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mpsheritage.bsky.social
Metropolitan Police Museum and Crime Museum
@mpsheritage.bsky.social
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Metropolitan Police lives and stories 1829-now.

Open to researchers and visitors by appointment.

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Metropolitan Police Museum and Crime Museum @mpsheritage.bsky.social · 22d
It's that time of year again! We'll be linking all our posts into a thread right here. #Museum30
magnifyzoology.bsky.social Gracie Price @magnifyzoology.bsky.social · Oct 20
Here are the prompts for #museum30 2025 - the ninth year!

If you would like to join in all you need to do is share an image, inspired by each days' prompt, throughout November. Don't forget to include #museum30 so other's can find your posts.
mpsheritage.bsky.social
Available in over 50 other languages besides UK/US English, our new Bloomberg Connects guide (tinyurl.com/mtn6yzrr or via their app) has already been accessed by nearly 400 people. It is due to be in use in our gallery space from January 2026 onwards. #Museum30 #achievement
Two wax seal impressions sealing a piece of pink ribbon to a square of brown card. At the top of the card is typed 'SEAL OF THE TRANSVAAL GOVERNMENT WHICH WAS PUT ON THE SAFE IN THIS OFFICE CONTAINING THE CULLINAN DIAMOND PRESENTED TO HIS MAJESTY THE KING BY THE PEOPLE OF THE TRANSVAAL. THE DIAMOND WAS STORED HERE FOR THREE MONTHS. 28/1/8'. This relates to the Cullinan Diamond, discovered by the colonial Transvaal Company in South Africa in 1905 and shipped to London. It is both on show in the in-person #CM150 exhibition in our gallery and on our Bloomberg Connects guide - the only object in the exhibition to relate to crime prevention and not a crime! Having failed to find a buyer for the diamond, the Company gave it to King Edward VII as a birthday gift. When he got it out of the safe at New Scotland Yard, he had it cut down in Amsterdam (with a whole Royal Navy ship sailing there as a decoy). It produced nine major diamonds, of which two are now in the Sovereign's Sceptre and Imperial State Crown in the Crown Jewels.
November 27, 2025 at 12:07 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
In the forty years since leaving its original site in Bow Street, the Police Museum collection has moved from Charlton to Woolwich to West Brompton to Sidcup. Hopefully our coming years will have considerably less #moving ! #Museum30
Detail from a 1982 advert for "The Metropolitan Police Historical Museum", showing its first curator Marcelle Marceau (right) and its first assistant curator Isabella Bennett, both standing looking at an open ledger, which a mannequin of an 1829 Peeler in his top hat and frock coat photobombs between them in the distance.
November 26, 2025 at 4:21 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
The Police Museum holds this copy of the George Medal issued to WPS Ethel Bush for plain-clothes decoy duty against a Croydon sex attacker in 1955 & some of the press coverage of its award at Buckingham Palace, whilst the Crime Museum holds the log used to attack her. #danger #Museum30 #VAWG #CM150
Round silver medal with an image of the young Queen Elizabeth II in a crown, inscribed round the edge "ELIZABETH II DEI GRATIA REGINA F.D." (Elizabeth II, by the grace of God Queen [and] Defender of the Faith). It hangs from a mainly red ribbon with five equidistant narrow light blue stripes. Bush and WPC Kay Parrott were jointly the first women to be awarded the medal, both for decoy duty against the same attacker. Despite severe injuries, they both hold onto him long enough to describe him to a jury and gain his conviction.
November 25, 2025 at 4:08 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
For over 80 years the Met's Special Branch called in explosives #specialist s like Vivian Majendie to defuse bombs planted in London rather than doing it themselves. In 1971 this changed when the Met set up its own Bomb Squad to counter the anarchist Angry Brigade campaign. #Museum30 #CM150
Metal box with hinged top placed underneath it to show its contents, namely a large number of large sharp metal fragments. The label (seen upside down on the inside of the lid) states how the device was one of four planted at London mainline railway termini in 1884, in this instance at Paddington.
November 24, 2025 at 3:53 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
I believe you mean "see a Metropolitan Police box" ... #ChameleonCircuit #DoctorWho #TARDIS #WibblyWobblyMuseumyWiamy
November 24, 2025 at 9:51 AM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
At Pentonville at 9 am #OnThisDay in 1910 John Ellis executed the murderer of Cora Crippen. That decade he also hanged poisoner Frederick Seddon and Sir Roger Casement, whilst he played an executioner in a drama on the life of Charlie Peace in 1927. #CM150 #OTD #onthisdayinhistory #medhist
Two pages of a tall thin prescription ledger showing medicines issued by Crippen on 24 and 25 January 1894, whilst he was still working as a homeopath in the USA. Cora's torso was found to have been poisoned with the drug hyoscine and so before his trial a British doctor checked this ledger and its pair to ensure Crippen had not also been poisoning people with that chemical in the USA.
