The Sillitoe Tartan was originally developed by Percy Sillitoe a pattern – of black-and-white or blue-and-white chequered markings. Sillitoe tartan key function was to clearly identify a person as being linked to the Scottish police, and later to the rest of the British police, and was originally based on that used by several Scottish regiments on the Glengarry cap.
It was first introduced by City of Glasgow Police in the 1930s, and subsequently adopted as a symbol of police services as far away as Chicago, Pittsburgh and Australia. While the checkered band is a common police symbol in the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries, the Chicago Police and the Pittsburgh Police are the only police forces in the United States who have adopted it as part of their police officer uniforms. In some forces the tartan was worn in the form of a removable brassard on the left arm, worn to designate on-duty from off-duty police officers. Subsequent to the launching of Battenburg markings on police vehicles in the 1980’s, the police introduced retro-reflective versions of the Sillitoe tartan markings to their uniforms, usually in blue and white, rather than blue and yellow used on vehicles. While Wake & District in-part, represents police officers – it was because of our emeritus Pipe Major’s (Joe Brady) affiliation as a Chicago Police officer which brought about the band wearing the patterned Glengarry cap (sorry all you NASCAR fans out there). Read more on the Sillitoe Tartan at Wikipedia here.