The Making of London: The People and Events That Made it Famous

By Alan Brooke and David Brandon

The Making of London explores the rich history of the Metropolis from the Roman settlement established 2,000 years ago in the area that came to be known as the 'Square Mile' and traces the process whereby it eventually emerged as the world's greatest city. London became the capital and seat of government of Britain, a center of culture, entertainment and retailing, a major port and industrial center and world leader in international trade, commerce and finance. The focus is largely on central London but necessarily brings in other nearby districts when events involved interaction with these.

While examining a selection of major historical events, consideration is also given to some of the more unusual and quirky aspects that have contributed to making London the diverse and fascinating place it remains today. A largely chronological approach is taken which emphasizes how the lives of the ordinary people were shaped by the events they witnessed such as invasions, riots and rebellions, fires, smogs, wars, epidemics and pandemics. The story embraces the apparent glamour of areas such as Mayfair and the West End but does not neglect districts stalked by crime, poverty and despair. London has always been a place of paradoxes where flaunted wealth has existed alongside appalling social deprivation. The juxtaposition of extravagance and poverty, of high culture with the lowest of low life is a recurrent theme in London's history.

The Making of London will interest newcomers wishing to know about London's past but even those familiar with its history are likely to find something new in its pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Mar 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781399084680

Book preview

Introduction

London is the capital of the United Kingdom and far away its largest city. It is also unquestionably a world city. However, reaching an exact definition of London is not easy. That entity which currently is officially termed ‘Greater London’ consists of twelve inner and twenty outer boroughs. The district historically known as the ‘City of London’ has jealously guarded its right to remain different and largely independent. It is not one of the thirty-two boroughs. When ‘The City’ is mentioned in the news, for example, it is this ancient core of the capital, the famous ‘Square Mile’ now largely given over to the world of banking and finance, rather than the much larger spatially but more amorphous ‘Greater London’, which is being referred to. When the authors mention ‘The City’ it is always in this historical sense. Greater London covers an area of just over 600 square miles with a population of around nine million. As a more-or-less continuously built-up area, it has absorbed parts of Hertfordshire, Essex, Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Kent and continues its outward and seemingly inexorable physical growth. The thrall of London, of course, extends much further and a case could be made for its influence across the British Isles never having been greater and more pervasive than it is now in the twenty-first century.

For the purpose of this book the authors focus on what may loosely be called ‘central London’. We take this to be bounded in the east by the area around the Tower of London, Hyde Park to the west, Regent’s Park to the north and parts of Southwark across the Thames, to the south. This is suitable for our purposes. Inevitably other districts will appear in the narrative where events involve an interaction between them and central London.

The main purpose of this book is to offer a short introductory narrative history of London from Roman times to the present. Inevitably with such a vast topic we need to be selective in our coverage and the approach reflects the authors’ particular spheres of interest as historians. There is a massive existing literature devoted to London’s fascinating history. In recent years gifted authors such as Roy Porter, Peter Ackroyd and Jerry White have given us wonderfully informed, rich and readable general histories of the capital. We cannot hope to emulate the breadth of content these authors have been able to include in their works. Instead, we submit what we hope is an accessible history that may stimulate the reader new to the subject sufficiently to go on to find out more elsewhere.

The approach is largely chronological and concentrates less on individual so-called ‘great figures’ of history but more on the lives of ordinary Londoners and on how they lived and what they saw and sensed. Samuel Johnson, the famous diarist and devoted Londoner, wrote, ‘It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London exists.’ For us, this remains a valid observation. We do not, therefore, attempt to survey the complex development of London’s built environment.

This has been done many times and is extremely interesting but perhaps more relevant to students of architecture or of what has become known as ‘heritage’. The present authors prefer to emphasize the human element in the study of the past. We hope that readers enjoy what follows as much as we enjoyed writing the book.

Chapter 1

The Shaping of a City

From Roman to Norman Conquest

The history of London effectively started with the Roman invasion of AD 43. For the following 400 years London, or Londinium as the Romans named it, was on the periphery of the Roman Empire and was the largest city in Britannia. Sea transport linked it to Europe and a network of roads connected it to many of the major towns of Britain. In the thousand years from the Roman occupation, London was a settlement founded by the Romans then occupied by the Saxons, conquered by the Danes, and ruled by the Normans.

