Churchill`s Other Bodyguards - Police Firearms Officers Association

Police
History
Series
Churchill’s Other Bodyguards
Mike Waldren QPM
© 2012 PFOA – Police Firearms Officers Association
Head Office: PFOA, PO Box 116, March, PE15 5BA – Tel: 0845 543 0163 – Email: info@pfoa.co.uk
Registered Charity No. 1139247 Company No. 07295737
June 2012
Churchill’s Other Bodyguards
Protection Duty
VIP Protection has long been a serious consideration for the police service. There is
anecdotal evidence that the first officers to protect royalty were two ‘Bow Street Runners’
named MacKenna and Sayers who were assigned to the court of King George III. They
apparently accompanied the monarch wherever he went and one was always in attendance
day and night.
In 1836 the Bow Street Police Horse Patrol was made responsible for the protection of
all the royal palaces and placed under the control of Colonel Charles Rowan and (later Sir)
Richard Mayne. Only members of the Patrol could perform the function but this changed in
1839 when the Metropolitan
Police Act made it ‘lawful for
[the Met Commissioners,] to
administer to any Constable
belonging to the Metropolitan Police Force an Oath to execute the Office of Constable within
the Royal Palaces of her Majesty [Queen Victoria] and Ten Miles thereof; and every
Constable who shall be so sworn shall have the Powers and Privileges of a Constable within
the said Royal Palaces and Ten Miles thereof’.
As well as undertaking normal policing duty in the 1.88 square
miles of Westminster and Whitehall, ‘A’ Division
became responsible for providing security at all
the royal palaces including Buckingham Palace
(in 1837 Queen Victoria had become the first
Mayne
monarch to use Buckingham Palace as a
residence),
St
James’s
Palace,
Kensington
Palace, the Palace of Westminster (better known as the Houses of
Rowan
Parliament – although major parts of it had been destroyed in a fire in
1834, parliamentary business was still being conducted there using undamaged or temporarily
repaired parts of the structure) and Windsor Castle where a small detachment was
permanently based. An inspector (superintendent by the turn of the century) from ‘A’
Division became known as the ‘Head of the Police of the Royal Household’ and a ‘Royal
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Churchill’s Other Bodyguards
Theatre Protection Patrol’ made up of ‘A’ Division officers was established for when Queen
Victoria decided to have a night out on the town. For many years the division was referred to
sardonically by the rest of the Met as ‘The Royal A’.
Armed Protection
In the early years when the officers needed to be
armed they would have carried cutlasses or muzzle-loaded
single-barrelled pistols (flintlock at first and percussion
later) but from 1868 onwards they would have been issued
with Adams .450 calibre
Webley .450 ‘British
Constabulary’ gate-load revolver
revolvers
(see
Early
Police Firearms). In 1884
these were replaced by
Webley .450 calibre gate-load revolvers and in 1911 the
revolvers were replaced by .32 calibre Webley & Scott M.P.
model self-loading pistols.
Webley .32 M.P. model selfloading pistol
Some ‘A’ Division officers were also detailed
to undertake the personal protection of ministers as
early as the end of 1882 and Home Office authority for
the purchase of twelve revolvers for them was granted
on 1 December. The approved weapon was also a
Webley .450 calibre gate-load revolver but it had a
For Full Document see Appendix I or
Click Here
shortened
barrel
so
that it could be more
easily concealed in a
coat pocket and was known as the ‘Webley Bulldog’.
The Fenian ‘dynamite outrages’ which started on 15
Webley .450 ‘Bulldog’ revolver
March 1883 lasted two years and initially Royal Irish
Constabulary (RIC) officers were drafted in to provide armed security at government and
other buildings. According to Scotland Yard and The Metropolitan Police by John Moylan
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Churchill’s Other Bodyguards
(1929): ‘When the dynamite outrages began in London, members of the Royal Irish
Constabulary were thought to be more competent for the protection of public buildings and
the persons of Cabinet ministers than London’s own police, and in their green uniforms and
rifles they were seen for a time
on sentry-go in the Whitehall
neighbourhood’.
