Has UK Policing 1939-1945 been researched?

NormanW · June 11, 2023

I am looking for help with some police research into World War II.

Do we have anyone who has researched or written about UK wartime policing, 1939 - 1945? Specifically when was regular recruiting stopped, when were retired officers called back as the Police War Reserve, was was being a police officer ever a reserved occupation? Were young officers called up, or was it just volunteers? The PAMS, Police Auxilliary messener Service was established in 1941, but it is known that police forces had been employing their own messengers before that date. I have found that the police was not listed in the 1938 Schedule of Reserved Occupations, but cannot find when it did become listed.

The reason for my research is that hanging at the back of the main Magistrates Court in York, there is the memorial to three York City Police officers who died serving their country.

Two I have traced and know their War service. The last on the list is PC 94 Thomas Watkinson, or is it Thomas W. Atkinson?

There are two Thomas Watkinson's listed (CWGC) as killed in action. Neither from York but there is a Thomas William Atkinson, who was killed in 1944, aged just 23 (https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2218429/thomas-william-atkinson).

At face value, he would seem to be too young to have been appointed as a Constable. That is until I discovered a Thomas William Atkinson, living in lodgings in York, from a village just west of York, was in 1939 a police telephone operator/messenger.

Not everything is online, for example the date of appointment of Gunner 14264800 Thomas W Atkinson to the Royal Artillery. Neither are the City of York Watch Committee Minutes. Sadly few York City Police records have been preserved and no one has written a history of the force. I believe that eight digit service numbers began to be issued sometime in 1942.

Using the Civil Law standard of "on the balance of probabilities", I think Pc 94 T W Atkinson and Gunner T W Atkinson, may be one and the same, but I would like to know more about the process of appointing officers in the 1939 - 1945 period, if anyone knows....

It would be nice to be able to commemorate the service of PC 94, as we can with PC 82 John Gillard Cutt, of the Royal Artillery, killed on 3rd September 1942 at El Alamein, and PC 80 John Cappleman, of 48 Commando, killed on 6th June 1944, on Juno Beach.