Village Policing Alan Payne December 2022
The Box police station at 24 Fairmead View (courtesy Carol Payne)
In this article we look at the reasons for a permanent police presence in Box until after the Second World War. It wasn’t that there was more crime and certainly not that there were more laws. But the need for a permanent village bobby was so important that the Wiltshire Constabulary rented a new house at 24 Fairmead View to be the policeman’s home and to act as the local police station. This article looks at the situation of PC Thomas Carpenter, Box’s village police officer in the years around the
First World War.
Police Constable Thomas Carpenter
Thomas Carpenter (1862-1927) was born in Longbridge Deverill and became a Wiltshire police officer in his early twenties.
He married a Devizes girl, Julia Romain (1861-1940), on 9 November 1885 and served a long period at Codford St Peter, located between Salisbury and Warminster, before moving to Sutton Veney in 1902. His usual method of transport was a bicycle and in 1903 he was thrown from it and had to give evidence in court with a dislocated shoulder.[1] In one of his last duties in Salisbury in 1909, he charged two army officers for riding their bicycles at night without lights.[2] You might think that the bulb had blown as on a modern bike but one culprit, Sergeant Alexander Sutherland of the 18th Hussars, claimed that he had an oil lamp on his bike but was unable to keep it alight because it had no wick – presumably a paraffin lamp. Sergeant Sutherland tried to evade capture and rushed past a police inspector in Amesbury and tried to get to Netheravon without being caught. However, on his way there he was apprehended by PC Thomas Carpenter, charged with the offence and later the court fined him 1 shilling.
Thomas was only in Box for a few years from 1908 to 1911, when he and his family lived at 24 Mill Lane (Fairmead View), Box, the official police station in the village. The house was only a few years old and had been built by the Bath & Portland Stone Firms principally to let to their own quarry workers. With a recession in the trade, the Firms saw the opportunity to let number 24 to a long-term, reliable tenant, the Wiltshire Constabulary.
Police Work in Box
The first case PC Thomas Carpenter dealt with in Box involved apprehending a military deserter.[3] In fact, it was an easy case because Ernest Stevens, the deserter from HMS Dreadnought, walked into the police station and gave himself up after 3 months on the run and Thomas was able to arrest him. A more troubling case was that of child abuse on Box Hill.[4] An elderly labourer, James Waite and his wife Matilda 20-years his junior, were accused of neglecting their children aged 18, 10 and 8 in a manner likely to cause them pain and suffering. The children were found sleeping in a stable on boards covered in straw. They had been kept there for three weeks and were suffering with sores, were dirty, insufficiently clad and were shivering with cold. The children were huddled together for warmth with no fire or furniture in the room. Thomas gave evidence that he had to wade through four inches of mud to get to the stables. The two youngest children were taken to the Chippenham Workhouse and the defendants imprisoned with 2 month’s hard labour. The variety of cases continued with charging Frederick Small, a gypsy who did not appear, of camping on the public highway at Wadswick.[5] Another case involved prosecuting Walter Long who allowed three sows to stray onto the highway in Box.[6]
In 1909 he had to make a huge judgment when he prosecuted Alfred Stinchcombe, the quarry foreman ganger known as Stiv who was living at 4 Boxfields, along with his wife Elizabeth and their son Edward. They were accused of assaulting John King, a farm carter and their neighbour at number 3, who suffered a severe beating and black eyes.[7] Another neighbour, Mrs Ann Lucas from number 5, saw the incident and said it was over a boundary dispute in the garden and started as a verbal disagreement. Another local resident, Alfred Ethelbert Sheppard from 9 Boxfields, said that he had seen John King strike Mrs Stinchcombe.
PC Carpenter gave evidence that there had been several claims that the Stinchcombes were quarrelsome neighbours and their son Edward had several previous convictions. On this occasion, Edward was sent to prison for a month and his parents bound over to keep the peace, which produced a very voluble (outburst) protesting that the evidence given against the was a pack of lies made by Mrs Elizabeth Stinchcombe.
