Scotland Yard

New Scotland Yard, London

Scotland Yard or New Scotland Yard, informally known as The Yard or NSY, is the headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for policing Greater London (excluding the City of London, which is policed by a separate force).

Contents

History

The name derives from the headquarters' original location on Great Scotland Yard, a street off Whitehall. The exact origins of this name are unknown, though popular explanations include the following: that it had once been the site of a diplomatic mission owned by the Kings of Scotland prior to the Union of England and Scotland; that the street was owned by a man called Scott during the Middle Ages; or that stagecoaches bound to Scotland once departed from the street.[1] By the 17th century, the street had become the site of a number of government buildings, with the architects Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren living there. From 1649–1651, the poet John Milton lived there during the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell's rule.

Scotland Yard was founded along with the Metropolitan Police by Sir Robert Peel, with the help of Eugène-François Vidocq. It opened for business as administrative headquarters of the Service on 29 September 1829, housing the two commissioners and their administrative staffs in a complex of about 50 rooms. It has never been a police station in the usual sense, with each borough of the police instead operating their own local stations.

The building's main entrance was at number 4 Whitehall, but a public office was installed at the rear of the building in Great Scotland Yard and so gave the building its name. The staff of Scotland Yard were responsible for internal security, public affairs, recruitment, correspondence and other administrative matters. Their duties grew steadily over time as the size of the Service increased.

New Scotland Yard: 1890 Victorian building (centre), near Big Ben tower.

Development on a new location along the Victoria Embankment,[2] overlooking the River Thames, just south of the current Ministry of Defence was started in 1888. During construction workers discovered the dismembered torso of a murdered woman, although the case was never solved. In November 1890 Scotland Yard moved into its new location. By this time, the Metropolitan Police had grown from its initial 1,000 officers to about 13,000, necessitating more administrative staff and a bigger headquarters. Further increases in the size and responsibilities of the force required even more administrators, and in 1907 and 1940, New Scotland Yard was extended further. This complex is now a grade I listed building.

By the 1960s the requirements of modern technology and further increases in the size of the force meant that it had outgrown its Victoria Embankment headquarters. In 1967, New Scotland Yard moved to the present building at 10 Broadway, which was an existing office block acquired under a long-term lease. The name transferred with it and the first New Scotland Yard is now called the Norman Shaw (North) building. Part of it is now used as the Headquarters for the Metropolitan Police's Territorial Policing department.

The original Scotland Yard was taken over by the British Army after the police moved out. Rebuilt, it became an Army recruitment office and Royal Military Police headquarters, complete with cells in the basement. It was bombed by the Provisional IRA in 1973, killing one person. It subsequently became the Ministry of Defence Library, a role which it retained until 2004. Today, the only surviving element of the original Scotland Yard is the Metropolitan Police stables next door, at 7 Great Scotland Yard.

The Metropolitan Police's crime database is housed at New Scotland Yard. This utilises a national IT system developed for major crime enquiries by all UK forces, called Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, more commonly referred to by its acronym, HOLMES. In addition, the training program is called "Elementary" in honour of the great fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

A number of security measures were added to New Scotland Yard's exterior during the 2000s, including concrete barriers in front of ground level windows, as a countermeasure against car bombing. This was accompanied by a concrete wall around the entrance to the building, and the entrance itself having a covered walkway from the street to the building. Armed officers from the Diplomatic Protection Group were assigned to patrol the exterior of the building.

Scotland Yard's telephone number was originally Whitehall 1212. The majority of London area police stations, as well as Scotland Yard itself, still have 1212 as their last four digits.

Popular culture

In much popular fiction and cinema, the term New Scotland Yard is used incorrectly instead of Metropolitan Police to describe the police force in London. Occasionally, the term is even used (again incorrectly) to refer to all police in the United Kingdom.

The film, From Hell which is based on the graphic novel of the same name which is about the From Hell letter allegedly written by Jack the Ripper to Scotland Yard.

Scotland Yard has become internationally famous as a symbol of policing, and detectives from Scotland Yard feature in many works of crime fiction. They were frequent allies — and sometimes antagonists — of Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous stories (see, for instance, Inspector Lestrade). It is also referred to in Around the World in Eighty Days.

Many novelists have adopted fictional Scotland Yard detectives as the heroes or heroines of their stories. John Creasey's stories featuring George Gideon are amongst the earliest police procedurals. Commander Adam Dalgliesh, created by P. D. James, and Inspector Richard Jury, created by Martha Grimes are notable recent examples. A somewhat more improbable example is Baroness Orczy's aristocratic female Scotland Yard detective Molly Robertson-Kirk, aka Lady Molly of Scotland Yard.

Agatha Christie's numerous mystery novels often referenced Scotland Yard, most notably in her Poirot series. The Belgian detective of the same name was often accompanied (and sometimes thwarted) by a hard-working yet not-as-effective Chief Inspector Japp (played in the TV series by Philip Jackson).

In the novels written by Ngaio Marsh, the lead character is Roderick Alleyn (often called Rory). He's a Detective Chief Inspector (later Chief Superintendent) at Scotland Yard. On TV, the role has been played by George Baker, Simon Williams and Patrick Malahide.

In children's fiction, the Time Machine series had one title about Scotland Yard (#17 - Scotland Yard Detective), in which the mystery is the rescue of an Indian prince.

During the 1930s, there was a short-lived pulp magazine called variously Scotland Yard, Scotland Yard Detective Stories or Scotland Yard International Detective, which, despite the name, concentrated more on lurid crime stories set in the United States rather than having anything to do with the Metropolitan Police.

In the popular computer game, Civilization IV, amongst the wonders of the world Scotland Yard is considered a national wonder of which each civilization can build as to train spies for use during war time.

Scotland Yard was the name of a series of cinema second features made between 1953 and 1961. Introduced by Edgar Lustgarten, each episode featured a dramatised reconstruction of a 'true crime' story. Filmed at Merton Park Studios, many of the episodes featured Russell Napier as Inspector Duggan. The series was succeeded by The Scales of Justice, which dealt with a similar theme. In the comedy series Batman, the caped crusaders in England meet members of "Ireland Yard"- clearly a spoof of Scotland Yard.

Fabian of the Yard was a television series transmitted by the BBC made on film and transmitted between 1954 and 1956, based upon the career of the by then retired Detective Inspector Robert Fabian. It focused on the subject of forensic science, which at the time was still in its infancy. Fabian usually appeared in a cameo shot towards the end of each episode.

Scotland Yard is the name of a Scottish rap collective. They have released an E.P. entitled The Scotland Yard E.P., produced by Seanie Bee.

Scotland Yard is the division that a youthful Gatse Becker was handpicked from to join the Policenauts squad in Hideo Kojima's Japanese cyberpunk adventure game.

Scotland Yard is the basis of a board game by German company Ravensburger.

In the alternate history novel Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove, depicting an England which was defeated and occupied by the Spanish Armada, the original Scotland Yard — not yet having anything to do with police matters — is used as a secret rendezvous point for conspirators seeking to free England from Spanish rule.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Metropolitan Police Service - History of the Metropolitan Police Service
  2. ↑ "Metropolitan Police" (history), Thomas Twiglet, 2005-10-23, Tiscali.co.uk webpage: Tiscali-UK-MetPol.

External links