Jerome Caminada's first night on the beat

The young police officer who became Victorian Manchester's greatest detective had an eventful night when he went out on patrol for the first time in 1868

Police officers rarely forget their first night on patrol.

And that was also the case for Jerome Caminada — the man who became Victorian Manchester’s greatest detective.

Caminada would become such a famous crime-fighter that he was said to have been a model for Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional Sherlock Holmes.

But on a bitterly cold Saturday night in March 1868, he was still humble PC Caminada when he stepped out into the backstreets of Deansgate aged just 24.

Back then, with its rookeries and gin palaces, the shopping street and the narrow lanes leading off it formed one of the most notious districts in the city.

“Deansgate is a battlefield on which many fall,” the missionary Alfred Alsop wrote.

“Many whose pious training and virtuous character would have caused them to shine as illustrious stars and blessed the nation with their noble deeds, have found their way into this hell of hells, where many a noble barque has been wrecked on the sands and shoals of prostitution and drunkenness.”

This was a baptism of fire for a fresh-out-of-box policeman hoping for a bit of adventure in the slums.

But Caminada thought he knew better. He had grown up there.

Deansgate was, he recalled in his memoirs, “a lively beat”.

But what happened that night was so surprising that he carried the memory of it with him for the rest of his career.

“My first Saturday night on duty is vividly impressed on my memory. It was a bitterly cold night, the snow was ankle deep, and the white flakes continued to descend,” he wrote.

“I was on what was known as No. 7 Beat of the A Division, a rough neighbourhood comprising of Quay Street, Byrom Street, Cupid’s Alley, Hardman Street and a number of other streets, courts and alleys containing dilapidated property swarming with fallen speciments of humanity deeply versed in vice of the lowest kind.”

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After almost being attacked and having a door slammed in his face within the first hour of his patrol when he tried to stop a family from fighting in their parlour, Caminada heard shouts of “Murder” coming from a side street.

“On hastening, I found lying partly on the footpath and partly in the roadway in front of a small house a woman who went by the name Fat Martha.

“The snow was crimson with blood where she lay, and did not require a very close inspection to see that she had been stabbed.”

Caminada naively sprung his wooden rattle to alert other police officers to the scene — only to find the clack-clack-clacking noise roused the whole street.

Bedroom windows flew open, heads popped out and the novice policeman suddenly faced a crecendo of curses and questions.

They only shut their windows and went back to sleep after being reassurred by neighbours it was “only Fat Martha who had been stabbed”.

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Three other officers came round the corner and sent Caminada to Albert Street Police Station for the accident stretcher.

Then they rolled Martha on to the canvas and taking Caminada’s lead, began carrying her through the streets on their shoulders towards the Royal Infirmary in Piccadilly one mile away.

Behind them followed a procession of Martha’s sorrowing friends and relatives, led by a pub landlady known as Mother Puffer.

“Keep your heart up, Martha,” Puffer shouted. “We’ll look after your house.”

But inside the accident ward, the experienced surgeon took one look at Martha and decided she was not badly injured enough to merit a drunken sleep in hospital bed.

He ordered Caminada and the other officers to take her to the workhouse at New Bridge Street — another mile away.

“The prospect for the carriers was not a pleasant one,” Caminada later wrote.

“However, there was no more help for it, so Martha was once more placed on the litter and the procession started for New Bridge Street at a pace which would have well suited the Dead March from Saul.”

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Finally, they reached the door of the workhouse and rang the bell.

“At this moment a voice was heard proceeding from the litter as one crying from the tomb. There could be no mistake about it, it was Martha’s voice,” Caminada wrote.

‘Where am I,’ Martha moaned.

‘At the workhouse,’ Caminada said.

‘What are you doing with me here?’ Martha shouted. ‘Put me down you scoundrels. I am not going to the workhouse.’

“It was evident that Martha had awakened from her drunken slumber and the wound not being serious, the letting of blood had somewhat sobered her,” Caminada recalled in his memoirs.

“As she began to struggle in the litter there was nothing for it but to put her on the ground.”

Martha scrambled to her feet.

‘I think I will go home’, she said.

“As we had carried Martha two miles in the snow, the feelings of the carriers at this announcement can better be imagined than described, and as she walked back along with us, she was the recipent of some rather warm language, all of which she took in good part and returned with interest,” Caminada later wrote.

And so began the policing career of Manchester’s most famous Victorian detective.

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New for paid subscribers: The Meander

Thank you for reading this week’s unusual story from the Manchester History Club.

A lot has been written about Jerome Caminada’s exploits as a famous detective, so I thought it would be interesting to write about his lesser known earlier life as a police constable.

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