Monthly Archives: June 2020
London in Quotations: D. Morrier Evans
The City is a world within itself. Centred in the heart of the metropolis, with its innumerable capacities for commercial pursuits, it presents at first sight, to a stranger, a most mysterious and unfathomable labyrinth of lanes and alleys, streets and courts, of lanes thronged with bustling multitude whose various occupations, though uniting in one grand whole, seem to have no direct association with each other.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), Lothair
London Trivia: The first computer
On 14 June 1822 the Astronomical Society in Bedford Street received a paper from mathematician, philosopher and mechanical engineer, Charles Babbage, entitled ‘A note respecting the application of machinery to the calculation of astronomical tables’. It was an automatic mechanical calculator the precursor of the computer, little did this son of a Walworth banker realised how his thesis would develop into the present digital age.
On 14 June 1971 the world’s first Hard Rock Café opened in Old Park Lane, it contains London’s only rock n’ roll museum tucked away in an old Coutts Bank vault
At Westminster Abbey traces of skin from a 14th century thief who attempted to steal the church’s valuables are still nailed to a door
Westminster Abbey was built on what was a remote island called Thorney Island situated in the middle of some marshland to the west of London
Dirty Dicks PH comes from dandy Richard Bentley whose house was on the site, on their wedding eve his bride died after which he lived in squalor
On 14 June 1380 revolting peasants occupied London and decapitated Archbishop Simon of Sudbury his skull is on display in Sudbury in Suffolk
Little St Pauls Cathedral is a sculpture on the side of Vauxhall Bridge and only visible from the River Thames
Henry VIII’s Wine Cellar a 40,000 cu. ft. cavern weighing 800 ton was moved more than 40ft to preserve it during the rebuilding of Whitehall
Tottenham Hotspurs deliberately set Jimmy Greaves’s 1961 transfer fee from AC Milan at £99,999 to avoid putting him under the pressure of being the first £100,000 player
The longest gap between stations is 3.89 miles from Chesham to Chalfont and Latimer; the shortest Covent Garden to Leicester Square 0.25 miles
The Mercers Livery Company is the oldest of London’s Guilds with ordinances dating back to 1347 and are No. 1 in the list of precedence
Estimated distances Bow Bells could be heard from City in olden days (definition of true Cockney) – 6 miles to east, 5 north, 3 south, 4 west
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.
London’s timeline
I wanted to produce a London timeline, but those impressive ones you find on the Internet are not cheap, and so you will have to put up with this rather basic version that I have designed and produced.
Obviously, it doesn’t cover every London event, but some of those to be found on CabbieBlog, however tenuous, are highlighted in green, and should you have a mind, further information can be found by clicking on that green link.
|— BC
|—43—Londinium is founded by the Romans
|— AD
|—60—Boudicca sacks the Roman city
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|—200—London Wall is built
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|—410—The Romans abandon Augusta
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|—886—King Alfred establishes Lundenburgh
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|—1123–St Bartholomew’s Hospital is founded
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|—1189–The first Lord Mayor is elected
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|—1252–A polar bear arrives from Norway
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|—1296–Edward I brings the Stone of Scone to London
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|—1341–The last hermit of Cripplegate resigns
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|—1381–The Peasant’s Revolt
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|—1450–Jack Cade leads a rebellion against Henry VI
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|—1535–Thomas More is beheaded
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|—1536–Anne Boleyn is beheaded
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|—1561–The spire of Old St Paul’s falls down
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|—1570–Whitechapel Bell Foundry is founded
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|—1575–Martin Frobisher embarks for the Northwest Passage
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|—1602–Twelfth Night is staged for the first time
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|—1605–The Gunpowder Plot
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|—1620–The Mayflower leaves Rotherhithe
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|—1649–Charles I executed
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|—1665–The Great Plague
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|—1666–The Great Fire
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|—1670–The grandfather clock is invented
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|—1671–Colonel Blood steals the Crown Jewels
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|—1703–The Great Storm
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|—1711–Wren’s St. Paul’s is completed
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|—1720–The South Sea Bubble bursts
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|—1730–Porter beer is invented in Shoreditch
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|—1730–The Westbourne is dammed to create the Serpentine
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|—1742–The Bow Street Runners are established
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|—1749–Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks performed
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|—1760–Roller skates are invented
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|—1763–Boswell meets Johnson
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|—1766–Henry Cavendish identifies hydrogen
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|—1769–The Hampton Court vine is planted
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|—1760–The Gordon Riots
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|—1784–The country’s first manned balloon flight takes place
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|—1798–Rules Restaurant opens
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|—1810–The city’s first Indian restaurant opens
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|—1814–The Beer Flood
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|—1814–The last Frost Fair on the Thames
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|—1822–Michael Faraday invents the electric motor
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|—1829–Robert Peel establishes the Metropolitan Police Force
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|—1833–Kensal Green Cemetery opens
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|—1843–The Brunels build a foot tunnel under the Thames
