>NDON IN' THE I INETEENTH CENTURY I IR'^WTOTERI BESANT I BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF flenrg W. Sage X891 ■ ./f^..2r3^jf:f..<^.:. ^^/^^. 6896- I A°R -5 1998 Cornell University Library DA 683.B55 London In the nineteenth centur 3 1924 028 062 648 z '<^ %>. Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028062648 UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME PRICE 30/ NET EACH EARLY LONDON With 1 1 8 Illustrations. '' We should be the last to deny the services of many excellent antiquaries in the elucidation of London History, they could hardly be expected to write with the ease and grace of an old craftsman like Besant. He was fired with an enthusiasm equal to theirs, and he has left us a work which cannot fail, we think, to bring History to a very large circle who have shunned her as one of the severer Muses." — Notes and Bhterics. MEDIt^VAL LONDON VOL. I. HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL With 1 08 Illustrations, mostly from contemporary prints. VOL. II. ECCLESIASTICAL With 108 Illustrations, mostly from contemporary prints. "The book is at once exact and lively in its statements j there is no slovenly page in it — everywhere there is the sense of movement and colour, and the charm which belongs to a living picture." — Standard, " One is struck by the admirable grouping, the consistency and order of the work throughout, and in none more than in this latest instalment." — Fall Mall Ga-zette. LONDON IN THE TIME OF THE TUDORS With 146 Illustrations and a Reproduction of Jgas' Map of London in 1560. " For the student, as well as for those desultory readers who are drawn by the rare fascination of London to peruse its pages, this book will have a value and a charm which are unsurpassed by any of its predecessors." — Pall Mall Gazette. "A vivid and fascinating picture of London life in the sixteenth century — a novelist's picture, full of life and movement, yet with the accurate detail of an antiquarian treatise." — Contemporary Re'uie'iv. LONDON IN THE TIME OF THE STUARTS With 116 Illustrations and a Reproduction of Ogilbfs Map of London in 1677. " It is a mine in which the student, alike of topography and of manners and customs, may dig and dig again with the certainty of finding something new and interesting." — The Times, " The pen of the ready writer here is fluent ; the picture wants nothing in completeness. The records of the city and the kingdom have been ransacked for facts and documents, and they are marshalled with consummate skill."— Pa// Mall Gazette. LONDON IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY With 104 Illustrations and a Reproduction ofRocque's Map of London in 1 741-5. "The book is engrossing, and its manner delightful." — The Times. "Of facts and figures such as these this valuable book will be found full to overflowing, and it is calculated therefore to interest all kinds of readers, from the student to the dilettante, from the romancer in search of matter to the most voracious student of ' Tit-Bits.' " — The Athenaeum. ^k (Siu'beg of l^onlion LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AGENTS America . The Macmillan Company 64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, New York Australasia The Oxford University Press 205 Flinders Lane, Melbourne Canada . The Macmillan Company of Canada, Ltd. 27 Richmond Street West, Toronto India . Macmillan & Company, Ltd. Macmillan Building, Bombay 309 Bow Bazaar Street, Calcutta QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1887 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY BY SIR WALTER BESANT LONDON ADAM & CHARLES BLACK 1909 l\.x^^S'\o CONTENTS HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT CHAP. PAGE 1. A General Survey of the Nineteenth Century 3 2. Coronations and other Public Ceremonies . . 40 3. Temporal Government 73 4. The Citv . . 85 5. Chronological Sequence of Events 137 EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT 1. Education • '55 2. Art . . 167 3. coimmercial aspect of literature 1 72 4. Museums 176 5. Halls 184 6. Theatres and Music-Hali.s . . 186 7. Theatres 192 OPEN SPACES 1. The Squares .... . 219 2. The Parks, Commons, and Open Grounds . 227 3. Burial-Places ... 237 4. The Plunder of the City Churches 248 SOCIETIES AND CLUBS 1. Societies 253 2. Clubs , . 259 CHARITABLE WORK 1. The Slums . 267 2. Penitentiary Work 276 3. The Salvation Army . 277 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS CHAP. PAGE 1. The General Post Office , 3°? 2. Communication . . .312 3. Lighting . 316 4. Chimney Sweeping 327 5. Sewage . . - . 329 6. Pavements .... 340 7. The Water-Supply • 347 8. The Fire-Brigade ... 375 MISCELLANEOUS 1. Numbers of Dissenters 397 2. Political Refugees 399 INDEX . 407 ILLUSTRATIONS Queen \'ictona in 1887 Opening of London Bridge, 1831 A Street \'ie\v in 1850 Play-Bills West Country Mails at the Gloucester Coffee House, Piccadilly Steam-Carriage in 1828 . Regent Street in 1852 Queen ^'ictoria at the Theatre in 1842 Charles Dickens \V. M. Thackeray Thomas Carlyle Houses of Parliament Queen Victoria Street The Thames Embankment London Bridge The Tower Bridge . ... Air Street, Piccadilly, in the early part of Queen Victoria's Reign Queen Victoria in 1842 Dividend Day at the Bank, 1842 Proclamation of George IV. at Carlton House Coronation of George IV in Westminster Abbey Queen Adelaide The Coronation of Queen Victoria in Westminster Abbey The Marriage of Queen Victoria Marriage of the Princess Royal The Princess Royal and Prince of Wales in 1842 Queen Victoria visiting the City in 1837 The Jubilee Procession of 1887 The Opening of the Great Exhibition, 1851 . Prince Albert going to open the Coal Exchange, 1849 The Emperor of Russia at Pulteney Hotel in 1814 Louis Philippe, King of France Proclamation of Peace at Charing Cross, April 29, 1856 Mounting Guard at St. James's Palace in 1841 Lord Nelson's Funeral Car . The Duke of Wellington, 1852 vii PAGE Frofitispi ■ece 3 Facing 8 10 Facing 12 13 Facing 16 18 21 22 23 24 25 27 29 31 Facitig 32 35 38 40 Facing 40 42 Facing 42 44 Facing 44 46 Facing 46 48 55 Facing 56 59 60 Facing 60 Facitjg 62 67 70 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The Duke of Wellington presenting a Casket to his godson Prince Arthur The Coronation Procession of Queen Victoria Beating the Tower Boundary in 1842 The Lord Mayor installed at the Guildhall Banquet at the Guildhall Court of Common Council, Guildhall, circa 1850 Gog and Magog at the Guildhall Lord Mayor's Day — The Inauguration, 1842 The Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, 1842 The Mansion House, cnra 1870 The Police quelling a riot in 1844 Smithfield Meat Market Billingsgate Fish Market Covent Garden A Bit of Epping Forest City of London School. Original Building Christ's Hospital London from the Tower Bridge The Royal Exchange The Law Courts St. Paul's School, Hammersmith Omnibus in i860 Policeman in Tall Hat Cookery Class in a London Higher Grade Board School Art Class at a London Board School . Queen Victoria in 1839 A London Board School — Interior A London Board School — Exterior Burlington House, 1828 Lord Tennyson Robert Browning The Reading-Room, British Museum The Natural History Museum, South Kensington Science and Art Department, South Kensington The Imperial Institute The Queen on her first visit to Covent Garden Theatre St. James's Theatre, 1851 Sir Arthur Sullivan W. S. Gilbert Charles Wyndham as David Garrick H. Beerbohm Tree Sir Henry Irving Reproduction of a London Theatre Poster Ellen Terry as Portia Ellen Terry as Olivia The Old and New Haymarket Theatres The Old Gaiety Theatre 71 Facing' 76 79 Facing 86 89 Facijig 92 95 97 100 103 107 Facing ■ 114 116 117 119 127 131 134 138 142 143 146 147 Faci7ig 156 Facing 156 159 Facing 162 Facing 162 170 172 175 178 179 180 181 187 190 Facing 202 Facing 202 Facing 202 Facing 202 204 206 209 209 21 1 213 ILLUSTRATIONS St. James's Square in 1 8 1 2 Soho Square . North Side of Trafalgar Square in 1842 The Prince Regent and Marshal Bliicher returning from a Review in Hyde Park, 1814 Hyde Park Corner and Apsley House, 1845 Hyde Park on a Sunday, 1804 St. Catherine Cree in 1842 St. JNIarylebone Church in 1842 United Service Club, 1831 St. James's Street in 1800. Brooks's and Boodle's Clubs in the foreground Service in a Salvation Shelter Homeless Outcasts at a Salvation Army Soup Kitchen Mrs. Catherine Booth General Booth ... ... Salvation Army Congress Hall, Clapton The Old Post Office . Interior of the G.P.O. in 1842 A Hackney Coach in 1842 A Hansom in 1842 An Omnibus in Chelsea in 1842 . The Good Effects of Carbonic Gas ! ! ! . . A Peep at the Gas-Lights in Pall Mall Fred. A. Winsor, Originator of Public Gas Lighting Illumination by Candles in the Reign of King George IV. Electric Lighting. King's Cross Station Electric Lighting. Liverpool Street Station Chimneys Chimneys Going down into the Sewers In the Subway. The Bridge, Charterhouse Street London Sewers Dustman The Care of the Streets Repaving a London Street New River Waterworks Cleaning out Filter-Beds, Battersea (Lambeth Waterworks) Lambeth Waterworks. Pumping Room Destruction of the Old Houses of Parliament . The New Houses of Parliament . , 380 The Fire at the Royal Exchange, 1838 3^1 Reduced Facsimile Reproduction of Cruchlcy's Map of London in 1835, at End of Volume. IX PAGE 22 I 223 225 Facing 228 Facing 232 Facing 234 239 240 262 263 280 281 282 283 289 Facing 308 309 312 313 314 316 317 319 Facing 320 Facing 324 Facing 324 327 328 335 336 337 340 Facing 340 344 350 353 355 Facing 386 HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT CHAPTER I a general survey of the nineteenth century By Sir Walter Besant It is too early to write a history of London during the last hundred years. We can record the events, but we cannot fully estimate their importance, nor can we make a truly representative selection. In other things besides Parliamentary Reform the first third of the century had seen the introduction of changes which made the rapid development of London possible and even necessary. The OPENING OV LONDON BRIDGE, 1831 From a contemporary sketch by Wm. Fleetwood Varley. general introduction of gas, the opening of new bridges — especially Waterloo and Southwark — the introduction of cabs, the abolition of turnpikes, the importation of omnibuses from France, the foundation of the new Metropolitan police, the opening of new London Bridge, the beginnings of railways and steamboats — all these improvements aided in giving a new and an immensely fuller and better life to the citizens of London. The only possible way to get any idea of the growth of London throughout the century is to take it first as it was in the beginning of the century and then as it is at the end. I have elsewhere explained that the eighteenth- 3 4 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY century mode of thoughts, manners, and habits extended until the reign of Queen Victoria. There is a greater gap in continuity in 1837 than in 1800. In order, there- fore, to obtain a fair value for comparison I shall first take London as it was in 1837. I have elsewhere {Fifty Years Ago, 1887) stated that in order to comprehend London as it was in 1837 we may draw a line a little above the south side of Regent's Park, carry it westward as far as the Edgware Road and eastward as far as the Regent's Canal, which it must then follow as far as the Regent's Canal Docks. This line would be the northern and eastern boundary. The western boundary would be a line drawn down the lower end of the Edgware Road, Park Lane, and a line from Hyde Park Corner to Westminster Bridge. The natural boundary on the south is the river, but if we include Southwark there would be a continuity of houses covering a narrow fringe. Lambeth and Southwark were still unconnected ; gardens lay between ; Bermondsey was only half built over ; Rotherhithe was but a single row of houses with a few back-courts along the river- bank. There were open fields beyond Stepney Green on the east, beyond the City Roa:d on the north, and beyond Kennington on the south : the vast population of London at that time was cramped into those narrow limits. Cruchley's map of 1835 (see end of book) represents continuous London. We may also reckon as part of London the lines of villas running out along some of the main roads. Thus between Clapham, which was a suburb of princely houses, and St. George's Borough there were the hamlets of Newington, Kennington, and Stockwell ; on either side of these suburbs were fields and gardens. These arms or lines ran out along the Bayswater Road, the Hampstead Road, the Edgware Road, the Kingsland Road, the Mile End Road, the Clapham Road, the Brixton Road, and all the other main thoroughfares. The occupants of these villas were not, as a rule, the City merchants. Some of the more wealthy had houses beside Clapham Common, or at Chiswick, or at Hackney. They drove into town in their own carriages, while their sons rode. The merchants, for the most part, occupied the squares of Bloomsbury. In the villas along the highroads were found retired tradesmen, retired officers, lodging-house keepers, maiden ladies, widows, all kinds of people not actively engaged in business or work of any kind. For those who desired to go to town every day, or any day, there was the short stage, the coach which started in the morning and returned in the evening. It is curious to look at the map and to consider the fields and gardens which in 1837 lay stretching northwards where now are miles of streets. Sixty years have done more for the expansion of London than all the centuries which went before. In 1837 the area covered by London with these arms and outlying branches was no more than 22 square miles. Sixty years later it was 120 square miles. Is there in the history of any city growth or development more remarkable than this ? A GENERAL SURVEY 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 1 20 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 6 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY his place of constant residence ; the more substantial of the merchants withdrew altogether from the City and began to live in Bloomsbury. This was considered at the time as a step towards the world of fashion from which the City of the eighteenth century was wholly separated and cut off Neither common interests, nor kinship, nor private friendships, nor intermarriages had thus far connected the City with the aristocratic quarter. 8. This process continued for several generations : the population of the City grew steadily less in number and of smaller importance. But in 1837 there was still a remnant who would not give up their City houses, though the place was practically abandoned to shopkeepers, clerks, and working men. Of these, as I have said, there were 125,000. At the present moment there are 30,000. The shopkeepers, the clerks, the working men^ have all left the City. Only the care- takers remain, with a few residents in Banks and City Rectories. A very simple method may be used for estimating the progress of the exodus. Nonconformity was strong in the City during the eighteenth century ; there were famous chapels and famous preachers ; among the congregations were many substantial merchants and leading men of the City. The decay of the City chapels offers an indication of the decay in the City population. The introduction of the Omnibus created a second exodus. By this time the suburbs close to London, such as Clerkenwell, Holborn, or the quarter lying north of Fleet Street, were as densely crowded as any part of the City at any time. Streets and quarters such as the less respectable part of Bloomsbury, the streets round Red Lion Square, the Foundling Hospital, Gray's Inn, and both sides of Holborn were filled with people who could not afford the expense of the short stage, but welcomed the omnibus, which enabled them to go farther afield and to get into town cheaply and expeditiously. The first omnibuses were big caravans, holding twenty-two persons inside and drawn by three horses. The fare was sixpence for any part of the journey. Outlying suburbs such as Paddington, Clapham, Brixton, Camden Town were connected with the City by means of these omnibuses. They started at nine in the morning, picking up the regular passengers, who seldom missed them on their way. In the afternoon they left the City at five ; office-boys took the seats for their masters ; the passengers began to know each other ; an omnibus acquaintance was one which belonged neither to business nor to the domestic circle ; as in a tavern, one met a man day after day, spoke to him, talked with him, and never inquired after his name or his profession. The omnibus was for the seniors ; the boys, when they went into the City at fifteen, were supposed to walk. When the outside seats were added to the omnibus, the boys began to go into town that way. The distance, it may be observed, was not too much for a young man. I am speaking of suburbs such as Stockwell or Camberwell, about three miles or so from London Bridge. A GENERAL SURVEY 7 If one could reproduce the City of London street by street as it was in the early 'thirties the world would be amazed at the change in its appearance. The creation of Queen Victoria Street, the enlargement of Cannon Street, the opening of King William Street, have swept away a great many of the narrow, winding lanes which formerly hindered communication. Some of the old picturesque London disappeared ; but what is there picturesque about a narrow street with high warehouses on either side? It might just as well be broad. Much greater have been the changes owing to the destruction of old houses and old monuments. The Royal Exchange has been burned down and rebuilt ; Sion College, that lovely home of peaceful study, set like a fair garden in the midst of noisy trade, has been destroyed — they have set up "a Thing on the Embankment which may be very well, but it is not Sion College. The real college was the special property of the London clergy ; its Library, a long, low room, was lined with books, the very sight of which filled one's heart with joy. There was a Hall in which the clergy held meetings, read, and worked. In this Hall, or this Library, Fuller wrote his Churc/i History ; here the remorseful Psalmanazar wrote his Mediceval History ; here, but before my time, there was a garden ; here were almshouses, quiet and peaceful for the solace and the repose of the old. A lovely place — and the London clergy sold it ! They have also destroyed Doctors' Commons. It was a venerable College, with its two Quadrangles or Courts and its ancient Hall and the atmo- sphere of Law and Lawyers. They might have suffered it to remain. They have hacked away one side of the Heralds' College ; they have swept away Northumber- land House ; Temple Bar is gone ; of the old Inns, so venerable, so beautiful, Lyon's Inn is gone; Furnival's Inn is going; Barnard's Inn is turned into a school; the other Inns are threatened. History will record on one of her pages of shame how the English Judges — actually the Judges! — sold the Inn for which they were trustees — Serjeants' Inn — and put the price in their own pockets. They led the way: the other trustees, those of Clement's Inn and Barnard's Inn, only followed the example set by the defenders of right and justice. As for the City churches, there has been a craze for their demolition. It is enough for a church to be situated in the City for the Bishop and his advisers to compass its