We thought that this photograph showed Police Constable Bill Newman with some of his colleagues when they joined Gloucestershire Constabulary in 1937 .
You can see that the description on the photograph reflects this.
We were very lucky to receive the original photograph when Jenifer was sorting though her mother’s effects. Written on the back it says went to war with the names of the officers.
The names were Mills, Newman, Batestone, Williams, Tozer, Thomas, Cook, Hart, Parsons, Pennington and Turner.
Unfortunately we are unable to tell who is who from the way the names are written on the back of the photograph although we know that Tiny Newman is the tallest man on the back row, Theophilus Hart is in uniform and the man standing next to him with the big smile is Dennis Parsons. We also know that Victor Batstone was Batstone and not Batestone.
By looking through the Variation of Constabulary books for the war years we were able to find the following information.
- Police Constable 262 Mathias Mills joined Gloucestershire Constabulary in June 1938 and joined the forces in August 1942
- Police Constable 43 Bill ‘Tiny’ Newman joined Gloucestershire Constabulary in September 1937 and joined the forces in December 1942
- Police Constable 401 Victor Batstone joined Gloucestershire Constabulary in September 1937 and joined the forces in January 1943
- Police Constable 445 William Williams joined the forces in December 1942 but we can’t find a Constabulary joining date for him.
- Police Constable 453 Reginald Tozer joined Gloucestershire Constabulary in September 1941 and joined the forces in August 1942
- Police Constable 457 Richard Thomas joined Gloucestershire Constabulary in August 1941 and joined the forces in December 1942
- Police Constable 451 Ronald Cook joined Gloucestershire Constabulary in September 1939 and joined the forces in February 1943
- Police Constable 435 Theophilus Hart joined Gloucestershire Constabulary in August 1939 and joined the forces in September 1942
- Police Constable 70 Dennis Parsons joined Gloucestershire Constabulary in November 1940 and joined the forces in August1943
- Police Constable 206 Harry Pennington joined Gloucestershire Constabulary in February 1938 and joined the forces in December 1942
- Police Constable 361 William Turner joined Gloucestershire Constabulary in February 1938 and joined the forces in May 1943
There were several officers who had the name Parsons, Turner and Williams but we hope that we have identified them correctly
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