A new post on the Georgian Era blog shares the story of the Berners Street Hoax, a prank that sent thousands of trades people to a family home in London, purportedly to make the home the most famous in the city.
Sometime in 1809 or 1810, author Theodore Edward Hook bet a friend that he could make any house in London the most talked about address in the city within one week. He selected the Berners Street home of Mary Teresa Tottingham and her children and sent 4,000 letters to trades people inviting them to the home on the same day. Chaos ensued. There’s some dispute whether the hoax ever happened or was fabricated for a newspaper story. Similar hoaxes were reported in London and Edinburgh during the same era.
For our purposes, we’re not concerned about the veracity of the story, but its fictional possibilities. What purpose could such a prank serve? Why choose Mary Tottingham? What happened next?
