The Boston Police Department (BPD) is the oldest police department in the United States. When first initiated by the City Council in 1824, the department was under the supervision of the City Marshal, and each division had a captain and two lieutenants. In 1838, the General Court passed a bill allowing the City of Boston to appoint police officers, which led to the formation of a formal department. The department was fully established in 1854 and was structured after the model developed by Sir Robert Peele for the London Police force. The BPD was also the first paid, professional public safety department in the country. First headquartered at City Hall on School Street, the department moved to 37 Pemberton Square, where it remained until construction began on 154 Berkeley Street headquarters in 1925. These headquarters served the department until 1997, when BPD moved into a new facility at One Schroeder Plaza.

The BPD underwent many operational changes throughout the years. Police initially communicated via a telegraph system that linked the central office and area police stations. In 1878, the first department telephones were installed on a trial basis. Over the years, the police department responded to a wide range of public safety issues, from delivering unpaid tax bills, surveying rooming houses, and taking the census, to armed robberies, homicides, and to public crises such as the Great Fire (1872), the St. Valentine's Day blizzard (1940), and the Coconut Grove fire (1942).

Sources:

City of Boston, Police Department. "A Brief History of The B.P.D." https://web.archive.org/web/20120304222909/http://www.cityofboston.gov/police/about/history.asp (accessed March 2, 2023).

Police Department annual reports and publications, 0600.006. City of Boston Archives. https://archives.cityofboston.gov/repositories/2/resources/221 (accessed March 6, 2023).

In 1895, the Massachusetts legislature transferred control of the Boston Police Department (BPD) from Boston's mayor to the governor of Massachusetts, whom it authorized to appoint a five-person board of commissioners to manage the department. In 1906, the legislature abolished that board and gave the governor the authority to name a single commissioner to a term of five years, subject to removal by the governor. The mayor continued to have responsibility for the physical working conditions of its employees and for the department's expenses, but the commissioner controlled the department's operations and the hiring, training, and discipline of the police officers.

The Boston Police Strike, in September 1919, was a strike of about 80 percent of Boston’s police force protesting the opposition to their attempt to organize a union. The Boston police force, which had sought affiliation with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) after World War I, was denied the right to unionize by the City’s Police Commissioner, Edwin Upton Curtis. On September 9, 1919, the police went on strike. Without police protection, the City quickly experienced increased robberies and riots. Mayor Andrew J. Peters called in several thousand members of the Massachusetts State Guard, supported by volunteers, to restore order by force. The police strike ended on September 13, when Commissioner Curtis announced the replacement of all striking workers with 1,500 new officers, who were given higher wages. The AFL would discontinue its attempts to organize police officers for another two decades.

Sources:

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Boston Police Strike." Encyclopedia Britannica, September 2, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/event/Boston-Police-Strike.

Russell, Francis. A City in Terror: Calvin Coolidge and the 1919 Boston Police Strike. Boston: Beacon Press, 1975.

Edward J. Fitzgerald was born in 1900 to Thomas Fitzpatrick and Martha (McArdle) Fitzpatrick. He joined the Boston Police Department in 1926, became a sergeant, and retired from the force in 1966. Fitzpatrick was a resident of Orient Heights in East Boston, and a member of the Knights of Columbus. He died on December 19, 1996 in Brighton, Massachusetts.

Source:

Obituaries. The Boston Globe, December 21, 1996. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/441079816/ (accessed March 6, 2023).