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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Northamptonshire => Topic started by: robbo43 on Tuesday 22 October 13 00:13 BST (UK)
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Does anyone know if historical records of police officers are accessable anywhere? I am trying to find information about a Charles Davey, born Tasburgh, Norfolk, 1883. In the 1911 census he was boarding with an Andrews family in Deanshanger and described as a Police Constable in the Northants Constabulary.
Robert
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Hi Robert.
You could always ask the achivist at Wootton Hall Police Headquarters,
Mr Tom Paintain if he has knowledge of Charles.
Sandy
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Hi Sandy,
Thanks. The contact details given in Bridgeman & Emsley's "A Guide to the Archives of the Police Forces of England and Wales" are "Police Headquarters Wootton Hall Northampton NN4 OJQ. Tele (0604) 700700. Curator: Mr Tom Paintain Ext 206" but these date from 2006. Do you have any idea if they are still correct. I have tried e-mailing the headquarters and will wait to see if that produces results.
Robert
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Goodness Robert trying to find out the information for you was like
burying into the archives themselves.
Anyway I will P.M. it as it is not available anywhere on the net.
Sandy
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Hi Sandy,
Thanks. The contact details given in Bridgeman & Emsley's "A Guide to the Archives of the Police Forces of England and Wales" are "Police Headquarters Wootton Hall Northampton NN4 OJQ. Tele (0604) 700700. Curator: Mr Tom Paintain Ext 206" but these date from 2006. Do you have any idea if they are still correct. I have tried e-mailing the headquarters and will wait to see if that produces results.
Robert
The phone number for Northampton for future reference is now 01604 ;)
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I just put a reply and it must have gone into cyber space. ;D
Anyway all the information on the internet is TOTALLY out of date.
The contact is now by e-mail and I was asked not to display it
hence P.M. to Robert.
Sandy
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Thanks everyone for the help and information. I was able to contact the Northants police via the Northants Police Mail Room which is their standard contact point for non-urgent messages. NorthantsPoliceMailRoom@northants.pnn.police.uk The archivist is now a volunteer who works one day a week, but they will pass on messages to him.
Robert
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robbo 43
I was wondering how you got on with your query. I wrote a letter in 2003 to the Curator at the Museum who was very helpfull.
I enclosed 2 reply Coupons and addressed envelope. I have my g/grandfathers record. There
was no charge for it even though I asked. About the same time I wrote to Devon Police regarding
my other g/grandfather. They also were very good and asked me if I wanted another persons record with the same Surname which turned out to be his cousin. This was a payable site and worth it for their time and effort. Regards Marja
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Hi Marj,
Yes, the archivist was very helpful and sent me copies of all the records they had. It appears that Charles was retired on pension in 1923 ,when he was 40, as he was one of the victims of the "sleepy sickness" epidemic. I haven't been able to fnd out what happened to him after that, nor when he died.
Regards
Robert
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robbo 43
Glad to hear you managed to get the record you wanted. If you would like to give me his name, and particulars I might come across him during my travels as I have found some who have emigrated.
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Does anyone know if historical records of police officers are accessable anywhere? I am trying to find information about a Charles Davey, born Tasburgh, Norfolk, 1883. In the 1911 census he was boarding with an Andrews family in Deanshanger and described as a Police Constable in the Northants Constabulary.
Robert
His name and particulars are in the original request Marja ;D
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I'm not sure that people who suffered from Encephalitis lethargica (sleepy sickness) are likely to have emigrated because of their health condition.
The most severe cases remained in a coma, often for decades. Some of these patients responded to treatment with l-dopa in the 1960s (the 1990 film Awakenings dealt with this), but its effects were mostly short lived.
Symptoms included high fever, sore throat, headache, lethargy, double vision, delayed physical and mental response, sleep inversion and catatonia. Patients also experienced abnormal eye movements, parkinsonism, upper body weakness, muscular pains, tremors, neck rigidity, and behavioral changes including psychosis. Modern treatments including steroids and the drug Zolpidem may give some relief but in the past many cases deteriorated with brain damage similar to Parkinsons disease.
