One of the first cases it mentions, the Great Pearl Robbery of 1913, features in our #CM150 exhibition at Sidcup until 10th May.
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#CM150
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It's last chance saloon for our #CM150 exhibition at Sidcup, perhaps the general public's last-ever chance to see some Crime Museum cases. Bookings are now open from now until 10th May inclusive at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/metropolit... and some slots have already sold out! #truecrime
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Section of pigskin, now turned brown, with labelled squares drawn onto it, each fired at from a different range and with different powder by Churchill.
Gunsmith Robert Churchill fired guns found in a Battersea garage at this section of pigskin (the closest animal skin in thickness to human skin) to find out which had been used to murder PC George Gutteridge in Essex in the early hours of 27 Sep 1927. #NationalPigDay #Forensics125 #CM150 #ballistics
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![Man with dark eyebrows and a large bushy moustache sits behind a portable writing desk in a courtroom or a public gallery, with an inscription below reading "Sir Edw. Henry watches fo[r] the police". It probably shows him at the trial of Alfred or Albert Bowes, who had attempted to assassinate him outside his Holland Park home in 1912 - Henry argued for clemency for him and on Bowes' release from prison helped pay for him to start a new life in Canada.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:jfhf44tj2dhltodlzdvcpgqh/bafkreifrsz6qdgdor5i5srjp2mkuiwmjnxaoxsd3guxrbkgykgtsbnubd4)
Man with dark eyebrows and a large bushy moustache sits behind a portable writing desk in a courtroom or a public gallery, with an inscription below reading "Sir Edw. Henry watches fo[r] the police". It probably shows him at the trial of Alfred or Albert Bowes, who had attempted to assassinate him outside his Holland Park home in 1912 - Henry argued for clemency for him and on Bowes' release from prison helped pay for him to start a new life in Canada.
#OnThisDay 95 years ago Sir Edward Henry died at home in Ascot, where he was also buried. He was appointed head of Met CID in 1901 and set up its Fingerprint Department on 1st July the same year, later serving as Commissioner (1903-1918). #OTD #OnThisDayInHistory #courtroomsketches #RIP #CM150
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Press image of seven of the witnesses at one of Burton and Cunningham's Bow Street remand hearings, including chemist German-born chemist Dr August Dupré, PC Robert Wilson and DS Roper of the City of London Police, Wilson's wife Caroline, and Supt Thomas Arnold and Insp Frederick Abberline of the Met's H Division. The cutting appears in Abberline's scrapbook of his cases, currently in our #CM150 exhibition. He is better known for his part in the Whitechapel Murders investigation three years later.
Image from the same cutting as image 1, showing Cunningham's counsel William Henry Quilliam (later the first British convert to Islam) and Harry Poland as lead barrister for the prosecution.
Images from the same cutting as image 1, showing Burton and Cunningham themselves and "Links in the chain of evidence" (namely two trunks and a bag).
#OnThisDay in 1885 dynamite was found on Harrow Road, the last event in the 'Fenian' bombing campaign that began in 1881. James Cunningham and Harry Burton had planted devices at Parliament and the Tower of London that January and were found guilty of treason at the Old Bailey that May. #CM150 #OTD
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Black and white photograph of a woman with short dark hair looking at the camera. She wears a light-colour sweater or jumper and a darker coat or jacket.
#OnThisDay in 1942 the body of pharmacist Evelyn Margaret Hamilton was found in an air-raid shelter in Marylebone, robbed by a left-handed assailant. She was the first of 4 murder victims in the so-called Blackout Ripper case (featured in our #CM150 exhibition). #OTD #truecrime
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Men and women in late Victorian dress gathered around a table bearing a ledger, a pistol and other instruments of crime. Behind and around them more such objects on tables and hanging from the walls, with death masks on a high shelf above.
Exciting news! Thanks to huge popular demand our #CM150 exhibition at Sidcup has been extended to 10th May, giving you three more opportunities to book a slot on Tuesday-Thursday and a small number of Saturdays. #WhatsOn #Museums #TrueCrime
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A key case in our current #CM150 exhibition in Sidcup - tour slots in February now available and only two more ticket releases (2/2 and 2/3) before it closes!
