Arthur Young (police Officer) - Portsmouth Borough/City Police

Portsmouth Borough/City Police

Young's father's business partner Alderman Sir John Henry Corke (1850–1927), who served as Mayor of Portsmouth from 1912 to 1915, helped to smooth the way for Young by securing him an initial placement in the Chief Constable's office (the post of Cadet Clerk was specially created for him) in December 1924. On the advice of Thomas Davies, the Chief Constable, he first took a course in business and accountancy.

Appointed a Constable in May 1925, he became the Coroner's Officer in April 1932. In June 1932, aged 25, he became the youngest Detective Sergeant in the United Kingdom, serving with the Northern Division CID. During his time there, he led investigations into murder, blackmail, fraud and arson. He headed the enquiries into the UK's first case of manslaughter arising from the use of an aeroplane. Simultaneously, he began to take an ever more prominent involvement in the many royal visits to Portsmouth; when Haile Selassie visited the dockyard in September 1937, he acted as his personal escort and French interpreter. During these years, Young was also entrusted with what he later cryptically termed "enquiries concerning the activities of subversive persons and propaganda, and also with other matters affecting state security". It was also during these years that he acquired his passion for ever better police equipment and his personal love of new gadgets.

Young was promoted Inspector in June 1937 and appointed to Portsmouth's Southern Division. In Eastney and Southsea, he gained his first taste of the complexity of the problems created by traffic, of measures to be taken for its efficient control and of the need to promote road safety. A keen motorist (who progressed from a motorcycle to a series of fast cars), he took a pragmatic approach.