Name/Title
Rubber truncheonEntry/Object ID
984Description
Black rubber cylindrical truncheon, 14 3/4 inches (37cm) long, approx 3.5cm diameter. Thin leather wrist strap fixed through drilled hole at one end. No maker's marks or other features.Use
For general use either as an offensive weapon or for self defenceContext
Rubber truncheons have rarely been issued by the UK police, who tended to use wooden examples of a roughly generic design until the 1990s, though they have been widely used elsewhere in the world. West Sussex Constabulary did however use a type of rubber truncheon between 1924 and 1934 (see item 84) but these were of a different, more slender design than this one and suitably marked with the force name. Police officers on occasion are known to have privately armed themselves with such weapons, although not within recent times. Sir Robert Mark, the ex Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, recorded that in the late 1930's he carried an unofficial rubber truncheon when on plain clothes duty in Manchester and was not adverse to using it.
This particular truncheon is very hard to date. It could date from the 1930s or indeed be much later. It could represent an un-official truncheon or something that Sussex Police (from where it originated) seized as an offensive weapon. Examples of such weapons were kept by the police and used for training purposes.