Tracing a family with police connections
After the excesses of the Christmas period, the police volunteers have returned and are settling into their new tasks and routines and with the weather preventing us from getting out and about as much as usual, we have also turned our attention to planning future events.
We have 7 talks and events already booked for 2025, spread throughout the county including Bishops Cleeve, Swindon Village, Birdlip, Tetbury, Mitcheldean and Kemble.
Over the last three months we have had 52 enquiries. Our favourite was the query from someone wanting to return a World War l 'death penny' to the family of a long dead police officer. The penny had originally belonged to the brother of Inspector Percy Barnard Thompson. It is now held by another family and with them we embarked upon a voyage of discovery trying to reunite the penny with descendants of the Thompson family.
Between us we discovered some interesting facts.
Originally it was thought that Inspector Thompson had one son who had died in WWll. However, we found there were, in fact, two sons.
The second son, Alfred James Barnard Thompson became a prisoner of war after his plane crashed in France and he was held in Stalag Luft lll during the time of the infamous Great Escape.
He know that he left the air force after the war . However, it was a chance discovery on a French website that told us that his grandchildren had visited the site of the crash in the last year or so. However, no further leads have so far been found so our enquiry remains open. Although this is not strictly police related, it was interesting to explore some alternative research paths and eventually we hope to add to the rich tapestry of the police family.
It is worth noting that 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 also able to scan photographs in our office at the Heritage Hub. We are usually open Monday to Wednesday until 2.30pm but it is always worth checking that we are available before you make a visit to avoid disappointment.