On 29 May 1884 at the church of St James, Paddington, Oscar Wilde, an impecunious poet-playwright, married Constance Lloyd. He quipped that he had told Queen Victoria that ‘in this weather, I asked her to remain at Osborne’.

On 29 May 1922, MP Horatio Bottomley was on this day sentenced to seven years for fraud. His ‘Victory bonds’ had attracted money from thousands of small investors and netted him £150,000

The original indictment of notorious highwayman Dick Turpin (real name John Palmer) is held in the National Archives in Kew, Richmond

The Monument commemorating the Great Fire of London in 1666 is the tallest isolated stone column in the world. It rises to 202ft on Fish Hill, 202ft away from where the fire began in a bakery in Pudding Lane

A fragrance known as Madeleine was trialled at St. James Park, Euston, and Piccadilly stations in 2001, to make the Tube more pleasant, stopped within days after complaints from people saying they felt ill

29 May 2002 Paul Boateng became the first black Cabinet minister when he was appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury on this day

In Alfred Hitchcock’s first feature film The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) featured the director making a cameo on the Tube

London’s first indoor bath specifically for swimming was Lemon (now Leman) Street in May 1742 for gentlemen only at 1/- a swim; 2/- hot bath

The earliest known account of sport in London was written in 1174 by William Fitzstepen, due to translation errors the game described is not apparent

The Necropolis Railway Company transported coffins from Waterloo to Brockwood Cemetery customers chose between first, second and third class

One City firm in the 1950s gave new employees a set of instructions including: ‘You will wear a bowler hat to and from the office’

The Queen Mother started the enduring royal wedding tradition of leaving the bride’s bouquet on the Abbey’s Tomb of the Unknown Warrior

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.