by Tom Quinn
He was occasionally spat at, but he was rarely upset by abuse, explaining that people only attacked him because they thought he was a religious person, which he most clearly was not. He would often concentrate his efforts on cinema queues, using such opening gambits as ‘You cannot deceive your groom that you are a virgin on your wedding night.’
CABMAN’S REVENGE
1965
For centuries London’s cabmen and porters were vital to the efficient running of the city, but as long as they continued their work nothing much was thought of them. In the eighteenth century this began to change when a porter’s rest was put up in Piccadilly – this strange–looking contraption is a broad thick plank of wood set on two cast-iron pillars. The plank would be at chest or even shoulder height for the average man. The reason it was fixed at this height is that it allowed the porters to ease any load off their shoulders and on to the plank, which was almost at the same height, rather than have to lower it to any significant extent. The porter’s rest allowed them to slip their load off and on again easily.
Hansom cabs were the great feature of the second half of the nineteenth century (particularly after Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman’s grandfather invented a new lock for their doors) and they grew massively in numbers until the advent of the First World War – after 1918 they rapidly disappeared as motor cabs took over.
But the harsh conditions under which the Victorian hansom-cab drivers had to work – out in all weathers for twelve or more hours a day, seven days a week – came to the attention of a group of philanthropists who started the cabmen’s shelter fund in 1874. Their money was used to establish a set of green timber buildings – usually set in the middle of broad thoroughfares – where the cabmen could stop for a cup of tea or lunch or dinner. Many of these cabmen’s shelters have now disappeared but thankfully those that remain are now protected. They are always painted green and look rather like large slightly ornate garden sheds with small windows and a pitched roof.
One such cabmen’s shelter survives in the Brompton Road near Knightsbridge. Another can be found just off Sloane Street. A third, in Temple Place just north of the Embankment, was the cause of one of the oddest building disputes of the past two centuries.
When in the 1960s a proposal was lodged by developers to knock down four ancient streets running down to Temple Place, officials at the Greater London Council agreed to allow the demolition despite the fact that the hotel planned for the site was designed to house tourists who presumably were coming to London to see the sort of sites their hotel was about to destroy.
The disgraceful demolition plan got the go-ahead and the vast hotel was built but as it neared completion the dozy architects realised that just at the spot they’d planned to put their grand hotel entrance there was a green cabmen’s shelter.
With typical corporate stupidity they tried to use their financial might to have the shelter removed by the authorities, but they were told that the shelter had been there since 1880 and it was staying put. Filled with horror that their rich American clients would baulk at the sight of a ramshackle old cab shelter in front of their new hotel, the directors of the building firm had to approach the cabmen cap in hand and ask if they would mind if their shelter were moved a few yards down the street. The cabmen – far more civilised than the corporate bigwigs – agreed provided that the hotel owners paid for the shelter to be moved and made a donation to the cabmen’s shelter fund. No doubt the hotel paid as little into the fund as they could, but the shelter was duly – and very carefully – moved a few yards along the road.
‘HOW NOT TO GET LOST IN LIBERTY’S’
1970
One of London’s most famous shops since it was opened by Arthur Liberty, a Buckinghamshire draper, in 1875, Liberty’s was the ultimate in fashion between 1880 and 1920 and it has always been associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. The shop originally sold Japanese fans – Mr Liberty was one of the first to import oriental goods as well as silks and other fabrics in bulk.
Then in 1925, flushed with success, the company, which had by now acquired three adjacent shops, decided to rebuild. The result was the extraordinary mock Tudor building we see today, but this is only visible in Great Marlborough Street. On the side of the store that faces Regent Street, Liberty had to stick to the Portland stone from which the rest of Regent Street is built, but in Great Marlborough Street he could do what he liked. And in the great tradition of craftsmanship and individuality championed by William Morris (1834–1896), the man behind the Arts and Crafts movement, Liberty really let himself go in Great Marlborough Street.
Built around an interior courtyard, Liberty’s conceals a remarkable and bizarre secret – it is made almost entirely from the magnificent oak timbers from two dismantled ships, HMS Hindustan and HMS Impregnable.
Not content with this, the owners of what was and still is one of London’s most successful shops employed the best craftsmen – including several brought here specially from Italy – to install stained glass, magnificent staircases and superb carvings. Everything is handmade and unique.
What really ensured the success of Liberty’s, however, was not the spectacular building, but the decision made much earlier by Gilbert and Sullivan to use Liberty fabrics for the costumes in their light opera Patience (1881).
Perhaps the most delightfully eccentric thing about Liberty’s is that its staircases are built in such an odd way that at one time customers were always getting lost. All was resolved when, in the 1970s the then owners published a booklet which was available free to all regular customers entitled ‘How Not To Get Lost In Liberty’s’!
LONDON FISH LOVE SEWAGE
1972
As a general rule there is no arguing with the fact that fish thrive in clean water and die in heavily polluted water, but London fish have regularly proved themselves an exception to this rule. In one or two instances the survival of fish in London’s rivers is quite extraordinary.