destruction. The City churches are all ancient as regards their site ; most of them are Wren's churches ; there is, about every one, a mass of associations, a long history of Rectors, Vicars, Preachers, Monuments, Chantries, charitable endowments, and the remembrance of past worthies, who were baptized and confirmed and received the Communion, who were married, and were buried in them : the architecture of many was curious — Wren could build nothing that was without interest. Their congrega- tions on Sunday had decayed ; in some of them literally two or three met together to make their common supplications. Their sites could be sold for large sums. Greed of gain prevailed and they are gone. 8 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Of London churches destroyed during the nineteenth century there is a pretty Hst : AUhallows, Broad Street ; St. Benedict's, Gracechurch Street ; St. Dionis Backchurch ; St. Michael's, Queenhithe ; St. AnthoHne's, Budge Row ; St. Benet Fink ; St. Mary Somerset ; St. Mary Magdalene ; St. Matthew, Friday Street ; St. Michael, Crooked Lane ; St. Bartholomew's, East Cheap ; St. Christopher le Stock ; St. Olave Jewry ; St. Olave, Southwark ; St. Michael Bassishaw ; and St. Mary, Woolnooth. (The last three are doomed.) Perhaps this list is not complete, but I need not stop to fill it up. The street passenger remarks, as he walks about the City, certain tiny areas surrounded by iron railings. In one or two a tomb stands in the centre, in others a few illegible headstones are let into the wall. These are the destroyed church- yards ; we are solemnly told that the churchyards are preserved, and we learn that the ancient City churchyard was about the same size as an ordinary dining-room. It would be well, had one the time, to take the old Parish surveys and to show how the churchyards were slowly encroached upon and swallowed up even before the final demolition of the churches. In 1837 burials still took place in the City churchyards ; in the midst of the crowded traffic, while the porters ran about with their burdens on their heads, and the broad-wheeled waggon crunched the stones and the people rushed to and fro, the funeral wound its way along the street, the coffin borne by six men and the pall by six friends, to the churchyard off the street. In the midst of life there was Death. Perhaps it is a loss that so useful an admonition is no longer heard in the streets of London. Otherwise the closing of the old burial-grounds was in every way a gain. Their condition in 1837 was so terrible that one reads of it with amazement. Imagine churches and chapels over vaults filled with recently deposited coffins ; the vaults not bricked or arched, but simply laid with the loose flooring that served for the reception of the pews. At some churches in the summer service had to be stopped altogether on account of the dreadful smell. The churchyards were no better ; in many a fire was kept burning day and night for the broken coffins; the grave-diggers themselves turned sick over their horrid work ; skulls and bones lay everywhere exposed to view, This is now all stopped ; the churchyards are pleasant gardens ; the dead are carried out five or six miles into cemeteries now themselves fast filling up. It is difficult in speaking of these changes to follow any connected order. I have spoken of the destruction of old things. Let us add that in 1837 there were parts of London, those parts not destroyed by the Fire of 1666, where there were still standing many of the ancient houses belonging to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These are very nearly all gone now. Cloth Fair yet preserves two or three ; there are a few in Wych Street, Holywell Street, Drury Lane, Aldgate, and Cripplegate, but they are very few. One of the last of the A STREET V1I<:\V IN 1850 From a Print in the Grace Collection. A GENERAL SURVEY 9 very ancient shops, a "bulk" shop with a small sleeping-room over it, was destroyed about four years ago. It was situated just outside Clare Market. All round London the roads were blocked by turnpikes ; one was perpetually stopped to show a pass or to pay the toll. It required an intricate and exact acquaintance with London to avoid the turnpikes, but it could be done to a certain extent. In the streets we observe, to begin with, that the shop-fronts are small ; that they are not decorated and " dressed " as at present with an exhibition of things costly and precious. The panes of glass are small — there are still some shops of the period which survive and have not given in to the craze of large glass windows. In the road, which is not so crowded as to-day, you observe the covered waggon from the country — the brewer's dray, an infernal instrument for getting as much noise as possible out of the street ; it effects this by having no wheels ; the hackney-coach, with its pair of horses, carries its passengers from Hackney to the drapers of Ludgate Hill; there are still sedan-chairs to be seen oftentimes with ladies in them ; there is the cabriolet, a two-wheeled vehicle in which the driver is perched on a little seat beside his fare — " a mile o' danger at eight pence," Mr. Weller called it. The town traveller, as well as the country traveller, goes about in a high gig with a " knowing " mare, which he drives with great dexterity. The omnibus rolls and staggers along with its twenty outsiders ; the stage-coaches, splendidly mounted, drive gaily through the streets ; there is not so much crowding as at present ; Cheapside is open for vehicles from end to end ; there are no police to keep order and to conduct the traffic. As for the people, you observe that the young men affect dandyism ; they go delicately with high stocks set with jewelled pins, velvet collars, strapped trousers, white thread gloves, and a cane carried with an air. Even in Cheapside the influence of that terrible person, the Count d'Orsay, is felt. There are ancient gentlemen walking soberly along with powdered hair and pigtails ; there are others, not so ancient, in black shorts and white silk stockings. There are men who affect the manners and the appearance of a coach- man. There is swagger and there is side — much more swagger and side than we can show ; brave is the exhibition of flowing locks ; they flow over the ears and over the coat-collars ; they glitter and shine in the sunlight ; you can smell the bear's grease across the street ; and if these amaranthine locks were to be raised you would observe the shiny coating of bear's grease upon the velvet collar below. You will observe also the shabbiness of the shabby — how shabby it is. Here are clerks, not out of work, but in full pay ; they are out at elbows and are not ashamed ; the brim of their hat has fallen — they mind it not ; their shoulders are frayed and so are their wrists ; some of them, buttoned up tight, disguise their lack of shirt. But they are not ashamed, because they are all in the same boat together. To be a clerk meant, first, work from eight till eight ; it also meant very small pay ; lO LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY and since clothing in 1837 was very much dearer than it afterwards became, one must starve or go shabby. Along the streets there march all day long and every day except Sunday a procession of street merchants. The Cries of London include all the small things : bootlaces, staylaces, thread, needles, pins, lavender, cherries, strawberries, apples, mackerel, herring, small coal, milk, fresh water, chair- mending, knife-grinding, house repairs, play - bills and carpentry, slippers, matches, salt — it is beneath the dignity of trade to sell these things in a shop. The working man of London in 1837 was beginning to show signs of independent intelligence and of a higher standard in everything. But his son or grandson of the present day would regard him with anything but friendliness. His wages were a great deal lower, and money did not go nearly so far ; his work was a great deal harder ; he had hardly begun to combine ; he was horribly illiterate ; he was ill-clad, ill-fed, ill-lodged ; he had no morals and no religion and no self- respect ; if he could read he fed his prejudices with those papers which held up to his vir- tuous indignation the vices of the aristocracy, the hypocrisy of the clergy, and the corruption of the Court. I have certain papers of that time in which the young Queen, then a girl of eighteen, is spoken of in terms of brutality inconceivable. The amusements of the working man of this time were simple. He knew how to handle his fists ; he was always ready to fight on the slightest provocation in the street or elsewhere ; especially he delighted to fight a gentleman ; it would appear — but then his own statement of the case is not preserved — that the gentleman always beat him, partly by being in better condition and partly by superior skill. But the working man was not daunted ; next day he would fight again. Those who thought at all — it must be owned that their number was increasing — liked to parade their Paine and Carlyle, and called themselves atheists. It is said by contemporary writers that nine out often were atheists ; as they were all Chartists and Republicans, and as the Reform Act of 1832 had let in a good many voters who were bent on extending the Franchise, the position, in the eyes of many who tried to discover the existence and the power of the underground forces, was dangerous in the extreme. PLAY-BILLS A GENERAL SURVEY ii In London ;^3, 000,000 was expended on gin alone. It seems a poor way of spending so much, because a glass of gin, what use is it when it is poured down the throat? Whereas ^3,000,000 is really a large sum, worth ^150,000 a year at 5 per cent. I have, however, figured out the meaning of this expenditure. It means no more than this. If a third part of the whole population of London were working men ; if the favourite drink — not beverage — of the time was gin, every man would spend 3d. a day on gin. It would have been much better had he saved the money, but, after all, the average of 3d., which meant a glass and a half, would not hurt him much. Statistics prove anything ; these figures are not alarming taken in this way, but we may be quite sure that there were terrible cases, more than are now found, of excess in gin. There were no restaurants in London. There were dining-rooms, taverns where one could dine, cook-shops, chop and steak houses, and coffee-houses ; but there were no restaurants. One or two of the old dining-rooms still continue. The floor was sanded ; the room was divided up into pews generally accommodating four persons, each with a narrow seat, a small table and a straight back. They were not comfortable places at all. Many of them provided a succession of joints from which every man cut his own dinner ; there were no French dinners ; in addition, fish, fruit, and a pudding made up the best dinner served in the City. At the better-class places madeira or rum punch was taken with the fish, sherry with the meat, and port after dinner. If there was a sederunt after the port, brandy and water hot followed. If a few men had a dinner in a private room there was singing of comic songs with the port. At these sittings there was not so much drunken- ness as the excessive quantity consumed would imply, partly because all heads were seasoned, and partly because the drinking was spread over so many hours. For the humbler diners there were bars where one could get a plate of meat for fourpence, potatoes for a penny, bread a penny, half a pint of porter a penny ; total, sevenpence a day for dinner. There were low-browed shops with steam- dimmed windows called a la mode beef-shops where stewed beef and boiled beef were the only food offered, and there were cook-shops where you might bring your own chop and get it put on the grill for a halfpenny. The universal dinner-hour in the City was one — it is so still for ninety out of a hundred. There were no places except the great taverns where one could get dinner after three. Farther west, in Fleet Street, near the lawyers, the favourite hour for dinner was five ; you paid eighteenpence for the privilege of helping yourself from the joint ; you drank stout with dinner and a pint of port after dinner. The visitor of 1900 would be astonished at the absence of fruit-shops. Where were the fruit-shops? There were none. Fruit was essentially the luxury of the wealthy, the middle and lower class got very little. The fruit-shops which are now so common, with their perennial displays of apples, oranges, bananas, and tomatoes, 12 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY did not then exist. The potato-man after Christmas had a few oranges in his window ; strawberries, cherries, and other fruit were hawked about the streets, the cherries tied to sticks, a stick of twelve for a penny. Fulham, Hammersmith, Brompton, Hackney, were covered with market gardens. In the season girls came up from the country to carry baskets of fruit, especially strawberries, to the market ; there were rests about five feet high, on the way, one or two of which still survive. For breathing spaces in London there were the four parks. These, however, were not considered to belong to the working classes at all. Three of them, at least, belonged exclusively to the aristocracy except on Sunday evening in the summer. The other. Regent's Park, only recently laid out, had as yet attracted few visitors ; it was a broad open field with ornamental water in one corner and few trees to break the monotony. The Green Park was the playground of children, the children of the people who lived on its north and east sides ; cattle grazed over it ; through the middle of the Park ran a little brook which made a quagmire and a hollow. Hyde Park was used for its ride and its two walks along the south and the east. The rest of the broad space, was a desert untravelled and unkept. Kensington Gardens belonged to the Palace and were not yet open to the public. I have already spoken of the omnibus. The means of communication with the outside world were the mail-coaches, the stage-coaches, the waggons, and the carts, not to speak of the post-chaise. The mail-coaches of course carried the letters. They all drew up at the General Post Office shortly before eight every morning ; received their letters and their passengers ; and started punctually at eight o'clock. All the towns within a hundred and twenty miles of London received their letters next morning, that is to say, before two o'clock, so that they were very nearly as well off as ourselves. There were in addition an enormous number of stage- coaches. More than 1500 started from London, though not every day. Of these nearly the half were the short stages running to places like Richmond, Hampstead, and Chislehurst. It was not until the last years of the stage-coach that persons of position would travel in one ; they either travelled by post or in their own carriages. A great many railways were beginning; in 1834 the London and Greenwich line was opened ; the passengers were at first attracted by bands of music at the stations ; the third class carriages had neither roof nor seat ; the second class had no cushions ; at first everybody knew his own station, his place in the class that belonged to his station. The country gentleman in the first class, with him the barrister, the physician, the beneficed clergyman, the officer of the army or navy ; in the second class were seen the surveyor, the solicitor, the respectable tradesman, the gentleman's servant ; in the third, everybody else. Other lines in progress were the London and Birmingham, the London and Southampton, the London and Bristol, the London and Croydon, the London a In § O OJ a ^ o " a .2 o - a :£ D O A GENERAL SURVEY 13 over, the London and Colchester, the London and Blackwall, the London and nghton. It Will be gathered that the future of the railway was understood and foreseen. Ihe water-supply was much more inefficient than at present. There were eight or nine companies, of which the New River was the most important ; the supply, however, was irregular • sometimes there was none at all on Sunday ; there were parts of London where they depended on wells and rain-water. The wells in the City, ot which there were formerly a great many, were happily for the most part choked by the rubbish and debris of the great Fire of 1666. Some of the STEAM-CARRIAGE IN 1828 From a print in the British Museum. people, however, still depended on the Thames water, then far more offensive than at present. If we consider what is called " Life in London " — that is to say, the profligacy of aristocratic London— we find that the "pace" was faster, the prodigal more headlong, his career more unblushing. The young men of the period drank deep and long ; they turned night into day ; they drove about openly with companions who were notorious ; they vied with each other in mad freaks and follies ; they gambled with frenzy ; they lost great estates in a week, even in a single night, in rooms where they were lured by supper and win<: and the power of borrowing as much as they pleased. The follies of the young man of fashion seem incredible ; it is very much to be deplored that some of the ladies who accompanied them in their brief day of splendour have not written a history of their friends ; the end. 14 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY unless it was a Peerage, or a great estate crippled for many years, was the Debtors' Prison in Boulogne. There were many other ways of getting through money ; there was racing, combined with the keeping of a stud ; there was the Prize Ring, which cost a great deal in finding the stables for the fancy man. Outside the world of " life," what was to be done with the boys and the younger sons? The choice of a career for a gentleman was strictly limited; the prejudices of caste and class were still so strong as to be insurmountable. A gentleman could not enter the City, he could not belong to trade of any kind ; even a banker was accounted a tradesman. Art of any kind was impossible for him. He could not become a painter, a sculptor, an actor, or an architect. Literature he might practise, but to receive money for literature, though all did it, was accounted sordid. Science did not exist as a profession. They might take Holy Orders if there was a family living ; they might become physicians — at least, it is always so stated, but I have no record of successful physicians belonging to noble families ; they might go to the Bar ; most barristers were certainly of gentle birth, but many were not, and the most successful lawyers were often men who had pushed their way to the front. A gentleman could not become a solicitor, an attorney, or a surgeon. The army and the navy were open to them; but in the long wars (1793-1815) the navy lost much of its aristocratic reputation ; favouritism still advanced the incompetent while the first lieutenant grew grey and bald ; but at the conclusion of the war the officers, who were placed on half-pay, were by no means all sons of gentlefolk. The same thing might be said, but in a lesser degree, of the army. Fortunately, India was open, and the good old Company sent out yearly a host of youngsters to fight and administer and rule their great possessions. Of the London shops, about a quarter were devoted to the sale of food and drink ; thirteen per cent to the sale of clothing ; five or six per cent to that of furniture. There were quarters where certain industries or trades were