Figure 1. Top left, an Ellwood & Sons ‘Air Chamber’ military sun helmet, patented 1851, following traditional Indian designs it has a light weight cork construction, is cloth covered and has an ‘air pipe’ comb allowing air to freely circulate in the dome. Top right, a ‘Custodian’ police helmet by Christys & Co ltd (1952), uses almost identical construction methods; a version of this basic design was introduced in 1863 and was the only Custodian type for at least 10 years. Bottom left, a development of the sun helmet; a Christys & Co Ltd, late 1800s Colonial Pattern Sun Helmet. Bottom center, the attached Christys label. Bottom right, a near identically constructed police helmet, again by Christys, offered to the police as an alternative ‘Custodian’ style in the mid 1870s.

The design documents for the original 1863 British Police helmet, or ‘Bobby helmet’, have long been lost, and it is thought no examples of the first model still exist. There has been much speculation over the years about its actual origins. Here it is argued that it was in fact a direct development of Victorian Indian sun helmets, with only its later (post 1875) ornamentation owing anything to European (British) military helmets.

Christys & Co Ltd., est. 1773, have produced all forms of headwear and at the end of the 19^th century were the world’s largest hatters. They survived the predominantly hatless culture of the last third of the 20^th century by supplying high quality products and specializing in equestrian helmets. Their most famous helmet however, was the ‘Custodian’, designed by them for London’s Metropolitan Police Force in 1863; tested and then adopted in 1865; the progenitor of all subsequent ‘bobby’ helmets. Discussions concerning new headwear for the police had been on-going since at least 1844 (fig. 2).

The company has lost the original design documents, but in an interview in 2016 the Managing Director stated that their ‘Custodian’ design was based on the British Army ‘Home Service helmet’. This is confusing however as in 1863 the Home Service Helmet was not officially in use, it was adopted by the Army in 1878 after a few years of trials. So it can be assumed the statement applies to later (post 1875) Custodian styles? There are two basic Custodian body styles, the first produced in 1863 was a coxcomb (fig. 1 & 4 to 8); in the mid 1870s a symmetrical ‘bell’ shape was introduced (fig. 1, 10 & 14). These two basic styles, with many variations, have run in parallel to the present day.

Development issues have been debated many times before and reference (1) includes thoughts from the creators of this website.

Basically there are four questions addressed here (see Table 1 for suggested answers),

(1) What influenced the first Custodian’s shape?

(2) Was its coxcomb ornamental or practical?

(3) Why did an alternative shape appear in the 1870s?

(4) What influenced that model’s ornamentation?

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.

Apparently not one of the first 1863-1870 coxcomb helmets is still in existence today. As the main collectors of police helmets have been retired and current police officers one can assume investigations have been exhaustive and it is now unlikely that one will ever surface.

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.

It is important to note, however, that by the 1850s and through the 1860s British hatters Ellwood & Sons were producing sun helmets for the Indian Military, Administration and public (figs., 1, 3, 4, 14, 15 & 18), these had been developed from traditional rural Bengali sun helmets. So very similar, and at the time ‘modern’ designs, using the same materials and construction techniques as subsequently used in the Custodian, were already being produced in Britain. And in fact Ellwood & Sons, the patent holders of the ‘Air Chamber Helmet’ launched legal proceedings against Christys in June 1864, whilst the Custodian was being trialed. Perhaps implying they considered the Custodian a close enough copy of their Air Chamber sun helmet to warrant action. This raises the possibility that there was no input to the original Custodian’s design from traditional European military helmets.

Figure 2. Left, the 1829-1865 regulation stove-pipe hat. Right, the need for a new police hat was first mooted in 1844. ‘Punch’ magazine helpfully suggested a design! It illustrates the fact that the need for good ventilation was high on the agenda. Notice they use ‘hat’ rather than helmet.

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.

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.

Figure 4. The ‘coxcomb’ version of the Custodian was the original and only style for more than ten years, although the height was soon reduced. The two images at left are of two helmets with completely different origins and uses. First, is a style introduced to Britain in 1812, this example is 1834, a metal dragoon helmet, an ancient style stretching back to early Greek times.  The coxcomb held a horse hair mane, a bearskin crest or a lion ornament. These were for recognition on the battle field; to impress enemies, rivals and the general population; and to form an esprit-de-corps amongst the troops. Center, Ellwood’s lightweight 1851 Patented Air-Chamber Helmet, informally called the ‘Air Pipe’, based on types worn in India during the 1840s. Constructed for comfort and protection against the sun, the coxcomb is actually an internally opening pipe; a ventilation feature. Right, artist’s impression of the first version of the Custodian police helmet of 1863, superficially it has elements of both of the preceding helmets, but its material construction has more in common with the sun helmet, and in fact Ellwood sued Christys in 1864 for copyright infringement. Its rim and lower body seem a hangover from the stove-pipe hat, a version of this type was officially adopted in 1865, but it may have already been shortened by that time (see figs 5 & 7).

