ABSTRACT
Frederick Porter Wensley (1865–1949) was born in Taunton, Somerset, in a working-class home. By the 1880s his family had moved to London and he joined the police as a constable in 1887, beingposted first to the L division, and then to the H division. He was to remain in Whitechapel, in London’s rough East End, for the majority of his career, being promoted to detective sergeant, detective inspector and then detective chief inspector. There he was associated with the establishment of the ‘flying squad’, a group of officers a remit to pursue criminals across administrative boundaries. In 1924 he was appointed as Chief Constable of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), retiring in 1929. A tough and persistent detective, his memoirs are typified by the usual recitation of exciting and noteworthy arrests but also by a hard-headed, pragmatic view of working-class London, and an admiration for many of the residents of the areas he policed.
