Busy business for the Constabulary Archives
When I was asked to write this newsletter I couldn’t believe that 3 months had passed since I wrote the last one.
We have been out and about and are never off duty. On a trip to the Game Fair in July we saw that the Constabulary was represented so took photographs for the archives.
In August there was a visit to Cheltenham Probus to give a talk on policing Cheltenham
All talks are written to order and were possible are linked to the area where the talk is given. We are already filling up for the next year and topics requested so far are
- Early Women Police in Gloucestershire
- History of the Constabulary with reference to The Forest of Dean
- Brave exploits of officers before they joined the Constabulary
- History of the Constabulary with reference to Charlton Kings
- Crime and Consequences
In September, the much anticipated Police Open Day was back after a 3 year break and it was soooooo busy! There were 8000 people on site and it felt like they all came through our display area although some people said that it was so busy that they couldn’t get into the building.
As usual we had several queries linked to retired officers that we have managed to answer. We didn’t get out much on the day but who knew that we had a police tractor?
Our latest project is working with Northleach Old Prison and we are hoping to spend some time there at their family event in half term in November.
Back in the office, the volunteer team have been working hard:
- researching cases related to pocket books from the 1860s
- researching cases linked to memoirs of officers
- finding out the history of our first Asian female officer.
- Using General Orders and other documents to track the careers of officers from the 1860s to 1960s
- Transcribing commendation and default books
- Tracing the history of officers who died on duty and in service
There is never a dull day in the archives.
If you have any police related photographs we are always happy to receive Jpegs via gloucestershirepolicearchives@gmail.com and queries can also be sent to the same email address. We are usually in our office at the Heritage Hub Monday to Wednesday until 2.30 but it is worth checking before you make a visit as we do go out and about quite often.
