While watching the coverage of Andy Murray winning Wimbledon, I was amused to learn a Harris hawk had been employed to scare away the pigeons who apparently enjoy the scraps left behind by tennis fans.

His name is Rufus and he performed efficiently but apparently did not like crows or people wearing hoods.

It reminds me of the great crisis facing Joseph Paxton and the men employed to build the great Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in time for the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Two weeks before the expected opening of the great glass edifice, a large number of sparrows escaped from the cold winds of March and found their way into the building before the glaziers had completed the roof.

They not only nested in the elms but flew around the nave and perching on the trusses and girders.

Victorian sparrows they might have been but they had no inhibitions concerning their natural functions.

Some of the world’s greatest art treasures were suddenly exposed and action was required — fast.

Poison failed and so did the use of guns owing, perhaps to the prohibition which applied to people living in glass houses.

Paxton sought the advice of Robert Stephenson and even Isambard Kingdom Brunel and they applied their great minds to the problem — sadly in vain.

The news of the dilemma reached Queen Victoria, who said: “Send for the Duke.”

Lord Wellington, the Iron Duke, surveyed the scene around the great girders and quickly made his decision.

“Try sparrow hawks, Ma’am.”

It was this decisiveness which had immortalised his name on the fields of Waterloo. It was his final victory.