On 7 June 1832 the British Reform Act received royal assent and became law. The Act, pressed through by Prime Minister Earl Grey, forestalled a revolution by increasing the number of people who were eligible to vote. The Act created 67 new constituencies and broadened the qualification to vote to include small landowners, tenant farmers, and shopkeepers. Earl Grey tea was later named after the Prime Minister.
On 7 June 1977 more than one million people lined the streets of London to watch the Royal Family on their way to St Paul’s at the start of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebrations
An unrepealed law from 1313 makes it illegal to wear a suit of armour when entering The Houses of Parliament
The oldest apartments in London the Albany, Piccadilly founded in 1770 were until recently bachelor only accommodation and banned women
Measurements of skeletons at Christ Church Spitalfields are shorter on average than their medieval forebears probably caused by pollution
Her Majesty The Queen cannot enter The City of London without first asking permission from The Lord Mayor a ceremony performed at Temple Bar
A series of animal shapes have been highlighted in the London Underground map, first discovered by Paul Middlewick in 1988, created using the tube lines, stations, and junctions on the map
The top 50 tourist attractions in the world six are in London Trafalgar Square is 4th with 15 million visitors a year 44th is the London Eye
Bearing in mind the limited number of words that rhyme with ‘taxi’, users of rhyming slang must have greeted the arrival of Joe Baksi on the boxing scene of the 1940s with great delight
Heathrow Airport was the world’s first international airport to be linked to a city’s underground when the Piccadilly Line connected in 1977
Since 1910 the Goring Hotel has been run by the same family. It was the first in the world with full central heating and en-suite bedrooms
Hampstead Heath, Highgate Wood, Queen’s Park and Epping Forest are actually owned and managed by The Corporation of City of London
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 31 May 1915 a German bomb hit Stoke Newington, the dubious distinction of the first building attacked by a foreign power in 1,000 years
In May 1726 a stand erected at Tyburn collapsed as reviled Catherine Hayes was burnt at the stake six spectators predeceased her as a result
On 31 May 1859 the Great Clock on Big Ben started telling the time. The Great Bell and the quarter bells chimed later that year
Many Londoners died in the Black Death of 1348, it raged in London until spring 1350, and is generally assumed to have killed between one third and one half of the populace
Avenue House in High Holborn stands on the site of the First Avenue Hotel destroyed in WW2 below is built the first Atomic air raid shelter
The Savoy Hotel built by Richard D’Oyly Carte in 1889 on profits from Gilbert and Sullivan operas he produced at the adjoining Savoy Theatre
Old Bond Street predates New Bond Street by only 14 years and became popular after the Duchess of Devonshire boycotted smarter Covent Garden
Every July the Soho Waiters’ Race takes place, contestants run around the streets carrying a tray, a napkin, bottle of champagne and glass
In 1920 the world’s first passenger airport opened in Croydon adding the world’s first airport terminal and airport hotel 8 years later
The Ritz Hotel named after the great César Ritz although he never worked there, actually he was the first manager of the Savoy Hotel
St James’s Park is home to one example of every native waterfowl – the Swiss-style cottage is a hide and has a steam heater egg incubator
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