The West Midlands Constabulary was a police force in the West Midlands of England.
It was created on 1 April 1966 under the Police Act 1964, with the re-organisation of the Black Country area as the five contiguous county boroughs of Dudley, Walsall, Warley, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton. Dudley Borough Police, Walsall Borough Police and Wolverhampton Borough Police were incorporated wholly into the new force. It also took in parts of the Staffordshire Constabulary and Worcestershire Constabulary.
The force was initially headed by Chief Constable Norman W. Goodchild, former Chief Constable of Wolverhampton Borough Police, until 1967, when he was replaced by Edwin Solomon, former Chief Constable of Walsall Borough Police.
On 1 April 1974 it amalgamated with the Birmingham City Police and parts of Staffordshire County and Stoke-on-Trent Constabulary, Warwickshire and Coventry Constabulary and West Mercia Constabulary to form the West Midlands Police, because of the Local Government Act 1972 which created the new West Midlands metropolitan county, which covered the West Midlands constabulary area along with Birmingham and Coventry and a few other surrounding towns.
Read more about West Midlands Constabulary: See Also
Famous quotes containing the words west, midlands and/or constabulary:
“It is said that a carpenter building a summer hotel here ... declared that one very clear day he picked out a ship coming into Portland Harbor and could distinctly see that its cargo was West Indian rum. A county historian avers that it was probably an optical delusion, the result of looking so often through a glass in common use in those days.”
—For the State of New Hampshire, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Sunday night meant, in the dark, wintry, rainy Midlands ... anywhere where two creatures might stand and squeeze together and spoon.... Spooning was a fine art, whereas kissing and cuddling are calf-processes.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“When constabulary duty’s to be done,
A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)