Bizarre London

by David Long

  1809 – The Old Price Riots

  People frequently complain about the price of concert and West End theatre tickets, but when the latter were hiked from 3s. 6d. to 4s. to pay for a new Covent Garden Theatre (the old one had burned down in 1808) a portion of the population went berserk. The trouble started during a performance of Macbeth, with the arrival of Bow Street Runners only serving to fan the flames. Fortunately, the damage was not extensive, but for more than sixty days performances at the theatre were routinely disrupted and, eventually, the management backed down and ticket prices were restored to their pre-Fire levels.

  1855 – Hyde Park Riots

  When most working-class people had just one day off a week, a move to stop the buying and selling of goods on the Sabbath was enough for tens of thousands of ‘artisans, mechanics, and lower orders of the metropolis’ to gather in Hyde Park to protest. Before long, a witness reported ‘mobs of boys and degraded women, under the guidance of stalwart ruffians or desperate Irishmen’ parading the streets and levying contributions. Another observer – Karl Marx – excitedly predicted the coming of an English Revolution, but he was premature. The legislation to outlaw Sunday trading was quickly withdrawn, and the crowds soon melted away.

  1886 – West End Riots

  Essentially what started as left-wing protest about high rates of unemployment was allowed to get out of hand by an incompetently led police force that did nothing to prevent disgruntled gangs from making their way towards the shops of Piccadilly and the clubs of St James’s. For allowing them to take their frustrations out on the upper classes in this way, the Met’s Commissioner Sir Edmund Henderson was afterwards relieved of his post and a new Riot (Damages) Act was brought in enabling shop owners and others to claim compensation from the police.

  1936 – Battle of Cable Street

  The most famous protest of the Mosley era, the battle saw anti-fascists in pitched battles against squads of policemen who were determined to allow Sir Oswald’s British Union of Fascists to march through a predominantly Jewish area of the East End. Protesters threw up barricades to prevent the reviled Blackshirts from passing down their streets, appalled that the Government would permit the march, and in the fighting around 175 were injured, including many women and children on the side of the protesters.

  1958 – Notting Hill Riots

  A violent response to the sudden rise in post-war immigration, rioting broke out in late August after a gang of white youths attacked a Scandinavian woman with a Jamaican husband. It was one of many such incidents that summer and, before long, hundreds of Teddy Boys and others were out on the streets attacking West Indians and their houses with petrol bombs. The police made more than 140 arrests, mostly of whites, and 9 youths received ‘exemplary’ sentences of 5 years. In a bid to build bridges, the inaugural Notting Hill Carnival was held the following year.

  1990 – Poll Tax Riots

  On the last day of March, a large gathering in Trafalgar Square, called to protest against the introduction of the Community Charge, exploded into senseless violence. A new ‘Battle of Trafalgar’ raged as thousands rampaged through the streets of the West End smashing up police cars and shops and looting property. Pubs were ordered to close, and wine bars in Covent Garden were set on fire. By the time the rioters were brought under control, more than 100 people had been injured, and 334 arrests had been made. The Community Charge was eventually replaced by a Council Tax, but feelings still run high in some quarters.

  2011 – August Riots

  For four days, hundreds – if not thousands – of looters smashed, broke and burned retail premises in response, it was said, to the shooting of a suspected armed man by police in Tottenham. As the contagion spread across the country, emergency 999 calls rose three-fold, all police leave was cancelled and, in London alone, nearly 3,500 individual crimes were linked to rioters. With 3,100 arrests and more than 1,000 people charged, courts were forced to sit for extended hours, their task made slightly easier by so many rioters smiling foolishly into security cameras as they looted their own neighbours’ shops and homes.1

  THE LAW REALLY IS AN ASS

  When Peter the Great visited London he asked why there were so many lawyers. ‘I have but two in my whole dominion,’ he is reported to have said. ‘And I believe I shall hang one of them when I get home.’

