Mr Hyde, who died after riding his bike

William Hyde was a well-known private detective who advertised in the south-east London press. His last press mention, though, was for his sudden death...

One of William Hyde’s classified ads in the Croydon Times

When he died, in 1944, William Henry Hyde had been enjoying a peaceful retirement. In fact, he had just been for a bicycle ride in South Norwood, south-east London, where he lived, when he suddenly passed away. His death merited a brief obituary in the local Norwood News, which noted that he was both a 'well-known private detective' and a former Metropolitan police officer, stationed at nearby Sydenham.

Many private detectives in London had been former Met officers and detectives. One learned useful investigative skills on the job, and after 25 years' service, you could retire on a police pension. However, many Met men were still relatively young when they retired, and were not ready for a pipe and slippers. Therefore, a good number started working as private detectives. Most worked for themselves rather than for agencies, and some started their own agencies.

The son of James Hyde, who japanned furniture for a living, and his second wife Phoebe, William had been born at Kingsland, Hackney, on 12 May 1877, and started his career in his early teens, working as an errand boy in West Ham. As his father had died when William was two years old, his mother worked as a machinist, and later as a tobacconist, in order to help maintain her children. Funnily enough, as the mother of a future police constable, at the time of her marriage to William's father James, Phoebe had been living at 3 Constable Alley in Shoreditch.

William’s entry in the 1901 census for Leyton

At the age of 21, the tall, grey-eyed William enlisted with the Metropolitan Police, joining on 7 November 1898. In 1900, he married Charlotte Shaw, and on the marriage register, his profession is listed as police constable. By 1901, William and Charlotte were living in Leyton with their baby son - named after his father. William and Charlotte would go on to have three more sons - James, Frank and Stanley. He would move around London during his life, for by the time youngest son Stanley was five years old, the Hydes would be living in Camden Town. He would also gain promotion; by 1911, he was a police sergeant.

Crystal Palace, a Sydenham landmark

By 1921, William and his family had again relocated, this time south of the river. In November 1923, he retired, receiving a pension of over £153 a year. He had served 25 years in the police, but was still only 46 years old. Unsurprisingly, he still wanted something to do with his weekdays, and so established himself as a private detective. Although it's not possible to say when he started work as such, it was certainly by 1925, when he placed an advert in the Croydon Times:

"Detective work, confidential inquiries, all matters, assured skill. Mr Hyde, 60 Kirkdale, Sydenham. 'Phone Sydenham 3104."

The initial adverts did not explicitly state his new job title, but by March 1926, they did, as this advert in the Bromley and West Kent Mercury shows:

"Divorce evidence, shadowing, confidential inquiries, all matters: consult Mr Hyde, private detective, 60 Kirkdale, Sydenham. 'Phone Sydenham 3104."

Over the next five years, similar adverts would be placed in the Bromley and Croydon newspapers, all taking the same format, but with different addresses, as the Hydes moved from Sydenham to South Norwood. There are no surviving newspaper adverts beyond the summer of 1931. Perhaps this is when Hyde formally retired (again); certainly, by 1939, he described himself on the 1939 Register as a pensioned Metropolitan Police Officer, rather than as a private detective, suggesting that his pension was now his sole income. Sadly, perhaps as a result of the exertion caused by his bicycle ride, his retirement was not as long as it might otherwise have been.