Stick, policeman's fog stick

This long guide fog stick was issued to a policeman working in London's docks. Heavy fogs and smogs regularly descended on London and could be hazardous. Such sticks were used by the PLA policemen to find the edge of the dock when patrolling during a fog.
London's first private dock company set up one of the first professional preventative police forces. The PLA's police force can therefore trace its ancestry back to 1799. In the 1930s, it was the 10th largest police force in England, employing over 750 officers and men. Its main duties included manning the 100 dock entrance gates and 17 water entrances, patrolling the 169 miles of quays and roads belonging to the PLA, collecting passes at the gates as the goods left the docks and investigating all manner of crime that occurred in the docks.