Robert Mark - Appointed Chief Constable

Appointed Chief Constable

On 1 January 1957 he was appointed Chief Constable of Leicester. There he instituted many reforms, especially regarding Leicester's traffic problems, including appointing the city's first traffic wardens. He acquired the nickname "Lone Ranger of Leicester". Following the 1966 escape of the spy George Blake from Wormwood Scrubs, Mark was appointed to the Mountbatten inquiry into prison security. Here he attracted the attention of Chancellor of the Exchequer Roy Jenkins, and in February 1967 was appointed Assistant Commissioner "D" (Personnel and Training) of the Metropolitan Police, where his welcome was less than ecstatic from a force that did not like outsiders; at the end of his first week, he was encouraged by Commissioner Sir Joseph Simpson to apply for the post of Chief Constable of Lancashire. The following year he was briefly appointed Assistant Commissioner "B" (Traffic). However, in March 1968, Simpson died in office. Peter Brodie, Assistant Commissioner "C" (Crime), was widely tipped to succeed him, but Home Secretary James Callaghan saw the opportunity to impose government will on the force and offered the job to Mark. Mark, realising that an outsider would not be accepted at this time, suggested the appointment of Deputy Commissioner Sir John Waldron, with himself succeeding Waldron as Deputy Commissioner.