A list of 23 fascinating London firsts...
23 fascinating London firsts
7 May 2017
The Telegraph
Throughout the years, Londoners have come up with a lot of ideas. So there is the first problem — the sheer number of the capital's inventions and innovations. The second is the fact that when someone claims to have invented something, someone somewhere else will claim to have come up with it beforehand... only they didn't get around to telling anyone, applying for a patent, or having it produced. As a result, this list contains only a small selection of London's firsts, and it is as much about claims and conjecture as it is a collection of documented inventions...
1. Banana (1633)
The first banana seen in Britain was sold in London on April 10 of this year.
2. Sparkling wine (1662)
Scientist and physician Christopher Merret (pictured) was the first to document the practice of adding sugar and molasses to create secondary fermentation in wine and thus a "sparkling wine," a term he was the first to use. He presented an eight-page paper on the subject, based on experiments by the cider-makers of his native Gloucestershire, to the Royal Society in London—a full 35 years before Dom Pierre Pérignon, a French Benedictine monk and cellar-master, stumbled by accident upon his own particular sparkling wine.
3. Daily newspaper (1702)
Elizabeth Mallet published the first British newspaper, The Daily Courant, on March 11, 1702, from premises above the White Hart "against the Ditch at Fleet Bridge." A single sheet with advertisements on the back, it ran until 1735.
4. Magazine (1731)
The first periodical to use the term "magazine"—from the French for "storehouse"—was the monthly Gentleman's Magazine, published by Edward Cave in his home in St John's Gate. It remained in circulation until 1922.
5. Roller skates (1760)
John Joseph Merlin (1735-1803), a Belgian born mechanical instrument-maker, first showed off his patented wheeled boots at a party at Carlisle House in Soho Square. Unfortunately, he had not mastered the ability to turn or brake. He also overreached by attempting to play a violin at the same time that he demonstrated his invention. He flew through his host's ballroom before crashing into a mirror, severely wounding himself in the process.
6. Jigsaw puzzle (1766)
John Spilsbury (1739-1769), an apprentice to the Royal Geographer, is credited with creating the first commercial jigsaw puzzle—a map—in his studio in Russell Court off Drury Lane. It was created as a geographical aid for children, designed to help them learn how countries fit together as they pieced together the puzzles. All commercial jigsaws for the next 20 years would come in the form of Spilsbury's "dissected maps."
7. Circus (1768 )
Philip Astley (1742-1814) retired from the army and became an equestrian trick rider before opening a riding school in 1768 near Westminster Bridge. He offered lessons in the morning, tricks in the afternoon; he found the best size of ring for the latter was 42 feet (13 m) in diameter—the size of today's standard circus ring. He eventually added dancing dogs, jugglers, acrobats, tightrope walkers and clowns to his performances.
8. Indian restaurant (1810)
Dean Mahomet (later Sake Dean Mahomed) opened the first Indian owned London curry house, the Hindostanee Coffee House, at 34 George Street, near Portman Square. It also offered an early version of food to go: "Such ladies and gentlemen as may be desirous of having India Dinners dressed and sent to their own houses will be punctually attended to by giving previous notice." "For the entertainment of Indian gentlemen, where they may enjoy. . . India dishes, in the highest perfection. . . unequalled to any curries ever made." - Advertisement for the Hindostanee Coffee House in The Morning Post, February 1810
9. Christmas card (1843)
The first commercially produced seasonal card was designed by London artist John Callcott Horsley—known as "Clothes Horsley" for his aversion to nude models—and was not without controversy: It depicted a child glugging a glass of wine.
10. Underground municipal lavatories (1855)
Public lavatories were nothing new—the ancient Romans had them, for a start—but London was the first to put them underground, courtesy of William Haywood, a City of London Corporation engineer. For more than a century, the charge to use one would remain one penny, hence the euphemistic British phrase "to spend a penny."
11. Plastic (1856)
Alexander Parkes patented Parkesine, the world's first plastic, in 1856, and formed a company in Hackney Wick, east London, to mass-produce the cellulose-based substance ten years later. Within two years the firm was out of business, sunk by the low-quality product created by Parkes's determination to keep down costs.
