I’m experimenting with putting resources online. From here you can access podcasts and research papers in progress.
Police control room lecture
The first is an audio download of a lecture I gave in 2008 at the Bishopsgate Institute in London. It’s an overview of a question that I’m very interested in: ‘What are the origins of the police 999 system?’
It’s here as one long file (c. 26 minutes; mp3; 9.1Mb) or as 8 shorter ones (c. 3 minutes each; mp3; 1.1.-1.3Mb)
One big track:
Shorter tracks:
1. Introduction: police on the beat
2. Radio and cars transform policing
3. Development of the control room
4. Railways: inventing the control room
5. World War I and the BEF
6. Air defence as the ‘missing link’
7. Control and work
8. Conclusion
The following are the texts of research presentations which I have made at various conferences and seminars in the past. You are welcome to read them but please do not quote anything from them without checking with me first. They are work in progress, and even if everything in them is factually correct (which I doubt), there’s a good chance that I’ve changed my mind since then.