which had been introduced in 1903 and which would remain in force until 1930) when his vehicle overtook a lorry as it was travelling toward Ripley northeast of Guildford. Smith tried to follow but he then found himself on the wrong side of the road with a car travelling in the opposite direction coming straight at him. The two vehicles Page 14 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards collided and although this caused minor damage to the car and to Smith, Brook sustained compound fractures to both legs and left arm. The motorcycle and its sidecar also came out of it very badly. The frame and wheels were buckled, the tyres were torn off and the sidecar was completely smashed. Churchill’s car did not stop but a passing motorist offered to help and a St John’s Ambulance took Brook to the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford from where Smith sent a telegram informing Brook’s mother of the accident. He also telephoned Churchill, who had by now reached his London home at 2 Sussex Square near Hyde Park, to tell him what had happened. Churchill told Thompson who in turn reported the accident to Special Branch Superintendent McBrien adding that ‘when it was noticed that the motor-cycle and side-car was [sic] not following, it was concluded that they either missed the way or had a puncture’. ‘A’ Division was asked to supply another two officers but at 10.35 that night the Special Branch received a telegram explaining that all the available resources had been used up and that there were no spare armed officers left. A search of the rest of the Met by Abbott the following day resulted in two armed constables from the ‘Brixton’ or ‘W’ Division (which at the time covered the 57.85 square miles all the way from Brixton in inner London to the outer boundary of the Met at Epson in Surrey thereby making it an ‘exterior’ division) being assigned instead from Monday 24 July. Their names are not recorded but Abbott arranged for them to be provided with a Bean motorcar for the duration of the duty. The 11.9 horsepower Bean had been introduced to critical acclaim at the 1919 London Motor Show and it was a considerable upgrade from a motorcycle combination. Smith’s motorcycle and the bits that were left of the sidecar were collected from Ripley and taken to the Met’s transport workshop at Barnes but when it came to getting the vehicle repaired there was a problem. Smith only had the vehicle insured for private use and on 31 July he reported that: ‘... as I was using the machine for “business” my insurance company ... [has] repudiated my claim, so I respectfully ask if my combination could be Page 15 Churchill’s Other Bodyguards replaced or repaired at Barnes where the machine now lies’. The cost of repairs was estimated at £57 11s 8d (£57.58½) and the driver of the other vehicle also put in a claim for £28 17s 6d (£28.87½) of which £20 was for loss of a day’s business. The report went all the way up to the Deputy Commissioner, (later Sir) James Olive, and the insurance company agreed ‘as an act of grace’ to share the cost of the machine’s repair but incredibly, although Olive was Acting Commissioner at the time, even he did not have the authority to agree that the Met should pay the remainder. On 29 August Olive wrote to the Under Secretary of State at the Home Office, now Sir John Anderson (later Viscount Waverly) to ask: ‘in view of the circumstances, that the [Home Secretary – Edward Shortt] may be pleased to sanction the payment from the Police Fund of the remaining Olive portion of the cost of repairs, and also such an amount as may be necessary to meet the third party claim’. This was Anderson agreed on 8 September and the Home Office was told on 15 September that the sum of £1 9s (£1.45) had also been paid to the St John’s Ambulance Brigade ‘for the hire of an ambulance to convey Constable Brook to Guildford Hospital’. Churchill left his post at the Colonial Office a month later and he lost his parliamentary seat in the November 1922 general election. He was allowed to retain the services of Thompson but his additional personal protection was withdrawn and the officers returned to ordinary duty. As far as is known, Brook made a full recovery and Smith had his machine restored to full working order. Its index number was XA 7576. Note: According to ‘The British Police’ by Martin Stallion and David Wall published by The Police History Society (1999) there were 170 forces in England, 19 in Wales and 59 in Scotland in 1922. Were there any developments to do with police firearms in your force/area or its predecessors during this period of [email protected]. © Mike Waldren Page 16 history? If so please contact Appendix I To Return to Main Article Click Here Appendix II To Return to Main Article Click Here r 66663?/~4 I 26th June 1Gl2. Appendix III 'Q(·~ rrir:l-,r.o:.. +"' 1·~ ~M.. '') of J;.JvV.\.1 ') ,/';.·~ -;,. . •·, .;.. , T' "h J ~·st f_,. CO'"' ·l ,... "' 0 f L-,. .... "'''-" 1:' ·,:.vl._ v Instruot:l.onn l·.J:o fort.ardod this clr:~y u.nd aro to bo d:i.::d;ributsd --".!. ~· (; o• .;._.~. 1 \~·-~- tt _(.r, • ~~!l.vrJ J aa follows: ... Supol'l.il;tcndent .,.. ___ .__ ......., .................-... , ...,. Cl1iof 1I1Apcc·t or ·~-~ .,:..,.f141" . . . . . ,.. . . . . . . ~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . l ..................... ; ,_.~,, ....._...... -",~-- ...... _ .. ._ ____ ... __ l Sooro'\:.<try of Div::.nio:r.;;.3.l J;if.Lo Club ...... ]}J.oh Off.icer inDtl"'1J.cted c:~t _u·--------- 1 Eilfiold ..... - ................. ~.-- 1 InDQeotoro' Offio~ at eauh St~tion -------~------ l To be ko].Jt 'i'li th ea.oh • 22 Piatol (uhoro alloon. to d)·~ 6 ._..,_..,..,~ l ~ N ,_..., - · oe- __ _..-tool---..,,.. Greo,t CE".rc is to be exercised in the instruction and us.:: of these pistolA which are to be distributed to V'arious Stations in D1vifdona (an far ae nurJt)ors penni t) in ·Jrdor to afford faoili tie a for gaining }!l'O:fioioncy in their use .. 2. The precaution::; laid do•.m in the Instructions ancl in the !.1etroJ)oJ.itan rolicc Ghootint; J..,sague :p~11:ill:tet are to 'be clm.1ely adhEH ed to, und prClctice is o~Jly to cour:tonce whon Su:pe..r ... inte:a<.t6n:'..;a consider th~1,;t sufficient knowlcd.ge of the t18t\:;;;on has "been a ttt"tindd undor ·i;he guic~n.nqo of officers who na·v·e reoei ved inst:.:'uction at Enfield or elsc'\7here. 1 ' 3, A special froo grant of ccna lO:OJO roundn of f1jj1i"iunition will "be :made by the Lca{01o to e:nb1e practice to bc 'Dcgv.n at onae. On rcceiut it ehou.J.d bo a.1l:;t;tod to the Ste'l.tior:s refer·~ red in r.nr.,l at the· rate of 100 round.Elt- per pietol o,nd in to be equally d1.ntr:i.buted runo:uc~=;t :'!l'~:::1b(Jrs of Divisional Cluofl so aa to affo:rd c..e In!Hl:f as posHi blo an opportunity of a pro,lillli:nary :pro,et:i.co, 4. Later, a lint of the oo8t proficient piotol ohota wlll be required and a furthor g~ant in aid will, it ia hoped, be 1 availc.b~e 6. fo:b thei1· use·: Divisior-~1 Club;cJ n~oulcl at o7JGO o..:p_;Jly fer thiR special grant in aid, st~ting mo~oorch!p of Clubs or of the Rifle Section of Oluos. E.R.H. to Supta. CO to TA~ {T~U.) To Return to Main Article Click Here