This Week In London’s History
Monday – 18th August 1937: William George Rushton is born in Chelsea. Better known as Willie Rushton, he would become a popular comedian and satirist, co-founding Private Eye magazine and featuring as a regular panellist on Radio 4’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue game show.
Tuesday –
19th August 1897: London’s first horseless taxi is introduced by the London Electric Cab Company of Lambeth. The taxi is battery-powered, and reaches a theoretical top speed of 9 mph.
Wednesday –
20th August 1989: The
Marchioness pleasure boat collides with the dredger
Bowbelle under Cannon Street Railway Bridge, causing the
Marchioness to sink rapidly. 51 of the pleasure boat’s 132 passengers drown.
Thursday –
21st August 1920: A boy who would be named Christopher Robin Milne is born in Chelsea, West London. His father, the author A. A. Milne, would use him as inspiration for the Christopher Robin character in the
Winnie-the-Pooh stories. Aaah.
Friday –
22nd August 1964: Iconic football programme
Match of the Day is screened for the first time, covering a 3-2 defeat of Arsenal by Liverpool. It is aired at 6:30pm on BBC Two, and thus generally only available to London viewers – as the channel would not become available outside the capital until some time later.
Random London Fact Of The Week
The City of London (a.k.a. the Square Mile), whilst surrounded by the 32 boroughs of London, is actually not a London borough itself. Its boundaries, almost unchanged since mediaeval times, represent what was originally the entire city of London, until the nearby city of Westminster and surrounding areas developed into a single metropolis. The City of London is governed by the City of London Corporation (a.k.a. the Corporation of London).
London’s Weather This Week
Well, it might not be quite as miserable as last week, but this week’s weather will still be far more ‘autumnal’ than it has any right to be.
Photo of Willie Rushton’s plaque at Mornington Crescent station courtesy of Mooli, taken from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
