{{Short description|London-related events during the 19th century}} {{Use British English|date=February 2025}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2024}} [[File:View of Whitehall from Trafalgar Square which is blurred with pedestrian and carriage traffic, London, 1839.jpg|thumb|328x328px|View of Whitehall from Trafalgar Square which is blurred with pedestrian and carriage traffic, 1839]] {{History of London}} During the 19th century, [[London]] grew enormously to become a [[global city]] of immense importance. It was the [[List of largest cities throughout history|largest city in the world from about 1825]],<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm |title=Largest Cities Through History |access-date=6 December 2018 |archive-date=18 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160818124242/http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> the world's largest [[port]], and the heart of [[Financial centre|international finance]] and [[International trade|trade]].<ref>{{cite book| title=Unfinished Empire| first=John| last=Darwin| year=2012| publisher=Bloomsbury Press| page=185}}</ref> Railways connecting London to the rest of [[Great Britain]], as well as the [[London Underground]], were built, as were roads, a modern sewer system and many famous sites.
==Overview== [[File:Railway map central London 1899.gif|thumb|400px|Railway map of London, 1899, from ''The Pocket Atlas and Guide to London'']] During the 19th century, London was transformed into the world's largest city and capital of the [[British Empire]]. The population rose from over 1 million in 1801 to 5.567 million in 1891.<ref>{{cite web| work=A vision of Britain through time |publisher=[[Great Britain Historical GIS]] |title=London through time: Population Statistics: Total Population |url=http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/data_cube_page.jsp?data_theme=T_POP&data_cube=N_TOT_POP&u_id=10097836&c_id=10001043&add=N |access-date=19 November 2009}}</ref> In 1897, the population of "[[Greater London]]" (defined here as the [[Metropolitan Police District]] plus the [[City of London]]) was estimated at 6.292 million.<ref name="Bartholomew">{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm|title=The Pocket Atlas and Guide to London| author=J.G. Bartholomew| year=1899}}</ref> By the 1860s it was larger by one quarter than the world's second most populous city, Beijing, two-thirds larger than Paris, and five times larger than New York City.<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications5/prisons-01.htm#density| title=The Great World of London| author=Henry Mayhew & John Binny| year=1862| page=3}}</ref>
At the beginning of the 19th century, the urban core of London was bounded to the west by [[Park Lane]] and [[Hyde Park, London|Hyde Park]], and by [[Marylebone Road]] to the north. It extended along the south bank of the Thames at [[Southwark]], and to the east as far as [[Bethnal Green]] and [[Spitalfields]].<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/maps/uk/zoomify133617.html| title=Fairburn's Map of the Country twelve miles round London| year=1800| publisher=British Library| access-date=4 March 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/crace/t/zoomify88406.html| title=Pinnock's Guide to Knowledge: The Environs of London| publisher=British Library| year=1837}}</ref><ref name="Bruce Robinson">{{cite news| url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/london_modern_babylon_01.shtml| title=London: A 'Modern Babylon'| first=Bruce| last=Robinson| publisher=BBC| date=17 February 2011| access-date=4 March 2019}}</ref> At the beginning of the century, [[Hyde Park Corner]] was considered the western entrance to London; a [[Turnpike trust|turnpike]] gate was in operation there until 1825.<ref name="Cunningham"/><ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/wellington-arch/history/| title=History of Wellington Arch| publisher=english-heritage.org.uk| access-date=19 October 2020}}</ref> With the population growing at an increasing rate, so too did the territory of London expand significantly: the city encompassed 122 square miles in 1851 and had grown to 693 square miles by 1896.<ref name="Bartholomew"/>
During this period, London became a global political, financial, and trading capital. While the city grew wealthy as Britain's holdings{{clarify|date=April 2023}} expanded, 19th-century London was also a city of poverty, where millions lived in overcrowded and unsanitary [[slum]]s. Life for the poor was immortalized by [[Charles Dickens]] in such novels as ''[[Oliver Twist]]''.
One of the most famous events of 19th-century London was the [[Great Exhibition of 1851]]. Held at [[The Crystal Palace]], the fair attracted visitors from across the world and displayed Britain at the height of its imperial dominance.
==Immigrants== [[File:In the Main Hall of the Strangers' Home, West India Dock.jpg|thumb|In the Main Hall of the [[Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders]], West India Dock, 1902]] As the capital of a massive empire, London became a draw for immigrants from the colonies and poorer parts of Europe. A large [[Irish people|Irish population]] settled in the city during the [[Victorian era]], with many of the newcomers refugees from the [[Great Irish Famine|Great Famine (1845–1849)]]. At one point, Irish immigrants made up about 20% of London's population. In 1853 the number of Irish in London was estimated at 200,000, so large a population in itself that if it were a city it would have ranked as the third largest in England, and was about equal to the combined populations of [[Limerick]], [[Belfast]], and [[Cork (city)|Cork]].<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=The Million-Peopled City| first=John| last=Garwood| year=1853| pages=245–246}}</ref>
London also became home to a sizable [[History of the Jews in England|Jewish community]], estimated to be around 46,000 in 1882, and a very small Indian population consisting largely of transitory sailors known as lascars.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Jewish East End |url=https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/jewish-east-end/ |access-date=2025-09-02 |website=London Museum |language=en-gb}}</ref> In the 1880s and 1890s tens of thousands of Jews escaping persecution and poverty in Eastern Europe came to London and settled largely in the East End around [[Houndsditch]], [[Whitechapel]], [[Aldgate]], and parts of [[Spitalfields]].<ref name="Glinert, 2012; p. 294">Glinert, 2012; p. 294</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.migrationmuseum.org/exploring-the-migrant-history-of-victorian-east-london/#:~:text=As%20with%20other%20immigrants%20before%20and%20since%2C%20the,increasing%20pressure%20on%20the%20government%20to%20control%20immigration.| title=Exploring the migrant history of Victorian East London| date=3 August 2016| publisher=migrationmuseum.org| access-date=5 November 2020}}</ref> Many came to find work in the sweatshops and markets of the [[rag trade]], refashioning and re-selling clothing, which itself was centered around [[Petticoat Lane Market]] and the "Rag Fair" in Houndsditch, London's largest second-hand clothing market.<ref>{{Cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Dickens's Dictionary of London| author=Charles Dickens Jr.| publisher=Charles Dickens & Evans| year=1879}}</ref><ref name="Glinert, 2012; p. 294"/> As members of the Jewish community prospered in the latter part of the century, many left the East End and settled in the immediate suburbs of [[Dalston]], [[Hackney, London|Hackney]], [[Stoke Newington]], [[Stamford Hill]], and parts of [[Islington]].<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol10/pp145-148| title=A History of the County of Middlesex, Vol. 10, Hackney| publisher=Victoria County History| year=1995| pages=145–148}}</ref>
An [[Italians in the United Kingdom|Italian community]] coalesced in [[Soho, London|Soho]] and in [[Clerkenwell]], centered along [[Saffron Hill]], [[Farringdon Road]], [[Rosebery Avenue]], and [[Clerkenwell Road]].<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Street Life in London: "Halfpenny Ices"| first=Adolphe| last=Smith| publisher=victorianlondon.org| year=1877}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://londonist.com/london/history/in-search-of-londons-little-italy| title=In Search of London's Little Italy| first=James| last=Fitzgerald| publisher=Londonist| date=23 April 2018| access-date=22 October 2020}}{{Dead link|date=June 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Out of the 11,500 Italians living in London in 1900, Soho accounted for 6,000, and Clerkenwell 4,000.<ref name="Municipal">{{cite news| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=London Municipal Journal| publisher=victorianlondon.org| date=26 January 1900| access-date=22 October 2020}}</ref> Most of these were young men, engaged in occupations like [[Street organ|organ grinding]] or selling street food (2,000 Italians were classed as "ice cream, salt, and walnut vendors" in 1900).<ref name="Municipal"/>
After the [[Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders]] opened on [[West India Dock Road]] in 1856, a small population of Chinese sailors began to settle in [[Limehouse]], around [[Limehouse Causeway]] and Pennyfields.<ref>Glinert, 2012; p. 338-339</ref> The [[1881 Census of the United Kingdom|1881 census]] recorded that of the 22 people who lived there, eleven were born in China, six in India or Sri Lanka, two in Arabia, two in Singapore and one in the [[Kru people|Kru Coast of Africa]].<ref>[https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Chinese.jsp "Chinese Communities"]. Proceedings of the Old Bailey. Retrieved 29 March 2018.</ref> These men married and opened shops and boarding houses which catered to the transient population of "Chinese firemen, seamen, stewards, cooks and carpenters who serve on board the steamers plying between Germany and the port of London".<ref name="Woodfine">{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2016/feb/08/londons-lost-chinatown-katherine-woodfine| title=How I discovered London's lost Chinatown| first=Katherine| last=Woodfine| work=The Guardian| date=8 February 2016| access-date=22 October 2020}}</ref> London's first [[Chinatown (London)|Chinatown]], as this area of Limehouse became known, was depicted in novels like [[Charles Dickens]]' ''[[The Mystery of Edwin Drood]]'' and [[Oscar Wilde]]'s ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'' as a sinister quarter of crime and opium dens.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Round London : Down South and Up North| first=Montagu| last=Williams| publisher=victorianlondon.org| year=1894| pages=76–78}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Opium-in-Victorian-Britain/| title=Opium in Victorian Britain| first=Ellen| last=Castelow| publisher=historic-uk.com| access-date=27 October 2020}}</ref> Racist stereotypes of the Chinese which abounded in the 19th and early 20th centuries exaggerated both the criminality and the population of Chinatown.<ref name="Woodfine"/>
==Economy== ===Port of London=== {{further|Port of London}} [[Image:Thames river 1882.jpg|center|thumb|1000px|The Port of London docks in 1882, showing the newly completed Royal Albert Dock on the right]] London was both the world's largest port, and a major shipbuilding centre in itself, for the entire 19th century. At the beginning of the century, this role was far from secure after the strong growth in world commerce during the later decades of the 18th century rendered the overcrowded [[Pool of London]] incapable of handling shipping levels efficiently. Sailors could wait a week or more to offload their cargoes, which left the ships vulnerable to theft and enabled widespread evasion of import duties.<ref>{{cite book| title=The London Compendium|first=Ed|last=Glinert| year=2012| page=336|edition=Revised}}</ref> Losses on imports alone from theft were estimated at £500,000 per year in the 1790s – estimates for the losses on exports have never been made.<ref name="Paterson"/> Anxious West Indian traders combined to fund a private police force to patrol Thames shipping in 1798, under the direction of magistrate [[Patrick Colquhoun]] and Master Mariner [[John Harriott (sailor)|John Harriott]].<ref name="Paterson">[http://www.thamespolicemuseum.org.uk/h_police_1.html Dick Paterson, Origins of the Thames Police (Thames Police Museum)] accessed 15 September 2020</ref> This [[Marine Police Force]], regarded as the first modern police force in England, was a success at apprehending would-be thieves, and it was made a public force via the [[Depredations on the Thames Act 1800]].<ref name=metro>[http://content.met.police.uk/Article/History-of-Marine-Policing/1400017892695/1400017892695 Marine Police History] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170201233822/http://content.met.police.uk/Article/History-of-Marine-Policing/1400017892695/1400017892695 |date=1 February 2017 }} accessed 15 September 2020</ref> In 1839 the force would be absorbed into and become the [[Thames Division]] of the [[Metropolitan Police]].<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.thamespolicemuseum.org.uk/h_police_3.html| title=Thames Police: History – Government Sponsorship| publisher=thamespolicemuseum.org.uk| access-date=18 September 2020}}</ref>
In addition to theft, at the turn of the century commercial interests feared the competition from rising English ports like [[Liverpool]] and [[Plymouth]]. This spurred Parliament in 1799 to pass the [[Port of London Improvement and City Canal Act 1799]] ([[39 Geo. 3]]. c. lxix) to authorize the first major dock construction work of the 19th century, the [[West India Docks]], on the [[Isle of Dogs]].<ref name="port_london_history">{{cite web| url=http://www.pla.co.uk/Port-Trade/History-of-the-Port-of-London-pre-1908#18| title=History of the Port of London pre 1908| publisher=pla.co.uk| access-date=9 December 2018}}</ref> Situated {{convert|6|mi|km}} east of London Bridge, shipping could avoid the dangerous and congested upper reaches of the Thames. The three West India Docks were self-contained and accessed from the river via a system of locks and basins, offering an unprecedented level of security. The new warehouses surrounding the docks could accommodate close to a million tons of storage, with the Import and Export basins able to moor almost 400 ships at a time.<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Hand-Book of London| first=Peter| last=Cunningham| year=1850}}</ref>
The [[Commercial Road]] was built in 1803 as a conduit for newly arrived goods from the Isle of Dogs straight into the City of London, and the [[Grand Junction Canal Act 1812]] ([[52 Geo. 3]]. c. cxl) provided for the docks to be integrated into the national [[Canals of the United Kingdom|canal system]] via the extension of the [[Grand Union Canal]] to [[Limehouse]].<ref>{{cite book| title=The London Compendium|first=Ed|last=Glinert| year=2012| page=288|edition=Revised}}</ref><ref name="Middlesex"/> The [[Regent's Canal]], as this new branch between [[Paddington]] and Limehouse became known, was the only canal link to the Thames, connecting a vital shipping outlet with the great industrial cities of [[The Midlands]].<ref name="Middlesex">{{cite news| url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol8/pp3-8| title=Islington: Communications| publisher=A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8, Islington and Stoke Newington Parishes| year=1985}}</ref> The Regent's Canal became a huge success, but on a local rather than a national level because it facilitated the localized transport of goods like coal, timber, and other building materials around London. Easy access to coal shipments from [[northeast England]] via the Port of London meant that a profusion of industries proliferated along the Regent's Canal, especially gasworks, and later electricity plants.<ref name="Middlesex"/><ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConFactFile.80/Regents-Canal-Dock.html| title=Regent's Canal Dock| publisher=portcities.org.uk| access-date=11 December 2018}}</ref>
