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
Kray twins gay was still a criminal offence in the U.K. Although no names were printed in the piece, the twins threatened the journalists involved, and Boothby threatened to sue the newspaper with the help of Labour Party leader Harold Wilson's solicitor Arnold Goodman (Wilson wanted to protect the reputation of Labour MP Tom Driberg, a relatively open gay man known to associate with both Boothby and Ronnie Kray, just weeks ahead of a pending General Election which Labour was hoping to win). In the face of this, the newspaper backed down, sacking its editor, printing an apology and paying Boothby £40,000