The Big Five was a nickname given to five

superintendent Superintendent may refer to: *Building superintendent, a manager, maintenance or repair person, custodian or janitor, especially in the United States; sometimes shortened to "super" *Prison warden or superintendent, a prison administrator *Soprin ...

s in charge of the

Criminal Investigation Department The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is the branch of a police force to which most plainclothes criminal investigation, detectives belong in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth nations. A force's CID is disti ...

Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's London boroughs, 32 boroughs. Its name derives from the location of the original ...

, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, from about 1906 onwards. The first five to be appointed were: Charles John Arrow, Paul Crane,

Walter Dew Detective Chief Inspector Walter Dew (17 April 1863 – 16 December 1947) was a British Metropolitan Police, Metropolitan Police officer who was involved in the hunt for both Jack the Ripper and Hawley Harvey Crippen, Dr Crippen. Early life D ...

, Frederick Fox and

Frank Froest Superintendent Frank Castle Froest (1858, Bristol – 7 January 1930, Weston-super-Mare) was a British detective and crime writer. Froest was described by a journalist as being "...short, thick-set, full-faced, Mr. Froest in uniform looked more l ...

. These men and their successors, with their subordinate inspectors, regularly worked on high-profile murder cases through the British Isles. By the 1970s, the term was dropping from currency. While the crime reporters of British newspapers were the first to use the epithet ''The Big Five'', the team's activities became a popular trope with writers of crime fiction, including

Edgar Wallace Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was a British writer of crime and adventure fiction. Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at the age of 12. He joined the army at age 21 and was ...

. As well as inspiring conventional detective fiction, "The Big Five" suggested the title for ''

The Big Six ''The Big Six'' is the ninth book of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books, published in 1940. The book returns Dick and Dorothea Callum, known as the Ds, to the Norfolk Broads where they renew their friendship with ...

'', a children's novel in

Arthur Ransome Arthur Michell Ransome (18 January 1884 – 3 June 1967) was an English author and journalist. He is best known for writing and illustrating the ''Swallows and Amazons'' series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of childre ...

Swallows and Amazons series The ''Swallows and Amazons'' series is a series of twelve children's adventure novels by English author Arthur Ransome. Set in the interwar period, the novels involve group adventures by children, mainly in the school holidays and mainly in E ...

about group of young detectives.

References

{{Reflist Types of police unit of the United Kingdom Criminal investigation Criminology organizations History of the Metropolitan Police Detective fiction