Name/Title
Brighton Borough Police or Sussex Constabulary plain wooden brown stained lightweight truncheon c1960sEntry/Object ID
2412Description
Plain wooden brown stained truncheon 15 1/4 inches (38cm) long, with a domed top. Has a leather stitched wrist strap with what appears to be the numbers "255" written on the inside. No maker's stamp or mark.Use
For a male police officer to use for protectionContext
From the late 1880s until the mid 1990s most male uniformed British police officers were issued with plain undecorated wooden truncheons of a similar style to this. These were typically 15 to 16 inches in length and had a grip made up of 4 large groves. Because such similar styles were used over such a long period of time they can be difficult to date. However the earlier examples are usually made of tropical hardwoods, such as ebony, lignum vitae, rosewood and mahogany, amongst others. This made them heavy and dense. In the period before and after the Second World War cheaper woods were used, making the truncheons progressively lighter in weight. By the 1980s new truncheons tended to be more cumbersome, lighter and much less well made than those from the first quarter of the 20th century. They were also usually heavily stained to hide the fact that they were made of lighter coloured, cheaper wood.
This example probably dates to the 1950s or 1960s. It is made of a lightweight wood and has a brown stain applied, which is typical of truncheons from this period, that were being made to look like the earlier dark hardwood examples. It came from a collection of items used by Herbert Hother, who served in both Brighton Borough Police and Sussex Constabulary/Police, from 1950 until his retirement in 1980. This truncheon could have been from his service in either Brighton Police or Sussex Constabulary.