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RIVER POLICE
Over the years the smugglers and riverside thieves had the place to themselves, with barges holding everything from silk to tobacco. Goods worth thousands were being plunder from vessels every year.
With London merchants at their wits end that by 1792, began “The Preventative Service,” a title that clung to the members until 1839, with the Metropolitan Police with the special privilege of posing as city constables.
In High Street, Wapping, within five hundred yards of the Old Stairs, the oldest Riverside Police in the World are to be found. The traditional blue lamp projects over a somewhat gloomy passage leading down to the river-side with notices of no public right of way to the landing stage. Once overcome with the vast amount of crime that prevailed on the Thames have nowadays become the more romantic elite of the force that deal with less serious crime.
Landing Platform of the River-side Police.
 
Wapping, the oldest riverside Police Station in the world. Blue Lamp with Birds eye view.
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