In August 1842 the men specially selected for the Detective Department began work at Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police’s head office located at No. 4 Whitehall Place. Only the commissioners, clerical staff and central detectives worked there while all other policemen worked out of stations located in their respective divisions. 4 Whitehall Place earned the epithet Scotland Yard because the building backed onto Great Scotland Yard, which itself was named for the former Palace of Whitehall, once used by Scottish royalty visiting England before it burned to the ground in the seventeenth century.2 In the
Victorian period, Great Scotland Yard was “a small – a very small – tract of land,
bounded on one side by the river Thames, on the other by the gardens of Northumberland House: abutting at one end on the bottom of Northumberland Street, at the other on the back of Whitehall Place.”3 In the early nineteenth century the small yard catered to the
coal heavers who worked at the wharves but increasingly up-market traffic provided by the Metropolitan Police head office and the expansion of parliament after 1832 gentrified Great Scotland Yard. Dickens described the transition in Sketches by Boz, lamenting the replacement of the tavern by vine vaults and the pie maker with a jeweler.4
The new detective recruits – Inspectors Pearce and Haynes and Sergeants Gerrett,
Thornton, Whicher, Goff, Shaw and Braddick – were a remarkably small group for a city teeming, as London was in the nineteenth century, with wealth and people. The city’s population was less than one million in 1800, but grew by 330,000 in the 1840s, “a staggering 17 per cent of London’s total population.”5 While population exploded, so did
2
Martin Fido and Keith Skinner, The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard (London: Virgin Books, 1999), 234.
3 Michael Slater, ed., The Dent Uniform Edition of Dickens’ Journalism: Sketches by Boz and other Early
Papers 1833-39 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1994), 65.
4
Slater, Dickens’ Journalism, 65-69.
5
national income, which “more than trebled” between 1850 and 1914.6
The minuscule size of the Detective Department (no more than thirty were ever employed at one time until 1878) reflected continued ambivalence among senior police and government officials about the use of detectives. Although undercover police work was hardly unknown in England, public stigma against such ‘continental’ methods ensured that the new department remained small.7
Rowan and Mayne selected their new detectives from among serving Metropolitan Police officers. The first detectives had experience investigating crimes or were thought to be able to learn this skill quickly. Gerrett, Goff, Thornton and Shaw had been involved in investigating the murders leading up to the creation of the detective force.8 A degree of continuity with London’s earlier detective force is also evident: Nicholas Pearce began his career in London law enforcement in 1825 as a Bow Street Officer. He subsequently joined the Metropolitan Police, earning coveted promotions to sergeant and then
inspector during the 1830s. As a police inspector in Whitehall division, Pearce was a senior officer in the Westwood, Courvoisier and Good murder investigations. His experience working for Bow Street and more than twelve years as a Metropolitan Police officer made him an excellent choice to oversee the new detective force.9 John Haynes, a police inspector from Camberwell, joined Pearce at the helm of the new department. Like
6
V.A.C Gattrell, “The Decline of Theft and Violence in Victorian and Edwardian England,” in Crime and the Law: A Social History of Crime in Western Europe Since 1500, eds. V.A.C. Gattrell, Bruce Lenman and Geoffrey Parker (London: Europa Publications, 1980), 238-337 and 240.
7 For a discussion of undercover policing in London outside the Detective Department, see chapter 5. An
analysis of Continental policing and the enduring English stigma against spies can be found in chapter 6.
8
Gerrett worked for Pearce during the hunt for Daniel Good while Goff was the officer who responded at the Grimwood crime scene. Joan Lock, Dreadful Deeds and Awful Murders: Scotland Yard’s First Detectives 1829-1878 (Taunton: Barn Owl Books, 1990), 68. Thornton and Shaw’s work on these cases is discussed below.
9
When Pearce left the Detective Department in 1844 to become superintendent of Covent Garden division, his replacement was inspector Joseph Shackell, also a former Bow Street Officer. Shackell had served in the Metropolitan Police in Whitehall (A) division before becoming a gaoler at Bow Street in 1834 and subsequently a Principal Officer between 1836 and 1839. Pearce had been a patrolman. David J. Cox, A Certain Share of Low Cunning: A History of the Bow Street Runners, 1792-1839 (Cullompton: Willan Publishing, 2010), 224 and fn. 27 on the same page.
