Cloth badge backings for Colonial Police insignia

[Chacal]

Not wanting to hijack Garry’s thread on Tanganyika Police & Prisons I thought I’d open this to reply to Gard’s comment re. badge backings for Colonial Police insignia.

Fortunately, I still have my wm KC Tanganyika Pol badge and it has a diamond shaped dark blue cloth backing. I thought it a bit strange for a police badge to have a backing.
GTB

Although my Tanganyika Police didn’t have a backing it isn’t unheard of: I have a set of current Nigerian Police badges with the collar and rank badges backed with thick black felt.
RUC cap and collar badges were backed with red felt (later plastic), as is the current New Zealand Police cap badge.
I understand that Palestine Police officers numbers were backed with black leather, and I used to have a turban badge from the "Installations Auxiliary Police ANZUK Force", Singapore, backed 50/50 with dark blue (or black) and light blue felt.



Finally, a year or two back I saw an Eritrean Police (BMA) slouch hat for sale with a square cloth backing to the badge (although I failed to note the colour/s at the time.

There are probably other examples out there that I, for one, would be interested in hearing about.

Graham

[GTB]

Thanks for the info, Graham.
At first, I had thought the badge may have been a collar badge. Would you know what headdress it was worn on? I reckon it would need to be on a light ground for the dark blue backing to show up.
Gard

[Chacal]

Another addition, just found in my swaps (though I hesitate to class it as 'colonial') is a chrome collar/lapel badge of the Garda Siochana backed by a 3.8 cm square of royal blue cloth.

Graham