  Part of the reason for the number, of course, could be to cope with all the laws we have – so many of which have never made sense to the majority.

  Freemen of the City of London, for example, are still entitled to drive sheep across London’s bridges – this has been tested recently, and proved – as well as to carry a sword within the historic square mile and, should they choose to do so, to accompany a gaggle of geese along Cheapside.

  Until the 1960s, nude women were permitted on the London stage but only providing they remained completely still. The government official responsible for ensuring the law was observed in this way was called Sir George Titman.

  Despite the popular cockney ballad, the Metropolitan Police Act (1839) means Londoners may not roll out the barrel if this means rolling it down a pavement.

  Golf can be played on Wimbledon Common but only by individuals wearing a red outer garment.

  Incredibly, it is also an offence to possess a pack of cards if staying ‘within a mile of any arsenal or explosives store’.

  Under the terms of section 60 (3) of the Metropolitan Police Act (1829), Londoners may not beat a carpet on the street after 8.00 a.m.

  Section 54 of the same Act outlaws the flying of kites in any street or thoroughfare where to do so might risk annoying somebody else, and makes it an offence to carry a plank along the pavement. (The Act allows for a penalty of up to £1,000 or fourteen days in prison for anyone who does so.)

  Shoppers in Burlington Arcade on Piccadilly are not allowed to run, sing or whistle or to open an umbrella – although one of the uniformed beadles once informed Sir Paul McCartney that as a former Beatle he is exempt from this restriction.

  A law dating back to 1279 means Members of Parliament may not attend the House of Commons wearing a suit of armour, nor, it is popularly supposed, may they die on the premises. (As the Palace of Westminster is technically a Royal Palace it is thought this might entitle the deceased to a State Funeral, but this has been questioned as Guy Fawkes, Sir Walter Raleigh and Spencer Perceval were not afforded a State funeral, and they were all killed there.)

  Any sturgeon or whale recovered from the Thames automatically belongs to the monarch.

  City of London butchers are theoretically still liable to spend a day in the pillory if they knowingly sell bad meat.

  Women are now permitted to eat chocolate on the Underground following the repeal of an idiotic late nineteenth-century regulation.

  Venal Vicars and Conniving Con Men

  Vicar – John Wilkinson

  Hoping to profit from the unique status of the Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy – situated off the Strand, it is literally the Queen’s chapel, a personal possession of the monarch rather than of the London Diocese – in 1754, Wilkinson conceived a plan to celebrate marriages here that would otherwise be illegal. For two years, he got away with it, with as many as 1,400 sham ‘Savoy Marriages’ being conducted (many of them after dark) before he was arrested. Tried on the basis that he did ‘unlawfully, knowingly, wilfully and feloniously solemnise’ marriages, and found guilty, he was transported for fourteen years.

  Con Man – Michael Corrigan

  In post-war London, Michael Corrigan was the epitome of an impeccably turned-out major in the Brigade of Guards, with a solid war record and a suitably clipped, cut-glass accent. Unfortunately, it was all bogus, but his cheek and charm enabled him to sell the Tower of London to a stranger, London Bridge at least twice, and a Piccadilly mansion to a credulous American tourist. He was arrested after trying to offload something else on to the Director of Public Prosecutions – in the bar of the Ritz, of course – and, after being convicted of fraud
, he hanged himself using an old regimental tie.

  Vicar – William Dodd

  The son of a vicar and one himself, Dr Dodd was a bright but impecunious Cambridge scholar who married before he could afford to, squandered a handsome lottery win, and was eventually executed after resorting to bribery and forgery to fund his lifestyle. In 1774, in an attempt to win a lucrative position, Dodd had attempted to bribe the Lord Chancellor’s wife, and, when that failed, produced a fake cheque for £4,200 drawn on a friend’s account. For such an enormous sum, he was sentenced to hang, and did so despite a 23,000-name petition appealing for clemency.

