After three months in this appointment, when he was beginning to find that there was nothing to do but to sit down and hold the place, he received a telegram from Mr. Childers, the Home Secretary, offering him the Chief Commissionership of the Metropolitan Police, at a time when there had been a considerable panic in London, and Sir Edmund Henderson had resigned the office. He accepted the offer, and left Suakin at the end of March. Before leaving he received a very sympathetic address from the merchants in Suakin, recognising the effort he had made on behalf of trade with the interior and along the coast.
CHIEF COMMISSIONERSHIP OF POLICE, 1886 TO 1888
In his new position Warren had several difficult and complicated problems to deal with. During the very first year of office the Trafalgar Square demonstrations, permitted by a weak Government, tested the powers of the police under their new chief to preserve public order. The Liberal party abused their own nominee, but he was firm. Then there were all the arrangements for the preservation of order at the Queen’s Jubilee in 1887, which were so ably carried out. He received many complimentary letters: one from the Home Secretary expressing her Majesty’s entire approbation of the excellent manner in which the arrangements for preserving good order were made by him; another from the Commander-in-Chief, H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, congratulating him on the admirable manner in which they were carried out, which in his opinion left nothing to be desired, and reflected the greatest credit on the Metropolitan Police Force; in a third the Prince of Wales, as Chairman of the Children’s Jubilee Festival, caused his thanks to be conveyed to him for the invaluable assistance he lent on the occasion; and finally Lord Salisbury informed him that he was very glad to be the medium of acquainting him that the Queen had been pleased to confer upon him, in special recognition of his exertions in maintaining order in the metropolis during the past difficult year, and of his services at the Jubilee celebrations, a Knight Commandership of the Order of the Bath.
In July appeared a cartoon in ‘Punch’ with the following legend:
All honour to your management, my Warren,
All honour to the force you featly led!
And that honour, Punch opines, should not be barren
(May he hear hereafter more upon that head).
’Midst the Jubilee joyous pageantry and pother,
(Though ’tis common of our Bobbies to make fun)