Name/Title
Police officer's uniform cape c1950Entry/Object ID
HC5Description
Blue wool cape, with three plain black plastic buttons to the front and a black painted brass clasp and chain in the form of two lion's heads. There are no holes on collar to suggest the original presence of numbers or a badge and inside is stencilled the number "147".Use
For a police officer to use on night duty or during the winter.Context
Capes were standard police uniform issue for winter and night duty from the Victorian period onwards. In some police forces they were issued to officers as late as the 1970s and 1980s. They are nearly always fitted with a distinctive "Lions Head" clasp as seen here and will often have an officer's number attached to the collar and sometimes additional insignia, as well as buttons marked with the force name. These clasps are usually painted black but chrome plated versions were also used. Lighter weight waterproofed oilskin capes were sometimes used during wet weather and by the 1930s in some police forces, such as the Metropolitan Police, they had replaced wool ones altogether.
It is not known why capes continued to be used for so long but it may be because of the greater freedom of movement they offered. By the time an officer had a woollen overcoat over a woollen tunic, it is likely that arm movement was severely restricted. With the introduction of lighter weight fabrics for outer garments in the 1970s and 1980s, this would no longer have been a problem and the cape would have been obsolete. Capes are known to have been particularly popular when officers still used oil lamps. This was because these were continually lit and being attached to a belt under the cape any heat would be trapped within the cape, thus helping to warm the officer, who presumably had to take care they did not burn the material.
It is not known which police force this cape was used in but it is thought to be somewhere in Sussex. Capes were issued within Sussex Constabulary from 1968 along with three Gannex raincoats (Force Amalgamation Memorandum 1967) and later within Sussex Police until the late 1970s, but these examples are normally fitted with the force lapel badges on the collar. It probably originates from one of the pre amalgamation Sussex forces, that did not use collar numbers or insignia. The number "147" is probably an officer's collar number.