Comments on: London http://airminded.org/2007/12/19/london/ Airpower and British society, 1908-1941 Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:22:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Brett Holman http://airminded.org/2007/12/19/london/#comment-66905 Brett Holman Fri, 21 Dec 2007 07:33:13 +0000 http://airminded.org/2007/12/19/london/#comment-66905 Very interesting, thanks. I suppose he did perforce have a lot of experience as an institution builder. Do let us know when the paper comes out! Very interesting, thanks. I suppose he did perforce have a lot of experience as an institution builder. Do let us know when the paper comes out!

]]> By: Chris Williams http://airminded.org/2007/12/19/london/#comment-66809 Chris Williams Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:28:09 +0000 http://airminded.org/2007/12/19/london/#comment-66809 Hi Brett. The answer is yes. I think that Trenchard drew on 3 air things in his time at the Met: 1) Central control of police cars through wireless, which was a straight lift from the London Air Defence Area. Real Soon Now I will have an article in _Technology and Culture_ about this, just as soon as I re-write it totally... 2) The Hendon scheme to create an officer class for the police. This was intended to create an elite who'd populate the higher ranks, not to cover every supervisory rank. Obviously Cranwell. Lots of people have written about this already - refs on request. 3) A scheme whereby police officers could join as constables for ten years, rather than signing up for the traditional twenty-five. I think that this, as much as the Hendon scheme, derived from military practice. In addition to all this, T put a lot of effort into breaking the power of the Federation, notably by persuading the great and the good to fill up Commissioner's FUnd, which was used to establish and finance a monopoly of all police recreational facilities. Hi Brett. The answer is yes. I think that Trenchard drew on 3 air things in his time at the Met:

1) Central control of police cars through wireless, which was a straight lift from the London Air Defence Area. Real Soon Now I will have an article in _Technology and Culture_ about this, just as soon as I re-write it totally…

2) The Hendon scheme to create an officer class for the police. This was intended to create an elite who’d populate the higher ranks, not to cover every supervisory rank. Obviously Cranwell. Lots of people have written about this already - refs on request.

3) A scheme whereby police officers could join as constables for ten years, rather than signing up for the traditional twenty-five. I think that this, as much as the Hendon scheme, derived from military practice.

In addition to all this, T put a lot of effort into breaking the power of the Federation, notably by persuading the great and the good to fill up Commissioner’s FUnd, which was used to establish and finance a monopoly of all police recreational facilities.

]]> By: Brett Holman http://airminded.org/2007/12/19/london/#comment-66785 Brett Holman Thu, 20 Dec 2007 05:14:10 +0000 http://airminded.org/2007/12/19/london/#comment-66785 Roger: Well, the next time you have to stand in line there you can amuse yourself by pondering its history! Should keep you amused for at least 20 seconds ... Chris: That may be as is, but I never saw any coppers south of the tube, where the library is. I reckon the old bill are too scared to interfere with rowdy BL patrons messing about with shopping trolleys! More seriously, I'm reading Graves & Hodges' <em>The Long Week-end</em> at the moment and they talk a bit about Trenchard's time as head of the Met. In particular they say he tried to introduce a sort-of class element into the force by setting up the training college at Hendon, to attract middle-class and above types, whereas the Met had mainly been lower and lower-middle class before. They don't quite say so, but it sounds like a knock-off of Cranwell (which Trenchard founded, of course). Is there anything too that? I've often wondered what RAF influences or ideas the Met may have picked up via Trenchard. (I think aerial traffic surveillance may have been one -- at least it was tried in London in the mid-1930s, but not sure if that was police or not.) Roger:

Well, the next time you have to stand in line there you can amuse yourself by pondering its history! Should keep you amused for at least 20 seconds …

Chris:

That may be as is, but I never saw any coppers south of the tube, where the library is. I reckon the old bill are too scared to interfere with rowdy BL patrons messing about with shopping trolleys!

More seriously, I’m reading Graves & Hodges’ The Long Week-end at the moment and they talk a bit about Trenchard’s time as head of the Met. In particular they say he tried to introduce a sort-of class element into the force by setting up the training college at Hendon, to attract middle-class and above types, whereas the Met had mainly been lower and lower-middle class before. They don’t quite say so, but it sounds like a knock-off of Cranwell (which Trenchard founded, of course). Is there anything too that? I’ve often wondered what RAF influences or ideas the Met may have picked up via Trenchard. (I think aerial traffic surveillance may have been one — at least it was tried in London in the mid-1930s, but not sure if that was police or not.)

]]> By: Chris Williams http://airminded.org/2007/12/19/london/#comment-66694 Chris Williams Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:55:17 +0000 http://airminded.org/2007/12/19/london/#comment-66694 Colindale may look dodgy, but in fact it's the best-policed bit of London outside Whitehall. Peel House, the Met Police training centre in Hendon, is down the road, so the streets are full of eager young coppers practicing walking. The coffee room at Colindale, though, _is_ dodgy. Colindale may look dodgy, but in fact it’s the best-policed bit of London outside Whitehall. Peel House, the Met Police training centre in Hendon, is down the road, so the streets are full of eager young coppers practicing walking.

The coffee room at Colindale, though, _is_ dodgy.

]]> By: Roger Todd http://airminded.org/2007/12/19/london/#comment-66669 Roger Todd Wed, 19 Dec 2007 02:53:34 +0000 http://airminded.org/2007/12/19/london/#comment-66669 I never knew Aldwych Post Office had such an airminded connection! It's just up the road from where I work. Frankly, I avoid it like the plague because of the queues (unavoidable last week, however, much to my chagrin...). The Queen's Tower at Imperial has a (very tenuous!) Wellsian airminded connection, in that it is the only remaining part of the large complex of buildings that formed the old Imperial Institute which was next door to the Normal School of Science, later the Royal College of Science (and later still to form the nucleus of Imperial College), which is where HG Wells studied. Later, in Wells's short story 'The Argonauts of the Air', his aviation pioneer Monson makes the first heavier-than-air flight, only to lose control of his machine over the Imperial Institute whilst trying to avoid the towers and crash in flames onto the Royal College of Science roof... H G really had a fondness for smashing up places he'd lived in or worked, at least in his fiction. I never knew Aldwych Post Office had such an airminded connection! It’s just up the road from where I work. Frankly, I avoid it like the plague because of the queues (unavoidable last week, however, much to my chagrin…).

The Queen’s Tower at Imperial has a (very tenuous!) Wellsian airminded connection, in that it is the only remaining part of the large complex of buildings that formed the old Imperial Institute which was next door to the Normal School of Science, later the Royal College of Science (and later still to form the nucleus of Imperial College), which is where HG Wells studied. Later, in Wells’s short story ‘The Argonauts of the Air’, his aviation pioneer Monson makes the first heavier-than-air flight, only to lose control of his machine over the Imperial Institute whilst trying to avoid the towers and crash in flames onto the Royal College of Science roof…

H G really had a fondness for smashing up places he’d lived in or worked, at least in his fiction.

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