Want to know how many accidents were caused by a horse taking fright?
Local Studies doesn’t just have the items you see on display, or books on open shelves that you can browse; behind the counter in the Horsfall Turner Room, we have a number of “pamphlet boxes” that contain information about Calderdale. One set of boxes that you might not know exists is the Halifax Police Annual Reports series. These annual reports span from 1943 to 1967 and are an interesting look into how local policing operated and what issues they had to deal with in the past.
1949 report
While initially comparing them to the information on www.police.uk might alarm the reader (as many crimes were recorded in the Halifax area in the last month as were in the whole of 1947!) it’s important to remember that population growth and an expansion of criminal offenses in the past 70 years will have a lot to do with it. They are full of interesting data – detailed analysis of reasons behind road traffic accidents, breakdowns of different crimes, and interestingly, details about what time of day offenses are committed within.
1943 report
Motorists in Halifax town centre will undoubtedly recognise some of these problems as remaining universal to the driving experience, although there are fewer horses taking fright in the town centre than there used to be.
1949 report
They are also useful as a marker of social attitudes towards women and young people. The pride with which 1949’s report details the skill set and usefulness of their four policewomen is charming if more than a little dated.
1949 report
Juvenile offenders are spoken about in an exasperated tone and wishes that they would just get their acts together and find something to do, or be exposed to a little more discipline at home. Not much has changed there.
1943 report
These reports can be viewed at any time that the library is open – just ask at the Local Studies desk and a member of staff will fetch them out for you. Other reports for West Yorkshire Police from 1976 onwards are also available to look through along with Home Office inspection reports of the force. There is far more to read than could ever be detailed in a single blog post!
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