One of Jonathan Standen’s press adverts, from the Manchester Courier of 27 February 1905 (via British Newspaper Archive)
Jonathan Standen's life seemed marked out for him. Although he was the son of a coal miner, he was born and bred in the Blackburn area of Lancashire, where many of the residents worked in the cotton industry. As soon as each of the Standen children reached 13, they started work in the local cotton mill, as weavers - a dangerous job. Jonathan too started work as a weaver, and continued to do so for some years, alongside his siblings.
Yet unlike many of his contemporaries, he managed to change career. In his early 20s, he joined the police in Manchester, and settled into police lodgings as a constable. Although the 1881 census records him as a single man, within a few months, he would be married - he married Kate Liddy back in his hometown in 1881, aged 27.
In March 1882, a life-changing event happened to the police constable. a 46-year-old labourer named Thomas Edwards was charged with attempted murder. He had tried to kill PC Jonathan Standen.
Just after 1am on 9 March, Standen had been on duty in Oxford Road. A local photographer, 23-year-old Frederick Doncaster, who had a shop by tea dealers Messrs Black and Green's, came and told him that someone was trying to break into Black and Green's - the shop, at 75 Oxford Road, looking onto the canal. PC Bicknell, who was with Standen, went to the rear of the shop, while Standen was at the front. *
Doncaster signalled to Standen to go into his shop to listen for noises next door. He could hear a noise from the back of Black and Green's, and looking out of the window with the aid of his flashlight, he saw two men trying to get access to that shop through the cellar window. Thomas Edwards was one of the men, and was breaking the wall at the end of the window. Both the men were holding iron bars.
On seeing Standen's light, one of the men ran off. Edwards then walked towards Standen, and as he got level to the constable, Standen jumped out of the window, landing over five feet below on the ground. He seized Edwards, who immediately raised the iron bar and hit Standen on the back of his head. Luckily, Standen was wearing his police helmet, which took the force of the blow - although it broke the chin strap and the helmet fell to the floor.
Although shocked, the constable immediately drew his staff and whacked Edwards on his head. Edwards' accomplice tried to run away, but Edwards shouted,
"Don't leave me, Billy! Come back and land him one."
Billy obeyed, and while Standen was trying to get Edwards' iron bar from him, Edwards threw it to Billy, who then hit him hard on the front of his head, knocking him unconscious. He was taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary, where he stayed a week.
What happened to Edwards and his mate Billy? PC William White had been on duty nearby, and had also been told that someone was trying to break into Messrs Black and Green. With a further officer, White went towards the premises, but when he reached the canal bank, he saw two men running towards him. On recognising that they were constables, the two men turned round and ran away. White and his colleague gave chase, and, after a struggle, managed to grab one of the men on the tow-path. He took him to the police station and charged him.
The man he had grabbed was Thomas Edwards. Edwards was tried at the Manchester spring assizes the following month. His accomplice had escaped, and despite him being the man who had given Standen the more serious blow, he was identified by the constable as the man who had struggled with him, and he was found guilty not of attempted murder by of wounding with intent to commit GBH. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.
The 1891 census for Rial Street, Hulme, states that Standen was a tailor. He was still in the police at this point (TNA/TheGenealogist)
Records of Standen's career are confusing. The 1891 census suggests that Standen, after this horrific incident, left the police and became a tailor. However, a later press piece suggests that he remained with the police beyond this point, gaining promotion to sergeant in A Division (he had previous been in D), and retiring with a police pension in June 1899, after 22 years' service. Perhaps the census enumerator in 1891 got confused with another household, or simply misrecorded Standen's job. He is certainly mentioned as a sergeant in relation to various cases from 1885 until his retirement.
Standen, after his retirement, appeared as a witness in a slander case at court, stating that he had been in the detective department for all but five years of his police service, and on night duty, his task was to 'watch the theatres for thieves and bad characters'. He also spent five years helping to suppress betting houses and brothels, and that as a result, 'most of the street walkers in A Division had been known to him'!
After his retirement from the police, the desire to track down 'thieves and bad characters' remained with him, and by 1901, this former cop and father-of-four had become a private detective in South Manchester. He continued to work as such until his death in 1907, aged 53, his advertising emphasising his status as a former detective-sergeant.
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