Within a few years, the West India Docks were joined by the smaller [[East India Docks]] just northeast in Blackwall, as well as the [[London Docks]] in [[Wapping]]. The [[St Katharine Docks]] built just east of the [[Tower of London]] were completed in 1828, and later joined with the London Docks (in 1869). In [[Rotherhithe]], where the [[Greenland Dock]] was operating at the beginning of the century, new docks, ponds and the Grand Surrey Canal were added in the early 19th century by several small companies. The area became known for specializing in commerce from the [[Baltic region|Baltic]], [[Scandinavia]], and North America, especially for its large timber ponds and grain imports from North America.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConFactFile.81/Surrey-Commercial-Docks.html| title=Surrey Commercial Docks (1870–1970)| publisher=portcities.org.uk| access-date=17 December 2018}}</ref> In 1864 the various companies amalgamated to form the [[Surrey Commercial Docks| Surrey Commercial Docks Company]], which by 1878 constituted 13 docks and ponds.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol6/pp134-142| title=Old and New London Vol. 6: Rotherhithe| first=Edward| last=Walford| publisher=Cassell, Petter & Galpin| year=1878| pages=134–142}}</ref> [[File:Commercial Dock Rotherhithe.jpg|thumb|The Commercial Dock in Rotherhithe {{Circa|1827}}, part of the Surrey Docks after 1864]]
With the eclipse of the sailing ship by the [[steamship]] in mid-century, tonnages grew larger and the shallow docks nearer the city were too small for mooring them. In response, new commercial docks were built beyond the Isle of Dogs: the [[Royal Victoria Dock]] (1855), the [[Millwall Dock]] (1868), the [[Royal Albert Dock, London|Royal Albert Dock]] (1880), and finally, the [[Port of Tilbury]] (1886), 26 miles east of London Bridge.<ref name="portcities">{{cite web| url=http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.46/chapterId/590/The-19thcentury-port.html| title=The 19th-century port| publisher=portcities.org.uk| access-date=9 December 2018}}</ref> The Victoria was unprecedented in size: 1.5 miles in total length, encompassing over 100 acres. [[Hydraulic]] [[Lock (water navigation)|locks]] and purpose-built railway connections to the national transport network made the Victoria as technologically advanced as it was large.<ref name="portcities"/> It was a great commercial success, but within two decades it was becoming too shallow, and the lock entrance too narrow, for newer ships. The St. Katharine and London Dock Company built the Royal Albert Dock adjoining the Victoria; this new quay was 1.75 miles long, with 16,500 feet of deep water quayage.<ref name="port_london_history" /> It was the largest dock in the world, the first to be electrically lit, featured hydraulically operated cranes, and like its sister the Victoria, was connected to the national railways.<ref name="age_of_steam">{{cite web| url=http://www.thehistoryoflondon.co.uk/the-port-of-london-in-the-age-of-steam/2/| title=The Port of London in the Age of Steam| date=April 2016| publisher=thehistoryoflondon.co.uk| page=2| access-date=9 December 2018}}</ref> This feverish building obtained clear results: by 1880, the Port of London was receiving 8 million tons of goods a year, a 10-fold increase over the 800,000 being received in 1800.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www2.uncp.edu/home/rwb/london_19c.html| title=London in the Nineteenth Century| publisher=University of North Carolina Pembroke| date=16 April 2004| access-date=9 December 2018| archive-date=17 September 2017| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170917034050/http://www2.uncp.edu/home/rwb/london_19c.html| url-status=dead}}</ref>
Shipping in the Port of London supported a vast army of transport and warehouse workers, who characteristically attended the "call-on" each morning at the entrances to the docks to be assigned work for the day.<ref name="dock_strike">{{cite web| url=http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.77/chapterId/1851/The-Great-Dock-Strike-of-1889.html| title=The Great Dock Strike of 1889| publisher=portcities.org.uk| access-date=10 December 2018}}</ref> This type of work was low-paid and highly unstable, drying up depending on the season and the vagaries of world trade.<ref name="age_of_steam" /> The poverty of the dock workers and growing trade union activism coalesced into the [[London Dock Strike of 1889|Great Strike of 1889]], when an estimated 130,000 workers went on strike between 14 August and 16 September. The strike paralysed the port and led the dock owners to concede all of the demands of the strike committee, including a number of fairer working arrangements, the reduction of the "call-on", and higher hourly and overtime wages.<ref name="dock_strike" />
===Shipbuilding=== [[File:Building the 'Great Leviathan' (the 'Great Eastern') RMG BHC3384.tiff|thumb|The ''Great Eastern'' under construction at Millwall, 1858]] During the first half of the 19th century, the shipbuilding industry on the Thames was highly innovative and produced some of the most technologically advanced vessels in the world. The firm of [[Blackwall Yard|Wigram and Green]] constructed [[Blackwall frigate]]s from the early 1830s, a faster version of the [[East Indiaman]] sailing ship, while the naval engineer [[John Scott Russell]] designed more refined hulls for the ships constructed in his [[Millwall Iron Works]].<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095510465| title=The Blackwall frigates| author=B. Lubbock| publisher=oxfordreference.com| year=1922| access-date=18 September 2020}}</ref><ref name="Choong"/> London shipyards had supplied about 60% of the Admiralty's warships in service in 1866.<ref name="Gresham"/><ref name="Pollard">{{cite journal| url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2589943| title=The Decline of Shipbuilding on the Thames| author=S. Pollard| journal=The Economic History Review| publisher=The Economic History Review, Vol. 3 No. 1| year=1950| volume=3| issue=1| pages=72–89| doi=10.2307/2589943| jstor=2589943| url-access=subscription}}</ref> The largest shipbuilder on the Thames, the [[Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company]], produced the revolutionary [[broadside ironclad]] ''[[HMS Warrior (1860)|HMS Warrior]]'' (1860), the largest warship in the world and the first iron-hulled, armor plated vessel, alongside its sister ''[[HMS Black Prince (1861)|HMS Black Prince]]'' (1861).<ref name="Choong">{{Cite news| url=https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/behind-the-scenes/blog/thames-shipbuilding-19th-century| title=Competition, Dissidence and Glory: Thames Shipbuilding in the 19th Century| first=Andrew| last=Choong| publisher=rmg.co.uk| date=1 July 2016| access-date=18 September 2020}}</ref> Over the next few years, five out of the nine armored ironclads commissioned by the Navy to follow the example of the ''Warrior'' would be constructed in London.<ref name="Gresham"/> The Thames Ironworks was employed not just in shipbuilding, but in civil engineering works around London like [[Blackfriars Railway Bridge]], [[Hammersmith Bridge]], and the construction of the iron-girded roofs of [[Alexandra Palace]] and the [[1862 International Exhibition]] building.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.59/chapterId/1039/Thames-Ironworks.html| title=Civil engineering and vehicles| publisher=portcities.org.uk| access-date=27 September 2020}}</ref>
London engineering firms like [[Maudslay, Sons and Field]] and [[John Penn and Sons]] were early developers and suppliers of [[marine steam engine]]s for merchant and naval ships, fueling the transition from sail to steam powered locomotion.<ref name="Choong"/> This was aided by the 1834 invention by [[Samuel Hall (inventor)|Samuel Hall]] of [[Basford, Nottingham]] of a [[Condenser (heat transfer)|condenser]] for cooling boilers which used fresh water rather than corrosive salt water.<ref name="Gresham"/> In 1838 the first [[steamship|screw-propelled steamer]] in the world, ''[[SS Archimedes]]'', was launched at [[Ratcliff Cross]] Dock, an alternative to the less efficient [[paddle steamer]]. By 1845 the Admiralty had settled upon screw propellers as the optimal form of propulsion, and a slew of new battleships were built in London dockyards equipped with the new technology.<ref name="Gresham">{{cite web| url=https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/from-sail-to-steam-londons-role-in-a-shipbuilding-revolution| title=From Sail to Steam: London's Role in a Shipbuilding Revolution| first=Elliott| last=Wragg| publisher=gresham.ac.uk| access-date=27 September 2020}}</ref> The largest and most famous ship of its day, the ''[[SS Great Eastern]]'', a collaboration between John Scott Russell and [[Isambard Kingdom Brunel]], was constructed at the Millwall Iron Works and launched in 1858. It still holds the record as the largest ship to have been launched on the Thames, and held the record as the largest ship in the world by tonnage until 1901.<ref>{{Cite web| url=http://www.ikbrunel.org.uk/SS-Great-Eastern| title=SS Great Eastern| publisher=IKBrunel.org.uk| access-date=18 September 2020| archive-date=20 October 2011| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111020132232/http://www.ikbrunel.org.uk/ss-great-eastern| url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.ibiblio.org/maritime/photolibrary/index.php?cat=1638| title=Great Eastern (Great Eastern Ship Company)| publisher=MaritimeDigital Archive Encyclopedia| access-date=18 September 2020}}</ref>
Despite the astonishing successes of the shipbuilding industry in the first half of the century, in the last decades of the 19th century the industry experienced a precipitous decline that would leave only one large firm, the Thames Ironworks, in existence by the mid-1890s. London shipyards lacked the capacity, and the ability to expand, for building the large vessels in demand by the later 19th century, losing business to newer shipyards in Scotland and the North of England, where labor and overhead costs were lower, and iron and coal deposits much closer.<ref name="Choong"/><ref name="Pollard"/> The ancient Royal Dockyards at [[Woolwich Dockyard|Woolwich]] and [[Deptford Dockyard|Deptford]], founded by [[Henry VIII]] in the 16th century, were too far upriver and too shallow due to the silting up of the Thames, forcing their closure in 1869.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/royal-naval-dockyards| title=Royal Naval Dockyards| publisher=rmg.org.uk| access-date=18 September 2020}}</ref>
===Finance=== {{further|Economic history of the United Kingdom}} [[File:The Bank of England, London, 1885-1895.jpg|thumb|Traffic in front of the Bank of England in the City of London, 1885–1895]] The [[City of London]]'s importance as a financial centre increased substantially over the course of the 19th century. The city's strengths in banking, stock brokerage, and shipping insurance made it the natural channel for the huge rise in capital investment which occurred after the end of the [[Napoleonic Wars]] in 1815.<ref>{{cite book| title=The Rise and Fall of the British Empire| first=Lawrence| last=James| publisher=St. Martin's Griffin| year=1994| page=173}}</ref> The city was also the headquarters of most of Britain's shipping firms, trading houses, [[Exchange (organized market)|exchanges]] and commercial firms like railway companies and import houses.<ref>{{cite book| title=Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain| first=John| last=Darwin| publisher=Bloomsbury Press| year=2014| pages=180–182}}</ref> As the [[Industrial Revolution]] gathered pace, an insatiable demand for capital investment in railways, shipping, industry and agriculture fueled the growth of financial services in the city. The end of the Napoleonic Wars also freed up British capital to flow overseas; there was some £100 million invested abroad between 1815 and 1830, and as much as £550 million by 1854.<ref name="Imlah">{{cite journal| jstor=2591057| title=British Balance of Payments and Export of Capital, 1816–1913| first=Albert H.| last=Imlah| journal=Economic History Review|volume= 5|issue=2| year=1954| pages=208–239| doi=10.2307/2591057}}</ref> At the end of the century, the net total of British foreign investment stood at £2.394 billion.<ref name="Imlah"/> The 1862 ''[[Bradshaw's Guide]]'' to London listed 83 banks, 336 stockbroking firms, 37 currency brokers, 248 ship and insurance brokerages, and 1500 different merchants in the city, selling wares of every conceivable variety.<ref>{{cite book| title=Bradshaw's Illustrated Hand Book To London and its Environs| author=E.L. Blanchard, H. Kains Jackson| year=1862| page=24}}</ref> At the centre of this nexus of private capital and commerce lay the [[Bank of England]], which by the end of the century contained £20 million worth of gold reserves. It employed over 900 people and printed 15,000 new banknotes each day by 1896, doing some £2 million worth of business each day.<ref name="pictorial">{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm|title=The Queen's London : a Pictorial and Descriptive Record of the Streets, Buildings, Parks and Scenery of the Great Metropolis, 1896| publisher=Cassell & Co. Ltd| year=1896}}</ref>
The result of the shift to financial services in the city was that, even while its residential population was ebbing in favor of the suburbs (there was a net loss of 100,000 people between 1840 and 1900),<ref name="bbc.co.uk">{{cite news| url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/london_modern_babylon_01.shtml| title=London: 'A Modern Babylon'| first=Bruce| last=Robinson| publisher=BBC| date=17 February 2011| access-date=4 March 2019}}</ref> it retained its historical role as the center of English commerce. The working population swelled from some 200,000 in 1871 to 364,000 by 1911.<ref>Ackroyd, 2000, 703–704</ref>
== Housing == London's great expansion in the 19th century was driven by housing growth to accommodate the rapidly expanding population of the city. The growth of [[transport in London]] in this period fueled the outward expansion of suburbs, as did a cultural impetus to escape the inner city, allowing the worlds of 'work' and 'life' to be separate.<ref name="Suburbia">{{Cite web|url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/suburbia|title=Suburbia|website=The British Library|access-date=7 June 2019}}</ref> Suburbs varied enormously in character and in the relative wealth of their inhabitants, with some being for the very wealthy, and others being for the lower-middle classes. They frequently imitated the success of earlier periods of speculative housing development from the [[Georgian era]], although the [[Victorian era]] saw a much wider array of suburban housing built in London.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fet.uwe.ac.uk/conweb/house_ages/flypast/print.htm|title=Domestic Architecture 1700 to 1960|website=fet.uwe.ac.uk|access-date=7 June 2019}}</ref> [[Terraced houses in the United Kingdom|Terraced]], [[Semi-detached house|semi-detached]] and [[Single-family detached home|detached]] housing all developed in a multitude of styles and typologies, with an almost endless variation in the layout of streets, gardens, homes, and decorative elements.
[[File:Kensington slums large.jpg|thumb|288x288px|A slum in Market Court, Kensington, 1860s]] Suburbs were aspirational for many, but also came to be lampooned and satirised in the press for the conservative and conventional tastes they represented (for example in ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch's]]'' [[Charles Pooter|Pooter]]).<ref name="Suburbia"/> While the Georgian terrace has been described as "England's greatest contribution to the urban form",<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://historicengland.org.uk/content/docs/guidance/conserving-georgian-and-victorian-terraced-housing-consultation-draft/|title=Conserving Georgian and Victorian terraced housing|last=Historic England|website=historicengland.org.uk|access-date=7 June 2019}}</ref> the increasing rigour with which Building Act regulations were applied after 1774 led to increasingly simple, standardised designs, which by the end of the 19th century were accommodating many households at the lower end of the socio-economic scale. Indeed, more grandly designed examples became less common by this period, as the very wealthy tended to prefer detached homes, and terraces in particular now became associated first with the aspirational middle classes, and later with the lower middle classes in more industrial areas of London such as the [[East End of London|East End]].<ref name=":0" />
While many areas of Georgian and Victorian suburbs were damaged heavily in [[The Blitz]] and/or then redeveloped through [[Slum clearance in the United Kingdom|slum clearance]], much of [[Inner London]]'s character remains dominated by the suburbs built successively during Georgian and Victorian times, and such houses remain enormously popular.
