Professor publishes book on the Great British Bobby

The Great British Bobby, A history of British policing from 1829 to the present, has just been published by Professor Clive Emsley, co-director of the International Centre for Comparative Criminological Research at The Open University. He is also President of the International Association for the History of Crime and Criminal Justice.

Professor Emsley said: “Histories of the police have always tended to be institutional and have tended to focus on law makers and chief constables. I wanted to explore the lives of the men and women on the beat at the sharp end.

“My father was a policeman who, in 1943, changed his police blue for RAF blue. He was killed serving with Bomber Command a few months before I was born.

"I guess the book was written partly because of the father that I never knew, but also because I believe that it is important to understand the lives of ordinary people. The aim of the book is to weave the stories of ordinary police officers into the social history of Britain over the last 250 years.”

The Great British Bobby, A history of British policing from 1829 to the present, is published by Quercus books, ISBN 978 1 84916 197 8. Times Review.