It borders on the impossible to give a complete and detailed hisotry of London but here are many of the highlights compliments of Britannia.com
Though there were prehistoric settlements throughout the vast area that we now call London, no evidence has yet been found for any such community at the northern end of London Bridge where the present city grew up. The origins of London lie in Roman times.
When the Romans invaded Britain in AD43, they moved north from the Kentish Coast and traversed the Thames in the London region, clashing with the local tribesmen just to the north. It has been suggested that the soldiers crossed the river at Lambeth, but it was further downstream that they built a permanent wooden bridge, just east of the present London Bridge, in more settled times some seven years later. As a focal point of the Roman road system, it was the bridge which attracted settlers and led to London's inevitable growth. Though the regularity of London's original street grid may indicate that the initial inhabitants were the military, trade and commerce soon followed. The London Thames was deep and still within the tidal zone: an ideal place for the berthing of ships. The area was also well-drained and low-lying with geology suitable for brickmaking. There was soon a flourishing city called Londinium in the area where the monument now stands. The name itself is Celtic, not Latin, and may originally have referred merely to a previous farmstead on the site.
In AD 60, London was burnt to the ground by the forces of Queen Boudicca of the Iceni tribe (from modern Norfolk), when she led a major revolt against Roman rule. The governor, Suetonius Paulinus, who was busy exterminating the Druids in North Wales, marched his troops south in an attempt to save London but, seeing the size of Boudicca's approaching army, decided he could not mount an adequate defence and evacuated the city instead. Not everyone managed to escape though and many were massacred. Though the governors' military duties kept them mostly on the British frontier, it seems likely that they spent the winter months in London, the most convenient city from which to reach any part of Britain or the continental Empire. From the 250s, an altar inscription records that Governor Marcus Martiannius Pulcher rebuilt the Temple of Isis in the city; and a speculator, from his or a subsequent governor's staff, was buried on Ludgate Hill. An elaborate late 1st century building, with large reception rooms and offices, has been partially excavated beneath Cannon Street Station. It may have been the Governor's Palace. A second palatial building was recently discovered in the smaller trading settlement at Southwark, in the marshes south of the river.
The financial and economic equivalent of the governor was the procurator and there is clear evidence that the offices of this official lay somewhere within the city of Roman London. The Procurator, Gaius Julius Alpinus Classicianus who rebuilt the city after Boudicca's rebellion and promoted London trade, died and was buried there. Parts of his monumental tombstone have been dug-up and are on display in the British Museum. Bricks and writing tablets have also been found stamped with such messages as 'issued by Imperial Procurators of the Province of Britain'.
The major symbol of Roman rule was the Temple of the Imperial Cult. Emperor worship was administered by the Provincial Council whose headquarters appear to have been in London by AD 100. A member of its staff, named Anencletus, buried his wife on Ludgate Hill around this time. Pagan worship flourished within the cosmopolitan city. A temple to the mysterious Eastern god, Mithras, was found at Bucklersbury House and is displayed nearby. Traditionally, St. Paul's stands on the site of a Temple of Diana. Other significant buildings also began to appear in the late 1st century, at a time when the city was expanding rapidly. The forum (market-place) and basilica (law-courts) complex, at Leadenhall Market, was erected and then quickly replanned as the largest such complex north of Alps. The forum was much bigger than today's Trafalgar Square. Procurator Agricola encouraged the use of Bath Houses and a grand public suite has been excavated in Upper Thames Street. They were as much a social venue as a place to bathe. There was a smaller version at Cheapside and, in later centuries, private bath houses were also built. Another popular attraction was the wooden amphitheatre erected on the north-western outskirts of the city. It is possible that gladiatorial shows were put on here, though lesser public sports, like bear-baiting, may have been more regular.
By the early 2nd century, London had spread west of the Walbrook and a military fort was erected near the amphitheatre which itself was rebuilt in stone. This may have been in anticipation of a visit from the Emperor Hadrian in AD 122. He would not have approved of soldiers being billeted with civilians. The garrison was probably modest with responsibilities restricted to ceremonial, escort and guard duties. The amphitheatre may have been used for their military exercises.
By about AD 200, the administration of Britain was divided in two. York became the capital of Britannia Inferior & London of Britannia Superior. Around the same time the city also acquired its famous walls (probably about 20ft high). This protective measure may have been due to Civil War, initiated when Governor Clodius Albinus tried to claim the Imperial Crown in Rome.
A century later, the Emperor Diocletian again reorganised Britain to improve administrative efficiency. London became the capital of Maxima Caesariensis, one of the four newly created provinces. It remained the financial centre of Britain, home of the treasury, and the usurping British Emperor Carausius established a mint there in AD 288. Carausius was soon murdered by his finance minister, Allectus. The latter employed Frankish mercenaries who besieged London and then proceeded to plunder it. Just in time, the true Emperor's general, Constantius Chlous, arrived, with a fleet of ships, to save the city & reunite Britain with Rome.
Details of late Roman London, and Britain as a whole, are few. Christianity appears to have reached the province at an early date and, only a year after the religion became officially tolerated in the Empire, London had its own Bishop, Restitutus, who is known to have attended the Imperial Council of Arles. Less welcome newcomers may have led to the addition of catapult towers along the city defences around AD 350. Picts and Irishmen were certainly invading Southern Britain eighteen years later. The Emperor Julian sent his general Theodosius to expel them and he used London as his headquarters. Soon afterward, the city's prestige was increased by its renaming as Augusta.
Another British usurper, Magnus Maximus, claimed the Western Imperial throne in AD 383. He is also known to have set up a mint in London and it was probably from the city that he left, with much of the Roman army stationed in Britain, for his lengthy campaigns on the Continent. Five years later, Maximus was dead and Imperial power was waning in the extreme Western provinces. Germanic style buckles, of circa AD 400, found in the city indicate that, as in other British towns, London officials were employing Saxon Mercenaries. London was arranging its own defence and, only ten years later, the Emperor Honorius renounced his responsibility for the British Provinces.
surprisingly, little is known of London in the period widely called the Dark Ages. However, archaeologists have given us a small glimpse of life at this time. The city was largely ruinous; yet at least one large Roman house, with an underground heating system and private bath-suite, was still being lived in, probably well into the late 5th century. The occupants used (or at least hoarded) Roman coins from previous decades and imported large amphora jars from the Eastern Mediterranean. This trade with the distant Empire may indicate a brief revival of London as a commercial centre. It has even been suggested that, due to the troubled nature of the times, the return exports may have been slaves. The city appears to have been known by the late Celtic name of 'Caer-Lundein' and, may possibly, have been at the centre of a small kingdom also encompassing St. Albans. However, tales of King Arthur holding court at Westminster and pulling the Sword from the Stone in St. Paul's Churchyard are merely apocryphal.
When Anglo-Saxon settlers first moved into Britain in the 450s, they quickly began to divide Britain up into numerous petty kingdoms. Though London fell within the Kingdom of the East Saxons, its importance was obviously recognised by these newcomers and the city was often taken under direct control of the Essex overlords: variously Kings of Kent, Mercia or Wessex. The area within the old Roman walls was left almost wholly deserted, though there may have been an Essex Royal Palace somewhere nearby. Soon after the arrival of Christianity in the Saxon parts of Britain in 597, however, King Aethelbert of Kent built the first St. Paul's Cathedral within the Ludgate, supposedly replacing a pagan Saxon temple. St. Augustine had been sent, by Pope Gregory I, to establish two archiepiscopal sees in the metropolitan centres of London and York. He instead settled for the more accommodating people of Canterbury and Kent as his flock and, in 604, St. Mellitus was established at St. Paul's under the patronage of Aethelbert and his subordinate, King Saebert of Essex. Both Kings died twelve years later, Essex & London returned to paganism and Mellitus was forced to flee the city.
