Odd this day
It’s the 213th anniversary today of the Berners Street Hoax, in which Mrs Mary Tottingham of no.54 was bombarded with unwanted deliveries and callers, including 12 chimney sweeps, six pianos, wedding cakes, a duke, an archbishop and the Lord Mayor.
The exact date on which this happened is disputed. Chambers’ Book of Days, for example, says it was 1809, as does Justin Pollard’s Secret Britain (which may be relying on Chambers as a source). Others say 1810. Most versions of the story, though agree, that it all kicked off early doors.
At around 5am there was a knock on the door of 54 Berners Street, an unassuming house just north of Oxford Street, London. It was a chimney sweep, who claimed he had been called to the address. The maid suggested he was mistaken and he went on his way.
A few moments later another sweep arrived with the same story, then another until the exasperated maid had sent away 12 in total. But the sweeps were only the beginning. Next came coal carts, each claiming they had a large order for number 54, something Mrs Tottenham, the owner, assured them she had not requested.
Hot on their heels came the cake makers, each carrying 10-guinea wedding cakes. Then doctors began calling and in their wake came apothecaries, surgeons and lawyers, followed by vicars and priests to minister to the resident within who, they had been told, was dying. Outside, a group of rather bemused undertakers waited with bespoke coffins.
That’s from History Today, and written by Actual Historians Justin (see above) and Stephanie Pollard.
They also know where to lay the blame for all this tomfoolery: writer, composer, and fan of titting about, Theodore Hook, who had apparently bet his friend Samuel Beazley (also a man of letters) that he could make any house in London the most talked-about in the city, in under a week.
And so, for the sake of one guinea, Hook had spent the intervening seven days sending out over 4,000 orders. In the words of Robert Chambers:
Coal-wagons, heavily laden, carts of upholstery, vans with pianos and other articles, wedding and funeral coaches, all rumbled through, and filled up the adjoining streets and lanes; sweeps assembled with the implements of their trade; tailors with clothes that had been ordered; pastry-cooks with wedding cakes; undertakers with coffins; fishmongers with cod-fishes, and butchers with legs of mutton. There were surgeons with their instruments; lawyers with their papers and parchments; and clergymen with their books of devotion. Such a babel was never heard before in London, and to complete the business, who should drive up but the lord mayor in his state-carriage; the governor of the Bank of England; the chair-man of the East India Company; and even a scion of royalty itself, in the person of the Duke of Gloucester.
Chambers seems to be the source of the 1809 date, but the first news coverage of the story appears in the Morning Post of 28 November 1810, referring to the “extraordinary scene … yesterday”:
![MOST EXTRAORDINARY SCENE. BERNERS-STREET IN AN UPROAR. The greatest hoax that ever has been heard of in this metropolis was yesterday practised in Berners street, Oxford street. The house of Mrs. TOTTENHAM, a Lady of fortune, at №54, was beset by about a dozen tradespeople at one time, with their various commodities, and from the confusion altogether such crowds had collected as to render the street impassable. Waggons laden with coals from the Paddington wharfs, upholsterer’s goods…[cont]](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1400/format:webp/1*LkuuTlCkvFYNLaAgdrTheA.png)
Maybe the newspaper archive’s record of the date is wrong, but there are other details that different sources can’t agree on. Were Hood and Beazley standing on the other side of the road watching? Or were they in a window overlooking the street?
Were the various dignitaries just turning up to watch events unfold, or had they been invited? And not only that, but — as historian Sarah Murden asks — did any of this happen at all?
She begins by establishing exactly who was living at 54 Berners St at the time. Most accounts say Mrs Tottenham or Mrs T. I’ve followed Sarah (who looked at Proper Historical Documents) and referred to her as Mrs Tottingham, but apparently, there were almost identical hoaxes in London on 7 November 1809 and over four days(!) in March 1810, in Edinburgh in December 1810, and in Suffolk in January 1811 — but what actual evidence is there? Can we believe what we read in the papers…?
We do know that Theodore Hook was a very silly billy, because he was the first person ever to receive a postcard. He “probably sent it to himself as a practical joke”, and was likely also responsible for the image on the front
The picture on the card caricatures the postal service by showing scribes holding pens bigger than their heads sitting around a comically huge inkwell — so, presumably, he really went to town on the message he wrote on the back?
Ah.
Whether he actually won a guinea (the equivalent of over £100 now) for making an unfortunate widow’s day a misery (although it would no doubt have been more of a pain in the arse for her servants) is a moot point.
I suppose the real question, though, is: are practical jokes ever actually funny? To which the answer is: yes, if you’re only reading about them and not on the receiving end. I cite this story in defence of my argument:
