© JOHN TAYLOR

Chief of Police - Colonel T. Warren

Colonel T. Warren

Regarding events in the national press, it must be stressed that no police officer was paid for any of the information in the following article.

And the only crime involved was having to pay a quid for a cup of machine made coffee at Milton Keynes Central Library, while delving into the archives.

So having established journalistic integrity, on to this week’s subject – senior police officers of yesteryear. On August 1st 1896 the splendidly named Major Otway Mayne was appointed as Chief Constable of the county. He was the only son of the late Major H.O. Mayne, of ‘Mayne’s Horse,’ and holding a commissioned rank had served with the Norfolk Regiment, including duty during the Afghan War of 1879-80 during his 22 years of military service.

Following the outbreak of the First World War he applied to the Standing Joint Committee for permission to offer his services to the War Office, but it was decided that he would best serve the country by remaining in his present position, and for his services during the war he would be awarded the O.B.E. He continued as Chief Constable until the age of 71, to be succeeded in 1928 by another military man, Colonel T. Warren, who, having joined the Army in 1905, was promoted to Captain at the outbreak of the First World War, during which he would be twice mentioned in dispatches.

When appointed as Chief Constable of Buckinghamshire he was also deputy assistant adjutant and quartermaster general of the 43rd Wessex Division, and at the outbreak of World War Two was appointed as County Controller for Civil Defence, being made a Deputy Lieutenant for Buckinghamshire in 1941. Of others of senior rank in the contemporary county police force, mention should also be made of Superintendent Evelyn Dibben, a native of Dorset, whose father had been in the police force for many years.

Evelyn joined the Bucks Constabulary in July 1899, and after being stationed firstly at Aylesbury, and then Bletchley, he went to headquarters to be assistant clerk in the office of the Chief Constable.

In August 1904 he was then made sergeant clerk, and eventually became sergeant at respectively Bletchley, Stokenchurch and Slough.

In April 1912 he was made an Inspector and transferred to Beaconsfield, being appointed in November 1916 (at the age of 37) to take charge of the Northern Division. He next came to Newport Pagnell as Assistant Superintendent, but after some 2 months was given full rank. Leaving a widow and four young children, he tragically died from a malignant stomach growth in 1922, and at his funeral at St. Mary’s Church, Bletchley, a large contingent of the Bucks Constabulary in full dress uniform attended, to include Major Otway Mayne and other notables. In that year his successor would be Edward Callaway, this being a time when the headquarters of the Division was moved from Newport Pagnell to Bletchley.

Edward was born on December 31st 1876 of a military family at Chalvey, near Slough, and at the age of 18 he enlisted for three years in the Scots Guards.

He joined the Bucks Constabulary in 1898 but at the outbreak of the Boer War rejoined the Scots Guards. Afterwards he returned to a police career, being posted to Bletchley on his promotion to sergeant in 1904. He would also be based at Bletchley after succeeding Superintendent Dibben in 1922, and although he retired in May 1938 he would not be idle, for in 1939 he was elected to Bletchley Council, of which he would remain a member throughout the war.

In 1944, after an illness of 13 years his wife died, but in November 1945 he married Edith Sexton of the Bull Hotel, the licence of which she had held since the death of her husband some seven years earlier.

Having in 1946 instructed Wigley and Johnson to auction his house, 143, Bletchley Road, Edward would then live at the hotel until his death in 1950.

So, just to reiterate, all the above is readily available in the public domain, whilst as for any mobile phone ‘hacking,’ I’m more hacked off by just learning how to use the wretched things.

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