City law and order: legal tales from the City
With the famous Inns of Court located in and on its borders, the City is the historic home of the English legal profession. It also has its own police force – the City of London Police. Here’s ten trials, tribulations, executions and murders as well as some associated legal trivia:
1. Wine, women and Rumpole
Located in Fleet Street, El Vino is reputedly the bar on which Rumpole of the Bailey’s favourite watering hole is based (the fictional Pommeroy’s). Until 1983, the bar was peculiar in that ladies were not allowed to stand and be served (they could be served while being seated, but only men could stand at the bar). See El Vino on a map or visit Wikipedia for more information on Rumpole of the Bailey.
2. Hair razor
There is much debate as to whether Sweeney Todd was real or not. It seems he first appears in a story called The String of Pearls in 1846 (which ran in instalments in The People’s Periodical) but, more recently, researchers have found evidence to suggest this was based on fact. Whatever the case, the story so gripped the imaginations of the Victorian public that more stories were swift to follow, and they keep coming today (the latest being the 2007 film with Johnny Depp). There’s no real acknowledgement of Todd on the City’s streets but fans of the demon barber of Fleet Street might want to check out St Dunstan-in-the-West where Todd reportedly hid the body parts not fit for pies. For more information about Sweeney Todd, visit Wikipedia.
3. What the Dickens…
Charles Dickens was no stranger to the City – he had a house just outside it in Doughty Street – and worked in and around it in his early life. Inevitably, the City features in many of his works. The offices of the lawyer Jaggers in Great Expectations are in Little Britain; Mr Pickwick (Pickwick Papers) is tried at Guildhall for breaching a promise of marriage to his landlady (and thereafter he is consigned to the Fleet debtors’ prison which was originally on Farringdon Street); and – perhaps most famously - Nancy in Oliver Twist seals her fate on London Bridge when she is thought to have betrayed Bill Sikes. The steps leading up to the bridge (on the south side by Glaziers’ Hall) are popularly known as “Nancy’s Steps” and believed to be the place where she was murdered. However, it is in Lionel Bart’s musical version of the tale (Oliver!) that she meets her end there; in the novel, she is murdered at home. See Nancy's Steps on a map or visit Wikipedia for more information on Charles Dickens.
4. Sobering tale
The majority of Jack the Ripper’s murders took place just east of the City in Whitechapel. One, however, didn’t. That was the murder of Catherine Eddowes. The story goes that on 29 September 1888, the City of London Police arrested prostitute Eddowes for being drunk and disorderly. She was held at Bishopsgate Police Station and released at around 1am having sobered up. At 1.45am her mutilated body was found by the City Police in Mitre Square EC3. See Mitre Square on a map or visit Wikipedia for more information on Jack the Ripper.
5. City shooting
The City has always been popular amongst filmmakers. Last year alone, 14 TV dramas were shot using City locations and six feature films. These included crime classics like Waking the Dead, The Bill, Trial and Retribution, New Tricks and Silent Witness. A couple of locations worth checking out are the Temple Church (within Inner Temple – one of the Inns of Court) and Florin Court on Charterhouse Square. The former is the setting, in both book and film, for an action-packed scene in The Da Vinci Code (Temple Church’s connections to the Templar Knights that founded it are much explored); the latter is a superb Art Deco building which was used as Whitehaven Mansions, the home of Agatha Christie’s sleuth Poirot, in the long-running TV series. See Florin Court on a map.
6. Nine days Queen
Guildhall has been the setting for a number of famous state trials, most notably that of Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley on 13 November 1553. The trial was led by the then Lord Mayor of the City of London Thomas White. Both Grey and Dudley were charged with high treason and sentenced to death. Grey was beheaded on Tower Green on 12 February 1554, aged just 16. It is said that her ghost has been seen at the nearby Tower of London on a number of occasions, each on the anniversary her death. She is buried in the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula, inside the Tower’s grounds. To find out more about Lady Jane Grey, visit Wikipedia.
7. Wilde trials
The Central Criminal Court at Old Bailey (EC4M 7EH) has been the setting for some of the most talked about trials in British history. Perhaps the most well-known are those of Oscar Wilde (there were three). The first was a libel case he unwisely brought against the Marquis of Queensberry (the father of his ‘companion’ Lord Alfred Douglas) who had labelled Wilde a “sodomite”. The trial ended when Wilde – incriminated by Queensberry’s witnesses – withdrew his prosecution. Very soon after, on the basis of evidence presented in his libel case, Wilde was charged with gross indecency and returned to the Old Bailey to face criminal charges. The jury reached no verdict and Wilde was released on bail. Within three weeks, a stronger case was assembled and Wilde was sentenced to two years’ of penal servitude. To find out more about Oscar Wilde, visit Wikipedia.
8. City-City, Bang-Bang
In 1983, the then Chairman of the London Stock Exchange Nicholas Goodison and Cecil Parkinson, the Trade and Industry Secretary, brokered an agreement that helped lift restrictive practices in City trading. The changes they proposed led to the Big Bang which revolutionised the UK’s financial sector. Introduced from 1986 onwards – these reforms included the axing of fixed commissions (designed to ensure small firms could survive) and the introduction of dual capacity (this meant that firms could now both take positions and act as agents as well as offering advice and discretionary management). Above all, the need for new capital led to stockbroking firms being opened up to international owners and later to mergers with retail and merchant banks. These moves, the introduction of electronic trading and the domestic, European and global liberalisation of the 80s and 90s helped make the London markets become the major financial force they are today. Find out more about the Big Bang on Wikipedia.
9. Crowd pusher
John Holloway and Owen Haggerty were tried for murder at the Old Bailey on 20 February 1807. In the same session, Elizabeth Godfrey was charged with fatally stabbing a man. All three were sentenced to death – to be hanged on the gallows outside the Old Bailey. On the day of the execution – 23 February 1807 – it is reported that thousands attended the spectacle (reports suggest between 30 and 50,000). As the condemned mounted the scaffold, the crowd pushed forward, eager to hear whether Holloway or Haggerty would confess. The pressure was so great that around 100 people were trampled underfoot, 34 of which died, the remaining being taken to St Bartholomew's Hospital or to their homes to recover. An account from the time explains “the shrieks of dying men, women and children, were terrific beyond description, and could only be equalled by the horror of the catastrophe”.
10. Scots beef
William Wallace – Braveheart in Mel Gibson’s film – was captured just outside Glasgow in 1305. Following his arrest, he was taken to London, where he was kept in a house in Fenchurch Street (in the City) because the crowds around the Tower of London were too large to ensure safe entry. He was tried for treason in Westminster and condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Wallace was stripped naked and dragged by horses to Smithfield (an ancient execution site in the City), there, to be strangled by hanging, released while alive, emasculated, disembowelled (with his bowels burnt in front of him), beheaded and cut into four parts. His head was placed on a spike at London Bridge. At St Bartholomew's Hospital near Smithfield, a wall plaque remembers him – and is often visited by Scottish patriots among others. King Edward I had believed that by making an example of Wallace he would put fear into the hearts of the Scots. Instead, he had made him a martyr. See St Bartholomew's Hospital on a map or visit Wikipedia for more information on William Wallace.