Toxteth, Southall, Moss Side, St Pauls, Brixton and Handsworth all send a shiver down the spine of anyone who was about in the 1980s. The list of names reads like some War Memorial to the inner city riots that swept across the country over twenty years ago: synonymous with inner city tension as our urban communities came to harsh physical terms with the then growing problem of non-integrated multi-ethnic communities.
    David Webb was the Police Superintendent in charge of the Handsworth District, in Birmingham, at the height of these troubles and was one of the driving forces behind the policies, which have helped shape our multi-racial society of today. The only difference with David was that, as he was right at the coal face, he actually had to implement them the hard way.
    I had arranged to meet David Webb in Handsworth; his booming voice giving me clear instructions as to where and when. It wasn’t hard to identify him, an immaculately polished motor car and a trim military hair cut were a quick giveaway. It was obvious that his early days in the Army had not been lost on him. A big smile greeted me at the window and a large friendly hand quickly followed.
    You cannot help but like David Webb. There are few airs and graces about him. He is still very much a community man, something which has not deserted him since his time as a village bobby, on his bike, in Hertfordshire, a time he describes as ‘when they knew you and you knew them and all you had for communication was a telephone call every hour’. When I asked him what was it like
    when he was appointed to Handsworth, he matter of factly replied that it was ‘crisis every day, you could sense the atmosphere’ and in comparison to his native Hertfordshire he commented that ‘you hadn’t got the hostility [as] with these young guys who had no job, no employment, absolutely nothing to look forward to and no prospect whatsoever. The Police, in Handsworth, were right in the middle of that.’
    And perhaps a crucial point about David Webb, is that he then remarked to me ‘..and I just said, no, its gonna have to alter. Lets see if we can make this into a village and say “Can we help on this, can we help on that and bring the community in”’.
    Webb quickly started to galvanise the community. The current Police system of graduated response calls is ‘totally unacceptable’ to David – he liked his Officers to be ‘out on the streets, where the Public can relate to them’. He quickly reintroduced the Permanent Beat Officer to Handsworth’s streets – a tried and tested formula which had worked so well in his junior days when he himself had been on the beat in village Hertfordshire.

Defusing ethnic tensions

From his Thornhill Road Headquarters, David Webb began to build long-lasting relationships with the leaders of the local racial groups. ‘We’ve got everybody here, the West Indians; the Asian groups - and the Bangladeshis don’t talk to the Pakistanis and the Pakistanis don’t talk to the Indians and the Hindus fall out with the Sikhs.’ He went on to explain that ‘There is a tension there between them all the time. Every action you take has a consequence elsewhere in the territory.’
    By David’s own admission, perhaps the key to his good fortune was that he was given complete autonomy over Handsworth, something which his successors do not necessarily enjoy. I reminded him of Warwick University’s Professor John Rex’s comments at a meeting of the Birmingham Community Relations Council in 1986, when Rex maintained that under David, Handsworth had effectively been a mini Police state.
    ‘Yes, it was a mini Police state. Ok, the iron fist in the velvet glove, but it was because we were there all the time. We had relations with each of the different groups and all the different projects, which they didn’t have with each other and the only organisation that could fetch them in to do things together was the Police. It was the only way we could unite them.’
    With an enthusiastic programme of Police-led activities, from sport to youth groups to promoter of one of the largest ethnic community festivals in Europe, David Webb’s command quickly assumed the leadership role Handsworth so desperately needed. His officers were embedded in the very heart of this culturally diverse suburb. Webb’s achievements over the five years he was in command of the area were quickly acknowledged and lauded by the press.
    However, it cannot escape notice that it was a National Front incited riot in 1981, not to mention a well aimed brick to his forehead, that signalled a sharp exit from the district and indeed subsequently the West Midlands Police. I asked him if such an apparently ignominious departure, with all his hard work in tatters, was a sadness for him:
    ‘Of course it was sad and I can be moved to tears now, 25 years later, as easy as I was then.’ He continued, ‘Yes, I had given it my all – I still have a telephone by my bed that rings at all hours of the night, and I was very upset that that was the response that had come, to see it go down the pan as, you see, I knew that it worked.’
    At pains to emphasise his own personal continued involvement in the local community, David goes on to illustrate the numerous local associations he chairs and the endless list of invitations he and his wife, Betty, receive to local community weddings, not to mention their annual trips to India. David, incidentally, has recently been highly instrumental in the raising of over £100,000 for three schools in Jalinder, India, for the Valmicki Society.
    Later, walking Handsworth’s streets, it was clear to see that David Webb is still held in considerable respect in the town. There was hardly a shop door or window we passed where he didn’t stop, have a few words or wave to a friend.

