Read Amazing & Extraordinary Facts About Great Britain Online
Authors: Stephen Halliday
Amazing & Extraordinary Facts About Great Britain (23 page)
The Martha Gunn, Brighton
Martha Gunn (1726–1815) was a fisherwoman of Brighton who worked as a ‘dipper’ for the Prince Regent, later George IV. She would forcibly plunge him into the chilly depths of Brighton’s seawater. Along with a male dipper called ‘Old Smokey’, she became a favourite of George IV and may have provided him with ‘other services’ than those of a dipper.
The Sixteen String Jack, Theydon Bois, Essex
John ‘Jack’ Rann (1750–74) was a highwayman who laced his knee breeches with sixteen silk laces, thus earning himself the name Sixteen String Jack. In 1774 he was identified by one of the new Bow Street Runners as having stolen a sum of money and a pocket watch from a doctor. Sentenced to hang, he threw a party at Newgate at which he entertained seven prostitutes to a meal in high spirits. Three days later, on 30th November 1774, he was hanged at Tyburn, wearing a new green suit specially made for the occasion.
NO LONGER ‘PROPER CHARLIES’
Bow Street Runners were set up by Henry Fielding (1707–1754), playwright, novelist (Tom Jones) and a notably honest magistrate who in 1748 was appointed to sit at Bow Street, Covent Garden. This remained a magistrates’ court until 2006 when it was closed. Fielding was determined to eliminate the corruption that had infected the judicial system and the ineffective system of ‘constables’ set up during the reign of Charles II, which consisted largely of elderly and infirm men and which has given us the expression ‘proper Charlies’. Fielding instituted the systematic investigation of crime by appointing honest, fit and salaried ‘runners’ and by introducing identity parades. His half brother John Fielding (1721–1780) added a mounted force. Between them they may be regarded as the architects of a modern police service. The oldest service of all is the Thames River Police, created by a group of dockland merchants in 1798, followed by the Metropolitan Police which began work on 26th September 1829
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The Daniel Lambert, Stamford, Lincolnshire
Daniel Lambert (1770–1809), like George IV, was noted for his heroic girth. At the time of his sudden death he was 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighed 52 stone 11 pounds, measured 37 inches round each thigh and 112 inches round his waist. He died in an inn called the Wagon and Horses, since closed, but is commemorated in a nearby pub which was named in his honour.
The Thomas Lord, West Meon, near Petersfield, Hampshire
Thomas Lord (1755–1832) was a professional cricketer who founded a ground for the aristocratic White Conduit Club in Marylebone. The club changed its name to the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and the rest is history. Thomas Lord retired, a wealthy man, in 1830 to West Meon where he is buried and where the pub is named after its most famous resident who also gave his name to the most famous cricket ground in the world. The ground retained the name of Lord’s even after Thomas Lord had sold it for £5,000 to William Ward, a member of the club and a director of the Bank of England. Ward had learned that Lord was planning to sell the ground for housing. It so easily could have been called Ward’s instead of Lord’s.
A DAVID & CHARLES BOOK
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