Bobbies and frauds

It's best to organise some real police after fake ones rip you off!

Stephen Turner
January 02, 2025

Wandering through Wikipedia… your daily dose of the weird and wonderful from the greatest website in the world!

One of the most famous police forces in the world is the London Metropolitan police, so ubiquitous in London they are just called “The Met”, Scotland Yard or even “Bobbies”.

The London Metropolitan Police has a unique and varied history.

Started in 1829 by British Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel (which is where “Bobbies” comes from!), the Met police the 32 Boroughs of London but not the square mile of the historic City of London (which has its own City of London Police). The Met also cover protecting the Palace of Westminster, London City and Heathrow airports and 164 embassies in central London.

“Scotland Yard” was the original street in Whitehall where the Met was based and it became so synonymous with them that when they moved in 1890 the location was very quickly name “New Scotland yard”.

Did you know?

Before the Met, policing in London was fragmented and ineffective, with everyone from local parishes to the :”thief-taker general” doing their best to fight crime. But this led to figures like Jonathan Wilde, notable for being a public “crime fighter” and a hidden leader of the criminal underworld (though not necessarily any different to someone like Roger Rogerson in recent times!