The Municipal Police: from eight constables to five thousand, 1854–1932

The short answer. The International Settlement’s police began in 1854 as eight foreign constables under an ex-Hong Kong inspector paid $150 a month, and ended 1932 as a force of 4,993 men in four branches, foreign, Sikh, Chinese and Japanese, with armoured cars, a fingerprint bureau of 178,000 cards, a political section and a bill of 6.5 million taels, 43 per cent of everything the Council spent. The Council’s annual reports, written by the commissioners for the ratepayers, count the men by nationality, the stations, the arrests at the Mixed Court, and, from the 1920s, the armed robberies and kidnappings that made Shanghai’s name; they also record what the police thought of opium, gambling and the men they employed. This is the force as it counted itself.

1854–1884: eight men, then Sikhs

“The first Municipal Budget amounted to a total of $25,000, of which $14,000 was to be expended upon the Police,” Pott records of 1854, and the land renters voted eighteen to fifteen to borrow $12,500 for barracks. The superintendent was S. Clifton, “an ex-army man who had served as Inspector of Police in Hongkong”, on “$150 a month”; “in 1853 eight foreign constables were employed”, thirty by 1855. The consuls objected that year that the men “were not ‘sworn constables’” and could not lawfully arrest anyone, and the force was reorganised so that “the men became duly ‘sworn constables’”. It grew with the Taiping emergency to “164 foreigners” in 1864, then shrank: “Chinese were drafted into the force. In 1870 the foreign police numbered 112.” The foreign constable, recruited from British police forces and the army, was the expensive core of the force for ninety years; the Chinese constable, the cheap bulk.

The third branch came in with the roads. “In August 1884,” the Council reported, “some 16 Sikh constables were engaged, to be employed in policing the Bubbling Well and other roads,” outside the Settlement’s then boundary, where the Council had no jurisdiction and wanted a presence. By the end of 1885 the Sikh branch had grown “from 1 Sergeant and 15 Constables to 1 Jemadah, 4 Sergeants and 45 Constables”, with twenty more recruited at Lahore. On 1 January 1888 the force was 319 men, about 53 foreign, 50 Sikh and 216 Chinese; in 1887 “twenty-five thousand seven hundred and seventy-four persons came under the notice of the Police”, 25,378 of them Chinese, which is the Settlement’s criminal statistics in one line. The foreign men were unhappy that year because the dollar they were paid in had fallen “from about 3/8 to 3/3” sterling. The Council bought the Racquet Court site on Nanking Road at 1,750 taels a mu, with a loan of 30,000 taels, for a new Louza station, and the Hongkew station of 1878–79, at 32,000 taels, and the Central station on Honan Road of 1891–94, at 76,000, followed; Darwent in 1904 gave the force at 83 Europeans, 167 Sikhs and 604 Chinese.

1905: one, two, seven

The report for 1905, by the captain-superintendent A. M. Boisragon, is the first to describe the force as a system. It was “about 1,000 men all told”, “Foreign, Indian and Chinese Police, in the proportion roughly of 1, 2, 7”, on 5,547 acres, “one policeman in every 5 acres” and “to every 465 head of population”, in eight districts, Central, Louza, Sinza, Bubbling Well, Hongkew, West Hongkew, Wayside and Yangtszepoo; the Sinza station “was opened on 15th May 1905”. Its view of its own men was the Settlement’s: the Indians were “useless in detective work”, the Chinese its “keenest exponent”, by methods, the writer added, that were not those of Scotland Yard; 74 Chinese constables, a tenth of the branch, were dismissed that year. The Mixed Court riot of 18 December 1905 was the force’s first real test. The Louza station was “set fire to in three or four different places”; the Town Hall was “defended by 2 Foreign and 3 Sikh Constables”; police fire killed three in the crowd and seven Chinese in all; and the Council decided that “every police station should be constructed with a strong defence wall and only one entrance”. The same report shows the police at the trades the Council disliked: a raid on “the gambling sheds situated on the Settlement boundary in Li Hongkew”, which were “demolished and burnt”; a raid on a club at 458 Broadway that found “28 men of Russian and Austrian nationality” engaged in “the infamous traffic of passing women out to the Far Eastern ports”; and the restriction of the area in which the prostitutes who had come with the Russo-Japanese war could live. The Mixed Court heard charges against 42,685 people that year.