The area that was occupied and fortified by the Romans, and later became known as the City, is located on the northern bank of the River Thames and was mostly, but not wholly, within the ancient defensive Roman Wall. Today, the boundaries of the City are marked with cast-iron dragons that stretch north from Temple and the Tower of London on the River Thames to Chancery Lane in the west and Liverpool Street in the east. It covers an area of 1.12 square miles and is known as the ‘Square Mile’. Like all great cities London grew and spilled beyond the city walls and eventually into the large areas of countryside around it.

This chapter will focus on London between the Roman occupation in the first century AD to the arrival of the Normans in the eleventh century. However, some brief but important pre-Roman points of information need to be made. Towns and cities are shaped by their physical landscape and the geological features of London have provided it with many advantages. Above the various strata of geological time lies 650 feet of chalk and on top of the chalk lies the London clay, which in turn is topped by gravel and brick-earth. Although it is one of the most shrinkable of soil types, it does have important benefits. One is that these types of clay soils are easy to tunnel, hence it was a bonus in the building of the underground rail system, started in the nineteenth century, as well the labyrinthine subterranean network that runs under the capital. However, there is less clay on the south of the Thames, which accounts for fewer Underground lines. Another benefit is that the clay provides the good bricks that are evident in so many of London’s buildings. The clay also bears witness to the skeletons and fossils of creatures that once inhabited this terrain – sharks, rhinoceros, giant deer, wolves and crocodiles.

Another significant feature in the shaping of London’s history is the River Thames. When the Romans arrived, they would have seen a much wider and shallower river as well as a landscape similar to the marshy flats around the coast of East Anglia. The Thames was approximately five times wider at high tide compared to now and being tidal made it easily accessible for ships. It was inevitable that the Romans would soon construct a bridge across the Thames, which they did in the second century AD. The location of the Thames estuary gave access to continental Europe and was a vital factor in the centuries of trade that followed, notably with many of the richest cities in the Low Countries – Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent. In addition, the development of the Roman city, Londinium, was closely associated with the significance of its riverside as a port.

From prehistoric times the Thames ran through a broad valley, fed by streams including those from Hampstead and Highgate. There was an abundance of islands in the Thames now commemorated in names like Battersea and Bermondsey (ea or ey denoting Anglo-Saxon for island). The Thames, and its tributaries, linked up with many waterways. These waterways proved beneficial to trade, as did the development of a network of highways. From the south-east, Watling Street (modern Edgware Road) continued north to St Albans, Chester and the north-west, whilst Ermine Street linked London with Lincoln and York.

Long before the Romans, evidence of earlier human activity has been found at Brentford, Hampstead and Putney and of Bronze Age bridges and Iron Age forts near the River Thames. However, there is little evidence of earlier settlements at what was to become Londinium. In the first century BC Julius Caesar described the area around London as consisting of tribal civilizations, largely populated and studded with homesteads.

Whilst Rome was built on seven hills, Londinium could only boast two small hump-back hills, today called Cornhill and Ludgate Hill. Between them ran the Walbrook, one of the many ‘lost’ rivers or streams of London. Although neither hill is very high, the land was at least well drained. Centuries later, on the western side, the first St Paul’s Cathedral was built at Ludgate and to the east the church of St Peter upon Cornhill stands. It is believed that the church of St Peter stood on the remains of an earlier Roman temple dedicated to the goddess Diana.

A century after Julius Caesar’s short-lived incursion into Britain, the Romans returned and began their occupation under Emperor Claudius in AD 43. Within four years the Roman army soon gained control of much of the south-east of Britain and Londinium was established. The origins of the name, Londinium, are uncertain and much speculation has been offered varying from mythical to Celtic origins. Whilst Rome’s mythical foundation is based on the wolf children, Romulus and Remus, London does have its own legends, albeit probably less well known. A discredited myth stems from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain written in 1136. Monmouth suggested that London was named after Lud, a king of Britain in pre-Roman times who was reputedly buried at Ludgate. A statue of Lud and his sons can be seen in the porch of St Dunstan-in-the-West church on Fleet Street.

