Rude Tube: 160 Years Since First Naughty Graffiti On The Underground

For more London history, take a look at our weekly newsletter Londonist: Time Machine. Non-artist’s impression of Mr Williams’s possible thought process… Background image from London Transport Museum by Matt Brown Mr Aquila John Williams is a name that should go down in infamy, or at least in tube history. On 10 March 1864, he became the first person to be prosecuted for writing naughty words on the London Underground. The Metropolitan Railway, as it was then known, had only been open 14 months. Mr Williams was accused of scrawling on the inside of a carriage, “obscene words… calculated to pollute the minds of the passengers on that railway”. When spotted by the guard, he immediately burst into tears, pleading that it was his “first offence”. The guard took a dim view and handed Williams into custody at Farringdon station. Several questions present themselves at this point. What was he writing with? Nothing like a marker pen existed in 1864. Was it a pencil? A quill? Chalk? Was he scratching into the wooden panels? News accounts do not say. Most importantly, what was the obscene message? The court reports leave it to the imagination. Perhaps a lewd pun about the...