1916 Hudson trench whistle

[muckaroon1960]

I have a Hudson 1916 trench whistle with a fitted chain. The chain links have been soldered. I have been told that this maybe a Navy whistle due to the chain but not sure on this?

[Mervyn Mitton]

The whistle is a police pattern - down to the chain and the hook (which went in a buttonhole on the tunic).

Using the same dies they also produced for the military - and in this case at the top of the whistle is the Broad

Arrow of the Board of Ordnance. 1916 is the date of manufacture. Worth about 40 pounds. Mervyn

[Brian Wolfe]

I believe the Navy pattern has a neck chain rather than the single chain and hook arrangement of the police and army versions.

The one from my collection (photo below) also has a much more robust attachment ring on the whistle and in this example the broad arrow is on the body of the whistle.

Regards

Brian

[muckaroon1960]

Thanks for the input guys much appreciated. I also have a police whistle (numbered) and a 1939 dated whistle with a leather strap attached. I should imagine that this pattern was quite common and used by all the services.

[Brian Wolfe]

I have an example with the leather strap dated 1943 along with the broad arrow mark.

If yours has the broad arrow then it would be military and most likely army, no broad arrow would indicate probable police issue.

Regards

Brian

[Tony]

I have a Hudson 1916 trench whistle with a fitted chain. The chain links have been soldered. I have been told that this maybe a Navy whistle due to the chain but not sure on this?

I have the same type, I'll have to dig it out and look at the links and broad arrow. I have a WWII version of the whistle too, exactly the same as the standard army/police issue whistle but with ARP stamped on it.

Tony

[Brian Wolfe]

For those who are wondering what Tony's ARP markings stand for it's Air Raid Precautions [services].

Regards

Brian

[Tony]

I've just photographed the whistles, the 1917 whistle has standard non welded links and a broad arrow on the ring. The ARP whistle is next to it for comparison, same manufacturer, slightly smaller, no date stamp and a smaller, thinner ring.

Tony

[Mervyn Mitton]

The ARP is a standard pattern for the WW2 period. In the 1st WW the Police rode around the streets on bicycles

blowing their whistles to alert people for Zeppelin attacks. For gas warnings rattles were kept in the Stations - and

again they would have ridden around 'cracking' them to alert people. Mervyn