The crime museum at New Scotland Yard has accumulated an intriguing and fascinating variety of exhibits from crime scenes since the collection was established in 1875.

The police have always needed to store property belonging to prisoners and evidence that might be relevant to court cases. Some of those objects could never be returned to their criminal owners when the court cases were concluded. They were sometimes examples of criminal ingenuity illustrating the very essence of those crimes, so they were very much an educational resource for police officers.

The officer in charge of the property store, Inspector Percy Neame, and his assistant, PC Randall, started exhibiting some of the tools of the criminals’ trade so that their colleagues could see first-hand the housebreaking implements, forgery equipment and disguised weapons that might be found on suspects on the streets of London. As the collection expanded, the attraction of the museum increased, not only to police officers, but also to judges, lawyers, forensic scientists and many others who would be intrigued by the prospect of seeing for themselves the infamous details that they had read about in newspaper accounts of the high-profile cases dealt with by Scotland Yard detectives.

Sometimes the exhibits have passed through the private hands of police officers and even judges, who unofficially retained souvenirs of the famous cases in which they played a part. As with many museums, the precise circumstances of each item’s acquisition have not always been recorded with precise detail, but Bill Waddell, curator from 1981 to 1993, deserves great credit for establishing the modern catalogue.

The nature of some of the exhibits, and concern for the victims of crime, has always dictated that the museum could not be open to the general public. Demand for opportunities to visit the museum, even among police officers, has invariably outstripped the available visiting times, and this, over the years, has created a premium on the chance to see the museum’s contents.

A journalist wrote a description of the museum in The Observer of 8 April 1877, and his comments about the appropriateness of the title ‘Black Museum’, by which the collection became known, was the first record of the name that was used for many years. In 1889, Charles Clarkson and J Hall Richardson described the museum in their book Police! A General Account of the Work of the Police in England & Wales at a time when it had not been properly organised:

There remains to be mentioned an extraordinary feature of the Convict office. What becomes of all the property, ‘portable’ or otherwise, taken from prisoners at the time of their committal? Most of it is of a trivial character, but some of it is valuable. Since 1869 it has not been forfeited to the Crown in the same way that the pence of a pauper are forfeited to the common treasury of a workhouse. Every article has to be restored to its rightful owner, and it may happen that, even after an interval of a long term of years, the rightful owner has a memory so retentive as to place a purely fictitious value upon his chattels, should any portion of them be missing or damaged.

It is a strange collection of miscellaneous wares, a musty mass of odds and ends, which is stored in the cellars and garrets of the Convict office in Scotland Yard. But every pocket-knife, bonnetbox, packing-case, or whatever it may be, has to be duly docketed, so that it may be produced when wanted. The dust of years falls upon these relics, and gives a black coating to the contents of the bins in which they are kept; they are mute witnesses that their owners are yet living, though dead to the world. Periodically all the unclaimed goods are sold, but there is always a large stock on hand, and among it may be noted many articles which have been produced in evidence in the course of celebrated trials.

There are five chief inspectors, but one of these, Mr Neame, is in charge of the Convict Supervision office – the Black Museum is allotted a room in the basement of the Convict office in Great Scotland Yard, which is in reality a private house, ill adapted for the purposes required. In fact, the museum is in a cellar, and it is a collection, displayed in amateurish fashion, of relics which recall certain causes célèbres. Therein is the chief interest, and perhaps the grim ness of the show is not lessened by the bareness of the boards upon which the array of knives, pistols, revolvers, and criminal curios is laid out. There is no attempt at cataloguing the items, and the museum, as at present arranged, serves no useful object.

We hope that the stories behind these objects will create a better public understanding of the museum and about crime itself.

We have undertaken the project with a profound appreciation of the work of countless detectives who have combatted criminals indulging their dreadful cruelty, greed and violence. Those officers have contributed to the worldwide reputation of Scotland Yard as a centre of excellence in the investigation of crime.