London: The Biography

695 Pages·2016·4.98 MB·English

by  Ackroyd Peter

Peter Ackroyd
Chronology
Acknowledgements
The City as Body
From Prehistory to 1066
CHAPTER 1. The Sea!
CHAPTER 2. The Stones
CHAPTER 3. Holy! Holy! Holy!
The Early Middle Ages
CHAPTER 4. You Be All Law Worthy
London Contrasts
CHAPTER 5. Loud and Everlasting
CHAPTER 6. Silence Is Golden
The Late Medieval City
CHAPTER 7. This Companye
Onward and Upward
CHAPTER 8. Rather Dark and Narrow
CHAPTER 9. Packed to Blackness
CHAPTER 10. Maps and Antiquarians
Trading Streets and Trading Parishes
CHAPTER 11. Where Is the Cheese of Thames Street?
A London Neighbourhood
CHAPTER 12. The Crossroads
London as Theatre
CHAPTER 13. Show! Show! Show! Show! Show!
CHAPTER 14. He Shuld Neuer Trobell the Parish No More
CHAPTER 15. Theatrical City
CHAPTER 16. Violent Delights
CHAPTER 17. Music, Please
CHAPTER 18. Signs of the Times
CHAPTER 19. All of Them Citizens
Pestilence and Flame
CHAPTER 20. A Plague Upon You
CHAPTER 21. Painting the Town Red
After the Fire
CHAPTER 22. A London Address
CHAPTER 23. To Build Anew
Crime and Punishment
CHAPTER 24. A Newgate Ballad
CHAPTER 25. A Note on Suicide
CHAPTER 26. A Penitential History
CHAPTER 27. A Rogues Gallery
CHAPTER 28. Horrible Murder
CHAPTER 29. London’s Opera
Victorian Megalopolis
CHAPTER 61. How Many Miles to Babylon?
CHAPTER 62. Wild Things
CHAPTER 63. If It Wasn’t for the ’ouses in Between
London’s Outcasts
CHAPTER 64. They Are Always with ’Us
CHAPTER 65. Can You Spare a Little Something?
CHAPTER 66. They Outvoted Me
Women and Children
CHAPTER 67. The Feminine Principle
CHAPTER 68. Boys and Girls Come Out to Play
Continuities
CHAPTER 69. Have You Got the Time?
CHAPTER 70. The Tree on the Corner
East and South
CHAPTER 71. The Stinking Pile
CHAPTER 72. The South Work
The Centre of Empire
CHAPTER 73. Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner
CHAPTER 74. Empire Day
After the Great War
CHAPTER 75. Suburban Dreams
Blitz
CHAPTER 76. War News
Refashioning the City
CHAPTER 77. Fortune not Design
Cockney Visionaries
CHAPTER 78. Unreal City
CHAPTER 79. Resurgam
An Essay on Sources
Peter Ackroyd
London: The Biography
List of Illustrations
BLACK-AND-WHITE INSERT I
Early Londoner admiring London Stone (Guildhall Library, Corporation of
London) John Stow (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London)
Charter of William I (Corporation of London Records Office)
Marcellus Laroon, Street merchants
Aerial sketch of London, 1560 (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London)
View of London Bridge by Anthonis van den Wyngaerde (Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford) Panorama of London by Hollar (Guildhall Library, Corporation of
London) View of Old St. Paul’s by Hollar (Guildhall Library/Corporation of
London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library) The Royal Exchange by Hollar (Courtesy
of the Museum of London)
Detail of map charting the Great Fire of London, 1666 (Royal Academy of
Arts Library, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library) 17th c. firemen (Royal
Academy of Arts Library, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library) Hanging outside
of Newgate Prison by Rowlandson (Courtesy of the Museum of London) Moll
Cut-Purse (Courtesy of the Museum of London)
Newgate Prison (Courtesy of the Museum of London)
National Temperance map of London (Courtesy of the Museum of London)
Café Monico, Piccadilly Circus (Courtesy of the Museum of London)
COLOR INSERT I
London from Southwark, Dutch School, c.1630 (Courtesy of the Museum of
London) Entrance to the River Fleet, Samuel Scott (Guildhall Art Gallery,
Corporation of London) Detail of the City from Braun and Hogenberg’s map of
London, 1572 (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London, UK/Bridgeman Art
Library) Johann B. Homann’s map and prospect of London, 1730 (British
Library, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library) The Great Fire of London, 1666
aquatint after Philippe de Loutherbourg (Guildhall Library, Corporation of
London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library) The Burning of the Houses of Parliament,
16th October 1834, J.M.W. Turner (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia,
PA, USA/Bridgeman Art Library) Jack Sheppard, William Thornhill (Courtesy
of the Museum of London) Tom, Jerry and Logic Visiting Condemned Prisoners
of Newgate Prison, George and Isaac Cruikshank (Guildhall Library,
Corporation of London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library) The Curds and Whey Seller,
Cheapside, c. 1730, British School (Courtesy of the Museum of London) The
Meat Stall from The London Markets, engraved by M. Dubourg after James
Pollard (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)
Smithfield Market, engraved by R.G. Reeve after James Pollard (British
Museum, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library) The Frozen Thames, c.1677,
Abraham Hondius (Courtesy of the Museum of London) Punch or May Day,
Benjamin Haydon (Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY) A Rake’s Progress