In Charles Henry Davey's case, the police review on 29 December 1923 stated that "Constable C H Davey was still an inmate of Berry Wood Mental Hospital ... That, while he still showed some signs of his recent mental derangement, Constable Davey was capable of carrying on a conversation but lacked initiative and was sluggish both physically and mentally ... Dr Robson would expect him to be forgettful and unreliable; on the other hand he found him civil, courteous, and desirous of resuming his duty should he be passed fit."
My guess is that he probably spent much of the rest of his life in institutions of one form or another.
Robert
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Hello Robert,
I am a former Northants Officer and I have recently volunteered to work on the Force Heritage Project. I don't yet have access to their material but most of their documents are now curated by the Northamptonshire Records Office, which, like Police Headquarters, is at Wootton Hall Park.
A request was passed to me today with the link to this thread, I think because it contained contact details, now obsolete.
However, in recent months I have been independently researching the officers of the then three separate forces in the County, who served in WW1, one of which was Davey.
My working notes on him may contain useful information for you, below. Your information about the nature of his illness is new to me.
I wonder if my speculation about his war service is relevant. Between 1915-1919 the Berrywood Asylum was Northampton War Hospital. I know that some soldiers remained there, even beyond WW2, after it returned to being a mental hospital.
Hitherto I have failed to identify which Army unit PC Davey served in. He is one of about 6 from a total of 92 County Constabulary men who served, whose units have not been identified. I am visiting NRO in the near future in search of clues, but perhaps you know?
Anyway, my notes follow; please correct me if I have erred:
Charles Henry Davey was born on 2/5/1883 in Tasburgh, Norfolk, & was a carpenter before he joined the Northamptonshire County Constabulary on 3/2/1908, & in 1911 was a PC at Deanshanger, where he lodged. He married Beatrice Elizabeth Riches, his home village schoolteacher in 1912. They had a son, Jack, 1913-2001. Charles' military service was from 1/1917-2/1919 but his unit has not yet been identified. He was medically pensioned from the force on 2/2/1924 (impact of war service?) and in 1939 the family were living at Bedford Road, Northampton. Charles died in 1957 & Beatrice 3 years later.
All the best,
Dave
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Hi Dave
I'm sure that many members of the forum who had Northants ancestors in the police force will be pleased to see your post. You might get a lot of enquiries!
You probably noticed that the last post on this subject was a few years ago so things have probably moved on since Robert started it. Nevertheless I'm pleased that you posted because I had not seen this thread before and I was interested to see that PC Davey contracted encephalitis lethargica, (sometimes called "sleepy sickness" because the victims often appeared comatose). My paternal grandfather moved from Leicestershire to Desborough and died of the same illness there in the same year that Charles Davey caught the disease (1923). While Robert's detailed description of the epidemic is correct there seems to be little or no memory of how it affected the population of Northamptonshire, or indeed the UK. It was, after all, a worldwide epidemic although nowhere near as widespread as the so-called Spanish Flu epidemic.
I contacted the Desborough Historical Society a few years ago. They were very helpful but my contacts there knew nothing about the epidemic or how many people in Desborough became ill, died or were incarcerated in the local mental hospital, as they were called in those days.
I certainly think that you are correct to discount the theory that Charles was retired because of his wartime experiences, horrific though they would probably have been, if, as Robert has discovered, he contracted this illness. There was no coming back from it - you either died, as in my grandfather's case or you were permanently and seriously mentally impaired for as long as you subsequently lived.
Incidentally while there is quite a lot of speculation about what caused the disease this has never properly been identified and neither is there a cure as such even today. So it could come back at some stage and cause serious problems for the population, particularly now that so many antibiotics are ineffective.
Incidentally my grandfather, also called Charles, had two sons who became policemen, but they moved to Leicester to join the force there.
cheers
Tony
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Hi Tony,
I knew nothing of the sleeping sickness epidemic in Northants, but have since done a bit of googling & delving in BNA. As you say, with uncertainty about origins & treatment, let's hope it doesn't make a comeback!
I'm a very new volunteer and it will be a while before I get my feet under the table but having previously researched lots of names - mainly around WW1, I know where & how to search, & will try to help if any questions are raised here.
All the best,
Dave
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The deaths for Charles and Beatrice seem to be in the Brixworth Registration District.
Sandy
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Until 1974, the Brixworth District covered a wide rural area to the north & west of Northampton Borough boundaries. Looking again at the 1939 Register, Charles, Beatrice & son Jack were actually living at Bedford Road, Brafield, a village not far from Northampton on the east side.
