Amazing & Extraordinary Facts: London (8 page)

The Parisian Omnibus

In the 1840s Thomas Tilling introduced an omnibus service in Peckham and in 1855 the London General Omnibus Company, with many French investors and directors involved, was established using horse buses which remained in use on London’s streets until 1916. The first motor bus entered service in 1897 and in the years following World War I anarchy prevailed as ‘pirate’ buses, operated by independent owners, competed with the London General Omnibus Company (by now owned by the Underground Railway Group) on the most lucrative routes. The situation was resolved by the creation by Herbert Morrison in 1933 of the London Passenger Transport Board, which assumed control of all rail and road transport services within London. These included London’s tramways which continued to operate until 1953.

One famous conductor was André Previn…

In 1956 London Transport, fully nationalised since 1948, introduced the iconic Routemaster bus which was boarded via an open platform at the rear. Robust, reliable and painted red, the Routemaster became a much-loved feature of London’s streets. Such was its international celebrity that it was adopted in cities in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Alaska and China, mostly as a means of transport but also for other purposes such as hot dog stands and mobile shops. The main disadvantage of the Routemaster was that it required two crew – a conductor as well as a driver – and was largely inaccessible to wheelchairs. Services began to be withdrawn in 2003 to be replaced by driver-only vehicles with sliding doors. The last Routemaster service in London ran in December 2005. The Routemaster has now given way to the Bendy Bus, a single-decker of two conjoined sections much reviled by the mayor Boris Johnson who ran a competition for a replacement Routemaster design. It remains to be seen whether Boris will carry out his threat to replace the Bendies.

T
he term ‘Cockney’ derives from 14th-century English and means ‘Cock’s egg’: an ironical reference to small or misshapen eggs laid by young hens. It was a pejorative term used by countrymen to describe supposedly weaker-bred city folk and came to refer specifically to Londoners though it has long since lost its pejorative associations and now refers to Londoners and their modes of speech. A Cockney is traditionally one who is born within the sound of the bells of the church of St Mary-le-Bow which is in Cheapside, half way between the Bank of England and St Paul’s Cathedral and thus in the heart of the ‘Square Mile’ of the City. Thus a Cockney is strictly speaking one born within the City itself – a rare phenomenon since few families live in the City and the only hospital within the City is St Bartholomew’s which has no maternity unit!

St Mary-le-Bow

In practice the term Cockney is extended to anyone who might just, with acute hearing, be able to detect the bells when the wind is in the right direction and thus encompasses those born in Tower Hamlets. True Cockneys value their heritage and are easily offended when others from further afield (for example Hackney and Bermondsey) are honoured with the title.

Cockney rhyming slang originated in the East End of London in the early 19th century, especially amongst costermongers (market traders and barrow boys like the characters from
Only Fools and Horses
). It is a form of coded language which is understood by those using it but not by others (such as policemen and market inspectors!) whose attentions were not welcomed. A few examples are:

Some of these expressions have passed into general usage. Thus ‘Use your loaf’ means ‘Use your head (brains)’; and ‘Have a butcher’s’ means ‘Have a look’. The vocabulary continues to grow. Recent additions make reference to TV presenter Emma Freud (haemorrhoid); a ten pound note or ‘tenner’ is an ‘Ayrton’ (Senna, a deceased Brazilian racing driver); and beers are ‘Britneys’ (Spears).

Crofty designs

Pearly Kings and Queens originated in London in the late 19th century amongst East End costermongers who decorated their garments with pearl buttons, different patterns having meanings such as good luck (a horseshoe) or hope (an anchor). The Pearly Kings’ and Queens’ Association dates from 1911 and is associated with an orphan called Henry Croft (1862-1930) whose work as a roadsweeper in the East End enabled him to collect many pearl buttons which had fallen from clothing. These he used to decorate his own clothes and, with similarly accoutred costermongers, collected money for a variety of charities, notably orphanages and hospitals. A suit can hold tens of thousands of buttons and weigh as much as 30 kilograms. Henry died in 1930, his funeral being attended by 400 Pearly Kings and Queens and filmed by Pathé News. His statue is in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square. Pearly Kings and Queens are most likely to be seen on the streets at times of national celebration like royal weddings.

Pearly King

A dish associated with the East End is jellied eels, a cheap and nutritious food which was readily available (in its raw state at least) from Thames nets in the vicinity of London Bridge. It consisted of eels, chopped and boiled in stock and cooling to form a jelly. The first eel pie and mash houses opened in London in the 18th century and the oldest surviving one, Manze’s of Bermondsey, has been trading since 1902. Eels disappeared from the Thames when it became polluted in the mid-19th century and again in the mid-20th century. Luckily for them the Thames is once again clean enough to accommodate eels and nets are allowed as far upstream as Tower Bridge, so perhaps jellied eels are ready to stage a comeback.

I
n Danvers Street, Chelsea SW3, overlooking the Thames is a medieval building whose first home was the City of London. This is Crosby Hall, built in Crosby Place, Bishopsgate, for the wealthy grocer Sir John Crosby in 1475. In 1483 it was the home of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, shortly to become Richard III and, according to Shakespeare’s thoroughly biased account, a blackguard whose victims included the princes in the Tower. His murderous career began when he ordered the execution of his brother the Duke of Clarence. In Shakespeare’s play he addresses the murderers thus:

Crosby Hall

When you have done, repair to Crosby Place. But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead; For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps may move your hearts to pity if you mark him.

Clarence was duly drowned in a barrel of Malmsey wine. In 1532 Crosby Hall became the home of Sir Thomas More, canonised in 1935, four hundred years after his execution by Henry VIII for opposing the king’s break with Rome. In 1908 the site was bought by an Indian bank. Gordon Selfridge wanted to move Crosby House to the roof of his Oxford Street department store but instead it was dismantled and moved to the site of Thomas More’s other home in Chelsea where it was re-erected as a hostel for university women. In 1989 it became the home of a successful businessman. Its magnificent hall, with hammerbeam roof, contains one of Holbein’s portraits of Saint Thomas More.

Sir Thomas More

E
very Londoner has heard of the Great Fire of 1666 which began on 2nd September and spread rapidly despite the disdainful comment of the Lord Mayor that ‘A woman might piss it out.’ It burned for three days, destroyed 400 acres of the City and was eventually halted through determined action by Charles II and his brother, the future James II, who used gunpowder to create fire breaks. The Monument to the Great Fire was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in Portland Stone and unveiled in 1677. Two hundred and two feet high, it is still the tallest isolated stone column in the world and is situated on the site of Farriner’s Baking House, Pudding Lane, where the fire began in an unquenched grate. An inscription on the Monument blamed the fire on a ‘Popish frenzy, which wrought such horrors’. These last words were finally deleted in 1830 as a result of a campaign by the City Solicitor, Charles Pearson, who also campaigned for the construction of the Metropolitan Underground Railway. A less well-known monument is the Golden Boy of Pye Corner, a small monument located on the corner of Giltspur Street and Cock Lane in Smithfield, which marks the point where the fire ended. Underneath the figure of a small, stout boy is the following inscription: ‘The boy at Pye Corner was erected to commemorate the staying of the Great Fire which, beginning at Pudding Lane, was ascribed to the sin of gluttony when not attributed to the papists as on the monument and the boy was made prodigiously fat to enforce the moral.’ Only six deaths from the fire were verified, one of them being the maid of the baker as she was too timid to escape with Farriner’s family over the rooftops. Many deaths were probably not recorded.