== Living conditions ==
===Poverty=== {{further|St. Giles, London}}
In contrast to the conspicuous wealth of the cities of London and Westminster, there was a huge underclass of desperately poor Londoners within a short range of the more affluent areas. The author [[George W. M. Reynolds]] commented on the vast wealth disparities and misery of London's poorest in 1844: {{blockquote|"The most unbounded wealth is the neighbor of the most hideous poverty...the crumbs which fall from the tables of the rich would appear delicious viands to starving millions, and yet these millions obtain them not! In that city there are in all five prominent buildings: the church, in which the pious pray; the gin-palace, to which the wretched poor resort to drown their sorrows; the pawn-broker's, where miserable creatures pledge their raiment, and their children's raiment, even unto the last rag, to obtain the means of purchasing food, and – alas! too often – intoxicating drink; the prison, where the victims of a vitiated condition of society expiate the crimes to which they have been drive by starvation and despair; and the workhouse, to which the destitute, the aged, and the friendless hasten to lay down their aching heads – and die!"<ref name="Hardyment"/>}}[[File:Dealers in Fancy-Ware (5933982435).jpg|thumb|265x265px|A small market stall in London, 1870s]]
In Central London, the single most notorious slum was [[St. Giles, London|St. Giles]], a name which by the 19th century had passed into common parlance as a byword for extreme poverty.<ref name="Guardian">{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/may/16/london-parish-glamour-grime-rookery-exhibition| title=London parish's descent from glamour to grime charted in new exhibition| first=Maev| last=Kennedy| newspaper=The Guardian| date=16 May 2011| access-date=29 March 2019}}</ref><ref name="Thomas Beames">{{cite news| title=The Rookeries of London| first=Thomas| last=Beames| publisher=victorianlondon.org| pages=19–43}}</ref> Infamous since the mid 18th century, St. Giles was defined by its prostitutes, gin shops, secret alleyways where criminals could hide, and horribly overcrowded tenements. [[Lord Byron]] excoriated the state of St. Giles in a speech to the House of Lords in 1812, stating that "I have been in some of the most oppressed provinces of Turkey, but never under the most despotic of infidel governments did I behold such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my return in the very heart of a Christian country."<ref>{{cite book| title=The London Compendium| first=Ed| last=Glinert| year=2012| page=209}}</ref> At the heart of this area, now occupied by [[New Oxford Street]] and [[Centre Point]], was "The Rookery", a particularly dense warren of houses along George Street and Church Lane, the latter of which in 1852 was reckoned to contain over 1,100 lodgers in overpacked, squalid buildings with open sewers.<ref name="Thomas Beames"/> The poverty worsened with the massive influx of poor Irish immigrants during the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]] of 1848, giving the area the name "Little Ireland", or "The Holy Land".<ref name="Guardian" /> Government intervention beginning in the 1830s reduced the area of St. Giles through mass evictions, demolitions, and public works projects.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://landmarksinlondonhistory.wordpress.com/2017/12/06/st-giles-rookery-the-lost-london-landmark/| title=St Giles Rookery: The Lost London Landmark| publisher=landmarksinlondonhistory.wordpress.com| date=6 December 2017| access-date=29 March 2019}}</ref> [[New Oxford Street]] was built right through the heart of "The Rookery" in 1847, eliminating the worst part of the area, but many of the evicted inhabitants simply moved to neighboring streets, which remained stubbornly mired in poverty.<ref>{{cite book| title=Victorian London| first=Liza| last=Pickard| publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson| page=26}}</ref>
Mass demolition of slums like St. Giles was the usual method of removing problematic pockets of the city; for the most part this just displaced existing residents because the new dwellings built by private developers were often far too expensive for the previous inhabitants to afford.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.socialhousinghistory.uk/wp/index.php/london-county-council/london-before-the-lcc/| title=Housing the Workers: Early London County Council Housing 1889–1914| first=Martin| last=Stilwell| publisher=socialhousinghistory.uk| year=2015| pages=8–9}}</ref> In the mid to late 19th century, philanthropists like [[Octavia Hill]] and charities like the [[Peabody Trust]] focused on building adequate housing for the working classes at affordable rates: [[George Peabody]] built his first improved housing for the "artisans and laboring poor" on [[Commercial Street, London|Commercial Street]] in 1864.<ref>{{cite book| title=The Age of Empire: Britain's Imperial Architecture from 1880–1930| first=Clive| last=Aslet| year=2015| page=52}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.victorianweb.org/history/slums.html| title=Slums and Slumming in Late-Victorian London| first=Andrzej| last=Diniejko| publisher=victorianweb.org| access-date=30 March 2019}}</ref> The Metropolitan Board of Works (the dominant authority before the LCC), was empowered to undertake clearances and to enforce overcrowding and other such standards on landlords by a stream of legislation including the [[Labouring Classes Dwelling Houses Act 1866]] ([[29 & 30 Vict.]] c. 28) and the [[Labouring Classes Dwelling Houses Act 1867]] ([[30 & 31 Vict.]] c. 28). Overcrowding was also defined as a public health 'nuisance' beginning in 1855, which allowed Medical Officers to report landlords in violation to the Board of Health.<ref name="Stilwell"/> The shortcomings of the existing legislation were refined and condensed into one comprehensive piece of legislation, the [[Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890]] ([[63 & 64 Vict.]] c. 59). This empowered the LCC to construct its own housing on cleared land, which it had been prohibited from doing before; thus began a [[social housing]] building program in targeted areas like [[Bethnal Green]] and [[Millbank]] that would accelerate in the next century.<ref name="Stilwell">{{cite news| url=http://www.socialhousinghistory.uk/wp/index.php/london-county-council/london-before-the-lcc/| title=Housing the Workers: Early London County Council Housing 1889–1914| first=Martin| last=Stilwell| publisher=socialhousinghistory.uk| year=2015| page=5}}</ref>
==== The East End ==== [[File:Poverty map old nichol 1889.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Part of [[Charles Booth (philanthropist)|Charles Booth]]'s [[poverty map]] showing the [[Old Nichol]], a [[slum]] in the [[East End of London]]. Published 1889 in ''[[Life and Labour of the People in London]]''. The red areas are "middle class, well-to-do", light blue areas are "poor, 18s to 21s a week for a moderate family", dark blue areas are "very poor, casual, chronic want", and black areas are the "lowest class...occasional labourers, street sellers, loafers, criminals and semi-criminals".]]
The [[East End of London]], with an economy oriented around the [[London Docklands|Docklands]] and the polluting industries clustered along the Thames and the [[River Lea]], had long been an area of working poor. By the late 19th century it was developing an increasingly sinister reputation for crime, overcrowding, desperate poverty, and debauchery.<ref>{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| url=https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr| url-access=registration| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| year=2000| page=[https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr/page/664 664–665]| publisher=Chatto & Windus| isbn=9781856197168}}</ref> The 1881 census counted over 1 million inhabitants in the East End, a third of whom lived in poverty.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/application/files/7414/5579/9075/jack-the-ripper-and-east-end.pdf| title=Jack the Ripper and the East End| publisher=Museum of London| access-date=4 December 2018| archive-date=4 December 2018| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181204151441/https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/application/files/7414/5579/9075/jack-the-ripper-and-east-end.pdf| url-status=dead}}</ref> The [[Cheap Trains Act 1883]] ([[46 & 47 Vict.]] c. 34), while it enabled many working class Londoners to move away from the inner city, also accentuated{{clarify|date=February 2024}} the poverty in areas like the East End, where the most destitute were left behind.<ref name="bbc.co.uk"/> Prostitution was rife, with one official report in 1888 recording 62 brothels and 1,200 prostitutes in [[Whitechapel]] (the real number was likely much higher).<ref>{{cite book| title=The London Compendium| first=Ed| last=Glinert| year=2012| page=319}}</ref>
[[File:Wentworth st, Whitechapel Wellcome L0000878.jpg|thumb|"Wentworth Street, Whitechapel" (1872), by [[Gustave Doré]]]]
The American author [[Jack London]], in his 1903 account ''[[The People of the Abyss]]'', described the bewilderment of Londoners when he mentioned that he planned to visit the East End: many of them had never been there despite living in the same city. He was refused a guide when he visited the travel agency of [[Thomas Cook & Son]], which told him to consult the police.<ref name="abyss">{{cite book| title=The People of the Abyss| first=Jack| last=London| url=http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/PeopleOfTheAbyss/chapter1.html| year=1903| access-date=4 December 2018| archive-date=27 December 2018| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181227112916/http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/PeopleOfTheAbyss/chapter1.html| url-status=dead}}</ref> When he finally found a reluctant cabbie to take him into [[Stepney]], he described his impression as follows:
{{blockquote|"Nowhere in the streets of London may one escape the sight of abject poverty, while five minutes' walk from almost any point will bring one to a slum; but the region my hansom was now penetrating was one unending slum. The streets were filled with a new and different race of people, short of stature, and of wretched or beer-sodden appearance. We rolled along through miles of bricks and squalor, and from each cross street and alley flashed long vistas of bricks and misery. Here and there lurched a drunken man or woman, and the air was obscene with sounds of jangling and squabbling."<ref name="abyss" />}}
By the time of Jack London's visit in 1903, the reputation of the East End was at its lowest ebb after decades of unfavourable attention from journalists, authors, and social reformers.<ref name="Hardyment">{{cite book| title=Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands| first=Christina| last=Hardyment| publisher=The British Library| year=2012| pages=145–149}}</ref> The 1888 [[Whitechapel murders]] perpetrated by [[Jack the Ripper]] brought international attention to the squalor and criminality of the East End, while [[penny dreadfuls]] and a slew of sensational novels like [[George Gissing]]'s ''[[The Nether World]]'' and the works of [[Charles Dickens]] painted grim pictures of London's deprived areas for middle and upper class readers.<ref name="Hardyment"/> The single most influential work on London poverty was [[Charles Booth (social reformer)|Charles Booth]]'s ''[[Life and Labour of the People in London]]'', a 17-volume work published between 1889 and 1903. Booth painstakingly charted levels of deprivation throughout the city, painting a bleak but also sympathetic picture of the wide variety of conditions experienced by London's poor.<ref>{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| url=https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr| url-access=registration| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| year=2000| page=[https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr/page/592 592–593]| publisher=Chatto & Windus| isbn=9781856197168}}</ref>
===Disease and mortality=== The extreme population density in areas like the East End made for unsanitary conditions and resulting epidemics of disease. The child mortality rate in the East End stood at 20%, while the estimated life expectancy of an East End labourer was only 19 years.<ref name="stink_smog">{{cite news| url=https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/londons-past-air| title=Breating in London's history: From the Great Stink to the Great Smog| author=Beverley Cook & Alex Werner| publisher=Museum of London| date=24 August 2018| access-date=4 December 2018}}</ref> In [[Bethnal Green]], one of London's poorest districts, the mortality rate stood at 1 in 41 in 1847.<ref>{{cite book| title=Sanitary Ramblings, Being Sketches and Illustrations of Bethnal Green| url=https://archive.org/details/b22014834| first=Hector| last=Gavin| year=1848| page=[https://archive.org/details/b22014834/page/100 100]}}</ref> The average for Bethnal Green between the years 1885 and 1893 remained virtually the same as that of 1847.<ref name="Sherwell"/> Meanwhile, the mortality average for those same eight years in the wealthy boroughs of [[Kensington]] and [[Paddington]] stood at roughly 1 in 53.<ref name="Sherwell">{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Life in West London: A Study and a Contrast| first=Arthur| last=Sherwell| year=1897| page=182}}</ref> London's overall mortality rate was tracked at a ratio of roughly 1 in 43 between the years 1869–1879; overall life expectancy in the city stood at just 37 years in midcentury.<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Dickens's Dictionary of London| author=Charles Dickens Jr.| publisher=victorianlondon.org| year=1879| access-date=27 March 2019}}</ref><ref name="stink_smog"/>
The most serious disease in the poor quarters was [[tuberculosis]], until the 1860s [[cholera]], as well as [[rickets]], [[scarlet fever]], and [[typhoid]]. Between 1850 and 1860 the mortality rate from typhoid was 116 per 100,000 people.<ref name="stink_smog" /> [[Smallpox]] was a dreaded disease across London: there were epidemics in 1816–19, 1825–26, 1837–40, 1871 and 1881.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.68/chapterId/1649/Containing-smallpox-in-Victorian-London.html| title=Containing smallpox in Victorian London| publisher=portcities.org.uk| access-date=4 March 2019}}</ref> A speckling of [[workhouse]] hospitals and the [[London Smallpox Hospital]] in [[St Pancras, London|St Pancras]] (moved to [[Highgate]] Hill in 1848–50), were all that existed to treat smallpox victims until the latter part of the century.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Islington/| title=St. Mary's, Islington, Middlesex, London| publisher=workhouses.org.uk| access-date=9 March 2019}}</ref> This changed with the creation of the [[Metropolitan Asylums Board]] in 1867, which embarked on the building of five planned smallpox and fever hospitals in [[Stockwell]], [[Deptford]], [[Hampstead]], [[Fulham]] and [[Homerton]] to serve the different regions of London. Fearful residents succeeded in blocking the building of the Hampstead hospital, and residents in Fulham obtained an injunction preventing all but local cases of smallpox from being treated in their hospital.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.68/chapterId/1649/Containing-smallpox-in-Victorian-London.html| title=Containing smallpox in Victorian London| publisher=portcities.org.uk| pages=1–4| access-date=4 March 2019}}</ref> Thus, with only three hospitals in operation when the epidemic of 1881 began, the MAB was overwhelmed. {{HMS|Atlas|1860|6}} and {{HMS|Endymion|1865|2}} were leased as [[hospital ship]]s and entered service in July 1881, moored at [[Greenwich]]. The following year the two ships were purchased along with another, ''Castalia'', and the fleet was moved to Long Reach at [[Gravesend]], where it served 20,000 patients between 1884 and 1902. The floating hospitals were equipped with their own river ferry service to transport patients in isolation from the inner city. The ships enabled three permanent isolation hospitals to be built at [[Dartford]], effectively ending the threat of smallpox epidemics.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.68/chapterId/1649/Containing-smallpox-in-Victorian-London.html| title=Containing smallpox in Victorian London| publisher=portcities.org.uk| pages=6–8| access-date=4 March 2019}}</ref>