If the diagnosis was correct, it seems remarkable that Charles apparently recovered and lived so long Perhaps he had been re-admitted to Berrywood.
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Hi Dave, thanks for the update, I had tried to contact the original archivist again and failed, so I assumed that the contact had changed.
I tried to get hold of the medical records for Charles as the records for Berry Wood should still exist. However they have been shunted from one organisation to another and it seems that his records have been lost in the process.
The 1939 Register, when it became available, revealed that he was still alive and no longer in the hospital. From there it was possible to trace his death at The Cottage, 168 Bedford Road, Little Houghton in 1957 and his wife Beatrice, died in 1960 at the same address. Beatrice was Charles executor and their son Jack was Beatrice's. At that time Jack was described as a hospital porter, he died in 2001.
Beatrice Riches was born in Metfield, Norfolk, in 1879. She became a teacher and moved to Tasburgh to teach in the school there. In 1901 she was living a few doors away from Charles. By 1911 she had moved back to Metfield and, still a teacher, was living with her parents. Charles and Beatrice were married in Metfield in 1912.
Annoyingly although two of his brothers and a sister are mentioned in family documents and letters there is no reference to Charles. This leaves three main puzzles.
1. Why did he suddenly up sticks in 1908, moving from Norfolk to Northamptonshire to become a police officer? He was recommended for the post by Mr A E Fuller, Chief Constable of Norfolk but I can't find a connection. Many of the family were tenant farmers or tenants or worked for local estates, mainly Rainthorpe Hall but a few for Tasburgh Hall but Fuller had nothing to do with either of these as far as I can see. The only other known family police connection is with a cousin who joined the Metropolitan Police in 1895
2. Information about his wartime service. I have not been able to find records that are conclusively him.
3. Anything about his time in Berry Wood, when he was released and what his health was like thereafter. The only reference to what is probably him in a newspaper search is in the Northampton Mercury 20 January 1950 (page 9) "Charles Davey of Little Houghton was admitted to Northampton General Hospital with a fractured thigh."
The fact that Berry Wood had been a War Hospital is interesting. He was diagnosed with Encephalitis lethargica but could he in fact have been suffering from shell shock/PTSD? Sleepy Sickness affected people from a wide range of backgrounds not just with those with military service. At one time it was believed to have a connection with Spanish Flu, but I think that has been disproved.
Time might tell!
Good luck with the Force Heritage Project
Robert
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Hi Robert, you are most welcome.
Charles is one of only 5, out the 92 County Constabulary men who served in WW1, whose Military Unit has not yet been confirmed. My visit to Northamptonshire Records Office was originally intended just to identify those units, although a still growing list of other things to look for has been added.
Looking for an Army service record, a colleague suggested two possibles:
Gunner Charles Henry Davey of the RGA (150605) who served 10/12/1915 to 14/12/1918 and was then awarded a SWB. (More than 30 NCC men served in RGA, but these dates don't fit with Charles' police service dates.)
Private Charles Henry Davey, supposedly of the Royal West Surreys (203292) who was apparently pensioned off 21/2/1919 (Record is on Fold3 which I do not have). The index re Fold3 on Ancestry states that his Military Service Region was "North Midlands" and his address was "Welmant Northampton". (Welmant must be a transcription error I think).
Have you been able to eliminate one or both of these?
Thanks for setting out all that information. I am also intrigued now and you can be sure I will be keeping an eye out for any references to Charles.
I wonder if the recommendation by C.C. Norfolk indicates that Charles applied there first, but rather than waiting for a vacancy, opted to try Northants where perhaps vacant posts existed? Or maybe Northants Constabulary was the next best thing to the French Foreign Legion after a failed romance in Norfolk!
You have probably traced Berry Wood / Berrywood / St Crispins Hospital to it's closure in 1995. I went in search of records from its Northampton War Hospital time. There is an archives / museum department at Northampton general Hospital and I got some information from there about NWH, when researching a nurse's autograph book containing details of about 50 soldier patients.
Alas they had no idea where patient records went after the frequent health trust / authority / area reorganisations and assumed the MOD would hold any records of soldiers treated.
