Name/Title
Sussex Police female Volunteer Cadet's tunic 1987Entry/Object ID
2223Description
Black wool female police tunic with four large buttons to the front, two waist pockets, and epaulettes on each shoulder with a small button. All buttons have a crown and are marked to the rear "Grantham". On each lapel is a Sussex Police coat of arms shield badge and across each shoulder is a light blue coloured badge embroidered in red lettering "V.C.C". There is a platted darker blue coloured lanyard attached to the left epaulette. Inside on a label is marked "Tailored by Grantham".Use
For use by a female Volunteer Police Cadet in Sussex PoliceContext
The original police cadet system was first established in 1948 in the Metropolitan Police with youngsters being employed full time from the age of 16 to 19, in a uniform support role and given the option of becoming full time constables when they were old enough. The scheme was introduced in an attempt to increase levels of recruitment to the regular force, by attracting school leavers who were not yet old enough to become constables. Similar schemes operated with some changes in many other police forces until the 1980s when the paid schemes were discontinued.
From the late 1980s the paid police cadet schemes were discontinued. Volunteer schemes were retained or begun for younger children, operating purely as youth organisations on similar lines to those run by the military. These schemes now fall under the national Volunteer Police Cadet programme and are organised on a local territorial police force basis.
Paid schemes were run in Sussex before and after the 1968 amalgamation and cadets were issued with various types of uniform.
Sussex Constabulary, whilst having a paid scheme, also introduced a volunteer cadet scheme in January 1969, aimed at younger children and run along the same lines as the scouts and military cadets. To begin with the volunteer cadets wore a version of the old paid cadet uniform from the 1950s, consisting of a blouson style jacket and berets for headwear. When the berets were replaced with caps, the volunteer cadets had purple hat bands to distinguish them from the paid cadets who had blue cap bands. Over time the blouson style jackets were replaced with tunics as worn by both paid cadets and constables.
This particular tunic is known to have been issued to a Sussex Police female volunteer cadet in 1987 and is clearly identified by the "V.C.C" badges. It is of the same style as issued to Sussex Police female officers at the time, though constables would obviously not have had the shoulder patches, and instead an alpha numeric number on the epaulettes. It is interesting that in the late 1980s when Sussex Police adopted male tunics without epaulette's, it continued to issue female officers with tunics fitted with them, and continued to do so until at least the early 1990s. Another interesting feature on this uniform is the use of plain buttons. At the time this tunic was in use Sussex Police were still using buttons marked with the force name. It was only later in the 1990s that plain buttons were introduced. It is not known whether this indicates that plain buttons were used for cadets or whether these buttons were all that was available at the time. The blue lanyard signifies a senior cadet.