Northamptonshire Constabulary
1840 - 1966Mr Thomas Orde Hastings Lees, Chief Constable of the Northamptonshire
Born in 1847, at Renvyle, in Connemara, a wild but beautiful district in County Galway, Mr Thomas Orde Hastings Lees is son of the Rev. John and Lady Louisa Lees (daughter of the 11th Earl of Huntingdon). He was educated for the Navy at the Royal Naval School, New Cross, and the Royal Academy (Burney's), Gosport, spending also much of his early life on shipboard, with his uncle, Captain George Hastings, a popular naval officer, afterwards Commander-in-Chief at the Nore. Mr Lees, however, did not take to the Navy, but determined on a University career and for that purpose entered Trinity College, Dublin, where lie graduated B.A., subsequently proceeding to the degree of Master of Arts.
Shortly before he had finished his University course he was attracted by the idea of Police work in that famous corps the Royal Irish Constabulary. Obtaining a nomination for that service, he secured in November, 1868, first place at a competitive examination for cadetships. He served for seven years in Ireland, principally in the disturbed counties of Mayo and Tipperary, and owing to the Fenian outbreak and the exigencies of the times, saw a considerable amount of active service, being one of the few officers awarded "good service pay" for special Police services. In 1875 Mr Lees was appointed Chief Constable of Northamptonshire, for which post there were 168 applicants. To a great extent he remodelled the Force, and compiled a Police Code, the copyright of which he was presented with by the Court of Quarter Sessions. In 1881, private family affairs requiring, for a time, his undivided attention, he resigned his appointment.
Having been some years previously called to the Bar of the Middle Temple, Mr Lees, on his retirement from the Police, attached himself to the Midland Circuit, and having a good connection throughout the Midlands he in a short time secured a fair criminal practice.
Mr Lees was subsequently selected as a candidate for the Eastern Division of Northamptonshire. Owing, however, to the effects of a severe attack of pleurisy he had eventually to resign his candidature, and for a time to give up all active political and professional work, spending his winters on the Riviera and in Corsica, and his summers at a pleasant home he had at Guilsborough, in the centre, of the Pytehley country.
During this period of enforced idleness Mr Lees had leisure to rearrange and improve the Police works he had written and edited, viz., "The Constable's Pocket Book," now in its seventh edition, and "Snowden's Police Manual," a standard work of some 500 pages.
Whilst at Ventnor, in the spring of 1890, he, without any premeditation, offered himself as a candidate for the Chief Constableship of the island, then for the first time made a County under the provisions of the Local Government Act, 1888. Although an eleventh-hour candidate, and in a way a "rank" outsider, Mr Lees' Police qualifications carried the day, and he was selected as their first Chief Constable by the Standing Joint Committee. In 1892, he was elected President of the Chief Constables' Club, or Association.
