SIR FRANK SOUTER

The appointment of Mr. Souter, who was awarded the C.S.I. in 1868 and was knighted by H. R. H. the Prince of Wales in 1875, synchronized with a thorough revision of the strength of the force. As already stated, the period 1860-65 witnessed a phenomenal expansion of the town, in consequence of the great profits derived from the sale of cotton during the American Civil War. Much reclamation of land from the sea was carried out, the mill-industry throve apace, the town spread northward with amazing rapidity, and shoals of immigrants of all classes poured into Bombay in the hope of making a fortune or securing a livelihood from the many economic and industrial projects then floated. In the large army of workers that invaded the Island there were naturally many persons of bad character and shady antecedents, who soon found their level among the criminal classes and helped to swell the crime-returns. It was obvious at the date of Mr. Forjett’s retirement that the police-force had not been augmented pari passu with the growth of the population and the expansion of the residential area, and the Census of 1864, carried out by the Health Officer under the instruction of Sir Bartle Frere’s government, proved beyond cavil that the force was quite inadequate to deal with the population of 816,562 then recorded.

Accordingly in 1864 Colonel Bruce, Inspector-General of Police with the Government of India, was despatched to Bombay to investigate local conditions and make recommendations for the future constitution of the force. His proposals, which were approved and adopted in 1865, were briefly the following. The total force was to number 1456, as he was “unable to perceive that the work could be done with fewer hands”, divided under the following main heads:—

Land Police1239
Police Guards for Government buildings116
Harbour Police101
Total1456

Besides these, there were 84 police for the Government Dockyard, who had existed for several years and were paid for by the Marine Department, and a few miscellaneous police, who guarded municipal graveyards and burning-grounds and were paid for by the Municipal Commissioners. Neither these nor the Dock police were available for ordinary police work. Excluding the Harbour police, who numbered 101, the police force proper in 1865 was composed as follows:—

Superintendents6
Inspectors22
Sub-Inspectors12
Jemadars24
Havildars62
Men1216
Mounted Police13[88]

These numbers were appreciably in excess of the total strength of the force in Mr. Forjett’s time and placed the Bombay police on a level with the forces maintained in the sister-towns of Calcutta and Madras.

The office of Commissioner of Police dates also from Colonel Bruce’s reorganization of 1865. He proposed that the appointments of Police Commissioner and Municipal Commissioner should be amalgamated: but this suggestion was very wisely negatived by Government. The senior officer of the police force was thenceforth made responsible solely for the police administration of the city, with the title of Police Commissioner, while under the new Municipal Act of 1865 the executive power and responsibility in municipal matters were vested in a Municipal Commissioner appointed for a term of three years. From this date, therefore, the Commissioner of Police, though he still controlled the fire-brigade and sat on the Municipal Corporation as an elected or nominated member, ceased to exercise any official powers in regard to conservancy, rating, lighting and the water-supply.

For the first thirteen years of Sir Frank Souter’s tenure of office, the old system of Magistrates of Police and the Court of Petty Sessions continued unaltered.[89] In 1866, for example, when Sir F. Souter took furlough and Major Henderson was acting for him, the Senior Magistrate was Mr. J. P. Bickersteth, with Messrs. F. L. Brown and Dosabhai Framji Karaka as his colleagues. He was succeeded in turn by Mr. Barton, Mr. John Connon, in whose memory the John Connon High School was founded, and Mr. C. P. Cooper, who was in substantive charge of the office at the time of the passing of the Presidency Magistrates Act IV of 1877. This Act abolished the Magistrates of Police and the Court of Petty Sessions, and invested the Presidency Magistrates, who succeeded them, with powers to deal with all cases formerly committed to the Petty Sessions, and with a large number of cases formerly triable only by the High Court. Nevertheless the Chief Presidency Magistrate continued for a few years longer to submit an annual report to Government on the state of crime in Bombay, which contained inter alia a few returns, and occasionally a few remarks on undetected murder cases, by the Commissioner of Police.