Name/Title
Hastings Borough Police special constable's handbook 1915Entry/Object ID
789Description
Pocket sized booklet with blue coloured card cover, consisting of 28 pages, printed to the front "Hastings County Borough Police Instructions for the use of Special Constables compiled by F. James Chief Constable Central Police Station Hastings August, 1915.Use
For giving instructions and guidance to special constables on their dutiesContext
The Special Constabulary is made up of volunteers who carry out uniform police duties in their own time, and in its current form it dates from The Special Constable's Acts of 1914 and 1923. Until 1914 special constables could only be sworn in for very limited amounts of time if there was the threat of a riot or a serious disturbance and were not uniformed. The threat of war in 1914, and the likelihood that many police officers, being ex soldiers and therefore army reservists, would be "called up" to fight led to concerns that there would be a shortage of officers. To counter this the 1914 Act allowed special constables to be sworn in for the duration of the conflict. The 1923 Act made the temporary arrangement permanent.
As the changes in 1914 effectively meant that special constables would be performing many roles traditionally reserved for regular officers, there was a need to train and instruct them in their duties and responsibilities, as well as the behaviour expected of them. Police training at the time was almost exclusively carried out in house by individual police forces and they produced their own training material. This example from Hastings is a particularly early one, dated August 1915 and was written by the chief constable of Hastings Mr F. James. The introduction states that " These Instructions are to be read in conjunction with those issued in September 1914".
Initially the special constables in Hastings were charged with guarding the Waterworks amongst other duties but this ended in December with the removal of enemy aliens from Sussex and the specials concentrated on patrol duties. They were organised into 3 companies and allocated to the 3 police divisions in the town. After giving valuable war service they were officially stood down on 24th March 1919 (Banks 1967 page 63).
Mr F. James was the chief constable of Hastings from 1907 until 1933.