Sir Joseph Simpson KBE KPFSM (26 June 1909 – 20 March 1968), commonly known as Joe Simpson to his officers, was Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, the head of the London Metropolitan Police, from 1958 to 1968. He was the first Commissioner who began his police career as an ordinary constable.
Early life, education and sporting career Simpson was born in DawleyTribute on Dawley Heritage website in Shropshire,"Metropolitan Police Chief: Deputy to Succeed Sir J. Nott-Bower", The Times, 30 May 1958 the son of Joseph Simpson, an engineer who became chairman of The Horsehay Company, an offshoot of the ironmaster Abraham Darby's empire at nearby Horsehay. The Company built cast iron bridges, railtrack and other products distributed throughout the colonies and Americas, and after amalgamation with an American company, Adamson Alliance, concentrated later production on mechanised raw material handling equipment for the maritime and steel industries. Simpson's mother, Dorothea was the daughter of Arthur Maw, of Maw & Co, manufacturers of encaustic tiles at Coalbrookdale. Simpson was educated at Ashdown House and Oundle School, where he was captain of rugby football and athletics and was Public Schools Champion in long jump in 1927 and 1928, when he set a public school record, and also in 440 yards in 1928.
He then went on to Manchester University College of Technology. He represented the university at rugby and athletics and was World University Champion in the 400 metres hurdles at the 1930 International University Games, beating the German record-holder at Darmstadt. He also played cricket and was a good rifle shot (as Commissioner he was a great supporter of sport in the police).The Times, 12 April 1934
Due to the family's financial difficulties following the Great Depression, his opportunities for a career in his family's businesses disappeared, whether the iron industries of Coalbrookdale, or the cotton industries of Manchester (his relatives were partners in the prosperous firm of Simpson and Godlee which ran mills in Swinton employing at one time some 1,500 men women and children. In 1903 Francis Godleehttps://www.manastro.org/hist100y.html#Francis Godlee Observatory had donated an entire observatory (still intact) to the city).
In his early sporting career Simpson won medals and other trophies with the London Athletic Club, Birchfield Harriers and the Keswick Athletic Club; while in Lincoln and later as Chief Constable of Surrey, he was an active member and medal-winner of the Lincoln County Rifle Club, the Surrey County Small Bore Rifle Association, the Affiliated Rifle Association, and the National Short Range Rifle League (defunct), based at Bisley and elsewhere.Medals and other trophies held in family archive
As Commissioner, Simpson was vice-patron of the Amateur Athletic Association and vice-president of the Middlesex RFU."A Policeman's Policeman", "The Job (Metropolitan Police Newspaper)", 29 March 1968
Early police career After working in the cotton industry for a short period he joined the Metropolitan Police in 1931 and was posted to "X" Division (Wembley),Simpson's official police record does not show any posting to Wembley and later to "E" Division (Bow Street).A photograph of him in the uniform of Constable, bearing the 'collar number' E383 is held in the Simpson family archives.
An intriguing account by the writer Ernest Raymond is given in his autobiographyPlease you, draw near (Cassell & Company, 1969) of an encounter with Simpson as a Constable whilst at Bow Street:
In 1934 Simpson was selected by competitive examination to attend the first course of thirty students at Hendon Police College, beginning the course on 10 May,"Metropolitan Police College", The Times, 12 April 1934 and was promoted to Acting Station Inspector on graduation at the top of his class in 1936, when he became an instructor at the college."Police College Students to Begin Duty", The Times, 23 May 1936
Provincial police career In 1937, Simpson was called to the Bar by Gray's Inn. In July the same year he left the Metropolitan Police to become Assistant Chief Constable of Lincolnshire Constabulary.Official Appointments and Notices, The Times, 5 July 1937 In 1939 he was seconded (as Acting Inspector of Constabularies) to the Regional Commissioner's Offices for Nottinghamshire and then for Cambridgeshire'Assistant Chief Constables' - Lincolnshire Police 'yesteryears' and in 1943 was appointed Chief Constable of Northumberland Constabulary.A group photograph of Chief Constables of Northumberland 1935-63 (Studdy, Simpson, Armstrong and Scroggie), is owned by Northumbria NARPO, and was published with consent, by Ben Simpson in 'The Generations In Between' (out of print).A portrait of Sir Henry Studdy, Simpson's predecessor, is held in the National Portrait Gallery Simpson was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1946 New Year Honours for his services to civil defence. He transferred as Chief Constable to Surrey Constabulary later in 1946. He was awarded the King's Police and Fire Services Medal in the 1952 New Year Honours.
Simpson was a fair and tolerant man.A Hundred Years of Surrey Constabulary, 1851–1951 On his appointment as Chief Constable of Surrey, he had written to all his officers in his first order that
Simpson also expected the same high standards of others, whether officers or members of the public. Those were the standards that he set for himself and he was a great believer in discipline. He believed in a more equal police force, where senior officers and lower ranks had a closer relationship.