==Transport== {{further|Trams in London}} [[File:Strand.png|thumb|Traffic on the [[Strand, London|Strand]] in the late 19th century ([[Somerset House]] is on the left.)]] With the great railway terminals developing to connect London with its suburbs and beyond, mass transport was becoming ever more important within the city as its population increased. The first horse-drawn [[bus|omnibuses]] entered service in London in 1829. By 1854 there were 3,000 of them in service, painted in bright reds, greens, and blues, and each carrying an average of 300 passengers per day.<ref>{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| url=https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr| url-access=registration| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| year=2000| page=[https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr/page/583 583]| publisher=Chatto & Windus| isbn=9781856197168}}</ref> The two-wheeled [[hansom cab]], first seen in 1834, was the most common type of cab on London's roads throughout the Victorian era, but there were many types, like the four-wheeled [[Hackney carriage]], in addition to the coaches, private carriages, coal-wagons, and tradesmen's vehicles which crowded the roads.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=London on Wheels| publisher=The Leisure Hour| year=1877}}</ref> There were 3,593 licensed cabs in London in 1852;<ref>{{cite news| title=The Million-Peopled City| first=John| last=Garwood| year=1853| page=Chapter III, 169}}</ref> by the end of the century there were estimated to be some 10,000 in all.<ref>{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| url=https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr| url-access=registration| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| year=2000| page=[https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr/page/584 584–5]| publisher=Chatto & Windus| isbn=9781856197168}}</ref> [[File:London omnibus in 1865.jpg|left|thumb|A London omnibus in 1865]] From the 1870s onwards, Londoners also had access to a developing tram network which accessed Central London and provided local transport in the suburbs. The first horse-drawn tramways were installed in 1860 along the [[Bayswater Road]] at the northern edge of [[Hyde Park, London|Hyde Park]], [[Victoria, London|Victoria Street]] in Westminster, and [[Kennington]] Street in South London.<ref>{{cite book| title=The Inner Suburbs: The Evolution of an Industrial Area| author=B. Barrett| year=1971| page=150}}</ref> The trams were a success with passengers, but the raised rails were jolting and inconvenient for horse-drawn vehicles to cross, causing traffic bottlenecks at crossroads.<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm|title=London and Londoners in the Eighteen-Fifties and Sixties| author=Alfred Rosling Bennett| year=1924}}</ref> Within a year the outcry was so great that the lines were pulled up, and trams were not reintroduced until the [[Tramways Act 1870]] ([[33 & 34 Vict.]] c. 78) permitted them to be built again. Trams were restricted to operating in the suburbs of London, but they accessed the major transport hubs of the City and the West End, conveying passengers into and away from the suburbs. By 1893 there were about 1,000 tram cars across 135 miles worth of track.<ref>{{cite book| title=The Horse World of London| url=https://archive.org/details/horseworldlondo00johngoog| author=W.J. Gordon| year=1893| page=[https://archive.org/details/horseworldlondo00johngoog/page/n30 26]| publisher=The religious tract society}}</ref> Trams could be accessed in Central London from [[Aldgate]], [[Blackfriars Bridge]], [[Borough, London|Borough]], [[Moorgate]], [[King's Cross, London|King's Cross]], [[Euston Road]], [[Holborn]], [[Shepherd's Bush]], [[Victoria, London|Victoria]], and [[Westminster Bridge]].<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Reynold's Shilling Coloured Map of London| year=1895| publisher=victorianlondon.org| access-date=22 December 2018}}</ref>
=== Coming of the railways === [[File:Holl (after Frith) The Railway Station colorized.jpg|thumb|260px|[[William Powell Frith|Frith]]'s ''[[The Railway Station]]'', 1862 depiction of [[London Paddington station|Paddington railway station]] in London]]
19th-century London was transformed by the coming of the railways. A new network of metropolitan railways allowed the development of suburbs in neighboring counties from which middle-class and wealthy people could commute to the centre. While this spurred the massive outward growth of the city, London's growth also exacerbated the class divide, as the wealthier classes emigrated to the suburbs, leaving the poor to inhabit the inner city areas. The new railway lines were generally built through working class areas, where land was cheaper and compensation costs lower. In the 1860s, the railway companies were required to rehouse the tenants they evicted for construction, but these rules were widely evaded until the 1880s. The displaced generally stayed in the same area as before, but under more crowded conditions due to the loss of housing.<ref>Nead, 2004; p. 34</ref>
The first railway to be built in London was the [[London and Greenwich Railway]], a short line from [[London Bridge station|London Bridge]] to [[Greenwich railway station|Greenwich]], which opened in 1836. This was soon followed by great rail termini which linked London to every corner of Britain. These included [[Euston railway station|Euston]] (1837), [[Paddington railway station|Paddington]] (1838), [[Fenchurch Street railway station|Fenchurch Street]] (1841), [[London Waterloo railway station|Waterloo]] (1848), [[London King's Cross railway station|King's Cross]] (1852),{{sfn|Weinreb|Hibbert|Keay|Keay|2010|p=463}} and [[St Pancras railway station|St Pancras]] (1868). By 1865 there were 12 principal railway termini;<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Cruchley's London for 1865: A Handbook for Strangers| author=G. F. Cruchley| year=1865}}</ref> the stations built along the lines in [[exurb]]an villages surrounding London allowed commuter towns to be developed for the middle classes. The [[Cheap Trains Act 1883]] helped poorer Londoners to relocate, by guaranteeing cheap fares and removing a [[Duty (economics)|duty]] imposed on fares since 1844.<ref name="Ackroyd582">{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| page=582}}</ref> The new working class suburbs created as a result included [[West Ham]], [[Walthamstow]], [[Kilburn, London|Kilburn]], and [[Willesden]].<ref name="bbc.co.uk"/><ref name="Ackroyd582"/>
===London Underground=== {{further|History of the London Underground}} [[File:Constructing the Metropolitan Railway.jpg|thumb|Construction of the Metropolitan Railway, London's first Underground line, in 1861]] With traffic congestion on London's roads becoming more and more serious, proposals for underground railways to ease the pressure on street traffic were first mooted in the 1840s, after the opening of the [[Thames Tunnel]] in 1843 proved such engineering work could be done successfully.<ref name="Ackroyd"/><ref>{{cite book| url=https://archive.org/details/cityandsouthlon00greagoog| title=The City and South London Railway, with Some Remarks Upon Subaqueous Tunneling By Shield and Compressed Air| publisher=Institution of Civil Engineers| year=1896| page=[https://archive.org/details/cityandsouthlon00greagoog/page/n10 8]}}</ref><ref name="Britannica">{{cite news| url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/London-Underground| title=London Underground| work=Encyclopædia Britannica| access-date=17 October 2020}}</ref> However, reservations over the stability of underground tunneling persisted into the 1860s and were finally overcome when Parliament approved the construction of London's first underground railway, the [[Metropolitan Railway]]. Begun in 1860 and completed in 1863, the Metropolitan inaugurated the world's oldest [[mass transit system]], the [[London Underground]]; it was created by the [[cut-and-cover]] method of excavating a trench from above, then building reinforced brick walls and vaults to form the tunnel, and filling in the trench with earth.<ref>{{cite book| title=Ellis' British Railway Engineering Encyclopaedia| first=Iain W.| last=Ellis| year=2015| page=118}}</ref> The Metropolitan initially ran from [[Farringdon, London|Farringdon]] in the east to [[Paddington]] in the west.<ref name="Ackroyd">{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| url=https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr| url-access=registration| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| year=2000| page=[https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr/page/558 558–559]| publisher=Chatto & Windus| isbn=9781856197168}}</ref> The open wooden passenger cars were propelled by a coke-fueled steam locomotive and lit with gas lamps to provide illumination in the tunnels. The line was a success, carrying 9.5 million passengers in its first year of operation.<ref name="Britannica"/> An extension to the western suburb of [[Hammersmith]] was built and opened in 1868.<ref>{{cite book| title=The London Compendium|first=Ed|last=Glinert| year=2012| page=473|edition=Revised}}</ref> In 1884 the Metropolitan was linked with the [[District line|Metropolitan District Line]] at [[Aldgate]] to form an inner circle encompassing Central London (the modern [[Circle line (London Underground)|Circle Line]]), with a short stretch running from Aldgate to Whitechapel.<ref name="railway">{{cite book| title=London's Metropolitan Railway| first=Alan| last=Jackson| year=1986| pages=80–81}}</ref> In 1880 an extension line to the north-west was opened from [[Baker Street tube station]] to the village of [[Harrow, London|Harrow]], via [[Swiss Cottage]] and [[St. John's Wood]], expanding further over the coming decades and allowing prosperous suburbs to be developed around formerly rural villages.<ref name="railway" />
A succession of private enterprises were formed to build new routes after the success of the Metropolitan, the first being the Metropolitan District Line, opened in 1865. This line extended along the Thames from Westminster to [[South Kensington]] at first, but by 1889 it had been extended eastwards to [[Blackfriars, London|Blackfriars]], and south-west all the way to [[Wimbledon, London|Wimbledon]].<ref>{{cite book| title=The London Compendium|first=Ed|last=Glinert| year=2012| page=236|edition=Revised}}</ref>
The next line to be built, and the first true "tube", dug with a [[tunnelling shield]] designed by [[James Henry Greathead|J. H. Greathead]] rather than by cut-and-cover excavation, was the [[City and South London Railway]] (later the city branch of the Northern line), opened in 1890.<ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="Ackroyd"/> It was London's first underground line with electric locomotives, and the first to extend south of the river. Electrification allowed the tunnels to be dug deep below ground level, as ventilation for smoke and steam was no longer necessary.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/culture-and-heritage/londons-transport-a-history/london-underground?intcmp=2777#on-this-page-0| title=London Underground| publisher=tfl.gov.uk| access-date=2 October 2020}}</ref> In the year 1894, an estimated 228,605,000 passengers used the three underground railways then in operation, compared to 11,720,000 passengers in 1864 using the lone Metropolitan Railway.<ref>{{cite book| url=https://archive.org/details/cityandsouthlon00greagoog| title=The City and South London Railway, with Some Remarks Upon Subaqueous Tunneling By Shield and Compressed Air| publisher=Institution of Civil Engineers| year=1896| page=[https://archive.org/details/cityandsouthlon00greagoog/page/n9 7]}}</ref> Before the century came to a close, a second deep-level tube was opened in 1898: the [[Waterloo & City Line]]. The shortest of the London tube lines, it was built to convey commuters between the City of London and [[Waterloo station]].<ref>{{cite web| url=https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/culture-and-heritage/londons-transport-a-history/london-underground?intcmp=2777#on-this-page-0| title=London's Underground: The Story of the Tube| publisher=tfl.gov.uk| access-date=13 October 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/london/articles/London-Underground-Tube-line-trivia/| title=London Underground: Tube line trivia| first=Mark| last=Mason| work=The Daily Telegraph|location=London| date=16 August 2012| access-date=13 October 2020}}</ref>
== Infrastructure == === Roads === Many new roads were built after the formation of the [[Metropolitan Board of Works#Streets and bridges|Metropolitan Board of Works]] in 1855. They included the [[Thames Embankment|Embankment]] from 1864,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol3/pp322-329|title=The Victoria Embankment {{!}} British History Online|website=british-history.ac.uk|access-date=21 April 2017}}</ref> [[Northumberland Avenue]],<ref>{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xa0D0PqiwfEC&pg=PA687| title=The London Encyclopaedia |edition=3rd |first1=Christopher |last1=Hibbert |first2=Ben |last2=Weinreb |author3=John & Julia Keay | page=593| year=2011| publisher=Pan Macmillan | isbn=9780230738782}}</ref> [[Clerkenwell Road|Clerkenwell]] and [[Theobald's Road|Theobalds Road]]s all from 1874.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol46/pp385-406|title=Clerkenwell Road {{!}} British History Online|website=british-history.ac.uk|access-date=21 April 2017}}</ref> The MBW was authorized to create [[Charing Cross Road]] and [[Shaftesbury Avenue]] in the [[Metropolitan Streets Improvement Act 1877]] ([[40 & 41 Vict.]] c. ccxxxv), the intention being to improve communication between Charing Cross, [[Piccadilly Circus]], [[Oxford Street]], and [[Tottenham Court Road]].<ref name="Shaftesbury">{{Cite web|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vols33-4/pp296-312|title=Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road {{!}} British History Online|website=british-history.ac.uk|access-date=21 April 2017}}</ref> This required extensive demolition in the slums of [[Soho]] and [[St. Giles, London|St. Giles]], with the MBW responsible for rehousing over 3,000 labourers in new-built tenements over the ten-year period it took to construct the roads.<ref name="Shaftesbury"/>
[[File:Quadrant, Regent Street engraved by J.Woods after J.Salmon publ 1837 edited.jpg|thumb|Regent Street Quadrant from Piccadilly Circus, 1837]]
One of the most ambitious urban redesign initiatives was the building of [[Regent Street]] at the behest of the [[George IV|Prince Regent]], who wished to build a grand boulevard linking his [[Carlton House]] in the south with [[Regent's Park]] in the north (which had reverted to Crown ownership in 1811).<ref name="Hibbert"/> The new road had several benefits: it cleared a warren of narrow streets in Westminster in favour of a symmetrical, aesthetically pleasing street which not only relieved traffic congestion but, by providing a direct north–south route, allowed the rural area around Regent's Park to be profitably developed for residential use. Regent Street was also meant to provide a clear separation between the fashionable new development of [[Mayfair, London|Mayfair]] to the west, and the by then undesirable area of [[Soho]] to the east.<ref name="Hibbert">{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xa0D0PqiwfEC&pg=PA687| title=The London Encyclopaedia |edition=3rd |first1=Christopher |last1=Hibbert |first2=Ben |last2=Weinreb |author3=John & Julia Keay| pages=685–6| year=2011| publisher=Pan Macmillan | isbn=9780230738782}}</ref> The plans, designed by [[John Nash (architect)|John Nash]], were approved by the [[New Street Act 1813]] ([[53 Geo. 3]]. c. 121), and by 1819 Nash's grand colonnaded, stucco-covered buildings were largely open for business. The street stretches from [[Pall Mall, London|Pall Mall]] at its southern end (built closer to the [[Haymarket, London|Haymarket]] to avoid [[St. James's Square]]), and crosses [[Piccadilly]] (thus creating [[Piccadilly Circus]]), from where it curves west via the Quadrant and then runs due north, joining with [[Langham Place, London|Langham Place]] and [[Portland Place]] to create the link to Regent's Park.<ref>{{cite book| title=The London Compendium| first=Ed| last=Glinert| year=2012|pages=133–134}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vols31-2/pt2/pp85-100| title=The rebuilding of Piccadilly and the Regent Street Quadrant| author=Survey of London| publisher=British-history.ac.uk| year=1963}}</ref> The area achieved its intended purpose as a thriving commercial district, lined with shops of every variety to rival the quality of nearby [[St. James's]].<ref name="Hibbert"/>
1890 London had 5,728 street accidents, resulting in 144 deaths.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WT18911128.2.11 |title=Waikato Times, 1891-11-28|website=paperspast.natlib.govt.nz National Library of New Zealand|access-date=21 April 2017}}</ref> London was the site of the world's first [[traffic light]]s, installed at the crossroads of Bridge, Great George, and Parliament Streets outside the [[Houses of Parliament]]. The 20 ft (6-metre) high column was topped by a large gas lamp, and opened in December 1868.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.itv.com/news/london/2018-12-10/150-years-since-the-worlds-first-traffic-light-in-london/| title=150 years since the world's first traffic light in London| publisher=itv.com| date=10 December 2018| access-date=25 December 2018}}</ref> It was designed by the railway engineer [[J. P. Knight]] after a railway [[Railway semaphore signal|semaphore]] signal, with multi-coloured arms coming down to regulate traffic.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Victorian London – Lighting – Traffic Lights – introduction of| author=The Express| date=9 December 1868| access-date=18 December 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last = Pollard |first = Justin |title = The Eccentric Engineer: The History of Traffic Lights Is Full of Twists and Turns |year = 2008 |journal = Engineering and Technology |volume = 3 |issue = 15 |page = 93 |doi = 10.1049/et:20081518 }}</ref>
===Engineering=== 19th century London was the site of unprecedented engineering marvels. One of these was the [[Thames Tunnel]], declared the "Eighth Wonder of the World" when it opened in 1843.<ref name="brunel"/> Designed by [[Marc Isambard Brunel]], it was the first tunnel in the world to be successfully built under a navigable river and took 18 grueling years to complete. Laborers employed to dig the tunnel, with the protection of Brunel's [[tunneling shield]], endured five serious floods and multiple gas and sewage leaks, which caused numerous casualties and long delays.<ref>{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| page=554}}</ref> Although it was intended as an underground artery for the movement of goods between [[Rotherhithe]] and [[Wapping]], it opened as a pedestrian tunnel during its early decades (there were 1 million visitors to the tunnel in its first 3 months of opening). Only in 1865 was it purchased by the [[East London Railway]] and converted for railway use.<ref name="brunel">{{cite web| url=https://www.brunel-museum.org.uk/history/the-thames-tunnel/| title=The Thames Tunnel| publisher=brunel-museum.org.uk| access-date=5 March 2019| archive-date=25 February 2019| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190225044839/https://www.brunel-museum.org.uk/history/the-thames-tunnel/| url-status=dead}}</ref>
