Name/Title
Brighton Borough Police white re-enforced helmet for lightweight motorcycle use 1952-1967Entry/Object ID
626Description
Two panelled white cloth covered cork Brighton Borough Police helmet, with white cloth hatband and green buckram type lining. Fitted with chrome plated ball top and chrome plated Queen's Crown Brighton Borough Police helmet plate with separate coat of arms centre. The inside of the helmet has cork re-enforcing panels and there is a heavy duty harness style white leather chinstrap. Marked on paper label "Made in England Christys London" and ink stamped on headband "7".Use
Summer daytime headdress for Brighton Borough Police constables and sergeants riding lightweight motorcycles 1952-1967.Context
Brighton Borough Police first introduced the white helmet in 1933 for daytime summer use. They were worn in conjunction with white gloves, making officers more visible in the crowds of tourists and at the same time raising the status of the Force. Their use ended in 1939 and only resumed in 1952, again in conjunction with white gloves. They continued to be worn until the Borough Force was disbanded at the end of 1967.
This particular example is unusual in that it is re-enforced and has a heavy duty strap, as it was for an officer to wear whilst riding a small motorcycle. In the 1950s and 1960s lightweight motorcycles were used throughout the UK by police in an effort to make officers more mobile and when riding these officers wore re-enforced police helmets.
The badge or helmet plate on this example, with a "Queen Elizabeth" or "St. Edward's Crown", dates it from 1952-1967. This style of helmet is known as a "ball top", which was used for both summer and winter wear in Brighton from the 1890s onwards.
While Brighton Borough Police are well known for using white helmets, they were not the only Sussex police force to have issued them, or indeed the first. Both the Hove and Eastbourne Borough Forces used white helmets before Brighton, Hove possibly as early as the 1890s and Eastbourne from the 1900s. However it appears that both had stopped using them by the 1930s, if not earlier.