Obviously
officers
could
the
RIC
not
stay
indefinitely and in due course
they were replaced by armed
‘A’ Division officers while the
task of protecting ‘the persons
The ‘Dynamite Outrages’
of Cabinet
ministers’ was
transferred (along with the ‘Bulldog’ revolvers) to the ‘Special Irish Branch’. Formed in 1883
from Met officers of mainly Irish ancestry and with a nucleus of RIC officers this branch, in
addition
to
providing
personal
protection,
investigated the Fenian attacks to the exclusion of
all else. When the terrorist campaign was over
the word ‘Irish’ was dropped and the branch
became formally established as the ‘Special
Branch’ at the end of 1886. Although the RIC
officers returned home the practice of appointing
personal protection officers for some cabinet
ministers from within its ranks continued and
Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee procession
Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee procession in
June 1887 (with RIC officers complete with rifles again brought over, this time to line the
route) and her Diamond Jubilee procession in June 1897 saw the Special Branch involved in
providing personal protection to royalty as well.
Caution must be exercised before attributing modern ‘bodyguard’ methods to the
personal protection officers of those days. The expression used at the time to explain their
duty was that they provided ‘protective surveillance’. In other words, although they were
there to protect their principal, they were expected to keep their distance and the less they
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Churchill’s Other Bodyguards
were actually seen the better. In the main, protection was left to the armed uniform officers at
residences and public buildings and personal protection was only provided when the principal
was out on official public duties. Also, the numbers engaged on personal protection could
have been no more than a handful because the dozen ex-‘A’ Division ‘Bulldog’ revolvers
available was considered sufficient and the Special Branch also had what were described as
‘other important and strictly confidential duties in the general interests of the whole nation’.
This mainly involved keeping a watchful eye on assorted anarchist groups, the growing
suffragette movement and revolutionary exiles from Russia such as
Vladimir Uljanov (Lenin) and Leib
Bronstein (Trotsky).
It was not until 18 February
1909, three weeks after the ‘Tottenham
Outrage’ had resulted in a review of the
Quinn
weapons available to the Met as a whole, that the head of the
Special
For Full Document see
Appendix II or Click Here
Branch,
Superintendent
Patrick
Quinn,
called
‘attention to a case of ten revolvers [the other two had probably
become unserviceable over the years and been scrapped] which
are the only ones available for the use of Officers of Special
Branch, when engaged on protection or other dangerous duties. They are of an obsolete
pattern called “The British Bull Dog”, and were supplied some thirty or more years ago for
the use of officers engaged in connection with the Fenian
movement. There is no record of the actual purchase, but they
were probably paid for out of some special fund’. He went on
to explain that he had taken advice from the gunsmith, Robert
Churchill (no relation to Winston Churchill), who was
Colt Model 1903 selfloading pistol
frequently consulted by Scotland Yard on firearms matters at
the time, and he had been told that the weapons were out of
date, were quite worthless and were ‘a positive danger in a
melee, except at very close quarters’. Robert Churchill had advised Quinn that the ‘Colt
automatic pocket pistol’ was a suitable replacement and this was probably the Colt Model
1903 Pocket Hammerless pistol in .32 calibre.
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Churchill’s Other Bodyguards
A week later Quinn took his problem direct to the Met Commissioner, Sir Edward
Henry, and on 27 February he reported that the Commissioner ‘has
authorised the purchase of 2 Colt’s Automatic Pocket Pistols at £3-3-0
[£3.15p] each, and to be charged on my account (form 292) when
submitted for the protection of His Majesty the King’. The file was
marked on 21 July 1909 (and later initialled by Henry) that the cost
was charged to the ‘expenses incurred by Superintendent Quinn and
Inspector Riley while protecting H.M. The King at Biarritz and other
foreign places on the continent’ and it is strange that Quinn did not ask
Henry
for a change of weapons for the rest of his branch as well.
The numbers engaged on personal protection would gradually increase over the next
twenty years but, curiously, there is no mention of these two weapons in a return of firearms
held by the Met in 1926 which
shows that Special Branch had
92 of the (by then) force issue
.32 Webley & Scott pistols for
its (by then) establishment
strength of 136 officers. The
two officers may have taken
the concept of ‘personal issue’
quite literally, a practice that
was commonly found among
retired army officers who had
given valuable service to the
Empire at the time.