By the 640s, a trading settlement began to establish itself west of the city walls in what is now the Strand and Charing Cross. This naturally advantageous position had the added political benefits of being on the boundary of a number of kingdoms. Lundenwic, as the area had become known by the 670s, grew into a thriving emporium: 'a market for many peoples coming by land and sea' as Bede described it. Saxon timberwork has been discovered reinforcing the Strand Embankment, while wooden homes stood to the north. Archaeological finds of pottery and millstones from France and Germany show London's expanding international trade, and it is probable that foreign ships passed easily through the, by now, ruinous London Bridge. The first coins minted in Britain since the Romans were produced there and stamped with the word Lonuniu.
In 675, St. Eorcenwald became Bishop of London and solidly re-established Christianity in the city after the rule of several inefficient prelates. Around the same time, the Mercian Kings from Midland Britain became dominant over the city and may have established the first monastery at Westminster. They held councils in Chelsea and appear to have built a Royal Palace in the ruins of the old Roman fort and amphitheatre. St. Alban's Church, Wood Street is said to have been the 8th century Chapel Royal of King Offa (of Offa's Dyke fame) and may have earlier roots. Elsewhere in the still deserted city, new paths began to emerge through the dilapidated Roman buildings.
Attacks from Viking Raiders started in earnest around Britain in the 830s and it wasn't long before they moved on London. There were attacks in 842 & 851. Then in 865, the 'Great Heathen Army' invaded East Anglia and began to march across the country, raping and pillaging as it went. The Vikings spent the winter of 871-2 in London, presumably within the walls. It is unclear what happened to the traders to the west at this time. By 878 though, King Alfred the Great had become King of all the English and forced the Viking leaders to sue for peace. Eight years later, he re-established Lundenburg, within the city walls, as one of a system of defensive burghs around the country. A South-Werk was also constructed across the river to protect the ferry crossing. With the Roman walls repaired and the ditch recut, Alfred handed the city over to Ealdorman Aethelred of Mercia. The latter established Aethelred's Hythe (Queenhythe) and Billingsgate Market and a new street system began to emerge. Trade prospered and Lvndonia coins were minted in the city, but development was slow at first. Lundenwic was abandoned, though the name survives today as the Auld-Wych.
Upon Aethelred's death in 911, London came under the direct control of the English Kings. Through the 920s, the city became the most important commercial centre in England with eight moneyers within its streets. Contemporary writers speak of exotic international trade. There were markets at West (Cheapside) & East Cheap and much industry has been excavated in the form of decorative metalwork and weavers' loomweights. London became a political focus too. King Aethelstan held many Royal Councils in London and issued laws from the city, but the place also had its own government. The city was divided into twenty wards with an ealdormen in charge of each. He was a commander in war and a judge in peace-time. London also had its own Portreeve, a precursor of the county sheriff, who was responsible for collecting taxes. The Peace-Guild was established to pursue criminals. Another body, the ancient popular assembly, known as the Folkmoot, traditionally met at St. Paul's Cross in the Cathedral churchyard, but may have originally taken over the Mercian Royal Palace at the old Roman amphitheatre. Guildhall was later built on this site. The busy city was full of small wooden houses. Stone was reserved for churches. All Hallows by the Tower still retains a Saxon arch. Other fragments survive at St. Brides, Fleet Street & St. Nicholas Shambles.
King Aethelred the Unready favoured London as his capital and issued the Laws of London there in 978. It was during his reign that Viking raids returned and were soon transformed into a purposeful campaign to overrun Britain. The Londoners resisted the forces of King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark in 994 and numerous attacks followed. By 1013, the Dane was besieging the English King in London itself, and Aethelred was forced to flee abroad. Sweyn died the following year, but his son, Canute, continued to lead the Viking armies and overran the city. However, an old Norse Saga tells of Aethelred's return at the Battle of London Bridge (its first mention in Saxon times). The king and his ally, St. Olaf of Norway, managed to manoeuvre their ships beneath this river crossing and "tied ropes around the supporting posts, and rowed downstream as hard as they could....until....the bridge fell" along with most of the Danish garrison. Hence perhaps the old rhyme, "London Bridge is falling down". King Aethelred died two years later and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. His son, Edmund Ironside, continued to try to hold back the invaders. He defended London so well, particularly the rebuilt bridge, that Canute's men were forced to cut a large channel to the south in order to get their ships close enough to the city to land. Archaeologists have recently discovered possible indications of the truth of this unlikely story. Edmund escaped from London, but later defeats forced him to share the country with Canute. Within months though, Edmund was dead and the Dane established himself as sole King of England. The Danes had a large community outside the city walls based around the church of St. Clement Danes. Canute's son, King Harold Harefoot, was eventually buried there after his body was exhumed from Westminster and thrown into the Thames. The perpetrator of this macabre event, his brother, King Hardicanute, himself died at a Wedding Feast in Lambeth.
In 1042, Canute's step-son, King Edward the Confessor of the old Saxon line, was invited to take up the throne of England. He restricted Royal Councils to meeting at only a few major centres: Gloucester, Winchester and, of course, London. Edward was a very pious man and is best known for re-founding the great Abbey at Westminster, along with the adjoining palace. This second nucleus and Royal rival to the city was to cause political & economic tensions in future centuries. Construction work was completed in 1066, only weeks before Edward's death. He was buried in his new foundation.
Edward had no clear heir, and his cousin, Duke William of Normandy, claimed that he had been promised the English throne, a position supposedly confirmed by the citizens of London. The Royal Council, however, met in the city and elected the dead King's brother-in-law, Harold as King. He was crowned in Westminster Abbey and William invaded England soon afterward. London sent a large force of men to the ensuing Battle of Hastings to fight for Harold, under Ansgar the Staller, the Royal Standard Bearer. They were not victorious
After his victory at the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror's army ravaged much of the country in order to beat the English into submission. Though he burnt Southwark, he strategically avoided London and waited at Berkhamsted for the city's officials to recognise him as King. The Londoners quickly acquiesced and their swift action led the new monarch to grant their city the first formal charter of his reign. This slight parchment document is undated but it would appear that it was made at Berkhamsted and only ratified later in London itself. In the late 1920s, A.H. Thomas, then Clerk of the Records at Guildhall, successfully identified a wax seal from the document as having been the second Great Seal used by King William. The charter shows remarkable generosity:
William, King, greets William, Bishop, and Gosfregdh, Portreeve, and all the burgesses within London, French and English, friendly. And I give you to know that I will that ye be all those laws worthy that ye were in King Edward's day. And I will that every child be his father's heir after his father's day, and I will not suffer that any man offer you any wrong. God help you.
This exceptional status of London, which was answerable only to the King and enjoyed his full protection, was a strong influence in making it the outstanding commercial centre of the time. Its government was both secular, under the portreeve, and ecclesiastical, under the bishop. There were no new powers granted and the freedoms of the citizens, which had been enjoyed in previous years, were now enshrined in law.
