Charles Rafter - Personal Life

Personal Life

Although Rafter was a strict disciplinarian, summarily dismissing 107 striking policemen after the national police strike in 1919, he was equally interested in police welfare. A long-distance runner in his youth, he encouraged his men to pursue all forms of rational leisure, including sport, reading, and music. He started an annual police sports' day, which was open to public spectators, and initiated inter-divisional competitions to encourage healthy rivalry among his men. He also started an annual police children's party, at which he could be seen dressed as Father Christmas. Rafter was a lover of music, and was keenly interested in the city police band (which was conducted for a time by Sir Adrian Boult) and the Municipal Officers' Guild Choir. Apparently he kept a flute in his office drawer, which he would sometimes pull out to entertain visitors. He was also a keen horticulturalist and spent much of his later leisure time cultivating hothouse plants and flowers at his Birmingham home, Elmley Lodge in Harborne. After the death of his first wife, he married, on 21 September 1916 in Plymouth, Catherine (born 1882/3), daughter of Denis Griffin, a naval pensioner.