In 1910, Thomas Carpenter was involved in dramatic accident when James Blackman suffered an apoplectic fit in the road at Box Hill.[8] James was a stone quarryman from Portland, who had come to Box looking for work. Thomas was called to the incident and administered first aid, learned from St John’s Ambulance Service. He saved James’ life because Dr Martin insisted that James be removed immediately to the Chippenham Workhouse and Thomas took him there. It wasn’t the first time that he had to administer first aid because he had been called to the death of Stephen Whatley, aged 79, who committed suicide by hanging himself at Warminster in 1905.[9] He wasn’t successful with the resuscitation that occasion. It was all part of his duty as a county police officer.
Wiltshire County Constabulary
For centuries before the early Victorian period, law and order in Box village had relied upon a person called the tythingman (constable). This was officially an honorary job, appointed by the parish council of Box Church, originally to collect the tythes due to the church and the vicar and later to enforce the peace as defined by the county Justices of the Peace. Usually, the appointment lasted a year and often involved re-settling people back to their own parish for that area to pay Poor Relief. All of this changed dramatically in 1839 with the County Police Act, which allowed the Justices to appoint a professional police force in their jurisdiction.
Wiltshire was the very first area in the whole country to introduce a county police force on 13 November 1839. It was formed in response to widespread social unrest in the 1830s when labourers had rioted about the price of food, the introduction of mechanisation into farm work and there was agitation for greater political enfranchisement with the Chartist movement. The newspapers ran daily headlines of riots in Bristol, Newport South Wales, Birmingham, Canterbury and throughout England.
The meeting called by the Chartists at Devizes on Easter Monday 1839 was the closest that riots came to Box. The Chartists urged a mass gathering of people from all neighbouring towns at The Bear Inn to listen to Henry Vincent and William Prowting Roberts from Bath. This panicked local magistrates who called out the troops of the 14th Lancers and the local yeomanry from Devizes, Melksham, Chippenham and Marlborough.[10] The Chartists entered the town at 3pm, marching behind a band with 20 banners paraded by perhaps 1,000 labourers carrying bludgeons, pikes upon short sticks, a few with pistols. An affray broke out against the Chartists with the mob out of hand and threatening to kill the reformers and burn down parts of the town. Eventually the Chartists disbanded before anyone was killed.
The first constables were still largely amateurs, equipped with a uniform and a book of notes telling them what was expected. The role of the police constable had various social responsibilities. In 1910 PC Carpenter was involved in a civil case against George Edward Beames for non-payment of maintenance to his wife, Mabel Mary, and her two children.[11] In 1909 he prosecuted a farmer for moving 17 pigs without a licence in the middle of a swine fever lockdown.[12] In the same year he gave evidence in a dispute where 24 fowl had escaped and eaten the corn in a neighbour’s field.[13] In 1909, the theft of War Office Supplies caught the attention of the police.[14] Two army servicemen were accused of assisting in the theft but the fence of the goods claimed he had bought them legitimately. A series of accusations and denials required a court case to decide. The whole case involved the theft of three sacks of oats and some mangolds being moved from Larkhill to feed the horses at Bulford Camp with the court finding the intermediary guilty and the army taking up the cases of the servicemen.
In 1911 Thomas and Julia and family moved from Box to Swindon and their house was let to another police officer. In that year, Thomas came across physical violence in the course of his duty when he had to face-down two Afro-Caribbean boxing instructors who were accused of harassing women by standing in front of them and trying to engage them in conversation.[15] There were less stressful moments, such as in December 1911 when Thomas prosecuted a man for driving without a light at 5.42pm. It wasn’t a modern car light and Thomas dealt with the matter by advising the man to re-ignite the lamp attached to the vehicle.[16]
Thomas appears to have been socially active for the police and where he lived. He regularly played for the police cricket team but wasn’t a great success. His highest score in Box was just 8 not out, although prior to this he made 39 runs playing for Warminster in 1906.[17] Thomas died in 1927 and Julia survived him for a decade, living with their youngest daughter Kate
and later her husband, George Samworth, a railway crane driver. By 1939, Julia was described as incapacitated and she died a year later.
