Everything about Police Box totally explained
A
police box is usually described as a
telephone kiosk or
callbox for use by members of the
police, or for members of the public to contact the police. In fact the telephone was mounted on the outside of these boxes, and the interior of the box was effectively a miniature police station for the use of officers. Police boxes pre-date the era of modern
telecommunications; today, every police officer (in technologically developed countries) is likely to carry a two-way
radio and/or a
mobile phone.
The typical police box contained a telephone linked directly to the local police station allowing officers "on the beat" to keep in contact with the station, reporting anything unusual, requesting help if necessary or even to detain prisoners until a vehicle could be sent to transport them to the station or to jail. This was in the day when most police officers
walked a beat or rode a
bicycle rather than using a
police car. A light on top of the box would flash to alert a beat officer that he was requested to contact the station. In addition to a telephone they contained essential equipment such as an
incident book and a
first aid kit. Today the image of the blue police box is widely associated with the
science fiction television programme Doctor Who, in which the protagonist's
time machine, the
TARDIS, is stuck in the shape of a police box. Call boxes for use by both police and members of the public were first installed in
Washington, D.C. in 1883;
Chicago and
Detroit installed police call boxes in 1884, and in 1885
Boston followed suit.
The first public police telephones in Britain were introduced in
Glasgow in 1891. These tall, hexagonal
cast-iron boxes were painted red and had large gas lanterns fixed to the roof, and a mechanism which enabled the central police station to light the lantern as a signal to policemen in the vicinity to call the station for instructions. The
Metropolitan Police introduced police boxes throughout
London between 1928 and 1937;; the design that later became most well-known was created for the Met by Gilbert Mackenzie Trench in 1929. The earliest boxes were made of wood, and later ones of concrete; officers complained that the concrete boxes were extremely cold. The interiors of these boxes normally contained, for the use of officers: a stool, a table, brushes and dusters, a fire extinguisher and a small electric heater. Police boxes played an important part in police work until the mid-1960s, when they were phased out following the introduction of personal radios. As the main function of this box was superseded by the rise of portable telecommunications like the
walkie-talkie and the
mobile phone, there are very few police boxes left in Britain today. Some of those remaining, like in
Edinburgh, have been converted into
high street coffee bars, though the City has many dozens remaining untouched, most in various states of disrepair. One police box situated in the leicestershire town of
Newtown Linford is still used by the local police beat team today
In 1994, the
Strathclyde Police decided to scrap the remaining police boxes on the streets of
Glasgow. However, due to the intervention of the Civil Defence & Emergency Service Preservation Trust, together with the Glasgow Building Preservation Trust, the police box remains today a part of Glasgow's architectural heritage.
Liverpool has something similar, police "Help Points" which are essentially an intercom box with a push button mounted below a CCTV camera on a post with a direct line to the police.
Doctor Who
Doctor Who was first shown by the
BBC. A key feature of this programme is the
TARDIS, a
time machine disguised as a Mackenzie Trench-style police box.
Doctor Who originally aired from 1963 to 1989; since police boxes were phased out in the 1970s, over time the image of the blue police box became associated as much with
Doctor Who as with the police. In 1996, the BBC applied for a
trademark to use the blue police box design in merchandising associated with
Doctor Who. In 1998, the Metropolitan Police filed an objection to the trademark claim, maintaining that they owned the
rights to the police box image. In 2002 the
Patent Office ruled in favour of the BBC, pointing out that there was no evidence that the Metropolitan Police — or any other police force — had ever registered the image as a trademark. In addition, the BBC had been selling
merchandise based on the image for over three decades without complaint by the police.
The series was revived in 2005 and the police box continues to feature prominently in almost every episode.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Police Box'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://police_box.totallyexplained.com">Police box Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
