31st May 1669: Samuel Pepys writes the last entry in his diary

On the 31st May 1669, Samuel Pepys wrote the final entry of his famous diary. He stopped writing due to fear that he was losing his eyesight, but went on to live for another 34 years without developing any eye problems.

Pepys began writing his diary in January 1660, and since it was first published it has become an important source for historians studying the period of the Restoration.  It is also invaluable for its detailed eyewitness accounts of key events in London’s history such as the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London.

That Pepys recorded even the smallest and seemingly trivial pieces information is what makes his diary so enormously useful to historians.  His is the most complete and detailed record of daily life that we have access to, and Pepys’ frankness – presumably because he never intended for the diary to be published – exposes elements of life that professional memoirs would normally try to ignore.

This isn’t to say that Pepys’ diary is perfect.  He was, after all, a member of the upper-middle class and became one of the most celebrated and important civil servants of his time.  But his detailed observations on life have seen him referred to by many as the greatest diarist of all time.

By the time Pepys stopped writing his diary on the 31st May 1669, he had written over a million words of shorthand that were bound into six volumes.  They are now housed alongside the rest of Pepys’ library containing 3,000 books at Magdalen College, Cambridge.

19th May 1536: Execution of Anne Boleyn in the Tower of London

On the 19th May 1536, Anne Boleyn – Henry VIII’s second wife and mother of the future Elizabeth I – was beheaded in the Tower of London, having been found guilty of adultery, treason, and incest.

Although found unanimously guilty by a jury of 27 peers, the evidence against her was questionable.  Only one person accused of an affair with Anne admitted his guilt, and this was allegedly extracted under torture.  Some historians believe that her involvement in court politics led the influential Thomas Cromwell to engineer her downfall.  Meanwhile, other historians point to the problem of her not having bourn the king a male heir.  A series of miscarriages in the months prior to her arrest further suggested she wouldn’t do so in the future.  The lack of a son from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, had originally driven Henry to find a new wife.  Anne found herself in a precarious situation.  She gave birth to a stillborn son in January 1536, and soon afterwards Henry took Jane Seymour – one of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting – as a mistress.

Since she was queen, the Treason Act meant that the queen’s infidelity was treasonous.  The punishment for a woman was burning alive, but Henry commuted it to beheading and had an expert French swordsman brought over to carry out the execution with a single stroke.

Anne maintained her innocence to the end.  She was buried in an unmarked grave, but the site was identified in 1876 and is now marked with a marble slab.

SOURCES:

http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/stories/palacepeople/anneboleyn

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8993261/anne-boleyns-last-secret/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/anne_boleyn/

 

4th February 1555: John Rogers became the first Protestant martyr under ‘Bloody’ Mary I of England

John Rogers became the first English Protestant martyr under Mary I after he was burnt at the stake.

John Rogers was educated at Cambridge, after which he became a Catholic priest. As the Reformation began to take hold, Rogers questioned his vocation and subsequently resigned his ministry. He moved to Antwerp in 1534 where he met William Tyndale who had published his English translation of the New Testament a few years earlier.

Tyndale was instrumental in converting Rogers to Protestantism, after which he married Adriana de Weyden with whom he had a number of children. Just a few months later his friend Tyndale was arrested and executed for heresy, and Rogers continued his friend’s work to produce a complete edition of the Bible in English. Rogers combined Tyndale’s New Testament with the parts of the Old Testament that he had been able to translate before his arrest, and used the translation of Myles Coverdale for the remaining books of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha.

The completed Bible was published in 1537 under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew, and immediately gained the support of Thomas Cranmer who managed to persuade Chancellor Thomas Cromwell to secure a license for it from King Henry VIII. Rogers stayed in Europe, including time at the University of Wittenberg, for a number of years afterwards.

He returned to England in 1548 but, following the accession of the Catholic Mary I, he became an outspoken proponent of Reformation principals. Having been sent to Newgate Prison in 1554, Rogers was sentenced to death the following January. He was burned at the stake at Smithfield, the first victim of the Marian persecutions.

19th January 1917: 73 people killed in the Silvertown munitions factory explosion in London

The Brunner Mond chemical factory had been built in 1893 to manufacture caustic soda and soda crystals. However, declining demand for caustic soda meant that production ceased in 1912 and parts of the factory stood idle. Due to a crippling shell shortage following the onset of the First World War, the War Office chose to use the spare capacity at the Silvertown site to purify TNT for explosive shells.

