Londoners Who changed the World!

 

First of all, I count myself to be a true Londoner; like so many others, I wasn't born here! This is my list of Londoners, by birth or adoption, who did something that changed the way we live. You may have your own ideas! In fact, I might think of someone else tomorrow.

 

I've got a real soft spot for Alexander Fleming, (1881-1955) (who was, in fact, Scottish) who discovered penicillin at St.Mary's Hospital, Paddington. My children were born at the hospital just a couple of doors away from the tiny room where Fleming made his discovery that was to lead to penicillin saving millions of lives. In fact, when he went away on holiday he hadn't cleared away a petri dish that became contaminated with a mysterious mould. Hm, sounds like my kitchen when I'm going off on holiday. Penicillin fights the bacteria that causes infection and without it an awful lot of us would have been an awful lot more ill than we have been. In fact millions of lives have been saved through the medical use of penicillin.

John Logie Baird (1888-1946) was, yes, Scottish. He as an engineer and inventor and in 1924 he rented 2 attic rooms at 22 Frith Street where, on January 26 1926 he demonstrated his new invention, 'noctovision' or television as we know it, to fellow members of the Royal Institution and a journalist who reported it in the paper. Many other inventors had been working to produce something similar but he was the first. Can you imagine a world without television?!

 

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Shakespeare was born, died in and is buried in Stratford upon Avon but he worked in London as this was where the theatres were. Okay, so some might disagree but I think he is the most important writer in the world. Who hasn't heard of 'Romeo and Juliet'? Also, some really famous expressions come from Shakespeare's pen - or quill..... "..if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare".

 

(To read this quote in full, www.mines.edu~jamcneil/levinquote.html.) Shakespeare's own theatre burnt down 400 years ago but the Globe Theatre built in the 1990 is a remarkable reincarnation of what the original must have been like. Middle Temple Hall which was built in 1570 and which still stands is where the first night of Twelfth Night was performed.

 

Sir Joseph Bazalgette (1819-1891)

In 1858 the River Thames was so polluted and smelly that a crisis arose that became known as the Great Stink. Nice. In the early 19th century wealthy Londoners were having toilets installed in their homes. Once used, their contents were flushed into the River Thames. Eeeuurrrghh! A London doctor, John Snow, connected the large numbers of cholera outbreaks with polluted water. Fortunately for all of us, an engineer called Sir Joseph Bazalgette, who WAS born in London, built the sewers throughout London which was opened in 1865 and was the envy of the world!! Basically he diverted raw sewage, which before then was allowed to flow through the streets, into underground pipes. This is something to think about over dinner!

 

Florence Nightgale (1820-1910) became a nurse in the days when nice girls didn't! Before her time nurses had a reputation for being old drunks whose lack of care probably hurried you to your grave rather than making you better. Florence (I suspect she liked to be called Miss Nightingale) went to the Crimean War where she realised that wounded soldiers only stood a chance of survival if they were well fed and looked after and if the mud of the battlefield was washed off them before they were operated on! She became known as the Lady with the Lamp because she used to walk through the miles of corridors in the hospital where she tended the wounded in Scutari carrying a lamp and checking on the soldiers. When they saw her lamp they knew that, however ill they were, they were being cared for.

 

She set up a nursing school for nice girls to train nurses at St.Thomas's Hospital where the nurses are still called nightingales after her. The Florence Nightingale Museum can be visited at St.Thomas's Hospital. And guess where she was born? Florence!

 

Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) was one of the Suffragettes. These were the women who, at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries fought for women to be given the vote. (At that time only men were allowed to vote). The Suffragettes were not quite and girly, not for them staying at home and sewing. They used to hold noisy public demonstrations. One of them chained herself to sword on a statue in the Houses of Parliament and they had to break the sword to get her off. Another died when she threw herself under the feet of the King's horse at the horse race the Derby.

 

Many of the them were imprisoned, where they went on hunger strike and were forcefed. Things changed for women during the First World War. So many men were fighting and dying in France and Belgium that women had to do what head been thought of as men's jobs. By the end of the war things had changed forever and in 1918 women, well those over the age of 30, were given the vote. When Emmeline died (she was always known as Mrs.Pankhurst but that seems a bit drippy for someone who fought for women's rights) she had just lived long enough to witness women being given the same voting rights as men that is being able to vote at the age of 21.