1913: pistols

By 1913 the force had a commissioner’s title, a training depot on Gordon Road “ready for occupation” on 15 November 1909, eleven stations, 242 foreign police against 278 authorised, 445 Sikhs in the police and 113 more guarding the gaol, and a Chinese branch of about 1,100 with “6 Detective Sergeants” and 67 detective constables. It also had a new problem. “The Revolution and subsequent rebellion,” K. J. McEuen wrote, “were responsible for thousands of pistols falling into the hands of men whose one idea is to use them as an aid to a purely criminal career.” Armed robberies reported were 27 in 1912 and 28 in 1913; a Chinese sergeant was shot dead by robbers on 12 October. The police cost 900,583 taels, “31.51 per cent” of the Council’s income. The war took the foreign men: at the end of 1917 the foreign branch was 155 against 286 authorised, “46 men on war service”, the Sikhs “82 men short”, and a fourth branch had appeared, “thirty Japanese police” who arrived in November 1916 for the Japanese quarter of Hongkou. Sergeant C. Hamilton was “killed by armed Chinese desperado on Yates Road” on 24 October 1917; two Chinese constables died the same year, and two more “within two days of each other” in March 1922. The commissioner’s report for 1922 is frank about the trade that corrupted his Chinese branch: “Opium still continues to be a most difficult problem”, “the evil continues to flourish wholesale”, 1,846 prosecutions against 1,417, and “were its sale licensed and controlled a great source of temptation to the Chinese Branch would be removed”.

1925: the force and May Thirtieth

The report for 1925 counts the force on the day it fired on Nanking Road and after. The foreign branch was 327 against 340 authorised, the Sikh 804, the Chinese 1,737, the Japanese 64, with 33 “Temporary (Russian) Constables”, the first White Russians in the force, and a civilian reserve of 259. In the strike that followed “of 1,737, no more than 277 refused duty” in the Chinese branch, and when the Council advertised, “over 2,000 men presented themselves as candidates on one day”; a pay rise for the Chinese ranks followed on 1 October. The Council’s own inquiry found “twelve rioters killed and seventeen wounded outside Louza Police Station”; McEuen was suspended “without prejudice” while the judges sat, found by the American judge “remiss in leaving the city at 12.15 p.m.” on the day, reinstated on 20 December and allowed to resign from the 21st, on a pension of £1,500 a year listed in the Council’s books under “May 30 incident”; E. I. M. Barrett, who had been promoted deputy on 1 February, became commissioner on 22 December.

The rest of the 1925 report is the Shanghai of the 1920s. “349 cases of armed robbery” were reported, up from 204, “325 occurred at dwelling houses, shops, etc., and 24 on the highway”; 605 persons were arrested and “69 were remitted to the Court of the Military Governor for execution”; “2 armed robbers were shot dead and 8 wounded by shots fired by the Police”, and a CID man was killed. There were “twenty cases of armed abduction”, 178 people charged with kidnapping against 24 the year before, the kidnappers “professional bandits, mostly natives of the vicinity of Shaoshing, and ex-soldiers”. The special squad made 131 opium raids and seized 2,960 pounds, and the commissioner wondered aloud “whether the net results to the community are worth the energy and time expended” and asked, again, that “the Council control the sale of opium under licence”. The fingerprint bureau, begun in 1910, held “178,073” cards and had made “61,695 identifications”. The Mixed Court heard 80,529 criminal cases. And the budget for 1926 provided for “an emergency reserve unit”, which is the origin of the force’s best-known section.

1926–1928: the Reserve Unit and the reorganisation

The Reserve Unit was formed in 1926 at the Gordon Road depot, with a lorry to carry it, as a riot and robbery squad; its trainer, W. E. Fairbairn, a chief inspector in 1927 and superintendent in charge of “the Armoury and Reserve Unit” by 1932, later taught the methods he worked out in Shanghai to half the world’s police. In 1928 it “was called out on 19 and stood by on 34 occasions”, and “158 bullet proof vests and 80 shields were made” for it. The force was reorganised that year: from 1 July Major K. M. Bourne took the uniform branch, and “the C.I.D. has been re-organized and now consists of two main branches, viz., Crime and Political”, under an assistant commissioner for political work, with an intelligence section, the structure later called the Special Branch. At the end of 1928 the foreign branch was 438 against 451 authorised, the Sikh establishment 609, the Chinese 2,366, the Japanese 100 against 146, with 193 Chinese and 89 foreign detectives.

The crime figures explain the reorganisation. “During the year 1928 the Police took part in no less than 117 encounters with armed criminals”; nine policemen were killed, “2 foreigners, 1 Sikh and 6 Chinese”, and “57 criminals were killed by the police”. “No less than 251 raids were made in connection with armed robberies and kidnappings” that arrested 1,138 and in which “21 persons were shot dead by members of the C.I.D.” Armed robberies reported were 981, “a noticeable decrease on last year’s figures when 1,458 cases were reported”, and the dead included “2 Russian Watchmen, 1 Russian civilian, 1 Japanese, 17 Chinese civilians and 1 Chinese Constable”. Forty-nine people were kidnapped for ransom against 27 in 1927; 443 kidnappers were taken, “61 sentenced to death”, nine “shot dead”; “each case of kidnapping involves an outlay of at least $1,000.00” in police time, and “17 of the accused” in the Dixwell Road gang “were sentenced to death”. Murders reported were 123 in 1927 and 96 in 1928, and “seventy-eight Chinese arrested for serious crimes committed in the Settlement, were executed by the Chinese Authorities”. The police cost 3.3 million taels, and the 1929 estimate of 3,811,430 was up 551,350 “due primarily to the reorganization of the Department”.

