London: The Biography

The nineteenth-century city has been the object of fascinated enquiry ever since the nineteenth century itself. Major texts are of course those of Henry Mayhew and Charles Booth. Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor, taken from articles in the Morning Chronicle and published in four volumes between 1851 and 1862, mingles anecdote with statistic in a characteristically mid-nineteenth century style. Yet it remains the single most important source for the manner and speech of the nineteenth-century poor, enlivened by Mayhew’s eye for detail which can truly be described as Dickensian. The seventeen volumes of Booth’s Life and Labour of the People of London (1891-1902) are perhaps less colourful but no less sympathetic. This was also the century for the great compilations of London’s history by enthusiasts and antiquarians. Principal among them are the six volumes of Old and New London edited by W. Thornbury and E. Walford (London, 1883-1885), which moves from area to area like some great eagle-eyed observer, and C. Knight’s London in six volumes (London, 1841) which provides a series of long essays ranging in subject from prisons to beer-making to advertisements. London: A Pilgrimage by Blanchard Jerrold and Gustave Doré (London, 1872) contains haunting images of the savagery and industry of imperial London. An edition of George Scharf’s London, with a text by P. Jackson (London, 1987), offers images of early nineteenth-century London in a different tone and mode from those of Doré. There are many books upon the Victorian poor, but those I have found most useful include The Rookeries of London by T. Beames (London, 1850), People of the Rookery by D.M. Green (London, 1986) and J. Hollingshead’s Ragged London in 1861 (London, 1986). F. Sheppard’s London 1808-1870: The Infernal Wen (London, 1971) is also highly instructive in this context. For a more romantic picture of the city, it is worth looking at Grandfather’s London by O.J. Morris (London, 1960) while Dickens’s London: An Imaginative Vision (London, 1991) contains many rare and distinctive photographs of the period. More can be discovered in Old London by G. Bush (London, 1975), part of the Archive Photograph Series. There are also general histories. The Victorian City, edited by H.J. Dyos and M. Wolff (London, 1973) is invaluable, together with D.J. Olsen’s The Growth of Victorian London (London, 1976); the latter is particularly interesting for its account of the building work of the period, culminating in the partial destruction of Georgian London and the growth of the great new estates. Tallis’s London Street Views, 1838-1840, (London, 1969) helps to complete the picture. London World City 1800-1840, edited by Celina Fox (London, 1992), contains a valuable series of essays from science to architecture. The Making of Modern London, 1815-1914 by G. Weightman and S. Humphries (London, 1983) should also be studied.