These laws were based upon the older Anglo-Saxon laws and made London equal to the shires, having rights beyond its physical boundaries. The assembly, or folkmoot, had very early roots and had long decided matters of importance to the community. There is evidence that a sheriff oversaw the Hustings of London, not unlike a shire court. It would have dealt with work which was beyond the scope of the folkmoot and has left traces in the English legal system of today. The sheriff himself was the natural Norman development of the Saxon portreeve and was a very powerful man.
The King built the Tower of London at the watergate on the western edge of the city wall, not only to observe and intimidate the most important city in his new realm, but also to protect it. A second castle, Baynard's Castle, was erected by Ralph Baynard in the east, with a moated keep, Monfichet Tower, nearby. Though London is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086, we know that its population of both Normans and Saxons was growing fast. The charter and the new-found stability served to increase both trade and numbers as livelihoods became secure once more. This happy situation remained to the end of William's reign.
His successor, William Rufus, showed less regard for the people of London. He is notable for his building works: the great hall at Westminster, reinforcement of the Tower of London and rebuilding the Thames bridge which had been seriously damaged by flooding. In 1087, the city was devastated by a great fire and St. Paul's was burnt to the ground (though it was soon rebuilt).
The election of Henry I was very popular in London and he was later to grant the city folk an exceptional charter of liberties. This was fully implemented under King John who, being overcome by civil unrest, was obliged to appease his citizens by introducing these new civil rights. The county of Middlesex was given to London, with the right to appoint a sheriff (shire-reeve). The other shires were overseen by a royal officer, chosen directly by the King, who would ensure that all fiscal and military matters were efficiently managed within his region. London's relative freedom was unique within the country.
This pre-eminence was to be tested further when, in 1135, on the death of the king, Stephen made a claim on the English throne. The Londoners claimed the right to elect their new king and decided to support him. When, later, Stephen was held prisoner following the Battle of Lincoln, the people of London demanded the return of their monarch and its forces were eventually instrumental in banishing his rival, Matilda, from the kingdom.
The corporation of the City of London predates even England's parliament and is based on the French model, with the ''maire'' at its head. This form of organisation was already an established principle at the time of King Stephen's imprisonment, when the people successfully demanded his release. There is no evidence of the London citizenry of the time being recognised as a corporate entity but there were strong examples to be followed in the great merchant cities of France and Flanders.
The strength of the Mayoralty in London was confirmed under Richard the Lionheart and even more during his absence on crusade, under the future King John's regency. The mayor's authority, supported by his aldermen and councilmen was given such a firm basis that it still continues in much the same form. London was made the first municipal corporation in England, later emulated by 28 medieval towns in their own charters.
Londoners were always willing to take the opportunities presented by power struggles within the national government. John, brother of Richard I, was able to win unaccustomed support in his opposition to Longchamp, Richard's ruthless representative, by accepting the ''commune'' of London. This was ultimately to lead, in 1191, to the meeting of the English Barons with the Citizens of London and their removing Longchamp in order to bring John to power. At this point John kept his word and publicly recognised the commune, agreeing to respect the rights of all those involved. It is not entirely clear what led to this exceptional event, but civil unrest is widely suspected. At this time many individual territories, or sokes, with their own jurisdiction would have existed within the area and the transition for these would have been particularly problematic.
The first record of a London mayor, Henry FitzAilwyn, is not until 1193. His term of office was to last until his death in 1212. Some aldermen, particularly those with major land holdings, were especially powerful and held great influence in the choice of the mayor. It is clear that from Edward I's reign, the aldermen formed the prime decision-making group and from this group the mayor has always been chosen.
The Lord Mayor's Show, a popular annual spectacle, derives from the original 'ridings' to Westminster, to obtain approval from the monarch or his minister for the people's choice of mayor. This election had been instituted as a result of King John's charter in 1215, which gave Londoners the right to choose their own leader.
London's mayor was amongst the treasurers of Richard the Lionheart's ransom. During the troubles of King John's reign, London supported the Rebel Barons. The City even allowed them within the city walls and provided them with troops and money. These barons were led by Robert FitzWalter, 'Castellan' of the city's western riverside fortress of Baynard's Castle. The Magna Carta gave responsibility to both the Mayor of London and FitzWalter for upholding the terms of the charter and thus protecting the liberties of the city.
The reigns of Henry III and Edward I mark a period of unrest in London, during which more than one mayor was removed from power and replaced by a royal warden. This tendency for London to be 'taken into the king's hands' may reflect the inclination of the people to oppose the harsher monarchs. Indeed a band of Londoners supported Simon de Montfort against Henry III at the Battle of Lewes in 1264. Both kings were obliged for a period to rule London through their 'custos', Henry from 1265 to 1270 and Edward from 1285 to 1298.
Our documentation for the 13th century, in London, is much more complete, particularly towards the end of the century. To supplement the chroniclers' narratives, we have the contemporary archives of the City, including the Letter Books begun under Edward I, rolls from the mayor's court and the 'Hustings' court and citizens' wills. From these, we can learn a great deal about the social and professional lives of Londoners, as well as the structure of the city. The crowded city clustered along the riverbank, with a small settlement across the river in Southwark.
Being so cramped, the city was regularly devastated by fire. To limit the dangers that this posed, FitzAilwyn, the first mayor, introduced the first Building Act. Stone was to be used for partitioning walls and thatched roofs were prohibited. However, it was some time before these principles were widely put into practice. We can gain a good picture of the buildings of the time from plans which have survived to this day.
To the west of the city walls lay the western liberty, a site of many town hostels for religious groups. By 1189 the Knights Templar had moved from Holborn and constructed their Round Church near the Thames. However, in 1312, their order was suppressed and their successors, the Hospitallers, leased many of their buildings to London lawyers. These were the beginnings of the Inns of Court and Chancery: hostels for barristers and students which took on the role of a University in the city. The four most ancient are the Inner (1312) and Middle Temple (1320), Lincoln's (c.1348) and Gray's (1370) Inn. They taught history, music and dancing, as well as the law, to medieval and later students and still retain today the exclusive right to provide barristers for the English Courts. The London legal system would have sent criminals to prisons such as Newgate established by the 12th century, adjoining one of the eight medieval gateways into the City. Executions took place at Smithfield and, from 1388, at Tyburn.
Perhaps the most significant construction work of the medieval period was the replacement of the early wooden bridges by 'Old London Bridge', built entirely of stone and normally dated from King John's reign. Having taken 30 years to complete, it was to last until 1832, when it was finally taken down. Some of its more interesting features were its drawbridge and houses along its length.
From at least the time of Canute, London had been the main city and commercial centre of England but never the political capital. Winchester was the capital under the Anglo-Saxon rulers and later Edward the Confessor built his palace at Westminster. During the 12th century, Westminster increased in importance, culminating in the building of the great Norman palace there, of which the magnificent Westminster Hall still remains today. Westminster also became the home of the royal courts of justice and the exchequer. Later, the parliaments were to meet regularly in the chapter house of the Abbey and then in St Stephen's Chapel at the palace. Occasionally they gathered at the popular Royal Palace of Eltham, not far away in the countryside south of the river. The medieval Kings of England also held the Palace of Sheen, first erected in Richmond in the reign of Edward III. It was the favourite home of King Richard II and his queen, Anne of Bohemia, died there. Edward IV and his brother Richard III are known to have lodged at Baynard's Castle and, though Henry VII later made a permanent home there, subsequent monarchs always lived outside the city walls.
