London Facts Part II
Suicides at St Paul’s Cathedral, London
When Wren built St Paul’s Cathedral, he created the huge dome as a religious icon, something to inspire awe in the congregation below. What he may have failed to foresee is that the height of the whispering gallery (a drop of 100 foot) made it feasible for people to commit suicide there.
In 1856 a watchmaker called Albert Smart threw himself from the Whispering Gallery. Nor was this the only instance - twenty-two years later, a gentleman on a tour also threw himself from the Whispering Gallery. He was impaled through the chest by a the leg of one of the chairs he crushed as he landed. The writers of press reports at the time seem perplexed as to why a gentlemen in possession of a ’substantial’ sum of money in gold and jewellery would choose to end it all.
It seems that it’s not just the height of the building that inspires these sad ends, in 1890, during a service in the cathedral, a man in the congregation shot himself twice in front of the horrified onlookers.
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Tags: st paul's, st paul's cathedral, suicide, whispering gallery