Whitechapel

[Mike Covell]

This is like "Gunfight at the OK Coral"

If I ever see Mr. Evans and Mr. Hinton in a street, and the sun is showing an indication that it's High Noon, I am ducking on out of there quicker than you can say "Tautriadelta"

[Monty]

Stewart

Pretty intense was it? Did you apply or headhunted? Out of interest, has your research come across any info of firearmed police in or around 1888?

[Suzi]

Fascinating! OK Houndsditch 10.00 am!!!!!! SECOND'S OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously chaps carry on- I was too busy doing a lot of teaching during this period (The 1980's not the other stuff!)

Suz xx

Good points Mont/Stewart- Did they have the old firearms on 'regular' or just during 'disturbances'???

[Stewart P Evans]

Intense

Pretty intense was it? Did you apply or headhunted? Out of interest, has your research come across any info of firearmed police in or around 1888?

Yes it was intense. You had to show an interest and I had used a gun before, when I first joined I personally owned a P14 .303 rifle and had also used handguns, as well as shotguns.

I remember one job I went on one night was when we surrounded a house out in the countryside where a man was holed up after shooting a love rival, in town, with a Smith and Wesson .44 revolver (he was a gun club member). We set up a mobile control unit nearby and some of the team had to lie in the fields around the house all night. Our raid teams went in at first light (after the dog!) and we found him lying on a bed upstairs. He had shot himself through the head about ten hours earlier.

No, I have never found any reference to police use of firearms around 1888, although of course, if the situation called for it the police did issue guns, such as in the siege of Sidney Street in 1910.

[Suzi]

Hi Stewart

Good story there-

Yep the Sydney St in 1910 and maybe Warren's Bloody Sunday do- OK--But how easy was it for an average copper in 1888 to pick up a 'weapon' of some sorts and what would be the reason for getting hold of one????

(Not just a woman doing a fire engine job I hope!! )


Suz x

[Steve S]

Oh God...This is one of those ,'I know I've read it moments'.....there IS a book on the history of Britain's armed police........Vague memories of officers having access to pistols for night duty if they chose to.......
Steve

[Mike Covell]

The Good Guys Wear Black, The True Life Heroes of Britains Armed Police by Steve Collins, Arrow Books, 1998, is an excellent read. I found mine in a second hand shop window for 25p!

[Bob Hinton]

I may have misled you.

is that story real?
multiple rounds through a fifty pence piece at 25 metres using a colt .44?
what model .44?

Reading my post again it is possible you may have mis-understood it. I with my S&W 66 could put all six through a 50p at 25 metres.

When my wife using a New Model Army .44, yup its a cap and ball, pistol fired at her target she put all her rounds through the same hole, diameter about 2 cms.

The best shooting I've ever done was putting five rounds through a playing card at 100 metres using a flintlock rifle!

[Bob Hinton]

Correct

ECW geek head on.......They were rifled pistols,(very rare & expensive,but around)....If I remember correctly,It was at Lichfield,& when Charles I said it was a fluke,Rupe repeated it with the other pistol.......
Steve

I believe they were turn off pistols, meaning that the barrel was unscrewed and the powder and ball loaded into the breech then the barrel was screwed back on. This made loading a rifled pistol relatively easy.

If you think that's good a godson of Lord Nelson, a famous dueller, could hit a swallow on the wing with a flintlock duelling pistol!

[Bob Hinton]

Armed Police

In answer to Stewarts question it was the South Wales Police my mate belonged to. He left in about 1998.

Your requirement of 49 out of 50 at 25 metres is not that different from South Wales 45 out of 50 at 50 metres.

I’ve never heard of tactical units using nickel-plated guns, I know the Mets revolvers were all blued. However this does highlight a point about British Firearms units they all tend to use different weapons. Dyfed Powys were using a Czech 9mm CZ 75 in the nineties.

Police did have access to firearms for night duty. I believe before the Second World War it was an option for night patrols.

Police in Victorian times did have access to firearms on a regular basis. If you read any of the books by Jerome Caminada he describes taking an unruly housebreaker in for questioning once. In those days you either walked your suspect to the station or paid out of your own pocket for a cab. On the way there the suspect started acting up. Caminada describes ‘hitting him around the head with the butt of my pistol until he quietened down’.

[Jeff Leahy]

I believe they were turn off pistols, meaning that the barrel was unscrewed and the powder and ball loaded into the breech then the barrel was screwed back on. This made loading a rifled pistol relatively easy.

If you think that's good a godson of Lord Nelson, a famous dueller, could hit a swallow on the wing with a flintlock duelling pistol!

Charles Spencer: Prince Rupert the last Cavalier

“There were many eye witnesses present however, when Rupert, while passing through Stafford, stood in the garden of a Captain Richard Sneyd and fired his ‘screw’d horseman’s pistol’ at a weathercock on top of St Mary’s Church. He managed to hit it from a range of 600 yards- an astonishing achievement in an era when the handgun was notorious for its inaccuracy. Charles 1 dismissed the shot as a fluke, prompting Rupert to fire again. He repeated the feat.A visitor to Staffordshire two generations later could report ‘the two holes through the weathercock tail (as ample testimony of the thing) remaining there to this day.”

You’d probably get better detail from ‘Kitson’ but I can’t find my copy, he is more reliable than Spencer. However Rupert’s pistol would appear to have been ‘Screw’d’, but i must confess I am not an expert on guns. Just know a little about Rupes.

I believe Lord Nelson also borrowed most of his strategic planning by Studying Prince Rupert’s tactics against the Dutch. Rupert himself had been a student of Gustus Adolphus. Rupert also spent a few years as a pirate and I plan to fly his colours on the boat.

Pirate

[Steve S]

I believe they were turn off pistols, meaning that the barrel was unscrewed and the powder and ball loaded into the breech then the barrel was screwed back on. This made loading a rifled pistol relatively easy.

If you think that's good a godson of Lord Nelson, a famous dueller, could hit a swallow on the wing with a flintlock duelling pistol!

That's them......New Model army...Rifle...Slobber...I have to make to do with muskets....
Steve

[Steve S]

Charles Spencer: Prince Rupert the last Cavalier

“There were many eye witnesses present however, when Rupert, while passing through Stafford, stood in the garden of a Captain Richard Sneyd and fired his ‘screw’d horseman’s pistol’ at a weathercock on top of St Mary’s Church. He managed to hit it from a range of 600 yards- an astonishing achievement in an era when the handgun was notorious for its inaccuracy. Charles 1 dismissed the shot as a fluke, prompting Rupert to fire again. He repeated the feat.A visitor to Staffordshire two generations later could report ‘the two holes through the weathercock tail (as ample testimony of the thing) remaining there to this day.”

You’d probably get better detail from ‘Kitson’ but I can’t find my copy, he is more reliable than Spencer. However Rupert’s pistol would appear to have been ‘Screw’d’, but i must confess I am not an expert on guns. Just know a little about Rupes.

I believe Lord Nelson also borrowed most of his strategic planning by Studying Prince Rupert’s tactics against the Dutch. Rupert himself had been a student of Gustus Adolphus. Rupert also spent a few years as a pirate and I plan to fly his colours on the boat.

Pirate

Stafford...Lichfield...I was close!...And I am on the other side......
Steve

[Steve S]

'London's armed police' by Robert Gould & Mike Waldren...Thak god for Amazon....A good addition to books on the Met.
Steve

[Suzi]

Was just about to post that one having been Amazoning!