Figure 5. Finding images with anything other than general period dates is rare, but the top image here is dated as 1867. It shows that just two years after official adoption the Metropolitan Police were already wearing a short version of the coxcomb Custodian, but still with an up-turned (horizontal) brim; the ‘Stove-Pipe Custodian’ must have been very short lived. Bottom, The same helmet on an un-dated ‘Victorian’ photograph, in reality the constables are slightly less ‘statuesque’.Figure 6, Left, an 1888 illustrated news sketch. In the early 1870s it appears the short coxcomb Custodian helmet started to be produced with a down turned brim, sometimes almost vertical, superficially at least, making it almost identical to the ‘Air Chamber’ sun helmet. Right, a photograph of a similar 1870s version of the helmet.Figure 7. In the April 1865 edition of ‘Punch’, there was a whimsical and unflattering critique of the new helmet then being trialed (although a cartoon, it looks like it has already been shortened), entitled ‘What Mrs. Grundy says about the helmet’. It also gives their thoughts on its origins. Note the suspected ‘cats-comb’ and ‘bell’ influences. Although frivolous, this cartoon illustrates that the helmet’s introduction was a significant event for the people of London.Figure 8. The exact ventilation of the very first Custodian, the coxcomb style is not known, i.e. whether it had a liner/partition to form a ‘chamber’ as with Ellwood’s design (fig.17).  Here, however, are some slightly later examples, notice broader brims, again following sun helmet developments of 1890s-1900s (i.e. the Wolseley pattern). At top left a turn of the century coxcomb, with close fitting waterproof cloth lining. Top center, front and back of a 1930s coxcomb which has never had fittings or liner attached. Top right, the interior of the same, the coxcomb is molded into the shell of the helmet, it forms a trough, open at the top-front and extending to below the headband at the back forming an ‘air pipe’ open at both ends to the atmosphere. This allows air to flow freely through the dome of the helmet. The vent hole at the front of the tube, or comb, was completely open, (bottom left), like Ellwood’s ‘Air Chamber’ sun helmet, (bottom left center), but later it was usually covered by a fretted ornamental cover; (bottom right center). Bottom right, a Christys helmet, has the extra ventilation feature of ‘toothed’ cork strips between the liner and shell, along the sides only.

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 9. Seen here are distinctive 1847 ‘Albert Pattern’ helmets and the less ornate 1871 pattern.  During the mid 19^th century helmets like these were prominent in the British public’s mind due to ceremonial parades and patriotic imagery of Calvary charges etc. In the mid 1870s these probably provided the inspiration for the ornamentation on the new Army Home Service Helmet and its sibling – the alternative bell shaped Custodian style for the police. The spike is correctly called a plume holder.Figure 10. An ‘Alternative’ post 1875 Custodian police helmet style, (Ross Mather, WWW.british-police-history.uk). Following the way sun helmets were evolving, i.e. losing the air pipe and gaining steeply dipping brims and being constructed of a lightweight cork shell, with cloth paneled covering. This example has a low finial, the ‘rose top’. Versions of this simple bell like pattern have coexisted with the cockscomb models since the mid-1870s. At right, possibly the most famous Colonial Pattern Helmet of the early 1870s, this was Henry Morton Stanley’s helmet during his search for Livingstone. As can be seen the ‘Alternative’ Custodian seems to be a direct copy of the style.

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).

Today there is a common belief that the original British Police helmet, Christy & Co Ltd.’s ‘Custodian’, was developed from the Prussian pickelhaube (spiked helmet), itself inspired by a Russian reconstruction of a medieval Persian-Kulah Khud helmet. This can be considered a myth, however, as not only does Christys’ themselves contradict the idea, but the initial shape and construction methods were completely different (figs. 1, 4 & 8) and jingoistic sentiments would have militated against it (fig.14).

Figure 12.  Pickelhaube origins. Left, typical helmet construction for at least 2 thousand years, formed of three or more sheets of tough material; dome plus front and rear visor. Center Left, typical 17-18^th century military leather helmet, Center Right, A pickelhaube (1842), basically a traditional design with the large spike the only unusual feature; by 1860 the height of the dome had been reduced by 8cm. Right, The spike feature was copied by early Victorian era Imperial Russia, from ancient Eastern helmets excavated at archeological sites. These were versions of Persian Kulah Khud helmets, which had also influenced Ottoman designs.

