Name/Title
Female police officers hat c1950-1971Entry/Object ID
2189Description
Moulded felt dark blue female officer's cap with leather chin strap around outside and felt peak. Fitted with a star shaped Queen's crown "Sussex Police EIIR" senior officer's cap badge, with a blue enamel ring. Marked inside "Christy's London" and "Patroller".Use
For use by a female police constable or sergeant in the 1950s and 60s.Context
Caps such as these were standard headdress for female police constables and sergeants in most of the UK throughout the 1950s and 1960s. They were usually worn with the "Bather" style uniform, which was first introduced in the Metropolitan Police in 1946.
The Bather uniform was named after Chief Superintendent Elizabeth Bather, who was head of the Women's Police Branch in the Met. from 1946, when she introduced a uniform based on that used by the Women's Auxiliary Airforce during the Second World War.
After its adoption in London, the Bather uniform together with caps like this became the standard uniform for female officers throughout the UK, and they were used by most if not all of the pre-amalgamation Sussex police forces.
In 1968 the Met. Police introduced the Hartnell uniform and a new hat designed by Simone Mirman. Not all UK forces adopted the new uniform in full but most replaced hats like this with those designed by Simone Mirman. Sussex Constabulary introduced the Mirman style hat in 1971.
This particular hat is fitted with a "Sussex Police" senior officer's cap badge dating from 1974 to 1995. This badge is probably not original to the hat for two reasons: there are versions of this hat with black braided peaks, especially for inspectors and chief inspectors see (item 236); by 1974 in Sussex, hats such as this had been replaced twice, firstly by "Mirman", then "Surrey" style hats. This badge has probably been applied for display purposes due to the difficulty in fitting a normal Sussex Constabulary lower ranks badge to these hats. Such badges have sliders to the rear and these hats do not have a slot for one but two re -enforced holes. So to be fitted with a lower ranks badge in Sussex, either a slot has to be cut in the hat or special versions of the ordinary ranks Sussex Constabulary badge obtained with two lug fittings to the rear. To date we are not aware of Sussex Constabulary having badges with these fittings, suggesting slots would need to be cut in this type of hat.
The hat pictured probably dates from the 1960s or early 1970s.