Extract from the July 2010 edition of History Lines (No. 11)
Dan Tanner has very kindly sent me a photograph of a set of medals (1914-1918 war, Victory, Defence medal and Police Long Service (Geo V1)), issued to Augustine Sylvester Conlon, who was born in 1890 and was employed as a railway detective on enlistment into the MFP? November 16th? These medals are on display in the Royal Military Police Museum.
Conlon served in the Calais area, where his duties included plain clothes detective work, and as the stores QM. After discharge he once again worked as a detective for the Southern Railway. During World War 2 as a Chief Inspector in charge of Policing Southampton Docks. Kevin Gordon advises that there is a photograph of Inspector “Gus” Conlon on a course at Tadworth in 1938. This is presumably in the archive.
Extract from the August 2010 edition of History Lines (No. 12)
In the last edition I made reference to the medals of Augustine Sylvester Conlon and his enlistment into the MFP? Rob Davison informs me that this stands for Military Foot Police. Also Rob spotted my deliberate mistake of his photograph on a course in Tadworth 1938. Of course we did not use Tadworth then. Don’t know where the photo was taken. Well done to Rob for spotting it, he wins this month’s star prize, a week’s holiday in County Down.
WebMasters Note:
We have a couple of additional photographs of Augustine Conlon. The first probably solves the mystery of the 1938 photograph (as mentioned above). As we have a group portrait from that year from Southampton Docks:
Lastly a wartime picture of Chief Inspector CONLON supervising American GIs arriving at Southampton Docks just prior to D-Day in 1944.
Update:
After the publication of this webpage Dan Tanner advised the Royal Military Police Museum and they were kind enough to supply this photograph of a young Gus Conlon in 1914, during his RMP days.
UPDATE: July 2017
Steve Beamon adds some details from his research*:
1901 census shows him as living in Paddington with his family. Father was a Met. Inspector.
Augustus began working for the LBSCR at London Road Station as a temporary porter on 01.07.1909.
Moved to Havant as temporary porter on 26.07.1909
Moved to Midhurst as a permanent porter on 04.12.1909.
1911 census shows him as boarding in Midhurst as a porter.
16.12.1911 Started as Police Constable, London Bridge
16.11.1915 Appointed as Detective Officer
16.11.1915 Enlisted in Military Foot Police
12.03.1919 Demobilised
1933 Married poss. Honor E Buckmaster – Croydon
1947 Married poss. Frances C Lightfoot – New Forest
1966 Died Southampton
*includes records from LBSCR and Military on Ancestry.co.uk