On 15 August 1921, a 15-year-old boy entered a branch of the London County, Westminster & Parr’s Bank on Streatham High Road and asked for a 5½ per cent Treasury bond on behalf of a local known resident when the clerk turned his back the boy seized a bundle of £1,000 in Treasury notes and disappeared.

On 15 August 1941 Josef Jakobs, a German spy, was the last person to be executed in the Tower of London by firing squad. Because he had a broken ankle he was shot sitting down

The Boundary Street Estate London’s first council estate was built on the rubble of the Old Nichol, once a notorious criminal area

In 2003 Temple Bar Trust bought the gate for £1 it was returned to London stone by stone and re-erected as an entrance to Paternoster Square

William Blake (who wrote the lyrics to Jerusalem) married Catherine Boucher at St Mary’s, Battersea in 1782

Nancy Astor, the first woman take a seat in Parliament after a by-election in December 1919 and was elected as a Conservative for the Plymouth, once lived at 4 St James’s Square, Westminster

In 1891 Sherlock Holmes creator, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, penned his first 5 short stories at 2 Upper Wimpole Street then known as Devonshire Place

A red, white or black flag was flown outside the Globe in Shakespeare’s time to denote a history, comedy or tragedy

London’s oldest sports building still in use for its original purpose is the Real Tennis Court at Hampton Court Palace, one of its walls dates back to 1625. Today the court is listed Grade I

The Central line introduced the first flat fare when it opened the tuppence fare lasted until the end of June 1907 when a threepenny fare was introduced for longer journeys

Elephant and Castle is named from a pub whose sign was the symbol of the Cutlers who made cutlery with ivory handles

It costs £4 million a year to advertise your firm on Piccadilly Circus’s neon sign which measures 21.1 metres by 4.8 metres

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 8 August 2011, there were London-wide riots, shops were looted, unsurprisingly Waterstone’s in Battersea was spared. At least 1,000 were arrested in London. There were two deaths and this was the first use of mobile phones to organise looting and rioting activities – and the first time mobile logs were used to make arrests.

On 8 August 1969 photographer Iain MacMillan shot the cover of Abbey Road, the last studio LP in which all four Beatles took part

After execution at Tyburn Highwayman Jack Sheppard was buried at St-Martin-in-the-Fields in front of 200,000, some protecting his corpse

Kensington Olympia’s Grand Hall famed for its barrel-roof made of iron and glass was the largest building in the country covering 4 acres

Rule, Britannia! composer, Thomas Arne, is buried in St Paul’s, Covent Garden, he also wrote a version of God Save the King, and the song A-Hunting We Will Go

Women’s Rights Campaigner Sylvia Pankhurst once lived at 120 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea it was little more than a rest stop between her numerous countrywide tours for the Women’s Social and Political Union

Wimpole Street was once home to poet Elizabeth Barrett, author Arthur Conan Doyle and Paul McCartney who wrote Yesterday there

The Palace Theatre opened in 1891 as the Royal English Opera House by Richard D’Oyly Carte wanting it to be the home of English grand opera

Old English skittles, once popular in pubs across the South East, is confined to a single alley at the Freemasons’ Arms in Downshire Hill is thought to be played in London and nowhere else

According to Transport for London Underground trains travel a total of 1,735 times around the world (or 90 trips to the moon and back) each year

In the 1800s London prostitutes were sometimes referred to as ‘Fulham virgins’ during this time there were probably about 30,000 street sellers

Kew Gardens holds the largest and most diverse botanical collection in the world, including around 7 million dried plant specimens and a living collection of over 19,000 plant species spanning two sites

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 1 August 1861 The Times published the first ever weather forecast for the general public. Admiral Robert Fitzroy was its inceptor. He was reprimanded, despite the ‘forecast’ being correct, as his superiors did not believe his predictions were accurate. We have been criticising their accuracy ever since.

