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How can I track down my policeman forebear?

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QI am trying to find information about George William Barr (born circa 1877 in Manchester), a police officer in Manchester and Lancashire in the early 1900s.

On the 1911 census, he was a police constable living at 106 Ellesmere Street, Farnworth. His wife was living in Darwen, so presumably he had duties elsewhere.

When he died in Prescot in 1948, he was a police sergeant. A family rumour has it that he was a mounted policeman, possibly on duty at Queen Victoria’s funeral. Alison Tobin, by email

AWhile people expect the police, of all institutions, to keep good records unfortunately this is not always the case, especially when it comes to historical documents. You have to be relatively sure in which force your ancestor served, and knowing the town or county does not necessarily help. There were over 200 police forces in England and Wales on the eve of the First World War, and 22 of these were in Lancashire. The county forces had a complement of 1,652 men; Manchester City (1,249 men) was almost as large; but others, like Clitheroe (13 men) were tiny.

There is, however, a George Barr on the list of Lancashire Police Officers which can be found on a Lancashire Archives index at bit.ly/

LancsPolice. Barr can be followed up by completing the accompanying web form. In this case you are lucky: Barr was living in Bolton and could have been a member of the Bolton Town Police. In 1910, it had 187 men and there are often few records for the smaller forces like that of Bolton. For anyone else interested, the Greater Manchester Police have a museum and archive (email: police.museum@gmp.police.uk) which has some records of some of the forces that were amalgamated with Manchester.

Only larger forces had mounted policemen so he could have been one of a small detachment attending Queen Victoria’s funeral. Finally, even though he was in retirement at Prescot, this does not necessarily mean that he served there.