Skip to main content

Even A Replica Can Confuse

 






Replica of a LPTB Police Warrant Card


Police memorabilia can change hands at very high prices.  In practice this means that museums and formal groups miss out on owning and preserving items that would be core to their collections.

As I write this there is a London Passenger Transport Board Police (LPTB) Warrant Card from 1940 that is on sale on ebay for £249.00. It looks like a fine item but at a price beyond the reach of all but the most avid or wealthy of collectors.

Some time ago replicas of LPTB Police Warrant Cards were on sale on the same auction site.  There was NO claim that they were original and they were sold on the basis that they were reproductions, at a very reasonable price.  Such objects are useful when mounting displays or delivering lectures as they protect the original or, in the absence of the real thing, provide a surrogate.  For this reason, a copy was acquired by the British Transport Police History Group (BTPHG).

On examination it was clear that the item was not a very good reproduction at all.   The most obvious thing was the colour.  It was light blue and virtually all police Warrant Cards from this period were black.  The logo on the front and inside of the card was not that of the LPTB.  The wording inside is nearly right but has a couple of significant errors.  For example ‘vested’ becomes ‘Vest’.  The key mistake is that the Act of Parliament authorising the attestation of constables is wrong.  The replica card talks of the London Passenger Transport Act 1939.  It was in fact s107 of the London Passenger Transport Act 1934 that was in use between 1935 and 1949 (1).

There is no suggestion that the person producing or selling the card had any intention to deceive.  These seem to be genuine and simple mistakes.  But there is a lesson here for all who hold collections or use materials for historical purposes.  In this case the utility of the item lies in it being a discussion point.  But will the fact that it is a replica with mistakes be quite so clear in 50 or 100 years time? By then the card may (if used as intended) be battered and aged.  The nuances of individual local or private Acts of Parliament may be more opaque than they are now (and they are pretty challenging now!).    We preserve materials for future generations.  History is a long term game.  How we record and describe what we hold in our collections is important not just for us, but for those that come after us.

 

Philip Trendall

September 2023

 

What appears to be an original LPTB Police Warrant Card, currently for sale:  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175497978537?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D777008%26algo%3DPERSONAL.TOPIC%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20221115143428%26meid%3D11278e21a37b4c4ba672799a99d9a59b%26pid%3D101614%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26mehot%3Dnone%26itm%3D175497978537%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D4375194%26algv%3DWatchlistVariantWithMLR&_trksid=p4375194.c101614.m47999&_trkparms=parentrq%3A5abd6af018a0a55f535053dcffffb98e%7Cpageci%3A9ab34893-4a4a-11ee-9b17-a663512b1c43%7Ciid%3A1%7Cvlpname%3Avlp_homepage 

BTPHG do hold Warrant Cards from this era in their collection


(1)  There is a London Transport Passenger Act 1939 but it is not concerned with policing - it has only 61 sections and focuses on trolley buses and vent shafts.


#police #policehistory #LPTB #LPTBPolice #BTPHG #BTPHistory #Warrantcards

 


Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Do Non Home Department Police Forces Get Missed When Legislation is Being Drafted

  WHY DO NON HOME DEPARTMENT POLICE FORCES GET MISSED WHEN LEGISLATION IS BEING DRAFTED? Note: The Home Department is the traditional name for the Home Office and the Home Secretary is technically the Secretary of State for the Home Department.   In this and other pieces I tend to use the titles interchangeably.   I hope that by confusing my readers I can distract them from the boring nature of the blog itself.   One part of my work lies in the field of research.   This is not well paid and is a somewhat lonely pastime, but I do enjoy the thrill of tracking down information in archives, dusty corners of the internet and guiding people around bits of London. I find that there is often an overlap between the past and present, indeed life is a continuum.    The present is a product of the past.   The influence of what has come before is often apparent in what is done today. Frequently to understand the modern operating context we have to get pa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Films for Thought

  While searching the index to the material held by the Imperial War Museum (IWM) I stumbled across a couple of items relevant to this blog.   Film footage can sometimes feel like a peep hole into the past.   Each individual that appears would have had their own story to tell.   Perhaps this is a theme I will return to in relation to the footage which catches – sometimes only in passing – railway, dock or canal police officers. The two IWM clips that caught my eye were: A 1942 film showing war work being carried out by women on the Southern Railway.   Includes a shot of a member of WPC, Southern Railway Police directing traffic at Waterloo.   The commentary reflects the social assumptions of the time.   https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060021182   A silent 1940 film about the evacuation of children.   Shows footage at the front of St Pancras Station with police officers including an LMS Sergeant. https://www.iwm.org...
2 comments
Read more

Second World War 4: Trapped in the Railway Police

Sergeant Phil Longland:  Southampton Docks June 1943  (Photo: British Transport Police History Group) In the National Archives sits a rather tatty file from the Railway Executive Committee (1939-1945).  It is accompanied by a note that says that the conservation department has been advised of its condition and that it will be subject of further evaluation.  The note was added over twenty years ago.  Looking after our national records is a long term process.  The contents of the file shed much light on the under researched subject of the arrangements for policing the railways and docks of the UK during the Second World War. National emergencies create the need for emergency legislation.  This was not an area of government that was particularly well handled in the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic but a war that included a very real risk of invasion meant that the scale of emergency powers granted to government ministers and officials is hard now to imagine.  Not...
Post a Comment
Read more