A police box outside Earl's Court tube station in London, built in 1997 and based on the 1929 Mackenzie Trench design.

A police box is a British telephone kiosk or callbox located in a public place for the use of members of the police, or for members of the public to contact the police. Unlike an ordinary callbox, its telephone is located behind a hinged door so it can be used from the outside, and the interior of the box is, in effect, a miniature police station for use by police officers.^[vague]

Police boxes predate the era of mobile telecommunications; now British police officers carry two-way radios and/or mobile phones rather than relying on fixed kiosks.^[1]:2 Most boxes are now disused or have been withdrawn from service.

The typical police box contained a telephone linked directly to the local police station, allowing patrolling officers to keep in contact with the station, reporting anything unusual or requesting help if necessary. A light on top of the box would flash to alert an officer that he/she was requested to contact the station.^[1]:2 Members of the public could also use the phone to contact a police station in an emergency.^[1]:2

British police boxes were usually blue, except in Glasgow, where they were red until the late 1960s.^[1]:13 In addition to a telephone, they contained equipment such as an incident book and a first aid kit.^[1]:14 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, a TARDIS, is in the shape of a 1960s British police box.^[2] In the context of a TARDIS, the image of the blue police box is a trademark of the BBC.

History[edit]

An 1894 advertisement for the "Glasgow Style Police Signal Box System", sold by the National Telephone Company.

The first police telephone was installed in Albany, New York in 1877, one year after Alexander Graham Bell invented the device.^[1]:3 Call boxes for use by both police and members of the public were first installed in Washington, DC in 1883; Chicago and Detroit installed police call boxes in 1884, and in 1885 Boston followed suit.^[1]:3 These were direct line telephones placed on a post which could often be accessed by a key or breaking a glass panel. In Chicago, the telephones were restricted to police use, but the boxes also contained a dial mechanism which members of the public could use to signal different types of alarms: there were eleven signals, including "Police Wagon Required", "Thieves", "Forgers", "Murder", "Accident", "Fire" and "Drunkard".^[1]:4

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, as well as a mechanism which enabled the central police station to light the lanterns as signals to police officers in the vicinity to call the station for instructions.^[1]:5

Rectangular, wooden police boxes were introduced in Sunderland in 1923, and Newcastle in 1925.^[3] The Metropolitan Police (Met) introduced police boxes throughout London between 1928 and 1937,^[4] and the design that later became the most well-known was created for the Met by Gilbert MacKenzie Trench in 1929.^[5][6] Although some sources (e.g.,^[5]) assert that the earliest boxes were made of wood, the original MacKenzie Trench blueprints indicate that the material for the shell of the box is "concrete" with only the door being made of wood (specifically, "teak").^[6] Officers complained that the concrete boxes were extremely cold. For use by the officers, the interiors of the boxes normally contained a stool, a table, brushes and dusters, a fire extinguisher, and a small electric heater.^[4] Like the 19th century Glaswegian boxes, the London police boxes contained a light at the top of each box, which would flash as a signal to police officers indicating that they should contact the station; the lights were, by this time, electrically powered.^[4]

By 1953 there were 685 police boxes on the streets of London.^[7] Police boxes played an important role in police work until 1969-1970, when they were phased out following the introduction of personal radios. As the main function of the boxes was superseded by the rise of portable telecommunications devices like the walkie-talkie, very few police boxes remain in Britain today. Some have been converted into High Street coffee bars. These are common in Edinburgh, though the City also has dozens that remain untouched — most in various states of disrepair. Edinburgh's boxes are relatively large, and are of a rectangular plan, with a design by Ebenezer James MacRae, who was inspired by the city's abundance of neoclassical architecture.^[8] At their peak there were 86 scattered around the city. In 2012, Lothian and Borders Police sold a further 22, leaving them owning 20.^[9] One police box situated in the Leicestershire village of Newtown Linford is still used by local police today.^[10][11]

The red police box, as seen at the Glasgow Museum of Transport

In 1994 Strathclyde Police decided to scrap the remaining Glasgow police boxes.^[12] However, owing to the intervention of the Civil Defence & Emergency Service Preservation Trust and the Glasgow Building Preservation Trust, some police boxes were retained and remain today as part of Glasgow's architectural heritage.^[12] At least four remain—on Great Western Road (at the corner of Byres Road); Buchanan Street (at the corner of Royal Bank Place); Wilson Street (at the intersection of Glassford Street, recently completely restored); and one near the corner of Cathedral Square (at the corner of Castle Street, also recently restored). There was also a red police box preserved in the Glasgow Museum of Transport but this was returned to the Civil Defence Trust after Glasgow City Council decided it did not fit in with the new Transport Museum. The police boxes in Glasgow on Great Western Road is leased as a coffee and donut kiosk, Cathedral Square is leased as the "Tartan Tardis," selling Scottish memorabilia, and Buchanan Street are currently under licence to a Glasgow-based ice cream outlet.^[8] As of November 2011^[update], and restrictions are enforced by the Civil Defence & Emergency Service Preservation Trust to prevent the exterior of the boxes from being modified beyond the trademarked design.