1932: five thousand men

The report for 1932, by F. W. Gerrard, gives the force at its largest. “Area of Jurisdiction: 8.72 square miles and 48 miles of outside roads. Population: Foreign 17,993; Japanese 18,478; Chinese 971,397.” Strength: 487 foreign, 633 Sikh, 3,613 Chinese and 260 Japanese, plus 19 foreign, 33 Sikh and 646 Chinese supernumeraries, in four divisions and thirteen stations; the new Yulin Road station opened in May and Chengtu Road was begun; the first block of married quarters for Chinese constables opened at Paoting Road. The Council could no longer afford its foreign branch: “for financial reasons the Foreign establishment was allowed to fall under the authorised strength and any recruits that were engaged were obtained locally”, which meant Russians and Shanghai-born Britons at Shanghai pay. The year’s work was the war. A state of emergency was declared on 28 January, “the Curfew order was in force from February 1 to March 31”, 837 people were “reported missing”, and the force fought “48 encounters” with armed criminals, losing two killed and shooting “15 criminals” dead; the Reserve Unit answered five riot calls and “supplied 1,377 search parties and 167 mobile patrols”. Armed robberies were 604, against 702 in 1930 and 529 in 1931, with convictions in 48 per cent of cases; kidnappings 14 against 36 in 1930; murders 43; 16,429 cases in all and 19,853 arrests. The narcotic section “dealt with 1,688 cases” and 5,234 persons, 4,432 convicted, with fines of $196,606, “no less than 1,000 of the persons arrested” having records; the political side prosecuted “233 persons for promotion of communism” and found “103 bases”, and handed the Communist Party’s founder, Chen Duxiu, to the Chinese authorities. The Council had licensed 2,264 private firearms. The police cost 6,512,390 taels including stores, 43 per cent of the general budget, and its pay bill tells the structure in money: 2,297,973 taels for 487 foreigners, 387,034 for 260 Japanese, 405,389 for 633 Sikhs, 1,603,142 for 3,613 Chinese. A foreign sergeant cost about 2,250 taels a year, a Japanese constable about 1,000, a Sikh about 340, a Chinese constable about 220.

The force in numbers

Year	Foreign	Sikh	Chinese	Japanese	Cost (taels)	Armed robberies
1888	53	50	216
1902	83	167	604
1913	242	445	about 1,100		900,583	28
1917	155	about 390		33		100
1925	327	586	1,737	64	2,372,857	349
1928	438	609	2,366	100	3,294,882	981
1932	487	633	3,613	260	6,512,390	604

The police grew sixteenfold in forty-five years while the Settlement’s population grew about fourfold, and the growth was all in the Chinese branch, which the force’s own reports describe in the same breath as loyal in 1925 and tempted by opium in 1922. The armed-robbery line peaks at 1,458 in 1927, the year of the Nationalist advance and the Settlement’s emergency, and then falls as the Reserve Unit and the raids of 1928 took effect, or as the robbers moved to the western roads where the Council’s writ did not run.

What the sources disagree on

The commissioners’ dates rest on the signatures in the reports and on secondary lists; Penfold, who is said to have run the force from 1864 to 1885, does not appear in any report used here. The reports never use the name “Special Branch” before 1932, and the secondary claim that an intelligence office existed from 1898 is uncited. The armed-robbery series mixes “reported” and “true” cases, and the 1932 report gives 604 in its text and 620 in its table. The strength figures are not all taken on the same day or basis, some being authorised establishments and some men actually on the roll; the 1917 Sikh figure is a shortfall against establishment. The police’s own casualties for 1928–32 are given in the narrative because the table is illegible in the scan. Huang Jinrong, the Chinese detective the stories attach to the Settlement’s police, was in the French Concession’s force, and does not appear in these reports.

What to look for

The Central station on Honan Road and the Louza station on Nanking Road are gone; the police headquarters built on Foochow Road in 1933–35 survives as a government building. The Hongkew station on Wusong Road was rebuilt in the 1930s and the building stands, still a police station. The Gordon Road depot, where the Reserve Unit drilled, is under Jiangning Road; nothing of it remains. The Sikh constables who stood at every main crossing from 1884 to 1941 are remembered in the Shanghainese word for a traffic policeman, which comes from their turbans, and in nothing else.