Windsor Castle was one of the first takers of intruder alarms – which didn’t come too soon for the security surveyor of the royal residence. That’s according to a file kept at the National Archives at Kew, west London.
The file WORK 19/1322 begins on May 1, 1948 with the master of the royal household Piers Legh writing to Sir Eric de Normann of the Ministry of Works, which looked after Windsor. Legh noted the burglaries around the country; ‘I can’t help wondering whether our precautions both here [Buckingham Palace] and at Windsor Castle are sufficiently up to date’. Only one old night watch man was inside the castle, Legh went on, ‘for the simple reason that these men are unobtainable’, in an era of full employment. Legh wondered about ‘a system of alarm bells such as we have on the glass case in the India Room at Buckingham Palace’. De Normann passed the letter on to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Harold Scott. The upshot was a survey by a Supt Hatherill at the Palace and Castle. Although Windsor had five floors, Hatherill was only looking at the ground floor, which held gold and silver plate; and the state apartments and royal suites on the first, main floor. Hatherill noted that most windows and doors on the ground floor ‘would present no resistance to any person wishing to effect an entry’.
Survey
In the porter’s room was the Castle telephone exchange; and a key cabinet, with keys of the locked rooms. In the day, a castle custodian ran the telephone exchange. At night, Ernest Wore, the night watch man ‘whose age is about 65’ was there; his main duty was as fire watcher. When he was making his rounds in the upper ward, the Trade Entrance, ‘which is never locked’ is entered by the police constable posted there.
Detail
Hatherill went into detail room to room. The library and prints room each contained collections worth £1m (a colossal sum then). Windows were not barred and were easily accessible from the terrace. Hatherill summed up that ‘any gang of thieves who gained entrance would have no difficulty in quickly clearing an enormous quantity of loot which would be worth thousands of pounds merely from a breaking up value’.
At Windsor, a Met Police inspector was in charge of two sergeants and 15 constables, doing three eight-hour tours of duty. A police office was at the main gate; the officers lived around Windsor. Visitors could go round the Castle in parties of about 30 or 40, conducted by uniformed guides. As a party went through the royal apartments, they were locked in each room and a custodian checked afterwards nothing had been tampered with and that no-one was hiding in the room. But on busy days, the Castle had perhaps 11,000 visitors, and it made no check on numbers coming and going. Hatherill commented: “It would be a simple matter for any person so desiring to secrete himself in the Castle.” On the upper floors, 30 maids were sleeping at night. If Wore had a mishap in the night, he would not be missed until 6am. Hatherill summed up: “It would be no more difficult to raid this part of the Castle [the ground floor] than a suburban house.” While police did patrol the grounds, they did not know about the inside if they had to go after burglars. As for the military guard, Hatherill and other officials on their visit in May 1948 were in civilian clothes. Hatherill scaled a wall but was not challenged. On a rainy night, the guards (so Hatherill alleged) stayed in their sentry boxes.
How to raid
Hatherill described how a determined gang of criminals could raid the Castle. After seeing the layout as visitors, they could use the guide book. They might remove floorboards and bricks, once inside, to quietly enter further rooms. Overall, Hatherill described himself as shocked, ‘and I can only surmise that the reason that [Windsor] criminals have not entered it before is that probably no-one believes such a vast treasure house is so lightly guarded.’
Most importantly, Hatherill called for a direct line from the Castle police office to the local police station, instead of having to go through the Windsor exchange. Hatherill wished for two or three night watch men, instead of one; but that was out of the question, due to the expense. For the important rooms on the ground and first floors, Hatherill recommended a Burgot ‘automatic telephone burglar alarm system’. When set off, it played a gramophone record to the police. At Windsor police station, assistant commander EJ Braby agreed with Hatherill, that the Castle was ‘wide open’. One building in Windsor already had a Burgot alarm laid on to the police station. Expense also was an issue where the Castle had so many windows; ‘the cost of making them burglar-proof would be too enormous’. The Monday, May 24, 1948 after Hatherill’s Friday visit to Windsor, he went to Buckingham Palace, where he didn’t find the same difficulties. The Palace had (and still has) a high wall; except for about 50 yards near Constitution Hill, due to damage during the 1939-45 war. There repairers had put a temporary iron fence, with barbed wire on top.
Hatherill described the gold and silver pantries at the Palace as ‘well protected’, because of barred windows and a steel door. Show cases in the India Room were fitted with an electric alarm, connected to the police room. A drawback (common to such alarms, then and for decades after) was that they were ‘extremely sensitive’ and even dusting might set off the alarm. Hence (again, as common over the years elsewhere) the alarm was sometimes turned off. Like Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace had police on site and soldiers as guards, from the nearby Wellington Barracks. The Tower of London already had an electric bell at sentry boxes.
A Burgot system for Windsor was costed at £2050; and with other alarms would total £4400. Among protective measures agreed at a meeting in July 1948 were a turnstile at the Castle, that ‘could count public visitors’. A younger night watch man would be appointed. Three sentry boxes would have telephones. And the Burgot alarms would be fitted, as Heatherill had recommended; from August, to take four months. The rental would cost about £14 a quarter. The timing suited the royals because King George VI (King Charles III’s grandfather) and Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) were due to leave for a long tour of Australia. What Heatherill had proposed for Buckingham Palace was ‘postponed indefinitely’.