  Con Man – Charles Tyson Yerkes

  A former jailbird who played a major role in developing the London Underground, Yerkes was a canny American operator whose rule of business was simply to ‘buy up old junk, fix it up a little and unload it upon other fellows’. When that failed, he would happily resort to bribery and blackmail. In London, he masqueraded as a multi-millionaire to secure control over the Metropolitan, District, Bakerloo, Piccadilly and Northern Lines, but when he died in 1905 he was effectively penniless, and a fire sale was needed to clear his massive debts.

  Vicar – Harold Davidson

  Defrocked in 1932 for engaging in a licentious lifestyle, the celebrated Rector of Stiffkey was a comedy mime artist before taking his vows. He acquired the soubriquet of ‘the Prostitute’s Padre’ after being discovered consorting with the ladies of Soho when he should have been ministering to his Norfolk flock. Assured of a measure of celebrity by the case’s juicy details, but deprived of his living, Davidson left Soho and set off around England to work once more as an entertainer. While posing as ‘Daniel in the Lion’s Den’ to amuse the folk of Skegness, he was unfortunately mauled by the usually placid Freddie and died of his wounds.

  Con Man – Lord Gordon-Gordon

  Conning a London jeweller out of £25,000 and US railwayman Jay Gould out of an incredible $1 million in 1873, Gordon-Gordon was caught and arrested but jumped bail and fled to Canada. Frustrated in their attempts to extradite him back to the USA, five of his dupes – including two future State Governors, and three future Congressmen – attempted to kidnap him and themselves ended up in gaol. Gordon-Gordon threw a massive party to celebrate his freedom, before shooting himself in the head. More than a century later, it’s still not certain who he was.

  Vicar – Edmund Bonner

  Nicknamed ‘Bloody Bonner’ and widely reviled, the sixteenth-century Bishop of London became notorious for his role in the persecution and execution of supposed heretics during the Catholic rule of Mary I of England. During her short reign, and with Bonner presiding, around 300 Protestants were burned at the stake.

  When Mary died in 1558, her sister’s accession to the throne sealed Bonner’s fate. Confined to the Tower on Elizabeth’s orders, he attempted to convert his fellow prisoners before being moved to the Marshalsea Gaol where he later died. He was buried at night and in secret to avoid inflaming public anger.

  Con Man – Robert Hendy-Freegard

  A former barman and London car salesman who for years posed as an MI5 agent, Hendy-Freegard was jailed in 2005 after fleecing his lovers of hundreds of thousands of pounds. He did this by drawing them into an imaginary world of espionage, Mafia and IRA death threats. Warning them not to speak to anyone else, isolating his victims was a masterstroke, but, unfortunately for Hendy-Freegard, the FBI took an interest when he chanced upon an American. Following an elaborate sting operation at Heathrow Airport, he was charged with kidnapping and found guilty of eighteen counts of theft and deception.

  ____________

  1 At more than 420,000, or nearly 1 per 20 people, London is now said to have the most CCTV cameras of any city in the world.

  18

  Sporting London

  ‘I was always a sports nut but I’ve lost interest now in whether one bunch of mercenaries in North London is going to beat another bunch of mercenaries from West London.’

  John Cleese

  Never mind the annual Tweed Run, London’s strangest cycle race took place in 1993 some 130 ft below ground level. It ran through the 50-mile-long Thames Water Ring Main (see Chapter 5) before this was filled with water.

  Hard to believe but, prior to losing 6–3 to Hungary at Wembley in November 1953, England had never lost a football match to a team from outside the UK.

  The West End street known as Pall Mall takes its name from ‘paille-maille’, a seventeenth-century precursor to croquet that was played here.

  Hippodrome Place in Notting Hill marks the site of a race track where horses competed until 1842.

  Until it was destroyed in the Blitz, the most popular boxing arena in London was the former Surrey Chapel near Blackfriar’s Bridge.

