History
After many complaints over a number of years over the crime ridden state of Lancashire it was decided in 1839 that a combined county police force was required to police the county. In the same year the force was founded and Captain John Woodford was made Chief Constable with 2 Assistant Chief Constables, 14 Superintendents and 660 Constables.
Over the next 50 years the Police force saw many changes including the introduction of the Police Helmet and, during the 1860s, the force lost its first officer, PC Jump, who died after being shot by a group of men that he and a colleague were searching. By the end of the century the force had developed a detective department who were allowed to wear plain clothes. The first detective appointed was John Wallbank.
In 1917 the force first allowed female officers although it was only up until the 1950s when they were allowed uniforms and not until the 1970s were they paid at the same rate as their male counterparts. In 1948 the force's dog section was established with many differing breeds being used but by the 1950s it was established that the German Shepherd was the most suitable.
In 1965, the force had an establishment of 3,784 officers and an actual strength of 3,454, making it the second largest police force (after the Metropolitan Police) and the largest county force in Great Britain.
The force then went through major changes in the 1970s when the force was reduced to cover the new re-bordered Lancashire with the other areas coming under the jurisdiction of Greater Manchester Police and Merseyside Police.
On 10 October 2007 the Home Office announced that Lancashire Constabulary had ranked joint first, with Surrey, out of 43 forces by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies. All 43 Police forces were assessed on seven areas - tackling crime, serious crime, protecting vulnerable people, satisfaction, neighbourhood policing, local priorities and resources and efficiency.
The Radio Branch or Wireless Workshops pioneered many techniques in the use of radio by the police. In 1925 they had radio communications between Constabulary headquarters in Preston and six divisional headquarters. A year later a van was equipped with a transmitter. Tests were done with radio communication to cars in the 1930s. In 1939 four fixed stations provided coverage over much of the county. At the start of World War II divisional headquarters were equipped with transmitter-receivers as a back-up to the telephone system. This was used in 1941 when the telephone system in Liverpool was put out of action by bombing, Lancashire Constabulary's radio system was sole means of communications with the city for a time. After the war they were involved in the development and move to VHF FM by the UK police. In 1961 a personal radio scheme was installed in Chorley with Motorola VHF personal radios imported from the USA after a demonstration in Stretford in 1959. This led in 1963 to the design of the Lancon VHF personal radio manufactured by GEC.
Read more about this topic: Lancashire Constabulary
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