Quinn
had
been
Monarchs from around the world attend the funeral of King Edward
VII in 1910. Indicated by arrows are Superintendent Quinn (left) and
Superintendent Spencer (right) of the Met Special Branch
a
sergeant in the Met when he applied to join the original ‘Special Irish Branch’ and he had
made his way up through the ranks before being promoted to superintendent and head of the
branch in 1903. He would later (in 1919) receive a knighthood and as much as anything else
it was probably his services as a protection officer to King Edward VII that earned him this
(for a police superintendent) unique honour.
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Walter Thompson
Perhaps the most well-known protection officer is Walter Henry Thompson, mainly
because of the thirteen-part television documentary made in 2005 about his experiences
entitled ‘Churchill’s Bodyguard’. Police Constable 549 ‘D’ Thompson applied for duty in the
Special Branch in 1913 and from 1917 until 1920 he was assigned as a protection officer to
the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. Early in 1921 he was assigned to Winston Churchill
and although he retired as an inspector in 1936, Churchill asked for him back in 1939.
Thompson re-joined the Met and after being reissued with a
.32 calibre Webley & Scott self-loading pistol he stayed with
Churchill for the duration of World War II.
In 1921 Churchill had become Secretary of State for
the Colonies and he was a signatory to
the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty which
saw the creation of the Irish Free State
as an autonomous dominion within the
British Commonwealth, with Northern
Ireland exercising its option to opt out
(in December 1922) and remain within the United Kingdom. Hostility
to the provisions of the Treaty was such that there were outbreaks of
Churchill
murder and intimidation by opposing pro- and anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army (IRA)
factions all over the south of Ireland and Churchill was seen by the anti-Treaty militants as
being a serious obstacle to the creation a totally independent and united Ireland.
Churchill made no secret of his views, saying in a speech in the House of Commons
on 12 April 1922 that: ‘Whatever happens in Ireland, however many years of misfortune
there may be in Ireland, whatever trouble, the Treaty defines what we think should be the
relations between the two countries, and we are prepared, and will be prepared, to hand over
to any responsible body of Irishmen capable of governing the country the full powers which
the Treaty confers. Further than that, in no circumstances will we go, and if a republic is set
up, that is a form of government in Ireland which the British Empire can in no circumstances
whatever tolerate or agree to’. Two days later about 200 well armed IRA militants took over
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several official buildings in Dublin including the main court building known as the ‘Four
Courts’, believing that if the British Army could be induced to respond with force then this
would reunite the two factions of the IRA against ‘the common enemy’ and the Treaty would
be effectively scrapped.
On 22 June the security adviser to Northern Ireland, Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson,
was assassinated by two gunmen in London (see The Nineteen Twenties). On 26 June
Churchill told the House of Commons that: ‘The presence in Dublin, in violent occupation of
the Four Courts, of a band of men styling themselves the Headquarters of the Republican
Executive, is a gross breach and defiance of the Treaty. From this nest of anarchy and
treason, not only to the British Crown, but
to the Irish people, murderous outrages are
stimulated and encouraged, not only in the
26 Counties, not only in the territory of the
Northern Government, but even, it seems
most probable, here across the Channel in
Great Britain. ... The time has come when it
is not unfair, not premature, and not
impatient
for
us
to
make
to
this
strengthened Irish Government and new
Irish Parliament a request, in express
Free State forces shell the ‘Four Courts’
terms, that this sort of thing must come to
an end. If it does not come to an end, if either from weakness, from want of courage, or for
some other even less creditable reasons, it is not brought to an end and a very speedy end,
then it is my duty to say, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, that we shall regard the
Treaty as having been formally violated [and] ... we shall resume full liberty of action in any
direction that may seem proper and to any extent that may be necessary to safeguard the
interests and the rights that are entrusted to our care’.