London’s own legendary twins are Gog and Magog, originally known as Gogmagog and Corienus who became the guardians of the city. According to the myth they represented warriors in an assumed war, which resulted in the founding of the city, New Troy. Their statues have stood for many centuries within the Guildhall with the current pair carved by David Evans in 1953. Other statues of the twins have been used in pageants from the fifteenth century such as the Lord Mayor’s show. The two figures that strike the hours on the famous clock of St Dunstan church in Fleet Street are assumed to be Gog and Magog.

Romans

Within a decade of their occupation the Roman settlement was, according to the Roman historian Tacitus, ‘filled with traders and [was] a celebrated centre of commerce’. The city started as it meant to continue. However, in violent and uncertain times Londinium found itself under attack. In AD 60/1 a group of East Anglian tribes including the Iceni under the command of their queen, Boudicca (whose statue can be seen on Westminster Bridge, near the Houses of Parliament) headed south destroying Colchester then descended on London and sacked the town, reputedly killing many people. Most of what we know about Roman London is based on archaeological evidence and such evidence has found few human remains in relation to this attack, suggesting that the population may have had plenty of warning to escape the invasion. Nonetheless, Londinium was destroyed and burned to the ground, which is evident in the bright red oxidized iron in the burnt clay and the layers of charred debris stretching to the opposite side of the river. Here houses, granaries and workshops flanked the road leading to the crossing.

The Romans were quick to seek revenge, eventually crushing the revolt before starting to rebuild Londinium on a much grander scale. It seemed that the attack had kick-started a golden age. From the beginning of the second century Londinium could boast a temple, an amphitheatre, a large basilica (public building) where Leadenhall now stands, a large fort in the north-west (Cripplegate was the northern entrance), public baths, shops, sewers, timber-framed buildings built in the formal piazza patterns and timber quays which were constructed along the Thames.

Crossing the Thames may have been possible by means of a ford when the tide was low but it was the Romans who built the first London Bridge in order to consolidate their conquest. We know little of the first bridge but it could have been a military pontoon or floating bridge or even a rope ferry connecting the two banks. There may have been a bridge elsewhere, possibly near Westminster, where the Thames was shallower and narrower.

The Thames between Southwark on the southern side and Londinium on the northern had the advantage of being tidal which allowed sailing vessels to access wharves on an incoming tide. On the Southwark side of the river workshops and bakeries started to emerge which prompted Tacitus to claim that the settlement was ‘crowded with merchants and goods’. A bridge linking Southwark with the city was essential and evidence of a bridge made of timber piles and decking has been dated to between AD 80 and 90. This Roman bridge was located about sixty metres east of the current London Bridge.

Roman London was strategically important and needed to defend itself against all types of marauders. Given the threat of pirate and Barbarian attacks, Londinium’s defences were made more secure by the construction of a wall built between AD 180–230. It was made of ragstone, a hard sedimentary rock extracted from Maidstone in Kent, and brought to London on the Thames by boat. The wall that encircled the Roman city stretched over two miles in length from Tower Hill in the east to Blackfriars in the west. It was one of the largest building projects undertaken in Roman Britain and its course remained relatively unchanged for some 1,500 years. Included in the wall was a complex of towers, defensive ditches and bastions as well as the city gates. The names of the old city gates (built and rebuilt over the centuries), Aldgate, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Ludgate, Newgate and Moorgate (the latter was expanded from a postern or smaller gate in the early fifteenth century) are familiar to us as parts of the City of London that still bear their names. Like the wall that enclosed them, they provided continuity in the city’s history from around AD 200 to the eighteenth century (although they were regularly repaired and rebuilt over the centuries). When the gates were finally dismantled and demolished, they were sold off and all we have now are plaques that bear testimony to their location. Remains of the Roman Wall can be seen at the Barbican and on Tower Hill.

