ABSTRACT
When John Pearman joined the Buckinghamshire Constabulary in 1857 he was 36, considerably older than the average recruit to rural police forces in this period. Across the country as a whole during the 1850s and 1860s, the most common experience was to join a county constabulary sometime between the age of 20 and 25. 1 Most policemen, then, had a considerable stretch of working life behind them, and John Pearman shared the perspective of this experience: ‘I must be very thankful that I have never been out of employment or without a Shilling since I first took to Keep myself at Age 13 years and 9 months’ he wrote, and the autobiographical sketch that he presented in the ‘Memoir’ was prompted by the reflection that
as poor men we cannot find much to live for ours is a life of heavy toil to get a bare living and to amas money and Whealth for the great men of the day…should you be so unfortanate as to be out of work you and the Family have much to suffer…
[‘Memoir’, p. 189]