Police Memorial Trust on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
The Police Memorial Trust is a charitable organisation founded in 1984 and based in
The first Police Memorial Trust memorial was erected for Fletcher and was unveiled at
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. The trust's objective is to erect memorials to British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
police officer
A police officer (also called a policeman and, less commonly, a policewoman) is a warranted law employee of a police force. In most countries, "police officer" is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. In some, the use of the ...
s killed in the line of duty, at or near the spot where they died, thereby acting as a permanent reminder to the public of the sacrifice they made.
Inspiration
The Police Memorial Trust was the brainchild of film producerMichael Winner
Robert Michael Winner (30 October 1935 – 21 January 2013) was a British filmmaker, writer, and media personality. He is known for directing numerous Action film, action, Thriller films, thriller, and black comedy films in the 1960s, 1970s and ...
. Inspired by the fatal shooting on 17 April 1984 of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London, Winner wrote a letter to the editor
A letter to the editor (LTE) is a Letter (message), letter sent to a publication about an issue of concern to the reader. Usually, such letters are intended for publication. In many publications, letters to the editor may be sent either through ...
of ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' newspaper suggesting a memorial be erected in Fletcher's honour. After receiving donations from members of the public, Winner established the trust on 3 May 1984.
Memorials
The first Police Memorial Trust memorial was erected for Fletcher and was unveiled at St James's Square
St James's Square is the only square in the St James's district of the City of Westminster and is a garden square. It has predominantly Georgian and Neo-Georgian architecture. For its first two hundred or so years it was one of the three or f ...
in London by the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
on 1 February 1985.
The trust's third memorial, and the first to be erected outside London, was sited at the seafront at Frinton-on-Sea, Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
, where PC Brian Bishop was fatally shot by an armed robber on 22 August 1984. Bishop's memorial was unveiled by the then home secretary Douglas Hurd
Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, (born 8 March 1930) is a British Conservative Party politician who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major from 1979 to 1995.
A career diplomat and political secretary to P ...
, on 19 February 1986.
On 3 October 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chance ...
unveiled a monument in Luton
Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable an ...
to mark the site of the fatal stabbing of PC Jonathan Henry.
A total of 50 memorials in honour of police officers killed on duty have been erected throughout the United Kingdom. They include Insp Raymond Codling and the three officers who died in the Shepherd's Bush Murders; PC Keith Blakelock; PC Sharon Beshenivsky; and PC Ged Walker.
National Police Memorial
In the mid-1990s the Police Memorial Trust proposed a single memorial for all police officers who had died in the course of their duties. This became The National Police Memorial, which is sited inSt James's Park
St James's Park is a park in the City of Westminster, central London. It is at the southernmost tip of the St James's area, which was named after a leper hospital dedicated to St James the Less. It is the most easterly of a near-continuous c ...
at the junction of Horse Guards Road
Horse Guards Road (or just Horse Guards) is a road in the City of Westminster, London. Located in post code SW1A 2HQ, it runs south from The Mall down to Birdcage Walk, roughly parallel with Whitehall and Parliament Street.
To the west o ...
and The Mall. It was unveiled on 26 April 2005 by Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
on behalf of the Police Memorial Trust. It contains a list of all the officers who died, supplied by the Police Roll of Honour Trust
The Police Roll of Honour Trust is a charitable organisation registered in England & Wales and Scotland, it was founded in 2000 and records all those British police officers who have died on and in the line of duty. It has been granted a Royal Cha ...
.
See also
*List of British police officers killed in the line of duty
Thousands of police officers in Britain are believed to have died during the course of their duties, but this article includes only those who were killed as a direct result of a crime or while attempting to respond, prevent, stop or solve a spe ...
External links
* {{UK public art Law enforcement in the United Kingdom Charities based in London 1984 establishments in the United Kingdom Organizations established in 1984