BIRTH OF THE CITY
BIRTH OF THE CITY
GLOSSARY
Aldermen of the Wards Officers elected every six years to the Court of Aldermen from each of the 25 Wards that constitute the City of London.
Aliens Act, 1905 An Act of Parliament imposing immigration controls into Britain for the first time.
City of London A city and county of Britain governed by the City of London Corporation covering a geographic area broadly defined by the walls of the Roman settlement, also referred to as the Square Mile.
cretaceous Geological period from 145.5–65.5 million years ago that marked the last epoch in the age of the dinosaurs.
Dissolution of the Monasteries, 1536–40 The seizure of all monastic lands and property by Henry VIII following the Reformation, when the Church of England split from the Roman Catholic Church.
drift geology Glacial materials, including sand and rocks, deposited on land or at sea.
Greater London Metropolitan area of London comprising 32 boroughs and the City of London, administered by the Greater London Authority (GLA).
Hanseatic League Organization based in northern Europe established to promote and protect commercial interests and merchant guilds in the Baltic region from the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries.
Huguenot French Protestant movement established in the sixteenth century and subjected to state-sponsored persecution, causing tens of thousands to flee to England in the seventeenth century.
Iceni Tribe occupying territory in East Anglia (Norfolk and Suffolk) from the Iron Age to the Roman invasion (43 CE).
livery companies Trade and craft associations based in the City of London also known as guilds, whose name derives from the uniforms that distinguished one livery company from another.
Lord Mayor of London The head of the City of London Corporation elected annually and not to be confused with the Mayor of London, the head of the Greater London Authority.
river pageant Flotilla of boats, often including the royal barge, held on the River Thames to celebrate or commemorate important state occasions.
solid geology The geology of solid material such as bedrock, often covered by the accumulation of drift and top soil.
tea clippers Very fast sailing ships designed to bring back fresh produce, especially tea, from Asia during the nineteenth century, before the advent of motorized shipping.
GEOLOGY & GEOGRAPHY
the 30-second tour
London is situated in a cretaceous chalk basin and is surrounded by chalk hills – the Chilterns, the Berkshire Downs and the North Downs. The chalk is covered with marine sands, gravels and clay (forming the solid geology), dating from approximately 60 million years ago when Britain was submerged. Fluctuations in the sea level mean London was physically part of the European landmass for significantly longer than it has been separated. The basin is bisected north–south by the River Thames, which was dramatically shoved into this location by a glacier nearly half a million years ago, with a series of tributary rivers such as the Fleet and Lea draining into it. This event changed London forever as the river drew early humans to fresh water and food. During the ice ages, the advance and retreat of ice sheets moved gravel into the Thames, subsequently deposited as river terraces, forming a staircase dropping down to the current floodplain. These gravels form the drift geology, which in some areas is capped by silts blown off the ice sheets, known as loess or brickearth. In these terraces, flint tools, bones and plants have been found and studied since the seventeenth century, documenting how humans and animals have lived by the Thames for nearly half a million years in freezing tundra, hot grasslands, dense forests and marshes.
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The geology and geographical position of London were key to its beginnings as a human settlement.
3-MINUTE OVERVIEW
Over the last 440,000 years, London has produced evidence for the most exotic fauna in Britain. During the cold stages, Neanderthals jostled with woolly mammoth and rhino, cave bears, wolves and giant deer. Trafalgar Square has provided the best British evidence for the last warm stage, 100,000 years ago, when elephants, lions and hippos roamed through a savannah beside the Thames.
3-SECOND BIOGRAPHY
JOHN CONYERS
1633–94
London antiquarian, the first person to recognize flint tools as made rather than natural objects
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Jane Sidell
Archaeology has unearthed some amazing discoveries in London, such as evidence of elephants, lions and hippos from 100,000 years ago.
