depict in fiction for well over a C as the human race ’s premiere constabulary force , Scotland Yard might be the most famous standard for constabulary enforcement in story . Though the name itself is formally a condition for thelocationof the London Metropolitan Police home office , it ’s accept on a colloquial use to describe the collective mental capacity trust of that station ’s patrolmen and police detective . Here ’s what we ’ve deduced about the past , present , and future of this historical — and sometimes controversial — institution .
1. IT GOT ITS NAME FROM A TRICKY BIT OF GEOGRAPHY.
London did n’t have a formal constabulary violence until 1829 , when Home Secretary Sir Robert Peelarrangedfor a squad to exchange the fractured system of watchmen , street patrol , and the River Police . Colonel Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne were tax with organise the military group : Mayne ’s theater at 4 Whitehall Place give to an conterminous courtyard that had once been a gothic palace that hosted Scotch royal line while they were in London . This “ Great Scotland Yard , ” which was alsoreportedlythe name of the street behind the building , became synonymous with Rowan and Mayne ’s sweat to create a new era in jurisprudence enforcement .
2. CHARLES DICKENS TAGGED ALONG ON PATROLS.
The famed writer ofGreat Expectationsand other literary classic was n’t a police officer , but he did execute the nineteenth - 100 combining weight of a ride - along . Dickens wasfriendswith Charles Frederick Field , a Scotland Yard inspector , and their relationship top to Dickens once in a while come with patrolmen on their nightly rounds . He even based a character in his novelBleak Houseon Fields .
3. THERE WERE DIRTY COPS AMONG THE RANKS IN THOSE EARLY DAYS.
For all of the public sufferance of Scotland Yard — Londoners were initiallywaryof the plainclothes cops walk among them — the police squad suffered a sensational coke to its image in 1877 . Known as the “ Turf Fraud Scandal ” or the “ visitation of the Detectives , ” the controversy erupt after a Parisian socialite named Madame de Goncourt wasconnedby two man named Harry Benson and William Kurr . Scotland Yard examiner Nathaniel Druscovich was dispatch to Amsterdam to capture a take flight Benson while others quest after Kurr . The workforce proved surprisingly elusive , which prompted suspicion among Scotland Yard officials . When the two con man were finally arrested , they explain that an inspector cite John Meiklejohn was taking bribes in exchange for tip off Kurr to police bodily process . Two other officer were implicate ; the three each received two years in prison house . The gamy - visibility severance result to a reorganisation , with the Yardinsertingdetectives into a new Criminal Investigation Department ( CID ) to help understate wrongdoing .
4. THEY HELPED PIONEER FINGERPRINTING.
At one time , the science of fingerprinting was more of a theory than anything that could be put into exercise . Most law power instead relied onanthropometry , a system created by French police officer Alphonse Bertillon , which used 11 torso measurements taken by calliper to allow a unequaled physical identity for an individual . While fingerprinting was begin to take off in India in the late 1800s , the English - speaking universe did n’t take in theforensic techniqueof lifting and matching mark until 1901 , when Sir Edward Henry , then the assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard , institutedthe Metropolitan Police Fingerprint Bureau . In 1902 , a billiard ball thief was convicted base on afingerprinthe left hand on a windowsill . In 1904 , a Yard detective demonstrated the efficacy of fingerprinting at the St. Louis World ’s Fair , helping start the Modern skill to American law enforcement officials .
5. THEIR PATROL OFFICERS DIDN’T CARRY GUNS UNTIL 1994.
The uniformed police officers who wind London ’s streets with an eye on keep the peace were unarmed for most of the 20thcentury . It was n’t until 1994 that select patrol officers werepermittedto bear guns , a policy shift that stemmed from increased assaults on police . The addition of small-arm was limited to armed response cars designate to be dispatched to high - jeopardy calls ; antecedently , police officer were apprise to keep their weapons in a lockbox inside their vehicles . Today,90 percentof Metropolitan police officer go on duty without a gun , a policy largely maintain in response to a relatively low turn of guns carried by civilians . Less than four in 100 British citizens own a firearm .
6. THEY HAVE A SQUAD OF “SUPER RECOGNIZERS.”
With surveillance photographic camera dot London , facial identification for identifying felonious suspects is in high need . But no software can outperform Scotland Yard ’s squad of “ super recognizers , ” who arerecruitedfor their power to match a face to a name base on their own memory . These officer are hired by dole out a facial acknowledgment psychometric test first implemented by Harvard in 2009 . Those in the top percentile have an uncanny ability to hold facial characteristic details and are often hit to cull out do it crook like pickpocket at public gatherings . One such specialist , Constable Gary Collins , identify 180 masses out of 4000 while examining footage of the 2011 London riots . Software was able to identify on the dot one .
7. THEY KEEP A SECRET CRIME MUSEUM HIDDEN FROM THE PUBLIC.
Housed across two floors at the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police in London is the Black Museum , a macabre cavalcade of evidence from intimately 150 days of fact-finding piece of work . plant in 1875 , the collectionhousesbody parts ( gallstones that failed to dissolve in acid along with the rest of a execution dupe ) and seemingly innocuous items that take on sinister connotations : A set of pots and pans that once belonged to Scotch serial killer Dennis Nilsen and were used to boil human flesh . It ’s close to the public , though visiting law enforcement and sometimes celebrities cansecurean invite : Laurel and Hardy and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have tour its inventory . A sample of the collection wenton displayat the Museum of London in 2015 .
8. YOU COULD LIVE THERE ONE DAY.
The Metropolitan Police have modify locations several meter over the year . It was locate at itsoriginal locationof 4 Whitehall Place from 1829 to 1890 , thenhousedin a large Victorian construction on the Victoria Embankment from 1890 until 1967 . That ’s when the operation was act to a 600,000 square - fundament construction at 10 Broadway in Westminster : a famous revolving sign announced a New Scotland Yard was taking up residence . In 2014 , the construction wassoldto investors from Abu Dhabi for $ 580 million : London cited operating expense and budget cuts as the reason for the sale . The purchaser design to mount a residential lodging project in the place . Scotland Yard staffmovedto a trim - down facility at the Curtis Green Building in Westminster and withinwalking distanceof the Houses of Parliament .
