Police killed in line of duty honoured

AT one time many boroughs had their own local police force and their own chief constable.

The photograph above shows Blackburn borough’s mounted division on parade for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee celebrations in the late 1800s. At that time many police officers often served as firemen too, and several died while fighting fires.

The Police Roll of Honour Trust has revealed the East Lancashire officers of years gone by who died in the line of duty.

The officers who died from injuries while carrying out their duties have been listed since 1840 and include:

• John Brown, 26, a constable with Accrington Borough Police, died in 1884 when he was run down trying to stop two horse-drawn omnibuses which were being driven furiously in the early hours. An inquest returned a verdict of manslaughter and the two drivers were charged, but the outcome is unknown.

• Two police constables/firemen in Blackburn, William Henry Clayton, 25, and James Dawson, 33, both died in 1885, while fighting a mill fire. A gable end wall collapsed burying them in the burning debris.

• A year later, 32-year-old Blackburn constable/ fireman Robert Cookson died from severe head injuries suffered in a fall from a canvas fire escape chute from a three-storey building during a public demonstration.

• In 1912, Harry Edward Hall, a constable with Lancashire Constabulary, died, aged 44, “from the rupture of an aortic aneurism from the effects of non-accidental injuries received in the execution of his duty in Blackburn Division.”

• Five years later, constable James Hardacre, 34, serving with Lancashire Constabulary, was killed in an explosion during a fire at a munitions factory in Church. Aware of the danger, he stayed at the scene to close a magazine door and attach a hose to fight the fire. He was posthumously awarded the King’s Police Medal for Gallantry.

• In 1943, police war reserve constable John Towers, 39, died from a fractured skull when he was struck by a man while on patrol in Bottomgate, Blackburn. His assailant pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter and was bound over to keep the peace for two years.

• Harry Walton, a 39-year-old sergeant with Lancashire Constabulary, died in 1950 from natural causes after being accidentally shot in the leg by a colleague with a .22 rifle.

• In 1958, Detective Inspector James O’Donnell, 47, of Blackburn Borough Police, was shot at point- blank range while attempting to negotiate with a gunman, who had already killed a woman and injured another officer.

Following an armed siege, the gunman was arrested and charged with murder, but convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and sentenced to life imprisonment.

DI O’Donnell was posthumously awarded the Queen's Police Medal for Gallantry. A bronze plaque was erected in his memory at Blackburn Police Station and a silver trophy in his name awarded annually for the most gallant deed of year.

• A year later, Police Constable James Thomas Brindle, 33, working as a mechanic at Blackburn Borough Police garage, died in an explosion while emptying a petrol tank.

All these officers are named by the Police Roll of Honour Trust, a registered charity dedicated to remembering all police officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty, and those left behind.

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