In my previous post I looked at Inspector Kidney. This time I’ll look at some of the other policemen in the town around the same time, using the police registers held by Staffordshire Records Office. These registers contain the names of all police officers back to the beginning of the force. (An online index to them is linked below).

The County Police Act of 1839 allowed counties to create police forces. Some counties didn’t form them until it was made compulsory in 1856, but Staffordshire was relatively early to use the act, in 1842. Three districts were put in place under a single Chief Constable. A Pottery District included the towns in the north of the county, whilst a Mining District encompassed populations around Wolverhampton, Dudley and Walsall in the south. The large remaining portion of Staffordshire – excluding boroughs that already had forces such as Stafford and Newcastle – became the Rural District. Uttoxeter was part of the Rural District.

The bold text below is taken from the police registers.

Inspector Blood

004 John T Blood; appointed 1842 Dec 12th; aged 29; 5’ 8½”; trade: butcher; from Tamworth; married with 3 children;  recommended by [blank]

John Thomas Blood was Uttoxeter’s police inspector before James Kidney. It was his resignation in 1850 that allowed Sub-inspector Kidney to step up to inspector level.

John had joined the county constabulary in December 1842, as the force was being created; in the police register he is appointment number 4.  As well as his age (29), the register provides us with his height (5’ 8½”), origin (Tamworth), previous job (butcher), and marital status (married with three children). He was taken on as a constable but immediately moved up to class 1 inspector. Just the bald facts are given in these registers, so we don’t know the reasoning behind the promotion. However, it wasn’t all plain sailing for John because a couple of years later he was demoted to class 2 sub-inspector. Three years after that, in 1847, he was promoted back up to inspector.

In the early days of county police forces, officers were expected to behave impeccably. As well as the police officer registers, the Records Office holds two defaulters registers for the constabulary, which contain brief records of officers who misbehaved. Unfortunately the first register only starts in 1857, so we don’t know why John Blood was demoted thirteen years earlier. A random sample of offences in the register are as follows: “neglect of duty” (fined 5/- or a third of a week’s pay); “losing his staff” (a new one was ordered at the officer’s expense);  “drinking in a public house when on sick list” (5/-); “insubordination and under the influence of drink” (20/-); and “smoking a clay pipe while on duty in Trentham” (21/-).

Inspector Blood resigned from the county force in 1850 to become superintendent for the independent Newcastle police force. He spent six years with Newcastle police and on his retirement in 1856 his friends advertised a public dinner at Newcastle’s Roebuck Hotel in order to recognise his past service. Tickets were 5 shillings each, including dessert.

Now 53 years old, John probably still needed an income, and by the time of the 1871 census he was an accountant. He was still an accountant in 1881, aged 68. He and his wife Mary continued to live in Newcastle, where their two daughters became schoolteachers and their son became an architect and surveyor.

Officer Jones

091 John Jones; aptd 1842 Dec 19th;  aged 25;  5’ 11”;  trade: shoemaker;  from Staffordshire; single;  recommended by “discharge and inhabitant of Stafford”;  “was previously a soldier”

386 John Jones (1st);  aptd 1844 Jun 12th;  aged 20; 5’ 11”;  trade: potter;  from Stoke;  single;  recommended by [blank]

411 John Jones (2nd);  aptd 1844 Aug 28th;  aged 19;  5’ 9¼”;  trade: shoemaker;  from Stafford;  single;  recommended by Revd W Caldwell

When the 1851 census was taken, a 29 year old police officer called John Jones was living in Short Street, Uttoxeter, just down the Chapel Gardens passage from Inspector Kidney’s house. John was married to Matilda and they had four young children.

John and Matilda were married in Stafford in 1844. From the birthplaces of their children we can see his subsequent postings. In 1846 the family were in Stafford. They had moved eight miles east to Colwich between 1847 and 1849, and eleven miles north-east from there to Uttoxeter by 1850. Can we match this John Jones to a police register entry? Well, no. Of the three John Jones’ in the police register before 1851 (shown above), the first was too old by about five years and the second and third were too young by about 2 and 3 years respectively. There are no matches.

Jones 091 remained in the force until 1873; Jones 386 was dismissed in 1844 and again, strangely, in 1845; and Jones 411 resigned in 1853. I haven’t found John, Matilda or their children in Staffordshire in the 1861 census or later.

