Cornwall County Constabulary

Cornwall County Constabulary was the Home Office police force for the county of Cornwall, England, until 1967.

The force was formed in 1857. It absorbed Bodmin Borough Police in 1865, Liskeard Borough Police in 1877, Launceston Borough Police in 1883, Falmouth Borough Police, Helston Borough Police, Penryn Borough Police and St Ives Borough Police in 1889, Truro City Police in 1921, and Penzance Borough Police and the Isles of Scilly Police in 1947. From 1947 it was officially called the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Constabulary, although this name was rarely used. In 1965, it had an establishment of 500 and an actual strength of 446.

On 1 April 1967 it amalgamated with Devon and Exeter Police and Plymouth City Police to form Devon and Cornwall Constabulary.

Footnotes

References

Devon and Cornwall Police

Devon and Cornwall Police or Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, is the territorial police force responsible for policing the counties of Devon and Cornwall in England, including the unitary authorities of Plymouth, Torbay and the Isles of Scilly.

Overview

This is the largest police force area in England by geographical area covered, and the fifth largest in the United Kingdom. The total population of the force area is approximately 1.5 million. The force also has to cope with an influx of around 11 million visitors to its area during the average year.

The force was formed on 1 April 1967 by the amalgamation of the Devon and Exeter Police, Cornwall County Constabulary and Plymouth City Police, these three constabularies were an amalgamation of 23 city and borough police forces that were absorbed between 1856 and 1947.

Governance

Since 15 November 2012 the Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Commissioner is Tony Hogg. The police and crime commissioner is scrutinised by the Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Panel, made up of elected councillors from the local authorities in the police area. Before November 2012 the Devon and Cornwall Police Authority was the police governance.

Devon

Devon (/ˈdɛvən/; archaically known as Devonshire) is a county of England, reaching from the Bristol Channel in the north to the English Channel in the south. It is part of South West England, bounded by Cornwall to the west, Somerset to the northeast, and Dorset to the east. The City of Exeter is the county town; seven other districts of East Devon, Mid Devon, North Devon, South Hams, Teignbridge, Torridge, and West Devon are under the jurisdiction of Devon County Council; Plymouth and Torbay are each a part of Devon but administered as unitary authorities. Combined as a ceremonial county, Devon's area is 6,707 km² (2,590 square miles) and its population is about 1.1 million.

Devon derives its name from Dumnonia, which, during the British Iron Age, Roman Britain, and Early Medieval was the homeland of the Dumnonii Brittonic Celts. The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain resulted in the partial assimilation of Dumnonia into the Kingdom of Wessex during the eighth and ninth centuries. The western boundary with Cornwall was set at the River Tamar by King Æthelstan in 936. Devon was constituted as a shire of the Kingdom of England thereafter.

Cornwall

Cornwall (/ˈkɔːrnwɔːl/ or /ˈkɔːrnwəl/;Cornish: Kernow, [ˈkɛɹnɔʊ]) is a county in England.

Cornwall is a peninsula bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of 536,000 and covers an area of 3,563 km² (1,376 sq mi). The administrative centre, and only city in Cornwall, is Truro, although the town of Falmouth has the largest population for a civil parish and the conurbation of Camborne, Pool and Redruth has the highest total population.

Cornwall forms the westernmost part of the south-west peninsula of the island of Great Britain, and a large part of the Cornubian batholith is within Cornwall. This area was first inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. It continued to be occupied by Neolithic and then Bronze Age peoples, and later (in the Iron Age) by Brythons with distinctive cultural relations to neighbouring Wales and Brittany. There is little evidence that Roman rule was effective west of Exeter and few Roman remains have been found. Cornwall was the home of a division of the Dumnonii tribe – whose tribal centre was in the modern county of Devon – known as the Cornovii, separated from the Brythons of Wales after the Battle of Deorham, often coming into conflict with the expanding English kingdom of Wessex before King Athelstan in AD 936 set the boundary between English and Cornish at the high water mark of the eastern bank of the River Tamar. From the early Middle Ages, British language and culture was apparently shared by Brythons trading across both sides of the Channel, evidenced by the corresponding high medieval Breton kingdoms of Domnonée and Cornouaille and the Celtic Christianity common to both territories.

Police

A police force is a constituted body of persons empowered by the state to enforce the law, protect property, and limit civil disorder. Their powers include the legitimized use of force. The term is most commonly associated with police services of a sovereign state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of responsibility. Police forces are often defined as being separate from military or other organizations involved in the defense of the state against foreign aggressors; however, gendarmerie are military units charged with civil policing.

Law enforcement, however, constitutes only part of policing activity. Policing has included an array of activities in different situations, but the predominant ones are concerned with the preservation of order. In some societies, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, these developed within the context of maintaining the class system and the protection of private property. Many police forces suffer from police corruption to a greater or lesser degree. The police force is usually a public sector service, meaning they are paid through taxes.