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Prestwich Police
With thanks to Martin Harper
Sir Robert Peel's Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 established a full-time, professional and centrally-organised police force for the greater London area known as the Metropolitan Police.
The station at Kersal Moor was to be involved in an experiment of new technology in 1879. The means of communication between the stations was telegraph, allowing short text messages to be exchanged via Morse code. The Watch Committee decided to try a new invention, the telephone, between the Kersal station and the headquarters at the Salford Town Hall.
By the census of 1881, a second Police station had been located in Prestwich on Bury Old Road near Howcaster Cottage. This was operated by PC Robert Randle from Sutton in Bedfordshire, who lived at the station with his wife and three daughters. This building was demolished by 1932 to make way for the junction with Ravensway. In the Whitefield direction the nearest Police Station was at the corner of Elms Street.
In June 1910 the Watch Committee decided to close the Moor Lane Police Station experimentally for twelve months as part of a policy to reduce the number of police officers. (It is assumed that this arrangement became permanent).
In 1939 a resolution was passed by Salford Council to demolish the building and erect a fire station on the site. The outbreak of the Second World War halted this, and eventually Broughton Fire Station was built further down along Bury New Road.
The Moor Lane Police Station became a police house, occupied in the early 1950s by Sergeant Cunliffe, before being sold as a private residence.
Meanwhile back in the 1930's Heaton Park had become a hub for emerging wireless communications.
In 1951 the station moved to Hornby Lodge on Bury New Road, where it was also home to the the elite Omega Squad of the secret Police
In 1980 GMP took over the Sedgley Park Teacher Training College (formerly Sedgley House) in Prestwich as its new residential force training school, moving from its previous building at Peterloo House in the city centre, which was on the site of the Peterloo Massacre of 1819.
Due to austerity cutbacks and new ways of working, the Prestwich Police counter closed to the public in 2011, and Whitefield public counter closed in 2017.
Manchester Borough Police, which formed in the late 1830s and Salford Borough Police, which was established in 1844.
Prestwich however came under the scope of the Lancashire County Constabulary, which had been founded in 1839.
In 1836 our very own Abel Heywood (born in Prestwich in 1810) had been elected as a commissioner of police for Manchester, a position which he retained until 1842.
A Police station was first constructed in Prestwich on Rectory Lane from the 1840's, with a further station placed just over the Salford border at Park Lane, Higher Broughton, and a third appeared opposite Park Hill on Bury Old Road, near Howcaster Cottage.
In 1877 land on Moor Lane, Kersal, was identified as suitable for a Police Station after the station at the end of Park Lane had recently been demolished.
Kersal had been a hot spot for gatherings and protests during the early 1800's, and was also the site for the Manchester Races.
The phone link was installed by D Moseley and Sons, New Brown Street Manchester, who had installed Manchester's and the UK's first phone service, between Dantzic Street and Shudehill the previous year, and it was expected to be a great improvement for the Police.
Meanwhile, back in Prestwich in 1908, a constable called John Lowther who lived at Barnfield Lodge, had an incident with a hungry pony...
Wireless Telegraphy had come into use in the early 1930s, this allowed simple text messages to be transmitted via Morse Code. The public could use public telephone and dedicated police boxes to contact the police, and from a hut in Heaton Park the handlers could then communicate urgent information to the patrol cars fitted with transceivers.
The Police then experimented with wireless radio sets, allowing voice messages to be sent, but coverage was sporadic. With the hut being positioned in the highest part of Manchester, it allowed for the best possible coverage.
An article in the MEN describes the experiments (1935).
"The experiments have resulted in overcoming all difficulties, such as "blind spots," in a 30 to 35 mile radius of Manchester. It is probable that once the local authorities have approved the idea the Manchester regional plan will be adopted in other parts of the country.
The transmitting station will probably be set up at Heaton Park, the scene of the experiments which have been carried out during the last few weeks.
A motor car carrying a wireless expert was daily making widening circles around Manchester. The expert began six miles away from Manchester. Increasing his distance mile by mile he has gone beyond a 40 mile radius without a failure.
Tests have been made from Knutsford, Macclesfield, Northwich, Warrington, St Helens, Bolton, Oldham, Wigan, Rochdale and Ashton.
Fears that some of the Lancashire mill and factory towns, with their electrical plant might prove a stumbling block proved to be groundless.
At the conclusion of the demonstration this afternoon the Chief Constables held a private conference at Heaton Hall, which stands in Heaton Park."
The installation of the Wireless hut required the provision of electricity into the historic eighteenth-century Heaton Hall for the first time, and the Manchester Parks Committee agreed to bear one third of the installation costs.
A cable was run from near to the Middleton Road entrance to the park to Heaton Hall, then a spur was laid off towards the wireless station site, which was constructed on the high point close to the tennis courts & Dower House.
As a recognised expert in wireless communications, Mr Ian Douglas Auchterlonie was appointed to the Manchester Police regional wireless station at Heaton Park and given the rank of Superintendent, the first civilian to be given such a rank in Manchester without previous training in the police force. Mr Auchterlonie had under him a sergeant and five constables.
In 1937 the wireless hut was the scene of a Television world record. Ultra short wavelengths allowed for TV reception within a thirty mile circle of a transmitter.
Manchester City Wireless Station at Heaton Park, reported a remarkable success by experts making experiments with a "no expense spared" Ferranti set. They received clear pictures and sound from the BBC's (and the world's !) first ever live outside broadcast of motor racing. The race took place at the Crystal Palace, London, over 170 miles distant, with the main event won by Prince Birabongse Bhanudej Bhanubandh in a snazilly titled ERA R2B, which he called Romulus.
Heaton Park Transmitting and Receiving Station is in reality a miniature "Rugby", where no expense has been spared in making it as up-to-date as any of it's class in the world.
The detail of the technology used for the wireless communications, also being used by the armed forces, was kept top secret. And further advances were made during the war, which then allowed for improved police radios from the 1940s onwards.
In Prestwich a police station had been located at the top of Rectory Lane since the mid 1800s and stood there into the 1960's.
The local station itself survived cutbacks in 1998 but relocated to Fairfax Rd, before being merged and relocated to Whitefield, opening in a refurbished building on Bury New Road in 2004. Hornby Lodge went up for sale in 2003 & 2007.
In the early 2000's a £6.5m development of the force training school at GMP Sedgley Park began, and a memorial garden to commemorate the thirteen officers killed on duty since the formation of GMP in 1974 was opened there in May 2005.