Inspector Kidney

232 James Kidney; aptd 1843 May 1st; aged 20; 6’ 1”; trade: [blank]; from Ardshaw, County Tyrone;  single;  recommended by Capt. Roberts of [indecipherable]

The police register gives additional information to my previous account of James Kidney’s police career. He joined the force four months after Inspector Blood. We know he was tall, and that he came from the parish of Ardshaw in County Tyrone. James was promoted from constable to sub-inspector after two years in the force, on the 1st of April 1845. It was from this time – as detailed in my previous post – that we begin to see newspaper reports of his encounters with the area’s malefactors and rapscallions. He became an inspector in 1850 and then on 30th April 1856, after a 13 year career, Inspector Kidney was discharged from the force through ill-health. As I wrote in the previous post, he died in August, aged 33.

Constable Nisbet

307 James Nesbitt;  aptd 1844 Jan 23rd;  aged 31;  5’ 8”;  trade: Sgt 94 Foot;  from Edinburgh;  married no children;  recommended by TS Kynnersley Esq.

James Nisbet was not living in Uttoxeter in 1851, so it seems unlikely that he was stationed there. However, on census night his wife Louisa Nisbet was staying in Uttoxeter High Street with her father Stephen Udale, a master staymaker. Her occupation was recorded as “wife of a police officer”. The wife of a police officer was expected to be part of the team. She was not allowed to have paid employment and had to be available to take messages when her husband was away on his beat or at court. She was held to the same high standards of conduct as her husband, and although paid a working man’s wage, the couple was expected to have the same the levels of behaviour as the middle classes.

Louisa and James married in Uttoxeter on Thursday 24th October 1843, whilst he was still a sergeant in the 94th Foot, and three months before he joined Staffordshire Constabulary. His regiment was in Ceylon at the time, so he must have been on discharge leave. I haven’t been able to find out where he and Louisa met.

Constable ranks are recorded in the police register as a weekly wage, with most early appointments starting at 15/-.  James was promoted from 15/- to 17/- constable in 1845, and to 20/- two years later.

On census night James was in a house in the village of Newborough, a few miles south of Uttoxeter. I think we can assume he was stationed here. There were no children with James on census night, nor with Louisa in Uttoxeter, so they may still have been childless in 1851.

James is the only one of the officers I’ve looked at to have an entry in the defaulters registers. On the 14th August 1858, his superintendent reported him for “Quarrelling with a civilian in a public House”. His punishment was to be  “removed to Leek”. The following March James died in Leek, aged 48.

Two years after his death, in 1861, Louisa remarried. Her new husband was Hezekiah Perkin, an eating house keeper in Leek. The 1871 census shows them living with two children, Hezekiah’s daughter Sarah Perkin, aged 7, and Louisa Nesbit, aged 12. Louisa Nesbit was recorded as his step-daughter; James Nesbit had a child born the same year he died.

Constable Miles

501 Thomas Miles;  aptd 1845 July 10th;  aged 22;  5’ 8½”;  trade: husbandry;  from Ellenhall;   single;  recommended by Sir Joshuah Walmesley

Thomas was a police constable born in Church Eaton, to the west of Stafford. In 1851 he was living in Uttoxeter as a lodger with his superior, Inspector Kidney. The police register records that he was recommended for the police by Sir Joshua Walmesley, who was a former mayor of Liverpool and a former MP. At the time of Thomas’ appointment, Sir Joshua was living at Ranton Abbey in the parish of Ellenhall, not far from Church Eaton. I think, because of who recommended him, we can assume Thomas was working on the land at Ranton Abbey prior to joining the police force.

Thomas started as a 15 bob a week constable, which rose to 16/-, 17/- and in 1846 to 18/-. The page of the police register in which Thomas is listed is the first that records the colour of his eyes (hazel), his hair (light brown), and his complexion (fresh).

Thomas Miles was dismissed in 1853, before the defaulters register started. I have discovered no other Findmypast search results that could be connected to him. He may have moved away, or, with no way to connect him to other Thomas Miles of the same age, he has just become lost to us in the haze of historical uncertainties.

Sources

County Force Registers 1842-1977 at Staffordshire Records Office.

Defaulters Registers (1857-86, 1904-23) at Staffordshire Records Office.

Sir Joshua Walmsley: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O131746/sir-joshua-walmsley-mp-oil-painting-daniels-william/

Staffordshire Constabulary: https://www.search.staffspasttrack.org.uk/Details.aspx?&ResourceID=2195&PageIndex=11&KeyWord=police&DateFrom=0&DateTo=2021&SortOrder=2&ThemeID=0

Online index to the Staffordshire Police Force Registers, 1842-1920: https://www.staffsnameindexes.org.uk/default.aspx?Index=B&Info=2

Some background on early policing: https://www.oldpolicecellsmuseum.org.uk/content/history/police_history/life_in_the_19th_century_england-2

A policeman’s lot in the 1870s: http://www.victorianpolicestations.org/a-policemans-lot-1872.html