The old River Lea that runs from Hertfordshire down into north London and from there joins the Thames in the East End was once one of the cleanest rivers in the country. It was also a river valley that was so rich in wildlife that when Elizabeth I went hunting – which was something she liked to do often – she would set off for the Lea Valley. It was here too that the great Izaak Walton (1593–1683) fished and many of the experiences described in his famous book The Compleat Angler took place on this once glorious waterway. But as the city expanded and industry flourished much of the river became too dirty to support much worth fishing for. By the early decades of the twentieth century the River Lea in London was little more than an open sewer.
Then rumours began to spread that in one or two places fish had been seen again in the London reaches of the river. This was remarkable enough, but local fishermen simply shook their heads in disbelief when it was also reported that the fish that had been seen were actually seen in greatest numbers precisely at those places where sewer outfalls entered the river.
In Tottenham a journalist from a fishing magazine went along to see what all the fuss was about. He found a gin-clear fast-flowing stream that ran between high solid-concrete banks. In fact it wasn’t a stream at all. It was the sewage outfall, but the water that ran through it looked cleaner than the water that ran, at that time, through Hampshire’s famous River Test.
Even more exciting was that great shoals of fish could be seen in the fast water. They were difficult to catch, but each fish was enormous – far bigger than the general run of these species in most rivers.
In the two years that followed the discovery of the sewage outfall fishery the British records for gudgeon, bleak and dace were all broken by fish taken from that tiny water.
When scientists investigated they discovered that the effluent was being so efficiently cleaned up that it was actually providing the fish with a protein-rich diet – hence their enormous average size.
Hardly surprising then that very few fish were knocked on the head and taken home
for supper!
PENIS FOR SALE AT CHRISTIE’S
1972
When Napoleon Bonaparte died in May 1821 there were fears that rumours would spread about the manner of his death (recent claims include the suggestion that he was poisoned), which may explain why no fewer than seventeen witnesses were invited to observe the autopsy which was carried out the day after he died by the Emperor’s own doctor, Francesco Antommarchi.
On the Emperor’s own instructions, his heart was removed first. Napoleon had asked that it be sent to his wife Marie-Louise, though the heart apparently vanished before it could be delivered.
The stomach was carefully examined and at the time it was agreed that cancer was the cause of death. Nothing else is recorded as having been removed. However within a few decades it was commonly supposed that Napoleon’s penis had been cut off and stored away carefully during the autopsy. Oddly this was not mentioned by any of the seventeen witnesses present at the time of the autopsy. But several commentators have suggested that the body was not guarded at all times during the procedure and while everyone’s backs were turned Napoleon’s organ could have been quickly snipped off.
Napoleon’s friend Vignali, who administered the last rites, was left a large sum of money in Napoleon’s will as well as numerous ‘personal effects’ – these were not specified. Thirty years later Napoleon’s manservant claimed that Vignali had indeed removed various parts of Napoleon’s body, but this was not corroborated.
By 1916 the material bequeathed to Vignali had been sold en masse to a London collector, who some years later sold the collection on to an American. It was at this point that the penis story became more substantial. The description of the collection included the curious phrase mentioning ‘the mummified tendon taken from Napoleon’s body during the post-mortem’.
By the 1930s A. S. Rosenbach, an American collector, was displaying the ‘tendon’ in a blue velvet case and describing it as Napoleon’s penis. It travelled to France and was later the centrepiece of a grand display at the Museum of French Art in New York.
A newspaper report described the organ as looking ‘something like a maltreated strip of buckskin shoelace or shriveled eel’. Reports – largely stemming from Napoleon himself – that he was particularly well endowed seem to be contradicted by the fact that the organ was also described as ‘one inch long and resembling a grape’.
The most extraordinary part of the story occurred in London in 1972 when the putative penis was put up for sale – complete with magnificent velvet-lined case – at the London auction house Christie’s along with the rest of the Vignali collection. The collection failed to reach its reserve and was withdrawn. A few years later the penis popped up again, this time in Paris and unencumbered by all the other paraphernalia of the collection.
The penis was bought by John Lattimer, a retired professor of urology (apropriately enough) at the University of Columbia, for around $3,000. The penis is still, as it were, in Professor Lattimer’s hands.
FAMILY MONEY ARRIVES AFTER TWO HUNDRED YEARS
1976
Right across London ancient bequests are still being distributed to various good – and perhaps not so good – causes. Guy’s Hospital enjoys the financial benefits of a number of bequests, some of which are centuries old. The British Library is another beneficiary of some odd legacies – it still receives upwards of half a million pounds a year as a result of a decision by George Bernard Shaw to leave his copyright fees to the library. He left the money because as a penniless author back in the 1880s he had been able to work free of charge (and despite the holes in his shoes) every day in the warmth of the library with access to every book he needed.