12. Dog food (1860)
James Spratt was born in Ohio to English parents. In later life, he invented a new type of lightning conductor and, on landing in London to promote it, his interest was piqued by the packs of starving dogs at the docks hoping to be fed on the sailors' hard-tack biscuits. In response he patented his own "Meat-Fibrine Dog Cakes," shaped like a bone and made of wheat, vegetables, and cows' blood. He then set up the first dog-food factory in High Holborn in 1860. Another Spratt's factory in Poplar was built in 1899 and has since been converted into flats.
13. Traffic island (1864)
It was privately built on St. James's Street near Piccadilly by Colonel Pierpoint to make it easier for him to reach his club—to no avail, for he was knocked down by a horse-drawn cab upon stepping off his island.
14. Tuxedo (1865)
A celestial blue evening coat was created by tailors Henry Poole & Co. of 15 Savile Row (still in existence) as informal dinner wear for "Bertie," then the Prince of Wales and future Edward VII. William Waldorf Astor, Robert Goelet, Ogden Mills, and Pierre Lorillard, founding fathers of the Tuxedo Club in Tuxedo Park, New York, were Henry Poole customers in the 1860s and probably asked for copies of Bertie's first prototype dinner jacket.
15. Traffic light (1868 )
A railway engineer, John Peake Knight (1828-1886), devised the first traffic lights—gas-powered, manually operated, and installed initially at the junction of Bridge Street and Great George Street outside the House of Commons. The lights were abandoned after they exploded, killing a policeman and causing the horses of a passing cavalry troop to bolt. The first modern three-colour lights were installed in London at Piccadilly on August 3, 1926.
16. Ice rink (1876)
The world's first indoor "skating-rink," the Glaciarium, opened in Covent Garden before moving to Grafton Street, near Tottenham Court Road, in 1844. Unfortunately, at the time, ice couldn't be manufactured and kept frozen in sufficient quantities to create a proper rink. The appalling smell of the substitute, a mixture of pig fat and salts, would be the project's undoing. By January 1876, however, refrigeration technology was such that John Gamgee was able to open the world's first mechanically frozen rink in a tent just off King's Road. Gamgee had stumbled across his patented freezing method in 1870 while trying to devise ways to freeze meat for import into Britain from Australia and New Zealand.
17. Telephone directory (1880)
One of the world's first telephone directories was issued in January 1880 and ran to six pages. It listed the names and addresses—but not the actual phone numbers—of just 255 people.
18. Machine gun (1884)
It was invented by Hiram Maxim (1840-1916) in Hatton Garden at its junction with Clerkenwell Road and first manufactured on the same site. The world's earliest known multi-shot weapon, James Puckle's "Puckle Gun," was also patented in London, on May 15, 1718.
19. Motorized traffic fatality (1896)
A Rogers-Benz driven by Arthur Edsell ran over Bridget Driscoll, a 44-year-old mother of two, on August 17, 1896, at Crystal Palace. Poor Bridget froze in the road when she saw the car bearing down on her at a staggering 4 miles an hour. At her inquest, the coroner said he hoped "such a thing would never happen again."
20. Escalator (1898 )
A smooth slope, not a moving staircase, made from 224 pieces of leather joined together was installed in Harrods in 1898. Shop assistants were on hand to dispense brandy and smelling salts, to men and women respectively, who became giddy during their first ride.
21. Airport (1920)
It's only an airport if you have to pass through customs, and the first of these opened on March 29, 1920, in Croydon, centered on an aerodrome (above) built in 1915 to help defend London from German Zeppelins in World War I. Croydon also opened the world's first purpose-built airport terminal and hotel in 1928.
22. Television (1926)
Today it's a room above the celebrated Bar Italia on Frith Street in Soho, but on January 26, 1926, it was where John Logie Baird made the world's first demonstration of what would become known as television. Selfridge's department store sold the world's first TV set in 1928.
23. Penicillin (1928 )
Sir Alexander Fleming made one of the greatest accidental discoveries of all time—Penicillium rubens—at St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington (the hospital where Princes William, Harry and George, and Princess Charlotte, were born). The hospital was the scene of another first some years earlier in 1874: the creation of diacetylmorphine, better known as heroin. A sample of Alexander Fleming's original penicillin mould is on display at the Science Museum in South Kensington.
Taken from the National Geographic London Book of Lists: The City's Best, Worst, Oldest, Greatest, and Quirkiest (National Geographic Books; ISBN 978-1-4262-1382-3; $19.95) by Tim Jepson and Larry Porges.
