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 During the 1860s, the flintlock pistols that had been purchased in 1829 were decommissioned from service, being superseded by 622 Beaumont–Adams revolvers firing the .450 cartridge which were loaned from the army stores at the Tower of London following the Clerkenwell bombing.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
Police aviation in the United Kingdom force to operate an aeroplane. Police aviation in England and Wales was once a force-by-force, or forces working in partnership, organisation, however from April 2012 it gradually became centralised as the National Police Air Service. The final force to join, the Metropolitan Police, joined in 2015. In 1921, an R33 Airship was able to help the police in traffic control around the Epsom and Ascot horse-racing events. The large mural depicting the 1936 Battle of Cable Street public order incident on the side of St. George's Town Hall in the East End of London depicts the police autogyro overhead that