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
Jack McVitie Jack McVitie Jack D. McVitie (1932, Battersea, London – 29 October 1967, Stoke Newington, London), more commonly known as Jack the Hat, was a notorious English criminal from London of the 1950s–1960s. He is posthumously famous for triggering the imprisonment and downfall of the Kray twins. He had acted as an enforcer and hitman with links to the Krays' gang, "The Firm", and was murdered by Reggie Kray in 1967. Kray was arrested the following year for the murder, being found guilty and received life imprisonment at his trial in March 1969. He remained in prison until just before his