Name/Title
Scrapbook of East Sussex Constabulary officer PC Max Soffner 1928 - 1958Entry/Object ID
2261Description
Orange cardboard A4 size folder containing newspaper cuttings, photographs and many original police reports documenting the career of East Sussex Constabulary officer PC Max Soffner between 1928 and 1958.Use
To record the career of PC Max SoffnerContext
P Max Soffner was born in Lewes and joined East Sussex Constabulary in 1928, first serving at Bexhill. He subsequently worked at Maynard's Green and Newhaven, before becoming the Village Officer covering East Dean and Friston, where he served for 10 years until his retirement in November 1958. Whilst patrolling East Dean, Friston and the surrounding Dowland he was often accompanied by his black Labrador Joe, who became as well known to locals as the officer himself.
Police scrapbooks are not that unusual but what makes this particularly interesting is the inclusion of many typed police reports, such as statements and crime and road traffic reports. These give an insight into how investigations took place within East Sussex Constabulary, especially in the 1940s and 1950s. From the selection in this folder it is clear that PC Soffner was pretty busy dealing with and investigating a variety of incidents, such as burglaries, thefts, suspicious deaths and road traffic matters. It indicates that officers in the past investigated thoroughly all incidents that were reported to them, however minor and that rural officers in particular were much busier that we are sometimes led to believe.