London is like the grave in one respect – any man can make himself at home there; and whenever a man finds himself homeless elsewhere, he had better either die or go to London.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), Sketch of the Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne
On 11 January 1993 at the High Court British Airways was forced into a humiliating climb down when their counsel apologised ‘unreservedly’ for an alleged dirty tricks campaign against Virgin Atlantic. Richard Branson’s top lawyer George Carman QC on winning the case claimed ‘distinctly hostile’ rumours against the airline forcing BA to pay nearly £4m in damages and legal costs. BA though still made a profit that year of £301 million while Virgin posted losses of £9.3m.
On 11 January 1858 Harry Gordon Selfridge, founder of Selfridges Department Store, was born in Ripon, Wisconsin, USA
On 11 January 1950 Timothy Evans was wrongly found guilty & sentenced to death for murder of his daughter, Geraldine at 10 Rillington Place
The Brunei Gallery at SOAS on a wall is a plaque apologising for its being there-the only building in London to apologise for its existence
On 11 January 1890 Harold Bride, wireless operator on the Titanic, was born in Nunhead he washed off the ship as the boat deck flooded and was later rescued by the Carpathia
It was on High Holborn that Israel’s secret service, Mossad, killed one of the 1972 Black September Massacre terrorists by running him over
The movie Four Weddings and a Funeral was filmed at the Augustinian priory church of St. Bartholomew the Great
On Blackheath is an 18th century Pagoda designed by William Chambers used as a hideaway for Queen Caroline, wife of George IV
The 1908 London Olympics, the first of three held in London, were sponsored by Oxo, Odol mouthwash and Indian Foot Powder
Angel has the Underground’s longest escalator at 60m with a vertical rise of 27.5m. The shortest is Stratford with a vertical rise of 4.1m
Cock Lane was the only place licensed prostitutes could legally ply their trade in medieval London, although many roads took their name from the illegal sex industry
On 11 January 1569 Britain got its first state lottery when punters bought their tickets at the door at St. Paul’s Cathedral
Trivial Matter: London in 140 characters is taken from the daily Twitter feed @cabbieblog.
A guide to the symbols used here and source material can be found on the Trivial Matter page.
For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.
A one-legged transvestite female impersonator could have lost England the American Colonies in a scandal that rocked Georgian society.
It was possibly the extraordinary life of Samuel Foote that provided the material for Peter Cook’s ‘One leg too few’ sketch when Cook turns to Dudley Moore portraying a ‘unidexter’ Tarzan “I’ve got nothing against your right leg. The trouble is, neither have you”.
Born into what at one time had been one of the most illustrious families in England, a long-running dispute – reminiscent of Dicken’s Bleak House – over his mother’s inheritance, had left the family impoverished. Later send down from Oxford for idleness and ill-behaviour Foote was to spend time in a debtor’s prison.
He would become the first person to write a true-crime novel recounting the murder at sea of one of his uncles by another uncle. He then went on to write some immensely popular plays, but if this had been the sum total of his success little be known about him today.
But in 1776 his life would change when the brother of King George III, the Duke of York played a practical joke on Foote to ride a horse. He was thrown off the animal and suffered a compound fracture of his leg. With medicine in its formative years, the only recourse for this kind of injury was to have the leg amputated.
A little remorseful for Foote’s lost leg the Duke persuaded his brother to give Foote’s fledgling Hay Market Theatre a Royal warrant. This is why today it is known as the Theatre Royal Haymarket, it is also the reason actors say ‘break a leg’ to wish fellow thespians good luck.
Foote turned the leg amputation to his advantage by writing many highly successful one-legged comedies with him in the starring role. A route that Peter Cook avoided when he penned the famous ‘Tarzan Sketch’, giving Dudley Moore the one-legged part.
The ever-resourceful Foote circumvented the censorship laws which forbade imitation of other people at that time. Any work written directly for a show had to be submitted to The Lord Chancellor. As much of his work was satirical Foote invented the tea party, in which he charged its members for a dish of tea and they got a topical comedy on the side. This is why the Boston Harbour Riot was called the Boston Tea Party.
In 1776 his life would be turned upside down. By now one-legged Foote was Georgian London’s top celebrity, but his footman (presumably he only needed one footman) accused him of ‘sodomitical assault’. The press then erroneously named Foote’s accuser as Roger.
This gave the news periodicals the copy of a one-legged Foote ‘rogering’ a footman named Roger. To which retorted Foote “Sodomite? I’ll not stand for it”.
All this set Georgian society alight and as the coffee houses were discussing Foote’s predicament most failed to notice a certain Thomas Jefferson had written a rather good document declaring independence for his country, which had been ratified by 56 delegates to the Continental Congress.
The greatest lost figure of Georgian has now been the subject of an autobiography written by Ian Kelly who goes out on a limb to redress this oversight – Mr Foote’s Other Leg.
Living in London is like being an inmate of a reformatory school. Everywhere you turn you run into some regulation designed for your own protection. The Government is like the School Matron with her keys jangling at her waist. She orders you about, good-humouredly enough, but all the same, in no uncertain terms.
Charles Ritchie (1906-1955), The Siren Years: A Canadian Diplomat Abroad 1937-1945
On 4 January 1946 the day after William Joyce became the last Briton put to death for treason, 27-year-old Theodore Schurch a British soldier of Anglo-Swiss parentage was hanged for treachery by Albert Pierrepoint at Pentonville Prison, the last person to be hanged for a crime other than murder. Tried by court-martial at the Duke of York’s Headquarters in Chelsea during September 1945. He was found guilty of nine charges of treachery.
On 4 January 1962 Galton & Simpson sitcom Steptoe & Son was first broadcast from the BBC’s Shepherds Bush
In 1736 gravedigger Thomas Jenkins received 100 lashes for selling dead bodies from St. Dunstan and All Saints Church, Stepney High Street
On the site of Bridewell Court, New Bridge Street, Blackfriars once stood Bridewell Palace the residence of Henry VIII from 1515-1523
In 1938 a pedestrian was killed by a stone phallus falling from a statue on Zimbabwe House in the Strand other appendages removed for health and safety
During World War II French Resistance leader Charles de Gaulle set up Le Bureau Centrale de Renseignements et d’Action at 10 Duke Street, Marylebone
England’s first public playhouse was The Theatre built in Curtain Road in 1576 by actor James Burbage. It was the second permanent theatre ever built in England
Comedian and actor Will Hay English comedian, who first became well-known for his theatrical sketch as a joke-school master lived at 45 The Chase, Norbury from 1927 to 1934
Spurs’ first competitive match was versus St. Albans in the London Association Cup in 1885, Spurs won decisively 5-2
The George Inn, Borough High St. dates back to 1676, is the last galleried coaching inn in London and is mentioned in Dickens’ Little Dorrit
Abbey Road Free Church members formed the Abbey Road Building Society in 1874 in 1944 it merged with the National to form the Abbey National
In 1969 Laurence Olivier started a petition demanding that the dining car of the London to Brighton train reintroduce kippers – it worked
Trivial Matter: London in 140 characters is taken from the daily Twitter feed @cabbieblog.
A guide to the symbols used here and source material can be found on the Trivial Matter page.
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