Historic UK says Old Tom was a gander from Ostend who followed a female goose to London and, unlike the 34,000 other geese in his consignment, escaped the dinner table. He became a fixture at Leadenhall Market and the surrounding inns, which kept scraps for him, and lived to 37. He died of natural causes and was buried on the market site. The Times printed his obituary on 16 April 1835, giving the date of death as 19 March 1835, aged 37 years, 9 months and 6 days, with a verse about a gander that fed freely and became a decoy leading five hundred geese.
The ghost element is thinner. Londonist's Fortean London roundup of a ghost in every borough, written in 2010, picks the ghost of the goose as the City of London's entry, saying he escaped slaughter at Leadenhall, became a popular figure honking around the inns of the area begging for scraps, and died, and it then credits a book for the report of his ghost. The link to the book is not readable in the retrieved text, so the original source of the haunting is not known. The article gives his death as 1833, while the Times obituary says 1835.
The goose is documented; the ghost looks like a light-hearted ghost-list entry. Londonist treats it with humour, and no witness or description of the haunting is given. The record is included as a quirky piece of City folklore with a real, dated animal behind it. Old Tom's Bar under the Lamb Tavern in the market is named after him, according to local sources.
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