This Week In London’s History
- Monday – 23rd May 1701: Captain Kidd is hanged in Wapping, East London, following his conviction for piracy and murder.
- Tuesday – 24th May 1862: The current Westminster Bridge is opened, replacing an earlier stone bridge that was subsiding badly.
- Wednesday – 25th May 1878: The first ever performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘H.M.S. Pinafore’ takes place at the Opera Comique on The Strand.
- Thursday – 26th May 1868: Michael Barrett, having been found guilty of involvement with a bombing in Clerkenwell, is hanged outside the walls of Newgate Prison. He would become the last man to be publicly hanged in Britain.
- Friday – 27th May 2005: The Great Clock of Westminster (a.k.a. Big Ben) unexpectedly stops at 10:07pm. It restarts, but then stops again at 10:20pm for about 90 minutes. The malfunction is blamed on unseasonably high temperatures.
London Quote Of The Week
The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say, there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all the rest of the world.
Samuel Johnson
Picture of the noose by the Prospect of Whitby pub (not the Captain Kidd pub) by roll the dice via the Londonist Flickr pool.