Name/Title
Plain wooden Sussex Police truncheon 1980sEntry/Object ID
614Description
Plain wooden light brown/red stained truncheon 16 inches (40cm) long, with a ball top. Appears in un-issued condition. Has leather stitched wrist strap with "Hiatt" stamped on it.Use
For a male police officer to use as protectionContext
From the late 1880s until the mid 1990s most male uniformed British police officers were issued with plain undecorated wooden truncheons of a similar style to this.These were typically 15 to 16 inches in length and had a grip made up of 4 large groves.Because such similar styles were used over such a long period of time they can be difficult to date. However the earlier examples are usually made of tropical hardwoods, such as ebony, lignum vitae, rosewood and mahogany, amongst others.This made them heavy and dense.
In the period before and after the Second World War cheaper woods were used, making the truncheons progressively lighter in weight. By the 1980s new truncheons tended to be more cumbersome, lighter and much less well made than those from the first quarter of the 20th century.They were also usually heavily stained to hide the fact that they were made of lighter coloured, cheaper wood.This example is what was in use in Sussex Police in the 1980s.
It appears to have never been issued.
The last wooden pattern truncheon used in Sussex Police was very similar to this but more cumbersome and brown in colour with a riveted wrist strap. It is worth noting that even in the 1980s much older hardwood truncheons were still in circulation in Sussex, often having been re-issued several times, sometimes with replacement straps.