Wigan Album
Police
10 Comments
Photo: Rev David Long
Item #: 30982
Anyone know where it was photographed?
I'm not sure if the plain clothes officer is Bilsborough when he was a detective.
Taken in the grounds of the grammar school, on Parsons Walk.
This will be the annual inspection of the Wigan Borough force by the 'HMI' (His/Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary).
Photo taken in what is now the car park to the Thomas Linacre Health Centre. So glad they kept the original design of the windows.
The 'bike on the left could be a Velocette?
Motorcycle looks like a Le Velocette
Philip G and WN1 Standisher - the motorbikes are Velocettes. I have another photo somewhere of this inspection, showing the two officers with their bikes.
The officer on the left is PC John Lydon (father of Joe), and the other is a PC Ashurst. Which PC Ashurst I am unable to say, as there were two or three serving at this time.
Thanks for confirming the 'Bike, Mick (you could find yourself being known as the second 'Mike the Bike'). One of our - Billinge - Bobbies rode a maroon Velocette during The Sixties; his 'bike pouring out an unusual but pleasant sound . . . a tad like the TT's electric 'bikes, I guess.
The Le Velocette was famous for how quiet it was compared with other bikes of the era.
The three police cars are all likely to have Wigan EK and JP registrations, the nearest one is AEK529, probably new in 1953 as 12 Wigan Corporation Leyland double decker buses, AEK501-512 and four single deckers, AEK513-516 were new that year. And remember the mayor's Rolls Royce AEK1.
According to the Chief Constable's Annual Report for 1960, the two older Austin's had been replaced by that year. The two Velocettes were BJP 496, a 200cc machine from 1955 - its mileage by 1960 was nearly 18,000- less than 4k per year; the other was CEK 777, a 197cc machine from 1956, which had done 13,293 miles by 1960. The Black Maria was an Austin LD from 1955, BJP 87. The newer Austin was CEK 887, from 1956.
Some people like to know these things....
A photograph of what appears to be the same Inspection appears in 'Policing Wigan', by James Fairhurst (Landy Publishing, 1996). It is dated 1958. It is taken at right angles to this view, focusing on the two motor bikes. The two riders' names are confirmed as Lydon and Accurst, and the officer beside the newer car on the end as Sgt. Nixon.