Throughout their history the city gates played an important function in the control of trade, defence, regulating access, representing the prestige of the city and as a point for collecting taxes. In addition to the daily flow of traffic, there were processions, curfews and occasional rebellions. The gates also displayed public information including announcements, tax and toll schedules, legal texts as well as the gruesome body parts of recently executed felons, intended to serve as a warning to potential transgressors.

From the beginning, Londinium was an ethnically cosmopolitan town. Most of the population within the wall consisted of Roman immigrant citizens and their slaves (slavery was central to the Roman economic system). However, over time many of the native British adapted to the Roman lifestyle mostly speaking Latin patois by the second century. Information from graves suggests that the average height of Roman Londoners was 5 feet 6 inches (male) and 5 feet 2 inches (female). Further evidence from the Museum of London shows that skulls and facial bones were probably native Britons. Most of the citizens worked as labourers, craftsmen or shopkeepers. The amphitheatre (discovered in 1988 in the Guildhall Yard and can be visited) provided brutal entertainment including executions – an entertainment that was to continue as a popular public spectacle elsewhere in London down to the nineteenth century. We know from excavations that the Romans used the area beyond the wall as a cemetery down to the late fourth century, mainly east of what is now Finsbury Circus.

Londinium expanded by the end of the first century, replacing Colchester as the provincial Roman capital. The peak and golden age of the Roman city came during the second century AD with a population of around 50,000 – a figure that would not be achieved for many centuries. About AD 368 the name Londinium was changed to Augusta (Imperial – a common name among provincial capitals) and can be seen on coins during this period.

However, it was one of decline from thereon for the Roman city. Buildings fell into disrepair and with Rome under threat it could no longer defend its distant provinces and Britain was left to protect its own interests. In AD 410 troops were withdrawn, thus marking the end of Roman London. The deserted city soon fell into ruin and would experience occupations and raids from Saxons, and Vikings (a seafaring people primarily from Scandinavia – Denmark, Norway, Sweden).

As buildings became derelict, the population declined and trade routes dwindled. Such a loss of importance meant that Winchester eventually became more significant. Nonetheless, despite this decline no other town out of the hundreds in the Roman Empire has had a greater influence than London on human affairs. However, for the next few centuries, what remained of the city would reside in the territory of the Kingdom of the East Saxons – Essex.

Anglo-Saxons – Vikings – Normans

In the 200 years after the Romans left Londinium records tell us very little about the period. From the fifth to the eleventh century, we see a pattern emerging: one group of people arrive, establish a settlement, rename the place then leave or are driven out. Sometimes they defended themselves from an attacking party. Between 842 and 1016 the Vikings attacked London on at least twelve occasions. The earliest known raid came in 842 although it was not necessarily the first. New settlements established themselves outside the old Roman city. By 886 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle stated that King Alfred (848–99, king of the West Saxons and later king of the Anglo-Saxons) founded Lundenburg. However, it is difficult to know how populated the city was during the Anglo-Saxon and Viking periods. In Cnut’s time (1014–35) it was probably between 10,000 and 12,000.

The Angles and Saxons from northern Germany were among the first post-Roman arrivals to settle in eastern Britain with some establishing themselves on the banks of the Thames. Whilst these settlements were to the west of the Roman city, the Cathedral of St Paul’s was built in 604 within the walls of Londinium by the East Saxons – probably the only change within the old city since the Romans. Meanwhile, the Saxon settlement of Lundenwic (wic meaning a port or a place of trade as in Aldwych – ‘old wic’) developed west of the Roman ruins in modern-day Covent Garden. Excavations in 1985 and 2005 uncovered an extensive Anglo-Saxon settlement dating back to the seventh century, which stretched along the northern side of the Strand to the present-day Trafalgar Square. Commenting on this expansion the historian Bede recorded in 730 that London was the ‘metropolis of the East Saxons’.