The implied threat that if the Irish Free State did nothing to deal with the militants
then Great Britain certainly would was obvious and two days later Free State forces began
shelling the ‘Four Courts’ using borrowed British Army artillery starting what has become
known as the ‘Irish Civil War’.
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Constables Smith And Brook
All this made Churchill a prime terrorist target and the Special Branch asked for
assistance with his protection. Two additional armed ‘A’ Division officers were assigned to
the Colonial Office (part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) and another two officers,
Police Constables 711 ‘A’ Reginald Smith and 682 ‘A’ Brook, were assigned to Churchill
personally to act in plain clothes from 9 o’clock in the morning of Wednesday 28 June 1922.
The selection of Smith and Brook had not been made at random. Smith possessed one
highly desirable attribute – a motorcycle with a sidecar. The original request was for a police
motorcyclist to be assigned but Superintendent Abbott in A3 Branch (a Scotland Yard
department responsible amongst other things for organising ‘aid’ from one part of the Met to
another) thought that ‘it was impossible for a cyclist riding a solo machine to effectively
carry out the duty’ and so Smith’s privately owned vehicle was pressed into service. Brook
also had a valuable qualification but in his case it was a lot less tangible – he was described
as being ‘an expert rifle shot’, although understanding quite how this was determined is
problematic because the Met did not have rifles at the time and even the opportunity for the
two officers to actually train with the pistols they were carrying would only have been a very
recent innovation.
Official Firearms Training
Since April 1885 all officers in the ‘exterior divisions’ (the suburbs) of the Met who
carried a firearm had to take part in an annual ‘firing practice’. Only six rounds were fired
and the distance to, and the
size of, the target was left
unspecified. This was at a
time
when
the
force
instructions allowed officers
in the Met to carry a firearm
at night at their own request (see Armed Burglars – The 1880s) but there seems to have been
a clear distinction made between officers in the suburbs and officers in the inner London
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Churchill’s Other Bodyguards
divisions such as ‘A’ who could be posted to protection duty and ordered to carry a gun
whether they wanted it or not. In fact, there is no mention at all in force orders of any policy
relating to when officers could be issued with a firearm during the daylight hours even for
any form of protection duty (see Rules and Regulations). It seems to have been taken as read
that firearms were necessary and so no instructions were needed but why only officers in the
suburbs were given the opportunity to take part in the annual practice remains unexplained.
In 1902 in became policy that all new recruits to the Met had to be given instruction
in how to load and unload the force issue handgun and this continued until 1936. The Chief
Inspector (Superintendent from 1914 onwards) in charge of the ‘Preparatory Class’ had a
supply of revolvers (pistols from 1912 onwards) for that purpose. Also in 1902, the target
distance for the annual practice was set at thirty paces but, as before, no target size was
specified. In 1906 the limitation on the expenditure of practice ammunition to six rounds was
repeated in force orders and once again it was only for officers who were in the ‘exterior
divisions’.
Attempts were made to correct this anomaly on 15 December 1914 after which it was
intended that all officers who could be called upon to carry a firearm, whether they were in an
inner division, an exterior division or posted to Scotland Yard, would take part in the annual
practice. The amount of
ammunition expended
was
increased
to
twenty-four rounds and
the
target
reduced
to
distance
twenty
yards. For the first
time, eight of the twenty-four rounds were for a ‘proficiency test’ with the required ‘standard
of efficiency’ being four hits out of the eight within a fifteen inch ring.
Unfortunately it was a bad time to introduce a new system because it had to be
suspended almost immediately due to wartime ammunition shortages. It was announced in
force orders on 11 May 1920 that it was to be restarted and in the case of Smith and Brook
(and Thompson as well of course) this would have been their first opportunity for official
training with the weapon they were actually carrying before they were assigned to Churchill.
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It is highly unlikely that the required standard was rigidly enforced. Some officers
would have been unable to pass the test despite their still being needed for protection duty
and when another revised system of pistol practice was introduced in Confidential
Memorandum No. 13 on 24
July 1933 (and reproduced in
force orders in July 1936), as
well
as
ammunition
increasing
the
expenditure
to
thirty-two rounds and reducing
the target size to twelve inches,
it became official policy that:
‘It is not absolutely essential
for all the selected officers to
pass the proficiency test, so
long as each proves clearly that he is capable of handling a pistol’, thereby officially
approving what had probably been common practice up until then anyway. One surviving
record shows that in 1950 only 78 out of 191 ‘A’ Division officers achieved the 50% score.