The chief scientist at the factory described the purification process as “manifestly very dangerous” and the company bosses themselves tried to dissuade the government for going ahead with the plan. Despite these concerns, and the fact that the factory was situated in a highly populated area, the Silvertown plant began to produce TNT in September 1915 at a rate of approximately 9 long tons per day.

At 6.52pm on the evening of 19 January 1917, a fire that had broken out in another part of the factory reached the stores of TNT. Approximately 50 tonnes exploded, completely destroying the factory and many nearby buildings. The blast could be heard as far away as Sandringham in Norfolk while molten metal was strewn across several miles, some of which damaged a gasometer in Greenwich and caused a giant fireball as 200,000 cubic metres of gas caught fire.

Over 60,000 properties suffered some form of damage from the blast, but the loss of life was fortunately a lot lower than it could have been. The explosion took place in the early evening when there were not many people in the factory, and people had not yet gone to bed in the upstairs rooms of their homes that suffered the most damage.

1st January 1772: First traveller’s cheques, known as “circular notes”, put on sale

The first traveller’s cheques, in the form of a ‘circular note’ issued by a bank, went on sale in London.

Devised by the Scottish banker Robert Herries, circular notes were an immediate hit with young British aristocrats who needed to obtain foreign currency while exploring Europe on the Grand Tour. They needed an easy way to access to their British-based wealth, and Herries’ creation provided it.

Having secured the cooperation of a number of continental banks, Herries was able to ensure that his customers could withdraw local currency in more than 80 European cities. The notes were issued against the payment of cash to the bank in London, meaning that the customer was freed from the burden of travelling with gold. Since the notes had to be countersigned by the recipient they also provided much greater security. Any unused notes could be returned to the issuing bank in London and the cash refunded.

A century later, and just two years after the first round-the-world tour, the British company Thomas Cook began issuing their own circular notes to help customers manage the constant change of currencies. This idea was developed further by American Express, who launched the first branded Travelers Cheque in 1891. It is said that the system was developed by American Express employee Marcellus Flemming Berry after the company’s founder, J. C. Fargo, experienced problems obtaining funds on a European trip.

The popularity of traveller’s cheques has declined in recent years due to the creation of pre-paid currency cards alongside debit and credit cards. Yet their fundamental aim remains that same as the circular notes introduced by Robert Herries in 1772. They all allow travellers to access funds while away from home.

25th December 1066: William the Conquerer crowned king of England

On the 25th December 1066, William of Normandy was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey. The event ended in chaos as Norman guards outside mistook the sounds of the cheering crowd inside for the start of a riot.

William, having defeated the English king Harold at the Battle of Hastings on the 14th October 1066, was forced to fight on after a number of English nobles nominated Edgar the Ætheling as the new king. When he crossed the Thames at Wallingford in early December he was met by Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who just a few weeks earlier had elected Edgar as king. However, he immediately abandoned Edgar and submitted to William, who soon marched to Berkhamsted where Edgar himself gave up his claim to the throne.

William’s coronation in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day saw both Norman and English nobility in attendance. Norman troops were stationed outside the abbey and in the surrounding streets in case of trouble while the coronation itself was conducted by Geoffrey, the Bishop of Coutances, and Ealdred, the Archbishop of York. The account of Orderic Vitalis, the Anglo-French chronicler of Norman England, tells how the assembled nobles cheered loudly when asked if they agreed to William becoming King of England.

The troops outside mistook these cheers for a fight between the Normans and English inside the church, so set fire to some of the English houses nearby before charging into the Abbey itself. The arrival of the troops panicked the coronation guests, many of whom fled the Abbey while the bishops frantically finished the ceremony amongst the commotion.

19th December 1843: A Christmas Carol first published

On the 19th December 1843, Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol was published in London by Chapman & Hall. Since first being published it has never been out of print and, despite the first run selling out within 6 days, Dickens was disappointed with the amount of money he made from the book.

A Christmas Carol was written in just six weeks from September 1843. Although released by an established publisher, Dickens was unwilling to take a lump-sum fee for the story and so instead published it at his own expense. However, the high production costs meant that the profits were smaller than he hoped for.

Despite this disappointing financial return for its author, A Christmas Carol is said to be responsible for establishing much of the modern interpretation of the Christmas holiday. Historian Ronald Hutton refers to the book’s theme of ‘social reconciliation’, and views the story as establishing the link between individuals, families and their place within the wider community as well as the importance of charitable giving.