On 1 August 1715 the first Doggett’s Coat and Badge race, the oldest rowing contest in the world, took place on the Thames, starting at London Bridge and ending in Chelsea

Chancery Lane takes its name from the 14th century Court of Chancery administered by the Lord Chancellor’s personal staff, the Chancery

Charing Cross was a hamlet known as Charing derived from Anglo-Saxon word cerring meaning ‘bend’ its position by a large bend in the Thames

Canning Town once had no roads, pavements, drains, fresh water, houses built below high tide level behind embankments were damp and flooded

The London Silver Vaults opened 1876 survived a direct hit by a German bomb in World War II that completely obliterated the building above

Jeremy Sandford’s much acclaimed 1966 BBC play Cathy Come Home directed by Ken Loach was partly filmed on Popham Street, Islington

Kensington Olympia opened in 1886 as the National Agricultural Hall on the site of a vineyard and market gardens in Kensington High Street

Chesham the start for the Tube Challenge visiting all stations on the network in the fastest time first completed in 1959 latest 16 hours 29 minutes 57 seconds

The original Tube escalators ended with a diagonal so it finished sooner on the right leading to the etiquette of standing on the right

Cannon Street was known as Candelwrichstrete meaning ‘candle maker street’ after the many candlestick makers that had set up residence

Olympia proved popular with King Edward VII who requisitioned a private suite as a secret rendezvous for liaisons with his many mistresses

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 25 July 1865 Dr James Barry, former Inspector General of Hospitals, died, it was affirmed that Dr Barry was a woman. If this was the case, then technically Barry was not only the youngest, but the first woman to graduate in medicine.

On 25 July 1914 W. G. Grace battled for the last time for Eltham Cricket Club, he was the first English captain to surrender the urn when England lost in 1891/2

Shoddy axeman Jack Ketch who bungled the execution of the Duke of Monmouth lives on today as the hangman in the Punch and Judy puppet shows

The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea is the most densely populated area in the UK-13,200 people per sq. kilometre (London average 5,000)

When Polly, resident parrot of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, died in 1926 her obituary appeared in numerous Fleet Street papers

The British Legion introduced the first artificial poppies in 1921 raising £106k. The Poppy Factory has been at Richmond for almost 90 years

Billy Elliot rehearses dance moves at a youth centre not in the north-east but at Hanwell Community Centre, Hanwell

Kew Gardens is unique on the Underground being the only station with its own pub The Railway which has a door that leads out onto platform 1

West Ham home ground once formed part of Anne Boleyn’s grand manor house known as Green Street House, which was demolished in 1890

Edgware Road is London’s oldest road 2,000 years ago it was a grassy track, the Romans incorporated it into their major road, Watling Street

The Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill, built the world’s first programmable computer known as Colossus Mk 1 the size of a small room

The Fairlop Oak one of England’s most famous trees was blown down in 1820, it was used to carve the pulpit in St. Pancras Church, Euston

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 18 July 1895 actor Henry Irving was conferred a knighthood, the first actor to be so recognised. Prime Minister Gladstone had wanted to offer him one in 1883 but was dissuaded on the grounds that Irving’s liaison with Ellen Terry would lead to a row with the Queen over the proposal.

On 30 July 1746 the last executed traitor to have their head displayed on a pike (his at Temple Bar) was Jacobite rebel Francis Towneley

On 18 July 1921 Nelson Greenaway, a hawker of St Luke’s Road, was fined £3 at Feltham for colliding into the American Ambassador’s car carrying an American General

The Lamb and Flag, Rose Street, Covent Garden dates back to 1627 being a favourite watering hole of Charles Dickens

Victorian publisher Joshua Butterworth left money for a ceremony at St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield to give alms and buns to poor London widows

It is thought that the ‘Window Tax’ brought about the phrase: “Daylight Robbery”, being robbed of daylight by taxation

Gieves (the name) of Gieves and Hawkes, 1 Savile Row was the inspiration for P. G. Wodehouse’s butler Jeeves, albeit spelt different

In 1251 a Polar Bear given to King Henry III by the King of Norway lived in the Tower of London and went fishing in the Thames

Cricketing legend W. G. Grace was a practising doctor who worked from his practice at 7 Lawrie Park Road, Sydenham

Early London and Greenwich Railway trains were made in the style of a Roman galley ship to fit in with the viaducts they travelled across

London’s oldest shop Twining’s in the Strand has been selling tea since 1706. Twining family home in Twickenham, Dial House is now a vicarage

One of the first (if not THE first) British suppliers of Doc Marten shoes and boots was Blackman’s, Cheshire Street, Bethnal Green

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.