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Scotland Yard docudrama · NBC

Whitehall 1212

November 18, 1951 – September 28, 1952 · 45 broadcasts

Whitehall 1212 -- named for the old telephone number of New Scotland Yard -- was NBC's sober, procedural answer to the true-crime vogue of the early 1950s. Each Sunday night from November 1951 to September 1952, the fictional Chief Superintendent John Davison, Keeper of the Yard's Black Museum, drew a listener to a single relic on his shelves -- a teacup shard, a Wellington boot, a magenta blotter, an elephant hook -- and told the case behind it, entirely from the investigating officer's point of view. The stories were dramatized by Wyllis Cooper, the writer-director who had earlier terrified audiences with Lights Out and Quiet, Please, and researched by Percy Hoskins, chief crime reporter of the London Daily Express, from files opened by permission of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Cooper insisted on a British-sounding cast for authenticity, with veteran radio actor Harvey Hays as the museum's grave narrator. Where its louder cousins The Black Museum and Secrets of Scotland Yard played up the blood, Whitehall 1212 kept to the cold trail of evidence and the patient logic of detection. Forty-four numbered cases were broadcast; all but one survive, and with the surviving 1951 audition the run leaves forty-four recordings to hear.

Collection status: 44 of 45 held (98% complete)
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Episode Spine

Grouped by year. Jump to the full list below, or open a season on its own page.

1951

November 13, 1951 This is Scotland Yard Listen (MP3)
November 18, 1951 The Blitz Murder Case Listen (MP3)
A handful of shattered teacup shards in the Black Museum opens the file on a double shotgun killing -- a woman and the man with her.
November 25, 1951 Show Mission
December 2, 1951 The Fonier Case Listen (MP3)
A steamer trunk left in the Charing Cross baggage room gives up the body of Mrs. Naomi Fornier, and the Yard must learn who put her there.
December 9, 1951 The Murder of Duncan Frazier Listen (MP3)
A corpse shot in the back is pulled from a burning house as Sidney Patterson -- but dental work reveals the dead man is really Duncan Frazier.
December 16, 1951 The Man Who Murdered His Wife Listen (MP3)
Mrs. Hope Russell lies buried in quicklime and every clue points to her husband, until the Yard proves a wartime Luftwaffe raid did the killing.
December 23, 1951 The Heathrow Affair Listen (MP3)
A cool-headed thief schemes to lift a gold consignment out of Heathrow -- and a poisoned pot of tea marks his trail.

