History of NSW Police Force

Moving on to part two about the New South Wales Police Force.

The first recorded death of a Police Constable was in 1803 with the death of Constable Joseph Luker of the Sydney Foot Police. While patrolling on foot at night in an area called Back Row East Sydney Town(now Phillip Street Sydney), he was attacked an killed. His body was found the next morning with the guard of his cutlass embedded in his head. Later four offenders faced court with three of them acquitted including two fellow Constables, the other was sentenced to death, which was latter commuted after three failed attempts to hang him failed.

In the beginning the Police were appointed by the local Justices of the Peace and became know as Bench Police or “benchers”.

In 1825 the Military Mounted Police were formed following clashes between Aboriginals and settlers in the central west but after only 25 years they were disbanded in 1850. They were replaced by a civilian Mounted Police also known as the Mounted Road Patrol they were the forerunners of today's NSW Mounted Police.

Other colonial police forces included the Border Police they were around between 1839-1846 and the Mounted Native Police between 1848-1859. The various Mounted Troopers were known colloquially as “traps”.It was in 1850 that the Parliament in Sydney legislated to amalgamate all the various colonial police forces into one force under the superintendence of an Inspector General of Police, with a solicitor names William Spain was appointed as the first Inspector General.

In 1851 because of the discovery of gold the Gold Escort was formed. This year also saw the Parliament in London disallow the 1850 colonial legislation to amalgamate the police forces. During this time police from the United Kingdom were offered free passage to NSW in return for three years service as colonial police.

On the 1 March 1862 the Police Regulation Act was passed seeing all existing police forces at last amalgamated to establish the NSW Police Force under former Army Captain John McLerie as Inspector General.