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Season's greetings one and all! We've now shut up shop until 7th January 2026, with bookings for #CM150 exhibition tours in February opening soon after we're back. #happychristmas #happyxmas #muppetchristmascarol #museums #xmas #xmas2025 #christmas2025 #Christmas #christmastime #chanukah #hanukah
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![Courtroom sketch by William Hartley of a seated Edward Henry, his walrus moustache protruding above an opened case, possibly a portable writing case. An inscription below reads 'SIR EDW. HENRY WATCHES FO[R] THE POLICE', meaning it probably shows him at the January 1913 trial of his would-be assassin Alfred Bowes - he pleaded for mercy for him and paid for his passage to Canada after his release from prison in 1922.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:jfhf44tj2dhltodlzdvcpgqh/bafkreig6k4dagbkgezphlmc5skdebbigffyllihsnh6vgeaqcxcdxldmlm)
Courtroom sketch by William Hartley of a seated Edward Henry, his walrus moustache protruding above an opened case, possibly a portable writing case. An inscription below reads 'SIR EDW. HENRY WATCHES FO[R] THE POLICE', meaning it probably shows him at the January 1913 trial of his would-be assassin Alfred Bowes - he pleaded for mercy for him and paid for his passage to Canada after his release from prison in 1922.
Our current #CM150 exhibition at Sidcup marks 150 years of the Crime Museum collection, whilst its successor next year will mark the 125th anniversary of Assistant Commissioner Edward Henry's formation of the Met's Fingerprint Bureau on 1 July 1901. #EYAanniversaries #ExploreYourArchive
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January tickets to our #CM150 exhibition are being snapped up quickly, but everyone seems to be too busy with Christmas shopping for the December ones. There's still good availability on 9-11 & 17 at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/metropolit... if the #truecrime fan in your life needs an early present ...
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Eight lines in a visitor book, all with the date 2 December 1892. Each person has signed their name and given their address. This page is on display in our #CM150 exhibition at Sidcup until April 2026. Hornung had been a journalist in Whitechapel during the murders there and later wrote the Raffles novels on a gentleman thief, whereas Jerome (best-known for 'Three Men in a Boat') probably got far less inspiration from the collection ...
#OnThisDay in 1892 eight people visited the Crime Museum in the newly-opened New Scotland Yard by the Thames. They included three authors - Arthur Conan Doyle, his soon-to-be-brother-in-law E. W. Hornung, and Jerome K Jerome. #OTD #OnThisDayInHistory #Sherlock #ConanDoyle #Elementary #CM150
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Telegram to the Chief Superintendent at Notting Hill police station passing on the telephone message from the Merthyr Tydfil police about Evans' initial confession. It adds that he disposed of the body down a manhole (which Met officers discovered to have been impossible) and had left his 14-month-old daughter Geraldine in John Christie's care. The telegram is in Evans' Criminal Record Office file, which is still in our collections. Beryl's body was discovered beside that of Geraldine on 2 December. Evans was executed for the latter murder but that conviction was found to be unsafe in 1965 and a posthumous pardon followed.
#OnThisDay in 1949 Timothy Evans reported to the police in south Wales that his wife Beryl had died after drinking an abortion drug at 10 Rillington Place in Ladbroke Grove on 8 November. That case and John Christie's murders at the same address both feature in our #CM150 exhibition #OTD
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![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.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:jfhf44tj2dhltodlzdvcpgqh/bafkreidcak6desxrvhqdmtuqiosoddioofthqtwyset6lazmndzne3mhei)
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.
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
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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.
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
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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.
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
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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).
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
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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.
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
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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
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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.
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
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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.
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
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Metallic British Telecom payphone with an LED display, coin slot, keypad and a black handset.
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
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Back and front of a rectangular two-sided mirror, with large areas of the reflective surface and undercoat scratched or scraped away.
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
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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.
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
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![Page of a scrapbook kept by Inspector Frederick Abberline, best known for the Whitechapel Murders investigation, but also heavily involved in that into the bombs planted by Harry Burton and James Gilbert Cunningham on 24 January 1885, two at the Houses of Parliament and one at the Tower of London.
