{"id":4325,"date":"2024-09-03T20:06:01","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T20:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=4325"},"modified":"2024-09-03T20:06:01","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T20:06:01","slug":"scotland-yard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=4325","title":{"rendered":"Scotland Yard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I know some things that I wonder about don\u2019t seem important to a lot of people, but they must be important to me. Why else would I wonder about them?\u00a0
One thing I\u2019ve wondered about for a long time is why is the famous police force that patrols London called Scotland<\/em> Yard?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve spent a fair amount of time in England and I realize that their language is loaded with misleading terms. For instance, plum pudding isn\u2019t pudding \u2014 and \u2014 it doesn\u2019t contain plums. But Scotland Yard has always puzzled me. So \u2014 I figured it was time for a little extensive research. As is often the case, my research didn\u2019t really come up with a definitive answer, but here\u2019s what I found\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It started in 1829, when Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne were given the job of organizing a citywide crime-fighting force in London. At the time, the two men lived together in a house at 4 Whitehall Place, and they ran their newly formed outfit out of their garage, using the back courtyard as a makeshift police station.They apparently decided the \u201cRowan and Mayne\u2019s Backyard\u201d didn\u2019t seem like a good name for the headquarters of a police force. So it was called Scotland Yard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Scotland Yard? There seems to be two stories that possibly explain the origin of the name. The first explanation is that Scotland Yard sits on the location of what was once the property of Scottish royalty. The story is that back before Scotland and England unified (in 1707) the present day Scotland Yard was a residence used by Scottish kings and ambassadors when they visited London on diplomatic missions for short stays. The second explanation is that 4 Whitehall Place backed onto a courtyard called Great Scotland Yard, named after a previous landowner \u2014 Scott \u2014 who owned the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But anyhow, the metropolitan police was a successful organization and grew. In 1809, they decided that they needed new digs and moved to a larger building on the Victoria Embankment. That gave them the opportunity to rename their new headquarter something more appropriate with a name that actually made sense.
So the London police chose to name it the New Scotland Yard.
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know some things that I wonder about don\u2019t seem important to a lot of people, but they must be important to me. Why else would I wonder about them?\u00a0One thing I\u2019ve wondered about for a long time is why … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4325"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4326,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4325\/revisions\/4326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}