I did an article recently about Russian Bolshevik sailors who refused to unload their cargo of timber they had brought from Archangel at Salford Docks, the authorities decided to expel them back to Russia with a guard of policemen from Salford led by Detective Sergeant Lamb, leading the escort to Tilbury Docks in London. Detective Sergeant John Lamb aged 43, lived in Cross Lane police station with his wife and he was a well know figure in the area, his beat was Cross Lane, Trafford Road and Regent Road and as can be imagined you had to be tough to patrol those areas, and several stories I have read about him and the arrests he carried out, show this to be true, old school I believe they call it. As the Russian sailors were being put on a ship to Petrograd and the operation had gone smoothly, D.S. Lamb had a brain seizure at the docks and was taken to Poplar Hospital were he sadly died. His body was brought back to Salford in a "polished oak coffin" and left overnight in the police station awaiting burial. The Salford City Reporter newspaper covered the story in great detail and I have used some of their reporting of the days events, which says there were several thousand people lining the streets to see his funeral cortege and pay their last respects with women forming the majority of the crowd who... "made no effort to hide there tears" Eight bare headed policemen, P.C.s Callan, Nicholls, Clarke, Neary, P. and D. Gorman, Gleeson and Welby carried the coffin to the hearse from inside the police station as men in the crowd took off their hats. The funeral cortege which was half a mile long was headed by 100 uniformed policemen including mounted police officers the mourners included all the top ranking Salford policemen with representatives of the Dock police, Salford Fire Services, Manchester Ship Canal, London Midland and Scottish police forces, Lancashire County Constabulary, NSPCC, and the RSPCA. It proceeded along Trafford Road with crowds reported as being seven deep on the pavements, at Trafford bridge three Salford Corporation buses were laid on take the 100 police officers onto Southern Cemetery via Stretford Road, Chorlton Road and Wilbraham Road. It was reported that crowds had lined up in Bexley Square and New Bailey Street expecting the cortege to pass that way and were sorely disappointed to have missed it. At the graveside Mrs Lamb was overcome with grief and had to be supported by family members, the Hymn, Abide with me was sung by the assembly as Ivy leaves were scattered over the coffin. altogether there were 32 wreaths sent by various societies to which he had links. The Freemasons, The Buffaloes, and the local tug of war team. A sad end to a well respected Salford policeman whose name crops up regularly in pages of the now defunct Salford City Reporter.
