Name/Title
Brighton Borough Police sergeant's uniform cape 1965-1967Entry/Object ID
2324Description
Blue wool cape, with three plain black plastic buttons to the front and a black painted brass clasp and chain in the form of two lion's heads. Attached to each side of the collar are the chrome plated numbers "47". Stitched inside is a paper label marked "John Hammond & Co. Ltd", with various handwritten entries including, "Brighton Police Sergeant" and "47 Hother".Use
For a male police officer to use on night duty or during the winter.Context
Capes were standard police uniform issue for winter and night duty from the Victorian period onwards. In some police forces they were issued to officers as late as the 1970s and 1980s. They are nearly always fitted with a distinctive "Lions Head" clasp as seen here and will often have an officer's number attached to the collar and sometimes additional insignia, as well as buttons marked with the force name. These clasps are usually painted black but chrome plated versions were also used. Lighter weight waterproofed oilskin capes were sometimes used during wet weather and by the 1930s in some police forces, such as the Metropolitan Police, they had replaced wool ones altogether.
It is not known why capes continued to be used for so long but it may be because of the greater freedom of movement they offered. By the time an officer had a woollen overcoat over a woollen tunic, it is likely that arm movement was severely restricted. With the introduction of lighter weight fabrics for outer garments in the 1970s and 1980s, this would no longer have been a problem and the cape would have been obsolete. Capes are known to have been particularly popular when officers still used oil lamps. This was because these were continually lit and being attached to a belt under the cape any heat would be trapped within the cape, thus helping to warm the officer, who presumably had to take care they did not burn the material.
This particular cape was issued to Brighton Borough Police officer Sergeant 47 Herbert Hother, who joined the borough force in 1950 and went onto serve in Sussex Constabulary and Sussex Police, retiring in 1980. He was promoted to sergeant in the mid 1960s, so this cape can only date from then to 1967, as it has his Brighton Borough Police sergeant's number on it and on the label, his constable's number having been "100" After the formation of Sussex Constabulary in 1968, PS Hother was allocated the number "H810". If he did have a cape after then it would not have had numbers on the collar but just Sussex Constabulary coat of arms shield badges.
From the examples in the museum, it is clear that not all of the pre amalgamation Sussex Police forces attached collar numbers on their capes, but this cape shows that Brighton Police were doing so in the 1960s.