On 11 March 1708 a Royal prerogative was enacted for the last time when the Scottish Militia Bill, after being passed by The House of Commons, was not given Royal Assent by Queen Anne. On the day the Bill was meant to be signed, news came that the French were sailing toward Scotland, and there was suspicion that the Scottish might be disloyal to the Crown the Monarch vetoed legislation. There is always Brexit though.

On 11 March 1702 Britain’s first daily newspaper the Daily Courant was published by Elizabeth Mallet at her premises at Fleet Bridge

City butchers still can be pilloried if they sell bad meat the 600 year old law states they should smell their meat burnt under their nose

Merchant Tailors Hall still stands where it has been since 1347 what is now Threadneedle Street though much rebuilt after The Great Fire and the Blitz

The gravestone of the famous Elizabethan actor Richard Burbage in the graveyard of St Leonard’s, Shoreditch, reads simply ‘Exit Burbage’

There’s a full snuffbox by the Common’s front door. Smoking has not been allowed since the 17th century so the snuff box is there instead

When Paul McCartney dated Jane Asher he stayed in her family house in Wimpole Street where he wrote hits including Yesterday

At their peak between 1927 and 1939, London boasted no fewer than 27 greyhound tracks, the 1950s neon sign on the back of the Tote Board at the closed Walthamstow Stadium are both listed Grade II

The Arsenal Supporters Club magazine Gunflash, first issued in 1949 is considered the oldest publication of its kind in Britain

Seven London Boroughs are not served by the underground system, six of them being situated south of the River Thames

Today there are 35 Yeoman Warders at the Tower of London, the same number the men who guarded it 600 years ago

Lent gave us the full English breakfast – the Monday before it was ‘Collop Monday’, when you ate up all your perishable sausages and bacon

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 4 March 1824 curiously many miles from sea at The Tavern in Bishopsgate Street, George Hibbert and Sir William Hillary organised a meeting which resulted in the establishment of The National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, thus absolving the Government’s obligation to save lives at sea. Today it is known as The Royal National Lifeboat Institution, whose brave volunteers save many souls each year.

On 4 March 1967 Queens Park Rangers became the first football club to win the ‘League Cup at Wembley Stadium’ when they beat West Bromwich Albion 3-2

Given the Freedom of the City of London you can insist if you’re sentenced to hang, the execution can only be carried out using a silk rope

On 4 March 1903 on the site of more than 100 Catholic Reformation Martyrs the Tyburn Convent opened at 8 Hyde Park Place

Polly the Parrot at the Cheshire Cheese Public House fell of her perch with exhaustion after she imitated 400 times popping corks at the end of World War I

In the Members’ Lobby are statues and busts of past prime ministers. Members touch their favourite before they give a speech for good luck

Neo-classical Dulwich Picture Gallery designed by Sir John Soane is 200 years old and was England’s first purpose built public art gallery

During the 18th century you could pay your admission ticket to the zoo in London by bringing a cat or a dog to feed the lions

Rugby netball, dreamt up by soldiers in 1907, and has been played on Clapham Common ever since is thought to be the only place in the world where it is played

The first London bus service was established in 1829 and ran between Paddington and Bank carrying 22 people and was pulled by three horses

The Pearly Kings and Queens were originally the ‘aristocracy’ of the costermongers and were elected to safeguard their rights from competitors

The Royal Lancaster Hotel on the edge of Hyde Park has installed beehives on its roof with bee keepers harvesting their honey for the guests

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 February 1888 Annie Millwood was admitted to Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary with stabs to her legs and lower torso it was believed to be the first Ripper victim. Severn Klosowski was hanged on 7 April 1903 for the poisoning of his wife, his three other spouses had died under mysterious circumstances. Inspector John Abberline the policeman in charge of the Ripper case suspected Klosowski was also the Ripper.

