Shanghai Municipal Police collections

上海国际公共租界巡捕房 The Shanghai Municipal Police collections include images gathered in the course of research on the history of the Shanghai Municipal Police (SMP), which was published as Robert Bickers, Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai (2003). This force policed the International Settlement at Shanghai from 1854-1943. These photographs have mostly come from relatives of some of the 2,300-plus British men who served in the force. Some were collected from the Shanghai Municipal Archives, or from contemporary published works. The subjects are varied, and there are images here of training, beat work, leisure and social life as well as formal portraits and identification photographs taken from SMP personnel files. We have not been able to identify a number of the men portrayed here in group or individual photographs, and we would be most interested to hear from those who might be able to help us put names to these Shanghai faces.