Finding Fred: The Life of a City of London Police Officer

Frederick Tibbs began his service in the City of London Police in the 1920s as a uniformed constable walking the beat, but the course of his policing career was dramatically changed by the onset of the Second World War. Fred, a talented amateur photographer, was assigned to work in the force’s photography unit alongside Arthur Cross: for the rest of the war, they worked together to record and document the bomb-damaged landscape created by the Luftwaffe’s aerial bombardment of the City of London. Their partnership created what has become known as the ‘Cross and Tibbs Collection’, a series of several hundred photographs that together provide a unique record of the City of London in wartime. This talk explores Fred’s story, what his life as a police officer would have been like in a city he patrolled from the Roaring Twenties and through the war. We will also take a closer look at the stories behind some of the Collection photographs.

Speaker Biography Rebecca Walker graduated in English Language and English Literature from Oxford University in 1985. She became a police officer in 1993, serving in both Sussex Police and the City of London Police. During her time in the City, she was a Project Board member for the City of London Police Museum. She now researches and gives talks on police history, while also leading walks in London on a range of topics, including the history of policing in the Square Mile.