London in the nineteenth century / by Sir Walter Besant.

  • Walter Besant
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: London in the nineteenth century / by Sir Walter Besant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/490 page 5
    There were fields between Vauxhall Gardens and the Oval; there were no houses round Primrose Hill; St. John’s Wood was still a wood through which one or two roads were timidly making their way; a sparkling rivulet ran through the meadows of Kilburn ; Haverstock Hill had a few villas; Hampstead was a village with a few large houses and fine gardens ; Kentish Town had a sprinkling of houses ; behind Old St. Pancras Church was “Mr. Agar’s” farm; Islington was almost a single street; Bow was a little village ; Stratford, now containing 100,000 people, did not exist; West Ham, with a present population of 170,000, was an open waste ; Hackney was a pleasant suburb; Tottenham was a rural village whither the Londoners repaired on summer evenings. The area of London is, as I have said, now 120 square miles : a large part of this enormous area awaits, it is true, closer filling up. Down in the south there are still fields and gardens ; but there is no open country till one leaves Wimbledon, Streatham, Tooting, even Eltham, well behind. In 1837 the population of London was two millions, it is now five millions; the area has therefore multiplied by six, the population by two and a half. Within the City there were about 125,000 residents, most of whom were crowded into narrow and insanitary courts and lanes, while outside the City there were dens and slums where the poorest lay huddled together. The exodus from the ancient narrow boundaries had already set in : it began, indeed, in the middle of the eighteenth century. The causes and the history of the depopulation of the City may be briefly attempted. 1. The trade of London during the eighteenth century advanced by leaps and bounds. 2. The streets near the river were taken over for warehouses, offices, and quays. 3. The people who lived there, chiefly craftsmen, porters, and the like, had to find lodgings elsewhere. 4. They began by filling up the north part of the City, which up to this time had still retained many of the old gardens. The filling up was effected by driving lanes and narrow streets through the gardens. 5. Many of the working people crossed the river and settled in Southwark, which also began to fill up, and to send out arms to right and left of the High Street, and along Tooley Street in the direction of Bermondsey. 6. Others went outside the walls. For these, small houses were built in Clerkenwell, outside Cripplegate, round Smithfield, in Whitechapel, and along Bishopsgate Street Without. 7. House rent and houses in the City continued to grow in value with the continual expansion of trade. Then the merchant’s country - house became
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3