Police

Sgt Meppen Warburton Walter in police uniform, Calcutta 1919

Records

• Indian Police Service Records held at the British Library, now an archived page. The records available include
  • L/F/10, Uncovenanted Servants 1818-1900. See the Fibiwiki page L/F/10 Records of Service 1702-1928
  • V/12, Histories of Service 1875-1955. For more information about these records, see Apothecary-Service Histories
• King's Police Medal India from June 11 1948- 17 Dec 1948 Confirms records held at The National Archives under ref T333/18. (See above description of British Library records for earlier awards).
• Officers awarded Police Medals were generally named in the London Gazette
• Labouchardière Papers at the Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge. Given by Basil Labouchardière, Indian Police 1936-47. Includes a typescript document The Indian Police from 1861 to 1947.

FIBIS resources

Roll of Indian Police officers 1861-1947 - Superintendents & Asst Superintendents Database set containing names of 1,711 officers, who, from 1861, served as Superintendents, and from 1893 as Assistant Superintendents, and above.

Madras Presidency

Administration Reports of the Madras Police

The Administration Report of the Madras Police returned between 1866 and 1893 (IOR/V/24/3129-33) are largely statistical documents but contain the odd family history snippet. Note that the format seems to change year on year. The Superintendent of each Madras district sent a report detailing incidents worthy of comment, some being major crimes, some being internal disciplinary matters. Although names are not often given, phrases such as "the Head Constable of --- station" are used, meaning that if you have a police ancestor in Madras at this time it might be worth checking these reports. If nothing else, the reports give a flavour of the police work. The series appears to be continued from 1894-1948 (IOR/V/24/3133-37) but the content of these files cannot be commented upon.

Editions found online:

• Administration Report of the Madras Police for 1880 Archive.org
• Administration Report of the Madras Police for 1882 Archive.org
• Administration Report of the Madras Police for 1883 Archive.org

Individuals

• Charles Tegart. He joined the Calcutta Police in 1901, becoming head of its Detective Department. He served almost continuously in Calcutta for a period of thirty years until he was appointed a member of the Secretary of State's Indian Council in December 1931.
  • Charles Tegart Wikipedia
  • "An Irishman is specially suited to be a policeman" historyireland.com, now archived.
  • Charles Tegart : Hero or Villain? by Dr Sudhir Kumar Jha (former Director General of Police, Bihar) July 22, 2014. “British Raj in India”.
  • Charles Tegart of the Indian Police: an unpublished biography by Lady Tegart is available at the British Library with European Manuscripts catalogue entry Mss Eur C235 1881-1946
    • This review, from The Hindu, (archived webpage) of the book Travel Writing and the Empire by Sachidananda Mohanty (Editor), gives details of one of the essays "Colonialism, Surveillance and Memoirs of travel: Tegart's Diaries and the Andaman Cellular Jail", where "Tutun Mukherjee looks at the "Memoir of an Indian Policeman", a compilation made by Tegart's wife of the diaries of Charles Augustus Tegart, British loyalist and Police Commissioner. The Memoir, Mukherjee notes, records a particularly violent chapter in India's colonial history, that of extremism, British repression and brutal colonial incarceration. Travelling to the Cellular Jail in the beautiful Andaman archipelago in 1913, Tegart notes the careful architecture of the prison, recording all the many ways in which the prisoners were kept under control, his eyes ever alert for lapses in vigilance".
• Eric Arthur Blair who was in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma from 1922 to 1927 is better known as the author George Orwell. His novel Burmese Days was first published 1934 and is based on his experiences in the Burma Police. Orwell was stationed from December 1926 to June 1927 in the northern town of Katha, on which the fictional town of Kyauktada in Upper Burma in the novel is based. Online edition Burmese Days from Gutenberg.net.au.: html version txt version. For more details, see George Orwell
• Sergeant J. D. Conway, Madras Police was awarded the Indian Police Medal, G.V.R., for Distinguished Conduct in 1934 for operations against the hill tribes in the Kalyanasingpur Valley of the Vizagapatam Agency in January 1933.
• Inspector James Dwyer, Bengal Police] was awarded the Indian Police Medal, G.V.R., for Distinguished Conduct in 1935. He joined the Calcutta Police from the British Army in 1919.
• Bill Taylor of the Bombay Police Force became Deputy Commissioner of Police. His daughter Maxine (whose married name became Steller) describes life as a policeman's daughter. Initially, the family lived in quarters behind the various police stations he was assigned to, where her life was very different to the ones normal families led. They moved to some very dangerous areas, and during riots the children would be escorted to and from school by a sepoy. Her father later on had responsibility for ensuring the safety of visiting dignitaries.