[[File:Thames embankment, London, England-LCCN2002696941.tif|thumb|1890s postcard of the Victoria Embankment]] The [[Thames Embankment]] was one of the most ambitious public works projects in 19th century London. It transformed the appearance of the riverside between [[Chelsea, London|Chelsea]] and [[Blackfriars, London|Blackfriars]]. There were three different sections: the [[Victoria Embankment]], built between 1864 and 1870; the [[Albert Embankment]] (1866–70); and the [[Chelsea Embankment]] (1871–74).<ref>{{cite book| title=The London Compendium|first=Ed|last=Glinert| year=2012| page=256,259,271|edition=Revised}}</ref> The embankments protected low-lying areas along the Thames from flooding, provided a more attractive prospect of the river compared to the [[mudflats]] and boatyards which abounded previously, and created prime reclaimed land for development.<ref>{{cite book| url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol23/pp148-149| title=Survey of London Vol. 23, Lambeth: South Bank and Vauxhall| author=London County Council| publisher=british-history.ac.uk| year=1951| access-date=4 December 2018}}</ref>
The Victoria Embankment was the most ambitious: it concealed a massive interceptor sewage tunnel, which channelled waste from a network of smaller tunnels away from the River Thames and out of Central London, towards the [[Northern Outfall Sewer]] at [[Beckton]] in East London. The Victoria Embankment also allowed an extension of the [[District line|Metropolitan District Line]] underground to be built, from Westminster east to Blackfriars. In total, the Victoria Embankment reclaimed over 37 acres (15 hectares) of land from the Thames,<ref name="old_new_london">{{cite book| url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol3/pp322-329| title=Old and New London Vol. 3| first=Walter| last=Thornbury| year=1878| page=Chapter XL, 322–329}}</ref> allowing a broad east–west boulevard to be built and a series of public gardens.<ref>{{cite book| title=The London Compendium|first=Ed|last=Glinert| year=2012| pages=258–259|edition=Revised}}</ref>
All three sections of the Thames Embankment are faced in grey granite, mounted with handsome [[cast iron]] lamps, and lined with [[Platanus × hispanica|London planes]]. In 1878, the lamps of the Victoria Embankment were converted from gas to electric light, making it the first street in Britain to be electrically illuminated.<ref>{{cite book|title=Electricity Supply in the UK: A chronology|year=1987|publisher=[[Electricity Council]] |pages=11–12|url=http://www.etk.ee.kth.se/personal/nt/elecpow/history/electricity_supply_in_the_uk__a_chronology_ocrnopic.pdf}}</ref> [[Walter Thornbury]] praised the new construction in his ''[[Old and New London]]'' of 1878:
{{quote|"not only has the [Victoria] Embankment added a handsome frontage to the side of the Thames, which previously had been a public eyesore, but it has also been the means of getting rid of the unequal deposits of mud in its bed, assisting the removal of the scour of the river, and consequently improving the health of the inhabitants of London."<ref name="old_new_london" />}}
===Bridges=== There was a flurry of bridge-building along the Thames from the City of London westwards during the 19th century, improving overland communication to [[Southwark]].<ref name="Bruce Robinson"/> In 1800 there were only three bridges connecting Westminster and the city to the south bank: [[Westminster Bridge]], [[Blackfriars Bridge]], and the ancient [[London Bridge]]. West of Westminster, the closest bridge was [[Battersea Bridge]], three miles upstream.<ref name="Cookson">{{cite book| title=Crossing the River| last=Cookson |first=Brian | year=2006| page=144}}</ref> The four stone bridges grew progressively more decrepit as traffic increased: Westminster Bridge was badly subsiding by the 1830s,<ref>{{cite news| url=https://thames.me.uk/s00130.htm| title=Westminster Bridge: Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide| publisher=thames.me.uk| access-date=1 January 2019}}</ref> and several piers collapsed in 1846.<ref name="curiosities">{{cite book| title=Curiosities of London| url=https://archive.org/details/curiositiesoflon00timbrich| first=John| last=Timbs| year=1867| page=[https://archive.org/details/curiositiesoflon00timbrich/page/71 71]–72}}</ref> Blackfriars was structurally unsound, requiring substantial repairs between 1833 and 1840.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=693| title=Blackfriars Bridge (1869)| publisher=engineering-timelines.com| access-date=1 January 2019}}</ref><ref name="curiosities" /> Old London Bridge, whose 20 piers dated back to the 13th century, so impeded the flow of the river that it formed dangerous rapids for boats, and its narrow width of 26 ft could not accommodate modern traffic levels. It was the first to be replaced, by a 49-foot (15-metre) wide granite bridge with five supporting arches. "New" London Bridge was built from 1824 to 1831, with the adjacent "Old" London Bridge fully dismantled by 1832.<ref>{{cite book| title=Curiosities of London| url=https://archive.org/details/curiositiesoflon00timbrich| first=John| last=Timbs| year=1867| page=[https://archive.org/details/curiositiesoflon00timbrich/page/68 68]–69}}</ref> New Westminster Bridge, made of cast iron and resting on seven arches, was opened in 1862, replacing its unstable predecessor, and Blackfriars Bridge was demolished and rebuilt in cast iron beginning in 1864.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol22/pp115-121#fnn245| title=Blackfriars Bridge and Blackfriars Road| publisher=London County Council| year=1950| pages=115–121}}</ref>
In addition, several new bridges for road, pedestrian, and railway traffic were built: [[Southwark Bridge]] (1819),<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=65326 |title=Survey of London: volume 22: Bankside |editor1=Sir Howard Roberts |editor2-first=Walter H. |editor2-last=Godfrey |year=1950 |pages=88–90 |access-date=17 December 2018 |archive-date=29 August 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140829143132/http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=65326 |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Waterloo Bridge]] (1817),<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol23/pp23-24| title=Survey of London Vol. 23, Lambeth: South Bank and Vauxhall| publisher=London County Council| year=1951| access-date=17 December 2018}}</ref> [[Hungerford Bridge]] (opened in 1845 as a footbridge, and converted in 1859 into a combination footbridge/railway bridge for [[Charing Cross Station]]),<ref name="Brunel">{{cite web | url = http://www.mybrunel.co.uk/bridges/hungerford.php | title = Hungerford Bridge (1845) | access-date = 17 December 2018 | last = Keeling | first = Gary | work = MyBrunel.co.uk}}</ref> and [[Tower Bridge]] (1894).<ref name="Winchester">{{cite book |editor-last = Winchester |editor-first = Clarence |year = 1938 |chapter = Building the Tower Bridge |chapter-url = http://wondersofworldengineering.com/tower-bridge.html |title = Wonders of World Engineering |pages = 575–580 |place = London |publisher = Amalgamated Press}}</ref> Further upriver, the new bridges included [[Lambeth Bridge]] (1862), which replaced a centuries-old cross-river ferry service,<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol23/pp118-121| title=Lambeth Bridge and its predecessor the Horseferry| work=Survey of London: Vol. 23, Lambeth: South Bank and Vauxhall| publisher=London County Council| year=1951| access-date=17 December 2018}}</ref> [[Vauxhall Bridge]] (opened 1816), [[Chelsea Bridge|Victoria Bridge]]<ref>{{harv|Cookson|2006|p=132}}</ref> (opened in 1858 and later renamed Chelsea Bridge), and [[Wandsworth Bridge]] (1873).
[[File:Tower bridge works 1892.jpg|right|thumb|Tower Bridge under construction, 1892]]
The impetus for this building was London's massive population growth, which put a constant strain on existing communications between the north and south banks. The want of overland bridges was one of the issues cited by the ''[[Illustrated London News]]'' in an editorial of 1854 enumerating the most urgent needs of the city.<ref>{{Cite book| title=Victorian Babylon: People, Streets, and Images in Nineteenth-century London| first=Lynda| last=Nead| year=2000| page=17}}</ref> London Bridge remained the city's busiest artery for the entire century, averaging 22,242 vehicle and 110,525 pedestrian crossings per day in 1882.<ref name="Winchester"/> More than 30 petitions were submitted to various authorities between 1874 and 1885 requesting that the bridge either be widened or rebuilt to relieve congestion. This resulted in the commission of Tower Bridge by the [[Corporation of London (Tower Bridge) Act 1885]] ([[48 & 49 Vict.]] c. cxcv).<ref name="Winchester"/> This was a [[bascule bridge]] designed by [[Sir Horace Jones]], completed in 1895. It was an engineering marvel which solved the conundrum of how to bridge the Thames downriver from London Bridge without inhibiting shipping in the [[Pool of London]]. Using a 200 ft (60-metre) wide central bay, the bascules, or drawbridge, could be raised on either side by massive [[hydraulic accumulators]], allowing clearance for ships up to 140 ft (43 metres) in height.<ref name="Winchester"/><ref name="pictorial" /> It rests on two piers sunk deep into the river bed, constituting some 70,000 tons of concrete and stone, while the towers and bridge itself are framed in 11,000 tons of steel clad in [[Cornish granite]] and [[Portland stone]].<ref>{{cite book| title=Cross-River Traffic: A History of London's Bridges| first=Chris| last=Roberts| year=2005}}</ref><ref name="Winchester"/>
===Lighting=== [[File:A Peep at the Gas Lights in Pall Mall.png|thumb|A caricature of the first gas street lights along Pall Mall in 1809]] [[File:Jablochkoff Candles on the Victoria Embankment, December 1878.jpg|thumb|Electric light provided by [[Yablochkov candle]]s, on the Victoria Embankment in December 1878]]
The development of [[gas lighting]] at the beginning of the 19th century provided London with comprehensive street illumination for the first time in its history.<ref name="Weinreb, 1983; p. 837">Weinreb, 1983; p. 837</ref> Before this, oil lamps were used along the main thoroughfares, but they were only required to be lit during the darkest time of the year (between [[Michaelmas]] on 29 September and [[Lady Day]] on 25 March), and then only as late as midnight.<ref name="Weinreb, 1983; p. 837"/> The first gaslight in London was installed in the [[Lyceum Theatre, London|Lyceum Theatre]] in 1804, by the German-born entrepreneur F. A. Winsor. "Winsor patent Gas", supplied by Winsor's New Light and Heat Company, would be installed along the north side of [[Pall Mall, London|Pall Mall]] to celebrate [[George III]]'s birthday in 1805.<ref name="Nead, 2005; p. 88">Nead, 2005; p. 88</ref> The [[Gas Light and Coke Company|Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company]] was incorporated by the [[Gas Light and Coke Company Act 1810]] ([[50 Geo. 3]]. c. clxiii) and the first gas works in the UK were established by the company at Peter Street and [[Horseferry Road]] to provide gas to Westminster.<ref name="NA"/> In 1813, Westminster Bridge was lit by gaslight, and the London theatres installed gas between 1817 and 1818.<ref name="Timbs"/> Gaslight was quickly adopted for shop window displays because it enabled owners to better display their wares, but it was slower to be adopted in private homes, not gaining ground until the 1840s.<ref name="Nead, 2005; p. 88"/> Gas light made streets safer, allowed shops to stay open well after dark, and even improved literacy because of the brighter interiors gas facilitated.<ref name="Weinreb, 1983; p. 838">Weinreb, 1983; p. 838</ref>
By 1823 there were some 40,000 gas street lamps, across 215 miles of streets. By 1880 there were one million gas street lamps in London, and the gas works were consuming 6.5 million tons of coal annually.<ref name="Weinreb, 1983; p. 838"/> The city became noteworthy for the brightness of its streets, shopfronts, and interiors at night compared to other European cities.<ref name="Nead, 2005; p. 88"/><ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Saunterings in and about London| first=Max| last=Schlesinger| year=1853| access-date=2 December 2020}}</ref> The last precinct to resist gas lighting was [[Grosvenor Square]], which did not install it until 1842.<ref name="Timbs">{{cite web| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Curiosities of London: Gas-Lighting| first=John| last=Timbs| year=1879| access-date=2 December 2020}}</ref> There were 12 gas companies in operation in London in the 1840s, with gas works and [[gas holder]]s becoming an increasingly recognizable feature of the city. The largest of the gas works were those of the London Gas Company at [[Vauxhall]], which piped gas as far away as [[Highgate]] and [[Hampstead]], 7 miles from Vauxhall.<ref name="Timbs"/> The [[Metropolitan Gas Act 1860]] granted monopolies to the various companies in allotted districts, intended to end the fierce competition for territory which had prevailed in the 1850s. This had the unintended effect of raising prices, as the companies exploited their newly secure monopolies.<ref name="NA">{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=074-lma4438&cid=0#0|title=Chartered Gas Light and Coke Company|date=1823–1894|work= London Metropolitan Archives |publisher=The National Archives|pages=LMA/4438|access-date=2 December 2020}}</ref> Parliamentary select committees were set up between 1866 and 1868 to look into the matter, which found that gas in London was more expensive and of lower quality than in other English cities. The committees recommended various improvements including price reductions, better regulation, and consolidation. These recommendations were enacted first in the city with the [[City of London Gas Act 1868]], and within a few years the provisions were expanded across most of London. By the end of the 1870s, there were just six gas companies in operation in London, compared to 13 in the 1860s.<ref>Nead, 2005; p. 92</ref>
In the last decades of the 19th century, electric lighting was introduced sporadically, but was slow to supersede gas.<ref name="Weinreb, 1983; p. 838"/> In November and December 1848, two competing inventors (M. Le Mott and William Staite) gave demonstrations of their respective electric lamps to astonished crowds at the [[National Gallery, London|National Gallery]], atop the [[Duke of York Column]], and aboard a train departing from [[London Paddington station|Paddington station]]. It would take another three decades for this novelty to be installed on any permanent basis, delayed by the expense of electricity and the lack of generating facilities.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://londonist.com/2016/01/electric-lighting| title=1848: London's First Electric Light Festival| publisher=londonist.com| date=18 January 2016| access-date=6 December 2020}}</ref> In December 1878, electric [[arc lamp]]s were installed along the [[Victoria Embankment]] as an experiment to gauge the respective brightness of gas vs. electricity, and the latter was judged superior by the Board of Works.<ref>{{Cite news| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Dickens's Dictionary of London| author=Charles Dickens Jr.| year=1879| publisher=victorianlondon.org| access-date=5 December 2020}}</ref> In 1879, [[Siemens]] installed electric light in the [[Royal Albert Hall]] and along [[Waterloo Bridge]], while the first large power station in the metropolis opened at [[Deptford]].<ref name="Weinreb, 1983; p. 838"/> Another major advancement was the construction of the [[Edison Electric Light Station]] at [[Holborn Viaduct]] in 1882, the world's first coal-fueled power station for public use.<ref>{{citation |last=Stacey |first=Kiran |date=16 May 2016 |title=Britain passes historic milestone with first days of coal-free power |url=https://www.ft.com/content/fc2c8d12-191d-11e6-bb7d-ee563a5a1cc1 |newspaper=The Financial Times }}</ref> The station, opened by [[Thomas Edison]]'s [[Edison Electric Light Company]], powered 968 lamps (later expanded to 3,000) stretching from [[Holborn Viaduct]] to [[St. Martin's Le Grand]], using [[Edison light bulb|Edison carbon-filament incandescent light bulbs]].<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.etk.ee.kth.se/personal/nt/elecpow/history/electricity_supply_in_the_uk__a_chronology_ocrnopic.pdf| title=Electricity Supply in the UK: A chronology| publisher=Electricity Council| year=1987| page=24}}</ref><ref name=NS>{{citation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bfVKt7UzjnEC&pg=PA89 |journal=[[New Scientist]] |title=The electricity of Holborn |first=Jack |last=Harris |date=14 January 1982}}</ref>
== Culture == === Museums === [[File:SIMPSON, W. after WALKER, E.publ1852 edited.jpg|thumb|The British Museum façade overlooking [[Great Russell Street]] in 1852]] Several of modern London's major museums were founded or constructed during the 19th century, including the [[British Museum]] (built 1823–1852),<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/ql/queenslondon86.htm| title=The Queen's London : a Pictorial and Descriptive Record of the Streets, Buildings, Parks and Scenery of the Great Metropolis, 1896| publisher=Cassell & Co. Ltd.| year=1896}}</ref> [[The National Gallery]] (built 1832–8),<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/ql/queenslondon7.htm| title=The Queen's London : a Pictorial and Descriptive Record of the Streets, Buildings, Parks and Scenery of the Great Metropolis, 1896| publisher=Cassell & Co. Ltd.| year=1896}}</ref> the [[National Portrait Gallery, London|National Portrait Gallery]] (founded 1856),<ref>{{Cite web| title=National Portrait Gallery: About | publisher=ARTINFO | year=2008 | url=http://www.artinfo.com/galleryguide/18664/5243/about/national-portrait-gallery-london/ | access-date=30 July 2008 | url-status=usurped | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081204010257/http://www.artinfo.com/galleryguide/18664/5243/about/national-portrait-gallery-london/ | archive-date=4 December 2008 }}</ref> and the [[Tate Britain]], which opened in 1897 as the National Gallery of British Art.<ref>[http://www.tate.org.uk/about/who-we-are/history-of-tate#gallery Tate: ''History of Tate – The gallery at Millbank, London'']</ref> The British Museum had been established by the [[British Museum Act 1753]], and housed since that time in the 17th century [[Montagu House, Bloomsbury|Montagu House]] in [[Bloomsbury]]. With the donation of the [[King's Library]] in 1822, which comprised some 120,000 manuscripts, pamphlets, and drawings assembled by the late [[George III]], a major extension of the museum was needed.<ref name="Walford">{{Cite book|url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol4/pp490-519 |section=The British Museum: Part 1 of 2 |title=Old and New London |volume=4 |first=Edward |last=Walford |publisher=Cassell, Petter & Galpin |year=1878 |pages=490–519}}</ref> Montagu House was demolished and the quadrangular current building, with its imposing [[Greek Revival]] façade designed by [[Sir Robert Smirke]], rose gradually through 1857, with the East Wing the first to be completed in 1828. The [[British Museum Reading Room|Round Reading Room]], which was built to occupy the vacant courtyard behind the main building, featured the second largest dome in the world when it was finished (140 feet in diameter).<ref name="Reading Room">{{cite web| url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/the_museums_story/architecture/reading_room.aspx| title=Reading Room| publisher=britishmuseum.org| access-date=21 March 2019}}</ref> By 1878 the Reading Room contained 1.5 million printed volumes across some 25 miles of shelves.<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Dickens's Dictionary of London: The British Museum| author=Charles Dickens Jr.| year=1879| access-date=21 March 2019}}</ref><ref name="Reading Room"/>
