Vancouver Police Department

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) was a Canadian law enforcement agency which was active from 1886 to 1933. It was responsible for policing the City of Vancouver, as well as the neighbouring communities of Kerrisdale, Marpole, and Point Grey, which at the time were unincorporated areas within the Lower Mainland, at the time one of 33 counties of the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC). The VPD was formed on 10 May 1886, when Vancouver's first police officer, Chief Constable John Stewart, was appointed by the first meeting of the Vancouver City Council. By 1933 the department had grown to 1334 members including 1088 sworn constables. Following these three communities' incorporation as municipalities between 1911 and 1922, the three respective newly-formed local governments contracted policing responsibilities to the VPD. Following the passage of the British Columbia Police Act on 10 July 1933, which significantly reformed law enforcement structure and practices in the province, the British Columbia Provincial Police (BCPP), one of the province's oldest law enforcement agencies but until then only responsible for provincial-level policing, was given the new responsibility of providing all local policing services within all counties and municipalities in the province, and the VPD and the province's 13 other municipal agencies were formally dissolved, their command structures and personnel incorporated into the new BCPP.