London blog

Wire rope is another first for London

Thu, 4 Mar 2010 01:22:28 +0000

I was in the City of London Cemetery when Superintendent Gary Burks pointed out the memorial above to me, dedicated to George Wright Binks. As you can see, his family claimed he invented wire rope. If he had, you might have expected something even more elaborate on his grave, given the wealth this might have brought him.
Binks was a foreman ropemaker at Woolwich Dockyard in the mid-1830s when Andrew Smith was pioneering wire-rope manufacture in Millwall. Smith used the ropewalk techniques of the existing hemp industry to make wire ropes for ships’ rigging and has the first patent for it in 1836.
In 1840, engineer Robert Stephenson opened an experimental rail system called the Blackwall Railroad (much of the route and its bridges are now part of the Docklands Light Railway). It used stationery steam engines feeding hemp cables off and on drums at each end of the line.
Smith’s wire ropes soon replaced the hemp ones but they kinked badly and Robert Newall, another rope maker, who was making wire ropes by machine rather than the hand-twisting method, was brought in. His ropes worked much better on the Blackwall Railroad but Smith took Newall to court for patent infringement.
Newall won the legal battle, as his was an obviously superior product, but the two companies then merged after Smith went bankrupt in 1849. (And steam locomotives were brought into use on the Blackwall Railroad.) Newall’s design of rope was used for the standing rigging of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s iron-hulled SS Great Britain, launched in Bristol in 1843 as the largest merchant vessel ever built.
Meanwhile, in about 1853, Binks had gone into partnership with James Stephenson in Millwall to make wire rope. The partnership broke up around 1860, when Stephenson started making submarine cable at Cuba Street, and Binks Brothers setting up in Strafford Street in 1863. The firm as taken over by British Ropes Ltd in 1970.
In 1852 Smith went with his son, also called Andrew, to California where the Gold Rush needed wire ropes for mining. The father returned home in 1853, but the young Andrew (Smith Hallidie – taking the name of a favourite uncle) enjoyed a gold rush of his own when he patented a cable car system in 1871 for the hilly streets of San Francisco. It used an endless wire rope driven by stationary engines, the same principle as the Blackwall Railroad. Hallidie stood for election to the California State Senate in 1873 and in 1875 as mayor of San Francisco but was defeated both times. However, he enforced his cable car patents worldwide and died in 1900 a very wealthy man.
So did George Wright Binks invent wire rope? He certainly experimented with it as early as 1834 and he is credited with persuading the Royal Navy to replace hemp rope with wire, following a successful demonstration with the first wire-rigged ship, the schooner Marshall out of Grimsby. That was certainly a significant step and one his family can rightly be proud of.

Sheriffs’ Lunch at the Old Bailey

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:29:45 +0000

‘Can you sign the visitor’s book?’ asked the Sheriff of the City of London, Peter Cook. ‘You don’t have to but we won’t let you out if you don’t!’ I think he was joking but you can never be too careful when faced with the full might of the law. And you face it nowhere more magnificently than at London’s Central Criminal Court, aka the Old Bailey.
I was there to have lunch with the judges, a process that starts by arriving at a discrete back gateway off Ave Maria Lane at 12.30. I am then greeted by the sheriff and his wife in the apartment they live in ‘over the shop’ as it were and, as we sip a drink, the judges themselves start to arrive, fresh from court and in full regalia of robes and wigs. It is bizarre to say the least to mingle with them as they chat about everything except the case they are hearing.
Then, at 1pm, I am paired off with a judge to walk down to the dining room and a seat at a long table that holds all the judges, some magistrates (whose cases have reached the Old Bailey on appeal) and three guests. We are efficiently served a meal of fish cake (it’s Friday) veg and boiled new potato, followed by chocolate mousse and a cheeseboard with coffee. It always takes no more than 45 minutes, so the judges can be back in court by 2pm on the dot.
And what did we talk about? Well, it goes without saying that no judge is going to blurt out anything very sensational over lunch, even if the white wine is poured freely (though I don’t know that any of them were actually drinking it – even those not due back in court). I did ask two questions of a legal nature. Why don’t victims have lawyers in the same way the accused do, to oversee the police? (The police, after all, are there to gather evidence, not look after the rights of the victim as many have found to their cost.) ‘Expense,’ was the reply but the Crown Prosecution Service was originally supposed to be independent of the police, although that is now no longer the case, one judge noted with a sigh.
And the big one: should drugs be legalised? Surprisingly, the senior judge I asked freely admitted it would slash crime. In proper judicial style, however, he went on to tell me that he didn’t know what his opinion was on the matter as it was such a complex issue. Anyone who assumes judges are all members of the ‘flog ‘em’ brigade might find that answer surprising, but I suppose it’s comforting to know a judge approaches such questions with an open mind. That, after all, is his job.
After the lunch, I had the opportunity to hear a case. As the judge entered, we all stood. It was remarkable to see the face that had sat genially across from me at lunch, swapping pleasantries, come into court. As he sat down, his eye caught mine and a cold stare froze my smile of recognition. That had been lunchtime; this was work. A chill ran down my spine. Remind me never to find myself in front of a judge at the Old Bailey - unless it’s for another lunch.

