Robert Mark

QPM
Mark in March 1977
Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
In office 17 April 1972 – 13 March 1977
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	Edward Heath Harold Wilson James Callaghan
Preceded by	Sir John Waldron
Succeeded by	Sir David McNee
Personal details
Born	(1917-03-13)13 March 1917 Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester
Died	30 September 2010(2010-09-30) (aged 93)
Profession	Police officer
Military career
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1942-1947
Rank	Major
Unit	108th Regiment (Lancashire Fusiliers), GHQ Liaison Regiment of the Manchester Regiment
Awards	see: Honours section

Sir Robert Mark

When he left school in 1935[2] he got a job as a carpet salesman, but finding this boring,^[3] in 1937 he joined Manchester City Police as a constable, much to the dismay of his father, who considered it beneath him and said becoming a policeman was only one step above going to prison.^[3][1] While still a probationer he joined the plain clothes branch, mainly dealing with vice,^[2] and in 1938^[2] he joined Special Branch.

Army service

In 1942, he joined the British Army, trained at Sandhurst. Mark recalled a test for claustrophobia which involved being tipped down a 45-degree drainpipe into a pitch black chamber with two false and one actual exit.^[4]

He was commissioned into the Royal Armoured Corps in October 1943.^[5] He initially served with the 108th Regiment (Lancashire Fusiliers), but through the influence of his elder brother James, who worked at the War Office,^[3] he then transferred to the Manchester Regiment in December 1943,^[6] attached to the GHQ Liaison Regiment, known as Phantom, which provided liaison with special forces units. With them, he took part in the Normandy landings. In 1945 he was promoted captain and posted to the military government at Bad Oeynhausen in Germany, where he remained until his demobilisation as a major in 1947.^{[citation needed]}

Return to Manchester

Returning to Manchester and Special Branch, he was soon promoted

Following the 1966 escape of the spy George Blake from Wormwood Scrubs, Mark was appointed to the Mountbatten inquiry into prison security. Here he attracted the attention of Home Secretary Roy Jenkins,^[3] and in February 1967 was appointed Assistant Commissioner "D" (Personnel and Training) of the Metropolitan Police,^[7] where his welcome was less than ecstatic from a force that did not like outsiders;^[1] at the end of his first week, he was encouraged by Commissioner Sir Joseph Simpson to apply for the post of Chief Constable of Lancashire.^[2]

The following year he was briefly appointed Assistant Commissioner "B" (Traffic).^[2] However, in March 1968, Simpson died in office. Peter Brodie, Assistant Commissioner "C" (Crime), was widely tipped to succeed him, but Home Secretary James Callaghan saw the opportunity to impose government will on the force and offered the job to Mark.^[2] Mark, realising that an outsider would not be accepted at this time, suggested the appointment of Deputy Commissioner Sir John Waldron, with himself succeeding Waldron as Deputy Commissioner.^[2]

CID reform

The Metropolitan Police had recently been rocked by exposure of massive corruption in the Criminal Investigation Department, and Mark, with the famous pronouncement, that "a good police force is one that catches more crooks than it employs",^[3] set about attempting to reform it. He changed disciplinary procedures, returned many detectives to uniform, made a number of television appearances praising the uniformed branch following student unrest and protests against the Vietnam War, and began to gather around him a group of loyal, ambitious uniformed officers who had not graduated from the old Hendon Police College.^[2]

The uniformed branch began to gain precedence and CID was increasingly put under uniformed command. In 1971, with Brodie, an old-school officer who commanded CID, out of the country, Mark formed A10, a special unit established to investigate corruption. Among those rooted out were

In general, he was supported by the uniformed branch, who were themselves exasperated with CID corruption.[1]

Appointed Commissioner

Following Waldron's retirement, he was appointed Commissioner on 17 April 1972.

Although popular with liberals for his stamping out of police corruption, Mark was himself far from a liberal, had no time for anti-establishment demonstrators and such groups as the

Ribbon	Description	Notes
	Order of the British Empire (GBE)	1977 Knight Grand Cross Civil Division
	Knight Bachelor	1973
	Order of St John (KStJ)	Knight of Justice 1978
	Queen's Police Medal (QPM)	1965
	1939–1945 Star
	France and Germany Star
	Defence Medal
	War Medal 1939–1945
	Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal	1953
	Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal	1977 UK Version of this Medal
	Police Long Service and Good Conduct Medal

Mark received the

Following his resignation, he became a director of the private security consultancy Phoenix Assurance and Control Risks. From 1970 to 1978 he was a visiting fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. In the late 1970s, he appeared in television adverts for Goodyear tyres and his "I'm convinced they're a major contribution to road safety" became a widely used catchphrase.^[14] (This advert was parodied by both Dave Allen and Not the Nine O'Clock News.)

In 1976, Mark travelled to the United States to chair a conference designed to assist the Washington, D.C.-based Police Foundation in setting up the Police Executive Research Forum, a think tank devoted to training police executives and improving management practices.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life

He married Kathleen Mary Leahy in 1941; they had a son and a daughter.^[1] She died in 1997. His memoirs, In the Office of Constable, were published in 1978. He also wrote Policing a Perplexed Society, published in 1977.

References