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Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Police-Led Boys’ Clubs in England and Wales, 1918-1951 Thesis How to cite: Wilburn, Elizabeth (2020). Police-Led Boys’ Clubs in England and Wales, 1918-1951. PhD thesis The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2019 The Author https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21954/ou.ro.00010dc9 Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk Name: Elizabeth Alice Wilburn Title: Police-led boys’ clubs in England and Wales, 1918-1951 Degree: History Discipline: Policing and Criminal Justice Date: January 2019 1 2 Abstract Police-led boys’ clubs were established across England and Wales, in industrial towns and cities, during the interwar and immediate post-war period. They were founded and organised by Chief Constables, and high-ranking police officers. Their activities were reported upon in local, regional and national newspapers. Club organisers aimed to harness the ‘high spirits’ of boys in a positive way, removing them from the streets and the temptations of juvenile delinquency. They were run on a daily basis by working-class Police Constables, who were motivated for a variety of reasons to volunteer in them during their free time. Police-led boys’ clubs were endorsed by royals and members of the aristocracy, facilitated and financed by local dignitaries, and attended on by doctors and dentists. The daily activities of the clubs were dominated by sports such as boxing and gymnastics. Camaraderie between the boys and the police officers who instructed these sports was encouraged. These pursuits used aspects of masculinity and physicality to engender self-restraint, a strong work ethic and produce model citizens. Camping, both in weekend and summer camps, was an integral part of the club programme. Camp organisers aimed to create good citizens through emphasis on character-building exercises, friendship and engagement with nature. The example of the police-led club is used to inform youth justice today. Comparisons are made between how boxing clubs aim to temper violent tendencies exhibited by certain types of masculinities; and how the example of the clubs speaks directly to youth crime prevention approaches outlined in the UK Government’s Serious Violence Strategy. However, the potential for the recreation of the police-led club in a modern setting is somewhat limited. 3 4 For my wife Petra 5 Contents Chapter One: Introduction 8 Building on research into the history of policing youth 8 Youth movements and their context 11 A note on primary sources 19 Research aims 22 Chapter Two: Police-led boys’ clubs and their national impact 24 The historical context and geographical distribution of police boys’ clubs 24 Newspapers 34 The portrayal of the police-led boys’ clubs by the popular press 36 The vision of club founders 42 Juvenile delinquency 46 Chapter Three: The police-led boys’ club in the working-class community 58 The historiography of working-class cultures 58 How national, rather than local, was the outlook of police-led clubs? 61 What motivated low-ranking police officers to volunteer in the clubs? 63 Combatting delinquency and deviance within the local community 72 The significance of the police boys’ club in the working-class community 76 Chapter Four: Police-led boys’ clubs and middle-class interventionism 89 Middle-class interventionism 89 How middle-class were the high-ranking officers who founded the clubs? 92 How did management and funding compare across the clubs? 99 Doctors, dentists, and the role of healthcare provision in police-led clubs 107 How were police clubs endorsed by royals and members of the peerage? 113 Chapter Five: Masculinity and physicality in the police-led boys’ clubs 118 Sports and physical pursuits in police-led boys’ clubs 118 Camaraderie between boys and police officers 135 6 ‘Manliness’ and gender conformity 140 Police-led clubs and employment 145 Nation-building and citizenship 150 Chapter Six: Camping 156 Character-building and friendship 156 Vision 165 The role of nature 170 Chapter Seven: Modern implications 178 Why a historical perspective is important 178 Masculinity 183 Two boxing clubs 187 Case study: Serious Violence Strategy 192 How useful is the example of the police-led boys’ club? 196 Chapter Eight: Conclusion 204 Photo Appendix: Activities in the clubs at Norwich and Hyde 213 Bibliography 225 7 Chapter One: Introduction This thesis focuses upon the police-led boys’ club movement in interwar and immediate post-war England and Wales. It investigates whether the police-led boys’ club was a phenomenon in its own right; by placing it within the wider context of the national boys’ club movement. It will do this by exploring a variety of themes including the national impact of police-led clubs, working-class