Whitechapel Road Road in 1884. Visitors paid to see him in the back room of a shop owned by showman Tom Norman. The shop was directly opposite the Royal London Hospital, and Merrick was frequently visited by doctors. Merrick later moved to the hospital permanently, where he spent the last years of his life. The Blind Beggar is at No. 337 and was the founding point of the Salvation Army following a meeting outside the pub by William Booth in 1865. On 9 March 1966, the venue became notorious after Ronnie Kray fatally shot George Cornell at the pub. The premises remains
The Richardson Gang and tooth removals, he said that it was "all false... Today, we wouldn't have even been charged, let alone gone to prison." The Richardson gang and the Kray twins were engaged in a turf war in the mid- to late 1960s. Charlie Richardson and George Cornell had first met the Krays while in Shepton Mallet Prison. Tensions came to a head in 1965–66. During a Christmas party at the Astor Club in December 1965, Cornell called Ronnie Kray a "fat poof" and a fight ensued. On 7 or 8 March 1966, Richard Hart, one of the Krays's associates, was shot