I’ve found a few whistles over the past year or so. The first one was a standard issue tubular whistle, then two dog whistles (within a few days of each other), and just last Sunday, a conical whistle from the 19th century.

The Standard Issue, or police whistle, was invented after a request by the Metropolitan Police in 1883 for a whistle to replace the rattles Victorian police and their predecessors had used (believe it or not) to call for help or attract attention. The police wanted something less resistant to breaking that could be heard farther away (this whistle’s sound can travel up to a mile in good conditions), which wouldn’t be used to attack the police as the rattles sometimes were.

The dog whistle was invented in 1875 by Francis Doulton — the same man who invented the term “eugenics” and was a proponent of social Darwinism. Speaking of Darwin, Doulton was a cousin of Charles Darwin. The things one learns while researching metal-detecting finds!

The most recent whistle I found is a conical whistle. sometimes called a “Beaufort Whistle,” but that term seems to be a recent development. They were used as warning whistles for women and by some police forces before the invention of the Standard Issue tubular whistle (that is, if the weren’t hanging onto their trusty rattles).