I'll be using this thread to provide various tidbits about London in the 1920s
Transportation
London has a fully modernized transportation network that can serve the party’s every need. With underground trains, street-level trams, busses, and black cabs all available, the investigators have not just numerous means of getting from museum to library, but also numerous means by which they can escape tails—be they cultist or the police—or shadow suspects of their own. In the mid-1920s, Great Britain is connected by one of the most advanced railway networks in the world. The Underground, a.k.a. The Tube (subway), with its automated ticket machines, connects all of London’s boroughs for a cheap and accessible price. It is not twenty-four hours though and most stations are shut between 1AM and 5AM. Foreign travellers will be disconcerted, however, to find that flights of stairs marked “Subway” are a safe foot-traffic route to cross under busy roads, not a means to a Tube station!
The omnipresent open-topped London buses (not all of them red) run into the small hours and crisscross the city. Electric trams are cheaper, but do not run in the West End or the City, have fewer stops, and often close earlier than the buses (usually before midnight). London’s famed black taxicabs (Hackney carriages, to give their proper name) can either be called for in advance or hailed at the kerbside. All taxi drivers are living maps of the city, as each must have “The Knowledge”—a photographic memory of all 25,000 streets and all major buildings within Greater London.
The only major problem with motor taxis is that they rarely seat more than three passengers; horse-drawn carriages (the 4-wheeled sort called “growlers”) are cheaper and seat up to 6, if investigators don’t mind squeezing together. The 2-wheeled “hansom” is now rarely seen except as private carriages for young, courting couples.
London is not designed for private automobiles—traffic jams and snarls are infrequent, but irritating, and a complex system of one-way roads and side streets makes driving a chore. Investigators seriously wishing to hire a car can do so from local garages or via their hotel.
Outside of London and other large towns, taxis are mostly unknown, leaving locally run buses of varied quality to cater to travellers. Dray horses, carts, and horse-drawn carriages—while still seen in cities—are obviously more common in the countryside. Such work animals are only slowly being replaced by mechanization, and in rural areas only rich gentry and the village doctor or veterinarian are likely to own a car. Some citizens own a motorcycle (with or without a sidecar), but these are usually reserved for young working class tearaways or upper-class playboys.
Train tickets cost between one and three pence a mile, depending on 1st or 3rd class seating, with the Underground at a flat ½ pence per mile. Taxis and buses are in the range of ½ pence per mile also but drivers should be tipped 3d or so for their service. Though many Londoners walk, investigators will find doing the same can be tough going; without a guide, the cities twisted streets will throw unwary strollers for a loop. Even hardened Londoners sometimes stumble on shortcuts and streets they didn’t know existed, even after having passed them every day for years on their way to work!
Firearms
Investigator Weapons 1:
"... in our own time we have seen the spread of restrictive legislation and the tendency to limit the sale of arms ... but our criminal statistics show no difference at all."
- Hugh Pollard, A History of Firearms (1926)
In 1925, Britons are estimated to legally own some 220,000 firearms, yet violent crimes are rare, and during the entire era, only about a dozen offenders are arrested annually with a firearm – many of which are held illegally. Since the passing of the Firearms Act (1920), a Firearms Certificateis required to buy, possess, and carry a firearm, but many people owning one never register it. Shotguns are not considered firearms and are therefore freely available. Applicants for a certificate need to be 14 years of age, have a clean police record, demonstrate “good reason,” and pay a 5 shilling fee (equivalent to $1.20). The certificate is granted by the chief constable, who decides whether the applicant has good reason for owning a firearm and whether he is otherwise unfit (of intemperate habits, a drunkard, insane, etc.). Owing to a secret Home Office directive issued with the Act, self-defence is typically notaccepted as good reason, unless specific circumstances apply – a lonely house, previous threats to an applicant holding public office, etc. ...
Foreigners cannot apply. The certificate is valid for 3 years. Each certificate specifies the exact make, model, and serial number of the firearm licenced, and also the maximum amount of ammunition allowed. Ammunition cannot be bought without a certificate... Firearms of all kinds can be licenced, including machine guns. Explosives including hand grenades are regulated by the Explosives Act (1875), which outlaws possession and carrying of such items.
Both acts also apply in Scotland as well as in Ireland until 1925; however, in (Northern) Ireland applicants must be at least 16 years old and the certificate is valid only 1 year. Shotguns are not exempt and require a certificate as well. Once independent, the Irish Republic enacts its own Firearms Act (1925), which is essentially the same as the British one...
At the time, bringing a firearm from one country into another is no problem with the appropriate licences, but it can become difficult if these cannot be acquired. Generally, customs search all luggage, but travellers are not normally frisked. While the primary driving force behind this is the collection of duties, which are levied on everything worth bringing, from chocolate to new clothing, customs inspectors will confiscate any undeclared firearms that they discover...
