A FORMER police officer in Cockermouth who died as a result of serious injuries sustained at work in 1888 has been added to the national Roll of Honour.

Historian Ray Greenhow came across the death of an officer, Robin George Musgrave, while researching a county police matter and flagged it up.

Mr Greenhow, a retired police inspector who lives near Carlisle, said: “Basically, he had been an officer for a number of years, got moved to Cockermouth and appears to have been severely beaten in 1887 whilst trying to arrest an offender. The injury caused him to retire on ill health, and he died of it within a year of retirement.

“As the injury was related to his duty the National Roll of Honour have decided to include his death on the roll.”

Mr Greenhow has been researching police records and newspaper reports for the past five or six years, identifying police officers who died as a result of their work and should therefore be included in the force’s Roll of Honour. “I have identified up to 400 nationally. This is the second county officer, the first was PC James Armstrong who fell off a crag near St John’s in the Vale, on September 30, 1847,” said Mr Greenhow.

The crag is known as ‘Policeman Crag’ but people had forgotten why it was named this. Mr Greenhow discovered that PC Armstrong had fallen 300ft from the crag at Wanthwaite when returning from the execution of a warrant for a non-payment of a fine at Pooley Bridge.

Mr Greenhow has written two books, inspired by stories he has come across while doing research. The first was about John Kent, the country’s first black policeman who was stationed in Maryport in 1835. The other was about five young women - all factory workers on an educational trip from Lancashire - who drowned in Derwent Water in 1898.

Regarding the latest addition to the Roll of Honour, Mr Greenhow said: “I’m chuffed to have PC Musgrave on the Roll of Honour. He was a police officer bravely doing his duty and he took a severe beating. It’s only right he should be remembered and honoured.”

It reads: “PC Robinson George Musgrave, aged 40, Cumberland County Constabulary, while conveying a prisoner to the lock up in January 1886 was attacked by the prisoner and severely injured. The officer was medically discharged from the Force due to his injuries but subsequently died from them on the 10th April 1888.”