Police heritage
The National Archives
The national archive of the United Kingdom — which holds police records for four forces only, and says so plainly. Records of local forces are not public records at all.
At a glance
- Name
- The National Archives
- Kind
- Archive Run by a government body
- Operator
- The National Archives (United Kingdom)
- Where
- Kew, London, United Kingdom
- Official page
- https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/police/ — read on 10 August 2026.
- Facts last checked against sources
- 13 September 2026
What it preserves
Police records for the Metropolitan Police, the Royal Irish Constabulary, the Palestine Police and the transport police. For the transport police it holds administrative records but not records of its investigation of crime.
Its police-history scope
The most useful thing this archive publishes about police records is what it does NOT hold: "Surviving records of local police forces are not public records and are held either by local archives or the respective police force itself." A researcher who assumes a national archive holds the national police record will look in the wrong place for almost every British force.
Whose history this holds
Sources
The National Archives (United Kingdom) · Archive · link verified 2026-08-10
The National Archives' own research guide to police records, read directly. Supports: that TNA holds police records only for the Metropolitan Police, the Royal Irish Constabulary, the Palestine Police and the transport police, and that records of other British forces are held elsewhere; that a police force specifically for transport began with the railways and the first railway police force in Britain was formed in 1830; that from as early as 1826 men were employed as "Policemen" on the railways whose role was to 'police' or direct trains, like a signalman, so their records sit among railway staff records; that before nationalisation the four largest railway companies each had their own force under a Chief of Police; that the British Transport Commission Police was created in 1949, incorporating the former railway forces together with several minor canal and dock forces; and that the London Transport Police was absorbed into the British Transport Police in 1958. A finding aid describing holdings and the administrative history behind them — it supports these British institutional facts and dates, and supports nothing about transport policing in any other country.