If electing Stoke-on-Trent's first mayor was tricky the appointment the first Chief Constable was trickier.

In 1910 Hanley was the only town with an independent police force; the other towns were divisional stations of the County Constabulary. The most important was Stoke whose police chief answered only to two men, Staffordshire's Chief Constable, Captain G.A. Anson, a grandson of the first Earl of Lichfield, and the council leader Fred Geen.

Staffordshire Police was established in 1842 and was, until Hanley became a county borough in 1857, responsible for policing the Potteries. When Hanley formed it own police force that year it was beset with financial problems. Regulations allocated one constable for each 1000 of population and Hanley simply couldn't afford to pay fifty constables so it hired most from the county on the cheap.

Eventually a newly-elected Watch Committee found enough money in 1870 to employ a Chief Constable, a retired military man name Stanford Alexander in charge of a regular force of thirty-one men. Alexander, though, turned out to be an unprincipled speculator who was accused of mishandling the Superannuation Fund and acting above his position. After three years of hearing complaints against their wayward lawman the Watch Committee engineered his resignation.

Picking a good replacement proved to be a difficult task. They thought they'd got a decent chief in a Welshman name Williams, but he left disillusioned after two years. Councillors began to despair at finding someone to do a decent law enforcement job. However, in 1875 they finally got their man.

Herbert Windle had served in Chesterfield and was an immediate success with Hanley's Watch Committee possibly because he accepted their fellowship. Joining the local Freemason's lodge soon after he arrived was also a good move. Windle remained Hanley's Chief Constable until poor health forced his retirement in 1901. He was succeeded by Roger Carter from Windsor who was Hanley's Chief Constable at the time of federation.

The new Stoke-on-Trent Watch Committee comprised of 28 members drawn evenly from each town. Its first job was to appoint a Chief Constable. Most thought that Carter would get it. He was more experienced than the other Potteries' superintendents, none of whom in any case bothered to apply. The appointment looked to be a matter of course until Councillor Fred Geen proposed Captain Anson to take the position temporarily until a new Chief Constable could be properly recruited. This split the whole council. Hanley and Burslem councillors wanted Carter immediately, Stoke and Longton wanted Anson to continue.

Quite what was behind Geen's motive is now hard to judge. His friendship with the Chief Superintendent of Stoke was public knowledge and both men were known to prefer county policing. Geen viewed Hanley's force as inefficient and cut-price. His resolution, though, raised much suspicion. He'd even got Anson to write a letter saying he'd do the job without payment and would not apply for the post when it was advertised.

But mistrust lingered and Hanley councillors, as ever, were up for a fight. They wanted Carter because he was quite simply 'the right chap for the job' as well as being the highest ranking bobby in the Potteries. Evenly split the full council agreed to let Anson become the Acting Chief Constable of all Stoke-on-Trent while Carter remained Chief Constable of Hanley. It was a ludicrous state of affairs that took six months to resolve. Eventually, in September 1910, Stoke-on-Trent council finally appointed its first Chief Constable on a salary of three-hundred pounds, and the job went to Carter.

The establishment of the new force was fixed at 180 comprising two superintendents, two inspectors, fourteen sergeants and fifty-two constables transferred from the County force Ð twenty of these on loan. Sixty-seven moved over from Hanley. A further forty-three were new, many coming from Cheshire and Derbyshire because applicants from the Potteries were considered unsuitable. The man who travelled the furthest distance was Constable Patrick McEvoy who relocated from the Royal Irish Constabulary.

Money was scarce and policing was low priority; and as in the case of Hanley the new force was run on a shoestring. It even operated for the first year with a shortfall of forty-one. The average constable's wage was the cheapest in the country at one-pound ten-shillings a week. Worse still, for the next forty years, uniforms continued to be hand-me-downs following retirement and death. And yet it became an exceptionally efficient force with a comparative high detection percentage to its high crime figures.

Stoke-on-Trent had three chief constables in its history. Carter died in service in 1936 and was replaced by the controversial Frank Bunn. His retirement in 1955 saw the appointment of Stoke-on-Trent's last Chief Constable, William Watson, who supervised the takeover by Staffordshire Police in 1968. It had taken fifty-eight years but Councillor Fred Geen got his way in the end.