Before we roll out today’s London fix, a quick taking of stock.
Because I found myself thinking the other day… hang on a minute. What’s this all about?
This business of puttting out a daily podcast about London.
Because I knew about him when I was a kid, all those years ago, I still sometimes think about the great baseball player Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak.
Hitting safely in 56 consecutive games. A record that almost certainly will never be broken.
And, well, this podcast,
London Calling is a streaky business.
The current streak of one a day got going last June.
So we’re fast closing in on a London Calling episode being pumped out every day for 300 consecutive days.
The longest run before that –
it’s still the record –
was 420 consecutive days.
And so, yes, here we are again, chalking them up,
one after another,
day after day.
And it does prompt the obvious question.
Why?
Why do this?
I mean, let’s be clear about it.
At no little risk of belabouring the obvious, this is not Taylor Swift or Ricky Gervais territory.
The London Walks podcast barely has hundreds of followers,
let alone millions.
There’s no monetisation juggernaut rumbling along behind it.
No freebies landing on the doorstep.
No influencer nonsense.
This is a one-man production.
A one-man production day in and day out.
There’s no army of publicists taking things in hand.
Next to the big hitters we’re like a boneshaker bicycle on a runway compared to an Airbus A380.
A privately chartered Airbus A380.
Or another way of putting it,
when you think about it turning one of these out every day,
it’s a bit like running a sprint… but sprinting for a mile.
Or ten miles.
Or, frankly, indefinitely.
So again.
Why?
Why not take it easy – just do one a week?
Well, the short answer is:
because I feel like it.
And the longer answer is…
I’m curious.
Curious about London.
I want to find out things.
Not the obvious things.
Not the guidebook greatest hits.
I want the oddities,
the tucked-away bits,
the things that make you stop and think,
“good lord, I never knew that.”
There’s a line about Isaac Newton – that he was “forever voyaging through strange seas of thought.”
And that’s rather how this feels.
Only the seas in question are London streets,
London lives,
London moments.
Strange little eddies of history and happenstance.
So first of all, it’s a labour of love, no question about that.
But it’s also a kind of experiment.
How long can the streak go on?
How far can that curiosity be pushed?
And where will it take me? And you?
And there’s a sort of quiet rule I’ve set myself.
A sign over the door, if you like.
Tell me something interesting about London I didn’t know.
And tell it in an interesting way.
That’s it.
That’s the whole brief.
And if,
along the way,
there are a few of you out there who enjoy these stories as much as I enjoy digging them up…
if you find they add a small, slightly eccentric,
occasionally surprising London fix to your day…
Well.
So much the better.
Ok, here we go.
Here’s the 288th daily London Calling episode since the current streak got going last June.
June 23rd to be exact.
What I’ve got for you today is a man so rich he could bankroll half of London…
and so tight he wouldn’t light a candle.
A man who helped build Oxford Circus…
and wouldn’t clean his own shoes in case they wore out.
A man who could sit down at a gaming table for two days and two nights…
then haggle over a shilling in Smithfield like his life depended on it.
Now that, ladies and gentlemen,
is a London character.
And today, April 7th, is his birthday.
John Elwes.
Possibly the most magnificent miser London has ever produced.
And quite possibly the man who gave us Ebenezer Scrooge.
He arrives on the scene in 1714, born in St James’s, Westminster. Good stock.
Property.
Money.
Connections.
The sort of start in life that usually leads to comfort, polish,
and a well-fed existence.
Except.
There’s a twist in the tale right from the beginning.
His mother, by all accounts,
was so ferociously frugal she’s said to have starved herself to death.
So the tone is set early.
This is not going to be your usual Georgian gentleman.
As a boy, Elwes is bright. Westminster School.
Good runner.
Good classical scholar.
The works.
Then Geneva.
Riding academy.
Dashing.
Athletic.
A fine horseman.
He even meets Voltaire.
Resembles him, apparently.
So far, so promising.
You’re thinking:
cultured, polished,
European gentleman.
Oh no.
Because then he falls under the spell of his uncle.
Sir Hervey Elwes.
A miser of such purity,
such distilled devotion to not spending money,
that he turns thrift into an art form.
And young John doesn’t just admire him.
He studies him.
Apprentices himself to him.
Learns the craft.
At the uncle’s house,
dinner is a shared glass of wine. One.
Between them.
The fire?
One stick at a time.
Candles?
Don’t be ridiculous.
