ALS between the Metropolitan Police and Alfred Swaine Taylor 1854

MAY, Edmund S., Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police. Autograph letter signed to Alfred Swaine Taylor. Metropolitan Police Office, 10 November 1854.
 
1 page, 1 folded sheet, with the original torn envelope addressed to “Alfred S. Taylor Esq., 15 St John’s Terrace, Regent’s Park,” printed “Commissioners of Police,” with red wax seal remnants.
 
A formal police communication linking Alfred Swaine Taylor—the pioneering toxicologist and author of On Poisons (1848)—with the early Metropolitan Police Assistant. Commissioner Edmund S. May writes in response to Taylor’s enquiry:
 
“In the absence of Mr Yardley I have to acquaint you in reply to your letter of the 8th instant, that the case of Mr Hollick Old Ford Bow is fixed for hearing at the Thames Police Court on Saturday next at 2 p.m. Mr [Yardley] and the Superintendent of the Division will have the witnesses brought to the Court at that hour.”
 
May (fl. 1839–1868) served as one of the first Assistant Commissioners at Scotland Yard, responsible for administrative and judicial coordination under the newly centralised Metropolitan Police system.
 
There was regular coordination between the Commissioners at Scotland Yard and Taylor, whose forensic expertise underpinned prosecutions for poisoning, infanticide and other medico-legal offences. Letters between Scotland Yard and Taylor are scarce.