Pietermaritzburg Borough Police Badges

[sabrigade]

This is the Cap badge worn by this force.

Very little information on the formation, history and organization of the Borough Police is available.

Any knowledgable members who have information to share?

[sabrigade]

COLLAR BADGE

[Mervyn Mitton]

Will - you are so right when you say not much is known about them. They wore a nondescript blue uniform and a cap. For which this is the badge - and a nice example. I think they were set-up when Natal Police were discontinued in 1913 and the S.A.P. took over. They were called Borough Police and I think were based on Durban. I wonder if anyone has a picture? And more info. would be good - I wonder if Brett knows anything of them?

p.s. The name - in Zulu - means ' Place of the Elephants'

Edited May 23, 2009 by Mervyn Mitton

[Brett Hendey]

In 1894 the Natal Police was formed through the amalgamation of the Natal Mounted Police, Water Police, Railways Police, various borough police and the Prisons of the Colony of Natal. In his history of the NP, Holt (1913) recorded that the borough police of Pietermaritzburg, Durban and Newcastle declined to join the new force.

The history of the Durban City Police has been well documented, but I don't know anything of the history of the Pietermaritzburg and Newcastle Police. I suspect that they ended up as local traffic police, whereas the Durban City Police retained a limited crime-fighting role through most if not all their existence, one of the anomalies in Natal's position as a province of South Africa. They are now the Metropolitan Police of the Durban (or eThekwini) Metropole.

Regards

Brett