The Civil Defence & Emergency Service Preservation Trust now manage eleven of the UK's last "Gilbert Mackenzie Trench" Police Signal Boxes on behalf of a private collector. Another blue police box of this style is preserved at the National Tramway Museum, Crich, Derbyshire. One of the Trust's boxes stands outside the Kent Police Museum in Chatham, Kent.^[13] and another at Grampian Transport Museum. An original MacKenzie Trench box exists in the grounds of the Metropolitan Police College (Peel Centre) at Hendon. There is no public access, but it can easily be seen from a Northern Line tube train travelling from Colindale to Hendon Central (on the left hand side).

In the City of London there are eight non-functioning police "call posts" still in place which are Grade II listed buildings.^[14] The City of London Police versions were cast iron rectangular posts, as the streets are too narrow for full sized boxes. One compartment contained the telephone and another locked compartment held a first aid kit. Fifty posts were installed in the "Square Mile" from 1907; they were in use until 1988.^[15]

In 1997, a new police box based on the Mackenzie Trench design was erected outside the Earl's Court tube station in London, equipped with CCTV cameras and a telephone to contact police.^[4] The telephone ceased to function in April 2000 when London's telephone numbers were changed, but the box remained, despite the fact that funding for its upkeep and maintenance had long since been exhausted. In March 2005, the Metropolitan Police resumed funding the refurbishment and maintenance of the box (which is something of a tourist attraction, thanks to the Doctor Who association — see below).

Glasgow introduced a new design of police boxes in 2005. The new boxes are not booths but rather computerized kiosks that connect the caller to a police CCTV control room operator. They stand ten feet in height with a chrome finish and act as 24-hour information points, with three screens providing information on crime prevention, police force recruitment and even tourist information.^[16]

Manchester also has "Help Points" similar to those in Glasgow, which contain a siren that is activated upon the emergency button being pressed; this also causes CCTV cameras nearby to focus on the Help Point.

Liverpool has structures similar to police boxes, known as 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[edit]

1980s fibreglass TARDIS prop seen at BBC Television Centre.

The BBC science-fiction television series Doctor Who features a time machine, the TARDIS, disguised as a Mackenzie Trench-style police box; normally capable of disguising itself to blend into its surroundings, the ship's chameleon circuit broke down in England 1963, and left the TARDIS seen most often in the show stuck as a police box, except for a brief period in one adventure seen in 1985. Doctor Who was originally transmitted from 1963 to 1989; as 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.^[17] 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, arguing out that there was no evidence that the Metropolitan Police—or any other police force—had ever registered the image as a trademark.^[2][18][19] In addition, the BBC had been selling merchandise based on the image for over three decades without complaint by the police.^[18] The series was revived in 2005, and the police box continues to feature prominently in almost every episode.

Although the dimensions and colour of the TARDIS used in the series have changed many times, none of the BBC props has been a faithful replica of the original MacKenzie Trench model. This has been explained within the context of the show that the Chameleon Circuit that facilitates the shape is first, malfunctioning, and second, even working Circuits tend to display a bit of "drift" if left in the same setting for too long. ^[20]

Gallery of police boxes[edit]

• 

  This police box in Edinburgh now serves as a coffee shop.

• 

  A police box on the seafront at Scarborough.

• 

  An old police box (no telephone) in Covent Garden, London.

• 

  A City of London Police box on Eastcheap, 1981.

• 

  A modern police box in Baltimore, Maryland, based on the British concept.

• 

  A police telephone in San Francisco, one of hundreds in the city.

• 

  Police telephone post (not functional) at St. Martin's Le Grand, London — painted (incorrectly) in 'Met' dark blue. 'City' boxes were painted in a light blue.

• 

  A 1929 Mackenzie Trench design police box preserved at the National Tramway Museum in Crich, Derbyshire.

See also[edit]

• Kōban
• Somerton TARDIS
• Red telephone box

References[edit]

• Stewart, Robert W. (June 1994). "The Police Signal Box: A 100 Year History" (PDF). University of Strathclyde. Archived from the original on 9 June 2011. 

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Police boxes

• "Police box", History, Metropolitan Police .
• The Police Public Call Box on YouTube
• A feature on Glasgow's police boxes on YouTube
• The TARDIS Library  — a guide to the various police box props used in Doctor Who over the years, and their relationship to real police boxes.
• McPherson, Ian, "The Police Box page", Kiosk Korner .
• "The Great Edinburgh TARDIS Quest", Flickr, Yahoo!  — set devoted to tracking down remaining Edinburgh police boxes.
• Steven, Michael ‘Mike’, "Police Box Typology", Carbon Made  — fine art policebox photographic typology.
• "Earliest Glasgow police box discovered", Dr Who (news), UK: The BBC, 2005-09-01 
• Police Boxes  — catalogue of police box models.
• National Tramway Museum, Crich, Derbyshire, ENG, UK