Genealogy Chat

Anyone have any idea of a site where I can search for a Police Constable between 1881 - 1901? This Charles Goodwin is winding me up!!

Hi, Do you know if he was in the City of London Police or the Metropolitan Police. Search methods would be totally different between the two. Cheers, Horatia

According to the Black Sheep Index website a Constable Goodwin of metropolitan T Division gave evidence in a trial in 1888. If you find he was from T division you should apply for a copy of the article. City of London Police records are currently held at the Metropolitan Archives; Metropolitan police at the National Archives, Kew. Confusing, isn't it?

DON'T BE CONFUSED. It's very simple. If your policeman was in London he would have been a Metropolitan policeman or a City of London policeman. I have both in my tree so I speak from experience. Metropolitan policemen records are at The National Archives in Kew, in a series beginning MEPO. There are service records, pension records and more general info about plans and photos of individual policestations etc. You can search on microfilm to find your ancestor's warrant number. [used to be a website that had some of these but it no longer functions:-(] The warrant number will enable you to get the service record which gives info about when they joined - date of birth, physical description, previous employment etc - plus all the divisions of the Met in which they worked and when and any promotions. If your Met policeman stayed with the force till retirement you can also get the pension record. My Gt Uncle Samuel Gray's record had his physical description (all the same except his hair was grey!!) plus info about his current rate of pay including coal allowance, allowances for 3 children and special allowance because he was working in the docks, and info about his pension and where it was to be paid. City of London policemen Records are at the City of London archives in the Guildhall. All other forces records are either with the force concerned or in the relevant county records office. More information about all of this here: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/RdLeaflet.asp?sLeafletID=104 Nell

Put ''police'' into the thread-search and you should come up with some other threads on this topic - with lots of tips. I got Met info from the Police Orders site and City info from: Juliet Bankes City Archives Manager Corporation of London Records Office PO Box 270 Guildhall London EC2P 2EJ tel: 020 7332 1251 fax: 020 7710 8682 email: CLRO corpoflondon.gov.uk (replace spaces with usual symbol) I think there's a Genuki page about researching police as well. Christine

I think the Corporation of London records are still held temporarily at the Metropolitan Archives. Hence my comment on the word 'Metropolitan' causing confusion.

Paul When does 'still' come into it? I got my info about my city of London copper from Juliet Bankes, contact as above. It's the police-orders site which no longer appears to be functioning. nell

I hadn't realised, until recently, that Police Orders had withdrawn the database: <<Unfortunately, the database has now been withdrawn. If you require information about Police orders, please contact the National Archives in Kew at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk >> I was lucky to get my research in in time, obviously. Christine

From the CLRO website: The archives of the City of London Records Office are currently held at London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) while the Guildhall refurbishment programme is taking place. It is intended that the official City of London archives will be returned to Guildhall in 2008/09 once this programme has been completed. I have examined my own ancestor's City Police file at the Metropolitan Archive.

Paul that's useful to know. I just e-mailed Juliet and she answered by e-mail. But that might have been before the upheaval. nell