The Black Museum, also known as the Museum of Crime, is a British crime museum with collections dating back to 1870. It is housed in the Metropolitan Police Headquarters and is used to educate police officers on unique weapons and investigative techniques. The museum is not open to the public and contains ghoulish artifacts, including those related to Jack the Ripper and other infamous crimes. The museum is housed in two rooms and features exhibits from various categories, including espionage, poisonings, and murders.
The Black Museum is the unofficial name given to a British crime museum whose collections began in about 1870, housed in Great Scotland Yard. Law enforcement authorities today prefer the name Museum of Crime for the repository of 19th century artifacts and beyond. Many of the artifacts are linked to infamous crimes that took place in London, including a series of horrific murders carried out by Jack the Ripper starting in the 19th that remain unsolved more than a century later. The museum is not open to the public, although periodic access has been granted to journalists and dignitaries, including the magician Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
Today, the Black Museum is housed in the Metropolitan Police Headquarters, where it has been based since 1967. The museum’s collections are used to enlighten police officers on the variety of unique weapons used in crime, and it is also used as a lecture hall for the discussion of investigative techniques and forensic science, among other topics. Visitors privileged enough to enter the Black Museum may see a poisoned umbrella, a briefcase that shoots poison darts, hideous binoculars that hide a set of spikes meant to blind a person, and the “cop killer,” a long sword that hides a shorter blade and can take an officer by surprise.
Many of the artifacts are considered too ghoulish and macabre for public view. On display is the bloody uniform of an officer, as well as the still bloody undergarments of victims killed by Jack the Ripper. There are also nooses and death masks. Also on display is an old pot and saucepan used by Dennis Nilson, a serial killer. He used them to boil and dispose of the flesh of the victims. The Black Museum also has assorted weapons, poisons, explosives, and homemade weapons.
The Black Museum is housed in just two rooms. In one room is the Jack the Ripper display and a row of death masks made by people who were housed in Newgate Prison and later hanged. The other room features exhibits from several categories, including royalty, espionage, officer assassinations, bank robberies, poisonings, and murders.
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