The Police 2 Robert Peel And the Metropolitan Police - Video

The Pollice Part 2

In this video, I want to continue looking at how the history of the police in London impacted the investigation into the crimes known at the time as the Whitechapel murders and today more popularly called the Jack the Ripper murders.

London’s Two Police Forces

London has two distinct geographical territories and two separate police forces police them.

The City of London Police have authority in the one square mile that is the City of London. The Metropolitan Police look after the rest of Greater London. Some experts on the Jack the Ripper murders suggest that this was one reason that the police were unable to solve these crimes.

Watch this video to understand how London ended up with two police forces and whether a lack of cooperation between them was a major factor in the failure to catch Jack the Ripper.

One such expert is crime historian Donald Rumbelow, a former City of London police officer, one-time curator of the City of London Police’s Crime Museum and a respected writer of books on the Jack the Ripper murders.

He has appeared in many television documentaries on these crimes and, for many years, guided a Jack the Ripper tour from Tower Hill.

The first stop on what was the most popular Jack the Ripper guided walk was at the remains of the wall that surrounded the Roman and then medieval City of London. Don would explain that this is what originally divided London and eventually gave us the two separate police forces.

He would explain that at the time of the investigation into the brutal murders of these women in 1888, the two police forces were practically at war with each other. This lack of cooperation hampered them in their work.

He would also explain that the Ripper could move between the two police territories, escaping capture by one force by simply crossing what was an invisible boundary line into a different police jurisdiction.

He would explain that the uniform of a City of London police officer gave him no authority if he crossed into the territory of the Metropolitan Police. As Don put it, he was nothing more than a man in fancy dress.

The One Square Mile that is the City of London

The London City Police was formed in 1832, and then in 1839, it became the City of London Police when the City of London Police Act was passed.

This act was passed to prevent the City’s police from merging with the Metropolitan Police Force, which had been founded by Sir Robert Peel in 1829.