External links

• History of the Indian Police (UK) Association The Indian Police was also known as the Indian Imperial Police and was created in 1861. icsassociation
• Deaths of Gazetted Police Officers - India and Burma Police 1888 - 1944 from Officers Died transcribed from To Guard My People:the History of the Indian Police by Sir Percival Joseph Griffiths 1971, available online, refer below.
  
• Development of the Police under East India Company The Police in India By M. B. Chande 1997 (Google Books)
  
• Police Developments during 1858 to 1900 period The Police in India By M. B. Chande 1997 (Google Books)
• The Empire At Its Zenith kolkatapolice.gov.in, archived page.
• “A Murder Mystery of 19th Century Calcutta” by Anindita Chowdhury c 26 July 2020. breathingroots.co.in, now archived.
• Policing Wartime Calcutta [WW2] by Peter R. Moore oldmartiniansassociation.co.uk, now archived.
• "'White women degrading themselves to the lowest depths' : European networks of prostitution and colonial anxieties in British India and Ceylon ca. 1880-1914" by Harald Fischer-Tiné. Indian Economic Social History Review 2003; 40; page 163. academia.edu
• "Indian Police exams August 1919" 6 August 2019. British Library blog

Thugs and thuggee

• "Acting in the “Theatre Of Anarchy” : The 'Anti-Thug Campaign' and Elaborations of Colonial Rule in Early Nineteenth-Century India" by Tom Lloyd. Edinburgh Papers In South Asian Studies Number 19 (2006)
• "‘Thuggee’ and the Margins of the State in Early Nineteenth-Century Colonial India" by Tom Lloyd. pdf, html version A paper presented at Mutiny At The Margins: New Perspectives On The Indian Uprising Of 1857 Conference at Edinburgh University, 23rd-26th July 2007, (now an archived webpage)
• "Confessions of India's real-life Thugs" by Miranda Carter 17 January 2014 The Telegraph, archived page.

Historical books online

• Justice And Police In Bengal: 1765-1793 by N Majumdar 1960. Full title: Justice and Police in Bengal, 1765-1793. A study of the Nizamat in decline. Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection.
• An Exposure of the Haunts of Infamy and Dens of Vice in Bombay. Collected from facts by Michael Kirwan Joyce, late Bombay Police Force. 1854 Google Books
• Our Real Danger in India by C Forjett, late Commissioner of Police of Bombay c 1877. Archive.org. Includes the author’s views on the causes of the Indian Mutiny and his part in the preventative and precautionary measures taken in Bombay during the Mutiny.
• From England to the Antipodes & India - 1846 to 1902, with startling revelations, or 56 years of my life in the Indian Mutiny, Police & Jails by Isaac Tyrell 1904, page 73 the author left the 43rd Regiment of Foot (British Army) in 1860 and joined the Madras Police. Archive.org
• A fly on the wheel; or, How I helped to govern India by Lieut.-Col. Thomas H Lewin 1912. 1885 edition with illustrations. Archive.org. From being an officer in the British Army, from 1861-1866 he was with a battalion of military police, and then District Superintendent of Police, (Bengal).
• Reminiscences of an Indian Police Official by T C Arthur (pseudonym): Arthur Travers Crawford (1894) Bombay Presidency (Archive.org)
• Oriental Prisons: Prisons and Crime in India, The Andaman Islands, Burmah- China-Japan-Egypt Turkey by Major Arthur Griffiths, late Inspector of Prisons in Great Britain. C 1900. Archive.org. Volume XII in the series The history and romance of crime from the earliest time to the present day. Published by the Grolier Society.
• My Thirty Years in India by Sir Edmund C Cox 1909. Archive.org. He arrived in India late 1876, was a teacher, was for a few years in the Bombay Political Department then joined the Bombay Police c 1882, leaving in 1908.

Police and Crime in India by Sir Edmund C Cox, Bombay Police. Cataloged 1911. Archive.org

(He also wrote A Short History of the Bombay Presidency by Edmund C Cox, Bombay District Police 1887 Archive.org)

Fiction

• John Carruthers, Indian Policeman by Sir Edmund C Cox (Bombay District Police), catalogued 1905. Archive.org
• The Achievements of John Carruthers by Sir Edmund C Cox 1911 Archive.org
• The Exploits of Kesho Naik, Dacoit by Sir Edmund C Cox 1912 Archive.org

• Life in the Indian Police by Charles Elphinstone Gouldsbury 1912 Archive.org. The author joined the Bengal Police Department 20 June 1869, retired January 1903.

Tiger Slayer by Order (Digby Davies, late Bombay Police) by C E Gouldsbury late Indian Police 1915. Archive.org. Digby Davies joined Bombay Police 7 January 1882, and was still employed at the time of 1905 India Office List.

Reminiscences of a Stowaway; a Career of Adventure by C E Gouldsbury 1920 Archive.org. The career of Alexander Douglas Larymore who joined the Bengal Police 31 July 1862. Retired November 1898 as off. Inspector -General of Jails.