First World War.
Police Constable Thomas Carpenter
Thomas Carpenter (1862-1927) was born in Longbridge Deverill and became a Wiltshire police officer in his early twenties.
He married a Devizes girl, Julia Romain (1861-1940), on 9 November 1885 and served a long period at Codford St Peter, located between Salisbury and Warminster, before moving to Sutton Veney in 1902. His usual method of transport was a bicycle and in 1903 he was thrown from it and had to give evidence in court with a dislocated shoulder.[1] In one of his last duties in Salisbury in 1909, he charged two army officers for riding their bicycles at night without lights.[2] You might think that the bulb had blown as on a modern bike but one culprit, Sergeant Alexander Sutherland of the 18th Hussars, claimed that he had an oil lamp on his bike but was unable to keep it alight because it had no wick – presumably a paraffin lamp. Sergeant Sutherland tried to evade capture and rushed past a police inspector in Amesbury and tried to get to Netheravon without being caught. However, on his way there he was apprehended by PC Thomas Carpenter, charged with the offence and later the court fined him 1 shilling.
Thomas was only in Box for a few years from 1908 to 1911, when he and his family lived at 24 Mill Lane (Fairmead View), Box, the official police station in the village. The house was only a few years old and had been built by the Bath & Portland Stone Firms principally to let to their own quarry workers. With a recession in the trade, the Firms saw the opportunity to let number 24 to a long-term, reliable tenant, the Wiltshire Constabulary.
Police Work in Box
The first case PC Thomas Carpenter dealt with in Box involved apprehending a military deserter.[3] In fact, it was an easy case because Ernest Stevens, the deserter from HMS Dreadnought, walked into the police station and gave himself up after 3 months on the run and Thomas was able to arrest him. A more troubling case was that of child abuse on Box Hill.[4] An elderly labourer, James Waite and his wife Matilda 20-years his junior, were accused of neglecting their children aged 18, 10 and 8 in a manner likely to cause them pain and suffering. The children were found sleeping in a stable on boards covered in straw. They had been kept there for three weeks and were suffering with sores, were dirty, insufficiently clad and were shivering with cold. The children were huddled together for warmth with no fire or furniture in the room. Thomas gave evidence that he had to wade through four inches of mud to get to the stables. The two youngest children were taken to the Chippenham Workhouse and the defendants imprisoned with 2 month’s hard labour. The variety of cases continued with charging Frederick Small, a gypsy who did not appear, of camping on the public highway at Wadswick.[5] Another case involved prosecuting Walter Long who allowed three sows to stray onto the highway in Box.[6]
In 1909 he had to make a huge judgment when he prosecuted Alfred Stinchcombe, the quarry foreman ganger known as Stiv who was living at 4 Boxfields, along with his wife Elizabeth and their son Edward. They were accused of assaulting John King, a farm carter and their neighbour at number 3, who suffered a severe beating and black eyes.[7] Another neighbour, Mrs Ann Lucas from number 5, saw the incident and said it was over a boundary dispute in the garden and started as a verbal disagreement. Another local resident, Alfred Ethelbert Sheppard from 9 Boxfields, said that he had seen John King strike Mrs Stinchcombe.
PC Carpenter gave evidence that there had been several claims that the Stinchcombes were quarrelsome neighbours and their son Edward had several previous convictions. On this occasion, Edward was sent to prison for a month and his parents bound over to keep the peace, which produced a very voluble (outburst) protesting that the evidence given against the was a pack of lies made by Mrs Elizabeth Stinchcombe.
In 1910, Thomas Carpenter was involved in dramatic accident when James Blackman suffered an apoplectic fit in the road at Box Hill.[8] James was a stone quarryman from Portland, who had come to Box looking for work. Thomas was called to the incident and administered first aid, learned from St John’s Ambulance Service. He saved James’ life because Dr Martin insisted that James be removed immediately to the Chippenham Workhouse and Thomas took him there. It wasn’t the first time that he had to administer first aid because he had been called to the death of Stephen Whatley, aged 79, who committed suicide by hanging himself at Warminster in 1905.[9] He wasn’t successful with the resuscitation that occasion. It was all part of his duty as a county police officer.
