London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
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A very good morning to you, London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Friday, July 11th, 2025. And look, yes, I’m a day out with this one. I fell amongst thieves yesterday. Wrote it but didn’t get it voiced. But I’m not going to give it a miss compliments of the march of time. It’s too good a tale to pass up. Bottom line: everywhere else it may be July 12th. But here, London Calling, it’s July 11th.
And that’s by way of saying, there was no resisting this one.
The plan was to do another installment of my Bow Street riff.
But then I found out what happened on this day – July 11th, 1804.
And given that one of the two principal players in this drama was my famous ancestor, well, there was nothing for it, was there. I really didn’t have any choice in the matter.
So who was this famous ancestor? Well, he was the most famous rogue and scoundrel in American history.
Here’s what we say about him in my London Walks bio.
The piece starts with this line.
David – the Seigneur of this favoured realm – broods over words, breeds enthusiasms and is “unmanageable.”*
There’s an asterisk after the word “unmanageable.” An asterisk and a story. Career-wise I was a television journalist. As with many large institutions, our management carried out annual staff assessments and evaluations. I was, I suspect, a bit of a handful. Anyway, the bottom line of one of my annual evaluations was: “he’s unmanageable.” As far as I was concerned, coming from that lot that was the highest possible praise.
“Unmanageable” they’d called me. Well, I took ownership of that. For that rest of my days in that newsroom I brandished it like a guidon. Anyway, the asterisk after those battlefield colours ‘unmanageable’ takes them to this set of qualifying remarks in my bio.
*He – that’s me, David – He, David, blames his gene pool, especially the contribution made to it by an American vice president in the dark backward and abysm of time. Yes, that vice president: the notorious bankrupt and womanizer who spread his seed across two continents; who wed, at 77, a 58-year-old former prostitute who had become the richest woman in America (she divorced him less than a year later on the grounds of his infidelity**); a notorious bankrupt and womaniser who was tried for treason.
And those were just his misdemeanours.
**It wasn’t exactly good riddance: he made off with 13,000 very good reasons of hers – 13,000 very good reasons for having him up for larceny as well as infidelity. And it goes without saying, he went through the 13,000 reasons like a dose of salts.”
Ok, you any the wiser? It was of Aaron Burr. And it was on this day, July 11th, in 1804 that Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey.
Burr was the third U.S. vice president at the time. Alexander Hamilton was the first and former Secretary of the Treasury.
It was the most famous duel in American history. And the outcome – Hamilton dying of the injuries caused by the large calibre lead ball Burr fired into his lower abdomen – the outcome changed the course of American history.
Anyway, I was interested in two things. I wanted to know what was going on in London on that fateful day. And I wanted to know when Aaron Burr first made it onto British radar.
So of course I went to the newspapers of 220 years ago.
And there it is, the January 21st, 1801 issue of the Times informs us, “we have the mortification to learn the confirmation of the choice of Mr Jefferson and Mr Burr as President and Vice President of the United States of America. Letters were received yesterday from Philadelphia, dates the 16th of December, which mention, “that it is now determined that Mr Jefferson and Mr Burr are to be President and Vice President of the United States.” That word mortification sticks out like a sore thumb. You can’t but wonder what was it about those two that the Times did not take kindly to.
And it’s also interesting that it took over five weeks for the news about the new President and his running mate to reach London.
On April 10th, 1806 Times readers were treated to this rather heavy-handed disparagement of Mr Burr. Titled From the American papers and datelined New York February 19th, the piece read: “It is rumoured that Aaron Burr is appointed an envoy Extraordinary to the Cabinet of England and that the United States brig Hornet is to convey him thither. That the Hornet is to convey a sting to the Court of St James can not be doubted; but we never can believe that our government, on so critical an occasion, would send out a sting so ineffectual as a burr.”
He certainly was a busy boy, our Mr Aaron Burr. The December 29th, 1806 issue of the Times ran this story:
“Some further particulars of Colonel Burr’s treason.
Early last winter, at the city of Washington, Colonel Burr opened to General Eaton a project of revolutionising the Western Country; separating it from the Union; establishing a Monarchy there, of which he was to be the head; organising a force on the Mississippi, and extending conquests to Mexico.
Well, he didn’t think small, that’s for sure.
But what was going on in London on the day Aaron Burr fought his duel with Alexander Hamilton?
I looked at the Times for July 12th, on the presumption it would report what had happened in London, on the day in question, the previous day, July 11th.
It was all pretty run-of-the-mill. Predictably there were stories about Napoleon’s carryings-on. My god, he was really the fox amongst the hens of that era. And of course there was a lot of royal news.The sychophancy had me reaching for the sick bag.
For example, we learn that His Majesty held a private Levee on July 11th. A private levee attended by the Lord Chancellor, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and several Secretaries of State.
The piece concludes – this was what had me grabbing for the bag – the piece concludes: “On which occasion, they all had the honour to kiss his Majesty’s hand.”
Well, lucky them.
The story that moved me the most though, was this one.
It reads: Yesterday afternoon, about 5 o’clock, as a servant to Mr Morgan, iron monger in Cloth Fair, Smithfield, was carrying a child through Long Lane, a drayman drove his dray upon the pavement, and knocked the child out of the girl’s arms with one of the barrels; the child fell under the wheel, which passed over its head, and it expired in a few minutes. The drayman was secured, and it is supposed the dray and the horses will be forfeited.”
