History of the Metropolitan Police Service by the end of the 19th century. During the 1860s, the flintlock pistols that had been purchased in 1829 were decommissioned from service, being superseded by 622 Beaumont–Adams revolvers firing the .450 cartridge which were loaned from the army stores at the Tower of London following the Clerkenwell bombing. In 1883, a ballot was carried out to gather information on officers' views on whether they wished to be armed, and 4,430 out of 6,325 officers serving on outer divisions requested to be issued with revolvers. The now obsolete Adams revolver was returned to stores for emergencies, and the Bulldog 'Metropolitan
History of the Metropolitan Police Service of 1905, concerning a double murder in Deptford, committed by Alfred and Albert Stratton, in which, for the first time, fingerprint evidence secured the conviction. Another important investigation of this period was that into the murderer Hawley Harvey Crippen in 1910. Along with law enforcement within the Metropolitan Police District, the Metropolitan Police also had responsibility for the policing of the Royal Dockyards and other royal naval bases between 1860 until 1934, including Portsmouth, Chatham, Devonport, Royal Naval Air Station Pembroke and the Royal Woolwich Arsenal. They also policed Rosyth Dockyard from 1914 until 1926. Before the 1970s, police forces