The great complex of museums at [[South Kensington]] began with the purchase of a vast tract of land (known as [[Albertopolis]]) at the instigation of the [[Albert, Prince Consort|Prince Consort]] and the [[Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851]].<ref>{{cite book| title=Victoria: A Life| author=A.N. Wilson| year=2014| publisher=Penguin Books| page=163}}</ref> The profits from the Exhibition were put toward the purchase of the land, which was intended to host a complex of cultural, scientific and educational institutions. The first of these was the [[South Kensington Museum]] (now known as the Victoria & Albert Museum), which opened to the public in 1856.<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Dickens's Dictionary of London| author=Charles Dickens Jr.| year=1879}}</ref> The South Kensington Museum at that time inhabited the 'Brompton Boilers' building designed by [[William Cubitt]], and consisted of the collections of manufactures and decorative art from the Crystal Palace Exhibition and the collections from the Museum of Ornamental Art, previously held in [[Marlborough House]].<ref name="Ed Glinert 2012">{{cite book| title=The London Compendium| first=Ed| last=Glinert| year=2012| page=459}}</ref> In 1899 Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone for the current building, designed by [[Sir Aston Webb]], and christened the official change of name to the ''Victoria & Albert'' Museum.<ref>{{cite book| title=The Victoria & Albert Museum: The History of its Building| url=https://archive.org/details/victoriaalbertm00phys| url-access=registration| first=John| last=Physick| year=1982| page=[https://archive.org/details/victoriaalbertm00phys/page/252 252]| publisher=Phaidon, Christie's| isbn=9780714880013}}</ref>
[[File:Old and new London - a narrative of its history, its people, and its places (1873) (14775256661).jpg|thumb|The South Kensington Museum in 1873]] The rest of the land belonging to 'Albertopolis', on the site currently occupied by the [[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History]] and [[Science Museum, London|Science Museums]], was used to host the [[1862 International Exhibition]].<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.architecture.com/LibraryDrawingsAndPhotographs/Albertopolis/TheStoryOf/GreatExhibition/1862InternationalExhibition.aspx| title=Albertopolis: 1862 International Exhibition| publisher=Royal Institute of British Architects| access-date=8 March 2019| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120208014404/http://www.architecture.com/LibraryDrawingsAndPhotographs/Albertopolis/TheStoryOf/GreatExhibition/1862InternationalExhibition.aspx| archive-date=8 February 2012}}</ref> A substantial portion was given over to the headquarters and gardens of the [[Royal Horticultural Society]], which was based on the site of the modern Science Museum between 1861 and 1888.<ref>{{cite news|title=Garden of the Royal Horticultural Society| author=Survey of London Vol. 38| publisher=british-history.ac.uk| pages=124–132| year=1975}}</ref> The exhibition buildings were afterwards repurposed to hold the scientific objects from the South Kensington Museum, a collection which gradually expanded through acquisitions of scientific instruments in 1874, as well as acquisitions of patent models and machinery like the original cotton mills from [[Arkwright Mill, Rochdale|Arkwright Mill]].<ref name="Ed Glinert 2012"/> By 1893 the first director was appointed to oversee these developing science collections, which would become the core of the [[Science Museum, London|Science Museum]] upon its founding as a separate entity in 1909.<ref>{{cite book| title=Survey of London XXXVIII: The Museums Area of South Kensington and Westminster| author=F.H.W. Sheppard| year=1975| page=252}}</ref> In the meantime, the decision was made to relocate the natural history specimen collections of the [[British Museum]] to a separate and dedicated facility, the Natural History Museum, the building of which lasted between 1873 and 1884.<ref name="Ed Glinert 2012"/> Other enterprises were granted parcels of land on the active patronage of the commission, which aimed to fulfill Prince Albert's vision. By the end of the century the museums were complemented by the [[Royal Albert Hall]] (opened in 1871), the [[Royal College of Music]] (opened 1894), and the [[Imperial Institute]] (opened 1893).<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol38/pp49-73#h3-0010| title=The Estate of the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851| author=Survey of London Vol. 38| publisher=british-history.ac.uk| year=1975| access-date=8 March 2019}}</ref>
=== Theatre === [[File:Covent Garden Theatre 1827-28.jpg|thumb|The Covent Garden Theatre in 1827–28, when it was one of only two licensed theatres in London]] In addition to the museums, popular entertainment proliferated throughout the city. At the beginning of the century, there were only three theatres in operation in London: the "winter" theatres of the [[Theatre Royal, Drury Lane]] and the [[Theatre Royal, Covent Garden]], and the "summer" theatre of [[Haymarket Theatre|Haymarket]].<ref name="bl">{{cite news|url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/19th-century-theatre |title=Theatre in the 19th century |first=Jacky |last=Bratton |publisher=British Library |date=15 March 2014 |access-date=8 March 2019}}</ref> The duopoly granting exclusive rights to the "winter theatres", dating back to the 17th century, forbade rival theatres from operating despite the huge growth in London's population and in theatre attendance. A loosening of these restrictions in the early years of the 19th century allowed small theatres to open which could only put on plays interspersed with musical numbers. To skirt the strict regulations, theatres like the [[Old Vic]] were established outside the boundaries of London to produce new plays. In 1843, Parliament repealed the [[Licensing Act 1737]], ending the duopoly of the Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres, while the [[Theatres Act 1843]] allowed straight plays to be produced in all licensed theatres.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/0-9/19th-century-theatre/| title=19th Century Theatre| publisher=vam.ac.uk| access-date=8 March 2019}}</ref> Aided by the promotion of theatre as a respectable medium, and new technologies which made staging plays more sophisticated, 19 theatres were in operation by 1851.<ref name="bl"/> By 1899 there were 61 theatres across London, 38 of which were in the West End.<ref>{{cite book| title=The History of Late-Nineteenth Century Drama| first=Nicoll| last=Allardyce| publisher=Cambridge University Press| year=1949| page=28}}</ref>
The [[music hall]] was a form of live entertainment which developed gradually during the first half of the 19th century. By the 1830s many hybrid pub/performance venues, known as "Free and Easies", existed where customers could enjoy live entertainment from amateur singers. These were disreputable establishments, which led some public houses to offer [[Song and supper room]]s as a respectable middle-class alternative. Song and Supper Rooms of the 1830s and 40s offered patrons, for a surcharge, the opportunity to dine and drink while enjoying live musical acts of a higher caliber than the "Free and Easies".<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.overthefootlights.co.uk/20.pdf| title=Song and Supper Rooms| publisher=overthefootlights.co.uk| page=17}}</ref> The 700-person capacity [[Canterbury Music Hall]], which opened in 1852 in [[Lambeth]], was the first purpose-built music hall, establishing the model with its large auditorium packed with tables for dining, generally offering bawdy musical revues or individual acts. By 1875 there were 375 music halls across the city, with the greatest number concentrated in the East End (around 150 had been established in [[Tower Hamlets]] by midcentury).<ref>{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| url=https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr| url-access=registration| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| year=2000| page=[https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr/page/669 669–670]| publisher=Chatto & Windus| isbn=9781856197168}}</ref> Music halls became an integral part of [[cockney]] popular culture, with performers like [[George Robey]] and [[George Leybourne]] famous for their comic characters and songs. Two of the largest and most famous music halls were in [[Leicester Square]] – the [[Alhambra Theatre|Alhambra]] and the [[Empire Leicester Square|Empire]] – both of which were also notorious for the prostitutes who plied their trade in the galleries.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-story-of-music-halls/| title=The Story of Music Hall| publisher=vam.ac.uk| access-date=18 March 2019}}</ref>
==Government== In 1829, [[Home Secretary]] [[Robert Peel]] established the [[Metropolitan Police]] as a police force covering the entire urban area, with the exception of the [[City of London]], which formed its own police force under a separate jurisdiction in 1839.<ref name="History"/> In 1839, the two small forces which pre-dated the Met – the [[Bow Street Runners]] and the [[Marine Police Force]] – were absorbed into it once and for all.<ref>J. M. Beattie (2012) ''The First English Detectives. The Bow Street Runners and the Policing of London, 1750–1840''. Oxford University Press. p. 257–58 {{ISBN|978-0-19-969516-4}}</ref><ref>Dick Paterson, "[http://www.thamespolicemuseum.org.uk/h_police_3.html Thames Police History – Government Sponsorship]," Thames Police Museum. Retrieved 16 September 2020.</ref> The force gained the nicknames of "bobbies" or "peelers" named after Robert Peel, and initially numbered 1,000 officers. Corruption was rife among this early batch of recruits, so much so that five-sixths of the original force had been dismissed within four years.<ref name="History">{{cite news| url=https://www.history.co.uk/history-of-london/formation-of-the-metropolitan-police| title=Formation of the Metropolitan Police| publisher=history.co.uk| access-date=19 September 2020}}</ref>
London's urban area grew rapidly, spreading into [[Islington]], [[Paddington]], [[Belgravia]], [[Holborn]], [[Finsbury]], [[Shoreditch]], [[Southwark]] and [[Lambeth]]. With London's rapid growth, towards the middle of the century, an urgent need arose to reform London's system of local government.
Outside of the [[City of London]], which resisted any attempts to expand its boundaries to encompass the wider urban area, London had a chaotic local government system consisting of ancient parishes and [[vestry|vestries]], working alongside an array of single-purpose boards and authorities, few of which co-operated with each other. Drainage in the city was handled by seven different [[commissions of sewers]], and in a 100 square yard area of Central London were four different bodies responsible for the pavement and upkeep of the streets.<ref>Nead, 2000; p. 17</ref> In 1855 the [[Metropolitan Board of Works]] (MBW) was created to provide London with adequate infrastructure to cope with its growth. The MBW was London's first metropolitan government body.
[[Image:Crystal Palace.PNG|thumb|250px|[[The Crystal Palace]] in 1851]] The Metropolitan Board of Works was not a directly elected body, which made it unpopular with Londoners. In 1888, it was wound up and replaced with the [[London County Council]] (LCC). This was the first elected London-wide administrative body. The LCC covered the same area as the MBW had done, but this area was designated as the [[County of London]]. In 1900, the county was subdivided into 28 [[Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London|metropolitan borough]]s, which formed a more local tier of administration than the county council.
Parliament also took a more proactive role in public health and healthcare during the latter part of the century. It passed the London-specific [[Metropolitan Poor Act 1867]] ([[30 & 31 Vict.]] c. 6), creating the [[Metropolitan Asylums Board]] and six new Metropolitan Asylum Districts in London.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://navigator.health.org.uk/theme/metropolitan-poor-act| title=The Metropolitan Poor Act 1867| publisher=navigator.health.org.uk| access-date=9 March 2019}}</ref> The act was intended to move the provision of healthcare for the poor away from the workhouse infirmaries, whose conditions attracted much public scorn, and into six new hospitals. Only two of these, in [[Central London]] and the Poplar and Stepney District, were fully realized, with the other four districts using reconstituted facilities from the old infirmaries because of cost overruns.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.workhouses.org.uk/CentralLondonSAD/| title=Central London Sick Asylum District, Middlesex, London| publisher=workhouses.org.uk|access-date=9 March 2019}}</ref>
===Sanitation=== One of the first tasks of the Metropolitan Board of Works was to address London's sanitation problems. [[Sanitary sewer|Sewers]] were far from extensive, and the most common form of human waste disposal was [[cesspools]], some 200,000 by mid-century, which were often open and prone to overflowing.<ref name="dirty_old_london">{{cite news| url=https://www.npr.org/2015/03/12/392332431/dirty-old-london-a-history-of-the-victorians-infamous-filth| title='Dirty Old London': A History of the Victorians' Infamous Filth| first=Lee| last=Jackson| publisher=NPR| date=15 March 2015| access-date=8 December 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| url=https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr| url-access=registration| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| year=2000| page=[https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr/page/338 338]| publisher=Chatto & Windus| isbn=9781856197168}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/history/work/19.html| title=London Labour and the London Poor| first=Henry| last=Mayhew| publisher=victorianweb.com| year=1861| page=8}}</ref> An 1847 ordinance of the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers requiring all waste to be discharged into sewers meant that the Thames, where all the discharge went, became much more polluted. The combination of cesspools and the raw sewage pumped into the city's main source of drinking water led to repeated outbreaks of cholera in 1832, 1849, 1854, and 1866<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.choleraandthethames.co.uk |title=Cholera and the Thames |author=City of Westminster Archives |publisher=City of Westminster Archives |access-date=23 July 2018 }}</ref> and culminated in [[The Great Stink]] of 1858. The 1866 cholera epidemic was the fourth in the city's history, but also the last and the least deadly.<ref>{{cite book | last = Letheby | first = H. | title = Report on the Sanitary Condition of the City of London for the year 1866–1867 | location = London | date = 1867 | page = 18 | url = https://wellcomelibrary.org/moh/report/b20056485 }}</ref><ref>William Luckin, "The final catastrophe—cholera in London, 1866." ''Medical history'' 21#1 (1977): 32–42.</ref> Further epidemics were forestalled by Bazalgette's improved sanitation system.
Following the Great Stink of 1858, Parliament finally gave consent for the MBW to construct a massive system of sewers. The engineer put in charge of building the new system was [[Joseph Bazalgette]]. In one of the largest civil engineering projects of the 19th century, he oversaw construction of over {{convert|1300|mi|km}} of tunnels and pipes under London to take away sewage and provide clean drinking water. When the [[London sewerage system]] was completed, the death toll in London dropped dramatically, and epidemics were curtailed. Bazalgette's system is still in use today.<ref>Bill Luckin, ''Pollution and control: a social history of the Thames in the nineteenth century'' (1986).</ref> [[Image:Westminster.JPG|thumb|250px|The Houses of Parliament from old Westminster Bridge in the early 1890s]]
While the problems of disposal of sewage and human waste were much improved by the late 19th century, there also remained problems of sanitation on the streets of London.<ref>{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| url=https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr| url-access=registration| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| year=2000| page=[https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr/page/335 335–6]| publisher=Chatto & Windus| isbn=9781856197168}}</ref> With some 300,000 horses in use in the city by the 1890s, 1,000 tons of dung were being dropped on London's streets each day.<ref name="dirty_old_london" /> Boys between 12 and 14 were employed to collect horse waste from the streets, which remained the main method until cars gradually replaced horse-drawn vehicles in the 20th century.
