The amazing 150-year-old police truncheons going under the hammer at auction

Before modern police forces were invented, officers charged with keeping law and order would carry truncheons as a sign of their office.

They were often highly decorated but are now quite rare objects.

However, a whole collection of them has now been given to an auction house, and two of the 19th century truncheons have links to Manchester.

And they will be going under the hammer this week.

What are the decorative truncheons?

Modern police forces are an invention of the Victorian era, so before that the job of keeping order was mainly done by an appointed high constable with a team of petty constables working under him.

Truncheons were a badge of office to show the official role they played in society.

Some of them could be highly decorative but it is unclear whether they were mainly used in an ornamental and symbolic capacity or whether they were actually ever used in apprehending criminals.

Geoffrey Stafford Charles, one of the valuers and cataloguers at Dreweatts auction house in Berkshire which is selling the collection, said: “A constable would carry one of these because they didn’t have a uniform.

“The only way you would know who he was was through a badge of office, in the same way as other offices such as beadles, town clerks, magistrates and judges would have.

“It might be a badge pinned to their clothing or a hand-held staff like a field marshal’s baton.

“Many of the truncheons are quite decorative, and what’s not obvious is if you would have a pretty truncheon for high days and holidays and another more mundane one for actually accosting people.

“There are marks and scratches on them but whether that’s through children playing with them or through someone actually using them we don’t know.”

What do we know about the truncheons with Manchester links?

There are two items in the collection with links to Manchester, and these come through the coats of arms on them.

One is a Regency truncheon from 1812 which has the arms associated with Robert de Gresle, the original lord of the manor of Manchester, on it.

These arms, made up of a red ground with three yellow stripes across it, also appears on the city’s coat of arms.

The other truncheon probably dates from around the middle of the 19th century and has the arms of Stockport on it.

The one with the Manchester arms on it also has the initials JW.

The two objects were in a collection of truncheons from before the days of modern police forces put together by someone with a keen interest in aspects of early metropolitan and civic life.

The Manchester truncheon has an estimate of £600 to £800, while the Stockport one has an estimate of £300 to £400.

When is the auction happening and it is historically significant?

The truncheons are going under the hammer this week as part of a two-day sale at the auction house in Newbury.

The Manchester lots will be offered for sale on Wednesday (16 February).

The auction house says truncheons of this kind from before the 1880s rarely turn up so to have so many of them going under the hammer is very unusual.