On 2 July 1900 one of the defining icons of sartorial elegance in the 20th century was founded. Twenty-seven year old Austin Reed opened a gents outfitters in Fenchurch Street. By 1908 he had three shops, three years later he opened his flagship store in Regent Street. Fashions change and by April 2016 Austin Reed went into administration with the inevitable closure of all its 120 shops. Suit maker to Winston Churchill and The Beatles was no more.

On 2 July 1995 American tennis player Jeff Turango was fined £10,000 by Wimbledon authorities after his wife slapped an umpire

The Blind Beggar on Whitechapel Road was where Ronnie Kray killed George Cornell by shooting him through the eye

Waterstone’s on Piccadilly was the inspiration for Are You Being Served? Writer Jeremy Lloyd worked there when it was Simpsons dept store

In the graveyard of Morden College, Blackheath is buried John Thompson ‘Yeoman of the Mouth’ (food taster) to Charles II and James I

Bethnal Green North East MP Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree (aka Bow and Agree) was the UK’s first Asian Tory MP from 1895 to 1906

One of the first shopping streets to be lit by electricity was Electric Avenue, Brixton made famous by Eddie Grant’s 1981 Electric Avenue

In The Shakespeare’s Head, Covent Garden the 4th Earl of Sandwich requested bread and meat thus creating the first ever sandwich

West Ham FC was founded in 1895 by workers Thames Ironworks who hammered iron to build ships so named ‘The Hammers’

The world’s first school bus (horse drawn) was set up to run between Newington Academy for Girls and Gracechurch Street Meeting House in 1827

A young Charles Dickens worked as a legal clerk in Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn where experience led him to call the law ‘an ass’

Maurice Micklewhite changed his name to Michael Caine after seeing a poster in Leicester Square advertising The Caine Mutiny

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 June 2005 at 1.30 am a passer by noticed something unusual on the top of a crane erected in Dulwich. The police and fire brigade were called and established the little bundle lying 130ft up in the air was, in fact, a 15-year-old girl who had slept walked from her home. The person who spotted her feared she was about to throw herself off but when a firefighter climbed the crane he found her curled up asleep on top of the concrete counterweight.

On 25 June 1953 John Christie was sentenced to hang for murdering his wife and then hiding her body under the floorboards of their Notting Hill home in London

Smoking was banned on the Underground as a result of the King’s Cross fire in November 1987 which killed 31 people. A discarded match was thought to be the cause of that inferno

There are plaques in London to stars of the Carry On films including Joan Sims in Kensington and Hattie Jacques in Earls Court

On 25 June 1750 William Green, a weaver, accidentally lost his balance at The Monument and fell to his death

During World War II Eastenders would dine on whale meat as it was one ‘meat’ that was in abundance and not rationed the same as beef

On 25 June 1891 Strand Magazine in Burleigh St. published the first Sherlock Holmes short story by Arthur Conan Doyle – A Scandal In Bohemia

It was on Jack Smith’s Berwick Street market stall that the first grapefruit was introduced to London and England in 1890

One of the levels in Tomb Raider 3 is set in the disused Aldwych tube station, featuring scenes of Lara Croft killing rats

It’s proximity to Smithfield Market was a determining factor as to why Farringdon was chosen as the eastern terminus of the first tube line

Edward Johnston designed the typeface for the London Underground in 1916. The font he came up with is still in use today it’s called Johnston Sans

The term Cockney comes from Middle English cockeney, meaning misshapen eggs and was used by country folk to deride those born in the City

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.