The Church held great influence in the Medieval City of London, as evidenced by its architecture. The Guildhall, the only great civic building, built in its present form in the early 15th century, was surrounded by outstandingly beautiful church buildings. Old St. Paul's, with its vast wooden steeple (destroyed by lightning in 1561), was believed to be the greatest cathedral in Europe, a Wonder of the World. Paul's Preaching Cross in the churchyard was an important medieval meeting place, while the church itself was a great centre for pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Eorcenwald, though this was not nearly as popular as St. Edward the Confessor's Shrine at Westminster. Londoners themselves often travelled to the Shrine of London-born St. Thomas A'Becket at Canterbury, as described in Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'. Other medieval churches in the city of London include the once-vast Priory and hospital of St Bartholomew, Smithfield (1123) of which, sadly, only the Norman chancel, transepts and restored Lady chapel remain. The Priory of the Holy Trinity within Aldgate is completely lost. Other buildings such as the nunnery church of St Helen's, Bishopsgate survive as part of existing places of worship on their sites. South of the river, the greatest reminder of monastic London is Southwark Cathedral (see photo below), originally the priory of St Mary Overy (''Over the Ferry'').
The arrival of the Dominican Friars, to care for the poor and destitute in England in 1221, was to mark the beginning of a new era for London and the ecclesiastical influence was to contribute many magnificent buildings to the city. In 1276, they moved from Holborn to the Thameside area named Blackfriars after them. This had required authority from Edward I to remove the city wall between the river and Ludgate and rebuild it around their precinct. The Franciscans, arriving in 1224, settled within Newgate; the Carmelites (1241), in Fleet Street. Finally the Austin Friars came over in 1253. The only one to survive of all these buildings, the nave of Austin Friars Church, was finally destroyed in World War II. For over three hundred years it was, and its replacement still is, the city's Dutch Protestant Church.
It was not long before the Friars accumulated significant resources and used these to erect churches which were the greatest in London, second only to the cathedral. Their opulence was not without criticism, as Piers Plowman's description of Blackfriars' Church with "gay glittering glass glowing as the sun" demonstrates. The Greyfriars' (Franciscan) Christ Church was larger still. Work started on it in 1306, with Royal support, and it was later to become the burial place of Queen Margaret, second wife of Edward I, and Isabella, wife of his successor. Edward's first queen, Eleanor of Castile, had been buried at Westminster Abbey. Since this was conveniently situated beside the usual Royal residence, it became the resting-place of most subsequent medieval English Monarchs; but Eleanor also had memorials elsewhere. The King's devotion to her led him to have preaching crosses erected at every place where the Queen's body rested on its journey south from Lincoln where she died. Cheapside and Charing Cross were the last of these.
The church also had great Episcopal Palaces, both within and without the city, that rivaled Westminster. Ely Place (1290) was the residence of the Bishops of the town and their chapel of St. Etheldreda survives to this day. The Bishop of Winchester had a great estate south of the river, covering much of modern day Southwark. The Bishops of London lived out at Fulham (until 1973). The most fashionable area for such mansions, however, was the Strand which emerged between the City and the village of Charing as early as the 12th century. Here stood Durham House, Carlisle House, Norwich Place and the residence of the Bishop of Bath & Wells. The Savoy Palace also fronted the Strand, on the site of the present hotel, and there were many other noble palaces within the city walls. Henry III had granted the Savoy lands to his wife's uncle, Count Peter of Savoy, in 1246. The mansion built there later became the home of Prince Edmund, the Earl of Lancaster, and his descendants, the Dukes of the same town, lived there throughout the next century. It was John of Gaunt's London residence, but was destroyed by rioters in during Wat Tyler's Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Normally a peaceful place, London was twice shaken by popular uprisings. The second was Jack Cade's Rebellion in 1450.
Another elegant town house was that of the Neville family from Essex. Their 'Leaden-Hall' (named from its roof) was erected on the site of the old Roman basilica as early as 1195. By 1321, they were allowing non-Londoners to sell poultry and dairy produce in its courtyard. You can still buy these today at Leadenhall Market, though the present building is late 19th century. Smithfield Market, north of the City, was established as a horse fair by 1173 and two hundred years later was selling pigs and sheep as well. Trade like this was booming in Medieval London. The city's population was far greater than that of any rival in England. This led to London becoming a major centre for the importing, as well as distributing, of goods to other parts of the country. The early Saxon Thames ports continued at Queenhithe and Billingsgate, but the high levels of goods from the Continent requiring unloading and storage soon led to the creation of many other wharves. By 1157, the German 'Hansa' merchants had a base in London. From the late 14th century onwards, the city became more important commercially, with the decline of the traditional fairs in the country. Great fortunes were made by merchants such as the mayors, Richard Whittington, John Pounteney and John Philpot.
In order to improve their industries, trades and craftsmen of the city organised themselves into a complex system of guilds. These were a major influence in the Middle Ages. Their successors today are the City Livery Companies, which keep up traditions, but hold little power. With membership of a guild came the highly prized 'freedom of the city', which became very widespread. Royal permission was required to establish a guild and harsh fines could be levied against those set-up without license. Indeed, in 1160 under King Henry II, 18 guilds were fined for this reason. By the 15th century, cloth production was England's biggest industry and large amounts were being exported from London. The City, thus strengthened, was able to finance the attempts by Edward III and Henry V to conquer France.
The ongoing feuds of the Wars of the Roses left London relatively unscathed. The city, unhappy with the lavish ways of Henry VI, chose to support Edward IV of York. In 1471, the decisive Battle of Barnet took place just north of the city in modern suburbia. Here the great 'Warwick the Kingmaker' was killed. Soon afterward, the Vice-Admiral of his Lancastrian Fleet, having been denied access into London, laid siege to the City. The 'Bombardment of London' continued for several days until the Lancastrian troops, meeting with little success, decided to withdraw to Kingston. In the reign of Edward's brother, Richard III, Westminster Abbey was the scene of Queen Elizabeth Woodville's claim for sanctuary with her youngest son. He was persuaded to leave for 'safety' in the Tower of London; but he and his brother, the ''Princes in the Tower',' were never seen alive again.
The first monarch of the Tudor dynasty had a great impact on London architecture in the form of 'Henry VII's Chapel,' the addition he made to the eastern end of Westminster Abbey. The antiquarian, John Leland, considered it to be a 'Wonder of the World'. It is certainly a triumph of renaissance architecture. Henry VII planned it as a shrine-chapel for the body of his half-uncle, the pious King Henry VI. But the Pope would not canonize him and the place became Henry VII's own mausoleum. His main residence was Baynard's Castle which he rebuilt in a more palatial style than its predecessor. He was the last monarch to have a permanent residence within the city walls. He also rebuilt the Palace of Sheen, when it burnt to the ground in 1498, and had it renamed as Richmond Palace. He died there in 1509.
