The Police Forces of Southern Rhodesia
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3000300309 |
| Published date | 01 July 1930 |
| Author | H. Marshall Hole |
| Date | 01 July 1930 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The
Police Forces
of
Southern
Rhodesia 1
By
LIEUT.-COL.
H. MARSHALL HOLE, C.M.G.
Formerly Civil Commissioner of Bulawayo. Author of The
Making
of
Rhodesia, etc
I.
HISTORICAL
THE British South Africa Police, the backbone of the
defence system of Southern Rhodesia, has maintained a
continuous record of good work, through many vicissitudes
and with certain changes of name, for
just
forty years, having
been originally formed to assist in the occupation of Mashona-
land in June 1890.
In
those forty years it has seen an unusual
amount of active service in the field, and the history of the
Corps, of which only the barest outline can be given here, is
as full of picturesque incidents as that of many regiments of
the regular British Army. Its pedigree is really rather
longer;
for it is practically a lineal descendant of earlier frontier corps
raised, in the eighties of the last century, to preserve order in
the territories which skirted the old Cape Colony and the
Transvaal Republic-territories little known in those days to
the outside world, though they were the scene of constant
broils and disturbances. A few words as to these corps may
not be amiss, for they established traditions which have had an
enduring effect in moulding the character of the present highly
trained police force of Southern Rhodesia.
In
1884 civilisation had hardly laid a finger on any part of
South Africa north of the Orange River and west of the
Transvaal.
The
vast territory known as Bechuanaland was
sparsely inhabited by a number of native tribes who were
constantly at loggerheads among themselves, and these con-
1See
also'
The
British
South
Africa Police in
Southern
Rhodesia'
in The Police
Journal, Vol. I, p. 553. 435
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