  Since 1959, the Great Tube Challenge has seen crazy commuters racing to visit all 269 stations on the Underground as quickly as possible. The present record stands at just over 18.5 hours, and is proving incredibly hard to beat.

  The first ever FA Cup Final took place not at Wembley but at the Kennington Oval. In 1872, the Wanderers beat the Royal Engineers 1–0.

  London may not have got its first ice-skating rink until the 1840s (see Chapter 13), but the Museum of London has a pair of ice-skates that are much, much older. Fitted with bone blades, these are thought to date back to the twelfth century.

  The name of Penny Brookes Street in Stratford commemorates Dr William Penny Brookes, a nineteenth-century medic who campaigned to get PE put on the curriculum in schools. He also invited Baron de Coubertin to witness his local Much Wenlock Games in Shropshire, after which the Frenchman went on to launch the modern Olympic movement.

  Although the Olympic Games didn’t come to London until 1908 (see panel below), the city played a key role in establishing the first Athens Games in 1896. Enthusiastic but inexperienced, the Greeks had no understanding of track building – not for the previous 1,500 years anyway – and so borrowed a groundsman from Stamford Bridge, Mr Charles Perry, to supervise the work.

  LONDON 1908 – OLYMPIC HIGHLIGHTS

  British archers William and Charlotte Dod became the first ever brother and sister Olympic medallists. Away from White City, the extraordinarily versatile Charlotte also won the British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship – and Wimbledon, five times.

  Winning the Running Deer Shooting Single Shot event, Oscar Swahn, aged 60, became the oldest ever competitor to earn an Olympic gold medal, and then the next day did it again.

  Sweden’s Frithiof Martensson sportingly agreed to postpone the Middleweight Greco-Roman Wrestling final to allow his rival to recover from a slight injury – and was rewarded with a gold medal when he won the bout.

  In the marathon, the first man into the stadium, Italy’s Dorando Pietri, took a wrong turn and then collapsed. He was disqualified after being helped to his feet by officials but afterwards received a special trophy from Queen Alexandra who felt genuinely sorry for him.

  Britain took all the medals in racquets and tug of war after entering multiple teams for events no other country had even heard of, and assured itself of victory in the rowing by banning competitors who had previously rowed the Thames unless they were British.

  The home team was also assisted ever so slightly by Britain’s insistence that it would supply all the officials needed to run, monitor, rule and judge every event throughout the Games. Without any outside scrutiny or interference, one British competitor was even awarded a winning decision by his own father.

  Also slightly suspect was the newly introduced Olympic sport of motor boating, which saw the fabulously rich Duke of Westminster competing against the only-slightly-less-so Baron Howard de Walden. Curiously enough, the sport was dropped from the Games immediately afterwards.

  For the Games to be run here in 1908, a new ‘Great Stadium’ was needed, and one was built at White City in just ten months at a cost of only £60,000. With seating for 68,000 spectators and twice that number standing, it was the world’s biggest and, over the c
oming decades, was to host everything from athletics and greyhound racing to speedway and even a round of the 1966 World Cup. It was torn down in 1985, and the giant Westfield shopping centre now covers much of the site.

  The odd length of the modern marathon at 26 miles and 385 yards is a purely London creation. Before 1908, the event was run over 25 miles, but the decision was taken to increase this so that the race could start beneath the windows of the Royal Nursery at Windsor Castle (for the pleasure of the young Royals) and finish opposite the Royal Box in the stadium.

  When the Games returned to London in 1948, the decision was taken to bar Germany and Japan. Oddly, the Italians were still invited, however, despite having been on the losing side in the war and, indeed, having been the pioneers of fascism ever since embracing Benito Mussolini.

  LONDON 1948 – OLYMPIC HIGHLIGHTS

  The star of the Games, Fanny Blankers-Koen, equalled black athlete Jesse Owens’ historic medal tally at Adolf Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics but could conceivably have done even better. Unfortunately, the Olympics at this time had a rule limiting women, as the weaker sex, to three individual events in track and field events.