X William DouglasDear Hilary,Thank you for your nicely worded request forinformation concerning William you would besurprised how many enquires we get from people whonever say please or thank you, but sadly I don'tthink I am going to be any help to you. As far aswe are aware no individual officer's records existfor Cheshire prior to 1857.The Cheshire Constabulary was formed in April1857; there are many thousands of records, theseare held by the Cheshire Record Office, Chester. Ias a retired Police officer and voluntary PoliceMuseum Researcher am slowly extracting theserecords. Cheshire Police Officer Enrolment Recordsare held under Reference CJP7 Volumes 1-5. Thesefive volumes are very large and in poor condition,run from 1857- 22 March 1913. The informationregarding an officer's marriages is retained inCJP24/2, 1847-1966, and with regard to theirpension CJP20/2/1, 1857-1965. There is also a listwhich contains only the names officers that servedfrom about 1847 to 1857 and who were NOT retainedfor service in the New Force in 1857.I appreciate that Birkenhead was part of Cheshirein those days, but at the same time as theCheshire Constabulary (old force) was runningthere were a number other forces, these were knownas Borough Police Forces, Birkenhead had its ownBorough Force which started in 1833. The Censusreturns for 1841 have been trawled and everyofficer extracted including William, sadly whatthe Census does not do is differentiate betweenthe officer being a County or Borough PoliceOfficer so we have no way of knowing whetherWilliam was a County or a Birkenhead BoroughOfficer.The only other suggestion is that you contactMerseyside Police archives, but you should bewarethat they hold very few Birkenhead Boroughrecords. Please contact Mrs. Kate McNichol, ForceRecords Managerhelpful, can you also add in your mail that youhave contacted Cheshire Police Museum.If you also read the history of the CheshireConstabulary "To the Best of Our Skill andKnowledge" which is on the Museum Web Site, underthe drop down menu marked 'History', there wasvery little difference between a County andBorough Force and I feel certain that a usefulpicture can be obtained of life in the force atthe time, my own opinion is that discipline wasdraconian and those who strayed outside the rule'swere fined way above what they earned ordismissed. Also the restrictions on their privatelife, an officer was not allowed to drink on oroff duty even in his own home. What is not the website is the book 'Maintaining the Queens Peace' aHistory of the Birkenhead Borough Police, forvarious legal reason I cannot send you the fullbook, but I have extracted the very earlyinformation which includes 1841.I am truly sorry I have been unable to assist you,believe me I would have liked to do so. If youhave any further questions please don't hesitateto contact me. Sincere best wishes to you and yourfamily in Australia. Jim Talbot. Trustee andResearcher, Cheshire Museum of Policing.