Look back at policing in the past in Three Rivers

Before the Rural Police Acts of 1839 and 1840, policing of a parish (even quite a large town) was done by parish or manor constables, an unpaid role without training or indeed much by way of role definition, certainly when it came to dealing with crime. Groups of traders came together in groups to fund private pursuit and prosecution before the magistrates of wrong-doers, but it was all pretty sketchy.

In the large Rickmansworth parish and manor there were about 16 constables, in 1841 three for the town, three for Mill End and two each for West Hyde, Batchworth, Batchworth Heath, Croxley Green and Chorleywood. But in that year the parish approved the adoption of the (optional) provisions of the Police Acts, and a little later in 1846 took responsibility for appointing the constables, just as the new Chief Constable came to negotiate with the parish the use of the old ‘cage’ (the town lock-up, in Church Street) by his officers. We don’t know when the first uniformed officers appeared in Rickmansworth or Abbots Langley, but it will have been soon after this.

Rickmansworth Police Station 1952-2010. Image: Hertfordshire Police Historical Society, Neil Hamilton Collection

Rickmansworth and Abbots Langley parishes were in the Watford Division, and in 1851 there were two uniformed officers in the town. Abbots Langley had at least one (the ‘Railway Police’, precursors to the British Transport Police, were also in evidence). By 1861 the establishment had grown to three constables. They did not have dedicated premises – Watford did, with the Divisional Superintendent giving the Police Station in the High Street as his address - until 1864, when a new house at 9 Talbot Road was taken on, and provided with a cell. The Police Station stayed there until 1897, when it moved to the High Street near the new fire station, and stayed to 1952.

Rickmansworth's first Police station – 9 Talbot Road, with its cell. Image: R.J. 'Stick' Walsh - Rickmansworth Historical Society, Rickmansworth Historian No 3 (Spring 1962))

But what did the early constables (who were not well paid, and were initially required not to be away from home without permission) actually do? Well, their appearances as witnesses in the magistrate’s court suggest that most of the offences were either of the ‘drunk and disorderly’ type (usually involving violence), theft (one splendid Abbots Langley case relates to the theft of a pile of acorns) or ill-treatment of animals (motoring offences appeared later). But we get an insight from John White, who in 1859 “got [the magistrate] to come to Rick’th and hear a case against my Plough lad … for refusing to work and absenting himself from my Service without permission. Sentence one months imprisonment in St Albans Gaol and the Exps in addition to pay. The Police took him off this Evg.” This essentially civil case had to be executed by the police. Nearly 30 years later Mr White “appear[ed] against two Men who were taken by the Police Constable last night, lurking about my premises as supposed, for an unlawful purpose. Given 7 Days imprisonment.” Police support to daily life.

The opening of Oxhey Police Station 1953. Image: Hertfordshire Police Historical Society, Neil Hamilton Collection

Now come forward to just after World War Two. The last dedicated Rickmansworth station, at the junction of Rectory Road and Uxbridge Road, was opened in April 1952 by the Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe – it was demolished in 2011, and the town is now policed from Three Rivers House. In Chorleywood there were police cottages at 9 and 10 Chenies Road, allowing the outlying areas to be covered. Oxhey Police station was opened in 1953 by Lord Chief Justice Goddard - the fledgling estate had been policed initially from an old woodsman’s cottage in Gosforth Lane, then from an outbuilding at the golf clubhouse. Abbots Langley and its surroundings were policed from a 1959 built station on the North Orbital Road in Garston, long since demolished - Abbots is currently policed from an outstation in Abbots Langley High Street.

The rear yard of Oxhey's first Police station – and first Police car - 1953. Image: Hertfordshire Police Historical Society, Neil Hamilton Collection

In these photos the several rows of World War Two medals remind us of the previous service of many police officers, a number of whom at all ranks had died in each World War – Chief Constable Fairman on active service in Italy in 1943, while his successor Abel Camp had already been decorated in World War One. Eight Hertfordshire police officers have died ‘in the line of their duty’ since 1950: Policing us is about much more than old police stations and stolen acorns.