Dog food is another first for London

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:47:19 +0000

I was driving down Acton Lane when a large painted sign on a gable (above) caught my eye. It reads ‘Spratts Dog Poultry Cage Bird Foods’ (you can also just make out a faded ‘Guinness’ painted on top of it).
Spratts was the very first maker of dog food, setting up a factory in High Holborn in 1860. James Spratt (right), though from English family (an Admiral James Spratt fought at Trafalgar), was born in Ohio. He worked as an electrician and came back to England to sell his patented lightning rods.
A dog-lover, Spratt was struck by the packs of half-starved dogs that hung around the docks to be fed on ship’s spoiled hard tack biscuits. He soon patented a ‘Meat-Fibrine dog cake’, shaped like a bone and made of wheat, vegetables and beef blood. However, he encouraged the idea that his biscuits used buffalo meat by putting up adverts showing American ‘Indians’ hunting bison – the first use of billboards in London.
His factory thrived, expanding into America in the 1870s (though Spratt died in 1878) and building a new factory in Poplar in 1897 – ‘The Biggest Dog Biscuit Factory in the World’. As it grew, it diversified into feeds for other animals, as the gable wall advert shows, veterinary medicine and other products for pets, such as kennels and collars etc. The company was bought over by Spillers in 1960, who still make dog-shaped ‘Bonio’ biscuits, and the trademark survives.
His most famous employee was a certain Charles Cruft who seems to have been a born salesman. He targeted the hunting packs at country estates but soon realised that was a limited market. His brainwave was to encourage the breeding of pedigree dogs, betting that their owners would pamper them with a special diet. And so Crufts Dog Show was born in 1891. Cruft never owned a dog himself.
He also gave Spratt his trademark – an ‘X’ – which Cruft used to distinguish trade from retail customers on the accounts. He also made a showcard from an engraving of a pointer by Sir Edwin Landseer RA, now better known for his horse portraits – and for the lions in Trafalgar Square.
The Poplar factory closed after the imposition of purchase tax on pet food in 1969. It is now converted into flats, being ‘within easy reach of the vibrant shops and bars of Canary Wharf’. Here is a picture of the interior of one:

The view from Tower Bridge

Sat, 6 Feb 2010 00:50:12 +0000

I was lucky enough to get out on one of the exterior balconies of Tower Bridge today - and even luckier with the weather. I’ve been up on the walkways - which are open to the public - several times but this was a chance to get outside and see a different perspective. The view of the Tower of London on one side and the Mayor of London’s Ark on the other was superb.
In the control room, because there were no ships scheduled, I unfortunately wasn’t able to raise the bridge, something I enjoyed on my last visit (below). However, I did pick up some new trivia this time around. There are two controls rooms: North and South. They used to work together but independently to raise their own halves of the bridge. Now, the South control room is inactive and is part of the visitor’s experience, with a dummy bridgemaster, while the North side controls all the raising. However, in times gone by, the South control room operated first as it controlled the locks on the roadway. That’s why in old photographs you will notice the two parts of the roads are raised at different angles. Now they rise more or less together.
It is planned to put glass panels in the high level walkways so you can see the action from above. That will be quite an experience.
The whole thing, from closing the road to traffic to re-opening it, takes a mere eight minutes, although the actual raising takes 90seconds. The bearings, which support a load of 400tons, are the original Victorian ones of 1894.

The world’s first traffic signal

Thu, 4 Feb 2010 13:41:01 +0000

I was recently reminded about the policeman’s hook on Great Newport Street in Covent Garden and was amazed to discover it was still there (above, right). It’s just beside the Verve Bar in case you’re looking for it. It’s been my most fun discovery since ‘Wellington’s nose’ on Admiralty Arch.
I have no idea what the hook was for but seem to remember being told it was for policemen to hang their capes on when directing traffic. It does seem too low for a raincoat, so that might make sense, though I have no idea if the Met Police ever wore capes - something one associates more with their colleagues in France.
Anyway, trying to find information about it led me to some info about the first traffic signals in the world, which were outside the House of Commons at the corner of Bridge Street and New Palace Yard, as the poster above shows. They were designed to allow Members of Parliament to stop traffic while entering the Palace of Westminster.
As the poster also shows, they were semaphore signs like the railway signals of the day, on a 7m-high pillar, but also used a red and green gas lamp at night.
Built by Saxby & Farmer, they were designed by Nottingham-born railway engineer John Peake Knight (1828-1886). Peake is also noted as one of the first engineers to introduce emergency brake cords in trains.
Opened on December 9, 1868, a few months later, on January 2, 1869, they exploded, injuring the policeman who operated them by throwing grit into his eye and were withdrawn from service in 1872. The sign was never popular with the public - and especially with cab-drivers.
More familiar three-colour lights, although also manually operated, were first used in London at Piccadilly, in 1926.

Motoring firsts: Croydon was the setting of the world’s first fatal car accident when Bridget Driscoll was run over on August 17, 1896 at the Crystal Palace. A Rogers-Benz driven by Arthur Edsell was giving joy-rides to visitors when she froze in the road after suddenly seeing the car coming at a terrifying 4mph. At her inquest, the coroner said he hoped ‘such a thing would never happen again’.