In 1909, one man was banned from every pub in London. His face went round on a printed card, and serving him so much as a pint became a criminal offence. But six years earlier, Scotland Yard had called him a respectable man, in writing, in a government file. So what happened?

His name was Jonas Peter Törnqvist, a surname he invented at nineteen, his Swedish parish book carried no father to take one from. The records catch him keeping a sailors' boarding house in Shadwell for twenty-six years, becoming a British subject, and pleading poverty in court, three days before his death, with the exact fine in gold in his purse. Among those records is his Home Office naturalisation file, straight from the National Archives - never digitised and never seen online.

This is his story, told through the records he left behind.