his colleague, Haynes had been with the Metropolitan Police since the early 1830s and had ample experience as a senior officer.10 Both men had been inspectors in their
divisions for at least two years before being chosen to oversee the Detective Department. The commissioners drew their new sergeants from Whitehall, Holborn, Lambeth,
Greenwich and Covent Garden. The range of divisional experience ensured that the new detectives possessed expert knowledge of central London and the South Bank. Of the six initial detective sergeants, only half seem to have enjoyed long-term careers in the Detective Department. Gerrett lasted four months and Goff just over a year while Braddick managed to stay on for two years. Gerrett resigned in December 1842 and was replaced by Sergeant George Vickers from Whitehall. Goff was demoted and sent back to uniform duty; Braddick also went back into uniform.11
Stephen Thornton, Jonathan Whicher and Frederick Shaw, on the other hand, made the Detective Department their life’s work. All three joined the police in the 1830s and worked together in Holborn division before Rowan and Mayne handpicked them for detective duty. Holborn was a notoriously dangerous part of town and those who called it home were more than likely to merit a visit from the men in blue. Mayne himself
admitted that it was police policy that the wealthy neighbourhoods of “Belgrave-square and Grosvenor-square are really watched in Whitechapel, Saint Giles’s, the Mint, and the bad neighbourhoods.”12
Thornton’s illustrious career in the Metropolitan Police ended only with his death in 1861, after nearly two decades as a detective. He began treading the pavement in Holborn and was subsequently promoted to sergeant. He was part of the teams investigating
10
He was very good at catching horse thieves. Lock, Dreadful Deeds, 68. Haynes had been a chemist and druggist before joining the police. This background helped him in at least one case to identify evidence of “bitter aloes, nutmegs, isinglass [and] Prussian blue” in a defendant’s house. OBP: t18430612-1964, “James Lovell.”
11
The reason for Goff’s demotion and Braddick’s return to uniform are not given. MEPO 7/8, 17 December 1842 (Gerrett); MEPO 21/2 (Goff).
12
Robert Westwood’s murder in 1839 and Daniel Good’s escape from the police in April 1842. He was assigned to tail Mary Good and her associates and was also involved in searching her house. Thornton worked under Nicholas Pearce on the case and Thornton’s discreet surveillance of Mary Good and her accomplice may have caught the eye of senior officers. By the 1850s, Thornton was a detective inspector. He coordinated and oversaw detective work among uniformed policemen, notably the periodic use of plainclothes patrols at fairs, races and other public events.13 Thornton, with his “ruddy face and high sun-burnt forehead,” was a trusted government emissary; he and his colleague Sergeant Jonathan Whicher were sent to investigate Chartist agitation in West Yorkshire in June 1848.14
Thornton ascended the ranks with Whicher, another bright young man. Whicher was labourer from Camberwell who also worked as a beat constable in Holborn division, from where he and Thornton were plucked for detective duty in late summer 1842.15 Both men were senior detective officers by the 1850s. Like Thornton, Whicher coordinated
plainclothes police patrols in London and undertook investigations outside the
metropolis. Most famously, he was involved in the investigation of Samuel Kent’s 1860 murder, also known as the Road Hill House Murder.16 The police commissioner and home secretary had great confidence in his abilities and he was chosen to consult with the Russian government on behalf of the English government in 1862. He and another officer traveled to Russia to help the Russian government reorganize the police force in Warsaw
13 For examples, see MEPO 7/16, 9 June 1854; MEPO 7/19, 29 May 1858; MEPO 7/21, 1 June and 2 July
1860. See, also, chapter 5.
14
HO 65/13, 4 June 1848. This description of Thornton is from Dickens’s Household Words, 13 July 1850.
15
Kate Summerscale, The Suspicious of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective (Vancouver: Raincoast Books, 2008), 44-45.
16
The victim in the case was three-year-old Saville Kent, the infant son of a local factory inspector. The press condemned Whicher for accusing the Kent’s teenage daughter Constance of the crime. His reputation suffered considerably as a result, although he was exonerated following her confession five years later. Daily News, 26 April 1865. The confession was widely reported throughout England.
along English lines.17 Back home, Whicher scrutinized candidates for naturalization and denization for the Home Office; his fact-finding skills were helpful in verifying the background and character of applicants and their references.18 He was also mentor to one of the most successful of the Met’s detectives, Adolphus Williamson, who later became the first Chief Superintendent of the CID.19 Whicher’s career is an excellent example of the upward mobility that the Detective Department offered its members. As a young police constable in the 1830s, he would have earned around 25s per week. Once
promoted to the Detective Department in 1842 his salary increased to over 30s. By way of comparison, nearly thirty later a First Class Sergeant in uniform received only 28s per week, and that only after a recent pay hike.20 On retirement in 1864, he was given a pension of £133.6.8 per annum.21 It was the highest pension awarded in the Detective Department during the 1860s. Other offices’ retirement allowances ranged between £46 and £70. It was a successful career in public service for the son of a market gardener. Frederick Shaw, “a little wiry Sergeant of meek demeanour and strong sense,” joined the police in 1830 and served alongside Thornton and Whicher in Holborn.22 In 1840 he was transferred to Greenwich, from where he would be recruited as a detective sergeant in 1842. He was with Pearce during the Westwood investigation and was also part of the investigating team on the Courvoisier case in 1840. He testified at some length at
Courvoisier’s trial about his involvement in the investigation – Shaw had been the one to discover Lord William Russell’s locket hidden under the hearth in the butler’s pantry.