Return to the Metropolitan Police On 1 March 1956, Simpson rejoined the Metropolitan Police as Assistant Commissioner "B", in charge of traffic policing. During this appointment he visited USA and Canada, with the Transport Minister Ernest Marples who subsequently introduced parking meters in London. On 20 January 1957 he was appointed Deputy Commissioner,"Metropolitan Police Appointments", The Times, 12 November 1956 and on 1 September 1958 he became Commissioner. In 1967, Simpson oversaw the move of New Scotland Yard from the Victoria Embankment to 10 Broadway, close to St James's Park station. (The Metropolitan Police headquarters moved back to Victoria Embankment in 2017.) He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1959 New Year Honours.
Charles Hasler, writing in NARPO Millennium Magazine recalls,
A limited number of female police officers had been fully enlisted since 1919, under Commissioner Sir Neville Macready, albeit with limited powers and a rank carrying the prefix 'WPC'. Simpson welcomed this, as well as the development of the roles of special constables and police cadets. It is arguable that this openness to the 'diversity' of the day was somewhat marred by the promotion of fellow Hendon graduates as Deputy Commissioner and all four Assistant Commissioners; Lord Trenchard's Hendon experiment was never popular with most officers, although actually these appointments were made by the Crown on the advice of the Home Secretary. Simpson strove, with some success, to improve the deteriorating relationship between the police and the public and encouraged the public to "have a go" against crime, although he did issue a warning against tackling armed criminals.
He was an enthusiastic supporter of crime prevention and the use of police dogs, and also greatly expanded the Police Cadets. He established the Obscene Publications Squad, Drugs Squad (1963), Special Patrol Group (1961), Art Squad (1967) and Antiques and Philately Squad (1967), laid the foundations for the Scenes of Crime Branch established shortly after his death, and greatly expanded the Flying Squad. He introduced personal radios and the Unit Beat system (1967), whereby the use of panda cars was greatly expanded for patrol purposes. He reorganised the Metropolitan Special Constabulary to integrate them more into the divisions. He introduced traffic wardens and fixed penalty parking fines.
Hasler continues,
He was elected vice-president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) in 1966 and president in 1967. In 1963, he was elected president of the Medico-Legal Society for two years.[Journal of the Medico Legal Society, Vol 32, Issue 1]
Recruitment of ethnic minority officers The first known Black Metropolitan Police Officer was Robert Branford. He joined the Met in 1838 and had achieved the rank of Superintendent by 1856.
Since 1950, Sikh officers had been attending the Colonial Police Course (or Overseas Training Course) at Hendon Police College, but it was not until 1969 that Piarra Singh Kenth joined the Metropolitan police as a regular, turban-wearing police constable.Sikh Polis website And it was not until 1981 that WPC Lee-Jane Yates became the Metropolitan Police's first female Chinese officer.Bow Street Museum website
The Race Relations Act 1965 was the first piece of legislation in the UK to address the prohibition of racial discrimination, and banned racial discrimination in public places and made the promotion of hatred on the grounds of ‘colour, race, or ethnic or national origins' an offence. Widespread discrimination continued without recourse to law, notably in housing and employment. It was not until the Race Relations Act 1968 became law in October that year, several months after Simpson's death, that this issue was decisively addressed by legislation.
The first Black Metropolitan Police officer in the modern era, Norwell Roberts, joined the Metropolitan Police in 1967, during Simpson's tenure as Commissioner. Roberts' first application was refused; and following his second application the Home Office interviewed him before submitting his name to the Metropolitan Police as a proposed candidate.
Written nearly 50 years after Simpson's death, an account by University of London historian Dr James Whitfield, a former Metropolitan Police officer, criticised Simpson on racial grounds. Whitfield had retired from 'the Met' in 1999 after 20 years service having achieved the comparatively low rank of Inspector. He describes Simpson as holding "unenlightened", "racist views", which were common among senior police officers at that time, and states that Simpson openly opposed the recruitment of Black police officers into the Metropolitan Police. Whitfield claims that Simpson should be seen as the principal architect for the Metropolitan Police's failure to train officers on racial issues, and that his views on race impeded progress in the creation of positive relations between the police and London's Black community, as well as contributing to his reluctance to recruit Black police officers.
However, in History & Policy, it is acknowledged that Simpson's decision regarding recruitment of Black Special Constables was made 'in the aftermath of racial disorder in 1958 and the murder of a West Indian immigrant the following year'. Simpson and his colleagues would also have fresh in mind the 1962 race riots which lasted for a week in Dudley, in the West Midlands, and the increasing tensions in USA.
Elsewhere, Whitfield claims that Simpson's published observations on the subject demonstrated a conviction that Black people were temperamentally unsuited to the pressures of day-to-day policing, and, in 1963, an internal memo from the Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Tom Mahir GMMahir had been awarded the George Medal for bravery in 1941 as a Junior Police Inspector in a bomb rescue, following an air raid in charge of 'D' Department (recruitment and training) stated, “The truth is, of course, that we are not yet prepared to recruit any coloured men”.