bow street runners

[tallboy]

looking for research about the runners especially any documents relating to names of bow street runners. i belive my grandfathers, father was one

[Buenchico]

I very much doubt that your great grandfather was a Bow Street Runner. They were founded in 1749 so, if your relative was a member of the initial group of eight men, he'd probably be something like your great great great great great great great great grandfather. Even if your relative was in the Bow Street Runners when they were disbanded in 1838, there ought to be several more 'great's in the relationship than your question implies.

Check the sums: If you were born in, say, 1960 and your father was 25 years old at the time, that means your father was born around 1935. If his father (your grandfather) was 25 years old at the time, that means that he was born around 1910. If his father (your great grandfather) was 25 years old at the time, he'd have been born around 1885, which was far too late for membership of the Runners.

If any records of the membership of the Runners have survived the ravages of time (and the attentions of Hitler's Luftwaffe), the Museum of London will probably hold them (or know where they're located). Telephone them on 020 7814 5750. (That number goes directly to the department which deals with London's history from 1700 onwards). Alternatively, e-mail the department:
[email protected]

Chris

[DotH]

try the Met archive:
http://www.met.police.uk/history/archives.htm

[DotH]

my grandmothers father was a constable in the Lincolnshire Constabulary at the time of her birth in 1879, he had been a ************* in Kirton-in-Lindsey prior to being promoted. He died in 1881 of pneumonia, brought about by the damp weather during his patrols.
The records kept are in large ledgers and there is an index, each constabulary has a similar system and they will photocopy the original entry, the ladgers are very large, a bit larger than A3.
If you contact the Met Archive they should be able to confiorm whether he was ever in the force there and give you anm estimated cost of the copy

[DotH]

actually it was my grandmothers grandfather, and why is night watch man starred out????

[jno]

Dot, you used the word nigh....chman. Kindly wash your mouth out

[DotH]

tut, so i did, how annoyingly pedantic

[dundurn]

Dear DotH, online nanny systems catch us all from time to time. Someone in the company I work for was inordinately interested in torture and similar delights and our local internet police force accordingly banned all mention of pain. Not knowing this I spent a couple of fruitless days trying to find details of holidays in Spain and subsequently a lot of wasted time looking for paint schemes for an Airfix model my son was trying to assemble. The ultimate indignity, however, was in trying to confirm my theory that Ian Botham used to play football for a team in the Football League. Nothing I could do would bring up the town of S****horpe!

[GEEMAC]

Lol Dundern, Just realised why nighT WATchman was starred out. Reminds my of the story of poor ticket sales for a panto production of Dick Whittington. Sorry for hi-jacking your question, tallboy. Good luck with your research.

[GEEMAC]

*Dundurn