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|—1848–Russia buys the Great Dust Heap
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|—1848–The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is founded
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|—1850–Obasych the hippo arrives from Egypt
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|—1851–The Great Exhibition
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|—1857–Postcodes are invented
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|—1858–The Great Stink
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|—1858–The Great Eastern is launched
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|—1863–The Metropolitan Line opens
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|—1863–Football is codified
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|—1865–The Knowledge is instituted
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|—1866–Blue Plaques are established
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|—1868–The world’s first pedestrian crossing is set up
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|—1869–J. Sainsbury opens a grocery
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|—1872–Speakers’ Corner is established
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|—1876–Alexander Graham Bell makes first phone call
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|—1881–Watson meets Holmes
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|—1888–The Matchgirls’ Strike
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|—1892–The first Asian is elected to the House of Commons
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|—1895–Oscar Wilde is arrested
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|—1895–The Proms are instituted
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|—1896–Charlie Chaplin goes to the Lambeth Workhouse
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|—1899–Britain’s first car crash takes place
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|—1908–London’s first Olympic Games
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|—1910–The bourbon biscuit is invented
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|—1912–The Cheapside Hoard is discovered
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|—1915–The first Zeppelin attack takes place
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|—1917–The Silvertown Explosion
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|—1919–Syd’s Coffee Stall is established
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|—1920–London’s first commercial airport opens in Croydon
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|—1921–A. A. Milne buys Winnie-the-pooh from Harrods
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|—1924–Marie Cordery is born on the Tube
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|—1928–Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
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|—1929–The first Tesco grocery opens
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|—1931–Harry Beck designs the topographical Tube map
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|—1935–Waddingtons buys the UK rights to Monopoly
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|—1936–Crystal Palace burns down
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|—1936–The Battle of Cable Street
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|—1945–Claridge’s suite 212 is ceded to Yugoslavia
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|—1947–The last horse-drawn cab is stabled
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|—1948–Empire Windrush arrives at Tilbury
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|—1952–The Great Smog
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|—1958–The Notting Hill Race Riots
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|—1959–The Tube Challenge is inaugurated
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|—1960–The Lady Chatterley Trial
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|—1962–The world’s first panda crossing is installed
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|—1966–English wins the World Cup at Wembley
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|—1967–The world’s first cash machine is installed
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|—1968–Time Out is founded
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|—1974–McDonald’s arrives in London
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|—1975–Spitalfields Great Synagogue becomes a Mosque
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|—1976–A pig flies over Battersea Power Station
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|—1981–The Brixton Riots
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|—1986–The Big Bang
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|—1986–Richard Roger’s Lloyd’s Building is completed
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|—1992–An IRA bomb explodes outside the Baltic Exchange
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|—1997–Rick Buckley sticks up replicas of his nose
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|—1998–Cardboard City is cleared away
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|—1999–The London Eye starts spinning
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|—2000–Feeding pigeons is banned in Trafalgar Square
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|—2003–Room 101 is demolished
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|—2005–The 7/7 bomb attacks kill 52 and injure 700
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|—2006–A bottlenose whale swims up the Thames
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|—2007–The new Wembley Stadium opens
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|—2008–Banksy holds a graffiti festival
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|—2008–CabbieBlog’s first incarnation first published
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|—2009–The Gentle Author begins writing Spitalfields Life
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|—2009–Gibson Square begins writing CabbieBlog
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|—2012–The third London Olympics
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|—2013–The first talking cash machine is unveiled
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|—2014–London’s last wooden escalator removed
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|—2017–The Ark the first public museum, returns to Lambeth
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|—2017–Blue whale replaces Dippy at Natural History Museum
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|—2020–The public ride the Post Office mail train
Learn every postcode
I once had a job to Courtfield Gardens, it’s one of those locations in London that’s split into many different parts. We need number 22 and as I’m looking around for it, the idiot gives me the full postcode. What possible use is that, have I to memorise every postcode in London?
CabbieBlog 