Seeking wartime detective work

One Mancunian former private detective was keen to continue in the field during World War 1

Harry Lowndes only worked briefly as a private detective - but during World War 1, he made clear that he enjoyed the work and that he would welcome the opportunity to continue with some kind of detective work as part of the war effort.

In 1911, he had been a private detective living and working in Hulme, Manchester. He had had a variety of former careers, however, in common with many in his line of work.

Harry was born in Ardwick in August 1875, the son of William - a carter - and Sarah. Both his parents were originally from Cheshire, but Harry would live in Manchester most of his life. He did not immediately follow his father into railway carting, as at the age of 15, he was labouring at the Hay Corn Stores.

He married Minnie Hampson on 10 June 1897, and the couple had four children - Minnie, Harry, Florrie (who died aged four) and Wilfrid. In 1901, when Harry was working as a carter, he was living with his wife and eldest daughter in Openshaw; five years later, he was working as a foreman at a cable makers, and living in Trafford Park. There were eight years between the eldest child, Minnie, and the next in age, Harry, although the Lowndes family never mentioned having had more than four children - could Harry have been working away from home at this time, or were there other reasons for this absence of children during this time? The archives do not say.

In 1911, Harry and his family were in Hulme, where he described himself as working as a private detective, and they were still there in 1915, by which point Harry was now a chauffeur.

At the age of 39 years and 11 months, in July 1915, he enlisted with the Army Service Corps at the age of 39 years and 11 months. Two years later, he claimed to be a civil police sergeant who was currently serving in the Army Service Corps in Sydenham as a military police sergeant; he volunteered for national service at this point, stating that he was 'willing to serve as policeman or detective in munition factory, docks, or railways, or on any police duty'. It appears to have been this two years - maximum - of police experience that led to Harry describing himself later in life as an 'ex-policeman', although he was clearly keen to continue taking on detective work.

Harry’s national service application (From The National Archives’ WW1 service records, on Ancestry

He served in the Expeditionary Force in France, but was left disabled - suffering from neuritis - as a result of his war service. When his daughter Minnie married in Manchester in 1920, she listed her father simply as a sergeant in the Army Service Corps. His enlistment record with the army shows that Harry was five feet eight and a half inches tall, and his only distinctive mark was a mole in the centre of his stomach. His average height and lack of any unusual features would have made him an ideal physical candidate to be a private inquiry agent. However, after he was disabled, and being discharged from the army in July 1920, he appears to have at least briefly gone to work in a restaurant.

The hand of a neuritis sufferer (from the Wellcome Collection, used under creative commons)

By 1929, Harry appears to have retired (his occupation in local directories being simply 'householder'), and for at least the next ten years, he lived with Minnie on Hulme's Clarendon Street. Although he said simply that he was an ex-policeman, he also seems to have worked as a cinema attendant following his private detective work. He died in 1941, and was buried in the city's Southern Cemetery.

Harry does not appear to have worked for long as a private detective; in common with many others in the profession, he had a chequered career that involved briefly following his father's footsteps, labouring, and police work. It was also not uncommon for older private detectives to 'retire' but then take on menial or administrative work in order to keep money coming into the household, and I've found several men who, like Harry, worked in cinemas in the inter-war years.

Interestingly, the 1911 census also suggests that he only worked part-time as a detective, having to supplement his income with other work. Under the section for occupation, Harry had written a long spiel which has then been crossed out either by himself or the census enumerator (it was too much for his entry, and took over the lines for his wife and children). He seems to have written that he also worked as a 'house to house distributor and advertising contractor'. As is often the case with these early 20th century private detectives, they wanted to work in the field, but it was a precarious and sometimes shortlived profession.