Douglas Labalmondière

Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas William Parish Labalmondière CB (1815 – 8 March 1893) was the first Assistant Commissioner (Administrative) of the London Metropolitan Police and acted as Commissioner for three months in 1868–1869.

Labalmondière was descended from an aristocratic French family who had established sugarcane plantations in the West Indies. He was educated at Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, where he passed out at the head of the list with exceptional honours, and was commissioned an Ensign into the 83rd (County of Dublin) Regiment of Foot (later the Royal Irish Rifles). He served in the Canadas, 1837–1838, carried during Mackenzie's Rebellion and Papineau's Rebellion, and was promoted Lieutenant. He was promoted Captain in 1844. In 1848–1849, he served in Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine, with special duties under the Poor Law Commissioners.

In 1850, he retired on half pay as a Lieutenant-Colonel and joined the Metropolitan Police as its second Inspecting Superintendent, effectively functioning as deputy to the two Joint Commissioners, Sir Richard Mayne and Captain William Hay (who had been his predecessor as Inspecting Superintendent). He was made a Companion of the Bath (CB) for his services in policing the Great Exhibition in 1851 and in 1855 was selected to attend Queen Victoria in Paris.

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