Panjandrum [SEP] named after
by Shute as a reference to Samuel Foote's famous extempore nonsense paragraph (though Foote's term was actually "the "grand" Panjandrum"), and in particular to its closing line "till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots".
Testing.
The prototype was secretly constructed at Leytonstone and transported by night to the testing grounds at Westward Ho!, Devon. However, once there the secrecy surrounding the project broke down, as the beach chosen as a test site was also a popular
the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at the top."), written to test the memory of the actor Charles Macklin, who had claimed he could repeat any text verbatim after hearing it once.
The term "panjandrum" has since become used to describe a powerful person, or a self-important official. The word is used in the 1909 song "I've Got Rings On My Fingers", "...they named him Chief Pan Jan Drum, Nabob of them all..."