Trade from the Thames and its access to the sea, as well as the roads leading from London, also benefitted the Anglo-Saxons. In 730, Bede described London as ‘an emporium for many nations’. The street pattern of Roman London was overlaid by the Anglo-Saxons and has survived up to recent times. Hence, the Anglo-Saxon legacy to London, in this sense, is more direct than the Roman. This can be seen for example in the curves of Lombard Street and Fenchurch Street which were probably through routes between some of the Roman ruins. Sadly, the past few decades have seen large numbers of medieval streets disappear and replaced by dual carriageways which have destroyed many of the surrounding lanes and old alignments.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that London had been under Viking occupation in 871 but they left for Northumbria the following year. This allowed Alfred the Great, king of the Anglo-Saxons, to extend his power to London in the area of what is now the City and along Fleet Street as far as Aldwych. Despite a series of Viking raids in the mid-ninth century, English control of London changed in 886 when Alfred began an urban renewal by restoring the Roman city as a fortress, re-fortifying the walls, creating a new street plan east of St Paul’s Cathedral, and making improvements to the quayside along what is now Queenhithe. The old Roman city became known as Lundenburh (burh denoting a fortified town) marking the beginning of the history of the City of London. Alfred’s grandson, Athelstan (or Æthelstan) became, according to some historians, the first king of England from 927 to 939.

There are references to a bridge across the River Thames at the time of King Edgar (959–75), and also in relation to a series of Viking attacks. The most famous of these invasions, which is worthy of a Nordic saga, was in 1014 when the Saxon bridge was pulled down by the Norwegian prince Olaf, who was aiding King Aethelred (Ethelred the Unready), in regaining London from the Danes. Olaf Haraldsson, who became king of Norway in 1015, descended on London with ninety-four ships. Fitting his ships with a wicker roof, he rowed up to the bridge where, under a barrage of stones and arrows, the attackers, according to St Olaf’s Saga (written around 1230) ‘fastened cables around the piles which supported the bridge; then with all their ships rowed downstream with all their might’. The bridge collapsed, Aethelred attacked the fort and was eventually acknowledged as king. St Olaf’s Saga is the earliest account of the bridge collapsing and is assumed to be the origin of the nursery rhyme ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’ although this has been disputed.

Aethelred died shortly after and it was left to Cnut, son of Sweyn Forkbeard, to finally gain control of London and all England in 1016. Two years later he gained accession to the Danish throne thus bringing England and Denmark together. Another legend from the twelfth century is that of Cnut trying to stop the tide, which, according to the story, he wasn’t: he was showing that mortals could not perform such tasks, only God could.

Westminster

London not only expanded to the north of Cheapside but also further to the west. There had been an abbey at Westminster since the eighth century which became known as the ‘west minster’ to distinguish it from St Paul’s Cathedral – the ‘east minster’. In the decade after 1042 King Edward the Confessor (step-son of Cnut) began rebuilding the abbey to provide him with a royal burial church. It was finally consecrated in December 1065 although the king was too ill to attend and died a few days later. After his burial in the abbey his successor Harold was crowned there, thus beginning the coronation of every sovereign (Edward V and Edward VIII were not crowned) in Westminster Abbey. Since 1560 it has not been a cathedral, abbey or parish church. It is a ‘Royal Peculiar’ (the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster) under the jurisdiction of a Dean and Chapter and subject only to the Sovereign and not to any archbishop or bishop.

When Edward the Confessor moved his seat of royal authority from the walled City to Westminster, it was an event of huge importance. It eventually established Westminster as the centre of government whilst the walled City became the centre of commerce and trade and gained a significant measure of civic authority.

After his victory at Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror secured Kent and southern England. While eventually laying waste to most of the country, he ‘came friendly’ to London, recognizing the liberties of its citizens, pledging to defend their freedoms and fortified the City against barbarian attack. When William first arrived, he found the entrance to the City from the south heavily defended. With his troops he took a detour and eventually established himself at Westminster Palace. After a mixture of negotiations, promises and bribes, William won over prominent Londoners and nobles. The gate at Ludgate was opened and his troops finally entered the City. William was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066. Following the Norman invasion, the defence of the City was reinforced with the construction of Baynard’s Castle, Montfichet’s Tower on the western side and the Tower of London in the east, the latter of which was to become the most powerful fortress in Britain.

There was no fixed capital town in England and kings moved from place to place taking their court with them. Winchester was where the royal treasury and financial records were stored but