Today's Covent Garden is a very different place to where my 3x great grandfather George Ruthven used to pound his beat in 1810. Or is it? Once a 'convent' garden, the Italianate development was the brain child of the Earl of Bedford in the 17th century. Initially home to the rich and influential, by 1670 a number of sheds and stalls selling fruit and veg had pitched up along the south side of the square and the demographics of the area promptly changed. At the end of the 18th century it was better known for its brothels. Samuel Derrick, failed actor and smelly poet, compiled Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies: Or, Man of Pleasure's Kalender. Originally thought to have been the work of John Harrison, head waiter at the Shakespeare's Head, it is now believed that Harrison merely loaned his name to the best seller, earning a commission for so doing. In 1810 seventeen year old George Thomas Joseph Ruthven joined his father and elder brother as an offic...