An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

The head­quar­ters of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is one of the most im­pos­ing build­ings in the cap­i­tal. Lo­cat­ed on St Vin­cent Street, it be­came a per­ma­nent home for the Trinidad Con­stab­u­lary (fore­run­ner of the TTPS).

The orig­i­nal con­stab­u­lary was in a rent­ed build­ing on Fred­er­ick St, but dur­ing the tenure of Sir Hen­ry Turn­er Irv­ing, funds were al­lo­cat­ed for a grand new ed­i­fice. Con­struct­ed in 1876, it orig­i­nal­ly ac­com­mo­dat­ed a po­lice court, res­i­dence of the in­spec­tor gen­er­al of the Trinidad Con­stab­u­lary (pre­cur­sor to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice), the Vol­un­teer Fire Brigade (un­til that body moved to its own head­quar­ters in 1895), and a pa­rade ground. A de­tailed de­scrip­tion of the fa­cil­i­ty in 1888 is as fol­lows:

"A lofty, sub­stan­tial ed­i­fice, built in the Ital­ian-Goth­ic style, of lime­stone, ob­tained from the Pic­cadil­ly (Laven­tille) quar­ries. It cost the im­mense sum of near­ly �90,000, but it is one of the few re­al­ly fine build­ings in the town, and the mas­sive clock-tow­er, with the large arched gal­leries above and be­low, serve to give it an im­pos­ing ap­pear­ance.

"There is a res­i­dence at­tached for the head of the force, be­sides quar­ters for non-com­mis­sioned of­fi­cers. The spa­cious, well-ven­ti­lat­ed dor­mi­to­ries present a smart and or­der­ly ap­pear­ance, as do al­so the store-rooms and kitchen, etc, clear­ly in­di­cat­ing a mil­i­tary su­per­vi­sion.

"The lofty recre­ation-room is fur­nished with news­pa­pers, draughts, domi­noes, etc, for the use of the men. The build­ings form a hol­low square, with an arched en­trance-pas­sage, lead­ing to a large open quad­ran­gle with­in, which is used as a pa­rade-ground. When the Vol­un­teer Corps was first start­ed this was for a long time its head-quar­ters, and it is on­ly quite re­cent­ly that it has mi­grat­ed to the new Drill Hall in Tran­quil­li­ty. The po­lice vote for 1886 was �28,134.

"The ar­moury con­tains Snider ri­fles, re­volvers, swords, all bright­ly bur­nished, and ready for im­me­di­ate use, if need be. Here are al­so the head-quar­ters of the Vol­un­teer Fire Brigade, a vol­un­tary in­sti­tu­tion, with a few paid fire­men, who, of course, have to give the whole of their time. The en­gines, hose, and oth­er ap­pli­ances are well kept, al­ways ready at a mo­ment's no­tice night or day, and have on more than one oc­ca­sion proved of the great­est prac­ti­cal util­i­ty.

"Cu­ri­ous­ly enough, in 1882 this fine build­ing, in spite of its be­ing the foun­tain-head of the po­lice and fire brigade sys­tems, and al­though it was even then com­par­a­tive­ly new, was com­plete­ly gut­ted by a dis­as­trous fire which broke out in the lamp-room. It was re­stored two years lat­er at a cost of �15,452, with con­crete floors for the up­per gal­leries and court-house, iron stair­cas­es, and fire-proof roof, ren­der­ing it much more sub­stan­tial and less li­able to de­struc­tion by fire than with the pitch-pine floors and stair­cas­es which the for­mer build­ing had.

"Men­tion has al­ready been made of the well-trained band of the po­lice. It is un­der the di­rec­tion of Mr Rudolph­sen (late Band­mas­ter of the Roy­al Mil­i­tary Col­lege, Sand­hurst), and plays reg­u­lar­ly on cer­tain days at fixed places of pub­lic re­sort in the town. The cour­tesy of the au­thor­i­ties will doubt­less al­low you a peep at the pho­to­graph­ic al­bum of crim­i­nals, by which you will get a glimpse of a few of the ras­cals of Trinidad, though doubt­less there are a good num­ber whose phys­iog­nomies do not adorn this art col­lec­tion.

"The view from the top of the tow­er opens out a de­light­ful panora­ma; the ball on the flag-post is reg­u­lat­ed to fall pre­cise­ly at mid-day (Green­wich time). In this build­ing the Stipen­di­ary Mag­is­trate of Port-of-Spain holds his dai­ly court ; and here, un­til quite re­cent­ly, was held the week­ly Pet­ty Civ­il Court. All these courts are oblig­ed to have a good staff of in­ter­preters. This is a nat­ur­al con­se­quence where the races of peo­ple are of such a mixed char­ac­ter. And, with re­gard to the oath, a Chris­t­ian must be sworn up­on the Tes­ta­ment; a Ma­hometan, up­on a part of the Ko­ran; a Hin­du, over a ves­sel of clear wa­ter to re­mind him of his own pre­cious Ganges."

Per­haps the most re­cent mem­o­ry of Po­lice Head­quar­ters is the gut­ting of the build­ing by fire dur­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup. For years af­ter­wards, the shell re­mained derelict un­til it was re­stored and once again has at­tained its for­mer glo­ry. Aside from its pri­ma­ry func­tion as a po­lice sta­tion, it al­so hous­es a mu­se­um of the Po­lice Ser­vice which is well worth a vis­it