A. E. Bassom

Arthur Ernest Bassom OBE KPM (14 June 1865 – 17 January 1926) was a British police officer and one of the main pioneers of traffic policing with the London Metropolitan Police.

Bassom joined the Royal Marine Artillery as a Gunner at the age of 17 and gained the highest possible marks in his gunnery examinations and therefore the right to almost certain promotion. In 1886, however, just before he reached 21, the minimum age at which he could be promoted, he left to join the Metropolitan Police as a Constable. He was posted to "D" Division (Marylebone), but the following year was transferred to the Public Carriage Office at Scotland Yard, where he was to spend the rest of his life.

At the PCO his hard work, encyclopaedic memory and innate understanding of traffic problems led to rapid promotion. In 1901 he was promoted to Chief Inspector in charge of the branch. In 1903 Bassom saw the introduction of London's first motor cab. After completing a course in motor engineering at the Regent Street Polytechnic, he produced the Metropolitan Police Regulations for the Construction and Licensing of Hackney (Motor) Carriages, 1906 (The Conditions of Fitness for Motor Hackney Carriages). This document, which included the requirement for a 25 ft turning circle, influenced the design of London cabs for the next one hundred years. In 1906 he received a promotion to Superintendent on merit. It was said that he could visualise any part of the seven hundred square miles of the Metropolitan Police District and give an analysis of its traffic problems and possible solutions. Commissioner Sir Nevil Macready once admitted that Bassom was the one man in the Metropolitan Police who was indispensable. So much so that when he reached the retirement age of sixty for officers below Chief Officer rank in 1925, he was promoted to Chief Constable and given the title of Director of Traffic Services in order to retain him. He died the following year still in office.

Bassom also had a detailed knowledge of motor mechanics. He visited nearly every town in the United Kingdom and many in Europe to observe their traffic problems. He framed "the Knowledge", the test that has to be undertaken by all London taxi drivers to this day, and devised the Bassom System of London bus route numbers.

Bassom was awarded the King's Police Medal (KPM) in 1919 and appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1920 civilian war honours.