ROMAN LONDON
the 30-second tour
In 43 CE the Romans, led by Emperor Claudius, invaded Britain and built the city of Londinium on two hills beside the Thames. Initially it was formed of wooden buildings, gravel streets and a military encampment, all of which was destroyed by Queen Boudica in 60 CE. However, the city was rapidly rebuilt and became the provincial capital. Expansive development included an amphitheatre, fort, temples, townhouses and public baths. Trade thrived as wine, spices and pottery were imported from Rome, Syria and Egypt while exports included tin, jet and slaves. Around 200 CE, the 3-kilometre-long (9-mile) town wall was built; standing over 6 metres (20 feet) high, it enclosed roughly the same area as the modern City of London. Outside the wall, cemeteries lined the roads to other towns. At its height, it is estimated that 30,000 people lived in Londinium. Originating from Britain, France and other Roman provinces, they all spoke Latin as the common tongue. Evidence survives for a variety of customs, including worship of Celtic, Classical and Eastern gods, including Isis, Mars, Mithras, and the Emperor himself. In 410 CE the Emperor Honorius abandoned Britain, and Londinium’s population declined. Buildings collapsed and the area was not reoccupied until King Alfred created Lundenburh in 886 CE.
3-SECOND SURVEY
What did the Romans ever do for London? Gave us wine, roads, writing, temples, a bridge, a name and a capital city.
3-MINUTE OVERVIEW
Much of Londinium has been destroyed, or is deeply buried, but traces do survive. Part of the amphitheatre can be seen in the Guildhall Art Gallery, while sections of the City Wall still stand, with the best at St Alphege Garden, Coopers Row and Tower Hill. Thousands of Roman objects are displayed in the Museum of London, with mosaics alongside sculptures, wine jars, jewellery and shoes, down to tiny coins and earrings.
3-SECOND BIOGRAPHY
TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS NERO GERMANICUS
10 BCE–54 CE
Became Emperor in 41 CE following the assassination of his nephew Caligula. In addition to conquering Britain, he oversaw successful invasions in North Africa and Turkey. He was poisoned by his wife, Agrippina
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Jane Sidell
London was founded by the Romans soon after their invasion in 43 CE under Emperor Claudius, who went on to invade much of North Africa.
THE THAMES
the 30-second tour
The River Thames gets its name from the Celtic Tamesis, as used by Julius Caesar in his Histories. The 380-kilometre-long (235-mile) river rises in the Cotswolds, flows west to east, before meeting the North Sea, with a 90-kilometre (55-mile) tidal stretch. It has carved a wide valley for over 440,000 years, but was only bridged in the first century CE by the Romans near modern-day London Bridge, then again in 1209. The city currently has 34 bridges, the majority constructed in the nineteenth century. London’s first exclusively pedestrian bridge, the Millennium Bridge, was opened in 2000. Several tunnels pass beneath the Thames, most famously that constructed by Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel at Rotherhithe, where they developed the tunnelling shield to excavate safely in unstable ground. The Thames has been a port and transport hub for nearly 2,000 years, with Romans trading across the Empire, a Saxon beach market on the Strand, medieval merchants striking deals on the City waterfront and Tudor explorers setting out to conquer the New World. The river is administered by the Environment Agency and Port of London Authority, who oversee many activities, from freight traffic to river pageants, and even the arcane tradition of swan upping, the annual audit of Thames swans.
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Playing a vital role in transport, business and culture, the River Thames has been central to London’s development.
3-MINUTE OVERVIEW
The Thames River Police, established in 1798, is the oldest police force in the world. It was formed to protect life and goods by curbing the rampant crime that pervaded the river, docks, and warehouses. Theft, assault, smuggling and indeed piracy existed on the Thames for centuries, even amongst the aristocracy, including Sir Francis Drake. Many pirates sailed from the Thames and ended their days at Execution Dock, most famously Captain Kidd.
3-SECOND BIOGRAPHIES
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE
c. 1540–96
Explorer, mariner and pirate
CAPTAIN WILLIAM KIDD
1645–1701
Legendary pirate of the Caribbean
ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL
1806–59
Britain’s greatest engineer, responsible for bridges, ships, tunnels and railway networks
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Jane Sidell
The River Thames has defined London’s development, as well as providing a home to diverse flora and fauna.
