LESLIE AND PHILIP HEBBORN - John Hebborn.

In November 2002 Alan Hebburn gave us an interesting account of how he identified a mystery man on an old photograph as his great grandfather. “Every Picture Tells A Story” was the title of Alan’s article. How true, but sadly so many of these stories are lost. I have a box full of such stories. Dozens of old photographs which captured a special moment in the lives of the photographer and the subject.  Sadly, when and where that moment was is often  lost.

 Earlier this year, my second cousin Douglas Hebborn sent me two more photographs of Hebborn policemen from the fascinating collection passed down through his branch of the family. He knew the two police sergeants were obviously his father Leslie Hebborn [J010] and of his uncle Philip Hebborn [J008]. An earlier photo of a young constable appeared to be his father, but did a different number on his collar indicate that this was a different person?  Both the constable and the sergeants were in P Divisison [Peckham]. I guessed that constables had a different allocation of numbers to sergeants but I could not be sure. Then last month, Joan Williams alerted me to a very interesting website dealing with Metropolitan Police history. It includes a database of Metropolitan policeman appearing in the official orders and a wealth of information about the “Met”. [www.policeorders.co.uk]

By typing “Hebborn”  in the search box a number of very familiar names came up. From the ‘Orders’ it is possible to trace the career of a particular policeman.  My own grandfather, Harry Hebborn [H22] seems to have had a pretty unexciting career. He only appears on orders when he joined the force as Police Constable F340 in 1893 and when he was pensioned in 1919, still as PC F340. The F340 sometimes referred to as the collar number tells us that he was stationed in F Division which included Kensington and Paddington. My father told me that he remembered him being stationed at Harrow Road, Paddington and at Paddington Green.

The young constable in Douglas’s old photograph has the collar number P758. The database confirms that Leslie Hebborn joined the force on 12th April 1909 as PC P758. I am puzzled by Leslie’s uniform. He is wearing the old type tunic with no breast pockets. I understood that this style was changed more than ten years before Leslie joined.  Perhaps, the old stock was issued to probationer constables, as a way of keeping the cost down if they did not make the grade!  If so, this would date the photograph to around the time that Leslie joined the force in 1909.

Leslie certainly did make the grade and he is mentioned in orders again in 1911, when still as PC P758, he is appointed “Assistant Clerk”. Then in 1913 he is promoted to Police Sergeant Asst. Clerk. At this stage his number becomes P126. In 1919 he progressed from Assistant Clerk to Clerk, with yet another number change to P53. With promotion to Station Police Sergeant in 1922, his number became P6. The last entry relating to Leslie records his death while still in police service in 1932.  Leslie spent his whole career in P Division, which covered the Peckham area.

His older brother Philip [J008] joined the Bow Street Division of the Metropolitan Police on 1st January 1906, as PC E216. After a short temporary transfer to T Division (Hammersmith) in 1908 he returned to Bow Street as Assistant Clerk, PC E216. He was promoted to Sergeant Assistant Clerk in 1910 as PS E2. In 1917 he was promoted to Station Sergeant in P Division with the collar number of P54. He remained in the Peckham Division until he retired in 1931. By this time he had become P17, but I have no record of when his number changed yet again.

All these number changes and promotions recorded on ‘Orders’ help in dating the photograph of  the two sergeants. Leslie on the left has the collar number P53. He had this number between 1919 and 1922. Philip on the right has the number P54. He carried this number from 1917 until an unknown date. This would date the photograph between April 1919 and May 1922.  It must have been very uncommon to have two brothers with consecutive numbers within the same Division at the same time.  My guess is that the photograph was taken to commemorate this soon after Leslie became Police Sergeant Clerk in 1919.

Philip’s police career did not end with his retirement from the Met. It appears that he was a Reservist with D Division (Hove) of the Sussex Police at the outbreak of the Second World War. I would expect that records of this service will not yet be accessible. Later still he served at the County Court. He died at Hove in 1960 aged 74 years.

 See Family Tree Chart H014 and Gallery