Whistle Categories > Police Whistles
Where did police whistles originate?
Apparently police whistles came to be used in the UK, possibly Glasgow with the earliest police forces. Circa 1920 or so under Robert Peel, there may have been those unsatisfied with the clacker of the day and some tried to get away from it with whistles, unofficially so.
Whether other forces outside the UK used them is unknown. What is known is that when constabularies, burghs, cities, counties, city police used whistles they stamped them as official issues for their forces. Thus we organize these whistles as police whistles.
How are police whistles identified?
Beyond provenance, to have the force stamped from the manufacturer was the way they are set apart. Early button whistles could have a force on the button indicating its use and ownership.
Confusion occurs when forces used generic whistles, or when Metropolitan whistles are public issue and have not police force identification on them. For the avid researcher this can present problems.
Although railways modified whistles after initial issue, police forces did not have these shops. Altering a whistle by adhering a button on the side of a whistle, falls short of reaching this category.
Great efforts have been made to track forces, date lettering, identify manufacturers and catalog these into research books.
Why were they made?
The signaling needed to call other officers without the use of guns would have an obvious need. The need to separate the public use of the whistle would also be desired so that confusion would not occur.
This was an impossible goal and although an effort was made to enforce this at first it had to give way to sheer production of the same whistle bodies, albeit different plain stamps.
Alternately with the dependence on electricity when power failures occur, communication is delayed, and a resurgence of whistles have occurred.
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