On 25 February 1899 Edwin Sewell became the first to die in a car accident when the rear wheels collapsed testing a Daimler down Grove Hill, Harrow

In Wapping bodies of hanged pirates were left in the Thames for three tides to wash over them before being removed for burial

From 1808 to 1814 Hampstead Heath had a shutter telegraph chain conveying information by visual signals, using towers with pivoting shutters, connecting the Admiralty to naval ships in Great Yarmouth

Missionary David Livingstone laid in repose at 1 Savile Row, HQ of the Royal Geographical Society, now it’s the bespoke tailors Gieves and Hawkes

Thatcher used to stand on a chair in her Commons room to check the top of the door, “It’s the way you know if a room’s really been cleaned”

The fictitious station of Walford East, which features in the long-running soap opera Eastenders, is supposed to be on the District Line

Upper Street, nicknamed as Supper Street, has more bars and restaurants than any other street in the United Kingdom

Formed in 1886 Queen’s Park Rangers have moved 15 times and had 12 grounds, a record for any other London football club

The Seven Sisters Underground station is believed to have been named after a line of elm trees which stood nearby until the 1830s

In South Street, Mayfair there is a plaque to Catherine Walters known as ‘Skittles’ and described as London’s last Victorian Courtesan

The Museum of London has a whole drawer of codpieces that one embarrassed Victorian curator catalogued as ‘shoulder pads’

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 February 1478 George Duke of Clarence was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine at the Tower of London. Convicted of treason against his brother, Edward IV, and was executed by this dubious method. It was said to have been instigated by his brother Richard Duke of Gloucester. It was Dick, the last Plantagenet who on 22 August 1485 would die on Bosworth Field, presumably more sober than his late brother did.

On 18 February 1901 Winston Churchill made his maiden speech in The House of Commons, justifying the burning of Boer farms

In the 16th century, a London law forbade wife beating after 9:00pm, but only because the noise disturbed people’s sleep

The settled road surface of Charterhouse Square, laid down in the 1860s has been given Grade II listed status by English Heritage

Playwright Ben Jonson couldn’t afford normal burial in Westminster Abbey determined by plot size was buried upright standing for an eternity

During the outbreak of World War II London Zoo killed all their venomous animals in case the zoo was bombed and the animals escaped

The Travellers Club in Pall Mall is the fictional start to Jules Verne’s book Around The World In Eighty Days later made into a film

London has the oldest bicycle shop in the world (Pearsons of Sutton, established as a blacksmiths in 1860), and the second oldest cycle track in the world, Herne Hill, opened in 1891

Twickenham and Harlequins home Twickenham Stoop are a mere 700 yards apart, nowhere in London are two such high profile stadiums in such close proximity

The first crash on the Tube occurred in 1938 when two trains collided between Waterloo and Charing Cross, injuring 12 passengers

Gropecunt Lane once ran north from Cheapside so called as it was a famous haunt of prostitutes it was renamed by kllljoys in the Reformation

On 18 February 1888 the very first Salvation Army hostel was opened by General William Booth at 21 West India Dock Road

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 11 February 1862 Elizabeth Siddal died from an overdose. Her grief stricken husband, Dante Gabriel Rossetti touchingly placed his notebook in the coffin before internment and buried her in Highgate Cemetery. Seven years later, and presumably suffering from writers’ block he exhumed the body to retrieve his notebook. Her body was said to have no trace of decomposition, probably as a sop to poor old Dante.

On 11 February 1987 at Cynthia Payne was acquitted of 9 charges of controlling prostitutes at her home, in 1978 a police raid had found elderly men exchanging luncheon vouchers for sexual entertainment

Beneath an unmarked alleyway off Sans Walk, Clerkenwell hides the labyrinth that was the House of Detention

Holborn’s Dolphin Tavern contains an old clock with hands frozen at the time when the pub was hit during a 1915 Zeppelin raid

Covent Garden is haunted by William Terris who met an untimely death nearby in 1897 Farringdon has the Screaming Spectre a milliner

It was at The Garrick Club, 15 Garrick Street that Stephen Ward met Soviet Captain Yevgeny Ivanov implicated in the Profumo Affair

Actress and singer Dame Gracie Fields (born Stansfield in Rochdale) once lived at 72A Upper Street, Islington

The Garrick Club was founded in 1831. Many legendary actors, writers and artists have been members, from Charles Dickens to Lord Olivier

Alexandra Palace once famous for its horse racing at ‘The Frying Pan’ it was the last racecourse in London until its closure in 1970

The former poet laureate John Betjeman created Metroland series, a homage to the people and places served by the Metropolitan line in 1973

Baring Brothers, the former merchant bankers on Bishopsgate, helped William Pitt the Younger finance the Napoleonic Wars

The very first Salvation Army hostel was opened by General William Booth at 21 West India Dock Road in February 1888

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.