One Special Constable …. a medal … his truncheon …. and the Great War

 I think finding Special Constable John T Clark might not be as easy as I first thought.*

Medal awarded to John T Clark

He served between 1914 and 1919 in Manchester and while I can reference  quite a few John T Clark’s none quite fit the bill.

But this John T Clark did his duty during the Great War and was awarded a medal which sits with his truncheon in the collection of my old pal David Harrop.

My Wikipedia tells me that just weeks after the outbreak of war in August 1914, Parliament adapted the  Special Constables Act of 1831 making it easier to appoint special constables. Under the 1831 act there was a requirement for a "‘tumult, riot, or felony’ to have occurred or be imminent before special constables could be appointed, and extended to special constables the gratuities and allowances for constables injured in the line of duty or dependents of constables killed in the line of duty from the Police Acts between 1839 and 1910.”**

In Manchester plans had been set in motion to recruit 5,000 special constables who would be divided into commands of 50 men led by a “leader.”  

By August 21 20 leaders had been enrolled and there had been 200 applications to join the force, and such was the interest in volunteering that it was reported that by November the Special Police Reserve had reached the target of 5000.

In the following year the Chief Constable doubled the hours of duty of the special constables.  Instead of one tour a week of four hours they were to be required to perform two tours of duty of four hours each.  

The medal

This according to the Chief Constable was to ensure a sufficient supply for the evening stretching into the early morning and had been prompted by the increasing number of regular constables who had enlisted and was made more difficult by the impossibility of getting “the right sort men without trenching on the military or munitions supply.” ***

Some however of the specials viewed aspects of their work as mundane and a waste of time.  Writing to the Manchester Guardian in the February of 1915 “Special Constable” “could see little point in patrolling Mount Street, Exchange Street and St Anne’s Street [when] there is always a policeman on point duty well with in a hail.  Our beats are so short, and the number of specials employed so great that we feel ourselves to be merely wasting our time.” ****

The truncheon

All of which may have been the view of a “special” but not perhaps of the burglar caught two days later by the efforts of a succession of special constables.

The said burglar had been seen by two of the citizen force who failed to catch him, but they “blew their whistles, and immediately there was an epidemic of whistle blowing among special constables in the neighbourhood.  The wretched burglar was so frightened that he took refuge beneath the grate of a cellar, and it was there that he was apprehended.”

Such are the little events which make for the bigger picture, and part of that that bigger picture and somewhere will be John T Clark, leaving me to explore the Greater Manchester Police Museum’s archive and redouble my efforts trawling census records, street directories and newspaper clippings.

We shall see.

Location; Manchester During the Great War

Pictures; medal and truncheon of John T Clark courtesy of David Harrop, 2025

*And as so often happens, after posting the story I think I have found John Thomas Clark. He was born in 1864, and died in 1935. He described himself as a "Children's clothes manufacturer" with a factory at 4 Fairfield Street, Manchester.  He lived in Sale, and Bucklow and died in Rushholme leaving £105,086.

**Special Constables, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Constables_Act_1914

*** Special Constables, Two Weekly Beats, Manchester Guardian June 28, 1915

****Citizen Police: First Week on the Active List, Manchester Guardian, February 15, 1915