Police Shooting Clubs
Nevertheless Brook may have been a member of a divisional shooting club and it was
in this milieu that his shooting skills were noted. Since September 1914 the Commissioner
had provided ‘Miniature Cartridge Ranges’ at several police stations and section houses
around the Met at which officers could use rifles (either privately owned or purchased by a
club for general use by its members) and, ‘where the conditions are suitable’, the officially
supplied .22 calibre single-shot training versions of the force issue pistols as well. A
‘miniature cartridge’ was ‘rim fire or central fire, with a projectile of any calibre not
exceeding .23 of one inch or 6mm, and, in the case of bottle-shaped cartridges, the shells may
not exceed .297 of one inch [to allow for the use of a Morris tube converter in a rifle such as
the Martini Henry .577/450]. The powder charge may not exceed 7 grains of black powder, or
its equivalent in any other explosive. The projectile must be of lead, not cased with other
metal, and not exceeding 50 grains avoirdupois in weight’.
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The intention was to improve shooting standards by getting officers to adopt shooting
as a recreational sport and this would have seemed a perfectly natural if not a long overdue
development in 1914. Similar arrangements for similar
reasons were already in place for many members of the
armed forces after what was considered by senior army
officers (along with such luminaries as Rudyard Kipling and
Arthur Conan Doyle) to be the poor standard of
marksmanship displayed by British soldiers when compared
to that of the enemy during the Boer Wars (1880 – 1881 and
particularly 1899 – 1902). In addition, the Society of
Miniature Rifle Clubs (SMRC) had been founded in 1903
with a national hero, Field Marshal Earl Roberts, as its first
president. Roberts was a strong advocate of the mass training
Roberts
of civilians in rifle shooting and members of the public were
actively encouraged to join a club, the argument being that it was their patriotic duty to be
ready and able to answer their country’s next call. The society would become the National
Small-bore Rifle Association (NSRA) in 1947.
The date when individual officers in divisions and branches in the Met first formed
shooting clubs is not recorded but in 1911 they were all brought together under one umbrella
organisation known as the Metropolitan Police Shooting League. When the force adopted the
.32 Webley & Scott M.P. model pistol at the end of 1911 a number of officers (in all
probability these would have been club members) were
selected from each division and sent to the Army Inspection
Department at Enfield Lock so that they could be trained as
instructors.
The League then drew up a pamphlet describing how
the .32 and the newly arrived .22 single-shot training pistols
Webley & Scott .22 single-shot
should be used and Henry issued instructions on 25 June 1912
that practice with them ‘is only to commence when Superintendents consider that sufficient
knowledge of the weapon has been attained under the guidance of officers who have received
instruction at Enfield or elsewhere’. A free grant of 10,000 rounds of .22 calibre ammunition
was made to the League ‘to enable the practice to be begun at once’ and the Home Office
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Churchill’s Other Bodyguards
subsequently sanctioned the payment of ‘a sum not exceeding £50’ (equivalent to about
£3,000 today) to be paid to the League annually so that it could provide training ammunition
for use by the clubs.
Many police forces set up
shooting clubs affiliated to the
For Full Document see Appendix III or Click Here
SMRC in the early 1900s. One of
the first SMRC vice-presidents,
Colonel Sir Howard Vincent, was a former Director of Criminal Investigation in the Met and
chief officer ranks elsewhere were also dominated by retired army officers. They would have
encouraged the idea and the contribution made by the clubs to police
firearms training over the years should not be underestimated. They
would play an important behind-the-scenes role in many forces
including the Met. On occasions it was even thought that promoting
shooting as a hobby was to be preferred over the provision of formal
training.