Go to bed when it gets dark.
And John, visiting,
prepares properly.
He eats beforehand.
Changes into old clothes.
Adapts himself to the regime.
You can almost hear the penny dropping.
This is the way to live.
Or rather, the way not to spend.
In 1763, the uncle dies.
And John inherits.
A very great deal.
Land.
Property.
Income.
At which point most people would relax.
Not John Elwes.
This is where the story really gets going.
Because now he has the means…
to be spectacularly,
gloriously,
outrageously mean.
Let’s start with the wig.
He finds one in a muddy lane.
Picks it up.
Wears it.
For a fortnight.
Does not clean it.
Why would he?
Perfectly good wig.
Just slightly… pre-owned.
Shoes?
Never cleaned.
Because cleaning wears them out.
That’s his logic.
And once you hear it,
you realise something slightly alarming.
It almost makes sense.
His houses?
He lets the rain come in.
Ceilings drip.
Walls decay.
But the money stays in his pocket.
Priorities.
And yet.
Here’s the twist.
The London twist.
Because while he is living like a tramp in his own properties…
he is quietly transforming the city.
Elwes is a major player in the great 18th-century expansion of London.
Marylebone.
Portman Square.
Portland Place.
All that grand,
sweeping Georgian elegance.
A good deal of it rises,
quite literally,
out of his pocket.
He finances developments.
Backs builders.
Keeps the money flowing.
Oxford Circus?
Yes. That too.
So the man who won’t pay for a candle is helping to build the modern West End.
You couldn’t make it up.
When he’s in London,
he lives in his own empty houses.
No staff to speak of.
Just an old woman looking after him.
He’s known among friends as someone who appreciates good wine and French cooking.
But won’t pay for them.
He’s a member of Arthur’s club.
A gambler.
And what a gambler.
He’ll sit at the table for two days and a night.
Lose thousands.
Then walk out at dawn,
stroll to Smithfield,
and argue over getting one shilling more for his cattle.
It’s almost operatic.
High stakes, low stakes.
Lavish loss,
microscopic gain.
All in the same breath.
And then there are his children.
Two sons,
born to his housekeeper.
He cares for them.
Deeply, by all accounts.
But educate them?
Certainly not.
Because, as he reasons,
putting knowledge into their heads is simply a way of taking money out of their pockets.
It is a theory.
Not one that has caught on.
He goes into Parliament.
Sits as MP for Berkshire.
Speaks rarely.
Lends money freely.
And never sees it again.
So even in miserliness,
there’s a sort of absent-minded generosity.
Or perhaps just chaos.
And that, really,
is the fascination of John Elwes.
He is not a simple miser.
He is a bundle of contradictions.
Mean with himself.
Decent as a landlord.
Lavish in investment.
Reckless at cards.
Careful with pennies.
Careless with thousands.
In later life,
his memory goes.
The great calculating mind… unravels.
He is looked after by his son.
And in 1789, the story ends.
Quietly.
No grand finale.
No last speech.
Just the fading out of one of London’s strangest characters.
And then comes the afterlife.
Not the spiritual one.
The literary one.
Because not long after,
people start to notice something.
A resemblance.
Between John Elwes…
and a certain character created by Charles Dickens.
A miser.
A London miser.
A man defined by thrift taken to absurdity.
Ebenezer Scrooge.
Now Dickens never signed a confession.
But the likeness is striking.
So when you next think of Scrooge counting his coins…
spare a thought for the real man who may have helped inspire him.
A man who would not clean his shoes.
But helped build a city.
And that, perhaps,
is the London lesson.
Because only in this city could you get a figure like John Elwes.
A man who lives like a beggar…
and builds like a prince.
————————
And before we go… a quick word about tomorrow.
It’s by special request, this one.
An American listener got in touch and said she’d love it if we did a podcast about a certain ceremony. A very old ceremony. A very famous one.
Now I hesitated.
Because it’s so well known.
Its grooves are worn so deep you wonder… is there anything new to say about it?
But that, of course, is a challenge.
And I wasn’t going to back down from it.
So I went digging.
And I hit paydirt.
Turns out there are some wonderfully interesting, not-at-all-well-known things about one of the most famous rituals in London.
Tell me something interesting about London that I didn’t know. And tell it in an interesting way.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to do that.
London Calling.
This is London.
London Walks at your service.
Story time. History time.
Streets ahead.
See ya tomorrow.