The search for Daniel Good

The murder that created Scotland Yard

One of my most exciting moments whilst researching at the National Archives was holding the list of the first Scotland Yard detectives in my hand. Even though it is a rather unprepossessing handwritten document, seeing the names of some of the most iconic detective police officers, such as Inspector Pearce and Sergeant Whicher, sent a shiver down my spine! I was also interested to read the memo, dated 14 June 1842, to Whitehall from the police commissioners proposing the deployment of ‘a certain number of men specially applicable to the duty of following up cases’, which would later become Scotland Yard. Their motivation for this request was the frantic search for Daniel Good who had murdered Jane Good, and ‘having escaped beyond the limits of the Police District, the Police had no means of getting immediate cognizance of him’. This  gruesome crime shocked the nation and led to a groundbreaking development in the history of British policing.