Family activities run 11am – 4pm free with the price of admission
Did you know that early policemen carried swords? Not on everyday patrols, but they were often issued to officers on lonely night patrol, particularly in dockyards. Some forces did regular Cutlass Drill training to keep their sword-wielding skills up for use against disorderly crowds.
One of the most serious offences a police officer can commit is to lose a prisoner. Early rural policemen working from their cottages sometimes had to keep prisoners manacled with leg irons to the bed or handcuffed to a chair in their living rooms until they could be “carted” away to prison.
During the Easter holiday weekdays Ripon Museums will be running a ‘Police Academy’. Follow the Recruiting Trail at the Prison & Police Museum and then call in at the Workhouse Museum to try your hand at Cutlass Drill. Activities include felt police badge making, baking and finger-printing, and object handling of restraints that were used by the police service. Can you solve the murder at the Workhouse using Victorian CSI techniques.