• And that reminds me 
being incidents of a life spent at sea, and in the Andaman Islands, Burma, Australia, and India 
by Stanley W. Coxon 1915, page 71 Archive.org. The author was appointed Assistant District Superintendent of Police in Kyaukse District, Upper Burma c late 1880s.
• History Of The Police In Bengal by W R Gourlay 1916. Full title: A Contribution Towards a History of the Police in Bengal. Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection.
• Award of King’s Police Medal The Gazette of India Extraordinary, page 27, January 1, 1918. Archive.org, Digital Library of India Collection.
• In an Indian District; an enlarged edition of “Police Notes” by G.G.B. Iver, Indian Police 1919 Archive.org
• The Bombay City Police: A Historical Sketch 1672-1916 by S M Edwardes 1923 Archive.org
• Crime In India. A Brief Review of the more Important Offences included in the Annual Criminal Returns with Chapters on Prostitution & Miscellaneous Matters by S M Edwardes 1924 Archive.org
• The Walking Stick Method of Self Defence. Archive.org. Public Library of India Collection. Full title details from elsewhere The 'Walking Stick” Method of Self-Defence by an officer of the Indian Police (H. G. Lang). 1926
• The Indian Police by John Court Curry 1932. Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection.

Curry was also the author of Tegart of the Indian Police published Tunbridge Wells 1960, available at the British Library and available as a Searchable, but not viewable Google Books

• My India by Lillian Luker Ashby with Roger Whately 1938 Archive.org. The author was born in Monghyr, in the Province of Bengal and Bihar in 1876. She was the daughter of a Police Inspector, and her husband, early in the marriage became a Police Inspector, whose last job was at Sakchi at the Tata’s Iron and Steel Works in charge of the Police. She left India c 1928 when her husband retired due to ill heath.
• The Police In British India 1861-1947 by Anandswarup Gupta 1960. Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection.
• The History Of The Andhra Pradesh Police (1861-1961) by Inspector-General of Police, Andhra Pradesh. 1961. Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection.
• "Chapter 2, Structure and Development" page 35 The police and political development in India by David H Bayley 1969. Contains a section “Police Development prior to 1947”. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library.
• The History of the Indian Police by Percival Griffiths. 2nd edition 1972, first published 1971 (incorrectly catalogued as 1956). Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection. Full title: To Guard My People : The History of the Indian Police.
• Police Power and Colonial Rule: Madras 1859-1947 by David Arnold 1986. Archive.org Lending Library

Manuals, Reports etc

• Report on the Police of the Bombay Presidency for 1857 1859 Google Books
• Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government No CXVI New Series: Annual Police Report for 1868 Province of Sind 1870. Same digital file 1869 (1871) No CXXII New Series; 1870 (1871) No CXXIV New Series Archive.org.
• The Burma Police Manual, Volume II The Criminal Law bearing on Police Action compiled by A St. J Ingle, Officiating District Superintendent of Police 1899 Google Books.
• Report of the Indian Police Commission and Resolution of the Government of India. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of His Majesty. 1905. Hathi Trust Digital Library.
• The Bengal Police Manual, 1911 Volume 1, Volume 2, Forms and Appendices (Archive.org)
• Eastern Bengal and Assam Police Manual 1911 (Archive.org)

• Volume 3 Reserve, Ordnance, Clothing, Guards and Escorts
• Volume 4 Court Office
• Volume 5 Inspectors and Police Stations
• Index to the Eastern Bengal and Assam Police Manual 1912.

• Orders Of The Madras Police (vol-iii) 1911. Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection.
• Police Regulations, Bengal 1915 Volume 4, Court Office Archive.org
• Paragraph about examinations in 1916 (or perhaps 1917) for Appointments in the Indian Police Force and in the Police Force of Ceylon, page 294, Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, Volume 7, July 1916. jstor.org version.
• Sedition Committee 1918 Report Superintendent Government Printing, Calcutta. 1918. Archive.org. One of the aims of the Committee was to “investigate and report on the nature and extent of the criminal conspiracies connected with the revolutionary movement in India.”
• Assam Police Manual: Prepared by the Inspector General of Police under the orders of the Government of Assam. Part VI: Railway and River Police. 1931. British Library Digital Collection Endangered Archives Programme EAP454/9/3 . Images are in TIFF format.
• The Punjab Police Rules 1934. (As Applicable in Haryana State) haryanapolice.nic.in
• The Acts and Rules from Sangrur Police includes Volumes I, II and III of the Punjab Police Rules 1934
• Annual Report on the Police of the City of Bombay, for the year 1934 (Commissioner of Police, Bombay, 1935.) Link to a pdf download Digital Repository of GIPE, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, India

Annual Report on the Police of the City of Bombay, for the year 1936 (Commissioner of Police, Bombay, 1937) Link to a pdf download Digital Repository of GIPE, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, India

• Burma Police Manual 1985 reprint of Volume I 5th edition 1939, Volume II 5th edition 1940 burmalibrary.org

Ceylon

• A History of the Ceylon Police Volume II (1866-1913) by A.C. Dep 1969. Jstor.org version South Asia Open Archives (SAOA) Collection. To read particular pages online, it may be necessary to navigate via the thumbnail images. University of Virginia version, scroll down to "Download PDF". Archive.org version.

