Theodore Hook – Ingliando

On this day, after several weeks of preparation, the writer Theodore Hook made an apparently spontaneous 1 guinea bet with a friend that he could transform any property into the most talked-about address in London. Hook spent six weeks sending a huge number of letters to tradespeople and businesses ordering deliveries of their goods and services to 54 Berners Street, Westminster, at various times on 27 November. He also invited several well-known people to call on the address. The house was chosen, apparently at random, during a walk, and Hook and his friends hired rooms in the house opposite for the day. From 5.00 a.m. onwards N°54 was inundated with deliveries of every kind imaginable. The chairmen of the Bank of England and the East India Company, and the Duke of Gloucester, all turned up during the day, as did an undertaker with a coffin. Police were unable to hold back the crowds of amused onlookers who did not disperse until early evening.