On 12 April 1709 Isaac Bickerstaff, the pseudonym of Richard Steele published the first edition of the innovative journal, The Tatler. Appearing two or three times a week, it purported to publish news and gossip heard in various London coffeehouses, he declared in the opening paragraph, to leave the subject of politics to the newspapers, while presenting Whiggish views and correcting middle-class manners.
On 12 April 1665 England’s first Black Death victim, Margaret Ponteous, was buried in the churchyard of St Paul’s Covent Garden
The last nobleman tried by ‘God and his Peers’, Lord Edward Southwell Russell de Clifford who in 1935 faced the Lords on a manslaughter charge
There are 24 bridges over the Thames the original wooden London Bridge opened in 1209; the newest pedestrian Millennium Bridge in 2000
Albert Memorial has 61 human figures Albert died 1861; 19 men Albert born 1819; 42 women he died aged 42; 9 animals Albert had 9 children
Charles I’s neck vertebrae lost after being sliced through by the executioner’s axe appeared later as Queen Victoria surgeon’s salt cellar
In 1925 George Gershwin’s premier performance of Rhapsody in Blue was broadcast from the Savoy Hotel by the BBC
On 12 April 1911 the first non-stop flight from London to Paris a distance of 290 miles was completed by Pierre Prier in 3 hours 56 minutes
London’s only bespoke motor racing track was at Crystal Palace, opening in 1936, during its life it would attract crowds of 60,000 a day
For London’s first scheduled bus route from Peckham to Oxford Street was operated Thomas Tilling, they earned the nickname of ‘Times’, which later appeared on their sides
In 1766 at his London private laboratory Henry Cavendish discovered hydrogen calling it “Inflammable Air”, a rich man, upon his death he was the largest depositor in the Bank of England
In 17th century London Tomias Smollett reported cherries would be made to glisten afresh by being gently roll around the greengrocer’s mouth
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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Cavendish owned a house in Clapham Common, built by Thomas Cubitt, featured prominently in ITV’s Belgravia, where he carried out most of his experiments, including his most famous, determining the density of the Earth. I didn’t know that Cavendish Road, which runs away from Clapham Common was named after the great man.
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Henry Cavendish was quite an eccentric character but one of Britain’s unsung scientific heroes. He was supposedly so shy, he would not even talk to his maids, he would only communicate to them through hand written notes left outside his laboratory at his house in Clapham. Cavendish Road is named in his honour. From his room in Clapham, he calculated the mass of the earth which with todays scientific instruments and satellites etc, we have not been able to improve on
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Cavendish owned a house in Clapham Common, built by Thomas Cubitt, featured prominently in ITV’s Belgravia, where he carried out most of his experiments, including his most famous, determining the density of the Earth. I didn’t know that Cavendish Road, which runs away from Clapham Common was named after the great man.
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