News

    1st January 2008  Research Charges

During 2007 many requests for family history information have been dealt with, all information being given from the museum         archives ‘Free of Charge” but in the hope that the enquirer would make a small donation to help support the Museum. Sadly the vast majority of enquirers made little effort in showing their support, but our sincere thanks to those who did, we truly appreciate it.  

It normally takes approximately 2 hours to complete the research and compile a report, and because of lack of support most information given will now have to be charged for. However, when an enquirer asks if we have a trace of an individual officer, this initial request will still be dealt with ‘Free of Charge’. It is important you supply as much information about the individual in order that we can make a full search. We will then let you know what information is held. The maximum cost for a full report will be £10. Depending on the information held, this amount will be on a reducing scale. A full report will normally contain a great deal of information, including his discipline record, postings with year, good conduct, personal description, pay and pension details and possibly his marriage details. 

Of course you can check the Constabulary records yourself at the Chester Records Office, Chester. Failing this the CRO do offer a research facility but it will cost in excess of £25 to obtain the minimum amount of information, bearing in mind to obtain an officers personal record, pension record and marriage record three different volumes would necessitate being searched and therefore the CRO costs can be considerably higher than £25.  

The Museum Staff believes £10 is more than good value for money, given the time factors involved in you getting to the CRO, lack of and cost of parking facilities, time spent searching through the volumes given the sometimes difficulty in the non understanding of police jargon within some of the volumes.

The Museum Committee is truly sorry that it had to come to this and apologies to those individuals who would, without hesitation, have offered a donation in the future.

10th October 2007  Museum Is Open

After months of preparation the museum is open, alas only for pre booked appointments at present.

The opening was performed by the Deputy Chief Constable Graeme Gerrard on the 10th October 2007, with guests from the main sponsors, The Police Federation, Police Sports Club, National Association of Retired police officers, MBNA bank and British Nuclear Group.

                     

Local Museum gets healthy 

A local water cooler company have donated a water cooler to the new Museum of Policing in Warrington, in the hope that by rehydrating their visitors, more information will be taken in from each of the displays.

It is documented that by  taking in less than 4 or 5% of the required daily intake, performance can be effected by up to 30%. Yet most of us fall into this trap. 

Cheshire Police are celebrating 150 years of Policing this year and have opened the museum to coincide with this fact.

The the new Museum holds all kinds of important facts and displays dating back as far as 1840, it was felt that allowing visitors to access free drinking water would increase their concentration span and help them to not only take in more of the displays information, but to appreciate the great work that has been done by Cheshire Police over the years.

Of course it will also demonstrate the methodology of policing and how it has changed in the years.

Peter Wroe, founder of the museum said “We believe we have wealth of golden information that we have collected, and it is important for us to ensure that as much of that information is taken in by our visitors. In addition of course, it will allow our volunteer staff to maintain their information sharing to a higher level as they will be continually rehydrated. We would like to thank Aquaid for their kind donation, which will enable us to bring a better quality of service to our visitors” 

Christine Brown, Sales Director from AquAid said “We believe that this museum is set to become a front runner of its kind, and attract many thousands of visitors. We therefore wanted everyone to maximize the information intake, and felt it was a very worthwhile cause to donate this water cooler to. We are delighted to be playing our part, to assist them, and look forward to seeing results of many people going through its doors.

For further information about AquAid and its Charity involvement please call Christine Brown on: 01925 654135

Work of the Museum

If you so wish you can of course have the records extracted by the Chester Records Office Archivist. But it would be remiss if we did not point out that whilst this Museum works on a donation basis, (made payable to the Museum of Policing in Cheshire) and only if the enquirer feels the information is worthy of such. The Record Office however, will charge you a minimum of £27 per search per volume.

Maybe you would be surprised how many enquires we get from people who never say ‘please’ or even having received a wealth of information

forget to say ‘thank you’. We do really try our best but a little politeness please, don't forget  we do this for the love of it not employment.

I have to point out a few things. Sadly we do not have photographs of everyone, We have a lot of photographs of un-named officers which we are attempting to identify, but if you do have a photo that you can identify we would appreciate a scanned copy for our records.

We are willing to undertake research into past members of Cheshire and its constituent forces within the constraints of the data protection act. We hold something like 17,000 records, Whilst at the moment we do not ask for payment each enquiry does take several hours and the work is carried out voluntary. The museum is reliant on independent funding so if you are pleased with our service please feel free to make a contribution to the costs.

We will normally email the reply however If you require a postal reply please supply an A4 self addressed stamped envelope. 

We can also produce a copy of the officer certificate of service. 

Correctly reproduced on Parchment paper the certificate is identical to the original and a worthy addition to family history memorabilia.   At a cost of £6.50 which includes postage and package it is good value.