On 13 May 1986 Leo Abse, MP and solicitor made legal history exercising his Right of Audience in the High Court. He was the first solicitor able to break through the glass ceiling ending the centuries-old tradition of the barristers’ monopoly representing clients in the High Court. No MP ever claimed a more ancient lineage, unlike the Ashkenazi Jews his name was not shared by any other family of Jews in Europe and was Phoenician in origin.

On 13 May 1842 Arthur Sullivan was born in Lambeth, with his partner Gilbert they wrote 14 comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado are among the best known

The Clink a small prison whose name entered the English language as slang term for gaol, the prison was for those who ran amok in Bankside’s brothels

Strand was the first road in London to have a numbered address Charles II’s Secretary of State residence was No 1 near Northumberland Avenue

Florence Nightingale’s statue outside St Thomas’s Hospital is a glass-fibre copy as the original was stolen in 1970

Near The Houses of Parliament the Silver Cross public house is a licensed brothel as the privilege granted by Charles I hasn’t been revoked

Both Samuel Pepys and Rudyard Kipling both once lived at 47 Villiers Street, Strand now it is Gordon’s Wine Bar

Harrods installed its first escalator in 1898 and dispensed brandy to gentlemen and Epsom Salts for ladies to help the shock of its movement

London’s oldest sporting-related pavilion is at Syon House, built in 1803 by the Duke of Northumberland so his wife could watch regattas in comfort

The River Westbourne was funnelled above a platform on Sloane Square in a large iron pipe suspended from girders. It remains in place today

The original Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair was founded by Lord Byron’s butler, James Brown recently refurbished and is now owned by Rocco Forte

The largest clock in London is not situated on St Stephens Tower (Big Ben) but on the Shell Mex House which is on the Strand

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.

On 6 May 1902 the last hanging was enacted at Newgate Prison. Aware of the extortionate cost of stringing up criminals, the apparatus was moved to Pentonville for future use. The last to avail themselves of this fine piece of engineering was George Woolfe, for the murder of Charlotte Cheeseman. The scaffold didn’t go to waste, 121 men were hanged at Pentonville the final execution at took place on 6 July 1961.

On 6 May 1990 after changing names for numbers, then adding the prefix 01, eventually 071 and 081 were introduced on this day, before going on to add 020

In May 1760 Earl of Ferrers became the only peer to be hanged for murder, wearing his wedding suit and taken in his carriage from the Tower to Tyburn

A small section of the old London Wall survives in the trackside walls of Tower Hill station at platform level. One of the largest pieces of the wall also stands just outside this station

When the Bishop’s Geese-prostitutes-had ‘goose bumps’ it did not mean they were cold or scared but had unfortunately caught venereal disease

The Royal Observatory, home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian line, was founded by Charles II in 1675

The folk tune London Bridge is Falling Down refers to Norwegian King Olaf who suggested destroying the wooden bridge while occupied by Danes

Buck’s Club, the London gentlemen’s club which once boasted Churchill as a member, is where the Buck’s Fizz was invented

London Marathon’s youngest male winner was 22-year-old Kenyan Sammy Wanjiru in 2009, he died two years later after falling from a balcony

The escalator at Angel station is not only the longest on the Tube network, but the longest anywhere in Western Europe

When Sir Christopher Wren his and craftsmen took 35 years to rebuild St Paul’s Cathedral they were criticised for taking too long

In May 2013 London was deemed as the city with the most multi-millionaires more than in the whole of France (4,224 against 3,800)

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.