Catalogue description POLICE

The records listed here are those of the Berkshire Constabulary, 1856-1968.

Although the Constabulary was the joint responsibility of the Quarter Sessions and the County Council after 1889, the records have, for convenience, been catalogued throughout as Quarter Sessions Records, under the reference Q/AP.

For an account of the first hundred years of the Berkshire Constabulary see A Short History of the Berkshire Constabulary, 1856-1956, published by the Constabulary in 1956. A copy is in the Record Office Library.

The establishment of county police forces was authorised by Act of Parliament in 1839. The Berkshire Constabulary, however, was not set up until 1856, following discussions in Quarter Sessions during the previous year. Initially the Berkshire Constabulary came under the jurisdiction of Quarter Sessions, but with the establishment of the County Council in 1889 responsibility was transferred to a Standing Joint Committee of Quarter Sessions and the County Council. This committee became the Police Committee in 1966. The Berkshire Constabulary ceased to exist in 1968 when it was amalgamated with the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, City of Oxford and Reading Borough forces to form the Thames Valley Police.