Name/Title
A pair of Sussex Police male officer's uniform trousers c1974 - 1980Entry/Object ID
2278Description
A pair of black wool men's police uniform trousers with zip fly, eight belt loops, two rear pockets with buttoned flaps, two waist/hip pockets, a small front pocket, and a truncheon pocket both the latter, on the right side. Inside there are buttons to attach braces and a label marked "Grantham Weatherwear". With these is a paper label marked "Grantham" and "Trousers" with various type written entries including "Sussex P", "Brighton" and "Hother Sgt. H810". They appear to be in unused condition.Use
For a male uniformed officer in Sussex Police to wear.Context
Trousers such as this were issued to most ranks of male uniformed officers within Sussex Police in the mid 1970s. They were made by "Grantham" which was supplying the force with tunics from at least 1974, of which the museum has a number of examples, though the first uniform supplier after the creation of Sussex Constabulary in 1968 was "Huggins of Bristol".
These trousers have two features common to most police uniform examples, a long truncheon pocket towards the rear on the right hand side, for accommodating a wooden truncheon approx 15 inches long, and a small front pocket on the right hand side. Truncheon pockets in trousers date back to the 1880s and the small front pockets are thought to have originally intended to the carry pocket watches (Stoner 2004 page 21). The inside buttons are for the attaching of braces, which in the days of closed neck tunics were normally worn but by the 1960s were not, following the adoption of shirts and ties, and shirt sleeve order in the summer months. All of these features can be seen on older examples of police uniform trousers.
These particular trousers appear not to have been used as they have their original paper label. They were issued to Sergeant Herbert Hother who had served in Brighton Borough Police and went onto serve in Sussex Police, retiring in 1980.
Very similar styles of trousers continued to be issued to Sussex Police male officers, until the adoption of "cargo" types in 2010, the only significant difference being that they no longer had internal buttons for braces. Wool trousers were intended for use all year around and it was only in the 1990s that Sussex Police began to issue officers with lightweight nylon examples for use in the summer.