An early example occurred in February 1920. Questions were
Vincent
asked in the House of Commons about
whether, in view of the ‘numerous crimes of violence recently
committed steps would be taken to provide the police with
something more effective than wooden truncheons’. The Home
Office forwarded the question to the then Commissioner of the Met,
General Sir Neville Macready, and he replied that: ‘I think the
number of pistols might with advantage be suitably increased,
providing that it is possible to give the men sufficient practical
instruction. The present course of instruction is, in my opinion, quite
useless and should be increased [as we have already seen it was
actually non-existent at the time and had been for the previous five
Macready
years]. ... I have been considering this matter for some time and
have come to the conclusion that it would be inadvisable to make pistol practice too public,
as we might lay ourselves open to the accusation of training the police to shoot down their
fellow creatures in case of labour troubles. As an alternative I have arranged for Pistol
Competitions to be held in the various Divisional Shooting Clubs this summer, with a view to
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Churchill’s Other Bodyguards
encouraging the use of the Service pistol by the men and I hope this will increase the
numbers of those who are adepts in its use’.
The provision of the £50 annual subsidy to the League had been stopped during
World War I and the level of financial constraint imposed during the
post-war period meant that there was no possibility of getting it
reintroduced. On 16 June 1920 in the House of Commons, after it had
become public knowledge that the annual practice in the Met was to be
restarted, Major John Baird, the Under-Secretary of State at the Home
Office, said that: ‘No new departure is being made with regard to the
arming of the Metropolitan Police or their instruction in the use of
Baird
firearms. For nearly 40 years officers on night duty have been permitted,
if they wish, to carry revolvers [sic] for their own protection. The police
have also for many years had Miniature Rifle Clubs which are run by the men themselves for
purposes of sport. It is obviously desirable that firearms should be carried only by men
practised in the handling and use of them, and steps are now being taken to revive the firing
practice which had been suspended during the War. Practice ammunition for the Miniature
Rifle Clubs is purchased in bulk in order that the men may be able to obtain it at the lowest
cost’. This was then sold on at cost price plus ‘departmental charges’ to the League and
although individual officers thereafter had to pay for the ammunition themselves it was still
cheaper than it would have been ‘outside’.
Police clubs around the country prospered and in 1925 a new annual shooting
competition using the .32 Webley & Scott pistol was introduced at Bisley at the instigation of
Sir Lionel Fletcher who, although primarily a rifle shot and later the captain of the Great
Britain rifle team, took a particular interest in encouraging competition pistol shooting in the
police. It was originally only open to teams of four from any police force and at the first
meeting there were twenty teams competing for the Mander Challenge Cup, named after
Captain John Harold Mander, the Chief Constable of Norfolk County Constabulary, who was
himself a shooting devotee. In the years to come more competitions would be added for such
trophies as the Portman Cup, the Jay and Attenborough Trophy and the Commissioner’s Cup.
In many forces the shooting clubs provided the bulk of the available training well into
the post-World War II period. In March 1965 a survey of all forces by Her Majesty’s
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Churchill’s Other Bodyguards
Inspector of Constabulary found that seventeen provincial forces still had no official training
and relied on former soldiers or officers who were members of clubs to provide their entire
armed capability. Even as late as June 1997 Austin Mitchell MP, speaking in the House of
Commons in a debate about another Firearms Bill which would complete the ban on the
private ownership of handguns in the wake of the Dunblane shooting the previous year, said
that: ‘We should not ignore the effect of the Bill on the police. The Bill will have an impact
on the proficiency of police firearms squads. ... Officers have supplemented their official
training by joining gun clubs, at their own expense, and buying weapons. They have become
more proficient, versatile and skilled and, therefore, much safer in their possession of
weapons. That will stop and will be a severe setback for the squads’. There had, of course,
been major improvements in official police training by then and the need for the clubs was
considerably less than it had been in the past. This was just as well because the argument in
favour of some kind of exemption for police pistol clubs was not accepted and they were
forced to shut down. However, back in 1922 some officers would undoubtedly have excelled
at the sport they were being encouraged to take up and this may well have been behind the
observation that Brook was ‘an expert rifle shot’.