His son, Henry VIII, was another great palatial builder. He expanded York House, the London residence of the Archbishop of York, to become the Palace of Whitehall, joining Westminster with Charing Cross. He also erected Bridewell Palace (the name derives from an ancient holy well), south of Fleet Street just west of the city, when the Royal apartments at Whitehall were wrecked by fire. New lodgings at Bridewell were needed to house the retinue of the Emperor Charles V when he visited London in 1522. Charles himself stayed with the Blackfriars next door. Henry also built St. James' Palace and the now lost Palace of Nonsuch. He confiscated Hampton Court from Cardinal Wolsey and added much of what we see there today. However, Henry's favourite residence was Greenwich Palace, where he had been born; and it thus became the scene of many important historical episodes during his reign.
Like the Archbishops of York at Whitehall, the prelates from Canterbury had a London home across the river at Lambeth Palace. The complex was originally established in 1197 and a medieval chapel crypt survives where the hearings for Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn's divorce were heard. Most of the present building is Tudor including the Gatehouse and Great Hall. Its Lollards Tower was where the heretical followers of John Wycliff were imprisoned.
In social and economic, as well as architectural terms, the Reformation was to be the defining event of the Tudor period in the capital. At the start of Henry VIII's reign, London was filled with splendid religious buildings, the treasures of previous centuries. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries, vast numbers of these were destroyed or adapted to secular use and the damage was still widely visible in Elizabeth I's time. Most of the monastic orders and friars quickly submitted to the will of the King and lost their great and long-established buildings. However, the Carthusian Church of Charterhouse, in Smithfield, was more reluctant than most to surrender. Its Prior was dragged through the streets on a hurdle and hung, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. His severed arm was nailed to the Priory Gate as a warning to the rest of the community, but they held out for three years before the execution of fifteen of their number persuaded them to leave. The buildings were incorporated into a great town house for one of the King's Royal Courtiers.
Much of the plunder of the church was used to the advantage of private citizens in this way, and conversions continued into the reign of Edward VI. In 1547, the Duke of Somerset used stone from Clerkenwell Priory and St. Paul's Charnel House to build himself a magnificent Renaissance Palace on the Strand. The Strand Inn and the Church of the Nativity, as well as the houses of the Bishops of Chester and Worcester, were torn down to make way for this new Somerset House. The losses of the church presented great opportunities for the City Livery Companies too and they claimed many fine buildings for themselves from those left redundant.
More benevolent foundations were established by King Henry VIII himself. He claimed to be the (re-)founder of the medical hospital of St. Bartholomew, which still survives today; as do large parts of the adjoining priory and church of the same name. Similarly, he claimed to have refounded St. Thomas's Hospital, also still extant, though it was moved, in the 19th century, from the Southwark side of London Bridge to Lambeth. The refoundation of the Bethlehem Hospital for the mentally ill (Bedlam), outside Bishopgate, was also laid at Henry's door.
These changes meant that the poor of the city were no longer able to gain help from the monasteries. In the final years of Elizabeth I's reign, the first realistic Poor Law Act was introduced. Until then, the poor had largely been oppressed. The fall of the monastic way of life also left a void in the city's education system, such as it was. King Edward VI gave Bridewell Palace to the city as a boys' training house for industry (and also a penitentiary). Similarly, Christ's Hospital School for the education of poor children, was created from the Greyfriars' buildings at Newgate. However, it was largely the efforts of the rising merchants which helped the situation by their establishing new educational foundations. Many well-known public schools, founded through the generosity of city merchants, date from this time, including: Charterhouse, St. Paul's, the City of London School, the Merchant Taylors' and Mercers' Schools. Though the Inns of Chancery were in decline, the Inns of Court continued their educational role in the city and their great halls are a magnificent survival from the Tudor age. The Old Hall at Lincoln's Inn dates from 1490, Gray's Inn from 1556 (though much restored in 1951) and Middle Temple from 1573. Shakespeare performed several of his plays in them.
There were two significant rebellions against the monarch in London during the Tudor period. The first was against Queen Mary, in 1554, when Sir Thomas Wyat marched on the city but was unable to enter the Ludgate because it had been closed against him. The second was led by the Earl of Essex against Elizabeth I in 1601, but neither held much chance of success as the Londoners were not willing to support them.
The accession of Queen Mary was delayed a little by the proclamation, at Baynard's Castle, of Lady Jane Grey, who reigned for nine days. The mayor was absent from this ceremony and the people are said to have been unenthusiastic. In contrast, on July 11th 1553, the mayor and the Recorder and crowds of aldermen attended Mary's proclamation as Queen. This lady was a staunch catholic, like her Spanish mother, and her time on the throne was not a happy period for Londoners, many of whom had embraced the Protestantism of Mary's brother's reign. In only four years she had some 200 Protestant martyrs burnt at Smithfield for not renouncing their faith.
Elizabeth I's accession to the throne eventually brought more relaxed times to the people of London. It was the heyday of the English theatre, and Londoners flocked to Southwark as the entertainment capital of the city. Here were the Hope, the Swan, the Rose and the Globe: great theatres all. The latter two were the work places of William Shakespeare who spent most of his life in this area of London. Less official performances were executed at the many galleried inns in the nearby streets. There were also more base entertainments available such as bear baiting or cock-fighting. Then, of course, there were the brothels. Southwark was famous for its ladies of the night who worked from the stews on the Bishop of Winchester lands. The Bishop regulated the industry and made himself a tidy profit.
After the attempted invasion of Britain by the Spanish Armada in 1588, when the loyal Londoners raised a large band of men to help defeat the invaders, England became more politically stable. There was a marked increase in prosperity and the population of London grew accordingly. The core of the city was built around the lands seized from the church and we begin to see the richer citizens moving out to country estates to the west of the city along the Thames where many of the old bishops' palaces were rebuilt for use by the nobility. The detailed maps, by Van den Wyngaerde, Braun and Hogenberg, as well as Ralph Agas, give a much clearer picture of the layout of the city than we have from previous times.
The accession of King James VI of Scotland to the English throne, as James I in 1603, led to a major influx of Scots into London, which was to continue in succeeding centuries. In James' time and later in that of Charles I, Inigo Jones introduced town planning to the capital. He built the Queen's House at Greenwich Palace and the Banqeting House at Whitehall. However, the experimental developments at Covent Garden and Lincoln's Inn Fields were still in their infancy when Civil War broke out. Perhaps the most significant civic achievement of James I's reign was the provision of a clean water supply for the capital under the New River Scheme, overseen originally by the City Corporation and later by Hugh Myddelton with help from the King. James was not always a popular monarch however and his harsh anti-catholic laws led to an attempt to assassinate him at the opening of Parliament at the Royal Palace of Westminster in 1605. Fortunately, this 'Gunpowder Plot' was uncovered and the perpetrators rounded up.
Charles I's reign is largely marked by financial and constitutional struggles with the King, whose demands and trade restrictions alienated the City. On January 4th 1642, when the King tried to arrest five members of the House Commons for treason, they all fled to the City. He looked around Parliament in Westminster and commented, "The birds have flown". The following day, he personally demanded their surrender, at Guildhall, but to no avail; and he heard cries of 'Privileges of Parliament!" as he left. London naturally became an anti-royalist stronghold. The greatest threat to its dominant position came in November 1642 when the King's men, following the Battle of Edgehill, moved south to Brentford, nine miles from London. They were quickly put to flight by Lord Essex's men,, supported by a large group of Londoners, and were forced to fall back to Reading and Oxford. The next time Charles came to the capital would be in January 1649 for his trial in Westminster Hall and execution outside the Banqueting House at Whitehall Palace.