 

My grandfather was a young boy when the Suffragettes were at their most bolshy and active. His parents were confectioners, they made sweets (heavenly job or what!) and when he was at school he had a Saturday job selling sweets at the West Bromwich Albion ground. Their big seller was a sort of jelly baby that, if you chewed it for long enough, you pulled out of your mouth and stretched it for as far as possible! They were called long-suffering Suffragettes! There is a statue of her by the Houses of Parliament and if you visit Parliament in the Summer you will hear more about the Suffragettes and see where they had to break the sword on the statue of Viscount Falkland as one of the Suffragettes had chained herself to it!

William Hogarth (1697-1764) WAS a Londoner. He was an artist at a time when most artists came from and trained abroad and there were very few homegrown artists. He also had a really sharp sense of humour and you didn't want to be on the wrong side of it. He hated any foreigners, especially if they were French or Scottish! When he was a young man the only way an artist could make a living was to paint usually a portrait for someone seriously rich, and they certainly weren't going to pay you if you made them look bad, so an artist just had to make them look young and gorgeous.

 

 

Some people made engravings of famous paintings which meant that they made a copy etched onto metal from which they made lots of copies. This meant that more people could afford to buy a copy or engraving and they were much cheaper. This also meant that an artist had more choice in what they could paint because they weren't just trying to keep one wealthy person happy.

What was happening, though, was that people were making pirate copies, just as some people do illegally with DVDs today. So, It was Hogarth who made Parliament pass a new law in 1735 called the Copyright Act, sometimes known as Hogarth's Act, which meant that the profits went to the artist. This was the begining of early cartoons and satires, which made fun of people like corrupt politicians and people marrying for money or a title. You can find his paintings at the National Gallery, Tate Britain and a fantastic museum called the Sir John Soane Museum. You can also visit his house, Hogarth's House in Chiswick. (There are lovely walks by the River Thames between Chiswick and Hammersmith. Some of London's loveliest pubs are here with room to sit outside with the children. Fantastic.)

 

Sir Hans Sloane (1660 - 1753) was a doctor and as he died at the age of 93 he must have been a very good doctor! As he travelled he collected anything that he found interesting and he ended up with a huge collection of weird and wonderful things. On the list of original exhibits is 'a ball of hair from the stomach of a rare goat'!.

 

He collected many plants and brought the cocoa bean to this country (thank you, thank you!). He used to advise his patients to mix cocoa with milk to make it taste better. Indeed, at first you could only buy cocoa at a chemist's shop! He sold his recipe to Cadbury's. so there's a good excuse to share in a bit of history, being scoffing chocolate!! When he died he left his collection to the nation for £20,00 which was CHEAP and it went on view at Montagu House, right by where the British Museum as it was called, now stands.

 

Today you can still visit the museum. Just as in Sloane's time, it's free, although they no longer check to see if you are sober and of good character! In London we have some of the best museums in the world, but it all started with Sir Hans Sloane.

Charles Babbage (1791-1871) was a mathematician who was convinced that he could invent a machine that could enable mathematical tables to be calculated mechanically.

 

In the 1830s he invented huge calculating machines that he never actually finished in his lifetime. However, it was these machines that were the forerunner of the computer. In 1991 the Science Museum decided to finish making one of these machines, called Difference Engine No 2.

William Wilberforce (1759-1833) was a Member of Parliament (MP) who spent 19 years fighting in the Houses of Parliament for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Some merchants became very rich taking men from Africa to work as slaves on the sugar plantations in the West Indies.

 

He is buried in Westminster Abbey where his monument in Musicians' Aisle is one of my favourites.

Earl of Shaftesbury (1801-85) was born - in London - into a rich and privileged family but his parents showed little kindness to him; in fact they were downright cruel to him. He was made to stand and wait, without having anything to eat, when his parents had dinner. Also, they used to punish him by locking him up in the pitch black wardrobe, giving him a lifelong fear of the dark.

 

He had a nurse who was, he said, his best friend. She loved him, looked after him and read him stories and even though he was only 10 years old when she died, her kindness was responsible for his great social conscience and his wish to help people less fortunate than himself. He spent his adult life campaigning for a whole range of issues. He stopped the practice of women and young children being sent to work in the mines, of small boys being sent up chimneys as chimney sweeps (sometimes when they got stuck their masters would light a fire beneath them to make then squirm out of the way). He set up a charity that built cafes for taxi drivers to keep them out of the pub at lunchtime! The statue of Eros on Piccadilly Circus is actually the statue of the Angel of Christian Charity and it is dedicate to the Earl of Shaftesbury.