TWO CITIES
the 30-second tour
When the historian John Stow set out in 1598 to survey London he could walk across and comprehend it within an afternoon. London was still a medieval city – bounded by ancient walls, towers and gates, and thick with low buildings and narrow streets. The skyline was dominated by church spires, the Tower in the east, and St Paul’s in the west. Noisy, smelly and crowded (200,000 people in Stow’s time), London was alive by day and dark by night. The city was a centre of commerce and language (cried out and printed), ruled by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the Wards, elected by members of the livery companies who controlled craft and trade. A mile to the west lay the City of Westminster, dominated by the Palaces of Whitehall and St James’s and the great St Peter’s Church of Westminster Abbey. Westminster was the city of the Crown and state. Connecting London and Westminster was the Strand, hugging the banks of the Thames and strung with villas and palaces of courtiers. Outside these two Cities, beyond the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor or the Crown, new districts full of theatres, bear-baiting pits, brothels and the houses of bishops were emerging, hinting at London’s future growth. These included Southwark, on the south bank of the river, and Spitalfields, beyond the Tower to the east.
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Greater London includes two cities (London and Westminster), completely different in character, still observable today with different governments, policing arrangements and even street furniture.
3-MINUTE OVERVIEW
The City of London is older than the nation in which it is situated. Its institutions – Lord Mayor, Aldermen and liveries – have been maintained in parallel with the Crown. The Corporation of London has responsibility for the City, and has never been absorbed into the wider government of ‘Greater London’. Though the wall surrounding the City has long gone, the boundary is clearly marked by iron dragons, derived from London’s Coat of Arms.
3-SECOND BIOGRAPHIES
JOHN STOW
c. 1525–1605
Antiquarian admitted to the freedom of the Merchant Taylors Company in 1547, who completed his Survey of London in 1598
JOHN STRYPE
1643–1737
Clergyman and antiquarian. A Huguenot silk merchant and throwster, Strype updated Stow’s Survey in 1720, recording the very many transformations of London
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Nick Beech
Westminster and the City are both dominated by their religious structures dedicated to St Peter and St Paul espectively.
MARITIME LONDON & EMPIRE
the 30-second tour
Since the Roman period, the port of London has been integral to international trade. In the twelfth century the Hanseatic League established a trading base in London; subsequently many merchant companies were founded to trade and raise revenue for the government. The East India Company, founded in 1600 and still operating today, was particularly famous for trading spices in Asia. Merchants traded from the kilometres of wharves lining the Thames, which became so crowded with vessels that artificial docks were dug from the seventeenth century to increase capacity, including the Blackwall and West India Docks. Military bases were constructed downstream to build ships and weapons for the Navy, including Deptford Dockyard and Woolwich Arsenal. Shipbreaking also took place on the foreshore, where unseaworthy vessels were stripped down. The merchant fleet traded all around the world and as the British Empire grew in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the importance of the port of London – the heart of Empire – grew with it. Ships carried goods, but also the people of Empire – administrators, colonists, the military, artists, wives, aspiring wives and criminals. The Cutty Sark tea clipper, now in permanent dry dock at Greenwich, is one of the finest surviving elements of maritime London.
3-SECOND SURVEY
London’s docks have sent ships all over the world for trade, war and empire-building.
3-MINUTE OVERVIEW
Whale hunting was a key aspect of the port economy from the early seventeenth century, with blubber turned into oil to provide light. A fleet was established hunting bowhead whales in the Arctic, then expanded everywhere, including the Pacific, where the London-based South Sea Company was the first to hunt. The height of the trade was in the late eighteenth century when the fleet comprised dozens of ships sailing from the Greenland Dock, hunting thousands of whales.
3-SECOND BIOGRAPHY
JOHN HAWKINS
1532–95
Merchant adventurer, trader, privateer, spy and slaver. Rear Admiral of the fleet fighting the Spanish Armada
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Jane Sidell
London has always thrived on trade, from local whaling in the seventeenth century to global commerce in the nineteenth century.
