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The traffic police or the ‘roads policing’ as they are sometimes known are responsible for policing the roads in the UK. The main reason that traffic police wear white hats is for visibility. van Grinsven, Michel. "Politiehelmen". Pictures from a private collection. Archived from the original on July 24, 2011 . Retrieved October 3, 2010. Since the 1950s, helmets have no longer been worn by police officers in Scotland, but may be seen worn by Metropolitan Police officers when on Royal duties in Scotland. They ceased to be worn in Northern Ireland after the 1920s, except for night patrol work in Belfast and Derry until the early 1960s.
Major R. M. Barnes, p. 257, "A History of the Regiments & Uniforms of the British Army, First Sphere Books, 1972. See also: Mess_dress_uniform §British_police, Special_Constabulary §Uniform, and Police community support officer §Uniform and equipment Full dress ceremonial [ edit ] The Assistant Commissioner, City of London Police (right), dressed in full ceremonial uniform for the Diamond Jubilee (2012). Although much heavier and with an unpleasant tendency to impede the wearer’s hearing, German troops preferred the more protective head gear. Many reported that it stopped bullets and shrapnel that likely would have been fatal had they been wearing their earlier helmet. In fact, casualties from head wounds dropped considerably with the stahlhelm, according to some sources by as much as 70 percent. Generally, police officers are required to wear hats except in exceptional circumstances such as emergencies and whilst driving. Why do female police officers wear different hats? This essay will be about general origins and will not attempt to enter the twentieth century or follow the complexities of badges, finials and other ornamentation.
a b "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 July 2011 . Retrieved 22 September 2009. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title ( link) Public Safety Radio Communications Project, Martha Woodbridge British Police online Museum - Royal Ulster Constabulary/RUC Helmet, 1960's". Archived from the original on 5 November 2013 . Retrieved 6 October 2012. Their job was to look after female prisoners at police stations or the courts. As mentioned before, the traditional custodial helmet was made part of the uniform in 1865, before women were employed by the force. As a result, there are separate hat styles for men and women. Freedom of Information request 01/FOI/22/967 - Officer Headwear" (PDF). British Transport Police . Retrieved 2 June 2022.
Although it seems the initial coxcomb style was the norm for around the first ten years of the Custodian’s existence, general fashion or the existing sun helmet’s shape may have inspired an almost immediate reduction in height of the Custodian (fig. 5 to 7) and in the early 1870s a down turn of the brim. In the mid-1870s, however, a fundamentally different design appeared as an alternative Custodian. It had a symmetrical dome with no coxcomb, instead it had an apical finial, these ranged from spikes and mounted balls, to button like ornaments, including the ‘rose top’ (fig.10 & 11). This was to become the most used ornamentation on the alternative Custodian, often leading the ‘bell’ shaped style to be generically called ‘the rose top’, although balls, spikes and other finials persisted in some regional and divisional police forces. Early on the spiked form led to some police helmets being almost indistinguishable from the 1878 army Home Service Pattern. The materials and construction, however, of both the new alternative Custodian and Home Service Helmet were based on contemporary lightweight sun helmets such as the early Colonial patterns then being produced in Britain. (Note; the ‘Colonial pattern’ is a generic term for a comb-less sun helmet style which was developed in the 1850s & 60s from the Air Pipe. Steep brimmed, with extended rear; the Foreign Service Helmet is an example of a ‘colonial pattern’, but one specifically produced for and issued by the Army after 1877. The colonial pattern started to be replaced by flatter, broader brimmed sun helmets in the 1890s-1900s, e.g. the ‘Wolseley’, the Custodian’s brim followed suite in the 20 th century (see fig. 8)). Figure 3. A light weight, well ventilated and distinctive model was already being produced in London for the Indian market, Ellwood’s ‘Air Chamber’ sun helmet, needing only a colour change? ‘Engineer officers in battery before Delhi’, 1857. Versions of this image and similar appered in many publications and best selling books about the Indian Mutany in the late 1850s and early 1860s. So whilst the Custodian helmet was being designed, this model had a high profile. Many people ask what the purpose of the police hat is and why there are so many variations. We will cover this in this article along with its unique name and the reasons for different hats for male and female officers. What is a police hat called?