carried on : silk-weaving in Spitalfields, tanning in Bermondsey, the hop and potato trade in Southwark, earthenware manufacture in Lambeth, sugar-refining in Whitechapel, watchmaking in Clerkenwell, coach-building in Long Acre, the drapery trade in Ludgate Hill, the book trade in Paternoster Row. London, indeed, has always been an industrial as well as a commercial city ; it produces as well as collecting and distributing. It was still easy for the Londoner, wherever he lived, to get into the country by short stage or omnibus or even on foot. Once outside the continuous houses there were tea-gardens and pleasure-gardens everywhere. I have seen a statement, seriously advanced, to the effect that sixty years ago the London artisan and his children never saw green fields or anything except bricks and mortar ! A map of A GENERAL SURVEY 15 London at the time sufficiently refutes this libel. There were plenty of green fields accessible. Steamers ran up and down the river ; the short stage ran everywhere ; the suburban omnibus was already introduced. The map of London of the period shows that a person living in the very centre of the city could find himself in green fields and gardens within a mile in almost every direction — within two miles in every direction. Not only did the working man go out into the fields on Sundays in order to observe the beauties of nature, but he took his dog with him and organised dog-fights among his friends. The dog-fighting enabled him to get through the morning pleasantly and without tedium. The afternoon was spent in the wayside taverns and the evening was not too long for him to find his way home along a road doubled or trebled in length according to his potations. The working man was also a patron or supporter of the Prize Ring ; he was handy with his fists ; a street row meant the formation of a ring with volunteer bottle-holders ; for more social diversions he had his "penny gaff" and his Cave of Harmony and his Free- and-Easy. Many changes have happened to the Church of England. The beneficed clergyman of 1837 was generally a man of good family who held the living which was always reserved for one of the family ; he was supposed to be a scholar ; his sermons were doctrinal and had at least a flavour of scholarly authority ; in the country he set the example of a decorous life ; he drank port, but he did not get drunk ; he rode to hounds, but not every day of the seven ; sometimes, like George Eliot's clergyman, he lamented the " comparative flatness of all existing sports compared with cock-fighting." He was, as a rule, a kindly, well-bred gentleman ; in some country places where the living was poor he was often a peasant-priest, a mere boor and a rustic ; in cities, especially in London, he was generally an Evangelical, a good preacher, a man of great weight and authority, to him and to his congregation the sermon was the one thing ; the service was a penitential exercise, the singing was a wail, the whole interests of religion were bound up in th.e Fall of Man. The church offered the means of grace. Let those who chose seek out those means ; it was not the duty of the clergy to go into the slums and compel the people ; if they wanted salvation, let them come to church and learn the way. This view of the case explains and defines the position of the Church in 1837, compared with that of 1900. Three great reforms had been already introduced into the country. These were the reform of the Penal Laws, the Repeal of the Acts against Combination, and the Extension of the Franchise. Under the old Penal Laws there were 223 capital offences. It was more difficult for a man to escape hanging than would now seem possible; in the year 1834 there were 480 death sentences, in 1838 there i6 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY were ii6, in 1899 — how many? Haifa dozen in all. The Repeal of the old Combination Laws restored to the people the right, their most important right, to combine against their employers ; they have had the hardest possible struggle to make this right effective ; then, they were forbidden to meet — as if they could combine without meeting! They were threatened, they were imprisoned for striking ; they have had to face the blackleg ; but they persevered ; and the present condition of the working man of this day is due to his combination or to the dread of his combination. As for the extension of the suffrage it at least enabled every man to feel the responsibility of his position as a part of the nation. For the first time the working man realised that the Government was not imposed upon him, but that it was elected and approved by himself. These three Reforms, working together, followed by the Education Acts, succeeded, I believe, in staving off the impending shipwreck of the State. For a long time the working men were fiercely Republican, many are still mildly Republican ; they presently formulated their aspirations in the six measures called Chartism. The measures which they desired were Universal Suffrage, Annual Parliaments, Vote by Ballot, Abolition of Property Qualification, Payment of Members, and Equal Electoral Districts. Three of these they have got, the other three are not so loudly demanded. For the Middle Class the suburban dulness set in about the period we are considering — that period where omnibuses opened out the suburbs to people who had been living in and close to town. Until the Middle Class went out of town, they had their former amusements ; for the men there was the Club — not the Club of Pall Mall, but that of the adjacent Tavern ; there was the fortnight or month at Heme Bay or Margate — the Middle Class of London clung to the fashion of the yearly stay by the seaside as the first mark of gentility ; there were the tea-parties, with a little music and a little supper afterwards ; there was the whist party, some- times a weekly gathering ; there was the round game ; there was Vauxhall ; there were, for the ladies, the formal calls, at which the decanters were always produced ; there was some interest in Church work ; and also for the young ladies there was an immense amount of romance, and of affectations connected with romance. Thus it was supposed that physical delicacy was interesting ; that feminine virtues in- cluded physical weakness, mental incapacity, and universal ignorance ; nature and the laws of nature were ignored ; sadness and melancholy sat upon the maiden's brow ; she was pensive ; she scorned the ruder delights that please the baser soul ; eating was abhorrent to her. On the other hand, her brother was always full and overflowing with animal spirits. He gave suppers, where comic songs were sung ; he danced with zeal at Highbury Barn and Caldwell's ; he knew all about the Prize Ring and the betting on the favourites, either for the Ring or for the horse H - m c ^ 1 A GENERAL SURVEY 17 race ; he played practical jokes of a kind which would be followed at this time by expulsion from every decent Club ; in a word, he seems to have been the very worst kind of low-lived, vulgar, noisy youth. There were exceptions, of course ; but this is how the middle-class young man of London is depicted by his exponent, Albert Smith. Once out of London and in the suburbs there was an end of all these enjoy- ments. The men went into town every morning and returned every evening ; they had dinner ; they talked a little ; they went to bed. Their life was in the City ; they slept in the suburbs. The old Club Tavern was gone ; all the old associates were scattered. The case of the women was worse ; they lost all the London life — the shops, the animation of the streets, their old circle of friends ; in its place they found all the exclusiveness and class feeling of London with none of the advantages of a country town. For in a country town there are interests in common ; in the new suburb of Stockwell there were no interests ; the wife of the small wholesale merchant would not call on the wife of the retail dealer ; the wife of the barrister would not call on either ; there was no society, and so for fifty years the massive dulness of the London suburb continued. Further on we shall see how the life in suburbia has developed in our own day. The suburb has become itself a great city with its own varied levels of society, its own interests, its own occupations. The theatre in 1837 was not one of the recognised distractions of the middle class. Those who were " serious " — a very large number — plaintively asked how a youjig man with a soul to be saved could go to a theatre ; if it was found out that a son of the house had been to a theatre there was mourning as if for a mortal sin. Those who were not " serious," however, were passionately fond of going to the play. There were eighteen theatres. They were Her Majesty's, Drury Lane, Covent Garden, the Haymarket, the Lyceum, the Prince's (now St. James's), the Adelphi, the City of London (Norton Folgate), the Surrey, Astley's, the Queen's (afterwards the Prince of Wales's), the Olympic, the Strand, the Coburg (otherwise the Vic), Sadler's Wells, the Royal Pavilion, the Garrick, and the Clarence (at King's Cross). This seems a good many, but some of them were open for a short time only. It was reckoned that 20,000 people attended the theatres every evening, so that gives us an average of three times a year for every Londoner. Setting aside the working class and the old and the children and the " serious " people, we may arrive at an average attendance of fifteen times annually, which is by no means excessive. The suburban dulness, of course, made the theatre impossible. The prices of admission were much less than those of the present day ; the general price was 4s. or 5s. for the boxes ; for the pit, 2s. or 2s. 6d. ; and for the gallery, is. There is a very fine list of actors and actresses for the year 1837. Elliston, Liston, Farren, Charles Mathews, Charles Kean, Macready, Harley, Buck- i8 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY stone, and Webster were the principal actors. Madame Vestris, Fanny Kemble, Helen Faucit, and Mrs. Glover were the actresses. The plays were for the most part contemptible, but they all contained one or more strong parts. It is impossible now to read the plays of Douglas Jerrold, full as they are of epigram and clever things, without feeling that he did not take the work seriously. How could he, when the playwright received no more than £^0 or £/:^o for each play .'' That the QUEEN VICTORIA AT THE THEATRE IN IS42 From The Illustrated London News. stage is reviving in these days is due entirely to the fact that dramatic success is rewarded by material prizes of a very considerable value. There were concerts — yet the love of music was only gradually reviving ; there were the Pleasure Gardens — Vauxhall and the Surrey Zoological, for instance — where there were balloon ascents and fireworks and dancing. For art there were the Royal Academy, the Society of British Artists, the Exhibition of Water Colours, and the British Institution. At the first of these, in 1837, Turner exhibited his "Juliet"; Etty, his " Psyche and Venus"; Landseer, his "Summer in Chillingham A GENERAL SURVEY 19 Park"; Wilkie, the "Peep o' Day Boy's Cabin"; and Roberts, the "Chapel at Granada." Everything in London was much later than now ; the supper-houses were open all night long ; there were dancing places open all night ; there were gambling places open all night ; certain streets were crowded all night ; there were profligates and prodigals in other classes besides that of the young man of position and fortune ; there were silver hells, even copper hells ; the fast young City clerk, the young medical student, the country visitor went the round ; first he had dinner at a West End tavern such as the Blue Posts in Cork Street, with a bottle of fine old port ; then to the pit of the theatre at half-price ; then to supper — lobster and stout and a go of brandy and water ; then to the " Piccadilly," or " Jessop's," or the "Argyll," where he had the honour of dancing with a lovely Jezebel; with more drink, more supper, more dancing, more gambling, till broad daylight sent him home, tired but happy. Had he not seen life ? Could he not go down into the country and talk of the glories of that great night ? The repetition of such a night generally brought our friend to the Debtors' Prison. This retreat, affectionately called the College by its residents, was now in full swing. Imprisonment for debt was in certain circles the chief terror of life. In the year 1829 there were 71 14 persons sent to Debtors' Prisons; many of these, it is true, remained in prison but a short time; there were, however, 1547 permanent occupants. The threat of prison, the fear of prison, no doubt prevented many persons from evading their just debts, yet the fact that a man in prison could certainly not make the money to pay his debts, and that the longer he was kept in confinement and enforced idleness the less likely he would be to pay, seems to have been quite ignored. In most cases, of course, the creditor kept the debtor locked up out of revenge, and his power to do so was not limited by any considera- tions as to the reason why the debtor could not pay, even though it was not his fault. The Debtors' Prisons were those of the Fleet, the Queen's Bench, the Marshalsea, and the two Compters, not counting the little Borough Prison and the prisons of certain Liberties. In January 1840 the number of prisoners for debt amounted to 1732. The new Bankruptcy Act, which came into operation in November 1861, released a great many debtors. Those persons who are now imprisoned for short periods are there for disobedience to a County Court order. The Fleet Prison was pulled down in 1844; the Queen's Bench and the Marshalsea stood until the year 1879 ; the row of houses overlooking the churchyard of St. George's Borough is the only surviving part of the Marshalsea as Dickens knew it — not the old Marshalsea. Here is a little anecdote of the Sponging- House related to me by a gentleman who was at the time an articled clerk to the firm of solicitors who represented the detaining creditor on the occasion. There appeared, — in that world which meant gambling, racing, suppers, an acquaintance with the ladies of the ballet, swagger 20 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY and side, loud dress and loud manners, — a foreign gentleman who spoke English perfectly, knew Paris thoroughly, as well as Vienna and one or two other places, who was willing to run horses at races, who was ready to play any game with any comer, who paid when he lost and laughed merrily over misfortune, who laughed with equal merriment over good fortune, who drove in the Park with a lady of surprising beauty, and who gave himself the most amazing airs. Presently it began to be reported that the Count — he was a Count — was not paying his debts ; he still haunted the gaming-houses, he still paid when he lost, but the Count was now accused of unfair play, and there was talk about money being owed everywhere. Finally, my friend's firm served a writ upon him, and he was taken to a sponging-house. Here he said, in a calmly superior manner, that the affair would probably take a few days for settlement, that he must have a private room, that the Countess must come to stay with him — there was, then, a Countess — and that she went nowhere without her piano, and that he would pay for the accommodation. All this was matter of bargain and agreement ; the Countess came, the piano was dragged upstairs, and she sat down to play. At first the other tenants were pleased with the music, which was loud and brilliant ; when, however, the lady continued to play until midnight they remonstrated, but inefifectually. It was four in the morning when she desisted. At nine they knocked at the Count's door. No answer. They knocked again. No answer. They broke open the door ; the room was empty. The barred window looked upon the roof of an outhouse, from which the drop into the street was easy. The Count had filed away the bars, while the Countess kept on playing to drown the noise of the file. By four o'clock the work was done, the birds flew out together. There was then no telegraph, so the fugitives took post to Dover and were across in Calais before the creditors knew what had happened. Nothing more, my friend informs me, was ever heard of Count or Countess. But one thing was certain, the man had succeeded in getting credit for everything, and he went off with a considerable amount of plunder. Clubs of the better sort had begun to be formed. In 1837 there were twenty- five in all, viz. the Albion, Arthur's, Alfred, Athenaeum, Boodle's, Brooks's, Carlton, Clarence, Cocoa-tree, Crockford, Garrick, Graham's, Guards', Oriental, Oxford and Cambridge, Portland, Royal Naval, Travellers', Senior United Service, Junior United Service, University, West Indian, White's, and Windham. These clubs are intended exclusively for noblemen, gentlemen, the services, and the professional classes. No person engaged in trade, not even a great merchant, could hope for admission. This exclusiveness gradually broke down in some of the clubs, but has been maintained in others, while the great increase in the number of clubs has widened the limits of admission in all directions. A GENERAL SURVEY 21 The Literary character of this period — 'indeed of the whole decade of the 'thirties — is singularly weak. It was a time of transition ; Wordsworth, Milman, Southey, Lady Blessington, Tom Moore, Beckford, Leigh Hunt, Landor, and Peacock had had their day ; Dickens, Thackeray, Marryat, Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle, Lytton, who were all beginning at this time, had their future before them and belong to a later date. CHARLES DICKENS From a photograph by Mason, The principal output was the novel. The purchasers and circulators of the novel were the book-clubs. There was also a vast torrent of verse in imitation of Scott ; this also was bought by the book-clubs. For a long time these clubs and their subscribers endured the appearance of novels which simply could not be read. Nobody can understand how the world suffered the fashionable novel so long. At last, however, came the crash. The subscribers revolted ; the book-club fell to pieces, and then, for a time, the novel perished. The works of Marryat, 22 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Dickens, Thackeray, Lytton are not in the least Hke the fashionable novel of the former school. Books and novelists vanished and were heard of no more. I have seen an estimate which gave 4000 as the number of persons living in 1837 by literary work of various kinds; 700 were journalists. Is it possible that 3300 could be actually making a livelihood by writing books? We may make s ^Ht-I W. M. THACKERAY From an Etching by G. Harnett Smith. every possible allowance ; we may remember that book-rxiaking went on then much more as a trade than at present ; a traveller gave his notes to a publisher, who gave them to a hack to be cast into shape. There were books on art, on science, on history, in which the hack's services were required ; there was the literature of religion, the sermons, the commentaries, the family prayers, the hymns ; in all of these there was a considerable bulk of business ; the hack was at work in this A GENERAL SURVEY 23 branch as well as all the rest. There was the writing of pamphlets, now extinct ; to write a pamphlet which " caught on " was the dream of every hack. There were the Reviews and the Magazines, which certainly employed a good many pens. Thus there were the Edinburgh, the Quarterly, the Westminster, the London, the Foreign Quarterly, the Gentleman s, the Monthly Review, the Monthly Magazine, the Eclectic, the New Monthly, Eraser, the Metropolitan, the Lady's, the Court, the Asiatic Journal, the East India Review, and the United Service Journal. Of weekly reviews and magazines there were the Parthenon, the Literary, the THOMAS CARLYLE From a Photograph. AthencBum, the Mirror, Chambers' s Journal, the Penny Magazine, and the Saturday Magazine. At the same time one cannot believe that so many as 3300 persons lived in 1837 by literature apart from journalism. Although the newspaper press of the country was as nothing compared with that of the present day there were already a very large number of newspapers in London of 1837. A few of these — the Times, the Morning Advertiser, the Globe, the Observer, and one or two more — still survive. The tax on newspapers still existed to hamper enterprise and make the journals dear. In 1815 this tax, which had varied from a penny a copy to three- pence halfpenny, was raised to fourpence. The general price of a daily paper was sevenpence, a price which kept down the circulation to very moderate limits. 