This page is on display in our current exhibition and shows newspaper courtroom sketches of some of the witnesses (including Abberline himself), "Links in the chain of evidence" (the two trunks and a bag which had contained the devices), Burton and Cunningham themselves, the heads of the prosecution and defence team (the latter being William Quilliam, later the first British convert to Islam), and in the centre a scene of Miss Liveridge testifying at Bow Street Police Court.
The trial later moved to the Old Bailey from 11 to 15 May 1885, where the pair were sentenced to life "for feloniously conspiring with [persons unknown] ... to depose the Queen from her Royal name and style of Queen of Great Britain and Ireland" and on "Other Counts for conspiring to levy war against the Queen, with intent by force and constraint to compel her to change her measures and to intimidate and overawe the Houses of Parliament".](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:jfhf44tj2dhltodlzdvcpgqh/bafkreibhigk4ntnnezbxjx6j6tu64a2xz3o6jyfpno3hbxhtf55xondnnm)
Page of a scrapbook kept by Inspector Frederick Abberline, best known for the Whitechapel Murders investigation, but also heavily involved in that into the bombs planted by Harry Burton and James Gilbert Cunningham on 24 January 1885, two at the Houses of Parliament and one at the Tower of London. This page is on display in our current exhibition and shows newspaper courtroom sketches of some of the witnesses (including Abberline himself), "Links in the chain of evidence" (the two trunks and a bag which had contained the devices), Burton and Cunningham themselves, the heads of the prosecution and defence team (the latter being William Quilliam, later the first British convert to Islam), and in the centre a scene of Miss Liveridge testifying at Bow Street Police Court. The trial later moved to the Old Bailey from 11 to 15 May 1885, where the pair were sentenced to life "for feloniously conspiring with [persons unknown] ... to depose the Queen from her Royal name and style of Queen of Great Britain and Ireland" and on "Other Counts for conspiring to levy war against the Queen, with intent by force and constraint to compel her to change her measures and to intimidate and overawe the Houses of Parliament".
Met history is shared across many collections other than our own - for instance, the Albert Medal awarded to PC William Cole for getting a bomb out of the crypt of Westminster Hall 140 years ago is now in the @ukparliament.parliament.uk collection. #Museum30 #sharing #CM150 #BonfireNight
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Six male uniformed Met officers in helmets running out of a doorway in a glazed-brick wall and into the open back door of a post-war police van. Above them, two large round glazed windows with vertical bars.
Get your skates on - it's only six tour weeks 'til Christmas! December slots for our #CM150 exhibition are now available at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/metropolit....
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Blue metal filing case with dividers, with its contents spread around it. These include paintbrushes and varieties of noses, glasses, moustaches and eyes from the kit.
The #eyes definitely have it in this Photo-Fit kit from our collection. Invented by Jacques Penry, it replaced the American Identikit in 1970 and was itself replaced by E-FIT in 1988. This one is on the object shortlist for our #Forensics125 exhibition next year - stay tuned! #CM150 #Museum30
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Artistic sign, with each line in a different font, reading "Museum is open on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays between the hours of 2 and 4 P.M. only, upon presentation of a proper order 8th May 1894. By order of the Commissioner.".
This #signage was put up at the Crime Museum under Commissioner Sir Edward Bradford - his first wife Elizabeth Adela Knight was great-niece to Jane Austen. Our collection holds the claws of the tigress which claimed Bradford's left arm at Guna in central India in 1863. #Museum30 #CM150 #Austen250
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Sketch of a man in a waistcoat, suit and tie stands in a courtroom dock holding a notebook. He has dark hair with a side parting, pince-nez spectacles perched on his nose, and an impressively large moustache. This is one of over 140 courtroom sketches by William Hartley in our collections. It shows surgeon Dr Augustus Pepper (1849-1935) giving evidence in 1907 or 1908 about the exhumation of Thomas Charles Druce to prove he was not the 5th Duke of Portland. Pepper's part in the 1880 Harley Street Mystery and the 1910 Crippen case appears in our #CM150 exhibition until April 2026.
We are two Museums (founded in 1875 and 1949), an archive and a reference library, covering the lives of Met officers and staff ever since 1829 and the crimes they have solved. #CM150 #Movember #Museum30 #Introduction
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