In September 2014, the author visited the Scottish Borders Archive at Hawick. Whilst engrossed in reading a dusty ledger, he was approached by a couple and learnt that they were related to a police officer who had died on duty. They had travelled from New Zealand to Scotland to try and find out more details regarding John Drummond’s death. Drummond was located in a register of constables and some newspaper reports, however the encounter placed the sad death of the young policeman into the author’s consciousness with the important questions of how and why he had died. This article is an attempt to fully explain the circumstances of his demise, and in doing so, to illustrate the harsh working conditions encountered by police constables in 19th-century Britain.
John Drummond was born in 1856 at Kilniver, Argyllshire. He and his parents moved to Northumberland, and in 1878, John married Frances Susannah Wood. By 1881 they had two daughters and John was working as a gamekeeper. In the late summer of that year, he joined the North East Railway Police where he worked as a clerk. This role, working in the office of the police force, was considered as the first step on the ladder of promotion, and may indicate that John