24 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY There was also a tax of three shiUings and sixpence on every advertisement. The cost of the paper was increased by the paper duty, which amounted to thirty shilHngs a ton. This tax brought in a milHon and a half; it was abolished in 1861. In 1836, however, the newspaper tax was reduced to a penny a copy, and so remained until 1855, when it was finally abolished. The enormous decrease in the price of paper has greatly assisted in the production of cheap journals. It is not too much to say that a rise of |d. per lb. in the price of paper would mean the extinction of nine-tenths of our penny weeklies. Enough has been said of London in 1837. I have tried to show a transition stage; the transition from the eighteenth century — in 1837 we were still in the Pliotochrorn Co., Ltd. HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT eighteenth century— to the nineteenth. We stood at the beginning of the new communications, the new travel, the new inventions, the new education, the new ideas, the new democracy. The great functions and civic ceremonies which have been conducted during the last hundred years are fully described in Chapter II. Let us consider other events of a more lasting character. There has been in London in this same century a great increase in the area devoted to open spaces and parks. By the creation of the parks of Victoria, Southwark, Battersea, Kennington, Highgate, Finsbury, and by the acquisition and preservation of the heaths and commons of Hampstead, Hornsey Wood, Wimbledon, Clapham, Tooting, Barnes, Putney, etc., breathing places and A GENERAL SURVEY 25 recreation grounds have been secured, which should assist in keeping the surround- ing districts in health, however thickly they may be built upon. In addition to these large open spaces, the City has been enriched by the conversion of numerous disused graveyards into gardens ; some of these are very small, but all are planted with flowers and shrubs and provided with benches. On the architectural side the City has been pierced by new streets, made wide for the convenience of traffic : these streets are lined by houses of architectural ambition if not success. The Thames has been provided with a splendid em- bankment, on which are rising great houses, offices, and hotels, which will make it I'hotochrom Lo., LM. QUEEN VICTORIA STREET before long the finest street in the world. The Tower Bridge, newly built, presents a gate to the City worthy of the commerce which passes through its lofty portal. The Houses of Parliament, a palace fit for the Empire which they rule, have risen on the ashes of the old Houses, which were venerable indeed, but unworthy of the country ; a new Parliament has been created in the London County Council ; a new High Court of Justice has been built ; a new office has been erected for the Imperial service ; new churches have risen all over London ; for the most part these are of good architectural design ; the Nonconformist Chapels have ceased to consider ugliness necessary to religious service ; local town halls have been erected ; a new library and museum have been created at the Guildhall. 26 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY As for the new streets, one may mention Queen Victoria Street, Cannon Street, King William Street, New Oxford Street, Regent Street, the opening of Piccadilly Circus, the new streets between St. Martin's and Piccadilly Circus, and Oxford Street. The new buildings cannot possibly be enumerated : one has only to walk along any of the principal avenues in order to notice how many tall and stately offices of architectural pretensions have taken the place of the small shops which formerly stood there. There have been losses. Of the older and historic houses. Craven House, Bedford House, Peterborough House, Burlington House, and others have been taken down. Fire destroyed what was left of the old Palace of Westminster. Fire destroyed the Royal Exchange, Drury Lane Theatre and Covent Garden Theatre. A great number of new churches have been built ; many City churches have been taken down ; many new bridges have been thrown across the river ; a large number of statues have been set up in various parts of the town. Numerous charitable institutions and societies have been founded during this period, also new institutions of art and science, and many associations for special objects. One railway has been opened after another. Many schemes of social improvement have been proposed or attempted : all these things will be more fully described in their own place. The century has abolished lotteries, public executions, flogging, and imprison- ments for debt : it has given baths, public wash-houses, free libraries and free schools, and model lodging-houses to the people ; it has also given the penny and halfpenny papers ; it has extended the franchise ; it has given the people the right to hold public meetings, to speak as they please, and to form trades-unions. It has taken from the people the places where there was formerly every night dancing in public ; it has closed the public gardens ; but it has left the music-halls and the exhibitions, where there are greater facilities or temptation than in an open dancing- room. It has witnessed a great decrease in drinking, and has opened up for the people a larger and fuller life than they could enjoy before, offering them good music, good pictures, easy access to the country, many holidays, and a greatly increased number of theatres. The population of London, including all that vast area now covered by the authority of the London County Council, was returned in 1801 as 864,035. Twenty years later it was 1,227,590. In 1841 it had risen to 1,872,365. In 1851 we find 112,362,236; in 1861,2,803,989; in 1871,3,254,260; in 1881,3,814,571; in 1891, 4.231.431- The rate of increase during the last fifty years has averaged nearly 500,000 m the ten years. One would have expected the rate to increase with the population, but this has not been the case. For instance, the increase from 1841 to 1851 was 489,861; that from 1881 to 1891 was 416,860. The reasons for this decreasing rate must be sought in the history of trade, of emigration, and other causes. A GENERAL SURVEY 27 Now, all these cities — Greenwich, with its 200,000 people ; Deptford, with 80,000 ; Hampstead, with 80,000— have arisen during the last fifty or sixty years. There are men still living who can remember open fields where is now South Kensington ; who can recall the market gardens of Bayswater, the fields and woods of Highgate and Hornsey, the rural calm of Tottenham. Those suburbs lying close to the old line of London Wall at the beginning of the century were the residence of well-to-do people — those, I mean, such as Photochroi/i Cc?., Ltd. THE THAMES EMBANKMENT Clerkenwell, Cripplegate, Southwark, Newington, now either the homes of a thousand industries, or the residence — mostly as lodgings — of the immense class of people engaged in shops and offices. For instance, north of Oxford Street, branching off right and left from the Tottenham Court Road, there are streets dull and commonplace in character, which are mainly inhabited by thousands of employes in shops. In some shops the people, especially the girls, live in the building. Many of the men, however, live outside, and in such lodgings as these. The accommodation of working men has been greatly improved of late years 28 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY by the construction of the huge barracks erected in various parts of London, especially in Southwark, Bermondsey, Drury Lane, and Whitecross Street. These barracks are said to have disadvantages, but they have certainly introduced some element of the social life where it was sadly wanting. There are quarters chiefly inhabited by foreigners. Soho, for instance, by French and Italians ; Saffron Hill by Italians ; and parts of Whitechapel by German and Polish Jews. There are other quarters chiefly occupied by Irish; one river-side parish, for instance, with a population of 8000 in all, counts among them 6000 Irish. London has always received and welcomed foreigners able and willing to work, such as the " Men of Rouen " and the " Emperor's Men," the Flemish weavers, the French workers in silk, the Palatines, the foreign Jews — all these have been received and absorbed in the general population. In the year i860 it was reckoned that there were 300,000 people coming in to the City every day. It is certainly not too much to estimate that number at the present moment at 400,000. For the conveyance of this vast army of 400,000 daily to and from the City there is provided a frequent and regular service of trains at every terminus ; from the workmen's train early in the morning till ten, and again from five till eight in the evening. He who wishes to gain some idea of this wonderful army of workers should take his stand in Liverpool Street Station from eight till half-past nine in the morning. As the hurried feet follow each other in endless procession down the platform, he will gather some perception of what is meant by a hundred thousand men. He will remark, further, that nearly all travel third class : that they are not, as a rule, an overfed class ; there is no sign in gait or figure of over-indulgence in food or drink ; in fact, the clerks of London live sparingly ; they do not spend more than they can help in food ; yet, as a rule, they look active, strong, and sufficiently fed. The onlooker, if he is past fifty years of age, will tell you that he remembers the same class when they- were pallid and patchy of cheek ; when they took no exercise ; when they drank as much as they could afford, and more ; when there was no Saturday afternoon ; when the hours were longer, the work harder, the pay less. One detail more. He will remind you that in those days few of them wore a greatcoat, a woollen wrapper for the neck was enough : now, in all this vast throng there is not one so poor as not to afford for a cold winter morning a thick greatcoat. The returning tide in the evening is much less remarkable because it is not concentrated into the space of one hour or so, but spreads over a longer time. Few clerks leave their work before six : the principals begin to go at five. The " service " begins a little after six, and continues to crowd in until half- past seven or eight. In addition to the trains there are the omnibuses for those who have only short distances to go. London has never been better supplied with an omnibus service. There are two great companies together with a number A GENERAL SURVEY 29 of private vehicles. It is remarkable to observe how a main thoroughfare such as Cheapside is filled from end to end with omnibuses. The trams carry a great many persons also, but as a rule they are useful to the clerks rather than to the City men. There are also cabs for those who can afford them. The underground railway carries its tens of thousands ; in the morning or evening the trains, which run every five minutes, carry off their three hundred passengers at a time. How are these persons distributed ? There are immense cities standing in a belt round London called suburbs, some of which are almost wholly peopled by clerks. Thus the quarters known as Dalston, Brixton, New Cross, Forest Hill, Walthamstow, Art RefiroditcUoii Co. LONDON BRIDGE Tottenham, contain many miles of small houses, which accommodate an immense number of clerks. Kennington, Stockwell, Camberwell, contain a large number of City tradesmen. Such suburbs as Balham, Sydenham, Highgate, Hampstead, Barnes, Richmond, and others contain the richer sort. We must also bear in mind, in considering the distribution of all the people, that although a suburb such as Forest Hill may send up its tens of thousands every day to the City, there remain behind the wives and families. For these an immense local trade arises ; there spring up shops of every kind ; there are local solicitors and doctors ; there are schools and colleges ; churches and chapels ; institutions of all kinds ; thus every district becomes sufficient for itself, industries of many kinds are started, the rural suburb becomes a busy and crowded town, with 30 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY the peculiarity that the streets in the day-time are filled with women and children ; and fortunes are made in local trade, or in local speculation. The tendency at present is for these great cities to detach themselves, as far as their wants and trade are concerned, from the mother city. A resident of West- bourne, for instance, finds in its principal street all the shops which he desires. The ladies are not obliged to go to Regent Street and Bond Street for the newest fashions and the most costly materials, for they can find these things on the spot. In the same way there are centres, High Streets, at Islington, at Hackney, at Clapham, at Brixton, where everything can be procured. These places are quite independent of the City and of the West End. In one respect they are not independent. These towns do not produce their own newspapers, or magazines, or literature. The newspapers still come from Printing House Square and Fleet Street ; the magazines have their offices here and there in the City and the West End ; and there are no pubHshers except those in and about Paternoster Row, Fleet Street, the Strand, and St. Martin's in the Fields. The social life of the suburbs has been much stimulated of late years by the upspringing of Institutes, Clubs, Guilds, and societies of all kinds. The young men and lads have their bicycle clubs, their ramblers' clubs, their football, cricket, rowing clubs ; they have their Institutes and Polytechnics, where there are libraries, gymnasia, debating societies, chess clubs ; they have orchestral and choral societies, lectures, concerts, even dances. Many of the Nonconformist Chapels provide a continuous round of these amusements. They keep the young men occupied in the evening, and they generally advocate, if they do not enforce, total abstinence from strong drink ; they are developing a kind of young man very superior to his predecessor — better read, better behaved, of better physique. The same kind of improvement may be marked with still greater emphasis in the girls who have been brought under these influences. They are less frivolous, much healthier ; they know a great deal more ; they take broader views of life ; they are even taller and stronger. Most of this army of 400,000 who go to the City every day still maintain the old custom of dining in the middle of the day. The City contains not a few clubs and taverns of the more expensive kind, but it also contains, as it always has done, a vast number of establishments of a humbler kind : the younger clerks, for instance, dine well if they spend a shilling on their mid-day meal ; they can dine sufficiently, but not so well, for eightpence : those who spend two shillings on the daily dinner form the aristocracy of the City employes. Some of the taverns built after the Fire are in the style and on the site of their predecessors, and still retain an old-fashioned appearance ; in one or two the chop or steak is served in a pewter dish. It is still just the same as when Fitz-Stephen wrote, there is no city in A GENERAL SURVEY 31 the world where the food is more abundant, of better quaUty, or cheaper ; while in the matter of drink, the average Londoner, who still considers beer to be the natural beverage, cannot find anywhere better beer of any kind than he gets at his favourite dining-place. Of late years the drinking of tea in the afternoon has become a habit of many ; the tea-shops are scattered about all over the City. There will also be found, by those who look for them, vegetarian restaurants, foreign restaurants, and places famous for turtle soup, for fish dinners, and for special dishes of various kinds. The old coffee-houses have almost disappeared, The Press Studio. THE TOWER BRIDGE save where the working men get their dinner at a coffee-house with a cup of coffee or tea and a slice of bacon. The old reproach that the London citizen transacted no business without a bottle to conclude it can no longer be brought against him. We find, for instance, in the seventeenth century that it was a common practice of the citizens to take a pint of wine in the forenoon ; in the next century we hear of clubs for drinking early purl ; of drinking at the taverns in the evening ; of drinking all through the afternoon ; of drinking at the club every evening ; and of drinking over every bargain. All this has now vanished ; or if there is still over-much drinking in the City it is done secretly. The modern City man, whether merchant, shopkeeper, or clerk, has become, as a rule, sober and temperate in his daily life. Even the 32 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Companies' Banquets no longer end with three or four hours of continuous drink. There is no denying the fact that one event of the century is that it found London a drunken city — a city in which all classes, from the Regent to the sweep, drank too much habitually, and that it left London a sober city. I call that city sober where the whole of the better sort set their faces steadily against intemperance ; where vast numbers are total abstainers ; where at feasts and dinners few drink much and no one drinks too much ; where the working men are ranging themselves on the side of temperance. The advance in the standard of comfort and of living has been another distinguishing mark of the century. The wages of working men have increased, while their hours of work have decreased : their health, in factories and places where industries of all kinds are carried on, has been safeguarded ; they are far better housed in the barracks where they now live than in the wretched courts where they formerly had to live. Not only are their wages higher but the money goes farther. Clothes are cheaper and more durable ; the appliances of machinery turn out better materials, and these are more quickly put together by sewing machines. Excellent meat is brought from the ends of the earth and is sold at cheap rates, the fish markets are plentifully supplied, vegetables are abundant and cheap, while as to fruit, which the working man formerly seldom tasted, there is a supply all the year round, of which the very abundance proclaims the enormous amount brought to London and the enormous demand. Oranges from California, from Africa, from Syria, from the Azores, never cease upon the fruiterer's board from January to December ; apples and pears arrive from the Cape, from Tasmania, from New Zealand in the early spring, and from America in the autumn ; bananas, an article of popular food, can be had all the year round ; and of late the working man has cultivated a taste for the tomato, a vegetable utterly unknown to him ten or twenty years ago. One proof of the general abundance may be witnessed every day in the street, particularly near a Board School, in the lumps of fine wheaten bread thrown away by the children and not picked up, even by the so-called starving tramp. There are, it is true, other sides to the picture ; there are still dark places, slums, where the most terrible suffering is endured in the most terrible company ; there are men who are like jackals, and women who are like vultures : one may see in the morning before the dust-carts have removed the contents of the dust-bins, placed before the doors of the cheaper restaurants, men and women eagerly diving into the unsavoury mass in search of something thrown away which may be eaten. There is, it is true, suffering from hunger, suffering from want of work, and suffering from vice and the consequence of vice ; there is a huge criminal class ; there is a mighty army of fallen women — some say 30,000 — standing all together in a dense mass they would fill up the whole area of Soho Square. The hospitals AIR STRlCia', \']CC-A])\\A.