The social reformer [[Edwin Chadwick]] condemned the methods of waste removal in British cities, including London, in his 1842 ''Report on The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain''.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/history/chadwick2.html| title=Report...from the Poor Law Commissioners on an Inquiry into the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain| first=Edwin| last=Chadwick| year=1842| pages=369–372}}</ref> In the poorer areas of London, rotting food, excrement and mud accumulated on the streets, where drains were few and far between and there were no supplies of water to flush them clean. Chadwick attributed the spread of disease to this filth, advocating improved water supplies and drains, and criticising the inefficient system of labourers and street sweepers then employed to maintain cleanliness. The result was the passing of the [[Public Health Act 1848]] ([[11 & 12 Vict.]] c. 63), which placed the responsibility for street cleansing, paving, sewers, and water supply on the [[municipal boroughs]] rather than on property owners.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Hayes|first1=Richard W.|title=The Aesthetic Interior as Incubator of Health and Well-Being|journal=Architectural History|volume=60|year=2017|pages=277–301|issn=0066-622X|doi=10.1017/arh.2017.9|doi-access=free}}</ref> The boroughs had the power to create [[board of health|boards of health]], charged with initiating the reforms, and also empowered to intervene and remove a broad range of "nuisances" to public health.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/towncountry/towns/tyne-and-wear-case-study/about-the-group/public-administration/the-1848-public-health-act/| title=The 1848 Public Health Act| publisher=Parliament of the United Kingdom| access-date=29 December 2018}}</ref>
The weakness of the Public Health Act 1848 was that it did not compel the boroughs to act but merely provided the framework for doing so. More comprehensive and forceful legislation was passed by Parliament with the [[Public Health Act 1872]] and [[Public Health Act 1875]]. The last act compelled the boroughs to provide adequate drainage, required all new housing to be built with running water, and required all streets to be equipped with lighting and pavements.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/towncountry/towns/overview/towns/| title=Victorian towns, cities and slums| publisher=Parliament of the United Kingdom| access-date=5 March 2019}}</ref> The boards of health were replaced by urban sanitary authorities overseeing new urban sanitary districts. These authorities were more comprehensive than their predecessors, equipped with teams of medical officers and health inspectors who ensured food safety standards were met and actively prevented outbreaks of disease.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://navigator.health.org.uk/content/public-health-act-1875| title=Public Health Act 1875| publisher=navigator.health.org.uk| access-date=5 March 2019}}</ref>
==Pollution== ===Fog=== [[File:A London Fog, drawn by Duncan - ILN 1847.jpg|thumb|"A London Fog", from ''The Illustrated London News'' (1847)]] Atmospheric pollution caused by burning cheap [[soft coal]] created the city's notorious [[pea soup fog]]. Air pollution from burning wood or coal was nothing new to London – complaints about the city's dirty atmosphere exist as far back as the 13th century<ref>{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| url=https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr| url-access=registration| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| year=2000| page=[https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr/page/426 426]| publisher=Chatto & Windus| isbn=9781856197168}}</ref> – but the population explosion and industrialisation of the 19th century aggravated both the severity of the fogs and their lethal effects on Londoners.<ref>B. Luckin, "Demographic, Social and Cultural Parameters of Environmental Crisis: The Great London Smoke Fogs in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries", in C. Bernhardt and G. Massard-Guilbaud (eds) ''The Modern Demon: Pollution in Urban and Industrial European Societies''. Clermont-Ferrand: Blaise-Pascal University Press, 2002; pp. 219–38</ref>
The fogs were at their worst in the month of November, but occurred frequently throughout the autumn and winter. [[Sulphur dioxide]] and soot emitted from chimneys mixed with the natural vapour of the Thames Valley to form a layer of greasy, acrid mist that shrouded the city up to 240 feet (75 metres) above street level.<ref name="Ackroyd b">{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| url=https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr| url-access=registration| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| year=2000| page=[https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr/page/427 427]| publisher=Chatto & Windus| isbn=9781856197168}}</ref> Its most common colour was a greenish-yellow "pea soup", but it could also be brown, black, orange, or grey.<ref>{{cite book| title=Saunterings in and About London| url=https://archive.org/details/saunteringsinan00wencgoog| first=Max| last=Schlesinger| publisher=Nathaniel Cooke| year=1853|page=Chapter VIII, 83}}</ref> At their worst, the poor visibility caused by London fogs could halt traffic and required the street lamps to be lit all day. Conditions for pedestrians were extremely dangerous: in 1873, nineteen deaths were attributed to accidental drowning from victims who fell into the Thames, canals, or docks during foggy weather.<ref>{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| url=https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr| url-access=registration| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| year=2000| page=[https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr/page/428 428]| publisher=Chatto & Windus| isbn=9781856197168}}</ref> There were also increases in crimes like theft, rape, and assault on London streets because of the cover provided by the fog. [[Charles Dickens Jr.]] described the "London particular" in his ''Dictionary of London'' of 1879: {{blockquote| As the east wind brings up the exhalations of the [[Essex]] and [[Kent]]ish marshes, and as the damp-laden winter air prevents the dispersion of the partly consumed carbon from hundreds of thousands of chimneys, the strangest atmospheric compound known to science fills the valley of the Thames. At such times almost all the senses have their share of trouble. Not only does a strange and worse than [[Cimmerians|Cimmerian]] darkness hide familiar landmarks from the sight, but the taste and sense of smell are offended by an unhallowed compound of flavours, and all things become greasy and clammy to the touch. During the continuance of a real London fog—which may be black, or grey, or more probably orange-coloured—the happiest man is he who can stay at home...Nothing could be more deleterious to the lungs and the air-passages than the wholesale inhalation of the foul air and floating carbon which, combined, form a London fog."<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/dickens/dickens-f.htm| title=Dickens's Dictionary of London| author=Charles Dickens Jr.| year=1879}}</ref>}}
There was wide awareness of the deleterious health effects of extended fogs in London, particularly upon those suffering from [[respiratory illness]]es.<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Curiosities of London| first=John| last=Timbs| publisher=John Camden Hotten| year=1867| page=353}}</ref> Mortality rates could rise well above average at times of severe fog: 700 extra deaths, for example, were attributed to a particularly bad fog in 1873.<ref name="Ackroyd b"/> The recurrent fogs of January and February 1880 were especially bad, killing an estimated 2,000 people and raising the death rate to 48.1 per 1,000 people, compared to the average of 26.3 per thousand in other English cities.<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/weather/londonfogs.htm|title=London Fogs| first=John| last=Russell| year=1880}}</ref>
===Smoke=== Pollution and a smoky atmosphere prevailed at all times of year because of industrial activity and the sheer concentration of domestic fires: an estimated 3.5 million tons of coal were being consumed each year in London by 1854.<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=London Shadows| first=George| last=Godwin| year=1854| page=Chapter IX, 59}}</ref> By 1880 coal consumption stood at 10 million tons per year.<ref name="Russell">{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/weather/londonfogs.htm| title=London Fogs| author=Lord John Russell| year=1880}}</ref> "The Smoke", or "The Big Smoke", a nickname for London which persists into the modern day, originated during the Victorian period among country dwellers visiting the capital.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.timeout.com/london/blog/most-googled-why-is-london-called-the-big-smoke-011317| title=Most Googled: Why is London Called The 'Big Smoke'| first=Matt| last=Breen| work=TimeOut London| date=13 January 2017| access-date=18 December 2018}}</ref> One observer described it in 1850: {{blockquote| "Soon after daybreak, the great factory shafts beside the river begin to discharge immense volumes of smoke; their clouds soon become confluent; the sky is overcast with a dingy veil; the house-chimneys presently add their contributions; and by ten o’clock, as one approaches London from any hill in the suburbs, one may observe the total result of this gigantic nuisance hanging over the City like a pall."<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=City Medical Reports| first=John| last=Simon| year=1850| publisher=victorianlondon.org| access-date=2018-12-05}}</ref>}}
The smoky atmosphere meant that skin and clothing were quickly dirtied just by walking on the street.<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=London Shadows| first=George| last=Godwin| year=1854| page=Chapter IX, 58–59}}</ref> Household upholsteries, artwork, and furniture could become irretrievably dirtied, requiring large contingents of servants in the more prosperous households to maintain cleanliness.<ref name="Russell"/><ref>{{cite news| url=https://yalebooksblog.co.uk/2014/09/17/dirty-old-london-30-days-filth-day-9/| title=Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 9| publisher=yalebooksblog.co.uk| date=17 September 2014| access-date=23 December 2018}}</ref> The preoccupation with the exorbitant laundry bills which resulted from the smoke was a main factor in legislating to control smoke emissions in London through the [[Smoke Nuisance Abatement (Metropolis) Act 1853]]. In the debates surrounding the passage of this act, it was estimated that a working class mechanic in London paid five times the cost of purchasing his shirt to launder it.<ref name="Guardian2"/>
The grass of the [[Royal Parks of London|Royal Parks]] took on a permanent soot colour, as did the sheep that were then allowed to graze in [[Regent's Park]] and [[Hyde Park, London|Hyde Park]].<ref name="Venables"/> It was observed that certain varieties of flower refused to bloom in London or its vicinity, and many trees perished due to pollution.<ref name="Wynter">{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Our Social Bees; or, Pictures of Town & Country Life, and other papers| first=Andrew| last=Wynter| year=1865| page=27}}</ref> One of the trees that was resistant to the smoky environment was the [[Platanus × hispanica|London plane]], which sheds its bark regularly and thus resisted the accumulation of soot which killed other trees.<ref name="Wynter"/> It became the go-to planting along streets and in gardens throughout the 19th century.<ref name="Venables">{{cite news| url=https://londonist.com/2015/03/the-secret-history-of-the-london-plane-tree| title=The Secret History of the London Plane Tree| first=Ben| last=Venables| publisher=londonist.com| date=27 October 2016| access-date=8 December 2018}}</ref> Porous brick and stone were quickly blackened with soot, an effect worsened during bad fogs and damp weather, creating a "uniform dinginess" among London's buildings.<ref name="bio">{{cite book| title=London: The Biography| url=https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr| url-access=registration| first=Peter| last=Ackroyd| year=2000| page=[https://archive.org/details/londonbiography00ackr/page/430 430]–431| publisher=Chatto & Windus| isbn=9781856197168}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| title=London: Portrait of a City| first=Ben| last=Weinreb| publisher=Phaidon| year=1999| page=431}}</ref> The acidic nature of soot deposits caused materials like iron and bronze to oxidise faster, while stone, mortar, and brick deteriorated at a noticeably faster rate.<ref name="Russell"/> In response, [[terra cotta]] and other kiln-fired tiles became popular facings for buildings in the 1880s and 1890s, because they resisted soot and damp and also provided welcome colour to buildings that were otherwise drab.<ref name="bio" /><ref>{{cite book| title=London: Portrait of a City| first=Ben| last=Weinreb| publisher=Phaidon| year=1999| page=119}}</ref>
Concerns over smoke pollution gave rise to private smoke abatement societies in London and throughout Britain, which championed different measures for controlling smoke pollution. One of these measures was smoke-prevention technology – an exhibition of such devices was staged in London over an 11-week period by the Smoke Abatement Committee in 1881. The exhibition attracted 116,000 attendants and displayed all manner of smokeless furnaces, stoves, grates, and alternative industrial equipment.<ref name="Guardian2">{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2016/dec/09/pollution-air-london-smogs-fogs-pea-soupers| title=Over 200 years of deadly London air: smogs, fogs, and pea soupers| first=Vanessa| last=Heggie| work=The Guardian| date=9 December 2016| access-date=30 August 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news| url=https://www.historytoday.com/archive/smoke-abatement-exhibition-1881| title=The Smoke Abatement Exhibition of 1881| first=John| last=Ranlett| publisher=History Today Vol. 31, Issue 11| date=11 November 1981| access-date=30 August 2020}}</ref> While the passage of the Smoke Nuisance Abatement (Metropolis) Act 1853 placed restrictions on industrial smoke emissions, an attempt in 1884 to legislate against domestic smoke pollution failed, leaving a significant contributor to the problem unregulated.<ref name="Guardian2"/>
==Famous buildings and landmarks== [[File:Trafalgar Square by James Pollard.jpg|thumb|250px|A painting by [[James Pollard]] showing the [[Trafalgar Square]] before the erection of Nelson's Column]] Many famous buildings and landmarks of London were constructed during the 19th century, including: *[[Buckingham Palace]] *[[Trafalgar Square]] *[[Nelson's Column]] *[[Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster|Big Ben]] and the [[Palace of Westminster|Houses of Parliament]] *[[Royal Albert Hall]] *[[Albert Memorial]] *[[Tower Bridge]] *[[Wellington Arch]]<ref name="Cunningham">{{cite book| url=http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm| title=Hand-Book of London: HYDE PARK CORNER| first=Peter| last=Cunningham| year=1850| access-date=18 October 2020}}</ref> *[[Marble Arch]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=1492760&sort=4&search=all&criteria=Gate%20Burton&rational=q&recordsperpage=10 |title= Pastscape-Detailed Result|publisher=English Heritage |access-date=18 October 2020}}</ref> *[[British Museum]] *[[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History Museum]] *[[National Gallery]] *[[Victoria and Albert Museum]] *[[Colonial Office]]
==See also== {{div col|colwidth=25em}} * [[History of Egypt under the British]] * [[Anglo-Egyptian Sudan]] * [[British West Africa]] * [[Basutoland]] * [[Bechuanaland Protectorate]] * [[Colony of New South Wales]] * [[Colony of Tasmania]] * [[British Ceylon]] * [[British Guiana]] * [[British Honduras]] * [[British Cyprus]] * [[British Hong Kong]] * [[British Malaya]] * [[British Mauritius]] * [[Crown Colony of Malta]] * [[British Raj]] * [[British Somaliland]] * [[British Western Pacific Territories]] * [[British Windward Islands]] * [[Cape Colony]] * [[Chartism]] * [[Afro-Barbadians]] * [[British West Indies]] * [[Colony of Jamaica]] * [[Colony of Natal]] * [[East Africa Protectorate]] * [[Gambia Colony and Protectorate]] * [[Gold Coast (British colony)]] * [[Griqualand West]] * [[Magdalen College]] * [[Newfoundland Colony]] * [[British rule in Burma]] * [[North Borneo]] * [[Northern Nigeria Protectorate]] * [[John A. Macdonald]] * [[Post-Confederation Canada (1867–1914)]] * [[Oxford University]] * [[Colony of New Zealand]] * [[Presidencies and provinces of British India]] * [[Prior Park College]] * [[Protectorate of Uganda]] * [[Queen Victoria]] * [[John Elias]] * [[Duleep Singh]] * [[Raj of Sarawak]] * [[Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla]] * [[Sierra Leone Colony and Protectorate]] * [[Southern Nigeria Protectorate]] * [[Straits Settlements]] * [[Sheikhdom of Kuwait]] * [[Trucial States]] * [[Bahrain and its Dependencies|History of Bahrain (1783–1971)]] * [[Muscat and Oman]] * [[Aden Protectorate]] * [[Timeline of London (1800s)]] * [[Charles Spurgeon]] * [[Annie Besant]] * [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland]] * [[History of Ireland (1801–1923)]] * [[Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury]] * [[Victorian era]] * [[John Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence]] * [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson]] * [[British African-Caribbean people]] * [[British Indo-Caribbean people]] * [[Turks and Caicos Islands]] * [[Henry Parkes]] * [[Gordon Sprigg]] * [[Alfred Russel Wallace]] * [[Company rule in Rhodesia]] * [[Colony of Fiji]] * [[Gilbert and Ellice Islands]] * [[Territory of Papua]] * [[Anglo-French Joint Naval Commission]] * [[British Solomon Islands]] * [[Kingdom of Tonga (1900–70)]] * [[Henry Morton Stanley]] * [[Lord Randolph Churchill]] * [[Stonyhurst College]] * [[Stonyhurst Saint Mary's Hall]] * [[University College, Oxford]] * [[Bahadur Shah Zafar]] * [[Edward VII]] * [[Edwardian era]] * [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] * [[Charles Dickens]] * [[Charles Darwin]] * [[Mark Twain]] * [[United Kingdom–United States relations]] * [[Americans in the United Kingdom]] * [[Jack the Ripper]] * [[Sherlock Holmes]] {{div col end}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * Ackroyd, Peter. ''[[London: The Biography]]'' (Anchor Books, 2000). * {{Citation |publisher = University of Oklahoma Press |location = USA |first = Aldon D. |last = Bell |title = London in the Age of Dickens |date = 1967 |ol= 5563552M |series=Centers of Civilization Series }} * Glinert, Ed. ''The London Compendium: Revised Ed.'' (Penguin, 2012). * Inwood, Stephen, and Roy Porter. ''A History of London'' (1998) {{ISBN|0-333-67153-8}} Scholarly survey. * Jackson, Lee. ''Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth'' (Yale University Press, 2014). * Jackson, Lee. ''Palaces of Pleasure: From Music Halls to the Seaside to Football, How the Victorians Invented Mass Entertainment'' (Yale University Press, 2019). * Kellett, John R. ''The impact of railways on Victorian cities'' (Routledge, 2012). * Milne-Smith, Amy. ''London clubland: A cultural history of gender and class in late Victorian Britain'' (Springer, 2011). * [[Lynda Nead|Nead, Lynda]]. ''Victorian Babylon: People, Streets, and Images in Nineteenth-century London'' (Yale University Press, 2000). * Olsen, Donald J. ''The Growth of Victorian London'' (Batsford, 1976). * Owen, David. ''The government of Victorian London, 1855–1889 : the Metropolitan Board of Works, the vestries, and the City Corporation'' (1982) [https://archive.org/details/governmentofvict00owen online free to borrow] * Richardson, John. ''The annals of London : a year-by-year record of a thousand years of history'' ( U of California Press, 2000) [https://archive.org/details/annalsoflondonye00rich online free to borrow] * [[Gareth Stedman Jones|Stedman Jones, Gareth]]. ''Outcast London: a study in the relationship between classes in Victorian society'' (Verso Books, 2014). * Walkowitz, Judith R. ''City of dreadful delight: narratives of sexual danger in late-Victorian London'' (U of Chicago Press, 2013). [https://archive.org/details/cityofdreadfulde00judi online free to borrow] *{{cite encyclopedia|last1=Weinreb|first1=Ben|last2=Hibbert|first2=Christopher|last3=Keay|first3=Julia|last4=Keay|first4=John|author-link1 = Ben Weinreb|author-link2 =Christopher Hibbert|authorlink4= John Keay|author-link3 = Julia Keay|title=The London Encyclopedia|publisher=Pan Macmillan|year=2010|isbn=978-1-4050-4924-5|title-link=The London Encyclopedia}} *Wells, Matthew. ''Modelling the Metropolis: The Architectural Model in Victorian London'' (Zurich: gta Verlag, 2023). [https://verlag.gta.arch.ethz.ch/en/gta:book_54f20344-4f60-49ba-bbd7-856f8aa2af4b;online online access here] * Wohl, Anthony. ''The eternal slum: housing and social policy in Victorian London'' (Routledge, 2017).