IV: The Arrested, Going to Court, William Hogarth (Courtesy of the Trustees of
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London/Bridgeman Art Library) The Four Times of
Day: Morning, William Hogarth (Upton House, Oxfordshire, UK/Bridgeman Art
Library) Whitehall and the Privy Gardens from Richmond House, Canaletto (By
courtesy of the Trustees of the Goodwood Collection) View of the Adelphi from
the River Thames, William Marlow (Christie’s Images, London, UK/Bridgeman
Art Library)
COLOR INSERT II
The Laying of the Water Main in Tottenham Court Road, George Scharf
(British Museum, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library) The Scavenger’s
Lamentation, engraved by A. Sharpshooter (Guildhall Library, Corporation of
London) The Enraged Musician, William Hogarth (Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford, UK/Bridgeman Art Library) The Railway Station, William Frith (Royal
Holloway and Bedford New College, Surrey, UK/Bridgeman Art Gallery) The
Crowd, Robert Buss (Guildhall Art Gallery, Corporation of London) Piccadilly
Circus, Charles Ginner (Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY) Hammersmith
Bridge on Boat Race Day, Walter Greaves (Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource,
NY) Noctes Ambrosianae, Walter Sickert (Castle Museum and Art Gallery,
Nottingham, UK/Bridgeman Art Library/© 2001 Artists Rights Society [ARS],
New York, NY/DACS, London) Hammersmith Palais de Danse, Malcolm
Drummond (Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery) A Coffee Stall, Chas Hunt
(Courtesy of the Museum of London)
The Coffee House, William Ratcliffe (Southampton City Art Gallery,
Hampshire, UK/Bridgeman Art Library) Allen’s Tobacconist Shop, Hart Street,
Grosvenor Square, Robert Allen (Courtesy of the Museum of London) House,
Rachel Whiteread (Anthony d’Offay Gallery)
Two Sleepers, Henry Moore (The Henry Moore Foundation/Walter Hussey
Bequest, Pallant House, Chichester, UK/Bridgeman Art Library) Devastation,
1941: An East End Street, Graham Sutherland (Tate Gallery, London/Art
Resource, NY) Canary Wharf, Isle of Dogs, 1991, Alan Delaney (Courtesy of
the Museum of London)
BLACK-AND-WHITE INSERT II
Regent Street in 1886, London Stereoscopic Company (Courtesy of the
Museum of London) Covent Garden Porters, John Thomson (Courtesy of the
Museum of London) Old houses in Bermondsey
Clerkenwell Green
River scavengers
Women sifting through dust mounds
The Great Wheel, Earl’s Court Exhibition, 1890, Charles Wilson (Courtesy
of the Museum of London) Children Following a Water Cart, William Whiffin
(Tower Hamlets Local History Library) Boy selling matches
Children Playing Cricket in Alpha Road, Millwall, 1938, Fox Photos
(Hulton/Archive) A Thoroughbred November and London Particular, engraved
by George Hunt after M. Egerton (Guildhall Library/Corporation of London) Car
in smog, Henry Grant (Courtesy of the Museum of London)
A Paraleytic Woman, Géricault (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris)
Protein Man (Davidson/Evening Standard/Hulton/Archive)
Bomb damage in Paternoster Row, 1940 (Cecil Beaton photograph,
courtesy of Sotheby’s London) Near Spitalfields Market (© Don
McCullin/Contact Press)
PART OPENERS
Plan of remains of Roman ship (Courtesy of the Museum of London)
Matthew Paris map of London, 1252 (By permission of the British Library
[ROY.14.C.VII f2]) Dore, Ludgate Hill
Tudor depiction of the market at Eastcheap (By permission of the Folger
Shakespeare Library) Mid-16th c. map of Moorfields (Courtesy of the Museum
of London)
Marcellus Laroon, The Merry Milkmaid
The Rookery of St. Giles (Courtesy of the Museum of London)
Punch and Judy puppet show (Courtesy of the Museum of London)
Great Plague of 1665 (Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge)
Christopher Wren and John Evelyn plan of London after the Great Fire, 1666
(Courtesy of the Museum of London) Rowlandson depiction of hanging
(Courtesy of the Museum of London)
Rowlandson, Revellers at Vauxhall (Courtesy of the Museum of London)
Gillray caricature of Sheridan as Punch (Guildhall Library, Corporation of
London) Cockney flower seller in Covent Garden (Courtesy of the Museum of
London) Dore, vagrants huddled on Westminster Bridge
The Sessions House on Clerkenwell Green (Guildhall Library, Corporation
of London) The burning of Newgate Prison, 1780, Gordon Riots (Guildhall
Library, Corporation of London) Title page of Astrologaster of the Figure Caster
by John Melton Scharf, the building of Carlton House Terrace, c. 1830
Girgnion engraving of the Fleet River (Guildhall Library, Corporation of
London) Mayhew, The Sewer Hunter (Courtesy of the Museum of London)
Dore, Seven Dials Slum
Géricault, Pity the Sorrow of a Poor Old Man (Bibliothèque Nationale de
France, Paris) The Mudlark (Courtesy of the Museum of London)
Scharf, The Original Oyster Shop
Whistler, Billingsgate (Courtesy of the Museum of London)
Hogarth, A Harlot’s Progress
London Underground poster, 1929
St. Paul’s Cathedral (Imperial War Museum, London)
Poster for the Lansbury Council Estate in Poplar (Courtesy of the Museum
of London) Tribute to Christopher Wren (Guildhall Library, Corporation of
London)
