The Hampshire Family Historian | Volume 50 No.3 | Dec 2023

Member’s article

The Hampshire Specials

As a newcomer to family history research, I have found you can quickly become fascinated in the detail of your ancestors’ lives. Despite being new to this “game”, I have a very good starting point with around 35 years of research that my parents had already undertaken, which at their request I am now trying to get into a form to put into suitable archives and as appropriate publish. With my parent’s research files there is also a sizeable archive of family memorabilia. A photo and a document from that archive forming the basis for this little story, and I had hoped, a potentially unexplored avenue for research for others to consider. Although as it turns out there are virtually no records of the individuals forming Hampshire Specials in the WWI period surviving. One of the photos handed down to my mother is shown below {Hyde & Stead Specials}. The exact date is unknown but it would have been taken some time between 1914 to 1919, with the probability of it being sometime towards the end of that period. It shows the Hampshire Constabulary Special Constables, presumably for Romsey, during WWI. The fascinating thing for our family is that it features two of my great-grandfathers. Seated on the far left is Harry STEAD and third from left in the back row is William Percy HYDE . Most of the men in the photo are clearly above regular military age and presumably wanted to “do their bit” for the war effort. William Percy HYDE’s certificate of service has also survived in the family archive and is also shown below {William Percy Hyde Specials colour}. I would assume that the two uniformed

gentlemen in the centre of the photo, one a Sergeant, are the regulars responsible for overseeing the Specials. The range of headwear and some impressive moustaches are clearly of the period! The archivist at The Hampshire Constabulary History Society (HCHS) had hoped to confirm that the photo was taken at Romsey by identifying the Sergeant – who is the most likely to have surviving records in the archives. However, no success to date! In the photo the Specials appear only to have a stripped armband to denote their status; the booklet referred to below shows a different type of plain armband stating “Special Constable” – this difference in armband style may eventually help to date the photo or indeed the town. We do not know the names of any of the other gentlemen in the photo, but if anyone can identify some (or all!) of the other gentlemen, both the family and the HCHS would be glad to know who they were and perhaps a little of their lives. During this period with many of the regular police away on military duty additional volunteer Specials were employed to maintain law and order at home. A Special Constables Act was put in place early in the war to allow police forces to appoint Special Constables without some of the restrictions under a previous Act. The story of the special constabulary in Hampshire was published in 2006 to mark the 175th Anniversary of the Special Constabulary in the county. Unfortunately, the booklet was published before the significance of the photo was known to the family; but a copy of the photo and certificate has since been provided to the Hampshire Police archives via the HCHS. At the time of the photo Harry STEAD (1862 –

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