History
The RNC dates back to 1729, with the appointment of the first police constables. In the 19th century, the RNC was modelled after the Royal Irish Constabulary (the RIC) with the secondment in 1844 of Timothy Mitchell of the Royal Irish Constabulary to be Inspector General, making it the oldest civil police force in North America. Mitchell served as Inspector General and Superintendent of Police until 1871, when the Newfoundland Constabulary was reorganized with a new Police Act.
Other officers recruited from the RIC to take command of the Newfoundland force included Thomas J. Foley, who served from 1871 to 1873, Paul Carty, who headed the RNC from 1873–1895, and John Roche McGowen, who served as constabulary Inspector General from 1895-1908.
During World War II, the RNC pursued not only spies but also criminal elements within the foreign military stationed at St. John's. Their investigation into the 1942 Knights of Columbus Hostel fire has become popular knowledge.
In 1979, Queen Elizabeth II of Canada conferred the designation Royal on the Newfoundland Constabulary, in recognition of its long history of service to Newfoundland and Labrador.
On May 3, 2005, the RNC made a formal exchange of colours with An Garda Síochána na hÉireann, one of the two successor forces to the old RIC. The exchange of colours was to mark the historic links between policing in Newfoundland and Ireland.
Read more about this topic: Royal Newfoundland Constabulary
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)