\. IN •|l[|-, l':\RIA' I'AkT OK \ Vlcinlrl'/.oliii's " MarcJi of tlic l-'riests," the brilliant assembly passed out "' ill' Aj/I.cy (|(,(,r. :iiii| ,i!';iiii :il()ii(; ilic luilii ;iry-lincd route to the Palace. Densely !'•" ' ' 'I ' I" '"!'■ "I |)''()|)lc jMci'icil I lnir .'lovcirifii with unbounded enthusiasm. Ill III' .iliMijr.iHi ihc ( >ii. ( II i(vir\vr,| ilic Niiviil Brigade. A banquet in the CORONATIONS AND OTHER PUBLIC CEREMONIES 49 evening was attended by sixty-four Royal personages, while the masses of London citizens were watching the twinkling and glare of the illuminations displayed by almost every householder. Next day the Queen formally received the presents sent from Foreign Courts and the Colonies, and a gift of ^75,000 from the women of Great Britain. Driving to Paddington en route for Windsor Her Majesty halted in Hyde Park, where 30,000 children had been gathered, and herself handed one of the children's memorial cups.^ Numerous galas were held to celebrate the Jubilee in every part of the Metropolis. The Drapers' Company treated 20,000 children, and afterwards 4000 adults, to a day at the People's Palace. The Corporation attended a special service at St. Paul's, and on the 28th gave a ball at the Guildhall at which nearly every member of the Royal Family was present, besides the King of Denmark, the King of the Hellenes, the King of the Belgians, the King of Saxony, and other representatives of the reigning families of Europe. The Mayors, Provosts, and High Sheriffs of the kingdom were entertained at the Mansion House. Another Jubilee function was the review of 23,672 volunteers by the Queen at Buckingham Palace. A permanent memorial of the Jubilee being mooted, Lord Mayor Staples had suggested to the Prince of Wales that this should take the form of an institute representing the arts, manufactures, and commerce of the Queen's Colonial and Indian Empire. The idea found immediate support all over the Empire ; subscriptions came to hand, and the foundation-stone of the Imperial Institute at Kensington was laid by the Queen on July 4, 1887. Six years later the edifice was completed, and on May 10, 1893, the Institute was inaugurated by Her Majesty, whose address concluded with the earnest prayer that it might "never cease to flourish as a lasting emblem of the unity and loyalty of the Empire." A few days later the Prince of Wales gave a reception to 20,000 persons, and the Institute was then thrown open to the public, under regulations. The Church of England, on the suggestion of Dr. Harvey Goodwin, Bishop of Carlisle, erected the Church House, Westminster, as a memorial of the Jubilee; the building was opened by the Duke and Duchess of York on February 11, 1896. Queen Victoria "the good" entered the sixtieth year of her reign on June 20, 1896, when congratulations reached the venerable sovereign from all parts of the world. The ceremonies proper to distinguish the reign as the longest in British history were, however, fixed by Her Majesty to take place a year later, when the sixtieth year would be completed. On Accession Day, 1897 (June 20), thanksgiving services were held in the churches, and by military on Woolwich Common. The Prince and Princess of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of York, Princess Victoria of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Fife, Prince and Princess Charles of Denmark, the Colonial Premiers, several Ambassadors, about fifty Peers, representatives of the learned societies, and two hundred members of the Bar, 1 Florence Dunn, the child so honoured, had not missed a single attendance during seven years at school. 4 50 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY attended St. Paul's ; a large number of the Peers were present at the Abbey service ; while the members of the House of Commons attended St. Margaret's. At Brompton Oratory the Roman Catholic thanksgiving was attended by many foreign princes, ambassadors, and special envoys. The Jews held a special commemoration at the Great Synagogue. Next day the Queen came from Windsor to London, receiving on her arrival at Paddington Station an address from the local Vestry. A banquet and reception to Her Majesty's guests took place at the Palace in the evening. Meantime the streets through which the procession was to pass on the morrow were overflowing with a multitude of all classes of citizens view- ing the decorations. These were in every respect splendid and gorgeous, and transformed the six miles of streets into a picture of "roses, roses all the way." Early on the morning of the 22nd, troops and mounted police lined the route; behind them spectators rapidly filled in the places ; shop windows had long been removed and tiers of seats erected in their place ; in every available space stands were built and seats upon them let, though often at prices which did not repay the enormous expense of rent and construction. Elaborate precautions against accident had been enforced by the County Council. The Royal Guards Pavilion, on the site of Lord Carrington's old house in Whitehall, with accommodation for 4000 persons and built into solid concrete foundations, gave six weeks' work to a small army of carpenters and labourers, and the seats fetched from four to twenty guineas. The day was one of perfect sunshine and calm. In the official programme the simple words " for the purpose of seeing her people and of receiving their con- gratulations on having attained the sixtieth anniversary of Her Majesty's reign," described the event to witness which the people. Upon the walls, and from the houses' tops, Hung down like clustering bees upon each other. The Colonial procession preceded the Royal one, which it awaited at St. Paul's. The Premiers of Canada, New South Wales, Victoria, New Zealand, Queensland, Cape Colony, South Australia, Newfoundland, Tasmania, Natal, and Western Australia rode in carriages, escorted by troops from most of the colonies, headed by Field-Marshal Lord Roberts. The New Zealand contingent included eighteen Maoris ; there were Ceylon mounted infantry and Cingalese artillery, Trinidad Yeomanry, Bermuda Volunteers, Cyprus Zaptiehs, Rhodesian Horse, Sikh Police from Hong Kong, Malay Police from Singapore, Dyak Police, and Gold Coast and Niger Haussas. On passing out of Buckingham Palace the Queen touched a button, which gave the signal for the transmission by telegraph to all parts of her dominions of the message : " From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God bless them ! " The processions marched from the Palace by way of Constitution Hill to Piccadilly, through St. James's Street, Pall Mall, Trafalgar Square, Duncannon CORONATIONS AND OTHER PUBLIC CEREMONIES 51 Street, Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill to St. Paul's ; thence to Cheapside, King William Street, across London Bridge, through Borough High Street, St. George's Circus, Westminster Bridge Road, across the bridge to Parliament Street, Whitehall, Horse Guards, along the Mall, and home. Naval guns, squadrons of Guards, and numerous batteries of artillery, interspersed with bands of the various regiments, were followed by the Aides-de-Camp, the Duke of Westminster, Lord Lieutenant of London, and the Headquarters Staff of the Army. Suites, equerries, and gentlemen-in-attendance rode in threes, and then came foreign naval and military attaches, and officers of the ist Prussian Dragoons of the Guard (" Queen of Great Britain and Ireland's "). A line of carriages followed with representatives of Costa Rica, Baden, Chile, Greece, Paraguay, Peru, Servia, Central America, Mexico, Uruguay, Guatemala, Brazil, China, Belgium, Netherlands, the Pope, the United States, Spain, and France ; princely ladies and lords and ladies-in-waiting. Forty Royal princes, riding three abreast, followed these sixteen carriages, the first line consisting of Baron Pawel von Rammingen, Prince Adolphus of Teck, the Duke of Fife and the Marquis of Lome. The Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and the Duke of York rode here also, and others of the princely throng were the Grand Dukes Cyril and Serge of Russia, Prince Henry of Prussia, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria- Hungary, the Grand Duke of Hesse, Princes Charles and Waldemar of Denmark, the Duke of Oporto, the Duke of Saxony, Prince Rupert of Bavaria, the Prince of Naples, the Prince of Bulgaria, Prince Mohammed Ali, Pacha of Egypt, and Prince Amir Khan of Persia. Then came the Queen's carriage, drawn by eight white Hanoverian ponies and preceded by Viscount Wolseley, Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Seated beside Her Majesty were the Princess Helena and the Princess of Wales. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Connaught rode on the right side of the Queen's carriage, and the Duke of Cambridge on the left. At Temple Bar the ceremony of receiving the Queen into the City was gone through. Lord Mayor Faudel- Phillips being on a beautiful black charger, and attired in purple velvet robe, ermine tippet, and three-cornered hat. His excellent manage- ment of the restive horse, and his grace in the whole proceedings, greatly interested the Queen. Taking up his position in front of the Royal carriage, he conducted it to St. Paul's Cathedral. Here, in front of the western entrance, the thanksgiving service took place. Places on the steps were allotted to the Queen's ministers and their wives, certain State officials and Colonial representatives, a number of diplomatic representatives, and members of the principal religious denominations, besides a choir of 500 singers and 200 instrumentalists, under Sir George Martin, the composer of the musical service. The Queen's carriage was drawn up In front of the steps, and guarded by the cohort of Princes, an Indian escort and a Colonial escort, the other carriages being grouped behind. " Te Deum Laudamus " opened 52 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY the service, the Dean and Canons then chanting " O Lord, save the Queen." The Dean said the Lord's Prayer, and the Bishop of London offered up a special Jubilee Prayer, after which the benediction was pronounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Then the brief and impressively simple service closed with the singing of the Hundredth Psalm. There was a pause when the last note had died away in the clear noontide air. A unanimous sense of something wanting suddenly found voice in the multitude breaking forth into the National Anthem, which was sung with great fervour. Amid ringing cheers the journey was then resumed. A momentary stoppage was made on reaching the Mansion House, where the Queen was presented with a bouquet of flowers by the Lady Mayoress. Enthusiasm ruled everywhere, from the moment the Queen set out from Buckingham Palace at 11.15 till the time of her arrival back there about two hours and a half later. The glittering uniforms of the military, the stalwart and disciplined bearing of the Colonial troops, the sight of representatives of all the peoples ruled by the Queen, awakened the Imperial spirit of the million and a half of spectators to a fuller activity than it had ever known before. In the evening the streets were densely crowded with admirers of the decorative illuminations. Upon St. Paul's Cathedral searchlights were turned from neighbouring buildings, with the result that the dome, crowned by its huge cross, stood out a prominent spectacle against the dark sky. The Houses of Parliament presented congratulatory addresses to the Queen on the following day at the Palace, though the Irish Members of Parliament abstained from this ; but as the rank and file of the Commons failed, owing to the brevity of the proceedings, to be received by the Queen, they and their ladies were invited to meet Her Majesty again at a garden party at Windsor some days later. On the 23rd the Queen also received the Mayors and Provosts of the United Kingdom and the Chairmen of County Councils, and on her way to Paddington, en route for Windsor, inspected 10,000 school children on Constitution Hill. On the 28th the Queen returned to London, in order to visit Kensington, where an address was presented in which the Vestry stated that the inhabitants "were deeply sensible of the gracious kindness which has prompted your Majesty once more to visit the place of your birth and childhood." Many functions of a less public character took place to signalise the Diamond Jubilee — as the occasion came to be designated— and by way of entertaining the distinguished guests of the Empire. The Prince of Wales gave a banquet at the Imperial Institute on the i8th to the Colonial Premiers, when the company of 300 was the most representative gathering of leaders of the Empire that had ever assembled together, and all the speeches were pitched in the key of Imperial Unity. On June 24 a State reception was held at the Palace, when the Prince and Princess of Wales received the Queen's guests. Next day the Lord Mayor enter- CORONATIONS AND OTHER PUBLIC CEREMONIES 53 tained a similarly distinguished company at the Mansion House. In July also the Lord Mayor gave a banquet in honour of the Colonial Premiers. A happy thought had given to the East End a preliminary Jubilee spectacle to itself. This vi^as a military procession from Victoria Park on June 19, taken part in by 2236 men and 166 officers of the home force, and 182 men and 25 officers of the Colonial contingents. The reception accorded to the troops by the huge crowds in the streets was most cordial, and for the Colonials particularly the enthusiasm of the people knew no bounds. The column broke up in front of the Mansion House, where the Indian Princes were the guests of the Lord Mayor. The Princess of Wales was leader of a movement for providing the destitute poor of London with a dinner in commemoration of the Jubilee. At first the money for this object was slow in coming in to the Lord Mayor's fund, but a gift of ;^'2 5,ooo from Mr. T. J. Lipton assured the financial success of the scheme. The dinners were given at eight principal centres on June 24, and where the recipients were too infirm to come forward the meals were sent to their homes. Nearly 305,000 persons received this Jubilee treat, and at three centres the dinners were distinguished by a visit from the Prince and Princess of Wales. Mr. Lipton received the honour of knighthood in the following year. To commemorate the Diamond Jubilee year of the Queen's reign, the Prince of Wales initiated a project to secure a permanent income for the hospitals of the Metropolis. His Royal Highness stated that an analysis of the audited statements of account for the year 1895 of 122 metropolitan hospitals and convalescent homes showed a deficiency of ^70,000 in the ordinary receipts as compared with the ordinary expenditure ; while if the figures were limited to institutions which failed to meet the outgoings, the deficiency was increased to ^102,500. Dividing the population of the metropolitan districts into two portions, and assuming that one moiety was unable to contribute anything, there still remained three millions of persons representing, say, 500,000 households. Of these, so far as could be ascertained, 450,000 households did not contribute anything towards the support of the hospitals. Therefore, while the appeal was addressed also to the ground land- lords, railway and other companies, all large employers of labour, the private and joint stock banks and companies, and the various trade associations, His Royal Highness above all asked for ^100,000 to ;^ 150,000 annual subscriptions from householders in the town and suburbs whose names were not found in the hospitals' lists. A powerful committee was associated with the Prince of Wales. Lord Rothschild became treasurer of the Fund, the Lord Mayor gave his support, and several influential newspapers lent their columns to the collection of donations from their readers. By December 20 the total amount received was ^187,000, of which ;^20,500 was made up of annual subscriptions. 54 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Various Royal Functions A picturesque visit to St. Paul's was paid by Queen Caroline on November 29, 1820, shortly after she had been felicitated by the Corporation of London upon " the triumphant refutation of the foul charges" brought against her character and honour. The service was of the nature of a thanksgiving, and the Queen was received by sixty ladies arrayed in white satin. The opening of London Bridge by William IV. and his Queen on August i, 1 83 1, was a brilliant spectacle, and the King remarked, as he stepped from the barge in which their Majesties had been conveyed from Somerset House, that the sight was the grandest and most delightful he had ever witnessed. The members of the reception committee were attired in blue coats, with white trousers. Queen Victoria attended the first Mayoralty banquet after her accession — November 9, 1837 — and had an enthusiastic welcome from the populace, who were curious to see their youthful Sovereign.