Tom King

This is really getting to me I have spent quite a lot of time getting no where researching this. Have you a scanner ? Can you scan this at a high resolution as I am getting pixilation it does look like it could be Manchester.

Here is the picture blown up a bit t looks like two figures either side of the central shield

Whistle is worn in the tradition style for that era of tunic including the Met there was a small pocket on the inside of the tunic. Clearly not Met as already stated as the collar numbers are wrong and the belt and buttons are different, the Met had 'S' snake belt buckles similar to the military of the period, also if I am not mistaken the Met never authorised the wearing of St Johns Badges. Unless Nick has other info the belt buckle does not look like the current City of Manchester Coat of Arms, this is a really interesting photo I can't help thinking maybe a Scottish Police but would they have had the St Johns Badge ?

Here are a couple of buttons which I think are Devon Special Constabulary

Interesting information thank you for sharing it with us. There has always been a lot of discrepancies surrounding the numbers issued for the 1887, 97, 1902 and 1911 with various publications giving some way off figures. Interesting to note that they were rolled out over a period of months. I have seen an envelope full of unamed blank spares for the 1887/89 medals at the Met Museum and I picked up at auction an unissued/unamed 1902 in silver (for senior officers) so it shows that there were a few spares out there.

The police ambulance service was a small detachment which ran an elementary ambulance service, mainly stretchering and ferrying bodies and injured persons on litters and by horse drawn cart. Both the City of London Police and Met Police had an Ambulance service and it was staffed by both police officers and soldiers attached to the ambulance service. I have an example of the 1902 and 1911 coronation ambulance service medals. I think there may even be 1897 jubilee to the ambulance service if memory serves me correct.

Probably an undertaking that would never be finished but I am happy to collate anything that anyone wanted to give me to make a start. My feeling is that this is such a specialist area of collecting that without a concerted effort things will be lost for ever. Unlike the military medals which has a much wider collecting field so thankfully the information is subject to ongoing research. I have thought of publication in the past but as i know from previous research efforts I do not have the time to go to kew and the like to gather the info and the research i have is incomplete. Brian going to the services to the Police would also be an interesting aspect, but only could be collated by surviving medal groups I would have thought as it would be very hard to research on mass such information if at all.A start would be to open a topic for members to post any named groups with any already researched info to Metropolitan officers or really any other forces for that matter.

Interesting photos which clearly show the Metropolitan Special Constabulary uniform for the Great War period. Without a doubt the method of wearing the duty band high on the left arm was to distinguish and identify them as Specials. It is likely that the pensioner above retired before 1897 hence no apparent bar on his jubilee medal, the ornate pin device is interesting as it looks reminisant of the later Visit to Ireland and Scotland pin devices.

£10 per search is an outrageous sum especially as the information was collected and I hasten to point out allowed to be researched by the Met in good faith.They closed it down as they felt medal collectors were taking advantage, yet now want to charge £10 per search, hardly seems fair to me. I also know that the biggest police medal collector in the UK has access to that information on disk so it all seems wrong to me. I no longer collect Police medals as I could not keep up with the deep pockets of certain collectors who were paying crazy prices for any decent groups that were coming on the Market. Also because I know that at least one had access to the Police Orders search facility even though it was taken off line for the rest of us, he was bagging any good groups on eBay and auction before anyone else could research them. I started to collate a lot of info a few years back surrounding Met Long Service medals as well as police officers awarded military service medals for both wars and the Boer War. I did most of the 1950s for the Long Service medals and have started an electronic medal roll but alas a lack of time prevented me from finishing my research. Maybe I will tidy up what I have done so far and we could start collating info here at GMIC ?

' The Metropolitan Police,the Men and their Medals " by J H F Kemp seems to have a few holes in it, I did not know this was out until I read this topic. Its a Shame the police orders website went offline for searching. I know the chap that was researching it sadly died but it seems a shame that all that hard work is no longer shared. I did a lot of research a few years back at NSY and the Met museum but only was able to do a fraction of what is needed total electronic versions of Police Orders. A lot of recently retired officers had the opportunity to rejoin to help police the various Jubilees and Coronations I believe this all stopped after the 1911 Coronation as did the police specific medals. Of course the Second War also saw a return as War Reserves.

