Police Museum, Australia

I thought I'd share some photos I took recently at the Justice and Police Museum, located at Circular Quay in Sydney.

The museum is dedicated to Sydney's Police history, all items on show are from police archives, and can be traced back to the city, so I guess it gives an insight into what particular restraints were used in Sydney over the past 200 years.

If you never get the chance to visit, this is basically the entire restraint collection on show at the time.
Nothing particularly exciting, but I thought the convict restraint belt was quite interesting.

Justin

Hi Justin
I've just visited a Prison Museum in New South Wales which has very similar items. The Peerless type cuff you show is a Small Arms Factory cuff. The single long link makes it an early model. The key on the left is a Peerless Key and the Key on the right is, I believe, an original SAF key.
Were all the older darbies Hiatt? I saw one at the Prisons Museum with a makers mark 3 letters ending in W - I have no idea who made them.
They also had a similar belt but it had a smaller belt which would pass between the legs and buckle at the back which alternatively could have been used to support leg irons. I would have expected to see these more in asylums for people who would self harm. Left wrist in the right buckle and vise versa.
Thanks for sharing.
Paul

I thought I'd share some photos I took recently at the Justice and Police Museum, located at Circular Quay in Sydney.

The museum is dedicated to Sydney's Police history, all items on show are from police archives, and can be traced back to the city, so I guess it gives an insight into what particular restraints were used in Sydney over the past 200 years.

If you never get the chance to visit, this is basically the entire restraint collection on show at the time.
Nothing particularly exciting, but I thought the convict restraint belt was quite interesting.

Justin

Click to expand...

Hi Paul,

The darby leg irons are made by Hiatt, but the backstrap darbies did not have any makers marks that I could see.
I thought the swivel did not look like Hiatt, my backstrap Hiatts have the same swivel as Joe's does on this website, and other similar Hiatts I have seen have all had that design swivel, so I think they were made by another manufacturer. The only markings I could see were numbers on the top of the backstrap, HARD and an unusual hand scribed X on both cuffs.

Justin

I thought I'd share some photos I took recently at the Justice and Police Museum, located at Circular Quay in Sydney.

The museum is dedicated to Sydney's Police history, all items on show are from police archives, and can be traced back to the city, so I guess it gives an insight into what particular restraints were used in Sydney over the past 200 years.

If you never get the chance to visit, this is basically the entire restraint collection on show at the time.
Nothing particularly exciting, but I thought the convict restraint belt was quite interesting.

Justin

Click to expand...

Hi Justin, thanks for photo's. Saves me a trip to NSW. Nice photos.

Ian