A History of the Ceylon Police Vol.1. 1795-1870 by G.K. Pippet 1938 is available at the British Library UIN: BLL01004088800

Thugs

Alternative spelling Thags, Thegs. The crime of Thuggee (Thugee)

• Asiatic Researches or Transactions of the Society instituted in Bengal, for inquiring into the history and antiquities, the arts, sciences, and literature, of Asia, Volume 13 1820 (Google Books).
  • "Of the Murderers Called Phansigars" by Doctor Sherwood page 250
  • "Observations Regarding Badheks And Thegs" Extracted from an official report by Mr John Shakespear Acting Superintendent of Police for the Western Provinces, dated the 30th April, 1816. page 282
• "The Thugs", page 469 Calcutta Magazine and Monthly Register, Volumes 33-36 1832 (Google Books) includes
  • a reprint of an anonymous letter by W H Sleeman to the editor of the Calcutta Literary Gazette published 16 October 1830 page 503
• "The Thugs of the Doaab" page 17 ‪The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British and Foreign India, China, and Australia ‬Volume XI - New Series May August 1833 Google Books.
• "On the Thugs". Received from an Officer in the Service of His Highness the Nizam] [Philip Meadows Taylor] New Monthly Magazine 1833, Second Part, pages 277-87. Google Books
  • Taylor subsequently published a novel in 1839: Confessions of a Thug by Captain Meadows Taylor in the Service of HH The Nizam 1839 Google Books and Archive.org Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
• "Some Account Of The Gang-Murderers Of Central India, Commonly Called Thugs; Accompanying the Skulls Of Seven Of Them" by Henry Harpur Spry, Bengal Medical Service, Saugor, page 511 The Phrenological Journal and Miscellany, Volume 8 1834 Google Books
• "Some account of the Phansigars, or Gang-robbers, and of the Shudgarshids, or Tribe of Jugglers", by James Arthur Robert Stevenson Esq of the Madras Civil Service. (Extracted from the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 1. page 280.). Page 255 The Madras Journal of Literature and Science Volume 2 1835 Google Books
• "An account of the Customs and Practices of the murderers called Thugs" by Lieut. P. A. Reynolds 38th Regiment Madras N. I. Page 85 The Madras Journal of Literature and Science, Volume 4 July-October 1836 Google Books
• Ramaseeana: or, A Vocabulary of the Peculiar Language used by the Thugs With An Introduction and Appendix, Descriptive of the System Pursued By That Fraternity and of the Measures Which Have Been Adopted by the Supreme Government of India for its Suppression by William Henry Sleeman 1836 (Google Books)
• Illustrations of the history and practices of the Thugs and notices of some of the Proceedings of the Government of India, for the suppression of the crime of Thugee By Edward Thornton 1837 Google Books
• The Thugs Or Phansigars of India: Comprising a History of the Rise and Progress of that Extraordinary Fraternity of Assassins; and a Description of the System which it Pursues, and of the Measures which Have Been Adopted by the Supreme Government of India for Its Suppression by Captain W H Sleeman, Superintendent of Thug Police 1839 Google Books
• Report on the depredations committed by the thug gangs of upper and central India: from the cold season of 1836-37, down to their gradual suppression, under the operation of the measures adopted against them by the supreme government, in the year 1839 by Major Sleeman Commissioner for the Suppression of Thuggee and Dacoitee. 1840 (Google Books)
• Report on Budhuk alias Bagree decoits, and other gang robbers by hereditary profession: and on the measures adopted by the government of India, for their suppression by Lieut-Col W H Sleeman, Bengal Army 1849 (Google Books)
• A popular account of the thugs and dacoits: the hereditary garotters and gang-robbers of India James Hutton 1857 (Google Books)
• "Report Of Operations In The Thuggee And Dacoity Department, during 1859 and 1860" Selections from the Records of the Government of India, Foreign Department] No. XXXIV 1861 (Google Books)
• Report on the crime of thuggee by means of poisons in British territory 1864-66 by Charles Robert W. Hervey 1868. (Google Books)
• Poisoning in India by Sir J Fayrer 1885 Archive.org. Includes a sect of Thugs called Daturiahs.
• The Stranglers : the cult of Thuggee and its overthrow in British India by George Bruce 1969. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library.