The Cromwellian period is notable for the return of a Jewish community to the City. Following their banishment by Edward I in 1292, there is little evidence of their having any presence at all in London. A small settlement of Jews from Spain and Portugal, fleeing the Inquisition, had reached London via Amsterdam during Charles I's reign. Cromwell was to employ them in his secret service and, eventually, he made Abraham Israel Carvajal, their official leader, the first English Jew. However, it was not until 1655, at a conference led by Rabbi Menasseh Bell Israel that it was finally agreed that English Law did not forbid the settlement of Jews. In 1657 a synagogue was openly built at Creechurch Lane in the City and a cemetery was allocated at Mile End.
Restoration of the Monarchy
The restoration of Charles II to the throne was to be followed by two great disasters: the first was the Great Plague of 1665, followed a year later by the Great Fire. Plague had been a constant threat in London since Medieval times. The outbreak of 1665 began in St. Giles-in-the-Fields and spread to devastate the over-crowded, impoverished areas of Stepney, Shoreditch, Clerkenwell, Cripplegate, St. Giles's and Westminster. Within the City itself, it was relatively controlled.
In June, the King and his courtiers left London, not to return until February of the following year. A parliamentary session of only a few days was held at Oxford. The Duke of Albermarle was the only one of the King's ministers to remain in London. He was aided by magistrates, whom the King had ordered to stay, and he personally took responsibility for the areas beyond the city walls. The Lord Mayor, Sir John Lawrence, was responsible for the City. A fascinating insight into these appalling times can be gained from reading Daniel Defoe's 'Journal of the Plague Year,' as a description, though not strictly a history. Of nearly 100,000 deaths recorded in London in 1665, over 68,000 were the result of plague.
The Great Fire
At the time of the great fire, plague was still present in London. Early in the morning of Sunday 2nd September 1666, a baker's shop in Pudding Lane, near London Bridge caught fire. The houses nearby were overcrowded and made of wood, and the fire quickly spread to the riverside where large quantities of highly combustible materials were kept. The early destruction of the water wheel at the bridge meant that the areas round about had no water supply with which to fight the fire. The fire spread rapidly into the heart of the City and was soon threatening the Royal Exchange, Lombard Street and Cornhill, a very wealthy area.
The fire was driven deeper and deeper into the capital by a wind which blew constantly for the first three days. By the end of the second day, the riverside had been devastated and the fire had engulfed Cornhill, the Poultry and was threatening Cheapside. We have a very vivid account from the diarist, Samuel Pepys, who described the fire at night as a vast "bow of flame". As the means of directing water onto the flames were hugely inadequate, the only real way to fight the fire was to pull down the burning houses, before it could spread further. People used poles, axes, ladders - anything to try to prevent its spread.
Overall authority was passed to Prince James, Duke of York, replacing Sir Thomas Bludworth, the indecisive Lord Mayor. The army and dockworkers were drafted in to help. By Tuesday morning, nearly half the City within the walls was alight - including Guildhall. The Custom House and the Royal Exchange were burnt to the ground and the magnificent Cathedral of old St Paul's was virtually destroyed. The fire was to continue burning through Cheapside and the London walls at Cripplegate, Newgate and Ludgate. From there it moved along Fleet Street, nearly as far as the Temple Bar. On the fourth day, the wind dropped and the fire slowly came to a halt.
The results were devastating: only a fifth of the walled city remained, with 273 acres of it burnt. Outside the walls, 63 acres were ruined and in total 87 parish churches and 13,200 homes were lost. Such widespread devastation would not be seen again until the Second World War and the bombings of the 'Blitz'.
Rebuilding the City
The fire was to change the character of London forever. Sir Chistopher Wren and John Evelyn drew up plans to redesign the city but ultimately the existing street plan had to be followed, due to a lack of government funding. Four kinds of houses were specified by the Rebuilding Act of 1667, to be built only of brick and stone. The new city gradually grew up with wider streets and regular brick houses. Many Livery Companies' Halls had to be replaced, along with the Custom House and the Royal Exchange. Guildhall was restored but its completion was delayed until 1675. Among the great treasures of this time are the churches rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. He started work on ten of them, four years after the fire. The remainder, in total fifty-one, were still unfinished well into the next century. Even St. Paul's itself was not completed until 1712.
Following the fire, the City became a more marked commercial centre under the Lord Mayor. The gentry chose to make their homes to the West, in Covent Garden and Lincoln's Inn Fields and further out as time progressed. At the end of Charles II's reign, there were practically no fashionable addresses left within the City.
The fire also highlighted the need for public services. Until then, each householder had held responsibility for lighting, repairing and cleaning the street in front of his house and policing his area as part of 'the watch'. The Sewers Act of 1671 created the Commissioners of Sewers, a body responsible for the upkeep, drainage and cleanliness of London's streets. To finance this they were given the right to charge rates.
Charles II was the last monarch to dare to limit the long-established liberties of the City of London, removing several aldermen and officers in 1683, under the writ Quo Warranto. He was to replace these men and their mayor with his own people for some years. However, these actions were always legally suspect and it later appeared that the King had even had to remove two King's Bench Judges in order to gain approval. On Charles II's death on 6th February 1685, King James II came to the throne and during his short, turbulent reign the City regained its full autonomy.
On James II's flight in December 1688, Guildhall was chosen as a stronghold from where the men of power could prepare the Declaration of Allegiance to the Prince of Orange. Prince William was welcomed by the City and, indeed, the Lord Mayor, aldermen and 50 representatives of the common council were all invited to the authoritative assembly which was called upon his arrival. With his wife, Queen Mary, he favoured Hampton Court as his chief Royal Residence. It was much rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren but, luckily, lack of money meant that much of his grandiose scheme was abandoned and the older Tudor buildings survived. The couple also bought Nottingham House from their Secretary of State and turned it into Kensington Palace. Thes palaces were also favourites of Queen Anne.
The early Hanoverian kings lacked popularity in Britain and there was still significant Jacobite support around the country. However, the City required stability in order to continue its trading interests and stood firmly behind the crown during the two Jacobite rebellions in 1715 and 1745. The Thames had always been the chief thoroughfare of London and was used to transport both people and goods; though, under Queen Anne, the sedan chair had become very popular. There were remarkably few bridges across the Thames. Until 1750, there was only the bridge between the City and Southwark. Then a bridge was built at Westminster. Nearly 20 years later a third bridge was opened at Blackfriars.
Between 1760-66 the last gates to the City and surrounding walls were demolished. By this time the City, under the Lord Mayor and his aldermen, was a small part of an ever-increasing area which formed the Capital, with suburbs stretching in every direction as the country people moved to the outskirts of the city.
The Corporation was instrumental in promoting freedom of the press. For a long time Parliament had banned publication of debates on the grounds of parliamentary privilege. In March 1771, some printers reported these openly for the first time. The printer of The Evening Post was arrested on Parliament's authority. Two aldermen, acting with the authority of the City, freed him and arrested the parliamentary messenger. The Lord Mayor supported their stand. However, both the Lord Mayor, Brass Crosby, and Alderman Oliver were sent to the Tower and only released six weeks later. They were greeted, on their release, by a vast crowd, including the City officers and the full common council in their official dress, who accompanied them, with great celebration, to the Mansion House. From this time onwards debates were freely reported in the press.
