Name/Title
Female police sergeant or constable's hat c1950-1971Entry/Object ID
2224Description
Moulded felt dark blue female officer's cap with leather chin strap around outside and felt peak. Marked inside "Christys London" and "Patroller". No badge.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, and versions with braided peeks were worn by more senior female officers. 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. This one was made by the well known hat maker "Christys". 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 Simon Mirman. Sussex Constabulary introduced the Mirman style hat in 1971.
This hat is thought to have come from either Sussex Constabulary or one of the pre 1968 Sussex Police forces. It would originally have been fitted with a badge as used on the caps of male officers. There is some debate as to how they were fitted, because these hats have two holes at the front for fitting a badge to. However most ordinary ranks cap badges from the period, especially those used across the forces of Sussex, tend to have sliders to fix them to caps. This means that either, slots had to be cut into these "Patroller" hats to attach a slider badge, or special versions of force badges with two lugs had to be obtained. To date no lugged versions of cap badges for constables or sergeants from Sussex Constabulary are known of, so it seems likely that cuts were made in these hats in order to fit normal slider cap badges.