A Brief History
On November 27, 1810, a Londoner named Theodore Hooke perpetrated one of the most effective hoaxes in history, throwing a large part of the city into disarray and confusion, all because of a bet and without spending much money at all.
Digging Deeper
Apparently Hooke made a bet with his friend Sam Beazley that Hooke could transform any old house in London into the most talked about in the city within a week. Instead of landing a UFO on a house, or detonating a nuclear weapon, either of which surely would have won the bet but would have been difficult and or expensive to pull off, Hooke instead went about contacting (by sending thousands of letters) numerous service and trade firms for fictitious business at an address at 54 Berners Street, the home of the hapless Mrs. Tottneham.
The letters sent by Hooke requested all sorts of services and deliveries, requests for assistance, invitations for a variety of events and everything else Hooke could dream up that could cause people to show up at the Tottenham house on the same day. Hundreds of deliveries were made to the address, including items as diverse as loads of coal and wedding cakes. Chimney sweeps by the dozen appeared with their equipment, as did maids, builders, tradesmen, priests, doctors and lawyers and seemingly most of the city.
The hoax was so grand in scale, that the Mayor of London, Archbishop of Canterbury, Governor of the Bank of England, and the Duke of York and Albany had all shown up amid the mass confusion, all fooled like the rest of the people. Oddly enough, Mrs. Tottenham refused to accept the dozen pianos delivered that day, nor did she accept the giant organ.
Streets were clogged and confusion reigned, as people kept showing up long after the first responders had been turned away, some of the respondents being quite insistent on “needing” to arrive at their destination. Deliveries and visits went on from early morning through the evening. A traffic jam of epic proportions developed, and Hooke indeed managed to get 54 Berners Street talked about more than any other address in the city, and in not more than a week.
Not surprisingly, many of those fooled into wasting their time and effort to comply with the letters requesting goods and services were somewhat miffed at having been fooled. Hooke took no public credit for the stunt, and conveniently took a trip to the country to recover from a fictitious illness. Though suspected of the hoax, Hooke was not proven to be the perpetrator, though he did enjoy watching the spectacle from a vantage point across the street of 54 Berners with his friend, Beazley. Numerous police officers were dispatched to the scene to attempt to control traffic and the crowd, and although a reward was offered for the apprehension of the perpetrator, it was never collected and Hooke was never prosecuted.
Like most elaborate pranks, this one was undoubtedly amusing as heck to those in on the joke, but not so funny to those inconvenienced or those that suffered financial loss. The house at 54 Berners no longer stands, though in its place is the Sanderson Hotel.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: What is your favorite hoax?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Farquhar, Michael. A Treasury of Deception: Liars, Misleaders, Hoodwinkers, and the Extraordinary True Stories of History’s Greatest Hoaxes, Fakes and Frauds. Penguin Books, 2005.