From its inception in 1842 the pickelhaube’s shell was a single piece of thick and heavy boiled leather molded into a dome, with separate thick leather front and rear visors sewn on, then painted black. This had been a standard helmet construction method for thousands of years. We should note that the spiked British Dragoon helmet (fig. 9) was also in existence by 1842. To make the first ‘Custodian’, however, it is probable that Christy’s simply took the ‘new’ lightweight construction and ventilation methods of the 1850s Air Chamber sun helmet, and later used the evolving Colonial Pattern sun helmet to produce an alternative patterned Custodian police helmet, seemingly in tandem with the development of the Army ‘Home Service’ pattern (fig. 13), there appears no reason to invoke a Prussian origin.

Constables worked seven days a week and typically walked (plodded) their beats continually over shifts of at least 8 hours. Therefore the Custodian was designed for comfort before all else, intended to be light-weight and well ventilated. The ventilation of the coxcomb (fig. 8) consists of a molded box like ridge on top of the helmet, forming a trough on the inside, it was open at the top front and extended to below the headband at the back forming an ‘air channel’. This allowed air to flow freely through the dome of the helmet.  The later bell shaped helmet usually had grommeted side eyelets in the dome body and an apical vent, identical to the Colonial Pattern sun helmet types, some Custodians also had spacers between the leather headband and shell to allow additional circulation (fig. 16).

The 1850-1900 Indo-British family of Air Chamber; Colonial; Foreign Service; Home Service and Custodian/Home Office Pattern (the latter a 1930s designation) helmets, were all of similar construction. The type’s requisite lightweight shell was covered with light cloth material inside and out and usually provided with significant ventilation features . The ‘Custodian’, had a simple leather headband (fig. 16); in the tropics the identical Colonial Pattern headband always had spacers between it and the shell (or multiple grommeted eyelets in the cloth of the liner/chamber partition in the original ‘Air Chamber’ type) to allow air to circulate around the dome, the bell shaped Custodian and Home Service relied on side holes and/or an apex vent, but some, notably Christys, did have small headband spacers similar to the Colonial Pattern (fig. 8 & 16).

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.

Figure 14. The patriotic case against the pickelhaube being the inspiration. Top two images, it was an enemy helmet, the pickelhaube was actually a Russian helmet, copied by the Prussians. During the Crimean War 1853-1856, which had been covered with great patriotic fervour by the British press, the Russians were the enemy and the helmet was synonymous with them. Bottom two, after the Prussian-Danish war 1864, and especially after the Franco-Prussian war, 1870-71, the pickelhaube became a symbol of the ‘rapacious, brutish Prussians/Germans’ as they increasingly became a rival power to Victoria’s Britain and other European nations.

As both Scotland Yard and Christys have lost the original design documents, we may never know the exact origins and influences of the Custodian police helmet, but the German pickelhaube probably played no part in the British police helmet’s 1863 inception and design. The late-1870s introduction of the spike as an alternative style on a small subset of regional police helmets and the Home Service Helmet certainly had more to do with the 1842 Household Cavalry and the Heavies 1847 helmets than Prussian designs of the same date.The pickelhaube would have been seen as an unpatriotic model choice for a British Police helmet (fig.14).

With the routine cycling of British military units through Empire Stations most troops would have had experience with the comfortable ‘Air Chamber’ sun helmet, the subsequent Colonial Pattern and then the official ‘Foreign Service’ form. Their benefits were well known; hence these were probably the progenitors for the near identical darker brother (‘Blue Cloth’), the ‘Home Service Helmet’. The idea that the pickelhaube may have had an influence may have come-about due to the prominent place pickelhaubes have in modern popular culture and a superficial similarity in shape and use of an apical finial and plates (features which have actually been almost universal on military helmets throughout history), and today’s general public’s lack of knowledge of the contemporary Victorian British designs.Figure 15. The Victorian police, and Christys, had plenty of local inspiration for a new hat. Here are artist’s impressions of the possible European and Indian contenders. Top left, Inniskilling Dragoons, 1846, wearing 1843-1847 pattern coxcomb helmets, by Ackermann. Top right, ‘Charge of the Heavy Brigade’, wearing 1847 pattern ‘spiked’ helmets, plumes removed; 1854, by M.A. Hayes. Bottom left, ‘British Troops Man Outlying Picket, Siege of Delhi’; 1857, by Clifford Henry Mecham. Bottom right, Indian Mutiny, Lucknow ‘The Search for Wounded’ 1857, after G.F. Atkinson.

So it can be said with some confidence that the first ‘Custodian’ police helmet was copied from existing contemporary Indo-British sun helmets. It was a direct sibling of the Air Chamber sun helmet and later sun helmet styles then evolving and in production in Britain.

