Name/Title
Brighton Borough Police pocket notebooks issued to PC 100 Hother 1950-1958Entry/Object ID
2366Description
Collection of 21 yellow coloured, side and staple bound, Brighton Borough Police pocket notebooks, 163mm x 102mm, of 132 pages, with hand-written timed and dated entries, all issued to PC 100 Hother, the majority of which are numbered inside beginning with "1". Each with lined and numbered pages and having a date stamp on the inside of the front cover marked "County Borough of Brighton Police" with the date of issue and divisional letter. Collectively these cover the period 10th October 1950 to 29th October 1958.Use
For an officer to record their duties and any relevant information, including evidence and visits by supervisorsContext
Since the 19th century police officers have been issued with pocket notebooks to record anything relevant during their periods of duty, and they would often be referred to when an officer gave evidence at court. Generally the use of these notebooks has not changed significantly over the last 100 years and there are strict guidelines concerning their use. In the past as now, they are signed out to officers and date stamped. Each page is numbered to prevent removal and officers are instructed to note leave spaces, so that entries can be backdated. The time an officer begins his duty and finishes, together with any breaks should be recorded and any entry should be timed. Often notebooks would have leather notebook covers.
These particular notebooks were used by PC Herbert Hother during the period 10th October 1950 until 29th December 1958. They record his daily duties during that period and include evidence of incidents he attended including such things as stops of motor vehicles, driver's details etc. The museum has a number of other notebooks used by PC Hother (items 2363 and 2364) and together they cover all of his service within Brighton Borough Police after which he served in the new Sussex Constabulary. It is a little unusual for officers to have retained their pocket books, as normally they were returned when a new one was issued and filed at the relevant police station. It is note know how he came to retain these and other notebooks, but collectively they appear to cover his entire service with Brighton Borough Police.
This style of Brighton Borough Police notebook was replaced in 1958 with a totally different one that was used until 1967. This later style was blue coloured, top bound with a Brighton Police label on the front. These earlier yellow covered books have a section to record the details of persons wanted for offences. In those from the early 1950s this section is at the front. In the later ones it is at the back. The later books from the late 1950s also have a section at the rear for the details of stolen motor vehicles. Neither of these pre printed sections feature in the later blue notebooks.
Notebooks are still issued in Sussex Police. However officers are encouraged to use mobile devices more to record their activities, and in some police forces pocket notebooks have been withdrawn altogether.