On This Day – September 10th

There are some firsts of which this country could consider itself rightly proud. For example – the postage stamp. the steam-powered railway, the first open golf tournament. And so on. Then there are some which are rather more shameful...

Into this second ignominious category falls the claim to the first person charged with being drunk in charge of a motorised vehicle.

George Smith, 25 years old at the time and from the Harrow Road area, crashed his cab into a building in Bond Street at 12.45am on September 10th 1897.

Police Constable Russell, badge number 247C, said in his statement that "at a quarter to one that morning I saw Smith in Bond Street in charge of a motor-car – a four wheeled electric cab. Suddenly the vehicle swerved from one side of the road to the other, and ran across the footway into 165 Bond Street, breaking the water pipe and the beading of the window".

He was taken to Vine Street police station where he denied being drunk, though the divisional surgeon suggested otherwise.

Later the same day the Marlborough Street magistrates heard him plead guilty and fined him the considerable sum of 25 shillings.

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