According to the census of 1831, the population of the village and parish of Wickham Market had grown to 1,202 persons and it extended over about 1,000 acres of arable, pasture and wood land that was worked by that same population. There was no manufacturing carried on in the parish and no trade or commerce other than the supply of the ordinary necessities required by its inhabitants. Surrounding Wickham Market were the parishes of Campsey Ash, Pettistree, Hacheston, Easton, Dallinghoo, Letheringham, Kettleburgh, Ufford and Marlesford, also wholly agricultural parishes. Since about 1800, many cottages in these adjacent parishes had been destroyed, with their occupants having sought refuge in Wickham Market where, during this same period, many cottages had been built. It was chiefly by these means Wickham Market became the centre of population in the district. With this centralisation it also became a home of immoral haunts for mischief and vice.

A voluntary union of the parish of Wickham Market with the surrounding parishes for the maintenance of the poor failed to coalesce in 1834. However, there was a willingness not long afterward for the parishes to band together against the criminal element in the district that resulted in the establishment of the Wickham Market Police Association in October of 1837. Supported by voluntary contributions, it comprised a district of the five parishes abutting upon and within 2 1/2 miles of Wickham Market. The Police Office was located centrally at Wickham Market and was always accessible to the subscribers for the purposes of giving or receiving information.

To render the endeavour effective, a Constable of the Metropolitan Police was engaged during the winter months at a salary of 28s per week. That Constable, Mr Richard Loader, one of two Constables appointed, joined the Metropolitan Police with Warrant Number 12545 on 17th March 1837 and was provided on loan to the authorities at Wickham Market. Given that his duties were confined to the winter months, PC Loader remained in the employment of the Metropolitan Police whilst engaged with the Wickham Market Police. The second Constable, Mr William Brooks, who was not a member of the Metropolitan Police, was paid 14s per week as an assistant. Mr Philip Dykes was nominally named Chief Constable, but the two Police Constables went about their duties with little intervention. The pair regularly kept a day and nightly Report Book wherein they recorded every circumstance of a questionable or suspicious nature. These were brought before the subscribers at meetings every Thursday fortnight.

During their first days of activity, on 19th October 1837, the Wickham Market Police Constables detained three poachers in possession of an air gun, large game nets and dogs. The men were charged with night poaching, with one of them subsequently sentenced to imprisonment at Ipswich Gaol for three months for his misdeeds. Poaching was not treated lightly when it came to issuing punishment. Upon the expiration of his incarceration he was to obtain two £10 sureties, one for his recognisance and one that he not re-offend within the period of one year. If he violated either, he would be subjected to a further six months of imprisonment with hard labour.

The discontent and opposition to the new policing arrangements at Wickham Market initially brought forth by the keepers and frequenters of public houses and beer shops soon gave way to order and regularity but not until fines had been levied upon the keepers of two of the latter. One of these convictions rose out of events occurring on the night of 18th November 1837. The keeper of a beer house was charged by PC Loader with keeping his house open for the sale of beer and for permitting persons to be drinking there between eleven and twelve o'clock at night contrary to the provisions of his license. After a hearing of more than two hours during which the details of the charges against him were meticulously laid out the man was acquitted of the same, however, he was found guilty of a further charge of refusing entry to his house at the time to PC Brooks, contrary to the Statute. For this offence he was convicted in the full penalty of £5 with £1 3s costs.

The success of the Wickham Market Police in the district was described in a report in April of 1839 by Chief Constable Dykes:

In order to join the new London and Brighton Railway Police, Police Constable Loader resigned his position with the Metropolitan Police on 31st August of 1838 and, in doing so, also his duties with the Wickham Market Police. Mr Loader was appointed a Superintendent in the Railway Police. Another Constable of the Metropolitan Police, PC John Land, took over PC Loader's winter duties with the Wickham Market Police. He was a more senior Constable of the Metropolitan Police, having joined before 1835. PC Land brought a sixty-two year old man before the Magistrates in March of 1840 for the theft of a willow basket, one silk and one cotton handkerchief, a piece of cloth, money and other articles of property taken from a cart. The Police Constable had located the items during a search of the prisoner's house. The man was found guilty and sentenced to six months' imprisonment, the last week specified to be in solitary confinement.

On 11th April, PC Land was deposed in the case of a stolen hen he had recovered on the 19th of March. The accused woman was found guilty and sentenced to one months' imprisonment. This was one of the last offences brought forth by a Police Constable of the Wickham Market Police.

That there was no future for the Wickham Market Police became abundantly clear a little more than a month earlier on 5th March 1840, when Sessions were adjourned at an Inn in Wickham Market for the purpose of appointing a Chief Constable for the new East Suffolk Constabulary that was soon to be introduced in the County. There were twenty-six candidates for the position and the field was quickly narrowed to four with Sub Inspector J H Hatton, for seventeen years of the Irish Constabulary, appointed. With the formation of the East Suffolk Constabulary on 21st April 1840, the Wickham Market Police were disbanded and the East Suffolk Constabulary soon occupied a Police Station in Wickham Market in their place.