Chronology
BC
54 Caesar’s first expedition to Britain AD
41 The Roman invasion of Britain
43 The naming of Londinium
60 The burning of London by Boudicca
61-122 The rebuilding of London
120 The Hadrianic fire of London c.
c. 190 The building of the great wall 407 The Roman withdrawal from
London
457 Britons flee London to evade the Saxons 490 Saxon domination over
London
587 Augustine’s mission to London
604 Foundation of a bishopric, and St. Paul’s, in London 672 Reference to
“the port of London.” The growth of Lundenwic 851 London stormed by
Vikings
886 Alfred retakes and rebuilds London
892 Londoners repel Danish invasion fleet 959 A great fire in London: St.
Paul’s burned 994 Siege of London by Danish forces 1013 The second siege of
London, by conquering Sweyn 1016 Third siege of London by Cnut, repulsed
1035 Harold I elected king by Londoners 1050 The rebuilding of Westminster
Abbey 1065 Dedication of Westminster Abbey
1066 The taking of London by William the Conqueror 1078 The building of
the White Tower
1123 Rahere establishes St. Bartholomew’s 1176 The building of a stone
bridge
1191 The establishment of a London commune 1193-1212 The first mayor
of London, Henry Fitz-Ailwin 1220 Rebuilding of Westminster Abbey
1290 Expulsion of the Jews; Eleanor Crosses set up at Chepe and Charing
Cross 1326 The London revolution: deposition of Edward II 1348 The Black
Death kills one-third of London’s population 1371 Charterhouse founded
1373 Chaucer living above Aldgate
1381 Wat Tyler’s revolt
1397 Richard Whittington first elected mayor 1406 Plague in London
1414 The Lollard revolt
1442 The Strand is paved
1450 Jack Cade’s revolt
1476 The establishment of Caxton’s printing press 1484 The sweating
sickness in London
1485 Henry VII enters London in triumph after the Battle of Bosworth 1509
Henry VIII ascends the throne
1535 Execution of Thomas More on Tower Hill 1535-9 The spoilation of
London’s monasteries and churches 1544 Wyngaerde’s great panorama of
London 1576 The building of the Theatre in Shoreditch 1598 Publication of
Stow’s Survey of London
1608-13 The construction of the New River 1619-22 The building of Inigo
Jones’s Banqueting House 1642-3 The construction of earthen walls, and forts,
against the king’s army 1649 Execution of Charles I
1652 The emergence of the coffee house 1663 The building of a theatre in
Drury Lane 1665 The Great Plague
1666 The Great Fire
1694 The foundation of the Bank of England 1733 The covering of the
Fleet River
1750 The building of Westminster Bridge 1756 The construction of the
New Road
1769 The building of Blackfriars Bridge 1769-70 Wilkite agitation in
London
1774 The London Building Act
1780 The Gordon Riots
1799 The establishment of the West India Dock Company 1800 The
foundation of the Royal College of Surgeons 1801 London’s population reaches
one million 1809 Gaslighting instituted in Pall Mall 1816 Radicals meet at Spa
Fields: riots in Spitalfields 1824 National Gallery founded
1825 Nash rebuilds Buckingham Palace
1829 London Metropolitan Police Force founded 1834 Houses of
Parliament destroyed by fire 1836 University of London established
1851 The Great Exhibition opened in Hyde Park 1858 The “great stink”
leads to Bazalgette’s sanitary engineering 1863 The opening of the world’s first
underground railway 1878 The advent of electric lighting
1882 The emergence of the electric tram-car 1887 “Bloody Sunday”
demonstrations in Trafalgar Square 1888 The appearance of Jack the Ripper in
Whitechapel 1889 The establishment of the London County Council 1892 The
beginning of the Blackwall Tunnel under the Thames 1897 The emergence of the
motor-omnibus 1901 Population of London reaches 6.6 million 1905 Epidemic
of typhus. Aldwych and Kingsway opened to traffic 1906 Suffragettes