Wiltshire County Constabulary
For centuries before the early Victorian period, law and order in Box village had relied upon a person called the tythingman (constable). This was officially an honorary job, appointed by the parish council of Box Church, originally to collect the tythes due to the church and the vicar and later to enforce the peace as defined by the county Justices of the Peace. Usually, the appointment lasted a year and often involved re-settling people back to their own parish for that area to pay Poor Relief. All of this changed dramatically in 1839 with the County Police Act, which allowed the Justices to appoint a professional police force in their jurisdiction.
Wiltshire was the very first area in the whole country to introduce a county police force on 13 November 1839. It was formed in response to widespread social unrest in the 1830s when labourers had rioted about the price of food, the introduction of mechanisation into farm work and there was agitation for greater political enfranchisement with the Chartist movement. The newspapers ran daily headlines of riots in Bristol, Newport South Wales, Birmingham, Canterbury and throughout England.
The meeting called by the Chartists at Devizes on Easter Monday 1839 was the closest that riots came to Box. The Chartists urged a mass gathering of people from all neighbouring towns at The Bear Inn to listen to Henry Vincent and William Prowting Roberts from Bath. This panicked local magistrates who called out the troops of the 14th Lancers and the local yeomanry from Devizes, Melksham, Chippenham and Marlborough.[10] The Chartists entered the town at 3pm, marching behind a band with 20 banners paraded by perhaps 1,000 labourers carrying bludgeons, pikes upon short sticks, a few with pistols. An affray broke out against the Chartists with the mob out of hand and threatening to kill the reformers and burn down parts of the town. Eventually the Chartists disbanded before anyone was killed.
The first constables were still largely amateurs, equipped with a uniform and a book of notes telling them what was expected. The role of the police constable had various social responsibilities. In 1910 PC Carpenter was involved in a civil case against George Edward Beames for non-payment of maintenance to his wife, Mabel Mary, and her two children.[11] In 1909 he prosecuted a farmer for moving 17 pigs without a licence in the middle of a swine fever lockdown.[12] In the same year he gave evidence in a dispute where 24 fowl had escaped and eaten the corn in a neighbour’s field.[13] In 1909, the theft of War Office Supplies caught the attention of the police.[14] Two army servicemen were accused of assisting in the theft but the fence of the goods claimed he had bought them legitimately. A series of accusations and denials required a court case to decide. The whole case involved the theft of three sacks of oats and some mangolds being moved from Larkhill to feed the horses at Bulford Camp with the court finding the intermediary guilty and the army taking up the cases of the servicemen.
In 1911 Thomas and Julia and family moved from Box to Swindon and their house was let to another police officer. In that year, Thomas came across physical violence in the course of his duty when he had to face-down two Afro-Caribbean boxing instructors who were accused of harassing women by standing in front of them and trying to engage them in conversation.[15] There were less stressful moments, such as in December 1911 when Thomas prosecuted a man for driving without a light at 5.42pm. It wasn’t a modern car light and Thomas dealt with the matter by advising the man to re-ignite the lamp attached to the vehicle.[16]
Thomas appears to have been socially active for the police and where he lived. He regularly played for the police cricket team but wasn’t a great success. His highest score in Box was just 8 not out, although prior to this he made 39 runs playing for Warminster in 1906.[17] Thomas died in 1927 and Julia survived him for a decade, living with their youngest daughter Kate
and later her husband, George Samworth, a railway crane driver. By 1939, Julia was described as incapacitated and she died a year later.
The type of cases dealt with by PC Carpenter resemble the duties of the parish tythingman in some respects. The duties of a village constable included social cohesion and maintaining public order as much as enforcing the requirements of the law. It involved virtually no criminal investigation, which only developed as a police issue in Wiltshire Constabulary after 1936. These duties are still part of the police rationale today, often called community policing, policing by consent or preventive policing.
