Interview with: The 'Black Museum’s' Hilary Topham
By Lucy Addicott
With objects such as letters written by Jack the Ripper and Dennis Nilsen’s stove it is a true crime lover’s guilty pleasure. CASE magazine spoke to former press officer for the metropolitan police Hilary Topham to gain inside access to this gruesome exhibit.
What is the 'Black Museum'?
The Black Museum, or The Crime Museum of New Scotland Yard, is a collection of crime memorabilia with limited access to the public. Its purpose is to give police officers practical instruction on how to detect and prevent crime.
Who are you?
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I’m Hilary Topham and in the mid 1980’s I was a press officer for the metropolitan police based at New Scotland Yard in London. During that time I worked as press officer for specialist operations unit and part of my brief there was the Black Museum. I dealt with press inquiries and helped the curator of the Museum, Bill Wadell with press interviews and exhibits.
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When did you first get to see inside the Black Museum?
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The first time I visited the museum was very shortly after I joined Scotland Yard as a press officer. All press officers as part of their induction did visit the museum to get a flavour of crimes that the metropolitan police had dealt with over the years. I remember being morbidly excited about visiting it because of some the macabre murders that I’d heard of, jack the Ripper, Crippen and those sort of exhibits quite excited me to have a nosey really.
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What was your first visit like?
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When I first visited my feelings were quite excited because of the macabre exhibitions, you know the Jack Ripper, Crippen, Nilsen, but I was also kind of impressed that it was a unique experience that wasn’t open to the public that I was doing something that other people weren’t able to just generally do. I only was able to do it because I was working for the Metropolitan Police.
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Have you seen the museum since you left New Scotland Yard?
I left the Metropolitan Police in 1990 and I haven’t seen many of the exhibits since. I went to the crime museum exhibition in London with my son, mainly because I talked about the Black Museum over the years and I wanted to show him some of the things that I’d been involved in.
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What was it like seeing the museum again?
It did seem strange seeing these things again after all these years and it was strange witnessing how other people had that same sense of macabre that I had when I first visited it all those years ago.
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The museum is now open to the public. Do you agree with this?
I don’t agree that the Black Museum should be generally open to the public. I do understand the sense of people’s curiosity of seeing these things but you have to balance the feelings of people of more recent crimes who are victims because if a member of their family has been murdered or died in very violent circumstances why are you making entertainment out of their grief. Obviously the recent exhibition only showed exhibits from many, many years ago, like Crippen, like Jack the Ripper, where there aren’t any families still alive or the close family associations. So I think if any police museum is going to be open to the public they have to be very sensitive to the feelings of more recent victims.
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What is your most memorable moment from your experience with the Black Museum?
I can remember working in the press bureau in 1985 when the Tottenham riots were on and the tragic death of PC Keith Blakelock and how it affected us all as press officers at the time. And then about 3 years later when I was working for the Black Museum, Waddell the curator invited me to come down and see some new exhibits he’d brought in. I can remember being completely shocked at seeing the riot uniform of PC Blakelock with all its evidential tape marks and how much it upset me seeing it. I think those sort of things cannot be shown generally to the public. How would the Blakelock family feel about it? His children are still alive and presumably PC Blakelock would be a grandfather now if he was alive. I think you have to be very sensitive to the feelings of victims before you make these things openly available to the public.