1952

January 6, 1952 The Murder of Charles Brooks Listen (MP3)
A gangster styled on the Chicago mobs and his girl cut a swath of robbery and murder, until a silver cigarette case links two of the bodies.
January 13, 1952 Casmere Is Murdered Listen (MP3)
Cashmere Casuba is shot dead behind the wheel of his car, and when a police informer turns up drowned with a bullet in his chest the two deaths converge.
January 20, 1952 The Case of Donald Simms Listen (MP3)
A spent brass shell from a Browning pistol is the one hard clue to a woman's murder -- and a character called 'Poopsie' is the lead.
January 27, 1952 The Murder of Little Philip Avery Listen (MP3)
The killing of eleven-year-old schoolboy Phillip Avery turns on two scraps of evidence: a handkerchief marked with oil and a pound note with one corner torn away.
February 3, 1952 The Peter Williams Case Listen (MP3)
A woman is murdered yet seems to go on living, and the tangled affair of Jesse Williams ends when the culprit's poor spelling gives him away.
February 10, 1952 Case of Arthur Freeman Listen (MP3)
A moustached raider in a black raincoat cleans out a jeweller's and leaves a woman dead, and the Yard hunts the description.
February 17, 1952 Case of the Late Mrs. Harvey Listen (MP3)
A bloodstained pyjama jacket and a man's suit are all that remain of an old 1910 killing -- the death of Dr. Harvey's wife.
February 24, 1952 Murder of Peter Amory Listen (MP3)
A knife gone red with rust is the Museum's souvenir of a 1922 killing -- the murder of Peter Amory.
March 2, 1952 The Murder of Margery Ashley Listen (MP3)
A single smeared print on a bare mirror runs down the strangling and beating of Marjorie Ashley -- a 1942 horror the papers compared to the Ripper.
March 9, 1952 Case of Dr. Duncan Allen Listen (MP3)
A bottle of Glenlivet whisky is the odd thread that ties the Yard's men to a theft of uranium.
March 16, 1952 Case of Thomas Applebee Listen (MP3)
When Thomas A'Becket Applebee is murdered his wife Alma is charged, until her young lover steps forward to confess.
March 23, 1952 Case of the Black Gladstone Bag Listen (MP3)
A black Gladstone bag, stained with blood since 1924, leads the Yard to a dismal Eastbourne cottage and a too-smooth travelling salesman.
March 30, 1952 Murder of a Bloody Belguin Listen (MP3)
A dropped earring and a headless woman's body point the Yard toward a Belgian butcher in a case that had defied them.
April 13, 1952 Case of the Fatal Bath Listen (MP3)
A wife drowns in her bath exactly as a former wife did, and the Yard moves before the man's next bride can be next.
April 20, 1952 Case of Mrs. Minerva Bannamon Listen (MP3)
The clasp from a woman's handbag is the trail to the vanished Mrs. Minerva Bannerman -- and to the acid bath that hid her.
April 27, 1952 Case of Franchesca Nicholson Listen (MP3)
A grey shirt marked with blood draws the Yard to a grimy poultry farm and a man gone mad, with the body of Francesca Nicholson still to be found.
May 4, 1952 Case of William George Greenly Listen (MP3)
A motor-car running board is the clue that avenges a murdered constable -- William George Greenly, shot through both eyes.
May 11, 1952 Case of Margery Tate Listen (MP3)
A single imitation pearl runs down the man who beat Marjorie Tate to death in her hotel room.
May 18, 1952 Case of Sidney Wolfe Listen (MP3)
A denture plate and a small flask of petrol are the odd clues that answer for the killing of Sidney Wolfe's mother.
May 25, 1952 Case of Maggie Ralenson Listen (MP3)
A surgeon's instrument case and a child's rompers lead the constabulary to whoever posted the parcels of human remains turning up in Scotland.
June 1, 1952 Case of Winfred Hog Listen (MP3)
The death of Miss Winifred Hogg and her landlord's nerves turn on arsenic soaked out of ordinary flypaper.
June 8, 1952 Case of the Strange Bondfire Listen (MP3)
A bare-headed man bolts from a blazing motor-car in the days around Guy Fawkes Night, and the Yard asks who was meant to burn with it.
June 15, 1952 Case of the Homemade Handbag Listen (MP3)
A woman's body in the open country, a guileless boy scout, and a man photographing birds all circle a yellow string handbag left behind.
June 22, 1952 Murder of Mrs. Ann Battersby Listen (MP3)
June 29, 1952 Case of the Weed Eradication Listen (MP3)
Arsenic kills Mrs. Mildred Birdsong, and a Welsh box of poison-laced chocolates points to a keen gardener with weed-killer to hand.
July 6, 1952 Murder of Mr. Sweet Listen (MP3)
The wounds in the body of Mr. Sweet read as bullet holes until the Yard proves the killing was done with a hammer.
July 13, 1952 Case of the Ankush Listen (MP3)
A killing at the zoo is done with an ankush -- the iron hook a mahout uses on an elephant.
July 20, 1952 Case of the Unidentified Woman Listen (MP3)
Knocked down by a motor-car but not killed, a woman is last seen stepping into a green delivery van marked on its side with a painted shoe.
July 27, 1952 Case of the Magenta Blotting Pad Listen (MP3)
A sheet of magenta blotting paper ties the Yard to an Oxford murder -- the killing of a foreign gentleman's impoverished sister.
August 3, 1952 Murder of Nora Brady Listen (MP3)
A single Wellington boot cracks the murder of Nora Brady -- a case remembered as the only time a Briton was tried twice for one killing.
August 10, 1952 Case of the Missing Clarinet Listen (MP3)
A clarinet points the way to Rowena Hargate's killer, the trail rounded out by a measure of Booth's gin and a blade taken from a Greek restaurant.
August 17, 1952 Case of Dugel Henry Listen (MP3)
A cigarette case scored with an old scratch settles the murder of Dugel Henry, whatever the army man's story about a burglar.
August 24, 1952 Murder of Lady Madge Johnson Listen (MP3)
A man's bloodied handkerchief answers for the death of Lady Madge Johnson, a noted philanthropist killed in her hotel room beside a box of banknotes.
August 31, 1952 Case of the Madden Family Listen (MP3)
An inspector's own warrant badge is the Museum's memento of the murdered boy Damon Madden -- a case whose failure ended a Yard man's career.
September 7, 1952 Case of the Eaton Brothers Listen (MP3)
The body of Marlene Corcoran is found in a shuttered wine shop, and her killer's 500-pound confession to a newspaper proves worthless because of the stationery it is written on.
September 14, 1952 Case of the Winchester Bottles Listen (MP3)
A chemist's Winchester bottle carries prints no file can match in the killing of a small girl of four -- so the Yard sets out to fingerprint all of Blackbourne.
September 21, 1952 Case of the Inoperative Wireless Listen (MP3)
A radio set built never to receive a signal is the strange centre of a barman's death by strychnine.
September 28, 1952 Case of the Electric Touch Listen (MP3)
A hard-drinking husband is killed by the man who loves his wife, the blows struck with a heavy electric torch.
The Story

Whitehall 1212 -- named for the old telephone number of New Scotland Yard -- was NBC's sober, procedural answer to the true-crime vogue of the early 1950s. Each Sunday night from November 1951 to September 1952, the fictional Chief Superintendent John Davison, Keeper of the Yard's Black Museum, drew a listener to a single relic on his shelves -- a teacup shard, a Wellington boot, a magenta blotter, an elephant hook -- and told the case behind it, entirely from the investigating officer's point of view. The stories were dramatized by Wyllis Cooper, the writer-director who had earlier terrified audiences with Lights Out and Quiet, Please, and researched by Percy Hoskins, chief crime reporter of the London Daily Express, from files opened by permission of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Cooper insisted on a British-sounding cast for authenticity, with veteran radio actor Harvey Hays as the museum's grave narrator. Where its louder cousins The Black Museum and Secrets of Scotland Yard played up the blood, Whitehall 1212 kept to the cold trail of evidence and the patient logic of detection. Forty-four numbered cases were broadcast; all but one survive, and with the surviving 1951 audition the run leaves forty-four recordings to hear.

Full story — coming soon while it's being curated.
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