There were differences between the county police constables and the old parish tythingman, however. After 1839 policemen were selected by merit rather than availability and they were paid officials. PC Thomas Carpenter received £1,000 a year during his time in Box probably having to reimburse the police for his rent of 24 Fairmead View out of his income. Nowadays, it probably matters more about having professional, reliable officers and less about having police on the streets of Box.
There were differences between the county police constables and the old parish tythingman, however. After 1839 policemen were selected by merit rather than availability and they were paid officials. PC Thomas Carpenter received £1,000 a year during his time in Box probably having to reimburse the police for his rent of 24 Fairmead View out of his income. Nowadays, it probably matters more about having professional, reliable officers and less about having police on the streets of Box.
Family Tree
Thomas Carpenter (1862-1927) married Julia Romain (1861-1940). Children:
Elsie Frances (1886-1907);
George Henry (1888-1964);
Colborne (1890-);
Frederick (1892-) worked as a railway painter in Swindon. He served as a Corporal in the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry during the Great War, when he suffered a gunshot wound in 1917 and was shell gassed in May 1918;
Ethel (1893-);
Alfred Thomas (24 December 1895-1972) worked as a carpenter fitting out railway carriages and served as a Lance-Corporal in the Wiltshire Regiment in the Great War. In 1914 he married Violet Gertrude Wright (23 March 1898-1948);
Kate (1898-).
Thomas Carpenter (1862-1927) married Julia Romain (1861-1940). Children:
Elsie Frances (1886-1907);
George Henry (1888-1964);
Colborne (1890-);
Frederick (1892-) worked as a railway painter in Swindon. He served as a Corporal in the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry during the Great War, when he suffered a gunshot wound in 1917 and was shell gassed in May 1918;
Ethel (1893-);
Alfred Thomas (24 December 1895-1972) worked as a carpenter fitting out railway carriages and served as a Lance-Corporal in the Wiltshire Regiment in the Great War. In 1914 he married Violet Gertrude Wright (23 March 1898-1948);
Kate (1898-).
References
[1] Warminster and Westbury Journal, 3 January 1903
[2] The Salisbury Times, 16 July 1909
[3] The Swindon Advertiser, 14 August 1908
[4] The North Wilts Herald, 16 April 1909
[5] The Wiltshire Times, 20 March 1909
[6] The Wiltshire Times, 5 September 1908
[7] The Wiltshire Times, 8 May 1909 and Bristol Times and Mirror, 8 May 1909
[8] The Wiltshire Times, 16 July 1910
[9] The Swindon Advertiser, 4 August 1905
[10] Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 8 April 1839
[11] The Wiltshire Times, 21 May 1910
[12] Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 25 December 1909
[13] The Salisbury Times, 24 December 1909
[14] The Salisbury Times, 14 May 1909
[15] The Swindon Advertiser, 11 August 1911
[16] The Swindon Advertiser, 22 December 1911
[17] Warminster and Westbury Journal, 30 June 1906
[1] Warminster and Westbury Journal, 3 January 1903
[2] The Salisbury Times, 16 July 1909
[3] The Swindon Advertiser, 14 August 1908
[4] The North Wilts Herald, 16 April 1909
[5] The Wiltshire Times, 20 March 1909
[6] The Wiltshire Times, 5 September 1908
[7] The Wiltshire Times, 8 May 1909 and Bristol Times and Mirror, 8 May 1909
[8] The Wiltshire Times, 16 July 1910
[9] The Swindon Advertiser, 4 August 1905
[10] Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 8 April 1839
[11] The Wiltshire Times, 21 May 1910
[12] Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 25 December 1909
[13] The Salisbury Times, 24 December 1909
[14] The Salisbury Times, 14 May 1909
[15] The Swindon Advertiser, 11 August 1911
[16] The Swindon Advertiser, 22 December 1911
[17] Warminster and Westbury Journal, 30 June 1906