The bizarre thing about that bequest is that it was not properly honoured. When the British Library separated from the British Museum in the early 1990s something very odd and rather scandalous happened to Shaw’s money. Museum officials are still cagey about the whole subject, but it looks as if Shaw’s money goes to British Museum coffers rather than to the British Library, which of course goes entirely against Shaw’s own wishes.
Other more ancient bequests are far more strictly administered, even when the amounts of money involved now seem tiny.
Among the most extraordinary ancient bequests was that made by a member of the Society of Antiquaries, whose base has been in Burlington House in Piccadilly for nearly two hundred years. In 1776 the member left a considerable sum of money in a trust fund that benefited his family, but he stipulated that if his family should die out then the money should go to the Society of Antiquaries. In 1976 the last member of the family died and the money was duly paid over to the society, much to their astonishment.
BIZARRE RAILWAY ADVERTISEMENTS
1977
One of the strangest things about London is that the authorities claim to be proud of the capital’s historic sites and traditions yet they do their best at every turn to destroy them.
The City of London Corporation is one of the worst offenders – it is generally believed that German bombs did most to destroy the historic heart of old London, a city in which substantial areas of Tudor and Elizabethan housing survived until the war, but the fact is that far more of old London was destroyed and has continued to be destroyed by developers than by the Luftwaffe.
One of the most inexplicable acts of vandalism occurred at Blackfriars Station when in 1977 the station was rebuilt. Londoners and visitors alike had always loved the oddball carved Victorian panels in the station that placed the most exotic destinations side by side with the most prosaic as if each would appeal equally to commuters. Thus Sittingbourne was right next to Constantinople; Paris next to Sevenoaks. But when the decision was taken to rebuild the station and it became clear that the developers intended to destroy the much-loved panels, worldwide protests astonished the philistine developers, who were forced to keep at least a few of the old panels in the new booking office.
Sadly Euston Station, one of the glories of Victorian railway architecture, was not so lucky. In 1963 despite the protests, the whole station was destroyed to make way for the architectural disaster that we see now.
TEARING UP £80,000
1979
Before he became rich and famous the painter Francis Bacon (1909–92) used to take his friends several times a week to Wheeler’s Oyster Bar in Soho. He almost always insisted on paying despite having no regular income at all, which meant that he often had to ask the owner to allow him to run up a tab. Such was Bacon’s astonishing charisma that the restaurant owner allowed the bill to reach more than ten thousand pounds before he began to complain. Bacon had become quite well known by this time and the restaurant owner begrudgingly accepted a small Bacon painting as a sort of surety that the bill would eventually be paid. It was paid long before Bacon became a multimillionaire but the restaurateur kept the picture and eventually sold it for more than a quarter of a million pounds. A rare case of justified faith in an artist!
Bacon – a famous and outrageous habitué of Soho bars (most especially The Colony and the French House) – was for decades at the centre of an outrageous clique of artists and writers around whom strange stories swirled like a dangerous mist. Among the most delightful stories is that he once spotted one of his own paintings in a shop in Bond Street and decided he didn’t like it. He stepped into the shop, wrote a cheque for something in the region of £80,000, stepped back outside with the carefully wrapped picture under his arm and then smashed it to pieces on the roadway, grinding the canvas underfoot until it was beyond the powers of any restorer to recover it.
HOW THE GOVERNMENT LOST A HOSPITAL
1980
Foreigners always find the systems of land ownership and tenure in the UK completely baffling. The idea of leasehold, for example, is unknown in many countries, but in the UK it is combined with flying freeholds, tenants in common and a host of other bizarre methods of ownership.
In London until relatively recently titles that proved ownership of land were not registered –
that meant that if you lost the paper that proved your ownership (your title) to land you also lost the land. These days land is registered with a government department so even if the title deeds are lost it is possible to look up the owner of a particular plot of land in official documents. But those buying leasehold property in London still frequently find that the freeholder has long vanished and they are advised by their lawyers that the freeholder may never be found – which produces the odd situation that a leaseholder can inherit a freehold at absolutely no cost.
One of the strangest tales of landownership in London concerns the famous St George’s Hospital on London’s Hyde Park Corner. The shell of the building remains to this day – the façade was preserved for a new hotel when the hospital finally closed in 1980 having been run continuously as a hospital since 1783.
When it closed, the government of the day looked forward to selling the land for development. They simply assumed that they owned the land as the hospital was by then part of the National Health Service and all hospital sites were government owned. As they prepared to sell the site – which was and is enormously valuable – they received a polite letter from the Duke of Westminster, whose family, the Grosvenors, own much of the land in Belgravia and Mayfair. The letter pointed out that the land on which the hospital was built was owned by the Grosvenors and not by the government. The government thought they were safe when they realised they had a nine-hundred-year lease on the ground, but again they were thwarted by the Grosvenor Estate, whose representatives had carefully kept the original deeds for more than two centuries.