^ The State procession started from " the new Palace at Pimlico." The Royal Family, Ambassadors, Cabinet Ministers, and nobility followed Her Majesty in a train of two hundred carriages. At Temple Bar the Queen was met by the City Fathers, dressed and mounted as cavaliers, and on passing St. Paul's an address was received from the scholars of Christ's Hospital. The banquet and concert at the Guildhall were upon a scale of unparalleled magnificence. On October 28, 1844, the Queen visited the City to open the new Royal Exchange. The Lord Mayor on this occasion bore before Her Majesty the great pearl sword presented to the City by Queen Elizabeth when she opened the first Exchange. " It is my royal will and pleasure," said Queen Victoria, " that this building be hereafter called the Royal Exchange." The New Hall at Lincoln's Inn was opened by the Queen on October 30, 1845, when Prince Albert was admitted a Bencher, and appeared in legal costume. A banquet was attended by 500 guests, all the barristers wearing their wigs and gowns. There was a splendid river spectacle when the Coal Exchange, Lower Thames Street, was opened by Prince Albert on October 30, 1849. The Prince embarked at Whitehall Stairs, where was assembled a flotilla of boats and barges, from the gold-carved examples of the Queen Anne period to the plain steam launch of modern times. With Prince Albert were the young Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales, and the party were conducted to the Royal barge by Lord John Russell and Sir George Grey. The six-oared gig of Commodore Eden led the procession, followed by the six-oared galley of the Water Bailiff of the City, the twelve-oared 1 Seven years before, the King's visit to the Guildhall had been cancelled owing to fear of riot. In 1817 the ceremonial of the Lord Mayor's Show was omitted because of the death of Princess Charlotte ; and that year had also been marked by an incident as the Prince Regent returned from the opening of Parliament, the Life Guards being insulted and gravel thrown at the carriage. CORONATIONS AND OTHER PUBLIC CEREMONIES 55 barge of Admiral Elliot, and the Lord Mayor's State barge with crew resplendent in scarlet and silver. Then came the Queen's State barge, the oarsmen in scarlet and gold, with black velvet caps ; and in the rear were four Admiralty barges and the Trinity House barges. The first International Exhibition was opened by the Queen in Hyde Park on May I, 1 85 1. The idea of the Great Exhibition originated with Prince Albert, as President of the Society of Arts, and a year before — March 21, 1850 — Lord Mayor THE OPENING OF THE CREAT EXHIBIIION, 1851 Farncombe gave a banquet to Prince Albert and the mayors of most of the boroughs of the United Kingdom, in order to further the project. At the opening the Queen and Prince Albert were accompanied by the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales. On the dais in the central area of the building Her Majesty was surrounded by her Ministers, the Royal Committee of the Exhibition, and foreign Ministers. Prince Albert descended and stood with the other Commissioners while he read an address, which was in the form of an official report upon his great under- taking known as "the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations." The Queen replied, and, after making a tour of the building, declared the Exhibition 56 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY open. On July 9 the Queen and Prince Albert attended an entertainment given by the Corporation in the Guildhall in honour of the Exhibition, which in the popular joy of the time was hailed as the harbinger of universal peace. When it closed on October 11 a surplus of ^150,000 remained from the undertaking, and at the closing ceremony Prince Albert, occupying the throne presented to the Queen by the Rajah of Travancore, replied to a report read by Viscount Canning, and thanked all the great bodies who had concerned themselves in the success of the enterprise. The crystal edifice of the Exhibition was afterwards purchased for .^70,000 by Mr. Samuel Laing, M.P., Chairman of the Brighton Railway, and others, and re-erected at Sydenham as a permanent place for recreation and instruction of the people. Forty thousand spectators were present in the Crystal Palace and grounds on June 10, 1854, when it was opened by the Queen. Her Majesty entered leaning on the arm of Prince Albert, and followed by the King of Portugal, the Duke of Oporto, and a brilliant company. " It is my earnest wish and hope," said the Queen, replying to an address presented by Mr. Laing, " that the bright anticipations which have been formed as to its future destiny may, under the blessing of Divine Providence, be completely realised, and that this wonderful structure and the treasures of art and knowledge which it contains may long continue to elevate and interest, as well as to delight and amuse, the minds of all classes of my people." The dual ceremony of opening Blackfriars Bridge and the Holborn Viaduct brought the Queen to the City on November 6, 1869. At the Surrey side of the new bridge Her Majesty was met by the Lord Mayor, and after the ceremony here the combined royal and civic procession passed over to the Middlesex side and reached the Viaduct, crowds cheering the party all the way. On March 29, 1871, the Queen opened the Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences, Kensington, of which she had laid the foundation-stone in 1867. A company of 8000 was present, including the members of the Royal Family and the chief officers of State. An address reporting the completion of the undertaking was read to the Queen by the Prince of Wales, and firing of guns in the Park signalled the opening. The foundation-stone of the new St. Thomas's Hospital, on the Surrey side of Westminster Bridge, was laid by the Queen in 1^68, and the building was opened also by Her Majesty on June 20, 1871. Thanksgiving Day for the recovery of the Prince of Wales from typhoid fever was marked by a procession in state to St. Paul's Cathedral on February 27, 1872, when the Queen, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and all the high officers of the Crown were present. The line of route from Buckingham Palace was decorated, and the day being a general holiday crowds of spectators thronged the streets. In the Park a band of 30,000 children sang the National Anthem as the procession passed. The congregation in the Cathedral numbered 13,000, among whom were members of Parliament, CORONATIONS AND OTHER PUBLIC CEREMONIES 57 representatives of the Army and the Navy, the Corporation, the Masters and Wardens of the City Companies, and civic dignitaries from all parts of the country. By desire of the Queen two hundred tickets of admission had been distributed among the working classes. At night the Metropolis was splendidly illuminated. In the year 1876 Her Majesty visited the London Hospital, and opened a new wing erected by the Grocers' Company. A ceremony, which marked an event of great importance to Londoners, took place on May 6, 1882, when the Queen formally declared Epping Forest open to the use and enjoyment of the public for ever. Her Majesty with Princess Beatrice went in state from Windsor to the Forest, where they were received by the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, the Duke of Connaught, Ranger of the Forest, and the Epping Forest Committee, besides a large number of the general public. In an address presented to the Queen the history of the Forest was related from the time when it was a hunting-ground for Sovereigns of the kingdom. Six months later (December 4, 1882), Queen Victoria again took part in a ceremony of great importance to London — the opening of the new Law Courts, which had taken eight years to build, and occupied a site on the north side of the Strand, near Temple Bar, where formerly slums had stood. The masses of the East End gave the Queen a brilliant welcome when she came among them on May 14, 1887 — the Jubilee year — to open the Queen's Hall of the People's Palace, and lay the foundation-stone of the new Technical and Handicraft Schools, which formed part of the same scheme. Arriving at Paddington Station from Windsor, the Queen, accompanied by Prince and Princess Christian and Prince and Princess Henry of Battenberg, drove to Mile End, being received into the City at Holborn Bars by the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs. The Prince and Princess of Wales also attended the ceremony. An address read by Sir Edmund Currie in the name of the representatives of the Beaumont Trust, out of the funds of which a large portion of the cost of the building was defrayed, stated that the Palace was a revival and extension of the Philosophical Institute founded and endowed by the late Mr. Barber Beaumont. The Queen in her reply said : "It gives me great satisfaction to open this fine building provided for the people of the East End of London, whose lives of unceasing and honourable toil will be cheered by the various opportunities of rational and instructive entertainment and of artistic enjoyment here afforded to them." During the ceremony the Queen conferred the honour of knighthood on the Master of the Drapers' Company, who were munificent contributors to the undertaking. A few of those who had specially interested themselves in the scheme were presented to the Queen, including Captain Spencer Beaumont, representing the Beaumont Trust, and Walter Besant, of whose Survey of London the present chapter forms a part. On returning west, the Queen and other members of the Royal Family stopped at the Mansion House to take tea with the Lord Mayor and the Lady Mayoress. 58 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY \'isiTs OF Foreign Royalties W hen the exiled Louis XVIII. was summoned in 1814 from his English retreat at Hartwell to assume the Crown of France, the Prince Regent invited him first to display the roya'. dignity in London. His welcome by the British metropolis was most cordial. The rr.ilitar)- part of the spectacle was as full and splendid as the diminished state of the Guards and other troops would permit. Late in the afternoon of April 20, the King arrived at Hyde Park, the Prince Regent having accompanied him :ro~ Stanmore. From the Park to Albemarle Street the way was lined by a mass of cirriag-s. with ladies of the first fashion standing on the seats. Ever, balcony and window was full, covered with the Bourbon flag or wreathed with white. Upon entering Gril'.on's Hotel, on the Prince Regent's arm, the King was received by the Earls of Buckinghamshire. Bathurst, and Liverpool, and about one hundred and fifty of the ancient French noblesse. After replying to a short address of the Prince Regent, the King took the ribbon of the Order of Saint Esprit from his own shoulder and the star from his breast, and invested the Prince with it, declaring his happiness that it should be upon His Royal Highness he should idrst confer that ancient order after the restoration. A few weeks later the Allied Sovereigns. Alexander I. aad Frederick William III., visited London upon the conclusion of peace wr:h France. A Russian Emperor had been in England before, but this was the first time a Prussian King had come. They reached London on June 7, and such was their activity during the next fortnight that they saw everything that was peculiar and important in the iNIetropolis. They went by water to the military- arsenal at Woolwich, visited the docks, witnessed at St. Paul's the annual assemblage of thousands of charity children belonging to the Metropolis, viewed the military asylum and Chelsea Hospital, and attended the opera at King's Theatre. Everywhere they were accorded a warm reception by the populace, which was especially cordial when they went to the City on June 16 as the guests at dinner of the [Merchants and Bankers, and two days later as the guests of the Corporation. Among the company on the latter brilliant occasion were the Prince Regent, Marquis Wellesley, Lord Liverpool, Marshal Bliicher, Prince Metternich, and the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg. The Emperor resided with his sister at Pulteney Hotel, and the King of Prussia with his sons at Clarence Hoijs';, and both hardy monarchs discarded the magnificent appointments of their quart';rs. The Emperor chose to sleep upon a straw paillasse, and the King, bf.;,i'l<:s having plain furniture introduced, used the leather mattress and bolster of his (.;ui)p outfit. For three nights London was illuminated in honour of the vi'.it, and while [K;ace was being proclaimed in the streets on June 20 their Majc.'.ljof,, with tho Prince Regent and Marshal Blucher, were present at a review ol rcjoilar iroofjs and volunteers in Hyde Park, which was one of the most CORONATIONS AND OTHER PUBLIC CEREMONIES 59 brilliant spectacles ever seen there. Marshal Bliicher, who enjoyed an extraordinary and effusive popularity after leaving London, returned on June 28 and was present at Buckingham Palace when the Queen welcomed the Duke of Wellington back to England. In August of the same year a jubilee was held in Hyde Park to celebrate the triple events of the peace, the anniversary of the victory of the Nile, and the centenary of the House of Brunswick. "Their savage majesties" of the Sandwich Islands, King Kamehameha and Queen Tamehamalu, visited London in 1824, and were lionised. They resided at Osborne's Hotel, Adelphi, lived very much on fish, were particularly fond ot j If #1*4 ' mm THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA AT PULTENEY HOTEL IN 1814 From a contemporary print. oysters, and wore dress of a fashion which seriously embarrassed their movements. Both died at the hotel in July from an attack of measles and inflammation of the lungs. The King of Prussia attended the christening of the Prince of Wales in 1842, and visited Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, the Tower, and other places of interest. After taking leave of the Queen on February 4 he was present at a review of the Royal Artillery at Woolwich, and afterwards joined his steamer for Ostend. Spontaneously and unexpectedly, the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, travelling as "Count Orloff," landed at Woolwich on June i, 1844, on a week's visit to the Queen at Windsor. Half of the time was spent in London, the Emperor first taking up his quarters at the Russian Embassy, but removing later to Buckingham 6o LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Palace as the guest of the Queen. He held conversations with the Duke of Wellington, the Earl of Aberdeen, and Sir Robert Peel, relative to the state of Turkey, and pleaded for a common understanding with Britain in defence of his proceedings against that tottering empire. The Emperor was lavish in rewarding every one who ministered in any way to his comfort, and gave looo guineas to the Society for the Relief of Foreigners in Distress, .^500 to the Wellington Testimonial Fund, 200 guineas to the poor of St. George's Parish, and 100 guineas towards the foundation of a hospital for distressed Germans in London. During his stay he met another Royal visitor, the King of Saxony, who joined heartily in LOUIS PHILIPPE, KING OF FRANCE the cheering of the crowd on June 18, at the unveiling of the statue of the Duke of Wellington in front of the Royal Exchange. The aged King of the French, Louis Philippe, came on a visit to the Court in October of the same year, a year after the Queen and Prince Albert had visited him at the Chateau d'Eu. His engagements at Windsor during his stay of six days did not allow the King time to visit London, but he received an address on the 12th from the Lord Mayor and Corporation. His Majesty remarked that he knew all the wards of the City almost as well as did the Common Councilmen themselves, having lived so long in this country. In 1845 the King sent a French artist to take the portraits of the members of the Corporation who presented the address, and one of the two pictures that were painted was presented to the City. In return the CORONATIONS AND OTHER PUBLIC CEREMONIES 6i citizens presented the King with one of two medallion portraits of himself. The King of Portugal, during a visit in May 1854, saw the docks, the Bank, and other places, attended the opening of the Crystal Palace, and on the 19th was presented with an address of welcome by the Corporation. A magnificent ovation was given to the Emperor and Empress of the French during their stay as the Queen's guests for five days in April 1855. An announcement Napoleon III. had made at the beginning of his reign — " L' empire c'est la pair" — was eagerly accepted as a motto by peace-loving London, and met the Emperor's gaze frequently upon banners waving alongside the national flag of the Crimean allies. The Queen and Prince Albert accompanied their Imperial visitors to London on the 19th, when they were received at the Guildhall. " The eyes of all who suffer," said the Emperor in his reply, "turn instinctively to the West. Thus our two nations are even more powerful from the opinions they represent than by the armies and fleets they have at their command." In the same year Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, a country then in close alliance with England and France, visited London and met with a popular demonstration little short of that which Napoleon III. had received a few months before. He went to Woolwich Arsenal and to a review on the Common there, accompanied by the Queen and Prince Albert, and on December 4 received an address from the Corporation. Prince Frederick William of Prussia was presented with the freedom of the City, in a gold box, on July 13, 1857. The King and Queen of the Belgians, when in England for the marriage of the Princess Helena and Prince Christian, dined at the Mansion House on July 6, 1866, in company with the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh. No chief of the Mussulmans had ever visited this country until the Sultan Abdul Aziz came in July 1867. This visit of the "son of Osman's race" was welcomed as a happy augury for the future harmony of Turkey with civilised governments in Europe. A special ode written by Zafiraki Effendi, of which the following is a verse, was sung on the occasion of the Sultan's visit to the Crystal Palace, towards the restoration of which after the fire of the previous winter he gave ^1000 : — In the garments of thy gladness, why, O London, art thou bright? As a bride in her apparel, fresh and fair art thou to-night ! Why, O Palace, built of diamond, still with fragrant flowers bedight, Do thy stones all flame as rubies, flash and glow with fiery light ? Why do voices make thee tremble — voices of a host of night ? The Sooltdn Abd'ool-Aziz comes, hail the cause of our delight ! The Sultan visited the Royal Italian Opera, the military departments at Woolwich, the Horticultural Gardens, and a state reception and ball given in his honour at the India Office. On July 18 he was presented with an address by the Corporation and entertained in a company of 3000, which included the Prince of Wales and other members of the Royal Family. " I have two objects in view in 62 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY visiting this and other parts of Europe," said the Sultan at the Guildhall, " one, to see in these centres of civilisation what still remains to be done in my own country to complete the work which we have begun ; the other, to show my desire to establish, not only among my own subjects but between my people and the other nations of Europe, that feeling of brotherhood which is the foundation of human progress and the glory of our age." The Sdtan's eleven days' stay in the country terminated on the 23rd, and he afterwards sent /2500 for the poor of London. In the summer of 1871 the Emperor and Empress of Brazil were in London in the course of a European tour, and stayed at Claridge's Hotel, encouraging no display. They received the congratulations of the Corporation through the BraziHan Legation. The Shah of Persia, Nasser-el-Din, arrived at Buckingham Palace on June 18, 1873, and was entertained by the City two days later in presence of 3000 guests. He went to Woolwich, the International Exhibition, Albert Hall, the Tower, and Greenwich