SURREY Police representative Pc Nicky Warner attended Haslemere Town Council’s annual ceremony to remember town hero Inspector William Donaldson – the first policeman in the county to be killed in the line of duty.

Insp Donaldson died on July 29, 1855, after he was struck on the head with a heavy iron bar, when a drunken group of navvies stormed the town hall where one of their number was being held.

Mr Donaldson had been supervising the turning out of Haslemere’s pubs and enforcing the end of permitted hours when a riot broke out and the man who led the initial attack was arrested.

A crowd later surrounded the lock-up demanding the prisoner’s release, but he refused to give him up.

Haslemere Mayor Malcolm Carter was joined by fellow town and borough councillors, the Mayor and Mayoress of Waverley, Simon and Rosie Inchbald and Cranleigh Parish Council chairman Mary Foryszewski.

Henry Pelham, Insp Donaldson’s great, great grandson, was a special guest together with his wife Jean. The couple are currently completing a biography of Mr Pelham’s heroic ancestor.

Mr Carter read out an account of the Haslemere Riot of 1855 and town clerk, Lisa O’Sullivan, celebrated the efforts of local historian Jeff Harwood, who discovered the dramatic incident when he was researching the history of the Portsmouth to London railway in the 1980s.

Mr Harwood died in 2012. It was thanks to his research the annual commemoration was started in 1984, and he also tracked down and informed Insp Donaldson’s descendants of the ceremony.

Mr Pelham also spoke at Sunday’s ceremony to provide fresh information about his ancestor’s life before he joined the police – and the fate of his family after he died.

Guests observed the tradition of walking three times round the town hall: Once for the inspector, once for Constable Freestone, who was also attacked but survived his injuries, and once for Dr Bishop, who came to the assistance of both policemen on the fateful evening.

The mayor and Mr Pelham laid small posies near to the place where Insp Donaldson fell.