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History
Scotland Yard was founded along with the Metropolitan Police by Sir Robert Peel, with the help of Francois-Eugene 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 was not (and has never been) a police station in the usual sense, with each division 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. In November 1890, Scotland Yard moved to a new site along the Victoria Embankment,[1] overlooking the River Thames, just south of the current Ministry of Defence. 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.
The original Scotland Yard was taken over by the British Army after the police moved out. Rebuilt, it became an Army recruiting 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 a Metropolitan Police stables next door at 7 Great Scotland Yard. Scotland Yard's crime database is called Home Office Large Major Enquiry System and the acronym is HOLMES. As well, the training program is called "Elementary" in honour of the great fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. 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 cultureImage:Scotland yard detective stories 193012.jpg Scotland Yard Detective Stories magazine, issue 12, 1930 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). 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. 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. See also
Notes
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