THE BSAP

Traffic Police duties Salisbury 1976 -photograph Dominique Hoyet

PATU Landrovers being deployed to the field -photo Anthony Seaward

A PATU stick being briefed on a terrorist sighting -photo Anthony Seaward

On tracks using dogs -photo Anthony Seaward

On patrol Zimbabwe Ruins -Anthony Seaward

BSAP Charge Office -a typical Station scene in Rhodesia -photo Anthony Seaward

THE BSAP -Wikapedia Encyclopedia
The British South Africa Police (BSAP) was the police force of the British South Africa Company (BSAC) of Cecil Rhodes which became the national police force of Southern Rhodesia and its successor after 1965, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Until 1899, the force also policed parts of BSAC territories north of the Zambezi River and now in Zambia.

The organisation was formed by the BSAC in 1889 as a paramilitary, mounted infantry force in order to provide protection for the Pioneer Column of settlers which moved into Mashonaland in 1890. The unit played a central role in both the First Matabele War (1893) and the Second Matabele War (1896/97). Until 1897 the force was called the British South Africa Company's Police. The BSAP operated originally in conjunction with the Southern Rhodesia Constabulary (SRC), the town police force for Salisbury (now Harare) and Bulawayo, but amalgamated with the SRC in 1909. As a paramilitary unit, the BSAP fought in the Second Boer War and in Tanganyika during World War I, while some members were seconded to the Rhodesia Native Regiment. From 1923, Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing colony of the British Empire, but the BSAP retained its title and its position as the senior regiment of the Southern Rhodesian armed forces. One of the first casualties of the BSAP in World War II was Keppel Bagot Levett, born in 1919, who died in active service with the BSAP in March 1941.[1]

A Criminal Investigation Department was founded in 1923; a Women's Section in 1941, and a Dog Unit in 1945. From 1957, the Police Reserve also had an airborne wing.

The BSAP's name remained unchanged by the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, although following the declaration of a republic by Ian Smith's government in 1970, the crown was removed from the BSAP's badge.