This Week In London’s History
- Monday – 21st February 1946: Alan Rickman is born in Hammersmith. He would become a multi-award-winning film, television and stage actor.
- Tuesday - 22nd February 1807: A huge crowd gathers outside Newgate Prison to witness the hanging of convicted murderers John Holloway and Owen Haggerty. In the crush and chaos, as many as one hundred people are killed through trampling or suffocation.
- Wednesday - 23rd February 1633: Samuel Pepys is born in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street. His detailed private diary from the 1660s would become well-known when published in the 19th century.
- Thursday - 24th February 1987: The London Daily News, a newspaper owned by Robert Maxwell, is launched. Intended to rival the Evening Standard, it would collapse just five months later.
- Friday - 25th February 1900: The first tube station to be known as ‘Bank’ is opened, effectively replacing the old ‘City’ station and providing a link between the Waterloo & City Railway and the newly extended City & South London Railway (now part of the Northern Line). At the same time, nearby King William Street station is closed.
London Quote Of The Week
He sipped at a weak hock and seltzer
As he gazed at the London skies
Through the Nottingham lace of the curtains
Or was it his bees-winged eyes?
John Betjeman, The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel
Picture by Homemade via the Londonist Flickr Pool.