=== Published in the 1800s–1810s === * {{cite book |title=Picture of London, for 1803 |publisher=Richard Phillips |first=John|last=Feltham|location=London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EZ4VAAAAYAAJ|year=1802 |author-link=John Feltham }} * {{cite book |title=View of London, or, the Stranger's Guide through the British Metropolis |publisher= B. Crosby & Co. |year=1804 |location=London |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=l8UHAAAAQAAJ }} * {{cite book|first=David|last=Hughson|title=London; Being an Accurate History and Description of the British Metropolis and Its Neighbourhood |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_A2yE2jpJuawC|year=1805|publisher=W. Stratford}} * {{cite book |title=Post-Office Annual Directory ... London |year=1807 |url=http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000065127 }} * {{cite book |title=Picture of London, for 1807 |publisher=Richard Phillips |edition=8th |location=London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j9MHAAAAQAAJ |year=1807 }} * {{Citation |date = 1808 |title = Microcosm of London |first= Rudolph |last= Ackermann |others=Illustrated by [[Augustus Charles Pugin]] and [[Thomas Rowlandson]] |author-link = Rudolph Ackermann }}. 1904 reprint + [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Microcosm_of_London Illustrations] * {{Citation |location = London |series = [[Beauties of England and Wales]] |date = 1810–1816 |volume=10 |number=1–4 |url=http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000194921 |title=London and Middlesex }} * {{Citation |publisher = Sold by G. and W. Nicol |location = London |title = Lockie's Topography of London |first = John |last = Lockie |date = 1810 |oclc = 10590310 |ol = 14020821M }} * {{cite book |title=Post-Office Annual Directory for 1814 ... Merchants, Traders, &c. of London |author=Critchett & Woods |location=London |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=L9Q9AAAAcAAJ|year=1814 }} * {{Citation |publisher = Sherwood, Neely, and Jones |location = London |title = London: being a complete guide to the British capital |first = John |last = Wallis |edition=4th |date = 1814 |oclc = 35294736 |ol = 6331239M }} + [https://archive.org/stream/londonbeingacom00wallgoog#page/n564/mode/2up index] * {{cite book |title=London and Middlesex: v.3, part 2 ... History and Description of the City and Liberty of Westminster |first=Joseph |last=Nightingale |location=London |year=1815 |publisher=J. Harris |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YZBCAAAAYAAJ |series=Beauties of England and Wales, v.10 |author-link=Joseph Nightingale }} + [https://books.google.com/books?id=YZBCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA761 bibliography] * {{cite book |title=Walks Through London |publisher=Sherwood, Neely, and Jones ... [and 13 others] |year=1817 |first=David |last=Hughson |url=https://archive.org/details/walksthroughlon00reidgoog }} * {{Citation |publisher = Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown |date = 1819 |location = London |title = The Cyclopaedia |first= Abraham |last= Rees |chapter=London |chapter-url= https://archive.org/stream/cyclopaediaoruni21rees#page/292/mode/1up |title-link = Rees's Cyclopædia }}
=== Published in the 1820s–1830s === * {{cite book |title=Post-Office London Directory |year=1820 |author=Critchett & Woods |location=London |url=http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000065127 }} * {{cite book |title=Kent's Original London Directory: 1823 |publisher=Henry Kent Causton |location=London |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=RTIQAAAAYAAJ |year=1823 }} * {{cite book|first=Thomas |last=Allen |title=History and Antiquities of London, Westminster, Southwark, and Parts Adjacent|url=https://archive.org/stream/historyantiquiti01alle#page/n5/mode/2up |year=1827–1828 |location=London |publisher=Cowie & Strange |author-link=Thomas Allen (topographer)}} + [https://archive.org/stream/historyantiquiti04alle#page/n5/mode/2up v.4] ** [http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009733264 1839 ed.] * {{Citation |publisher = [[Samuel Leigh (bookseller)|Samuel Leigh]] |location=London |title = Leigh's New Picture of London |date = 1830 |ol=20552280M }} * {{Citation |publisher = G. F. Cruchley |location = London |title = Cruchley's Picture of London |date = 1831 |ol = 25119228M }} * {{Citation |publisher = Jones & Co. |location = London |title = London and its Environs in the Nineteenth Century |first = Thomas H. |last = Shepherd |date = 1831 |oclc = 10348078 |author-link = Thomas H. Shepherd |ol = 22094683M }} * {{cite book |title=Stranger's London Guide |first=Francis |last=Coghlan |publisher=Thomas Geeves |year=c. 1830s |edition=2nd |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_SpoHAAAAQAAJ |author-link=Coghlan's Guides }} * {{cite book|first=James |last=Elmes |title=Topographical Dictionary of London and Its Environs |url=https://archive.org/details/atopographicald00elmegoog|year=1831|publisher=Whittaker, Treacher and Arnot |location=London |author-link=James Elmes }} * {{cite book |title=Kidd's New Guide to the 'Lions' of London; or, the Stranger's Directory |publisher= William Kidd |year=1832 |location=London |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=uLBbAAAAQAAJ }} * {{Citation |publisher = H. Hooper |location = London |first = Abraham |last = Booth |title = Stranger's Intellectual Guide to London for 1839–40 |date = 1839 |ol = 14043768M }} * {{cite book |title=Penny Cyclopaedia |chapter=London |publisher=Charles Knight |year=1839 |location=London |volume=14 |pages= 109–129 |hdl=2027/ucm.5319406728 |title-link=Penny Cyclopaedia }}
=== Published in the 1840s–1850s === * {{Citation |publisher = C. Knight & Co. |location = London |title = London |url = https://archive.org/stream/londonkn01kniguoft#page/n5/mode/2up |editor-first = Charles |editor-last = Knight |editor-link=Charles Knight (publisher) |date = 1841–1844 }} + v.2, v.4, v.5, [https://archive.org/stream/londonkn06kniguoft#page/n5/mode/2up v.6] * {{Citation |publisher = Robson |location = London |title = Robson's London Directory ... for 1842 |edition=23rd |date = 1842 |ol = 14039896M }} * {{cite book |title=Post Office London Directory, 1843 |publisher=W. Kelly & Co. |location=London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lw87AQAAMAAJ |year=1843 }} * {{Citation |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=gRUHAAAAQAAJ |location = London |publisher = [[Edward Mogg]] |title = Mogg's New Picture of London |date = 1848 |edition=11th }} *A Christmas Carol, London: Charles Dickens, 1843 * {{Citation |publisher = John Hogben |location = London |title = Hogben's Strangers' Guide to London |date = 1850 |ol = 25119236M }} * {{cite book|title=The British Metropolis in 1851: A Classified Guide to London |url=https://archive.org/details/britishmetropol00unkngoog|year=1851|publisher=Arthur Hall, Virtue & Co.}} * {{cite book |title=London Labour and the London Poor |year=1851 |first=Henry |last=Mayhew |title-link=London Labour and the London Poor |author-link=Henry Mayhew }} * {{Citation |publisher = J. Tallis and Company |location = London and New York |title = Tallis's Illustrated London |first = William |last = Gaspey |date = 1851 |oclc = 1350917 |ol = 13502453M }} * {{cite book |title=Post Office London Directory |year= 1852 |url=http://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/cdm/ref/collection/p16445coll4/id/167103 |via=University of Leicester, Library }} * {{Citation |publisher = Henry G. Bohn |location = London |title = Pictorial Handbook of London |date = 1854 |ol = 13508474M }} * {{cite book |title=Principal Streets and Places in London and its Environs |year=1856 |first=Post |last=Office |location=London |hdl=2027/wu.89105936777 }} * {{Citation |publisher = John Murray |location = London |title = London in 1857 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=EANXAAAAcAAJ |first = Peter |last = Cunningham |date = 1857 |author-link = Peter Cunningham (writer, born 1816) }}
=== Published in the 1860s–1870s === * {{Citation |publisher = J. C. Hotten |location = London |author = John Camden Hotten |author-link=John Camden Hotten |title = A dictionary of modern slang, cant, and vulgar words, used at the present day in the streets of London |edition=2nd |date = 1860 |ol = 7187435M }} * {{Citation |publisher = A. & C. Black |location = Edinburgh |title = London and its Environs |date = 1862 |oclc = 1995082 |ol = 23316055M }} + [https://archive.org/stream/londonitsenviron00adam#page/380/mode/2up index] * {{citation |title=Bradshaw's Monthly Alphabetical Hand-book through London and its Environs |url =https://books.google.com/books?id=mvkHAAAAQAAJ |year= 1862 |location=London |publisher=W.J. Adams }} * {{Citation |publisher = John Murray |location = London |title = London as it is |first = Peter |last = Cunningham |date = 1863 |oclc = 9520918 |author-link = Peter Cunningham (writer, born 1816) |ol = 13504180M }} ** [https://books.google.com/books?id=ugEWAAAAYAAJ 1879 ed.] * {{Citation |publisher = J. C. Hotten |location = London |title = Curiosities of London |edition=2nd |first = John |last = Timbs |author-link=John Timbs |date = 1867 |oclc = 12878129 |ol = 7243426M }} + [https://archive.org/stream/curiositiesoflon00timbrich#page/842/mode/1up Index] * {{Citation |publisher = William Collins, Sons, & Co. |title = Collins' Illustrated Guide to London & Neighbourhood |date = 1873 |oclc = 65849744 |ol = 23429008M }} * {{cite book|last1=Kay-Shuttleworth |first1=U. J.|author-link1=Ughtred James Kay-Shuttleworth |last2=Waterlow|first2=Sir Sydney|author-link2=Sydney Hedley Waterlow|title=Dwellings of working-people in London|year=1874|publisher=Ridgway|location=London|title-link=s:Dwellings of working-people in London}} * {{Citation |publisher = John Murray |location = London |title = Handbook to the Environs of London |first = James |last = Thorne |date = 1876 |url=http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000153233 }}
=== Published in the 1880s–1890s === * {{Citation |publisher = David Bogue |location = London |first = Herbert |last = Fry |title = London in 1880 |date = 1880 |ol = 24360165M }} * {{Citation |publisher = W. Satchell |location = London |title = Book of British Topography: a Classified Catalogue of the Topographical Works in the Library of the British Museum Relating to Great Britain and Ireland |author = John Parker Anderson |date = 1881 |chapter=London |chapter-url= https://archive.org/stream/bookofbritishtop00andeuoft#page/178/mode/1up |pages=178–213 }} * {{Citation |publisher = [[Stanford's Guides|Edward Stanford]] |location = London |author = W. J. Loftie |title = Tourist's Guide through London |publication-date = 1881 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4K4HAAAAQAAJ |year = 1881 |author-link = W. J. Loftie }} * {{Citation |publisher = Macmillan & Co. |location = London |author = Charles Dickens Jr. |author-link = Charles Dickens, Jr. |title = Dickens's Dictionary of London |date = 1882 |ol = 25119229M }} ** [https://books.google.com/books?id=sTMWAAAAYAAJ 1879 ed.] * {{cite book |title=Charles A. Gillig's New Guide to London |year=1885 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QJsHAAAAQAAJ |last1=Gillig |first1=Charles Alvin }} * {{Citation |edition=6th |date = 1887 |publisher = Karl Baedeker |location = Leipsic |title = London and Its Environs |ol = 20608555M}} * {{Citation |publisher = Cassell |location = London |first =Walter |last =Thornbury |title = Old and New London |date = 1887 |edition=2nd |ol = 7149495M }} + (1878 ed.) * {{cite book|last=London Congregational Union|title=The bitter cry of outcast London|year=1883|publisher=James Clarke & Co.|location=London|title-link=s:The bitter cry of outcast London}} * {{Citation |publisher = Longmans, Green, and Co. |location = London |author = W. J. Loftie |title = London |date = 1889 |edition=2nd |series=Historic Towns |author-link = W. J. Loftie |ol = 24391875M }}
==External links== {{commons category}} * [http://www.victorians.co.uk/victorian-london Victorian London] * [http://historicaleye.com/1896%20London%20then%20and%20now/index.html Circa 1896] Late 19th century London then and now * [http://www.historicaleye.com/Lost1.html The Twilight City] An exploration of vagrancy and streetwalkers in late Victorian London * [https://www.victorianlondon.org Dictionary of Victorian London] A resource for anyone interested in life in Victorian London.
{{London history}} {{London year nav}} {{Victorian era}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:19th century London}} [[Category:19th century in London| ]] [[Category:19th century-related lists]]