Dickens’ tale is also responsible for introducing key terms into the English language of which the name “Scrooge”, and the phrase “Bah! Humbug!” are the most obvious. However, it is also responsible for popularising the phrase “Merry Christmas”. Although this greeting had been around since the 16th Century, by 1843 the meaning of the word ‘merry’ was changing – originally it simply meant ‘pleasant’, but by the time of Dickens’ book it had begun to mean ‘cheerful’ or ‘jolly’ and it is within this context that Scrooge uses the term extensively at the end of the story.

18th November 1987: 31 people killed in the Kings Cross fire on the London Underground

The worst fire in the history of the London Underground killed 31 people at Kings Cross St Pancras station.

King’s Cross St Pancras is a major intersection on the London Underground network. Numerous deep platforms serve the Metropolitan, Northern, Piccadilly, and Victoria lines in addition to the Thameslink service. At the time many of these platforms were reached by wooden escalators that had been in place for many years, inside which large amounts of combustible waste had accumulated.

At approximately 7.30pm, passengers reported a fire on one of the Piccadilly Line escalators. The official inquiry later determined that it had been started by a lit match being dropped, which caused the fire to break out beneath the escalator in an area that was difficult to reach with a conventional fire extinguisher. Although water fog equipment was present in the station the staff had not been trained on how to use it so the fire brigade was called instead.

The decision was soon made to evacuate the station using the Victoria Line escalators, and just a few minutes later the fire brigade arrived to find a small fire that soon engulfed the entire escalator. Superheated gases rose to the ceiling of the tunnel, where layers of old paint absorbed the heat that caused a devastating flashover at 7.45pm. Due to the construction of the escalator and the 30° angle of the shaft, a jet of flames and smoke burst into the ticket hall in what scientists now refer to as the ‘trench effect’.

The intense heat of the flashover killed or seriously injured the people who were still in the ticket hall, while hundreds more were trapped below ground and were forced to escape on trains. London Underground were later criticised for failing to train staff effectively on how to deal with fires and evacuate passengers.

5th October 1936: The Jarrow March departs for London

The Tyneside town of Jarrow had been the site for Palmer’s Shipyard that was responsible for a large proportion of the town’s employment. Having operated since 1851, the yard was sold in 1933 due to a collapse in the British shipbuilding industry and the impact of the Great Depression.

The shipyard closed shortly afterwards and, although American entrepreneur T. Vosper Salt proposed turning the site into a steelworks, he was forced to withdraw after members of the British Iron and Steel Federation lobbied to make the project unfeasible.

The collapse of the steelwork plan was a devastating blow to the people of Jarrow, where unemployment had hit 70% in the months following the closure of the shipyard. In response David Riley, the chairman of Jarrow Borough Council, proposed a march to London in order to raise the profile of the economic disaster.

The marchers had the full support of their local Labour MP, Ellen Wilkinson, and secured funding for the march from the local community including all the political parties. Over 1,200 men volunteered to take part in the march, of whom 200 were chosen to take the petition to London. They marched for 25 days and received a generally positive reception wherever they passed through.

Arriving in London on 31 October the marchers entrusted the petition of 11,000 names to Wilkinson, who presented it in the House of Commons on 4 November. It achieved no immediate response from the government, and the marchers returned home feeling that they had failed.

29th September 1829: The Metropolitan Police begins operating in London

The Metropolitan Police, which is often considered to be the first modern police force, began operating in London.

Informally known as ‘the Met’, the Metropolitan Police Act 1829 established the first structured system of law enforcement. Policing had previously been the responsibility of unpaid parish constables, although paid ‘thief-takers’ were sometimes employed by the victims of crime to catch criminals.

The appointment of Sir Robert Peel as Home Secretary in 1822 brought about the reinvigoration of a committee tasked to investigate the current system of policing. Peel immediately acted upon the committee’s findings, distilling the key aspects of his approach into a series of ‘Peelian principles’ that involved the payment of police officers who were organised along civilian lines.

Peel’s ideas for the system of policing were approved by Parliament in the Metropolitan Police Act with Royal Assent being granted on 19 June 1829. The 895 constables of the new force, nicknamed ‘Peelers’ or ‘Bobbies’ after their founder, were responsible for law enforcement and public order within a seven-mile radius of Charing Cross. They were overseen by a progressing hierarchy of Sergeants, Inspectors, Superintendents and two Commissioners who reported directly to Peel himself.

Deliberately given blue uniforms to distinguish them from the red used by the military, the first police officers were equipped with only a wooden truncheon and a ratcheted rattle to raise the alarm. Despite these attempts to avoid the image of a totalitarian police force, some members of the public argued that the Met was a threat to civil liberties. Within a decade, however, the force had begun to prove itself and its powers were increased.

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