London14 | 23 fascinating London firsts - Travel
23 fascinating London firsts
7 May 2017
The Telegraph
Throughout the years, Londoners have come up with a lot of ideas. So there is the first problem — the sheer number of the capital's inventions and innovations. The second is the fact that when someone claims to have invented something, someone somewhere else will claim to have come up with it beforehand... only they didn't get around to telling anyone, applying for a patent, or having it produced. As a result, this list contains only a small selection of London's firsts, and it is as much about claims and conjecture as it is a collection of documented inventions...
1. Banana (1633)
The first banana seen in Britain was sold in London on April 10 of this year.
2. Sparkling wine (1662)
Scientist and physician Christopher Merret (pictured) was the first to document the practice of adding sugar and molasses to create secondary fermentation in wine and thus a "sparkling wine," a term he was the first to use. He presented an eight-page paper on the subject, based on experiments by the cider-makers of his native Gloucestershire, to the Royal Society in London—a full 35 years before Dom Pierre Pérignon, a French Benedictine monk and cellar-master, stumbled by accident upon his own particular sparkling wine.
3. Daily newspaper (1702)
Elizabeth Mallet published the first British newspaper, The Daily Courant, on March 11, 1702, from premises above the White Hart "against the Ditch at Fleet Bridge." A single sheet with advertisements on the back, it ran until 1735.
4. Magazine (1731)
The first periodical to use the term "magazine"—from the French for "storehouse"—was the monthly Gentleman's Magazine, published by Edward Cave in his home in St John's Gate. It remained in circulation until 1922.
5. Roller skates (1760)
John Joseph Merlin (1735-1803), a Belgian born mechanical instrument-maker, first showed off his patented wheeled boots at a party at Carlisle House in Soho Square. Unfortunately, he had not mastered the ability to turn or brake. He also overreached by attempting to play a violin at the same time that he demonstrated his invention. He flew through his host's ballroom before crashing into a mirror, severely wounding himself in the process.
6. Jigsaw puzzle (1766)
John Spilsbury (1739-1769), an apprentice to the Royal Geographer, is credited with creating the first commercial jigsaw puzzle—a map—in his studio in Russell Court off Drury Lane. It was created as a geographical aid for children, designed to help them learn how countries fit together as they pieced together the puzzles. All commercial jigsaws for the next 20 years would come in the form of Spilsbury's "dissected maps."
7. Circus (1768 )
Philip Astley (1742-1814) retired from the army and became an equestrian trick rider before opening a riding school in 1768 near Westminster Bridge. He offered lessons in the morning, tricks in the afternoon; he found the best size of ring for the latter was 42 feet (13 m) in diameter—the size of today's standard circus ring. He eventually added dancing dogs, jugglers, acrobats, tightrope walkers and clowns to his performances.
8. Indian restaurant (1810)
Dean Mahomet (later Sake Dean Mahomed) opened the first Indian owned London curry house, the Hindostanee Coffee House, at 34 George Street, near Portman Square. It also offered an early version of food to go: "Such ladies and gentlemen as may be desirous of having India Dinners dressed and sent to their own houses will be punctually attended to by giving previous notice." "For the entertainment of Indian gentlemen, where they may enjoy. . . India dishes, in the highest perfection. . . unequalled to any curries ever made." - Advertisement for the Hindostanee Coffee House in The Morning Post, February 1810
9. Christmas card (1843)
The first commercially produced seasonal card was designed by London artist John Callcott Horsley—known as "Clothes Horsley" for his aversion to nude models—and was not without controversy: It depicted a child glugging a glass of wine.
10. Underground municipal lavatories (1855)
Public lavatories were nothing new—the ancient Romans had them, for a start—but London was the first to put them underground, courtesy of William Haywood, a City of London Corporation engineer. For more than a century, the charge to use one would remain one penny, hence the euphemistic British phrase "to spend a penny."
11. Plastic (1856)
Alexander Parkes patented Parkesine, the world's first plastic, in 1856, and formed a company in Hackney Wick, east London, to mass-produce the cellulose-based substance ten years later. Within two years the firm was out of business, sunk by the low-quality product created by Parkes's determination to keep down costs.
