Name/Title
Plain club shaped truncheon c1870 - 1880Entry/Object ID
982Description
Undecorated, possibly oak, truncheon 15 inches (38cm) long, with multi turned handle grip, flat top. No strap. No maker's markings. Old circular collector's sticker on handle end, numbered "55" and a Brighton Borough Police vehicle offence label dated 2/65 tied to the handle with the number "4" written on the rear.Use
For use by a constable for protectionContext
In the 19th century as more police forces were established certain styles of truncheon, especially those made by large manufacturers such as Parker, became generic of the period. However there was no such thing as a standard shaped truncheon in the same way that there was no such thing as a single form of decoration on painted examples. Instead there were a huge variety of different styles, with smaller police forces and parishes, in particular getting their truncheons locally made to their own specifications.
Without any markings it is difficult to date this truncheon, however at 15 inches in length it is smaller than many earlier 19th century examples and may date to the 1880s when the Metropolitan police began to adopt truncheons of this size to fit into trouser pockets. The fact that it came from Sussex Police may indicate that it was used somewhere in Sussex. The collector's sticker on it suggests that it was part of a collection of items, possibly including other similarly marked objects in the museum collection. The Brighton Police label may suggest that this truncheon was one of the exhibits that made up a small display of items in the waiting area of the old Wellington Road Police Station in Brighton. When the new police station at John Street was opened in 1965 and Wellington Street closed, the exhibits were all transferred to the new building and put into storage, and this may be one of them. If it was part of this collection the chances are that it was originally from the Brighton Borough Force.