VILLAGES
the 30-second tour
Outside the medieval cities of London and Westminster lay monastic estates, manors, fields, woodland and villages, comprising a dependant and commercial network, serving the lord of the manor or monastery but also supplying the urban population with food and other necessities. Some villages held charters granting markets, for instance Barking’s market dates from 1175. Many villages such as Dulwich, Stratford and Islington were engulfed long ago, while others were abandoned during the Black Death (1348–49), but some historic vestiges survive, like Highgate Village. Under the Tudors, great houses were built along the Thames joining London to Westminster, while peripheral villages such as Clerkenwell were swallowed after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538–40. This act of Henry VIII led to extensive tracts of rural land being built upon over the next century, followed by the laying out of the West End under Charles II; grand estates were built and new districts such as Piccadilly and Covent Garden appeared, subsuming villages like Knightsbridge. In the Georgian era, aristocrats’ desire for London estates led to architectural masterpieces such as Bedford Square. As growth flowed along the Thames and the roads into London, riverside settlements such as Wapping and Chelsea were absorbed into the urban mass.
3-SECOND SURVEY
Absorption of villages took centuries, from the period of medieval land enclosures, but the majority were absorbed following the Industrial Revolution and the complete change in London’s economy.
3-MINUTE OVERVIEW
Railway construction in the mid-nineteenth century led to the almost wholesale absorption of rural villages surrounding central London by making it possible to commute from new suburbs such as ‘Metroland’, named after the Metropolitan Railway. Vast amounts of housing were built alongside railways, consuming land and turning rural pastures into fields of brick in areas such as Deptford, Camden and Kentish Town.
3-SECOND BIOGRAPHY
P. G. WODEHOUSE
1881–1975
Internationally acclaimed author who immortalized Dulwich Village under the pseudonym Valley Fields in many of his published works
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Jane Sidell
London is a polycentric city, its ancient villages creating a huge network of miniature centres.
REFUGE
the 30-second tour
As a former centre of empire, nexus for maritime trade and offering potential seclusion or anonymity within its streets, London has always offered refuge for those fleeing from harm or seeking a place of greater political, religious or even sexual tolerance. Periodic influxes of large numbers of immigrants have left a particular imprint on the life of the city, from seventeenth-century Protestant Huguenots escaping persecution in France to the later émigrés of the French and Russian Revolutions. British liberties also offered safety for radicals fleeing political persecution, such as the Chinese nationalist Sun Yat-sen or Karl Marx, who famously found intellectual refuge in the British Museum’s Reading Room. Before the Aliens Act (1905), thousands of Jews fleeing eastern European pogroms found a home in London, notably in Whitechapel, and several thousand more were able to find refuge from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. During World War II not just individuals, but entire governments in exile also set up in London, from the Czechoslovakian president in Putney to the Polish government in Portland Place. These influxes added to London’s cultural life and helped to create today’s cosmopolitan city. London has always offered other forms of refuge, notably the gay clubs and pubs of Soho or Vauxhall.
3-SECOND SURVEY
As a potentially anonymous and certainly cosmopolitan urban setting, London has for centuries offered political, religious and other forms of refuge.
3-MINUTE OVERVIEW
London’s population has overshadowed all other British cities and most European ones since the seventeenth century, a fact driven by the high rate of immigration to the city. Much of this has been international, from Loyalists during the American Revolution to Italians, Germans and French during the political crises of the 1830s and 40s. By 1910, 27,400 Germans, 11,300 French and 11,000 Italians were living in London, along with 140,000 Jews.
3-SECOND BIOGRAPHIES
KARL MARX
1818–83
German economist, journalist and revolutionary socialist, who sought refuge in London in 1849
SUN YAT-SEN
1866–1925
Chinese revolutionary, who in 1896 was detained in the Chinese legation in London before his release following a campaign in The Times. Yat-sen was subsequently the first president of the Republic
EDVARD BENES
1884–1948
President of the Czechoslovakian government in exile, 1939–45
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Matthew Shaw
People from all over the world have been attracted by the refuge this comparatively open and tolerant city has provided.