For me, it’s a haunting juxtaposition. Two events on this day 224 years ago. A duel in New Jersey. And a road accident in London. Two events. Two deaths. One of those events – one of those deaths – is in the pantheon of deaths so to speak. It was world-changing. It’ll never be forgotten. The other death lay buried, completely forgotten, until just now. We don’t even know the name of the child. Or for that matter, whether it was a baby girl or a baby boy. But we do know what happened. And where it happened. And we know something about what was made of it. It’s pretty stark, that reckoning. Yes, there would have been unutterable grief and sadness under the roof of that ironmonger in Cloth Fair. And surely some commiseration from the neighbours. But that apart, the reckoning was small change. “The dray and the horses will be forfeited.” “Nothing to see here, nothing of any importance, move on, move on.” A world away – more than a world away – from the most important men in the Kingdom having the honour to kiss his Majesty’s hand.
To paraphrase George Orwell, not all deaths are created equal. Some are more equal than others.
Anything else. Yes, something tells me we’re not done with this infinitely obscure, tiny fragment of London history.
Not done with that Cloth Fair London baby or toddler who had its head crushed and its life snuffed out under the wheel of a dray that was hauling barrels along Long Lane.
I think we’ll stop by here again one of these days because there’s a Charles Dickens connection. And a Virginia Woolf connection. Both of which I want to air out in relation to what happened there on Long Lane on July 11th, 1804.
So stand by.
And is that that? Are we done for the day? I think not. I can feel the hand on my collar and a voice of authority murmuring, “haven’ you forgotten something, David? What about today’s word?”
Ah, yes, today’s word. It’s conspire. Or conspiracy.
It’s got that prefix we’re already familiar with: con or com. Meaning together or with.
And the main part of the word – spire – comes from the Latin word to breathe. So that little family of words includes siblings like inspire – meaning breathed into. And expire. Remember the child in Long Lane ‘expired in a few minutes’. Ex is out. As in exit. And spire is breathe. So to expire – to die – is to breath out, one last time. The so-called death rattle if you will.
And there’s our word respiration. The prefix re means again. Respiration is breathing again. Breathing repeatedly.
And so on. But our word is conspiracy. Or conspire. Those who conspire breathe together. Was there ever a more evocative word? You’re conspiring to, say, topple a government or rob a bank or assassinate a political leader you’ve got to keep in close, you mustn’t let the cat out of the bag. You’re on very thin ice. What you’re planning on doing is fraught with peril for you and your fellow conspirators. You have to keep close with them, and only with them. You have to breathe together.
You’ve been listening to This… is London, the London Walks podcast. Emanating from www.walks.com –
home of London Walks,
London’s signature walking tour company.
London’s local, time-honoured, fiercely independent, family-owned, just-the-right-size walking tour company.
And as long as we’re at it, London’s multi-award-winning walking tour company. Indeed, London’s only award-winning walking tour company.
And here’s the secret: London Walks is essentially run as a guides’ cooperative.
That’s the key to everything.
It’s the reason we’re able to attract and keep the best guides in London. You can get schlubbers to do this for £20 a walk. But you cannot get world-class guides – let alone accomplished professionals.
It’s not rocket science: you get what you pay for.
And just as surely, you also get what you don’t pay for.
Back in 1968 when we got started we quickly came to a fork in the road. We had to answer a searching question: Do we want to make the most money? Or do we want to be the best walking tour company in the world?
You want to make the most money you go the schlubbers route. You want to be the best walking tour company in the world you do whatever you have to do
to attract and keep the best guides in London –
you want them guiding for you, not for somebody else.
Bears repeating:
the way we’re structured – a guides’ cooperative –
is the key to the whole thing.
It’s the reason for all those awards, it’s the reason people who know go with London Walks, it’s the reason we’ve got a big following, a lively, loyal, discerning following – quality attracts quality.
It’s the reason we’re able – uniquely – to front our walks with accomplished, in many cases distinguished professionals:
By way of example, Stewart Purvis, the former Editor
(and subsequently CEO) of Independent Television News.
And Lisa Honan, who had a distinguished career as a diplomat (Lisa was the Governor of St Helena, the island where Napoleon breathed his last and, some say, had his penis amputated – Napoleon didn’t feel a thing – if thing’s the mot juste – he was dead.)
Stewart and Lisa – both of them CBEs – are just a couple of our headline acts.
Or take our Ripper Walk. It’s the creation of the world’s leading expert on Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, the author of the definitive book on the subject. Britain’s most distinguished crime historian, Donald is, in the words of The Jack the Ripper A to Z, “internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper.” Donald’s emeritus now but he’s still the guiding light on our Ripper Walk. He curates the walk. He trains up and mentors our Ripper Walk guides. Fields any and all questions they throw at him.
The London Walks Aristocracy of Talent – its All-Star Team of Guides – includes a former London Mayor. It includes the former Chief Music Critic for the Evening Standard. It includes the Chair of the Association of Professional Tour Guides. And the former chair of the Guild of Guides.
It includes barristers, doctors, geologists, museum curators, a former London Museum archaeologist, historians,
university professors (one of them a distinguished Cambridge University paleontologist); it includes a criminal defence lawyer, Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre actors, a bevy of MVPs, Oscar winners (people who’ve won the big one, the Guide of the Year Award)…
well, you get the idea.
As that travel writer famously put it, “if this were a golf tournament, every name on the Leader Board would be a London Walks guide.”
And as we put it: London Walks Guides make the new familiar
and the familiar new.
And on that agreeable note…
come then, let us go forward together on some great London Walks.
And that’s by way of saying, Good walking and Good Londoning one and all. See ya next time.