November 23, 2025 at 1:00 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
Met officers often received a reward for gaining control of runaway horses (and the occasional "infuriated cow") in the streets of Victorian London, but these escaped elephants in 1884 Kentish Town were an altogether rarer occurrence ... #Museum30 #animal
In the right foreground a Met officer in his helmet watches as two elephants are prised out of a cellar. In the background others hold back a crowd as the elephants are led off home.
November 23, 2025 at 10:40 AM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
Our archive, photo and object sides often cross over - for instance, we have both the beat wheels used until around 1930 to measure distance data and the beat maps produced using that data. #walk #Museum30 #blackandwhitephotography
Black and white photograph of a man in Met blue trousers, tunic and peaked forage cap wheels a beat wheel across a station yard, with a police car in the background. The beat wheel is a single wheel with spokes attached to a wooden handle - at the base of a handle is the dial giving the distance data.
November 22, 2025 at 9:15 AM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
Our team of eight have had #careers taking us to the Millennium Dome heist 25 years ago, Impressionists in Cardiff, moving much of the @sciencemuseum.org.uk collection halfway across England, tennis history at Wimbledon and lifeboat history across the UK! #Museum30
The real 'Millennium Star', one of the diamonds targeted in the 2000 raid on the Dome (now the O2). It is shaped like a teardrop and sits on its widest point. A replica is now in the Crime Museum collection.
November 21, 2025 at 1:34 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
Pocketbooks were introduced by the Met in 1894. Detective 'Nipper' Read kept his from throughout his career and his family have donated them to our collections - these three are on show in our #CM150 exhibition. #Museum30 #diary #truecrime #KrayTwins #eastLondon
Front covers of three tall thin light brown notebooks. Those on the left and right are labelled with "DET. SUPT READ" (his rank at the time, Detective Superintendent) and date ranges in 1968, whilst the middle one is simply labelled 'McVITIE" (Read's team was able to convict Reggie Kray of Jack McVitie's murder).
November 20, 2025 at 3:31 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
These three cases appear at the top of an 1883 Illustrated London News image on display in our #CM150 exhibition - "Prof. Zandevesto's Fortune Telling Machine" is alas no longer in our collection, but the other two cases are. #Museum30 #magic
Line drawing showing the fortune-telling-machine (centre), a box with a strange tube on a stand on top of it. It also shows the pistol fired at Queen Victoria in 1840 (left) and the personal effects of the 'Tichborne Claimant' (right) - the latter are also on show in our #CM150 exhibition.
November 19, 2025 at 8:45 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
In the late 19th century other police forces across the UK and the world would send #photograph s like this to the Met, which compiled them into what we've nicknamed our 'big book of criminals'. #Museum30
One page meant to hold nine mugshots on each side. All three in the top row have been removed, revealing the backs of two photographs on the other side with descriptions of the subject and their offences. The middle row shows a man in a boater and two women in elaborate late Victorian hats. The right-hand woman (2072) is 'Chicago May' who also features in our William Hartley courtroom sketches collection. The bottom row of three shows a man showing his hands (since a criminal would find it difficult to discuss if they had lost a finger or thumb) and two dapper gents in bow ties holding chalk boards bearing their names and the date 25 September 1896.
November 18, 2025 at 4:41 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
1920s juries were not taken to crime scenes and so the murder scene of Emily Kaye in an Eastbourne bungalow was brought to them in 1924 thanks to the craft skills of PC Edward Er Onan Shelah (1890-1962) at Brixton Police Station. #CM150 #Museum30 #making #truecrime
November 17, 2025 at 7:30 AM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
Since November last year we've selected the objects for our #CM150 exhibition, written the tour for it, welcomed over 1500 visitors and created a Bloomberg Connects tour which launches soon! #Museum30 #recycling
Transparent pyrex plate tied onto a brown piece of card with two fabric tapes, with the back of the maker's label visible and the back of a label marking the location of a fingerprint. Above but still on the card is a caption. This is a cardboard box for photographic paper, repurposed to take the plate to court as an exhibit. The plate was found in Leatherslade Farm, the hideout after the Great Train Robbery.
November 16, 2025 at 11:05 AM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
From 19th century onwards St John's Ambulance trained Met officers in first aid. We have certificates awarded, kit used to mock up injuries for major incident rehearsals, and even the odd photograph on the topic ... #Museum30 #kindness
A Lance Corporal in the Coldstream Guards (those at that rank in Foot Guards regiments wear two stripes not one) in full-dress uniform and bearskin sits against a crowd barrier while he is helped by a male Met officer in white gloves, helmet, tunic and beard.
November 15, 2025 at 9:40 AM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
Franz Müller was executed at Newgate Prison #OnThisDay in 1864 after a three-day trial for the murder of 70-year-old chief bank clerk Thomas Briggs on a North London line train between Hackney Wick and Bow, the first known railway murder. #OTD #OnThisDayInHistory #CM150
Plaster cast of Müller's head, with his eyes closed, with 'Müller' inscribed on the base. It was made at Newgate Prison itself and is now in our collections. The murder led to the introduction of corridors and passenger cords on trains, either of which might have saved Briggs' life.