Figure 16. Post 1875 liners compared. Top left, Inside a standard pickelhaube, all heavy plain leather (officer’s liners were sometimes more refined). Top center, a typical Colonial Pattern sun helmet; leather headband, with spacers for air circulation and a spoked apical vent. Top right, 1870s bell shaped Custodian police helmet, leather headband, with grommeted eyelets in the side of the dome and apical vent. Bottom left, it is interesting to note that the Christys’ Colonial Pattern helmet (an early type?) only had spacers at the sides, similarly these two examples of Christys’ Custodian helmets (see also the coxcomb version fig. 8) have toothed cork strips as spacers; again only at the sides.

Given the ample circumstantial evidence it is quite certain that the Indian sun helmet was the inspiration for the original coxcomb Custodian police helmet.The fact that Ellwood & Sons sued Christys in June 1864 for copyright infringement, and also later got police contracts themselves (fig. 17), seems a very strong case for the Custodian being based on Air Chamber/Colonial helmets, rather than any European military design. The dragoon helmet’s coxcomb was a holder for external horse hair manes etc., but the Air Pipe on the sun helmet was a purely practical design for efficient ventilation. Exactly what the Metropolitan Police were looking for. Its distinctive appearance was a secondary factor and not necessarily appreciated at the time (see fig. 7).

Figure 17. It is interesting to note that by 1867 Ellwood & Son’s also had contracts to supply ‘helmets to the London, Liverpool, Scottish, & other Police Forces’. This seems to again imply that police helmets were a version of the ‘Air Chamber’ sun helmet. From ‘The Chronicle & Directory for China, Japan & the Philippines, for the Year 1868’. (Hong Kong: Daily Press Office, Jan. 13^th 1868)

During the third quarter of the 1800s the evolution of the tropical sun helmet meant it lost its ‘air pipe/coxcomb’, leading to what was generally called the ‘Colonial’ pattern sun helmet and ultimately the official adoption of the ‘Foreign Service’ helmet. Taking advantage of these sun helmet developments, the Army ‘Home Service’ pattern helmet was developed in the 1870s and was officially adopted in 1878. It was only as these appeared that purely ornamental considerations seem to have come into effect on police helmets. It seems that even during the 1870s design stage of the Army Home Service Helmet the new pattern was offered by Christys to the various police forces as an alternative, more elegant pattern than the coxcomb? Many forces did indeed take up the new Army Home Service pattern helmet, often including militaristic ornamentation, probably in the interests of style and regional or divisional individualism.

(1) What influenced the first Custodian’s shape?	The Ellwoods ‘Air Chamber’ sun helmet. The 1863 prototype was tall like the stove-pipe hat, with up-turned brim. Within a year or two, it was shortened to be more like the sun helmet, but still had an up-turned brim. By the early 1870s, the brim became steeply dipping, like the sun helmet.
(2) Was its coxcomb ornamental or practical?	Purely practical, for ventilation.
(3) Why did an alternative shape appear in the 1870s?	The successful and popular military sun helmet designs evolved and the Army asked for a ‘Home Service’ pattern based on them. The police were then offered these by Christys as an alternative ‘Custodian’ pattern
4) What influenced that model’s ornamentation?	As more police forces were set up away from London, regionally distinctive helmets were wanted. Leading to the two shell shapes and a plethora of ornamentation. The ‘spikes’ of both army and police helmets were probably based on traditional British dragoon helmet finials.

Table 1. The proposed answers to the main questions mentioned at the start.

Steve Saunders

October 2018

 

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Stuart Bates for his patience in reading and commenting on several iterations of this article. Also to Peter Suciu and Brian Wolfe for comments and encouragement.

Bibliography

• http://gmic.co.uk/topic/49271-british-police-headgear-moderators39-recommended/ this discussion covers most of the points mentioned in this article.
• www.discoverbritainmag.com ‘An accessory to history’ (2016) contains an interview with Christys & Co Ltd’s Managing Director, Steve Clarke.
• www.victorianwars.comhas useful discussions on this subject (e.g. ‘Bobby’s helmet’, thread)
• Wikipedia’s ‘Custodian helmet’ page, good information, but they are possibly the source of the Pickelhaube myth?
• http://britishpolicehelmet.co.uk/ an excellent collection of British police helmets, period photos and discussion.
• http://gutenberg.polytechnic.edu.na/5/3/3/6/53360/53360-h/53360-h.htm will take you to a digital copy of‘TheHistory ofthe Indian Revolt and of The Expeditions toPersia, China, and Japan1856-7-8’, 1859.
• https://www.jack-the-ripper-tour.com/generalnews/new-police-hats/ a whimsical look at the early police helmet.