A Brief Career In Personal Protection
As far as Smith and Brook are concerned all went well for the first week with the two
officers returning to ordinary duty on 4 July 1922 after Thompson (now a sergeant) had been
told by Churchill that: ‘he would not require the services of the motor-cyclist and the officer
on the sidecar as he has been given the use of an armoured Rolls-Royce motor’. The vehicle
then seems to have been required by someone else because the two officers resumed their
special duty on Sunday 9 July and again all went well, this time for nearly two weeks.
Unfortunately, on Saturday 22 July disaster struck.
Churchill was on route by car to London at about 11.10 in the morning (there is
nothing in the reports to indicate whether or not his driver was complying with the national
20 mph maximum speed limit which had been introduced in 1903 and which would remain in
force until 1930) when his vehicle overtook a lorry as it was travelling toward Ripley northeast of Guildford. Smith tried to follow but he then found himself on the wrong side of the
road with a car travelling in the opposite direction coming straight at him. The two vehicles
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Churchill’s Other Bodyguards
collided and although this caused minor damage to the car and to Smith, Brook sustained
compound fractures to both legs and left arm. The motorcycle and its sidecar also came out of
it very badly. The frame and wheels were buckled, the tyres were torn off and the sidecar was
completely smashed.
Churchill’s car did not stop but a passing motorist offered to help and a St John’s
Ambulance took Brook to the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford from where Smith
sent a telegram informing Brook’s mother of the accident. He also telephoned Churchill, who
had by now reached his London home at 2 Sussex Square near Hyde Park, to tell him what
had happened. Churchill told Thompson who in turn reported the accident to Special Branch
Superintendent McBrien adding that ‘when it was noticed that the motor-cycle and side-car
was [sic] not following, it was concluded that they either missed the way or had a puncture’.
‘A’ Division was asked to supply another two officers but at 10.35 that night the Special
Branch received a telegram explaining that all the available resources had been used up and
that there were no spare armed officers left.
A search of the rest of the Met by Abbott the
following day resulted in two armed constables from
the ‘Brixton’ or ‘W’ Division (which at the time
covered the 57.85 square miles all the way from
Brixton in inner London to the outer boundary of the
Met at Epson in Surrey thereby making it an
‘exterior’ division) being assigned instead from
Monday 24 July. Their names are not recorded but
Abbott arranged for them to be provided with a Bean
motorcar for the duration of the duty. The 11.9 horsepower Bean had been introduced to
critical acclaim at the 1919 London Motor Show and it was a considerable upgrade from a
motorcycle combination.
Smith’s motorcycle and the bits that were left of the sidecar were collected from
Ripley and taken to the Met’s transport workshop at Barnes but when it came to getting the
vehicle repaired there was a problem. Smith only had the vehicle insured for private use and
on 31 July he reported that: ‘... as I was using the machine for “business” my insurance
company ... [has] repudiated my claim, so I respectfully ask if my combination could be
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Churchill’s Other Bodyguards
replaced or repaired at Barnes where the machine now lies’. The cost of repairs was estimated
at £57 11s 8d (£57.58½) and the driver of the other vehicle also put in a claim for £28 17s 6d
(£28.87½) of which £20 was for loss of a day’s business. The report went all the way up to
the Deputy Commissioner, (later Sir) James Olive, and the insurance company agreed ‘as an
act of grace’ to share the cost of the machine’s repair but incredibly, although Olive was
Acting Commissioner at the time, even he did not have the authority to
agree that the Met should pay the remainder.
On 29 August Olive wrote to the Under Secretary of State at the
Home Office, now Sir John Anderson (later
Viscount Waverly) to ask: ‘in view of the
circumstances, that the [Home Secretary –
Edward Shortt] may be pleased to sanction the
payment from the Police Fund of the remaining
Olive
portion of the cost of repairs, and also such an
amount as may be necessary to meet the third party claim’. This was
Anderson
agreed on 8 September and the Home Office was told on 15 September
that the sum of £1 9s (£1.45) had also been paid to the St John’s Ambulance Brigade ‘for the
hire of an ambulance to convey Constable Brook to Guildford Hospital’.