cultures, middle-class interventionism, masculinity and physicality and the role of camping. Finally it is considered in what ways the example of the police-led club can inform tackling youth crime today. At least 15 police-led boys’ clubs were founded in England and Wales in the first half of the twentieth century. Between 1918 and 1947 clubs were founded by Chief Constables, former Chief Constables and high-ranking police officers in, Norwich, Scarborough, Hyde, Lancaster, Congleton, Swansea, Manchester, Hull and Croydon.1 Founders aimed to tackle juvenile delinquency within their locality directly through their preventative work. Though clubs were organised and founded by high-ranking police officers, their day-to-day activities were run by low-ranking Police Constables and Sergeants. Most of the activities provided were physical and concentrated on sports such as boxing, gymnastics and football or outdoor pursuits like camping. Building on research into the history of policing youth To date almost no academic research has been done exclusively into police-led boys’ clubs. Passing references have been made by police historians including Barbara Weinberger, and Louise Jackson and Angela Bartie. Weinberger wrote about Norwich 1 Charles E.B. Russell and Lilian M. Russell, Lads' Clubs: Their History Organisation and Management, London: A. & C. Black Ltd., 1932, pp. 251-257; Robert Walker, Seventy Years Young: A History of the Norwich Lads Club 1918-1988, Norwich: Alpha Press, 1990, p. 3; ‘Chief Constable’s Boys’ Club’, The Times, 6 October 1928, p. 9; ‘Extracts from Souvenir Brochure 1979: Lancaster Boys Club Golden Jubilee 1929-1979 Souvenir Brochure’, Lancaster Boys and Girls Club, at http://www.lancasterboysandgirlsclub.org.uk/more_info.asp?current_id=307, accessed 26 February 2015., p. 2; ‘Police Friends of York’, The Police Review and Parade Gossip, 15 January 1932, p. 35; John Barber, ‘Straight and True: The Story of the Swansea Boys Club from the 1930s to the 1960s’ (unpublished essay), at http://www.youthworkwales.org.uk/creo_files/upload/files/Straight%20and%20True%20- %20John%20Barber.pdf , accessed 1 January 2016; ‘Police Fit Out Three Boys' Clubs’, The Observer, 5 December 1943, p. 5; Manchester, Greater Manchester Police Museum and Archives (henceforth GMPMA), Lads’ Club Papers, Tom Doody, Manchester City Police Lads' Club Meeting Minutes, 1937- 1940; Louise A. Jackson with Angela Bartie, Policing youth: Britain 1945-70, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014, pp. 24-25; Barbara Weinberger, The Best Police in the World: An Oral History of English Policing from the 1930s to the 1960s, Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1995, p. 150. 8 Lads’ Club, founded by John Henry Dain in 1918, in her 1995 oral history of English policing, in which she defined it as a ‘special police policy towards juveniles’ where ‘Dain helped reduce juvenile crime figures through the practice of holding “Sunday courts” at police headquarters, where offenders were reprimanded and encouraged to join the Lads’ Club, rather than taken to the juvenile court.’2 Although Weinberger acknowledged the existence of police-led clubs in ‘Swansea, Manchester, Hull and Croyden,’ as well as Norwich, she adds that ‘many police authorities thought this work best left to others and that the police already had too many calls on their time.’3 Jackson and Bartie make brief mention of two police-led clubs: one at Manchester which they state was established in order to offer ‘structured recreational opportunities to prevent delinquency in wartime,’ and one at Croydon where ‘divisional police officers were involved in fund-raising, organising the club and instructing boys in various sports.’4 Not only is research into police-led boys’ clubs valuable in its own right as it investigates uncharted territory, it also develops the work of historians focusing on the history of policing youths, in particular the work of historians Weinberger, David Wolcott, Joanne Klein and Jackson and Bartie. Weinberger’s research has explored the ways discretion was used in policing youths. She comments on how police officers used social ‘signals’ to distinguish between cheeky children and delinquents and were generally paternalistic in their dealings with children. In her work, the oral accounts of former police officers reveal a nostalgia for a ‘more stable and clearly defined social order’ as ‘the values of the class and gender from which they mostly were drawn tied in effortlessly with the manner of policing required by and acceptable to the authorities and general (middle and upper working-class) public.’5 Her insights into the use of discretion and paternalism can be further expanded by research into police-led boys’ clubs in that they involved informal, daily interaction between police officers and boys.