Product Description

For over 170 years, Scotland Yard has been the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service. This encyclopedia reveals facts and stories from Scotland Yard's history. It also profiles the activities, techniques and structures of the modern Metropolitan Police.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #550624 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-21
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 298 pages

The Job
The only official book on Scotland Yard, it breaks new ground with previously unpublished images from the Met Museum....

From the Publisher
The ultimate reference book on every aspect of the Yard
Two interesting facts which you can glean from The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard:

Dr Crippen poisoned his wife, filleted her and stored her headless remains in his cellar. While making his escape to Montreal, the captain of the passenger ship recognised him from Wanted posters and used a new telegraph system to inform the police. Scotland Yard detectives boarded a faster ship and arrested Crippen as he was disembarking in Canada.

PC William Atkinson and PC William Alcock, the first and second police constables attested, were both dismissed for drunkenness on the streets on 29th September 1829, the first day that patrols began.

This is the kind of information that makes this book unique. The authors, true crime writer Martin Fido and historical researcher Keith Skinner, break new ground with this meticulously detailed study illustrated with previously unpublished images from the Metropolitan Police Museum archives alongside over five hundred entries ranging from A Division to Z Wagon.

The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard traces the evolution of the service since it was founded by Sir Robert Peel in 1829 to the present day, detailing the methods and equipment used over the years, as well as tackling issues of policy, racism and corruption in the modern force.

Produced with the full co-operation of the Metropolitan Police and including a foreword by its Commissioner Sir Paul Condon, we feel that this is an invaluable reference book, offering unprecedented insight into both the force itself and the social, cultural and technological development of Britain in the twentieth century.

About the Author
Martin Fido and Keith Skinner met in 1987 when each had just published work on the Whitechapel murders of 1888. They proceeded to collaborate on a study of the Peasenhall murder and, with Paul Begg, The Jack The Ripper A-Z.

Martin Fido was previously a literary historian, specializing in the Victorian novel and its background. For 20 years he taught in universities from Oxford to the West Indies before becoming a freelance writer and historian in 1983.

Keith Skinner started his professional life as an actor working in film, theatre and television. He has twice been a member of the National Theatre Company, under the directorship of Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir Peter Hall.

Customer Reviews

A wonderful miscellany of police related history and facts
I was involved in checking the entries for this book and know the contents well. I have recently worked through it again and am really taken by the photographs - the almost Victorian like classroom in the Police orphanage, the famous WPC chasing the naked urchins by the Serpentine, the cartoon of "John Bull" kicking the Home Secretary down the steps of the Home Office, and so on. My favourite story is about Irene Savidge, a prostitute, who was caught with a customer Sir Leo Money in Hyde Park. Sir Leo was acquitted and there was an enormous fuss and great attacks on the police because the establishment closed ranks and pilloried the individual officers. BUT several years later Sir Leo was caught attacking a respectable woman on a train, and convicted and fined. Which all goes to show that justice catches up with all of us in the end!