In 1780, following an act of parliament to improve the civil rights of Roman Catholics, the Gordon Riots wrought widespread damage on London. Evenutally the army put an end to the rioting at a cost of 285 dead and 173 wounded. Unofficial estimates put the casualties at nearer twice this figure. Twenty of the ring-leaders were later hanged. Executions still took place at Tyburn until 1783 and were treated as public holidays.
This was a time of opulent architecture, evidenced in the work of Chambers, Soane, Gibbs, Kent, the brothers Adam and the elder and younger Dance. Amongst the most magnificent buildings are the present Somerset House, rebuilt on the riverfront, and the Bank of England, Sir John Soane's greatest triumph. The Mansion House, Horse Guards and Lansdowne House also date from this era. The elegant garden squares of Bloomsbury date from this period as does house numbering and the acceptance of street lighting as a municipal duty.
Admiral Nelson's triumph at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 enabled Britain to attain naval supremacy in Europe, which led to the confidence and prosperity which characterised the nation and, in particular, 19th century London. The triumphal Nelson's column, surrounded by Landseer's massive lions and set in Trafalgar Square in 1839, epitomised this mood. Other great building work, which shaped the London we know today, had started at Buckingham House in 1826. George IV had changed his plans to have his parents' London home merely reconstructed, and decided to transform it into a Royal Palace. The architect, John Nash, took so long to finish the building that, upon the King's death in 1830, he was quickly replaced. Edward Blore completed the Palace and later added the present east-wing for Queen Victoria (the facade was altered in 1913).
The prosperity of the City of London led to a rapid increase in land prices. The City's population started to move to the suburbs. In turn, the suburbs regrouped along existing class structures. The Upper and Middle Classes moved to areas such as Hampstead and the West End, while the poorer classes congregated in the East End in overcrowded and sometimes squalid conditions.
Industry, at one time based in homes or small workshops, now required massive machinery to function and was moved to the suburbs and beyond. One important trade, printing and, in particular, the newspaper presses, retained its foothold in Fleet Street, which became a social centre with 37 taverns. London became a massive office with clerks and book-keepers. Charles Dickens, whose graphic accounts of the poverty of 19th century London stirred the national conscience, worked for a time as a Parliamentary reporter, sharing the hardships of long hours and commuting suffered by clerical workers.
The construction of large-scale public railways, linking London to many of the major cities, transformed London's social and business life. The underground network and tramways followed. The growth of shipping and, in particular, the construction of the famous clippers enabled tea to be transported from China to the Thames. The transport links were crucial in the extending of colonial domination and international trade.
Industrial progress was sometimes double-edged. The invention of the modern water closet resulted in the piping of raw sewage into the Thames, which at the time was the source of London's water supply. In 1833, 10,000 Londoners died in a cholera epidemic, which led to a law banning burials within the city boundaries.
18th century legislators, faced with widespread poverty and crime, had responded by creating more and more capital felonies. Sir Robert Peel, as Tory Home Secretary, decided on a more enlightened approach, creating the Metropolitan Police Force in 1829. He was then able to push forward many law reforms. Later, as President of the Board of Trade, he was instrumental in removing unnecessary tariffs and moved towards free trade, which further increased prosperity. William Gladstone, who presided over four Ministries in the latter half of the century, was also a Liberal, a democrat, reformer and an advocate of free trade. Benjamin Disraeli, a Tory Prime Minister, and a favourite of Queen Victoria, also sought political reform and to increase enfranchisement of the working classes. The great reformers of the 19th century were faced with unprecedented social problems thrown up by the changes which followed the Industrial Revolution.
Victorian Londoners indulged in the view that their city was the heart of the Empire. In 1851, Prince Albert celebrated this sense of Imperial grandeur by holding the Great Exhibition under a massive glass pleasure dome in Hyde Park. As a trade advertisement to the rest of the world, it was a success, but fell short of Albert's loftier aim of promoting international harmony. Prince Albert endeavored to further promote the arts and sciences by building various museums, concert halls and educational facilities on land he had purchased in South Kensington. However, the building of the Royal Albert Hall was, unfortunately, not begun until seven years after his death in 1861. The Victoria and Albert Museum of Fine and Applied Arts took another thirty-two years. The cathedral-like Natural History Museum was also erected nearby and opened in 1881. Albert himself is further remembered in the city through his grandiose memorial on the edge of Kensington Gardens.
In 1897, Queen Victoria celebrated her Silver Jubilee with a massive pageant in the streets of London, in which many representatives from far corners of the Empire participated. She personally pressed the electrical button initiating the telegraphed message to India and beyond: "Thank my beloved people. God bless them".
At the start of the new century, London was a larger, busier place than it had ever been before. One could buy fresh fish from Billingsgate, meat from Smithfield Market, flowers and vegetables from Covent Garden, clocks from Clerkenwell Road, diamonds from Hatton Garden; all kinds of goods were readily available. As a thriving centre of trade and commerce London had become very much the centre of the world’s largest empire.
Giant liners traversed the oceans; electric lighting was beginning to appear, and horseless carriages could occasionally be seen on the streets. Many of the things destined to play a major part in twentieth-century life were here already. But at the same time for most people there was little difference between this London and the city of fifty years previously. Victoria was still on the throne; there was still dire poverty, and those who were without work had to survive on charity and scavenging. The bad winter of 1902 caused great misery and degradation, and things became so desperate that an observer of the time might have felt that such a situation could not possibly go on for long.
But at the time the only alleviation remained the institution of workhouses, although philanthropists were constructing almshouses, cheap housing for the poor. Ironically those same almshouses that survive today are sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
London at the time was a curious mixture of ostentatious wealth hiding harrowing poverty. Although this was a period of extraordinary prosperity, the normal working man had a hard enough time of it. The music-hall song whose chorus goes, My old man said ‘Follow the van, and don’t dilly-dally on the way’ describes the plight of a couple who are leaving their lodgings owing rent and making their escape by moonlight - a predicament which was clearly one familiar to everybody in the audience.
The music-hall reached its pinnacle at this time, with many new halls being built; the performers achieved great fame, but the life they sang about was the life of the audience - there was a great sense of shared experience, the feeling that they had all been through the bad times.
In the burst of jingoism that came at the time of the first world war, the music halls were responsible for recruiting a large number of the young men who were to sacrifice their lives on the battlefields of France and Belgium. It was only as the war dragged on, and death came in wave after wave that the war songs of the music halls began to have a slightly plaintive quality. While the singers had been exhorting their young men to go over and do their glorious bit for England, now they were more likely to tell them to pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. People only need to be told to smile, especially in such an insistent way, when there is precious little to smile about. Perhaps the decline of the halls which began in the twenties was due to the fact that they were seen to have become the tool of the establishment, the fact that people felt a sense of betrayal, and that the performers could no longer count on the bond of shared experience.
The war was the first in which civilians had to face directly the blows of the enemy. Early bombing raids were carried out by Zeppelins, which had a hard enough time actually finding the city, and many of their bombs dropped in the open countryside - casualties were light. However, Londoners were outraged at this new aspect of war, and called the Zeppelins the ‘baby killers’. Towards the end of the war London had to put up with more sustained and accurate bombing, and this was an early foretaste of what was to come in a couple of decades.
