ABSTRACT
One day in 1857, the prime minister received an unusual delegation at no. 10 Downing Street. The mayor and other citizens of Rugeley in Staffordshire, about 150 miles northwest of London, together with their member of parliament, Mr. Alderman Sidney, asked Lord Palmerston to arrange for their town to be renamed. The name of Rugeley in their opinion had become so sullied by a recent notorious poisoning case that it was no longer usable.1
