Arthur Montgomery Harington

Arthur Montgomery Harington (1847 – 1909) was a career officer of the British Army who was seconded to appointments in military and police departments throughout the British Empire. He is most notable as the founding Commandant of the British North Borneo Constabulary, but also served in the Egyptian Gendarmerie and Egyptian National Police for 20 years, holding the rank of Commandant of both the Cairo City Police and the Suez Canal Police.

Biography Born under the rule of the Company Raj in 1847, Harington entered into the British Army as an Ensign in 1867, at the age of 19.

Before the country could be officially established, however, it needed a police force. Certain members of the British Parliament, especially Henry Richard, were also hesitant to allow the country to station permanent British military forces there, afraid that they would be unnecessarily drawn into conflicts with people Britain had no quarrel with. Therefore, the new outfit had to serve a dual function, both as the new country's police force, and as its military.

Treacher appointed Harington as the inaugural Commandant of the newly established British North Borneo Constabulary. The rest of the year of 1881 was spent growing the Constabulary, and in January 1882, Harington was sent on a mission to Bengal to recruit a force of Sikhs who preferably had already received police training in India, and were looking for an adventure away from home.

They were intended to be an imposing force upon the indigenous population of the island, who had never experienced being policed by an immigrant force. The imposing group of men were described by one of their superiors in an official report as:

Later career Harington once again returned to Egypt and into the service of the Egyptian Germanderie. His management in Borneo gave him the requisite experience needed to be appointed Chief of Staff of the Gendarmerie. Concluding the investigation, he arrested nine Italians who were planning on detonating bombs to kill the Emperor when he came to the city.

In 1909, he died at age 62 in Royal Avenue, Chelsea, London.

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