Old photos of policemen show them with a number on their collars. I'm hoping we can use them to help date any photos they appear in.
I'm interested to know:
- Was a given number unique to one policeman, or were they ever re-used?
- Is there any list available that shows when a given number was assigned?
If there's no list, we can work backwards from any photos we know the dates of.
eg HF Siu has identified policeman #218 in this photo from the 1880s:
And Patricia O'Sullivan writes that Maurice Kenneally, who joined the Police in 1913, was given collar number A1.
Contributor '1314' has previously written in to explain how the letter prefixes depended on the nationality of the policeman:
- A : European
- B : Indian, Muslim or Sikh
- C : Cantonese
- D : Shantung
- E: Russian
- (Members of the Police Reserve junior cadre wore an epaulette badge bearing an R over their number, irregardless of ethnic origin.)
If you can link any numbers to dates, please let us know in the comments below.
Regards, David