Village Policemen

Amenity Name
Current Status (Active/Inactive)
Founded Date
Closure Date

The Buckinghamshire Police Force was inaugurated in 1857.   There is no policeman recorded in the census until 1891 at Graham Cottages, Main Road, Lacey Green.

1891 Census.   Esau Thorne 36, Jane 36, John 14, Annie 10.

1901 Census.   Frederick J Kirby 24, Mary 31, Alfred 7 months.

1911 Census Frederick Cox 29, Eliza Jane 29, Annie Kathleen 8, Frederick Basil 6.

P C Matthews

P C Harris

P C Drage

1939 Census Sidney C Farr 28, Kathleen 28.   Left in 1939

A new Police House was built just before WW2

1939   P C Frank Goldsmith, his wife and family, throughout WW2.

P C Herbert

P C Adams

1965   P C Monger living in new police house when Derek and Ursula Glyn Jones moved into Cairndale next door.

1967   P C Smith moved into the Police House November 1967.   Work based elsewhere from 1969 although he lived in the house until 1971.   He was the last village bobby.

PC FRANK GOLDSMITH      by Doug Tilbury                                                                                        

HAND IN YOUR ARMS

PC Goldsmith was the Lacey Green bobby, before and during WW2.    I think I must have been away doing my National Service in the RAF. PC Frank Goldsmith’s children were at Lacey Green School the same time as me – their dad was a good man!   I recall at the end of WW2 all arms and ammunition were to be ‘given in’.   My Dad had a revolver which he bought in France during the WW1, to shoots rats and while away the time when awaiting repatriation.   Dad gave me the revolver, which I put in my pocket, and said, ”Take it to PC Goldsmith”.   I did as I was told and did I get a rollicking from PC Goldsmith!!

MR. GOLDSMITH NEXT DOOR? YOU LUCKY OLD THING!

After retirement he lived in Eastfield Road, Princes Risborough.   His wife sadly died early in life.   Then he moved into Woollerton Court, flats for the elderly.    My mother-in-law, told me one day she was worried about a man coming to live in the flat next door.   It turned out to be Mr. Goldsmith.   I told her she was a 'lucky old thing'.   He later became very ill and Mother-in-law took great care of him with hot meals and cups of tea.

FRANK LETS ON A SECRET

I often sat with him and he told me many stories of his past years.   This is when he went into great details of the time Air Vice Marshall ‘Bomber Harris’s young officers, at Bomber Command, Walters Ash, bet him, whilst in the officer’s mess, that he couldn’t land his plane on the, as yet, unopened, ‘New Road’ to Lacey Green and take off again.   He won his bet!!