Big Five (Scotland Yard)

The Big Five was a nickname given to five superintendents in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, from about 1906 onwards. The first five to be appointed were: Charles John Arrow, Paul Crane, Walter Dew, Frederick Fox and Frank Frost. These men and their successors, with their subordinate inspectors, regularly worked on high-profile murder cases through the British Isles.[1][2][3] By the 1970s, the term was dropping from currency.[4]

While the crime reporters of British newspapers were the first to use the epithet The Big Five,[5] the team's activities became a popular trope with writers of crime fiction, including Edgar Wallace.[6] As well as inspiring conventional detective fiction, "The Big Five" suggested the title for The Big Six, a children's novel in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series about group of young detectives.[7][8]

References
  1. Gordon, R. Michael (2018). Murder files from Scotland Yard and the Black Museum. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p. 5. ISBN 9781476672540.
  2. Prothero, Margaret Wulfhilda. The History of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard from Earliest Times Until To-day. Herbert Jenkins Ltd. p. 145. OCLC 1070411464. These five Superintendents are known to the public as the 'Big Five', a name given to them by the Press
  3. Shpayer-Makov, Haia, ed. (2021). The making of the modern police, 1780-1914. The development of detective policing. Vol. 6. London: Pickering and Chatto. p. 259. ISBN 9781000559774.
  4. Mark, Robert (Spring 1975). "New Scotland Yard". Cornhill Magazine. Vol. 180. p. 279.
  5. Campbell, Duncan (4 September 2009). "The man in the mac: a life in crime reporting". the Guardian. Retrieved 1 June 2022. 'Send for the Yard' and for one of the 'Big Five' – the quintet of detective superintendents who led the major investigations
  6. Woodhall, Edwin (1931). Secrets of Scotland Yard. London: John Lane. p. 120. OCLC 504875175.
  7. Hunt, Peter (1992). Approaching Arthur Ransome. London: Jonathan Cape. p. 79. ISBN 9780224032889.
  8. Ransome, Arthur (1940). The Big Six. London: Jonathan Cape. p. "Title". 'It's the Big Five really. […] They are the greatest detectives in the world. They sit in […] Scotland Yard and solve one mystery after another.' […] said Dorothea.
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