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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show for those who can never know enough about history.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Lucier, and in this episode, we're looking at

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Speaker 1: the story behind Scotland Yard, home to the world's pre

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Speaker 1: eminent criminal investigators and a frequent fictional collaborator of the

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Speaker 1: great Sherlock Holmes. The day was September twenty ninth, eighteen

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Speaker 1: twenty nine. Scotland Yard was founded as the headquarters of

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Speaker 1: Greater London's Metropolitan Police. The British Parliament had established the

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Speaker 1: country's first formal police force just three months earlier at

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Speaker 1: the behest of Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel. It took

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Speaker 1: some time to recruit and train the new officers and

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Speaker 1: to locate a suitable headquarters, but by late September everything

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Speaker 1: was finally in place. The station at Scotland Yard opened

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Speaker 1: for business on September twenty ninth, and the first thousand

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Speaker 1: of Peel's police, affectionately nicknamed Bobby's and Peelers in his honor,

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Speaker 1: began patrolling the streets that same evening. Prior to eighteen

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Speaker 1: twenty nine, the city of London and the surrounding area

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Speaker 1: were sorely lacking in law enforcement. There was a piecemeal

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Speaker 1: collection of night watchmen, parish constables, and street patrols such

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Speaker 1: as the River Police who kept an eye on the docks,

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Speaker 1: but none of them were under any central control. That

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Speaker 1: fractured approach to crime prevention became increasingly ineffective as the

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Speaker 1: city continued to expand during the early nineteenth century. Sir

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Speaker 1: Robert Peel believed a professional citywide police force was needed,

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Speaker 1: so he drew up a piece of legislation called an

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Speaker 1: Act for Improving the Police in and Near the Metropolis.

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Speaker 1: It was initially met with resistance from Londoners, who feared

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Speaker 1: the constant oversight would infringe on their civil liberties. However,

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Speaker 1: Parliament passed the Act anyway, and most of the public

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Speaker 1: was eventually won over. The job of organizing the new

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Speaker 1: police force was entrusted to Lieutenant Colonel Charles Rowan and

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Speaker 1: to Richard Mayne, a barrister who had been selected as

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Speaker 1: one of the police's joint commissioners. That summer. The two

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Speaker 1: men set up their offices at for Whitehall Place, a

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Speaker 1: residence for English civil servants. The building was located in

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Speaker 1: a part of Westminster known as the Great Scotland Yard.

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Speaker 1: The name doesn't make much sense today, as it isn't

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Speaker 1: in Scotland and isn't a yard, but there was a

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Speaker 1: time when the moniker was much more fitting. During the

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Speaker 1: sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the area was the site of

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Speaker 1: a grand palace that enclosed a series of open courtyards.

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Speaker 1: These yards were front by government buildings and residences, which

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Speaker 1: at the time were used to house Scottish Royalty when

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Speaker 1: they came to London, hence the name Scotland Yard. Most

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Speaker 1: of the original structures that overlooked Scotland Yard were destroyed

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Speaker 1: by fires in the late seventeenth century, and by the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century the yard itself had given way to a

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Speaker 1: paved street. The name, however, remained unchanged, and since Rowan

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Speaker 1: and Maine's office had a rear entrance on Scotland Yard,

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Speaker 1: the term quickly became synonymous with their new police force. Today,

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Speaker 1: Scotland Yard is used as a collective term for the patrolmen,

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Speaker 1: detectives and headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, even though the

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Speaker 1: station house is no longer located anywhere near the historical

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Speaker 1: Scotland Yard. Another thing that may surprise listeners outside the

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Speaker 1: UK is that Scotland Yard doesn't actually serve the City

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Speaker 1: of London. Instead, its jurisdiction is the Greater London area

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Speaker 1: excluding the city its cosme, which now has its own

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Speaker 1: dedicated police force. That said, Scotland Yard does keep detailed

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Speaker 1: files on all known criminals in the UK, and it

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Speaker 1: sometimes provides assistance to police and other parts of England

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Speaker 1: when a case is as specially tricky. At the time

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Speaker 1: of its founding, however, the Metropolitan Police would have been

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Speaker 1: hard pressed to offer help beyond its jurisdiction. While Scotland

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Speaker 1: Yard's personnel is now more than thirty four thousand strong,

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Speaker 1: the original force was composed of just over one thousand officers,

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Speaker 1: including eight hundred and ninety five constables, eighty eight sergeants,

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Speaker 1: twenty inspectors and eight superintendents. According to Sir Robert Peel quote,

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Speaker 1: the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime

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Speaker 1: and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in

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Speaker 1: dealing with it. With that in mind, Rowan and Maine

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Speaker 1: had their officers wear blue tailcoats and top hats so

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Speaker 1: that they'd look more like ordinary sins medisons rather than

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Speaker 1: uniformed guards. The officers were also issued standard equipment, including

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Speaker 1: a wooden truncheon, a pair of handcuffs, and a wooden

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Speaker 1: rattle to raise the alarm. It was later replaced with

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Speaker 1: a whistle. The original qualifications to become a bobby were

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Speaker 1: quite exacting. Candidates had to be between the ages of

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Speaker 1: twenty and twenty seven and had to have a clean

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Speaker 1: criminal record. They also had to be at least five

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Speaker 1: foot seven inches tall, in good physical shape, and to

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Speaker 1: know how to read. The reward for meeting this strict

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Speaker 1: criteria was not great. Early officers worked seven days a

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Speaker 1: week for one pound per week and only got five

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Speaker 1: days of unpaid holiday each year. Their private lives were

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Speaker 1: tightly monitored as well. For example, they weren't allowed to

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Speaker 1: vote in elections, and they had to ask permission to

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Speaker 1: get married. In addition, officers were required to wear their

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Speaker 1: uniforms even while off duty, so that the publick wouldn't

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Speaker 1: think they were being spied upon. Nonetheless, the policemen were

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Speaker 1: still deeply unpopular at first, though as the crime rate

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Speaker 1: in London began to fall, the public gradually warmed up

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Speaker 1: to them. By eighteen thirty five, just about every city

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Speaker 1: in Britain had established its own police force, many of

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Speaker 1: which were closely patterned on Scotland Yard, the home of

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Speaker 1: the very first bobbies on the beat. I'm Gabe Lucier

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you now know a little more about history

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Speaker 1: today than you did yesterday. You can learn even more

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Speaker 1: about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

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Speaker 1: at TDI HC Show, and if you have any comments

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Speaker 1: or suggestions, feel free to pass them along by writing

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Speaker 1: to this Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler

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Speaker 1: Mays for producing the show, and thank you for listening.

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Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again soon for another Day

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Speaker 1: in History class, the pater Pact in the Future