17 James Thomson reported to the 1878 Departmental Committee that this had been a difficult task because
“they found the customs so very different.” Report of the Departmental Commission appointed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department to inquire into the State, Discipline, and Organization of the Detective Force of the Metropolitan Police (1878), 69.
18
See chapter 6.
19 MEPO 7/40, 6 April 1842.
20Minutes of Evidence taken before a Committee Appointed to Inquire into the System of Police at the
Home Office, Whitehall (1868), 54-55.
21
MEPO 7/25, 19 March 1864.
22
Defense counsel, as noted above, had been concerned that the police planted evidence. Clearly, Shaw’s reputation within the force was untainted by this association, as he was promoted to sergeant just two weeks before Courvoisier stood trial at the Old Bailey.23 Pearce, Haynes, Thornton, Whicher and Shaw comprised the first wave of career detectives at Scotland Yard. They each had long and successful careers and trained subsequent generations of detectives, many of whom would go on to be senior public officials.
A glance at police reports in London newspapers indicates that the new detectives were very active during their first few months on duty. Thornton had chased a jewel thief to Dublin and brought him back to face justice at Bow Street magistrates’ court.24 Two weeks later Thornton reappeared, this time at Marylebone, along with Inspector Haynes. The case was, The Times wrote tactfully, “of a most extraordinary and delicate nature.” The accused, Alice Lowe, had been living clandestinely with Viscount Frankfort de Montmorencey as his mistress. Although the terms of their ‘agreement’ precluded their appearance in public together, Frankfort was clearly happy to provide her with bespoke clothing and jewellery. Lowe stayed with him for several months before absconding with valuable jewellery and other items. By Lowe’s third presentment at Marylebone,
boisterous spectators clamoured to get in forcing Frankfort to flee through back entrance to escape the “crowd of from 200 to 300 persons.”25 The stolen property was located through pawnbrokers’ tickets found at Lowe’s apartment. Thornton’s testimony before the magistrates emphasized the lawfulness of his arrest, indicating that he identified himself as a policeman (this would not have been obvious since detectives did not wear uniforms) and told her the reason for her arrest.26 Although Lowe was acquitted at the
23
OBP: t18400615-1629, “François Benjamin Courvoisier.” Shaw’s promotion is in HO 65/13, 2 June 1840.
24
The Times, 15 September 1842. The detective located the stolen property at a local pawnbroker, a common detective tactic in theft cases.
25 The Times, 17 October 1842. 26
Old Bailey, Haynes and Thornton exerted much energy tracking the stolen property and ferreting out Lowe’s hiding place “by making inquiry.”27
The Times was also impressed with the young Sergeant Whicher, applauding him for
“conduct[ing] the case with great skill” when he apprehended a watch thief. This was especially noteworthy because the theft occurred in August 1841, over a year before Whicher became involved in the investigation.28 Inspector Haynes appeared at Bow Street in early December to give evidence against cheque-forger William Brady. Haynes searched Brady’s lodgings and found a “bank book, [and] a book of blotting paper, on which was an impression of the cheque in question.” After comparing the handwriting in the bankbook with the prisoner’s, Haynes sent Sergeant Shaw to arrest Brady, who was convicted of fraud and sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation.29
A man who was shortly to join the Detective Department, Sergeant Edward Langley, also appeared in the paper that fall, bringing fraud charges against William Dell at Queen’s Square police court in October. Dell’s fraud of choice was to order expensive goods on behalf of wealthy Londoners for whom he claimed to work. He would then snatch the goods from the errand boys sent to make the deliveries. Dell was committed for trial and the magistrate complimented Langley “for the attention and ability he had shown in the course of the prosecution, and directed that the greatest allowance should be made to him for expenses.”30
The commissioners had, on the whole, chosen their new detectives well. In this short time they demonstrated talent at tracking stolen property, locating incriminating evidence and arresting suspects. Praise for their conduct in court indicates that they also knew how to present evidence in court and were courteous and professional before the bench. Their
27 OBP: t18421024-2814, “Alice Lowe.” 28 The Times, 2 December 1842. 29
OBP: t18430102-455, “William Brady.”
30
The Times, 14 October 1842. Dell was found guilty at the Old Baily and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. OBP: t18421024-2929, “William Dell.”
investigatory skill and public deportment demonstrated, even at this early date, that undercover detective work was neither a threat to civil liberties nor an infringement on personal rights.