On 21 April 2026, Salford celebrates its 100-year-anniversary as a city. To mark the occasion the Greater Manchester Police Museum is looking back at the history of Salford policing.
The Salford Borough Police
Policing came to Salford before it was granted city status, through its Charter of Incorporation on 16 April 1844. The original force consisted of a Chief Constable, Superintendent, four inspectors, a single clerk, and 27 policemen supported by six ‘supernumeries’ (which could have been specials).
This new constabulary was hit almost immediately with controversy, with the first Chief Constable, John Diggles, being dismissed within a year for pocketing money from police expenses. The following two Chief Constables also experienced short tenures, with Edwin Shappard resigning in 1847, and Stephen Neal being dismissed after a fine in 1852.
The Salford Scuttlers
From the 1870s until the end of the century, Salford was at the centre of high levels of gang violence, in particular between various youth gangs, collectively referred to as ‘Scuttlers’. Driven by poverty, boredom, and disenfranchisement, boys in Salford as young as 12 would dress in distinct bell-bottomed trousers and clogs, and engage in territorial fights across central Manchester, with some fights involving hundreds of Scuttlers.
This particular wave of gang violence disappeared by the 1910s as the worst slums in Salford were demolished, and new young clubs (in particular football clubs) drew younger people’s attention away from gangs.
William Henry Brooks, a known Scuttler, arrested in 1894 for the theft of a pigeon in Salford, a shawl in Rochdale, and for burglary in Manchester. For this we was sentenced to a combined 10 months and 14 days in prison.
Chief Constable Cedric Godfrey
One of the most successful periods in Salford’s policing history begins in 1908, when Major Cedric Godfrey became Chief Constable, a position he would hold until 1946 in one of the most impressive police careers in the 20th century. His first decade as Chief Constable would see the introduction of the first motor vehicles, telephone networks and police boxes to Salford.
Salford Borough Police were among the first to install police boxes for their constables, serving as both a rest stop for police officers and as a telephone kiosk for the public.
Salford in the 1920s
Salford was granted city status by the crown on 21 April 1926, and the Salford Borough Police became Salford City Police shortly after, though this did little to change the internal structure of the force at the time. Salford in the 1920s was a place of significant cultural, social and economic change, and the Salford City Police had to adapt to meet these challenges.
Chief Constable Cedric Godfrey with the Salford Borough Police shortly before becoming Salford City Police.
Prominently, Salford in the 1920s saw a high rate of violent crime, especially in and around the canal where both high unemployment and immigration led to tensions between different communities and the police. Whilst the infamous ‘Scuttlers’ youth gang based in and around Salford had mostly disappeared by the 1920s, new gangs emerged to control the canal-side racketeering business. A common dimension of this criminal activity was illegal gambling and bookkeeping, which by the 1920s had become a national issue. Increased police presence along the canals led to confrontations with violent youth gangs, and rioting communities struggling to make ends meet as the canals slowly fell out of use.
‘Take this home to your parents’ – The Salford City Police Road Safety Campaign
One of the less well-known challenges faced by the Salford City Police in this time was the growing death toll on roads, especially of children. Whilst motor vehicles were present in the UK at the start of the 20th century, it was only after WWI that petrol cars become widespread, with the first real boom in car sales taking place in the early 1920s as model of cars became increasingly affordable. Salford in the 1920s saw a large increase in cars on the road, but there was almost no standard safety information about road safety for drivers and the public.
Salford was granted city status by the crown on 21 April 1926, and the Salford Borough Police became Salford City Police shortly after, though this did little to change the internal structure of the force at the time. Salford in the 1920s was a place of significant cultural, social and economic change, and the Salford City Police had to adapt to meet these challenges.
The Salford City Police Road Safety Committee, complete with a stylish Rolls-Royce, and even more stylish moustaches.
Chief Constable Cedric Godrey identified that the lack of road safety awareness education was a key issue, and in response launched one of the UK’s first major road safety campaigns, complete with safety films, posters and pamphlets. Campaign literature was shown in Salford’s schools by the police, educating over 20,000 children about how to safely cross the road. This, combined with Salford City Police shutting several key streets in and around schools to traffic, created safer environments for children in Salford. Salford City Police’s road safety campaign would continue into the 1930’s, and is now regarded as a pioneering safety campaign, with Chief Constable Cedric Godfrey being considered the country’s foremost expert of road safety until his death in 1946.
Policing the City of Salford: 1930s to Today
Salford City Police continued to adapt and support Salford’s transformation over the next 100 years.
WWII saw Salford heavily damaged by the so called ‘Christmas Blitz’ in late 1940, with hundreds of casualties and Signiant destruction of property including the destruction of the Salford Royal Hospital in June 1941. It was during this time that the first women were accepted into the Salford police force, with women joining the motor section in around 1942, and the first known Salford Police women appearing in 1945.
Chief Constable Cedric Godfrey, after 38 years leading the Salford police, would die of natural causes whilst working in his office in 1946 at the age of 70. He was succeeded by Alexander Aberdein.
In 1957, Salford City Police had its headquarters moved to a new building, the Crescent, which opened on 24 September 1957 and overlooks Albion Place.
Salford City Police Headquarters, The Crescent, photographed shortly after its opening in 1957.
The Crescent remained an operational police building until its closure in 2005. This historic 6,480 square metre police station was saved from demolition in 2013 due to its historic design.
Salford City Police would eventually merge with the Manchester City Police in April 1968, forming the Manchester and Salford Police.
Police officer, pictured alongside a Jaguar MK2 in Salford,1968.
The merger would only last six years before Salford (which was until this point part of Lancashire) was amalgamated into the newly formed Greater Manchester Area in 1974. At the same time Manchester and Salford Police merged alongside a dozen other constabularies to form the Greater Manchester Police, which is divided into 10 divisions, with Salford becoming F-Division.
Photograph of the 2007 class of Salford Police Community Support Officers (PCSO).