It all began in an alley near St Paul’s called Cock Lane (pictured today, right), in a house so narrow that each of its three storeys contained just one room. The house’s owner was Richard Parsons; he was a church clerk with an excessive fondness for drink, and he shared his home with his family and a succession of lodgers from whom he frequently borrowed money which he rarely repaid. Among these were a couple who lived as William and Fanny Kent – though in fact they were not married and the woman’s surname was Lynes. They stayed with Parsons for just six months in 1759, then moved out after a quarrel over money.