These four photos of police officers in Hamilton were recently posted on the wonderful website, “Old Bermuda: Our Island, Our History”. We are very interested to know if anyone might be able to recognize any of the police officers.
It was a long shot hoping that someone might recognise any of these former policemen and the only suggestion we've had so far is that the gentleman with the handlebar moustache probably came from the same gene pool as Dave Parsons! We'll leave them on the site and also monitor them on the "Old Bermuda ..." site just in case one of their descendants makes a connection.
The first one is of a police officer with a large handlebar moustache standing outside the Apothecaries Hall at Heyl’s Corner way back in 1911.
Here is an unusual photo of a policeman standing on point duty at the bottom of Reid Street at the junction with Queen Street taken circa the 1940’s. In the background is the old Phoenix Drug Store. It's unusual because most if not all of the old photos show policemen directing traffic at Heyl's Corner, not at this junction, but the officer is standing on a raised platform so it must have been a location requiring police officers to direct traffic. This was clearly at a time when Queen Street was two-way, and if you check the bottom of the photo you will see evidence that horses drawing carriages then were not wearing diapers!
These last two are of a police officer or offciers on point duty at the more familiar location at Heyl’s Corner in the 1950’s before the birdcage had been installed.
We are posting these in our “Who, Where and When” column just on the off chance that someone might be able to recognize any of the policemen, or have some ideas as to how we can identify them.
For anyone not aware of it we have an article on our website about “Bobbies in the Birdcage” which briefly outlines the history of the birdcage which was designed by Mr. Geoffrey Bird, then the Corporation of Hamilton City Engineer in 1962, and was most aptly named “The Birdcage”. You can view the article on our website at http://expobermuda.com/index.php/lia/219-bobbiesinbirdcage
We are always more than willing to accept addtional photos for this article so if you have one of yourself in the birdcage, or someone else, please feel free to send them to us so we can add them to our “Bobbies in the Birdcage” article together with whatever information you have about who it is and when it was taken.