Nice to see a German Polizei Schako. Would love to see a lot more of these on GMIC.

1314 Shown as 'C' Fairbass and there is no 1897 bar affixed to the medal so must have left/retired before 1897 ?

Rick & Paul have hit the nail on the head. The 1897 bar is securely fitted on the original 1887 medal so i have always assumed that the 1887 was returned for fitting and then presented again in a box to the original recipient. You do occasionally see these boxes around, but they are quite scarce. It would be nice to check Police Orders to see if instructions were issued on the return of the 1887 medals for fitting of the bar.

Is it Richardson's or Myer's medal ?

Birmingham Special Constabulary similar to the Metropolitan one but with 1916 on the medal.

Yes the band indicates it is for an Inspector or Chief Inspector. Most British police forces utilise the black braiding for Inspectors and then use silver for Superintendent ranks, although I have seen some Constabularies use the silver plain braiding for Inspectors. Merseyside is one I think. Tom

I have seen Metropolitan Police Mess dress insignia at Hand & Lock. I have also been privy to the last Commissioners Mess Dress courtesy of his valet it was dark blue with light blue facings on the lapels and trouser stripe. I have been led to understand that it is available to Inspectors and above but in reality only very Senior officers bother with the expense of it as they are the privileged few who get invited to enough functions to warrant it use. Most just make do with black tie if needed. Shame really but no surprise in this day and age when the police do not even have a No1 dress anymore just a fluorescent jacket that makes them look like the myriad of workers who wear the wretched things.

It is so difficult to research most police and special constabulary long service medals as the force is not shown on the medal It would be so much better if like military medals there was a warrant number or even better a force name. It can be with common names an impossible task. Fortunately with your name you may have some luck as it is not so common. I would write to or ask for an email address for the curator at Northamptonshire but I very much doubt that they will have any special constable records as most forces do not even have very good regular police records dating that far back. Perhaps you need to look at birth/death certificates to see the areas that all the Edgar Eadys lived in and narrow him down before approaching the appropriate force ?

Here is a similar pair with original ribbons note the red, modern copy ribbon seems to be a strange orange/red colour on the 1902 & 1911 Coronation medals.

Here is a Met Inspector with Queen Victoria's Jubilee 1887 & 1897 bar and the 1902 Coronation Medal note the colour.

Michael Winner runs the Police Memorial Trust Charity which has placed a large memorial in the Mall and memorial stones near the sites where police Officers have been killed on duty. The tie pin above is for the Police Memorial day which has no connection to Michael Winner. It was organized by Police in conjunction with the Police Federation and has HRH Prince of Wales as its Patron. http://www.nationalpolicememorialday.org/

Leigh, I agree it is the 1902 coronation medal for the Met. I have seen this before with cabinet photographs and the reds and blues on police ribbons looking wrong. You can see the kings head outline on your photo. I have some photographs which I will dig out and try and post

The opening portcullis is also represented on the Metropolitan Police Coat of Arms coincidence or symbolic ? Here is the modern stylised logo which shows it but the tradtional image is a lot better.

Interesting post. Does the Met Commissioner and AC's still have issue swords? I notice that the duty band has horizontalas opposed to vertical stripes. I had a similar duty band and though it was a special Constabulary band and sold it as such, when did they change ?

So nice to start seeing some quality police discussions in this section, it has driven me out of lurk mode... Sir Robert Mark was responsible for the erosion of police ceremonial dress, now look at the quality of the uniform compared to these wonderful items, very sad. Ironic that the only ranks which still have the ceremonial dress are ACPO ranks in the Met, although the last Commisioner never had the presence of mind to wear it mounted on horse back as he should have. The Ch/Supt helmet is a fine quality piece which was issued to Central Divisional Chief Supt for ceremonial duties as Mervyn states. Did they not carry a leather baton as well ? The Insp helmet above with the two silver bands was conceived in the 80s, remember when the ceremonial dress went Insp also lost their helmets. they were only reissued after the cork helmets were replaced with the protective buckets for public order purposes. This helmet is used by all ranks above Insp, including Ch/Insp never seen a gold band, sure it isn't City of London police who still have Ceremonial dress.