Parishioners in Torquay voted to have their own police under the provisions of the Lighting & Watching Act 1833.

On 3 August 1835, Charles Kilby (a poulterer) was appointed "Superintending Constable, Surveyor & Collector of Rates" on a £90 per year salary. The two parish constables already serving for the year were placed under his supervision and paid 16 shillings a week for their trouble.

Kilby referred to the constables as 'privates' and directed them like a militia, and in 1841 appointed four more to cover the parishes of Tormohun and Upton.

On 1 May 1857, Kilby was ordered to step down to make way for the county police. He was distraught, having faithfully served Torquay for two decades, and was refused a position in the Devon Constabulary on age grounds!

Torquay 'F' Division, circa 1899 (above ©Mrs Frances Peek). For over a century the Torquay division was always the F division right up until the modern times of Devon & Cornwall Constabulary. This photograph is typical of the size of such a division with senior officers still in their pill box caps. The gentleman in the bowler hat is a detective. In the rear row, second from the left, is a young Constable Potter, the great grandson of the last parish constable at Abbotskerswell. It was one of his daughters who was the prison warderess who sat with Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain, on the eve of her execution.