London: The Biography

But railways were by no means the only form of transportation within the capital; it has been estimated that in 1897 the junction of Cheapside and Newgate “was passed by an average of twenty three vehicles a minute during working hours.” This was the great roar, like that of Niagara, by which the city dwellers were surrounded. This vast crowd of moving vehicles comprised omnibuses and hansoms, carts and trams, horses and early cars, broughams and motor buses, taxis and victorias, all somehow managing to manoeuvre through the crowded granite streets. A wagon might break down, and bring a long line of carriages to a halt; a cart, a carriage, a dray and an omnibus might follow each other in slow procession, while the quicker cabs darted between them. In early moving pictures of London’s traffic you see the boys running among the vehicles to clear up horse-dung, while pedestrians make sorties into the road with the same courage and defiance as they do still. In photograph, or on film, it is a scene of indescribable energy as well as confusion; it might be a bacterium, or an entire cosmos, so instinctive its movement seems.

A photograph of Regent Street in the nineteenth century, with its relatively new phenomenon of the “sandwich man” as well as the horse-drawn omnibuses.

The porters at Billingsgate were well known for their characteristic attire. In a city of appearances, and street theatre, it was important to be dressed for the part. No man, whatever his trade, was seen without a hat.

Old houses in Bermondsey, at the end of the nineteenth century; they were swept away, or bombed, while in their place arose one of the great council estates of south London.

Clerkenwell Green: this inoffensive and often overlooked “green,” in the middle of Clerkenwell, has been the site of more riots and more radical activity than any other part of London. What is its secret?

River scavengers: these were the real tradesmen of the city, earning a meagre living by combing the banks of the tidal river.

Women sifting dust mounds: in a city where everything had its price, there was money to be made out of refuse of every kind. These women, sometimes known as “bunters,” inherited their noxious trade.

A wheel at the exhibition in the 1890s (and a similar wheel at Bartholomew’s Fair in the seventeenth century) anticipated the modern wheel of the “London Eye” in the year 2000. In a similar echoic spirit, the modern Lloyd’s building was erected on the site of the old London maypole.

William Whiffin’s marvellous photograph of children following a water cart. Many London children went barefoot in all weathers, however.

The stance and attitude of this ragged boy epitomise the defiance and independence of London children who were often brought up “on the stones.” The miracle is that they survived at all.

A photograph of a Millwall street, taken in 1938. Street games have been characteristic of London children ever since London was established, and somehow the most barren districts have become areas of play. Not all streets, however, are shadowed by great ships.

The “London particular” was the name given to the characteristic fogs of the city which descended without warning and created darkness at noon. This gaily dressed citizen is attempting to protect himself against what was considered to be a bearer of disease.

The “smog” of the Fifties and Sixties was a miasma of fog and smoke.

A Paraleytic Woman: Géricault visited London in the 1820s and was at once intrigued and horrified by the predicament of the poor. In a city based upon money, the indigent and the vagrant are the sacrificial victims.

Stanley Green, “Protein Man,” walked up and down Oxford Street for many years, parading the same dietary message. He was commonly ignored by the great tide of people who washed around him, and thus became a poignant symbol of the city’s incuriosity and forgetfulness.

The ruins of Paternoster Row, beside St. Paul’s, photographed during the air-raids of the Second World War by Cecil Beaton. It had been a street of stationers and publishers for three hundred years, but is now only a name.

Don McCullin’s photograph, taken near Spitalfields in 1969, provides an image of anger and helplessness. The poor and the desperate have always been a part of London’s history, and it might be said that the city is most recognisable by the shadow they cast.