Public transport expanded a great deal in the first quarter of the century, with tramlines being laid and omnibus routes being established. After the Great War there was a great expansion, largely due to the laying of new railway lines, and ‘metroland’, beloved of John Betjeman, was born, being named after the Metropolitan Line whose trains entered the Hertfordshire countryside and brought the suburbs with them.
Following the agonies of the war, London now became infected with a new gaiety, as many of the Victorian social strictures were finally discarded. Perhaps the shortage of young men had something to do with it. The era of the ‘flapper’ had begun, and it was to be nearly half a century before the same kind of easy-going morality and sense of hedonistic enjoyment was to be seen again.
In the thirties the depression and the growing unease about what was happening in Germany had a sobering effect. Since 1666 the skyline of London had changed only gradually; there was a sense of permanence about these dignified buildings. The first world war had not had a major impact on London, but the second one changed the city completely. In 1941 the blitz took place, and bombs rained down nightly on London. The East End felt the brunt of it, but the whole of London suffered. Those people who had to stay in London during the hours of darkness were used to the descent into the public shelters, or into the underground stations, emerging to streets which were different from the ones they saw on their way down.
After the destruction of war came a feeling of optimism and renewal as the rebuilding began. The London County Council, formed in the previous century, now worked to restore services and to exceed what had been before; to implement new standards of health and hygiene in an almost Utopian vision of what London could be. People began to look forward into an exciting future, rather than back into the grim past. Although in 1951 there were still bomb sites to be seen in London and the ration book was an essential part of shopping, the Festival of Britain was held, ostensibly to commemorate the Great Exhibition of a hundred years previously, but also to express the new feeling of optimism and resolve, exemplified by the modernistic design of the Festival Hall. The most popular exhibits were the Guinness clock - a mechanical fantasy - and the Skylon, an elegant tower of metal girders. Londoners had suffered from the machines of destruction, like the flying bombs, those pilotless missiles, or their successors, the V2 rockets which dived at three times the speed of sound to eradicate complete streets in an instant. But the Guinness clock was an endearing and friendly machine, like those which were building the new London. The Skylon was a mixture of building and sculpture, a finger pointing heavenward, apparently suspended in mid-air, a futuristic and aesthetic object which expressed the people’s feelings about the exciting years to come.
But there were still elements of London that would have seemed very familiar to any visitors to the original Great Exhibition. For a long time the chimneys of London had been pouring sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, and during periods of temperature inversion, these gave rise to fogs, the famous London ‘pea-soupers’. Because of the increase in industry, and also the larger number of houses able to afford coal, this problem seemed to be getting worse all the time. Things reached a crisis point, and London was subjected to a series of dense fogs (nicknamed smogs as they were supposed to be a mixture of smoke and fog) which began to kill a sizeable proportion of its inhabitants. So thick were these fogs, that it became virtually impossible to drive, and taxis found themselves on pavements, buses needed men with lanterns walking in front of them to guide them and the only way that pedestrians knew there were other people around them was because they could hear them coughing. Towards the end of the fifties the smogs were so bad that thousands of people would die in a single day, usually the very old and the very young.
The Clean Air Act of 1956, forbidding the burning of fuel that was not smokeless, was felt at the time to be authoritative and unfair by many people. But it worked, although it took time. The smogs eventually became a thing of the past, and the London air no longer smelled of soot.
Ironically, at the time all this was going on, the trolley bus represented a very futuristic environmentally-friendly method of transport, although perhaps it was not seen as such at the time. They were red, double-decker buses which ran on electricity, which they picked up from double poles which engaged overhead wires. The buses themselves were totally non-polluting, large and comfortable, very quiet, and set off with a powerful acceleration. Their only disadvantage was a distressingly frequent tendency for the poles to come off the wires, and it was a common sight to see the conductor with a long wooden pole trying to hook them on again. And the busy conductor also had the task of changing the points, wherever the routes diverged. Perhaps the trolley bus was ahead of its time, but it was certainly a non-polluting form of transport that worked.
A Londoner living at the end of the fifties and the beginning of the sixties would have been very conscious of the forest of television aerials which were springing up, seemingly overnight. It seemed that every suburban roof sported its own letter ‘H’. It's unlikely that this Londoner, who might have heard of a new Liverpool group, The Beatles, or might have seen a writer called Jack Kerouac on the bookshelves, or might even have come across a duplicated amateur magazine called Private Eye, would have realised that he was seeing the first rivulets in a flood which would totally change his city.
Suddenly everybody started wearing colourful and extravagant clothes, an air of hedonism and pleasure became apparent, and London began to ‘swing’. Carnaby Street, unknown before the sixties, became one of the most famous streets in London, along with King’s Road, in Chelsea. The Portobello Road street market became a centre of music and fashion, and it was in this area that the first Notting Hill Carnivals began.
London in the sixties had its own unique atmosphere, a heady hallucinogenic gas that induced a feeling of well-being and sensitivity to colour. People flooded in and the tourist industry prospered. The sixties saw people crowding with equal enthusiasm to both open-air rock concerts and political demonstrations.
At the beginning of this decade, the architecture of the city began to change; and there was a brutalism which was out of keeping with the general social atmosphere of the time. Tower blocks were erected all over the city; St Paul’s became concealed in a concrete copse and this tendency came to fruition with the infamous Centre Point.
Since then many of the tower blocks have mercifully been pulled down, and a more imaginative approach has been taken with new buildings. London today has many examples of interesting and pleasing modern buildings, and the puritan aesthetic of the 60s architects is now not so plainly in evidence.
Various groups of immigrants have come to London in the latter part of the century, and have made this a very cosmopolitan city. It is now possible to sample cuisine from all over the world within a very small area, and London has benefited from the cultural influences of India, China, Thailand, Japan and Africa and many others.
With the decline of the docks, much building has been going on in the East End of London, and whole complexes of housing and commercial buildings have appeared on those sites which had been virtually unchanged since the days of Victoria. The most significant of these is the Canary Wharf development, with its own light elevated railway.
It is perhaps significant that the Millennium Dome is being built at Greenwich; sitting it in an area of London which is changing rapidly perhaps symbolises the forward-looking view which prevails as the century draws to a close.
London is changing rapidly, is becoming a more vital, a cleaner, a more prosperous place. But there are still aspects of London which would not seem all that unfamiliar to someone who lived here at the beginning of the century. The new IMAX cinema at Waterloo symbolises what is new, but when it was built it was necessary for the authorities to clear ‘cardboard city’, a small shanty-town created by the homeless. It is now gone, but its inhabitants are still here, still to be seen huddled on the pavements covered by their blankets.
"The quarters of the Salvation Army in various parts of London are nightly besieged by hosts of the unemployed and the hungry for whom neither shelter nor the means of sustenance can be provided." This was Justin McCarthy, writing in 1903, but unfortunately his words are as apposite at the end of the century as they were at its beginning.
As always, London is a mixture of the good and the bad. For the tourist it remains a safe and a fascinating environment - providing a unique historical perspective, mixed with entertainment of the most up-to-date kind. London will go into the next millennium with the attributes it has always had - a cosmopolitan viewpoint, a feeling of optimism and excitement, the hum of history as its background, the clatter of commerce and business in the forefront, changing as it has always changed through the ages. As a person retains their identity as they move through a turbulent adolescence towards adulthood, so London will always remain at heart the same, despite the outward changes that will occur as this ancient city prepares to meet yet another century, another millennium.