Hospital. Great multitudes turned out to welcome Alexander II., Emperor of Russia, in 1874, shortly after the marriage of his daughter with the Duke of Edinburgh. He was present on May 17 at the Crystal Palace with the Prince and Princess of Wales, was entertained at luncheon by the Corporation on the following day, and also visited Woolwich during his week's stay. The Tsar gave ^lOOO to the poor of London. In presenting the freedom of the City to the Sultan of Zanzibar on July 12, 1875, the City authorities were able to refer to the conclusion of the Treaty for the suppression of the slave trade within his sphere of jurisdiction. The Society of Arts presented the Sultan with an address, and before leaving His Majesty presented to the Lord Mayor a scimitar, shield, dagger, and belt of African workmanship. On May 16, 1876, the ex-King and Queen of Hanover came on a visit, staying at Claridge's Hotel, and there received many addresses of congratulation upon His Majesty's birthday on the 27th. The King and Queen of the Hellenes, while on a visit to Marlborough House, were entertained at dinner by the Prince of Wales at the Crystal Palace on July 19, 1876. The King of the Belgians was invested with the freedom of the Turners' Company on March 18, 1879, and entertained at the Mansion House; the King recalling that his father had received the same freedom fifty years before. Another visit of the King and Queen of the Hellenes occurred in 1880, when an address was presented by the Corporation on June 16, and their Majesties were entertained in presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales and Mr. Gladstone. In the following year King Kalakua, of the Sandwich Islands, paid a visit of eighteen days, taking up his residence at Claridge's Hotel on July 6. He visited many objects of national interest, including the Bank, the Crystal Palace, and Westminster Abbey, and was the guest of the Corporation on July 16, when the 64 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Lord Mayor entertained the Prince of Wales, the President of the Royal Colonial Institute, and a large company. When in London for the Queen's Jubilee in 1887, the King of the Belgians laid the foundation-stone of the library of the People's Palace on June 25. A second visit of the Shah, in July 1889, was marked by a very cordial reception ; he landed on the first day of the month at Westminster in company of the Prince of Wales, who had met him at Gravesend. Among the festivities in his honour during the week were an entertainment at the Crystal Palace, a state ball and a state concert ; and on July 3 he was the guest of the Corporation at deje^lner and received an address, the Company including the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Marquis of Salisbury. A great welcome was given to the German Emperor in July 1891. He arrived with the Empress at Windsor, and attended the marriage of the Princess Louise, Queen Victoria's granddaughter, and Prince Aribert of Anhalt. The Imperial visitors came to London on July 8 and stayed at Buckingham Palace. Two days later they had a magnificent reception in a brilliant state procession to the Guildhall, where an address was presented by the Corporation. The Emperor here made a declaration of friendship. " Following the example of my grandfather and of my ever-lamented father," he said, " I shall always, as far as it is in my power, maintain the historical friendship between these our two nations which have so often been seen side by side in defence of liberty and justice." The Emperor, who stayed until the 13th, attended service at St. Paul's, and visited the Naval Exhibition. At the Crystal Palace he inspected the national fire brigades, and was entertained at a concert and dinner by the Prince of Wales. The Prince of Naples also came to London this year, and dined with the Lord Mayor. Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria was received in state by the Lord Mayor on June 10, 1892. In 1893 the King and Queen of Denmark, accompanied by the Cesarewitch, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and other members of the Royal Family, lunched at the Guildhall, when addresses of welcome were presented. Prince Nasrulla Khan, second son of the Ameer of Afghanistan, was received with great honour in this country in 1895, ^^ the representative of his father. He arrived in London on May 24, and the visit was protracted till September 3. On June 6 he was received in state by the Lord Mayor at the Guildhall. The King of Siam arrived in London on July 30, 1897, and took up residence, during an official visit of a few days, in Buckingham Palace. He afterwards left for various parts of the country and the Continent, returning again to London on September 18. He was presented with an address by the Corporation on September 30, and was the guest of the Lord Mayor at a banquet in the Mansion House. In his reply the King said his greatest ambition was to strengthen the bonds of friendship between the two countries. Among the places King Chulalongkorn visited were the Tower and Kew Gardens. CORONATIONS AND OTHER PUBLIC CEREMONIES 65 Other distinguished Visitors General Espartero, the exiled Regent of Spain, was entertained at the Mansion House on September 26, 1843, ^^^ received the sympathy of the Corporation in the "frustration of his ' wide and philanthropic policy.' " In 1851 the acclamations of the multitude hailed M. Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, and formerly the Governor-General of that country. An address was presented by the Corporation on October 30, in acknowledging which Kossuth eulogised London as one of the oldest municipal institutions on the earth : more than an empire, more than a nation. " What I wish," he said, " is that the public opinion of England may establish it as a ruling principle of the politics of Europe to acknowledge the right of every nation to dispose of its own internal concerns, and not to give a charter to the Tsar to dispose of the fate of nations." Next day he was presented with an address from Republicans, Revolutionists, and Socialists, and on the 3rd of November he addressed a great gathering of trades-unionists on Copenhagen Fields. The Italian Liberator, General Garibaldi, made a public entry into London in April 1864 amidst an extraordinary demonstration of popular enthusiasm. Peers, Members of Parliament, and a procession of workmen met him at Nine Elms Station. The visit, during which he was the guest of the Duke of Sutherland, lasted from the nth to the 22nd, this period being occupied in receptions, banquets, and visits to national establishments. At the Crystal Palace on the 1 6th he received an address from the London Italian Committee, and spoke to an audience of 25,000. He was presented with the freedom of the City on the 20th, and entertained at Fishmongers' Hall. So great was the press at the former ceremony that Menotti, the son of the Italian patriot, was unable to gain admission. Menotti was to have received the gold box on behalf of his father, who had previously stated that he always refused gifts. The Viceroy of Egypt came to London on July 6, 1867, and met the Sultan of Turkey. He attended a banquet in the Egyptian Hall of the Mansion House (July 11), and received at Dudley House an address from the City Corporation. In 1869 the Viceroy was again in London, and on June 29 was publicly welcomed at the Crystal Palace. M. Ferdinand de Lesseps was presented with the freedom of the City on May 30, 1870, as a tribute to his skill as engineer of the Suez Canal. A fete and reception in his honour was attended by 26,000 persons at the Crystal Palace on July 7, and next day he was presented with the gold medal of the Society of Arts for his service to arts, manufactures, and commerce in the construction of the Suez Canal. Li Hung Chang, the Chinese Minister of State, after representing the Emperor of China at the Russian Coronation and visiting European countries, arrived in London on August 2, 1896, and took up quarters in Carlton Terrace, S 66 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY where a house was placed at his disposal by the Government. His stay in the country lasted three weeks, and he paid numerous visits in London. At the China Association banquet on August 7 he compared the energy of the West with the meditation of the East, and pleaded for the assistance of the greatest commercial nation, whose chief interest was peace, in case peace-loving and commerce-desiring China should be threatened from within or from without. Notable Public Funerals On the morning of January 8, 1806, the ceremonies for the burial of Horatio, Lord Nelson, began by the removal of the body from Greenwich Hospital, where it had lain in state and been visited by thousands of people. Heralds and naval officers, the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London and several of the Companies, the Watermen, and the Chaplain and Staff of the River Fencibles were present in the solemn water procession of seventeen barges. The body was in the third barge, which was covered with black velvet and rowed by sixteen seamen belonging to the Victory. The top was adorned with plumes of black feathers, and in the centre, upon four shields of the arms of Nelson, joining in point, was a Viscount's coronet. As the barges, their flags at half-mast, sailed up the river, minute-guns were fired. Not a vessel was allowed to disturb the procession, but the docks and yards and the rigging and masts of the numerous ships on the river were crowded with spectators. At the approach to Whitehall Stairs the King's, the Admiralty, the Lord Mayor's and the City barges drew up in two lines, through which the barge with the body passed. All oars were advanced, the bands played dirgelike strains, and all the time the gunboats fired minute-guns. A tremendous but momentary hailstorm signalled the landing ; the atmosphere soon cleared, and the stately train of mourners moved in order to the Admiralty, where the body remained in the Captains' room, which was lighted with tapers, until the following day. By daybreak troops lined the streets in two ranks from St. Paul's Church- yard to the Admiralty, and the Life Guards were stationed at Hyde Park, where the carriages of the nobility and the mourning coaches were to be marshalled. In St. James's Park were drawn up all the regiments of cavalry and infantry quartered within one hundred miles of London who had served in the campaigns in Egypt, and a detachment of flying artillery with twelve field-pieces. At half-past ten the procession commenced from the Admiralty with the march of the several regiments led by the Duke of York. The funeral car, drawn by six led horses, was decorated with a carved imitation of the head and stern of the Victory, surrounded with escutcheons of the arms of the deceased ; a figure of Fame ornamented the head ; in yellow raised letters on the lanthorn over the poop was the word " Victory," while between the escutcheons were inscribed "Trinidad " and " Bucentaur." The coffin CORONATIONS AND OTHER PUBLIC CEREMONIES 67 rested on the quarter-deck, with its head towards the stern. The corners and sides of the canopy were decorated with black ostrich feathers and festooned with black velvet richly draped, above which in the front was inscribed in gold the word " Nile." Behind was the word " Trafalgar," and on one side the motto " Hoste devicto requievit," and on the other side " Palmam qui meruit ferat." In order to afford the spectators a view of the coffin, the black velvet pall, adorned with six escutcheons of the arms of the dead hero, and the six bannerols of the family lineage, were removed from the hearse. Through the Strand the procession moved at a solemn pace to Temple Bar LORD nelson's FUNERAL CAR From The European Magazine. Gate, where it was received by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, Recorder, Sheriffs, and a special committee of the Corporation. On arriving at St. Paul's, the cavalry marched off to their barracks ; the Scottish regiments drew up in the area fronting the church and marched in; forty-eight Greenwich pensioners and forty-eight seamen and marines from the Victory divided in a line on each side under the western portico. The body was taken from the car and borne by twelve men, the supporters and pall-bearers receiving it within the gate ; and the remainder of the procession entered the church. Immediately behind the great banner the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's fell into line, attended by the minor canons and vicars-choral of the Cathedral, the minor canons and vicars-choral of the collegiate church of St. Peter, Westminster, (>S LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY and olluM-s. Viscount Merton, the chief mourner, his two supporters, and his Ir.iiiihcart'r were seated during the service near the body. The Prince of Wales and his royal brothers took up a position at the east end of the prebendal stalls and on tlic south side of the choir, and the Duchess of York also sat in the choir. At the conclusion of the service a procession was formed to the grave. Royal dukes, foreign ambassadors, naval officers, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Councilmen sat around, while a solemn dirge was performed on the organ. At the grave was sung " Man that is born of Woman," and after the first collect the anthem " His body is buried in peace," with the chorus, "But his name liveth evermore." When the body was deposited the troops drawn up in Moorfields were signalled to ; the artillery fired their guns, and the infantry gave volleys, by corps, three times repeated. Garter King-at-Arms proclaimed the style, and the comptroller, treasurer, and steward of the late Vice-Admiral broke their staves and gave the pieces to Garter, who threw them into the grave. The standard, banners, bannerols, and trophies were laid on the table behind the chief mourner, and the procession then returned. During the whole of the ceremony perfect order reigned in the Metropolis, and every evidence of sorrow was manifested by an immense concourse of spectators of all ranks. When the Duke of Clarence ascended the steps of St. Paul's he stopped suddenly and took hold of the colours that were borne by the Victory s men ; and after conversing with one of the tars he burst into tears. 1806 was a year of great funerals. Two states- men, William Pitt (February 22) and Charles James Fox (October 10) were buried in Westminster Abbey. The body of Pitt lay in state in the House of Lords and was visited, in two days, by 47,000 persons. Fox's funeral started from his house in Stable Yard, St. James's Palace, and in the procession were fifty-seven poor men in mourning cloaks. When the Duke of Wellington died in 1852, Queen Victoria desired that he should be buried by the side of Lord Nelson — " the greatest military," said Her Majesty, "by the side of the greatest naval chief who ever reflected lustre upon the annals of England." The body was removed to London from Walmer Castle on the evening of November 10, nearly two months after death, and placed in the great hall of Chelsea Hospital, which had been prepared for the lying-in-state. On the following day the Queen, Prince Albert, and the royal children paid a private visit, and afterwards the Chelsea Pensioners, the Life Guards, and the Grenadiers, and the boys and girls of the Duke of York's schools were admitted. A terrible scene was witnessed next day (Saturday). The police arrangements were totally inadequate for the numbers of the nobility and gentry who appeared with tickets from the Lord Chamberlain. In eight hours 10,800 persons passed through the hall. Long trains of gentlemen and lightly clad ladies waited patiently for hours CORONATIONS AND OTHER PUBLIC CEREMONIES 69 in the cold and boisterous weather. Women were knocked down and fainted away in the crush to gain entrance ; children were held aloft to escape suffocation ; fathers and brothers vainly strove to recover their lost relatives torn from them ; shrieks of distress rose on every hand, and three persons suffered death. On the three further days of the lying-in-state improved arrangements were in force, but two more deaths occurred. Altogether 225,000 persons viewed the lying-in-state. On the night of the 17th the body was removed to the Horse Guards, and there laid in the Audience Chamber. Early next morning it was taken to a pavilion pitched on the parade, and placed on the magnificent car which had been con- structed for the service. Before daybreak the troops began to muster in the Park, and take up their positions in and about Whitehall, the whole military arrangements being in the hands of the Duke of Cambridge. At eight o'clock the hangings of the tent covering the funeral car were unfurled, and the first minute-gun fired. Instantly the troops presented arms to their late commander, and the drum beat a long and swelling roll. The order to " reverse arms " was then given, and the procession began to move. So long was it that an hour and a half elapsed before the car was in motion, and half an hour later before the extreme car started. The route was from Whitehall through St. James's Street, Pall Mall, Charing Cross, the Strand, Fleet Street, and Ludgate Hill, to St. Paul's. For many days the expression of public grief had been formulating in the shape of long ranges of seats covered with black cloth at every space which looked upon the line. Public buildings were arrayed in the insignia of mourning, and barriers were erected at the embouchures of the side streets and along the whole length of Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill. A million and a half of spectators were in the streets, and a few policemen were sufficient to keep this multitude in peace and order. The Queen and the royal children viewed the pageant from the central balcony of Buckingham Palace, but when the procession reached St. James's Palace the Queen was observed, along with the Royal Family, the Duchess of Kent, some foreign princes, and the Court, at the apartments adjoining the main entrance. At Charing Cross eighty-three (the number of the Duke's years) Chelsea pensioners joined the procession, and at Temple Bar, which was converted into an imposing funeral arch, the Lord Mayor and Corporation fell into line, the Lord Mayor taking precedence, within the City, of the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. The car reached the Cathedral door a few minutes past twelve o'clock. A battalion of Guards had been drawn up near the Cathedral, and when the head of the column arrived here the whole body of the infantry that preceded the car divided and fell into line on each side of the street. Twenty thousand persons were inside the Cathedral. Under the dome on either side of the area rose the segments of an amphitheatre, in which were the seats allotted to the members of the two Houses of Parliament, the foremost being occupied by the Ministers, Judges, and high ro LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY functionaries of the State. Following the choristers along the nave came various groups of soldiers, the foreign marshals carrying the Duke's colours, and Prince Albert with the sword of state before him and a company of officers following. The coffin, decorated with trophies and heraldic achievements, with the hat and sword of the deceased upon it, was conveyed upon a wheeled bier ; the pall was flung back, and the white feathers of the Duke's hat waved in the wind