This Week In London’s History
- Monday – 4th June 1762: A newly installed peal of ten bells at St Mary-le-Bow church in the City is rung for the first time to mark the 25th birthday of George III.
- Tuesday – 5th June 1734: The Bank of England’s current premises on Threadneedle Street are opened for business.
- Wednesday – 6th June 1997: Another anniversary for the Bank of England, which uses its newly granted independence to set interest rates for the first time (raising them by 0.25% to 6.50%).
- Thursday – 7th June 1695: Hackney carriages are banned from Hyde Park, following an incident where a cab full of “unruly ladies” affronted “several persons of quality”. The ban stays in place for almost 230 years.
- Friday – 8th June 1995: At the Old Bailey, ex-cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken is sentenced to jail for 18 months, having been found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice.
Random London Quote Of The Week
I came to London. It had become the centre of my world and I had worked hard to come to it. And I was lost. London was not the centre of my world. I had been misled; but there was nowhere else to go. It was a good place for getting lost in, a city no one ever knew, a city explored from the neutral heart outwards until, after years, it defined itself into a jumble of clearings separated by stretches of the unknown, through which the narrowest of paths had been cut.
V.S. Naipaul, An Area of Darkness
Picture by Lux ex tenebris via the Londonist Flickr Pool.