Churchill left his post at the Colonial Office a month later and he lost his
parliamentary seat in the November 1922 general election. He was allowed to retain the
services of Thompson but his additional personal protection was withdrawn and the officers
returned to ordinary duty. As far as is known, Brook made a full recovery and Smith had his
machine restored to full working order. Its index number was XA 7576.
Note:
According to ‘The British Police’ by Martin Stallion and David Wall published by The Police
History Society (1999) there were 170 forces in England, 19 in Wales and 59 in Scotland in
1922. Were there any developments to do with police firearms in your force/area or its
predecessors
during
this
period
of
mike.policehistory@yahoo.com.
© Mike Waldren
Page
16
history?
If
so
please
contact
Appendix I
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Appendix II
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r
66663?/~4
I
26th June 1Gl2.
Appendix III
'Q(·~
rrir:l-,r.o:.. +"'
1·~
~M.. '')
of J;.JvV.\.1
') ,/';.·~ -;,. . •·, .;.. , T' "h
J ~·st f_,.
CO'"' ·l ,... "' 0 f
L-,. ....
"'''-" 1:'
·,:.vl._
v
Instruot:l.onn l·.J:o fort.ardod this clr:~y u.nd aro to bo d:i.::d;ributsd
--".!.
~· (;
o•
.;._.~.
1
\~·-~-
tt
_(.r, •
~~!l.vrJ
J
aa follows: ...
Supol'l.il;tcndent .,.. ___ .__ ......., .................-...
, ...,.
Cl1iof 1I1Apcc·t or
·~-~
.,:..,.f141" . . . . . ,.. . . . . . . ~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
l
..................... ; ,_.~,, ....._...... -",~-- ...... _ .. ._ ____ ... __ l
Sooro'\:.<try of Div::.nio:r.;;.3.l J;if.Lo Club ......
]}J.oh Off.icer inDtl"'1J.cted
c:~t
_u·--------- 1
Eilfiold ..... - ................. ~.-- 1
InDQeotoro' Offio~ at eauh St~tion -------~------ l
To be ko].Jt
'i'li th
ea.oh • 22 Piatol (uhoro alloon. to d)·~ 6
._..,_..,..,~
l
~
N
,_..., - ·
oe- __ _..-tool---..,,..
Greo,t CE".rc is to be exercised in the instruction and us.:: of
these pistolA which are to be distributed to V'arious Stations in D1vifdona (an far ae nurJt)ors penni t) in ·Jrdor to
afford faoili tie a for gaining }!l'O:fioioncy in their use ..
2. The precaution::; laid do•.m in the Instructions ancl in the
!.1etroJ)oJ.itan rolicc Ghootint; J..,sague :p~11:ill:tet are to 'be clm.1ely adhEH ed to, und prClctice is o~Jly to cour:tonce whon Su:pe..r ...
inte:a<.t6n:'..;a consider th~1,;t sufficient knowlcd.ge of the t18t\:;;;on
has "been a ttt"tindd undor ·i;he guic~n.nqo of officers who na·v·e
reoei ved inst:.:'uction at Enfield or elsc'\7here.
1
'
3, A special froo grant of ccna lO:OJO roundn of f1jj1i"iunition
will "be :made by the Lca{01o to e:nb1e practice to bc 'Dcgv.n at
onae. On rcceiut it ehou.J.d bo a.1l:;t;tod to the Ste'l.tior:s refer·~
red in r.nr.,l at the· rate of 100 round.Elt- per pietol o,nd in to
be equally d1.ntr:i.buted runo:uc~=;t :'!l'~:::1b(Jrs of Divisional Cluofl
so aa to affo:rd c..e In!Hl:f as posHi blo an opportunity of a pro,lillli:nary :pro,et:i.co,
4. Later, a lint of the oo8t proficient piotol ohota wlll be
required and a furthor g~ant in aid will, it ia hoped, be
1
availc.b~e
6.
fo:b thei1· use·:
Divisior-~1 Club;cJ n~oulcl at o7JGO o..:p_;Jly fer thiR special
grant in aid, st~ting mo~oorch!p of Clubs or of the Rifle
Section of Oluos.
E.R.H.
to
Supta. CO to
TA~
{T~U.)
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