President Peter Farr welcomed members to last week's meeting.
The speaker was president elect, Mary Fraser who gave a talk on 'Policing in the early 20th Century'
Mary's talk was about the benevolent work undertaken by the police service and she started by referring to the weekly 'Police Review' journal, first published in the 1890's which was used, among other matters, to publish articles on legislation and implementation. In 1892 in Edinburgh, a scheme was introduced by the police service to provide clothing for destitute children. As part of the scheme, items were marked to ensure they were not sold on and the children were monitored to ensure they wore the clothes. This enabled the police to carry out surveillance operations on the poorer members in the community and to identify those who were deserving of the support and others who were not. The scheme was rolled out across the country and the then home secretary, Winston Churchill, promoted it to the Metropolitan force in 1910.
What was surprising was that Mary, having contacted the police in Edinburgh, was able to ascertain that the scheme was still in operation, albeit the surveillance element was no longer in operation.
Peter Farr thanked Mary for a most interesting and well researched talk.