Freemasonry and the Police

David had previously told me that he had given Handsworth ‘his all’ and, when you hear this kindly souled man talk, it is clear to see that that is just what he meant. It is no surprise therefore to learn that David Webb, with his ably demonstrated ideals of respect, moral improvement and the promotion of brotherly love, should be a committed Freemason with over 38 years on the square.
    He played a pivotal role in the 1998 Parliamentary Home Affairs Committee investigation into Freemasonry and the Police, led by Labour MP Chris Mullin.
    The investigation focussed on allegations of masonic wrongdoing in the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad which may have affected the investigations of the Birmingham Six (the IRA pub bombings), and later the Stalker-Sampson enquiry into an alleged shoot to kill policy. Initially, Grand Lodge were slow to divulge to the Committee the names of those officers involved who were Freemasons. Masonry was seen, in some quarters, to be defying the authority of Parliament and Webb, as the most senior masonic member and police officer in West Midlands was approached by Mullin for comment and assistance.
    He appealed directly to the Provincial Grand Master, stating that ‘we should never allow the public to think there exists some secret agenda….or pursue activities which are subversive and unlawful and to their detriment’. His action resulted in the names being published. Of the 117 names involved in the investigation, Webb was able to prove sixteen were masons and only three, all junior ranks, took part specifically in the incidents under examination. ‘From that moment we hit him, saying, no way is Freemasonry involved in this and this is the reality of it, the matter has gone dead. I said to Grand Lodge, “No Way” and in actual fact if they didn’t release the names I would have done it myself, but luckily it didn’t come to that,’ he chortled.

Lodge of Universal Brotherhood

David Webb has always been very open about his long association with Freemasonry – ‘Absolutely, what’s wrong in it? I am not frightened of being identified, I am proud of it’ he bursts.
    ‘Everybody will judge Freemasonry by the people they know, therefore we should be open about it. In our Lodge of Universal Brotherhood - we set it up to show there should be no barrier, if it’s a white guy, a black guy – all are welcome. In Universal Brotherhood, we’ve got Sikhs, we have members of the Valmick community, members of the Ravidass community, the Low Caste Dalit communities in Hindu, they’re all members of our Lodge. They are respectable responsible members of our community. I will not allow, the same as I didn’t allow in Policing, any High Caste to say we are not having Untouchables in our Lodge. The first one that does that is out on his ear ‘ole. Masons can be of any group as long as they are responsible, respectable, lawabiding, all the things that we ask questions of in interview. We judge them on their standing as people.’ When I asked him about the old adage of promotion and masonry in the Police Force he was keen to put the record straight: ‘You can only get promotion if you pass the exams, and if you have recommendations from your supervisory ranks all the way up, some of whom may be masons but 99% of whom are not. In the old Birmingham City Police, where I was misrepresented to Stephen Knight (who wrote The Brotherhood, a sensationalised account of the Craft) by someone purporting to be me, it was alleged that you couldn’t get into any rank unless you were a mason as the Chief Constable himself was a mason. I have never experienced that in my service and I have never met anyone trying to use their masonic experience to alter things in the Police. But it has happened and, there were lots of incidents that have been quoted in Stephen Knight’s book and elsewhere. There are always going to be individuals in masonry who do not toe the line, just as in any other walk of life.” It is a joy to know that David Webb’s welcoming outlook on life puts those wrong doers to shame.
    David Webb was a founding member of the Lodge of Universal Brotherhood, No.9329, which meets in West Bromwich, Staffordshire. He is also a member of Cloisters Lodge, No. 7100, Letchworth, Hertfordshire, Mercia Lodge, No. 3995, Aldridge, Staffordshire, and Lodge of Universal Brotherhood, No. 9329, West Bromwich, Staffordshire. He was promoted to Grand Rank in the Province of Staffordshire in 1992.

David Webb’s book, Policing the Rainbow is available from www.thefreemason.com Telephone: 01299 822 333. It was reviewed in Freemasonry Today, Issue 31, Winter 2005.