Alan Bryant recalls the impact made by the first chief constable of Cumberland and Westmorland Police . . .

WITH all the talk these days of Police Commissioners, and chief constables coming under their jurisdiction, it is a good time can look back, albeit briefly, to the world of policing when the title was first officially introduced - January 1857 to be precise.

The first chief constable for the counties of Cumberland and Westmorland (as Cumbria was then known) was a certain John Dunne, a 31-year-old career policeman, who had already made a name for himself by serving as chief constable of both Norwich and Newcastle – but more so from having been promoted through the ranks.

This was no mean achievement at a time when the majority of forces only recruited to high rank those from a military background at senior level, or who came from a noble family.

Dunne had neither, having been born of humble Irish folk and joined Manchester Borough Police as a constable aged 14 in 1839.

Policing in the two counties was so different in those days - there were no tourists to speak of for starters.

Certainly Dunne would have had to report regularly to the Watch Committee and the Justices, but in the main he was left alone to set up a police force to control the severe crime problems which for so long had gone on unabated. One can’t imagine today’s chief constables with the same degree of freedom.

When he retired in 1902 – 45 years later – aged 77, Dunne had built up a force of more than 200 men from an initial strength of 74, to protect 270,000 people in an area of 1.5 million acres.

Not only had he had a long and distinguished career spanning 63 years, but his longevity was rewarded twice in 1897, when he was made a knight of the realm and then he had the honour of making a presentation to Queen Victoria on behalf of the country’s entire police force at her Diamond Jubilee.

Though some 300 miles from the centre of government, and responsible in the main for a rural area, he made a name for himself during this period by introducing a system of counter measures to combat contagious animal diseases (which are still in force to this day).

He also prepared proce-dures for police control of tramping vagrants, which was to become national law, as well as being instru-mental in proposals on the Game Law Reforms, the Licensing Act (of 1872) and, of major importance to the police themselves, the Police Superannuation Act of 1875.

He had also overseen some 39-nine major murder trials throughout this time, one of which only came to trial thanks to Dunne introducing the novel idea, for then, of making plaster casts of footprints.

He died in 1902, aged 76, a very wealthy man thanks to his wife bringing into the marriage a vast fortune inherited from her grandfather John Ismay, the founder director of the ill-fated White Star Line.

  • Alan Bryant is the author of The Biography of Sir John Dunne, the first Chief Constable of Cumberland and Westmorland Police, to be published later this year.