Photo Credit: with thanks to The Telegraph, photo credited from article - Edgar Maybanks, police officer who dealt with several high-profile sieges in London – obituary
WRITTEN BY: The Unpaid Coppa (@UnpaidCop) - Blog Contributor
Edgar Maybanks OBE OSTJ QPM (1933-2020) was Chief Commandant of the Metropolitan Special Constabulary from 1988 to 1994. Unlike other Chiefs, this was not the first distinguished position Maybanks held in the Metropolitan Police and was a position he obtained after retiring from the regular service.
Born in Buckinghamshire in 1933, he was the son of a baker. He attended technical college and joined the Buckinghamshire Constabulary Cadets (then called 'Junior Clerks'). He managed to join the as a Junior Clerk because his father knew the village Sergeant. In 1951 he was enrolled in national service, joining the Royal Marines. Following his two years of compulsory service, in 1953, he joined the Metropolitan Police. He was posted to Bow Street as a probationary Police Constable.
His first big assignment came with his promotion to Sergeant, where he was part of the team behind Operation Hope Not - the plans for Sir Winston Churchill's funeral. Afterwards, he was promoted to Inspector, posted to Kensington Police Station. While at Kensington, he was responsible for the protection of several VIPs homes, including Winston Churchill himself. When Churchill passed in 1965, Maybanks was called back to New Scotland Yard to help coordinate the funeral. Maybanks and the team slept in their NSY offices for 7 days.
He quickly rose through the ranks of the regular service, becoming Chief Superintendent by the time he was 36 and Division Chief Superintendent of Padding Green in 1975. He was thrown into his promotion, when he was called to deal with the 1975 Balcombe Street Siege - the IRA's plot to get them back to Ireland by taking hostages. Famously, Maybanks discovered an armoured military vehicle in a garage that was being used on a film set. It had no petrol and Maybanks had it pushed to the scene of the Siege. To the IRA men, the impression was that they had been surrounded by the Army. As a result, they released the hostages and the hostage takers were arrested.
The year after, in 1976, he was promoted again to Commander. His big assignment this time round was planning the Silver Jubilee celebrations. It did not take long for his next step. He was selected as one of two senior officers to go to the Royal College of Defence Studies for a year. On his return to NSY, he was promoted in 1979 to Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Westminster & North-West London.
Big events seemed to follow Maybank's promotions. A year after his appointment as DAC, in 1980, while acting as night duty commander, he was alerted of the Iranian Embassy Siege. He was instrumental in setting up a situation room, with collaboration with the SAS.
Unsurprisingly, in 1982, he awarded the Queen's Police Medal and elevated to Officer of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. He took a year out as DAC for personnel, but was said to have missed operation policing too much and returned to operations a year later.
Back in operations, he was called in as incident commander for the 1984 Libyan Embassy Siege, after the tragic murder of W/PC Yvonne Fletcher.
A year later, in 1985, he retired from the Metropolitan Police. But, by no means did he put his feet-up! He served for 12 years as the Honorary Steward at Westminster Abbey and was frequently called back to advise for major events, such as the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.
As was frequent in Maybanks policing career, he loved and missed the hustle-and-bustle of police life. Living up to this, three years after 'retirement' he was appointed as Chief Commandant of the Metropolitan Special Constabulary in 1988. It was reported by The Daily Telegraph that Maybanks modernised the MSC and made it his mission to integrate the MSC more with the Regular Service.
In 1993, Maybanks was made an OBE and in 1994, aged 61, he made a full retirement. Although, he continued serving on Police and Community Partnership Groups.
This blog entry was completed with extracts from The Daily Telegraph's 10 August 2020 article, 'Edgar Maybanks.' With thanks to them. Reproduced purely for educational purposes and full credit to the research of the newspaper. A special thanks also to Barchester Healthcare for publicising a taped interview with Mr Maybanks on YouTube, 8 December 2014.
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