THE BOMBAY CITY POLICE
Mounted Police Constable
Bombay City
THE BOMBAY CITY POLICE
A HISTORICAL SKETCH
1672-1916
BY
S. M. EDWARDES, C.S.I., C.V.O.,
formerly of the Indian Civil Service and sometime
Commissioner of Police, Bombay
HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS
1923
I have been prompted to prepare this brief recordof the past history and growth of the Bombay PoliceForce by the knowledge that, except for a few paragraphsin Volume II of the Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island,no connected account exists of the police administrationof the City. Considering how closely interwoven withthe daily life of the mass of the population the work ofthe Force has always been, and how large a contributionto the welfare and progress of the City has been madeby successive Commissioners of Police, it seems wellto place permanently on record in an accessible formthe more important facts connected with the earlyarrangements for watch and ward and crime-prevention,and to describe the manner in which the Heads of theForce carried out the heavy responsibilities assignedto them.
The year 1916 is a convenient date for the conclusionof this historical sketch; for in September of that yearcommenced the violent agitation for Home Rule whichunder varying names and varying leadership, anddespite concessions and political reforms, kept India ina state of unrest during the following five or six years.
Other considerations also suggest that the narrativemay close most fitly in the year preceding the memorablepronouncement in Parliament, which ushered in therecent constitutional reforms. No one can foretell whatchanges may hereafter take place in the character andconstitution of the City Police Force; but it isimprobable that the Force can remain unaffected by thealtered character of the general administration. Ere oldconditions and old landmarks disappear, it seems to meworth while to compile a succinct history of the Force,as it existed before the era of “democratic” reform.
I am indebted to the present Acting Commissionerof Police for the photographs of the portraits hangingin the Head Police Office and of the types ofconstabulary; to the Record-Keeper at the India Officefor giving me access to various police reports andofficial papers dating from 1859 to 1916; and to Mr.Sivaram K. Joshi, 1st clerk in the Commissioner’s office,who spent much of his leisure time in making inquiriesand framing answers to various queries which theBombay Government kindly forwarded at my request tothe Head Police Office.
S. M. EDWARDES
London, 1923