Name/Title
West Sussex Constabulary cape c1959 -1967Entry/Object ID
2290Description
Blue wool cape, with three black plastic buttons to the front marked "West Sussex Constabulary" with a Queen's crown 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. .Use
For a male 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.
This particular cape is known to have been issued to West Sussex Constabulary officer PC Daniel Morton Campbell (DoB 17/7/35), who joined West Sussex Constabulary in 1959 and went on to serve in Sussex Constabulary and Sussex Police at Chichester, Worthing, Lancing and Shoreham, before retiring after 30 years service. Interestingly, despite being from Glasgow, Daniel applied to join police forces in the south of England and West Sussex Constabulary was the first to offer him a position.
The buttons identify the cape as being of West Sussex Constabulary origin, so it cannot have been made after 1967, when the force was amalgamated into Sussex Constabulary. The museum has another West Sussex Constabulary issued cape that later had Sussex Constabulary buttons and badges added (item 1163). The cape pictured demonstrates that in the late 1950s and 1960s, West Sussex Constabulary did not attach officer's numbers on their cape collars.