SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Many thanks chaps for all the info!!!

Just out of interest was Supt Young, involved in any other famous cases that have faded from memory, that I should be looking at?

I think that "famous cases that have faded from memory" is the clue here. I don't think he'll be offended if I say this, but iansmithofotley and I are now both quite old men - I'm 74. He joined Leeds City Police a couple of years before I did, but in general terms we are contemporaries. Walter Young was a contemporary of my late mother: an earlier generation.

As I hinted earlier in my comment about TV, senior detectives don't routinely go out dealing with things. Their normal role is as operational managers. The idea of the top investigator following hunches is misguided and for good reason. The investigation of the so-called Yorkshire Ripper is the classic example. To have reached the highest levels in the CID, Mr Young will have been involved in important investigations throughout his career and must have consistently worked well. I cannot think of any internal system of police recording that would note his famous cases. "Hitting the headlines" can be a matter of chance.

Talking of headlines, I don't know what sort of archives the YP and YEP maintain or how they might be accessed, but that might be one approach.

Hi The Station Cat,

Just as a matter of interest, Mick Agar and I have, quite freely, provided quite a bit of information about Walter Young in this post, please could you tell me how you knew about Walter Young and why you have a specific interest in him. Most officers who joined the Leeds City Police after about 1965 will not have known him or who he was, unless they were in the C.I.D. Were you a Police Officer or were you related to Walter Young?

Ian

Station Cat ,
Railway or police station ?

iansmithofotley wrote:Hi The Station Cat,

Just as a matter of interest, Mick Agar and I have, quite freely, provided quite a bit of information about Walter Young in this post, please could you tell me how you knew about Walter Young and why you have a specific interest in him. Most officers who joined the Leeds City Police after about 1965 will not have known him or who he was, unless they were in the C.I.D. Were you a Police Officer or were you related to Walter Young?

Ian

Hi Ian,

The information you & Mick have provided me with is greatly appreciated and for that I thank you!!!!

To answer your question why him................

As a hobby I collect & research police medals.

My usual sphere is Victorian medals to the Metropolitan Police, in doing so I have discovered some really fascinating stories. By chance I recently happened across Mr Young's LSGC medal. The person I bought it off, made mention of him being involved in the Pudsey case and I was curious to try and find out more about it and indeed him. Obviously with my normal research the bobby in question has been dead for over 100 years if not longer, but to research someone who served during living memory is proving to be very interesting indeed.

Regards,
Gordon.

dogduke wrote:Station Cat ,
Railway or police station ?

Police Station.

Hi The Station Cat,

Thank you for your reply.

Ian

I bumped into a former colleague this morning who is older than me. He knew Mr Young through work and described him as a very pleasant chap, but he didn't know anything about any cases he worked on. He did say that Mr Young's son-in-law had been a police officer who was killed in an accident involving a vehicle at Kirkgate Market.

(My informant's collar number was 62 for any ex-Leeds officers interested.)

Hi Mick,

The officer killed in the market was PC Reginald Keith Pickles (age 23 yrs.). He died when he was crushed by a reversing lorry in November1965. I remember the incident but I did not know the officer or his number. I did not know that he was related to Walter Young. He will probably have joined the Police at a similar time to your informant.

Ian

Ian, I think JMA was trying to preserve his "informant's" anonymity