BESIDES the seemingly imminent danger posed to British cities by dynamite bombs, there was another reason for the Irish Branch coming into being when it did. It had to do with the acquiring and sharing of information, provisions for which, under the pre-17 March status quo, were dangerously out of date. Just how out of date is illustrated by the fact that British authorities, despite being well aware since the summer of 1882 that O‘Donovan Rossa was running a bona fide ‘dynamite college’ out of Brooklyn, New York, had in fact no idea that two of the school's ‘graduates’ (one of whom was Thomas Mooney, the original Mansion House bomber) were behind the recent attacks in Glasgow and London.

In order to finally address the shortcomings of his ‘spider's web’, which in early 1883 included the CID's experimental counter-Fenian unit, Anderson‘s network of informers and sixteen RIC detectives stationed throughout Britain, Harcourt decided to convene Anderson, Vincent and Williamson for an emergency meeting a day after unveiling the Irish Branch. Also in attendance was Spencer's rising new assistant, whose reforms had already produced such stellar results in Ireland.

The meeting was likely an awkward one. Anderson jealously guarded ‘his‘ Home Office Secret Service operations and had no intention of sharing his contacts. Vincent, independently wealthy thanks to a well-placed marriage, was growing altogether tired of police work and planned to resign. Williamson, although the most senior and experienced detective in the land, abhorred disguises, informers and anything smacking of secret policing and didn't think the new Fenians were as serious a threat as the old ones. For his part, Jenkinson found the CID shambolic and amateurish, writing to Spencer that ‘Anderson… at the Home Office is a poor fellow (a second class detective Sir W. [Harcourt] calls him!) and except Williamson there is not a man in Scotland Yard worth anything. Far from marking a mere professional disagreement, Jenkinson's comment gives us a preview of the endemic internecine squabbles that plagued the British political police throughout the rest of the 1880s (with often drastic consequences).