15 February 1894 – first international terrorist attack at Greenwich Park
'Looking out of the window they saw the porter and some school boys running towards a figure crouched on the hill below. When they reached the site - following a trail of blood, body fragments and bone - they were horrified to see a dying man with a gaping hole in his stomach and missing left hand.'
When we think of Greenwich Observatory most of us think of GMT. Some of us think of John Harrison’s wonderful clocks, others of the glorious Wren architecture and the heart-stopping views. But do any of us think of intense Anglo-French rivalry and the first known international terrorist attack on modern England? Oddly enough it happened here, at Greenwich Observatory.
One quiet unassuming Thursday afternoon on 15 February 1894, a 26 year old Frenchman, Marshal Boudin, (surname unfortunately meaning ‘war-like’ pudding) attempted to blow up the Observatory. A certain Mr Thackeray and Mr Hollis were both in the Lower Computer Room when they were startled out of their data deductions by the sharp sound of a detonation. This was followed by the whine of a shell racing through the air. Looking out of the window they saw the porter and some school boys running towards a figure crouched on the hill below. When they reached the site - following a trail of blood, body fragments and bone - they were horrified to see a dying man with a gaping hole in his stomach and missing left hand. Due to ‘some mischance or miscalculation or some clumsy bungling’ this rather unseasoned anarchist had caused the bomb to explode in his arms. 30 minutes later he died in the seaman’s hospital, without uttering a word. Due to the considerable amount of money found in his pockets, it seems he was planning on doing a bunk to France. His motives were never discovered.
This is not the only Anglo-French skirmish linked to the Royal Observatory. Even in its earliest history there was potent rivalry between king and cousin Louis XIV of France and Charles II of England. In the 17th century dominance of world trade was paramount and knowledge of the seas vital. Understanding how to chart lines of latitude was (relatively) easy, yet the lines of longitude posed greater problems. ‘Dead reckoning’ was not efficient and safety and effective trade routes had been severely compromised for long enough. In 1665 Louis (aka the Sun King) was first off the mark to attempt ownership of the world’s prime meridian through finding longitude at sea. He built the Royal Observatory in Paris and attempted to find a solution through the stars. Yet back in England Charles’ beautiful French mistress, Louise de Kérouaille, bought to the English king’s attention a young French scientist who proposed an effective solution. The Sun across the channel no doubt clouded over. While the Frenchman’s proposal was ineffective, it led Charles to establish the Royal Observatory of England, designed in 1675 by his friend Sir Christopher Wren. Despite intense Anglo-France rivalry in this matter, neither Observatory succeeded in its mission. It was not until an entirely different method of using wave-resistant clocks and measuring time from two fixed points, that longitude at sea was finally understood. Luckily for us, it was an Englishman who achieved this: the greatly humble and astonishingly talented Yorkshire carpenter, John Harrison.
The story however, doesn’t end there. What about GMT itself – the prime meridian? By the late 19th century, many countries had established their own meridian (ie 0˚ longitude). In 1884, a conference was set up in Washington to establish the international prime meridian. All countries chose Greenwich - apart from France. The French meridian lay two degrees east of Greenwich and nine minutes, 22 seconds ahead of it and for a while the French stuck to its line. Sadly for them, they couldn’t fight the masses for long, and a couple of decades later they grudgingly accepted English meridian.
Today, the French are still attempting the last laugh. Over a distance of 960 kilometres, joining 337 towns and villages France physically marked out ‘le Meridien’ – the French Meridian line - with trees and olive groves that can now be seen from space. A celebratory mass millennium picnic for 4000 people was held across this line, marked by a specially made tablecloth. Du pain, du vin et du Boudin…Mr Warlike-Pudding would have been proud.
To learn more about the Greenwich Observatory and the other wonderful sites that Greenwich holds, join Rose on a ‘Glories of Greenwich’ tour on Wednesday 14 March or Saturday 16 June.
