Arthur Young (police Officer) - Hertfordshire Constabulary

Hertfordshire Constabulary

Appointed Chief Constable of Hertfordshire Constabulary in 1944 (but released from the army only in April 1945), Young now commanded an establishment of 515 at a salary of £1,290. Still aged only 38, he had twenty-one years of experience of small, medium and large city and borough forces. From Hertfordshire, he set the pace in revitalising long-debilitated county police forces, pushing his police authority to fund major expenditure on officers' pay and conditions. Police housing was one of the outstanding issues of the time. Young persuaded his police authority to fund a building programme that in six years would provide a police house for every married man in the county force; the design and equipping of these houses was agreed between the county architects and a "housing committee", recruited through the county Police Federation, not only of men of all ranks but, at Young's insistence, of officers' wives. In 1946, he wrote:

"I hold the view that the police organisation is not a police force but a police service, which offers to the right individual not merely a job but all the advantages of a professional career. I believe in doing everything reasonably possible by way of improving the conditions and amenities for all ranks of the service, and in particular in delegating both authority and responsibility to officers according to their rank. Having done this I am prepared to accept nothing but the highest standard of service by way of return."

At the same time, he persuaded his authority to fund major capital spending to sustain modern police efficiency. The Home Office authorised Hertfordshire to be the first force after the war to introduce a wireless system, one which Young adapted for rural circumstance from his Birmingham model. To make it as effective as possible, the Home Office accepted his proposal that the wireless network needed to be set up for a larger area than one county so the neighbouring county force of Bedfordshire was added. Almost simultaneously, Young was appointed by the Home Office to a committee chaired by Sir Percy Sillitoe, Chief Constable of Kent, to consider the wireless needs of all forces. Young's action plan for the co-ordination and standardisation of all inter-force communications was rapidly accepted.

His Hertfordshire years also saw the beginnings of a professional relationship with James Callaghan. They already knew each other from Portsmouth, where their mothers had both worked at Agnes Weston's Sailors Rest; Callaghan had tried unsuccessfully to court his sister, Eileen. Callaghan was now a junior minister at the Ministry of Transport. They met up with each other again on a road safety committee and became working allies to extend speed restrictions and improve road markings; cat's eyes were perhaps the most significant fruit of their labours. They worked together again when Callaghan was Home Secretary and it was Callaghan who selected Young to go to Ulster in 1969 to implement the Hunt Report.