12. Dog food (1860)
James Spratt was born in Ohio to English parents. In later life, he invented a new type of lightning conductor and, on landing in London to promote it, his interest was piqued by the packs of starving dogs at the docks hoping to be fed on the sailors' hard-tack biscuits. In response he patented his own "Meat-Fibrine Dog Cakes," shaped like a bone and made of wheat, vegetables, and cows' blood. He then set up the first dog-food factory in High Holborn in 1860. Another Spratt's factory in Poplar was built in 1899 and has since been converted into flats.
13. Traffic island (1864)
It was privately built on St. James's Street near Piccadilly by Colonel Pierpoint to make it easier for him to reach his club—to no avail, for he was knocked down by a horse-drawn cab upon stepping off his island.
14. Tuxedo (1865)
A celestial blue evening coat was created by tailors Henry Poole & Co. of 15 Savile Row (still in existence) as informal dinner wear for "Bertie," then the Prince of Wales and future Edward VII. William Waldorf Astor, Robert Goelet, Ogden Mills, and Pierre Lorillard, founding fathers of the Tuxedo Club in Tuxedo Park, New York, were Henry Poole customers in the 1860s and probably asked for copies of Bertie's first prototype dinner jacket.
15. Traffic light (1868 )
A railway engineer, John Peake Knight (1828-1886), devised the first traffic lights—gas-powered, manually operated, and installed initially at the junction of Bridge Street and Great George Street outside the House of Commons. The lights were abandoned after they exploded, killing a policeman and causing the horses of a passing cavalry troop to bolt. The first modern three-colour lights were installed in London at Piccadilly on August 3, 1926.
16. Ice rink (1876)
The world's first indoor "skating-rink," the Glaciarium, opened in Covent Garden before moving to Grafton Street, near Tottenham Court Road, in 1844. Unfortunately, at the time, ice couldn't be manufactured and kept frozen in sufficient quantities to create a proper rink. The appalling smell of the substitute, a mixture of pig fat and salts, would be the project's undoing. By January 1876, however, refrigeration technology was such that John Gamgee was able to open the world's first mechanically frozen rink in a tent just off King's Road. Gamgee had stumbled across his patented freezing method in 1870 while trying to devise ways to freeze meat for import into Britain from Australia and New Zealand.
17. Telephone directory (1880)
One of the world's first telephone directories was issued in January 1880 and ran to six pages. It listed the names and addresses—but not the actual phone numbers—of just 255 people.
18. Machine gun (1884)
It was invented by Hiram Maxim (1840-1916) in Hatton Garden at its junction with Clerkenwell Road and first manufactured on the same site. The world's earliest known multi-shot weapon, James Puckle's "Puckle Gun," was also patented in London, on May 15, 1718.
19. Motorized traffic fatality (1896)
A Rogers-Benz driven by Arthur Edsell ran over Bridget Driscoll, a 44-year-old mother of two, on August 17, 1896, at Crystal Palace. Poor Bridget froze in the road when she saw the car bearing down on her at a staggering 4 miles an hour. At her inquest, the coroner said he hoped "such a thing would never happen again."
20. Escalator (1898 )
A smooth slope, not a moving staircase, made from 224 pieces of leather joined together was installed in Harrods in 1898. Shop assistants were on hand to dispense brandy and smelling salts, to men and women respectively, who became giddy during their first ride.
21. Airport (1920)
It's only an airport if you have to pass through customs, and the first of these opened on March 29, 1920, in Croydon, centered on an aerodrome (above) built in 1915 to help defend London from German Zeppelins in World War I. Croydon also opened the world's first purpose-built airport terminal and hotel in 1928.
22. Television (1926)
Today it's a room above the celebrated Bar Italia on Frith Street in Soho, but on January 26, 1926, it was where John Logie Baird made the world's first demonstration of what would become known as television. Selfridge's department store sold the world's first TV set in 1928.
23. Penicillin (1928 )
Sir Alexander Fleming made one of the greatest accidental discoveries of all time—Penicillium rubens—at St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington (the hospital where Princes William, Harry and George, and Princess Charlotte, were born). The hospital was the scene of another first some years earlier in 1874: the creation of diacetylmorphine, better known as heroin. A sample of Alexander Fleming's original penicillin mould is on display at the Science Museum in South Kensington.
Taken from the National Geographic London Book of Lists: The City's Best, Worst, Oldest, Greatest, and Quirkiest (National Geographic Books; ISBN 978-1-4262-1382-3; $19.95) by Tim Jepson and Larry Porges.
London14 | 23 fascinating London firsts - Travel
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