Sergeant stripe cloth insignia with three thin silver coloured thread stripes on navy blue felt backing
Use
To be sewn onto a uniform tunic or overcoat to denote the rank of sergeant or equivalent.
Context
In the UK the rank of sergeant has long been the lowest supervisory rank and since the 19th century, as with the same rank in the military, has been denoted by three stripes sewn onto the arms of a tunic or overcoat. As police uniforms are traditionally blue in colour the stripes are either composed of white or silver coloured thread.
With the adoption of more utilitarian uniform in the 2000s, uniform tunics are only used for some ceremonial roles in Sussex and sergeant insignia has been mainly reduced to embroidered epaulettes. However stripes are still used on Sussex Police tunics on the rare occasions when they are worn.
These particular stripes are of an older more simpler type that was used in the 1960s and 1970s. They came into the museum with a collection of foreign epaulette insignia, but are not compatible with any of that insignia and they are most likely from the UK, possibly even Sussex.
