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2009 Annual General Meeting
The 2009 AGM was held on Saturday 1st August at The Essex Police Sports
& Social Pavilion, Chelmsford. Our President, Lord Petre, warmly welcomed
a good attendance of 54 members. Following the business meeting members
enjoyed afternoon tea, and a chance to talk, before a short walk to visit
the Essex Police Museum.
The museum, a member of the Friends of Historic Essex, underwent major
refurbishment in 2005 thanks to a £43,000 grant awarded by the Heritage
Lottery Fund. Since then visitor figures have continually increased, with
close association with schools and education programmes, and a full range
of activities for children during the summer. Their website provides further
information, www.essex.police.uk/museum
and also contains numerous History Notebook articles based on a variety
of topics about the history of the Essex Police.
Displays are based around a large collection of objects and archives
of the force dating from 1840. The photographs and items relating to case
histories bring the fascinating stories to life. Members quickly became
absorbed. Of course, some exhibits brought back lighter memories, like
the police box that was a familiar sight to many and became an iconic
item thanks to Doctor Who, or the LE Velocette motorcycle, once a popular
method of police transport with a top speed of 50mph!
LE Velocette on display at the Essex Police Museum
As well as permanent and temporary exhibitions, the museum also provides
a service for research and family history enquiries. It holds detailed
indexes on police officers in the Essex County Constabulary from the 1880s,
Officers who served in the Southend Borough Police 1914-1969, Police War
Reserves and Women Police Auxiliaries in World War II.
For wider research purposes, police archives held by the museum and at
the Essex Record Office, give a truly enormous amount of information on
many topics, for instance - the history of crime and punishment, medical
practices, photography, land disputes, developments of forensic science,
marine policing, preparations for possible invasion during WWII, cases
that hit the headlines, unsolved mysteries, and the success stories leading
to distinguished conduct awards. In fact, if you were to delve into the
archives, or visit the museum, you would certainly be able to gain some
nugget of new information, as well as a greater understanding of the varied
workload and experiences of policing.
Our thanks to the Curator, Becky Wash, and staff at the museum for hosting
our afternoon visit.
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The Daisy Chain
by Vic Gray
Monday 15th March 2010 7.00pm at the Essex Records Office
To book, call 01245 244620
More information
The committee meets formally every 3 months, although we all make use
of email to discuss ongoing matters - what would we do without the internet?
The dates scheduled for the committee to meet in 2010 are:
The time of meeting in each case is 5.15pm in the Essex
Record Office.
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