Page 52 - Top Cover Issue 9

52 TOP COVER ISSUE 9

HISTORY

First full Met regulations on police Constable Alfred Austwick (Yorkshire The first known record of shots fired During a debate on the ready
firearms use are drawn up and officers West Riding) arrests James Murphy by a Met officer. Police Constable 161 ‘P’ availability of handguns the Earl of
on night duty are allowed to carry a for drunkenness. Murphy swears Henry Owen fires six shots over the roof Milltown says that: ‘One thing is very
firearm at their own request. Officially vengeance and when Austwick is of a dwelling house in order to rouse certain: unless this habit of the criminal
the weapon can only be used for self- called to a disturbance at Murphy’s the occupants because it is on fire. All of classes carrying and using revolvers is
defence. house by a neighbour he is shot and the occupants are successfully alerted. put down, you must be prepared to
There is agitation in the Highlands killed. Murphy is charged with murder Superintendent Thomas Birkill arm the police with a similar weapon.
and Islands in what will become known and convicted at York Assizes. He is (Yorkshire West Riding) is shot and It is monstrously unfair to send forth
as the Crofter’s War over high rents, executed at York Castle prison. killed by William Taylor who he is trying a man, no matter how brave, armed
the rights of access to land given over to to arrest for the murder of his infant with a short stick to attack and capture
hunting parks and the lack of security child. Taylor is convicted of murder but a desperate ruffian armed with a six-
of tenure. The War Office lends fifty found to be insane and is committed to shooter’.
revolvers to the Chief Constable of Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum
Inverness-shire. where he will die in 1925.

1884 1886 1887 1889

1885 1888

Inspector Thomas Simmons (Essex) is Constable Joseph Byrnes Superintendent Joseph Scott (Durham)
shot and killed by a suspected burglar. (Cumberland and Westmoreland) is is shot and killed in revenge by
James Lee is convicted of the murder shot and killed by three men wanted for Benjamin Wright, an ex-sergeant
and executed at Chelmsford prison.216 a burglary at Netherby Hall in Penrith. reduced in rank to constable because
The question of arming officers in The three are executed at Carlisle of ‘intemperate habits’. Wright commits
Essex Constabulary is raised by the prison in 1886. suicide.
Chief Constable and is debated at the All but ten cutlasses are withdrawn
Essex Quarter Sessions. Revolvers are from Met police stations. 4,713 are
purchased from Philip Webley & Son. scrapped at Woolwich Arsenal
Police on night duty in Essex although they are retained in full by the
Constabulary are allowed to carry a Dockyard Divisions.
firearm at their own request.
The Times reports that a number
of Essex Constabulary officers have
undergone a course of revolver
practice at Romford Butts.