November 14, 2025 at 2:43 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
One of the heaviest items in the Crime Museum collection is this payphone used in 1992 by Te Rangimaria Ngarimu, the UK's only recorded female assassin. #heavy #Museum30 #CM150
Metallic British Telecom payphone with an LED display, coin slot, keypad and a black handset.
November 14, 2025 at 1:10 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
The #background to this image of all the Met's women officers (including four in CID) in 1937 is the imposing stone structure of Canon Row Police Station, near the present-day New Scotland Yard. #Museum30 #ThisGirlCan #womenshistory
Panoramic photograph of women police officers, all but four of whom are in uniform. In the background is a dark stone building with a large entrance arch at the centre. At bottom centre is the caption 'Metropolitan Women Police August 1937' and across the top are the names of the women shown.
November 13, 2025 at 1:33 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
It's still in its soft-launch phase (official launch later this month!), but we recently completed a virtual audio tour of our current exhibition thanks to Bloomberg Connects, available at links.bloombergconnects.org/6Ggw/10m94pg7 or on their app. #Museum30 #Digital
Black and white photo of a young male PC in an office holding the handset of a rotary-dial phone to his ear with his left hand and smiling or laughing. He has short fair hair and wears a striped tie and on-duty armband.
November 12, 2025 at 12:36 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
Sgt Harry Joseph Battley of Special Branch was killed when his aircraft had to ditch off Lampedusa on 1 February 1945 whilst on his way to the Yalta Conference with members of Churchill's staff. #SWW #WWII #remembrance #remembranceday #poppy
The grave on Lampedusa of 36-year-old Battley and two others killed in the crash (Battley was himself on attachment to Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary). His father Harry Battley (1883-1960) had joined the Met in 1905, served for almost 33 years and made major improvements to its Fingerprint Department.
November 11, 2025 at 4:41 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
Found in a handbag on the settee in Evelyn Oatley's flat in Soho, fingerprints on this mirror helped convict her murderer Gordon Frederick Cummins, also guilty of five other murders or attempted murders of women in 1942. It is on display in our #CM150 exhibition. #Museum30 #reflection #wwii
Back and front of a rectangular two-sided mirror, with large areas of the reflective surface and undercoat scratched or scraped away.
November 11, 2025 at 4:19 PM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
Today we remember all Met officers and staff killed in conflict, whether with the armed forces or still with the Met, and all who came home from war to resume their Met roles. #remembrance #remembranceday #remembrance2025
Commemorative scroll with the coat of arms of King George V and an inscription reading ‘This scroll commemorates Woman Constable B. M. Gleghorn Metropolitan Police Force held in honour as one who served King and Country in the world war of 1939-1945 and gave her life to save mankind from tyranny. May her sacrifice help to bring the peace and freedom for which she died.’. Bertha Gleghorn was born in Newport, Shropshire and was a housekeeper before becoming a Met officer on 8 January 1940 aged 29. She served on A (Whitehall), B (Chelsea) and C (St James’s) Divisions before receiving fatal injuries when a V2 rocket hit Tottenham Court Road Police Station on 19 June 1944. This made her both the first female Met officer killed on duty and the first killed by enemy action.
November 11, 2025 at 10:55 AM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
We are always expanding our #LGBThistory holdings, for example by close contact with the Met's liaison officers to that community, but they began with our acquisition of 'This Small Cloud', the 1986 publication of the memoirs of a gay officer who served from 1925 to 1950. #Museum30 #rainbow #LGBT
Book cover showing a closeup of a black and white photograph of Daley in his Met helmet, with the superimposed title 'THIS SMALL CLOUD / A Personal Memoir / HARRY DALEY / Introduction by P.N. Furbank'.
November 10, 2025 at 7:45 AM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
This is probably the earliest #map in our collection showing the Met's original 17 divisions (geographical areas) as of 1837, only three years before its remit expanded from a 7 to a 12 mile radius from Charing Cross. #Museum30
Map of London on a pinkish background, the Thames running across the centre. It stretches from Brentford to the River Lea west-east and from Highgate to Penge Common north-south.
November 9, 2025 at 10:30 AM
mpsheritage.bsky.social
Annie Parker #stitch ed this sampler (now on show in our #CM150 exhibition) using her own hair as thread and gave it to the Rev John Horsley, chaplain to Clerkenwell Prison. In 1884 he gave it to our collection - Parker herself died the following year of TB aged only 35. #Museum30 #womensart
Cream sampler with a frilly border and details of hearts, showing two quotations from the Psalms and one from C H Spurgeon's 1855 book 'The Character of Christ's People' ("Thy home is in heaven"). At the four corners are inscribed the virtues of Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude and on the right side is a black stain.
November 8, 2025 at 10:36 AM