Object Category: Social and Cultural History

 

Object Type: Painting

 

Object Name: Portrait of Chief Constable John Jackson

 

Service Category: Police

 

Accession: SHENE.2023.541

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Visual Description: Framed oil painting; a portrait of Chief Constable Jackson, seated in uniform.

 

Abstract: This portrait was commissioned to mark 50 years of police service by John Jackson, Chief Constable of Sheffield City Police. It was dedicated at a ceremony in the city’s Cutlers Hall in January 1896, and presented to Jackson by the 15th Duke of Norfolk. The artist was American Herman G Herkomer (1862-1935) a successful portrait painter. Herkomer studied in Paris, London and Munich, and exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Paris Salon. Other examples of Herkomer’s work are held by the Wallace Collection and Cambridge University.

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John Jackson, the subject of the portrait, was born in Cumberland. He served first with the Lancashire County Constabulary and then as Oldham’s Chief Constable. He arrived in Sheffield in 1858 to lead the Sheffield Police Force and remained as Chief Constable for 40 years. He enjoyed a great reputation in the city, celebrated for his personal bravery during the 1864 Sheffield Flood. He was instrumental in the commissioning of Sheffield’s West Bar Station, the first purpose-built combined Police, Fire and Ambulance Station in England. Jackson died in 1898, his obituary stating that his loss “creates a void in the life of Sheffield which it will be no easy task to fill”.

 

Service context: 19th Century Policing

 

Modern policing originated in the form of state-backed, centrally organised agencies which were established across England from c. 1829-1854. The ‘New Police’ were a response to the industrial age and replaced the fragmented policing system that had endured- with limited improvements- since the Middle Ages. They followed the model set by Sir Robert Peel’s Metropolitan Police and consisted of professional full-time officers. 19th Century police forces were often responsible for organising fire brigades and ambulance services in their local areas as well as maintaining law and order. The first detective units and ‘CID’ were set up in the mid-late 19th Century, with the first experiments in forensic investigation also being pioneered.

 

Object Date: 1895

 

Museum Collection: Core Collection

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Object Collection:  SFPM Collection

 

Source Category: Donation

 

Location: On Display