NEW EDITION HELMETS
They are responsible for attending to and controlling road-related incidents, whether minor or serious. Therefore, it is incredibly important to be visible as traffic police often work in potentially dangerous environments by managing traffic and clearing incidents. Many collisions occur on motorways due to the high volume of fast-moving vehicles. This, therefore, provides a potential danger for traffic police when dealing with accidents. Figure 11. “What’s going on ‘ere then?” At the ‘Sydney Street Siege’ (1911) a mixture of the coxcomb style on City of London Police and rose tops on Metropolitan Police. (Note that by this time the ‘Wolseley’ style flat, extended rear brim is standard). As well as in the UK, other forces currently using the custodian helmet include the States of Jersey Police, States of Guernsey Police Service, Isle of Man Constabulary, Royal Gibraltar Police, and Bermuda Police. The term "custodian" originated as a specific make of helmet used in Britain in the late-twentieth century. Because of this, "custodian" was never an official or unofficial name for similar helmets worn in other parts of the Commonwealth. Helmet from the United Kingdom The custodian helmet used by the Metropolitan Police Service in London www.discoverbritainmag.com ‘An accessory to history’ (2016) contains an interview with Christys & Co Ltd’s Managing Director, Steve Clarke.
By at least 1867 or even as early as 1865 (see, fig. 5 & 7) the similarity to the top hat lessened with the Custodian becoming shorter, getting a convex-concave profile, losing any vertical parallel surfaces, but it retained a round horizontal brim (figs. 5 & 7), the brim seems to have become down turned during the early 1870s (fig. 6). The basic Custodian design has experienced many variations in shape, ornamentation and badging over the years as the various regional forces and others sought distinctive helmets; and as general fashions changed. Standardization was attempted in the 1930s, with the Home Office issuing various rules encompassing certain parameters that all British Police helmets had to adhere to. After this the Custodian was officially called the ‘Home Office Pattern’. The various forces were, however, not enthusiastic in their response and many different styles continue to exist to this day.
Externally the top of the very first Custodian helmet’s shape (fig.4) is thought by some to have perhaps been purely ornamental. If so superficially it looks as if it may have been based on the metal British Dragoon helmets of the early 19 th century, but still with elements of the pre-1863 police issue stove-pipe hat. Perhaps the early dragoon helmets of 1812 and onwards were copied giving the first Custodian helmet a coxcomb or ridge. Several regional police forces still use modern versions of this coxcomb style. Fire helmets were indeed based on the dragoon style, a tradition started in France, but with broader flatter brims to guard against embers, brass ones were adopted in Britain in 1868. Although it’s known by some as a ‘Bobby’s Helmet’ or commonly as a police hat, it does in fact have its own special name. It’s called a ‘custodian helmet’.
Strathclyde Police Marine Policing Unit". Strathclyde.police.uk. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007 . Retrieved 8 May 2009. Larger, more powerful vehicles are used by Road Policing Units and Armed Response Units due to the fact that they carry out tasks such as pursuing stolen cars, responding to emergencies in a larger area, or carrying a larger amount equipment than an IRV. It is for that reason that many of the vehicles are estates and 4x4s. Officers are required to be trained as 'advanced drivers', allowing them to operate higher-performance vehicles. Some advanced drivers are also trained to TPAC standard, allowing them to engage in the tactical phase of a pursuit and perform Tactical Pursuit And Containment (TPAC) maneuvers.
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Other private or specialised police forces, such as ports police or parks police, are again generally unarmed in Great Britain and rely on armed support from territorial police forces, if needed. Figure 13. The Indo-British family of light-weight ‘service’ Helmets and the dragoon helmet. Left, a lightweight ventilated Ellwood ‘Air Chamber’ sun helmet, unofficially called the ‘Air Pipe’, patented in 1851, probably the inspiration for Christys’ when they developed the first Custodian pattern 1863. Left Center, a British dragoon helmet shape in existence from at least 1842 (although this is an 1847 model), probably inspired the ornamentation on the Christys’ alternative style ‘bell’ shaped Custodian introduced around 1875. Center Right, an example of Christys’ 1875 alternative bell shaped Custodian police helmet. The company themselves have said it was based on the Home Service Helmet; Right, the Home Service Helmet, officially adopted in 1878, but versions had been unofficially in use and trialed for many years, perhaps explaining the miss-match in design/adoption dates stated for the ‘Custodian’ and ‘Home Service Helmet’. Their appearance, however, can probably be seen as coeval, with the police simply being offered the new military pattern as an alternative to the coxcomb. Within a year or two, it was shortened to be more like the sun helmet, but still had an up-turned brim.
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