I stand corrected that Charles lived in Lt Houghton, not Brafield, as I thought 1939 Register showed. The former is closer to Northampton but I didn't think either was ever in the Brixworth Reg. District.
I hope something will turn up to solve the mysteries.
Thanks & all the best,
Dave
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FYI Little Houghton came under Brixworth Registration District from 1936 to 1974 so looks good.
Paul
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Thanks Paul.
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Robert,
Please ignore my last reply. It was Jane King, a volunteer researcher for IWM working on the War Memorial Register, who suggested the two possibles for Charles. He was the second. Welmant = Kelmarsh.
My thanks to her for finding on BNA: page 4 of the Buckingham Advertiser and Free Press on 1/6/1918:
"Pte C.H. Davey, Queen's R.W. Surreys, formerly a police-constable at Kelmarsh and Deanshanger. Wounded in the chest and arms and in hospital at Whitstable"
Deanshanger is on the Bucks border in the south of the county. Kelmarsh is in the north on the Leics border. So after his start at Constabulary HQ at Angel Street, Northampton, it seems Charles was transferred from top to bottom ends of the county, or vice versa.
Regards,
Dave
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Further to my last, Jane King went the extra mile & followed a hunch: The fact that his reference for the Northants Police post had apparently been supplied by the Norfolk Chief Constable A.E. Fuller suggests that Charles had previously been a copper in Norfolk. Having checked the Norfolk Police website, this appears to have probably been the case, as apparently a Charles Henry Davey was indeed a Constable on that Force: his reference in their records (Recruitment Register?) is Book 5, Page number 161. If you go to https://www.norfolk.police.uk/about-us/our-organisation/our-history it gives the contact details re how to obtain data from that record. Again, as Davey is not an uncommon surname, one would need to check it all out, but that would certainly explain why the reference for NCC's chap was provided by Norfolk's Chief. Whether he transferred directly, or there was an hiatus in between is unknown, but will hopefully become clear from the Norfolk record.
Perhaps provision of police accommodation was better in Northants, or maybe there had been a family rift?
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Dave
Thanks for all that, brilliant. I was about to make several suggestions but now they are mostly not necessary. I had eliminated the RGA Gunner partly because of the dates but also because he came from Newport, Monmouthshire. Most of the WW1 records on Fold 3 are also on the normal subscription area of Find my Past. I had just checked for the Royal West Surrey record but could not find it on FindMyPast, I suspect they have mistranscribed his name.
I was going to suggest electoral registers as a possible source. He would probably be on the 1918/19 absentee voters register which would give his unit and subsequently he and Beatrice should appear on the ordinary registers, unless it was regarded that his mental capacity was too damaged for him to be fit to vote in which case only Beatrice would appear. Unfortunately Northants electoral registers are not on line and may not have been indexed so it would be a slog to find him.
I have some information on the divisions he served in. Kettering (1908), HQ (1908), Wellingborough (1908), Towcester (1909), Kettering (1912)(Kelmarsh?), Northampton (1920). At the time he was taken ill in 1923 he was stationed at Boughton.
I'm inclined to think that as he wasn't taken ill until 1923 and presumably though fit for service until then that he was suffering from Encephalitis lethatgica rather than PTSD. For anyone interested there are a couple of linkshttps://www.encephalitis.info/encephalitis-lethargica
(https://www.encephalitis.info/encephalitis-lethargica) and news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3930727.stm
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3930727.stm)
Again, thanks Dave for all the effort you have put in. I will try the Norfolk Police link and post back here anything I find.
Robert
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I stand corrected that Charles lived in Lt Houghton, not Brafield, as I thought 1939 Register showed.
I think that one is my fault. In the 1939 Register his address is given as 168 Bedford Road, Bradfield but at the time of his death in 1957 his address is given as The Cottage, Bedford Road, Little Houghton.
Perhaps provision of police accommodation was better in Northants, or maybe there had been a family rift?
Family rift? Amongst the Daveys? Mostly they seem to have got along. However in a letter to another of her sons Charles's grandmother comments about his father disapprovingly and suggests he was a spendthrift. In another "discussion" between one of Charles's cousins and either his aunt or his mother, (or possibly both), the final retort was "I hope the church roof falls in on your head". Isn't family history fun?
I've contacted the Norfolk Police history group, their response tine is around four weeks, so will just have to wait.