Name/Title
Eastbourne Borough Police chief constable's bicorn hat c1937Entry/Object ID
1098Description
Black coloured bicorn hat with velvet finish and braiding around the edges. There is a wide velvet diagonal band on the right with silver threaded trim and a large silver plated button at the bottom. The button is marked with a King's crown inside a laurel wreath. There are silver wire adornments on the front and rear peaks of the hat. The inside is lined with cream coloured silk and there is a white leather headband. The centre of the lining is marked in gold coloured printed writing "George Brown & Co Limited Regent House Eastbourne".Use
For a chief constable to wear as formal headwear with a ceremonial uniformContext
Prior to the Second World War many chief constables wore elaborate ceremonial uniforms for special occasions and often matched these with ceremonial hats made to a generic design such as the one pictured.
In Sussex the chief constable's of Eastbourne, West Sussex and Brighton are all known to have worn such hats in the 1930s.
This particular hat was almost certainly worn by W.H. Smith who was the chief constable of Eastbourne Borough Police from 1918 until 1943. Though it does not have his name in it, it was supplied by a company of tailors, "George Brown and Co. Ltd" from Eastbourne. The museum has a tunic (item 249) that was made for Mr Smith in 1937, which was supplied by the same company. It is possible that this hat was purchased at the same time as that tunic, from a time when police forces obtained uniform via local suppliers, rather than directly from manufacturers. A group photograph shows Chief Constable Smith, wearing a similar style hat as early as 1926. There is also another photograph from 1938 (item 551) which also shows him wearing this type of hat and if the one pictured was supplied around 1937, it is possible that they are one and the same.