which swept THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, 1852 From a print in the Grace Collection. along the nave. Dean Milman read the service. At its conclusion Garter King- at-Arms proclaimed the style and titles of the Duke, a wand was broken and thrown down on the coffin, and the ceremony closed with a benediction pronounced by the Bishop of London. The military engaged in the procession were then marched back to their quarters, and the huge assembly of spectators dispersed. The only cause of anxiety for the arrangements had been at the outset for the progress of the car, as the weather had been exceedingly wet and the roads were heavy. The twelve great horses, however, made light of the ponderous vehicle of as many tons CORONATIONS AND OTHER PUBLIC CEREMONIES 71 weight, and except that one of the wheels sank into the ground opposite the Duke of York column, when the assistance of some soldiers was required to set the car in motion again, there was no difficulty. Addressing the House of Lords on the day after the funeral, Lord Derby said : " When amidst solemn and mournful music, slowly and inch by inch the coffin which held the illustrious dead descended into its last long resting-place, I was near enough to see the countenances of many of the veterans who were companions of his labours and of his triumphs, and was near enough to hear the suppressed sobs and see the hardly checked tears which THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON PRESENTING A CASKET TO HIS GODSON PRINCE ARTHUR From a painting by F. Winterhaller. would not have disgraced the cheeks of England's greatest warriors as they looked down for the last time upon all that was mortal of our mighty hero." Second only to that of the Duke as an imposing military display was the funeral of Lord Napier of Magdala at St. Paul's, January 21, 1890. From Eaton Square the cortege went first to the Tower, of which the aged Field-Marshal had been Constable, and there the body lay for an hour in the Chapel of St. Peter Ad Vincula. We turn back to a funeral of a very different sort. The ill-starred Queen Caroline had directed in her will that her body should, three days after her death, be 72 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY carried to Brunswick for interment, and that the inscription on the coffin should be : " Here lies Carohne of Brunswick, the injured Queen of England." The Govern- ment could not comply with the latter injunction, and in paying deference to the former they encountered riotous scenes in London. The Queen died on August 7, 1 82 1, and the funeral was fixed for the 14th, in spite of a plea from the ladies of her late Majesty's household for delay as their dresses could not be ready in time. The procession left Brandenburgh House, Hammersmith, on the way to Harwich, although the Queen's executors protested against the removal of the body. When the procession reached the gravel-pits at Kensington it found the road blocked by waggons and carts, and after a delay of an hour and a half it moved in the direction of London. On reaching Kensington Gore a squadron of Life Guards, headed by the Chief Magistrate of the police in London, Sir Robert Baker, tried in vain to open the Park gates, the crowd meanwhile shouting, "To the City! To the City ! " The gate at Hyde Park Corner being found barricaded with carts, the procession next moved towards Park Lane, but as this also was blocked, the soldiers returned, and by using their sabres enabled the procession to enter the Park by the gate. The procession proceeded through the Park at a trot, only to find that Cumberland Gate was closed. Here the crowd retaliated on the soldiers, hurling at them missiles obtained from a brick wall which collapsed by the force of the people. Many of the military were hurt, and some of them resorted to firearms, with the result that two persons were killed and others wounded. Edgware Road, though blocked, was quickly cleared, and the procession arrived safely at the turnpike gate near the top of Tottenham Court Road. Very rapidly the mob made a dense barrier at this point, and so determined were they that a passage through them was impossible. Sir R. Baker therefore turned down Tottenham Court Road, and thence the procession wended its way into the Strand, through the City, and onwards to the coast. Only the near relatives, a few private friends, and those of his official colleagues who remained in town, followed the remains of George Canning from the Foreign Office to the grave in Westminster Abbey on August 26, 1827, but the presence of thousands of spectators in Parliament Street attested the sympathy of the people of London. Twice again particularly in the century they were moved on occasions when the seal of the nation's gratitude was given to departed statesmen. When Lord Palmerston was buried (October 27, 1865), the whole length of the road from Cambridge House to Westminster Abbey was lined with dense masses of spectators, even the Duke of York Column being surmounted by daring ones ; and the public funeral of Mr. William Ewart Gladstone (May 28, 1898), at which the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York were pall-bearers, was preceded by a lying- in-state in Westminster Hall, when 300,000 persons filed reverently past the body. CHAPTER III TEMPORAL GOVERNMENT Bv Sir Walter Besant The discussion on the Local Government Bill of 1888, and the separation of the City from Greater London which it involved, naturally brought about a considera- tion of the City and the possibility of forming an amalgamation of the City and the County. On April 5, 1893, ^ Royal Commission was appointed, not for the purpose of considering whether an amalgamation was desirable — that point was taken for granted^but under what conditions and in what manner the amalgama- tion might be effected. The Commissioners were Mr. Leonard Courtney, Sir Thomas Farrer, Mr. R. D. Hold, Mr. H. H. Crawford, and Mr. Edward Orford Smith. The Report of the Commissioners was completed and signed on August- 7, 1894. It began with reciting the occasions on which the Government of London had been considered in recent years. These occasions were : I. The Municipal Corporation Act of 1835, which provided that the governing bodies should be elected by resident rated occupiers : that the councillors should be elected for three years, and the aldermen, who were to be chosen by the councillors themselves, for six years. The area and extent of the boroughs were in many cases greatly enlarged. That of Liverpool, for example, having its population increased from 165,000 to 206,000. But London was excepted from this legislation. Its case was separately considered by the Com- missioners of 1837. They reported that they "did not find any argument on which the course pursued with regard to other towns could be justified, which did not apply with the same force to London," and they "were unable to discover any circumstance justifying the distinction of the small area within the municipal boundary from the rest, except that in fact it was, and had long been, so distinguished." They went on, in the spirit of prophecy, to protest against the creation of separate communities. " We hardly anticipate that it will be suggested, for the purpose of removing the appearance of singularity, that the other quarters of the town should be formed into independent and isolated com- munities, if, indeed, the multifarious relations to which their proximity compels 73 74 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY them would permit them to be isolated and independent. The plan would, as seems to us, in getting rid of an anomaly, tend to multiply and to perpetuate an evil." 2. In 1853 another Commission was appointed to inquire into the affairs of the City Corporation. The Commissioners recommended certain reforms, and suggested that the seven Parliamentary Boroughs then existing in the Metropolis should be created Municipal Boroughs combined with a central Board of Works. 3. In 1855 the Metropolis Local Management Act introduced by Sir Benjamin Hall created the Board of Works intended for the management of such matters as main drainage, belonging to the whole of London. 4. A Select Committee of the House of Commons sat in 1861 to inquire into the Local Government and Taxation of the Metropolis. The Report of the Committee contains a valuable sketch of the existing condition of local Govern- ment in London. 5. Another Committee with the same object sat in 1866. This Committee made no suggestions of importance. 6. A third Committee sat in 1867 and offered several definite suggestions, viz. : — " (i) That the Metropolis should be constituted a county of itself. (2) That the Metropolitan Board of Works should contain, besides representa- tives of the several vestries and district boards as before, a number of metropolitan justices, to represent the owners of property, and a further number of members elected directly by the ratepayers in each district. (3) That the powers and duties of the Metropolitan Board of Works having been much enlarged since its first establishment, its name should be made more conformable to its present and future condition, and it should be called ' The Municipal Council of London.' (4) That its powers should be still further extended as regards gas and water supply, railways, and securing uniformity of assessment. (5) That the existing divisions of the Metropolis for the purpose of local government should be readjusted, and divided into convenient wards, the ratepayers of which should directly elect the members of the district governing bodies. (6) That the governing authority for each district should be called the ' Common Council ' of the district. (7) That these common councils should absorb the boards of guardians, so that the functions of local government brought into close relations with the relief of the poor should be exercised by one body, subject to such superior control by the Municipal Council as might be necessary for the general welfare of the Metropolis. (8) That all the police in the Metropolis should be placed under one control ; TEMPORAL GOVERNMENT 75 but if that should be found too heavy a charge, the police of the remoter districts should be transferred to the counties in which they were situate where an efficient county police was established" {^Report of the Commissioners, 1894, p. 9). 7. In 1884 Sir William Harcourt brought forward a measure based on the creation of a single municipality for the whole of London, and for extending the area and reforming the Constitution of the City. It was proposed that this municipality should absorb all the powers of existing vestries, giving back such functions as might be advantageously entrusted to them. This Bill was withdrawn after several debates. 8. In 1888 a Bill was carried through Parliament for the creation of County Councils : "The Local Government Act of 1888 affected London in a special and some- what complicated manner. For non-administrative purposes it constituted London outside the City a county at large, with an organisation corresponding to that of other counties in England, except in so far as that organisation is modified by the existence of the Central Criminal Court District, the Metropolitan Police, the Metropolitan Police Courts, with their Magistrates, and a paid Chairman of Quarter Sessions. For similar purposes the Act left the City of London, which is a county of a city, practically untouched. For administrative purposes the Act created the Administrative County of London, which includes the City, and for which the County Council is elected ; and it treated the City as nearly as possible as if it were a quarter sessions borough, with a population exceeding 10,000, lying within the Administrative County of London. It therefore transferred or reserved to the Common Council of the City the powers of the council of a borough of that class. The theory was simple ; the complexity lay in the existing facts. On the one hand the Metropolitan Board of Works had extensive powers of town government outside the City, including not only direct administrative functions, but also various powers of control over the action of the local authorities, the vestries, and district boards ; and it had also some powers which almost of necessity extended to the area of the City, for example, main drainage. All these powers and duties were transferred to the London County Council, which thus obtained not only large powers of town government over the whole area of the administrative county with the exception of the City, but also powers and functions within the City, which no other county council exercises in a borough lying within its administrative area. On the other hand, the Corporation of the City, by ancient privilege or special legislation, had rights and powers which extended beyond the area of the City, and applied to or affected the whole Administrative County of London, such, for example, as market rights, and powers as to foreign cattle, and as port sanitary authority. These rights and powers were left untouched, and they connect the City with the Administrative County of London in a way in which no borough is connected with 76 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY the Administrative County in which it lies. The machinery of local government applicable to a rural county with boroughs lying within its area was insufficient for the far more complicated case of London, and the problem of its government was not solved by the Act of 1888 " [Rep07d of the Commissioners, 1894, pp. 9, 10). "We have therefore three principal areas existing in London : (i) the City of London governed by an unreformed Corporation, which is also a separate county for non-administrative purposes, viz. Quarter Sessions, Justices, Militia, Coroner, Sheriffs, etc. ; (2) the County of London, which is the area under the government of the London County Council, minus the City; and (3) the Administrative County of London, which is the whole district under the County Council, and which for certain administrative purposes includes the City " {^Report of the Commissioners, 1894, p. 10). The Report then proceeded to state the methods by which the Commissioners received evidence and formed their conclusions : it mentioned the withdrawal of Mr. Crawford from the Commission because he could not admit that amalgamation was desirable ; and it proceeded to offer the conclusions and the suggestions of the Commissioners. The following extracts will show the nature of these conclusions and suggestions. Thus : — " A consideration of the evidence we have received confirms the opinion suggested by the course of previous inquiries and of legislation, or, in other words, by the historic development of the Metropolis, that the government of London must be entrusted to one body, exercising certain functions throughout all the areas covered by the name, and to a number of local bodies exercising certain other functions within the local areas which collectively make up London, the central body and the local bodies deriving their authority as representative bodies by direct election, and the functions assigned to each being determined so as to secure complete independence and responsibility to every member of the system. . . . Independently of its position as the capital and seat of government, the important points of difference between London and any other large city are, first, its enormous size, and secondly, the complexity of the jurisdictions affecting it. The term London is at present so indefinite as to cover at least ten different areas, though the London with which we are concerned is, as above stated, the Administrative County, comprising the County and the City and County of the City" [Report of the Commissioners, 1894, p. 12). " The recent treatment of the large area of London outside the City as a county, while adequately recognising its essential unity, gave undue prominence to county rather than to city characteristics. London is really a great town, and requires town and not county government. In those cities and boroughs that are also counties of themselves, the county government is so merged and blended with the municipal constitution that the former in practice is almost obliterated. Bearing TEMPORAL GOVERNMENT T] this in mind we have to apply to an area called a county but really a town, now endowed with an elementary form of government, the dignity and completeness of the highest form of municipal life. Our task, however, does not end here. We have already dwelt on the necessary co-existence of a central body exercising functions over the whole area of the Metropolis, and of local bodies with functions exercised within local areas, and we have been much impressed by the fact that whether we undertake the organisation of the government of the greater area or of the smaller areas comprised within it we are in all cases dealing with areas which possess the characteristics of town life, and the organisation of their joint and several government should be settled accordingly. London, we repeat, is one large town, which, for convenience of administration as well as from local diversities, comprises within itself several smaller towns ; and the application of the principles, and still more of the machinery, of municipal government to these several areas, must be limited by conditions arising from this fact " (^Report of the Commissioners, pp. 12-13). " The real point of difference between London and any other large town, viz. its huge area and population, makes it necessary that besides the over-government of the future Corporation, there must be subsidiary bodies to discharge local high- way, sanitary, and other duties, and these are already found in the existing vestries and in the district boards created by the Metropolitan Management Act, 1855, which bodies now discharge in London the important duties of urban sanitary authorities " {Ibid. p. 1 3). " All our witnesses, even those most opposed to centralisation, have admitted the necessity of having a central body" i^Ibid. p. 14). "The governing body of the City of London and its electors should be incorporated under the name of 'the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of London'— the designation hitherto borne by the old City — and this Corporation should succeed to the present Corporation of the old City and the London County Council, and should act through its Council as already described. The Council should elect from the citizens of London a Lord Mayor, and he should be admitted in the same manner, and with the same ceremonies, as the Lord Mayor of the old City is now admitted. He should be the titular chairman of the Council, but it should not be necessary for him to be present or to preside at its meetings. He should be the official representative of the people of London, and, except as otherwise provided in our proposals, he should exercise and enjoy all the personal rights, offices, dignities, and privileges which belong to the Lord Mayor of the old City by custom, charter, or law. He should be a justice of the peace for the City of London during his year of 78 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY office, and, if not disqualified to be mayor, for one year afterwards. His name should be included in the Commissions of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery for the district of the Central Criminal Court. We further propose that the Council should have power to appropriate such sum as it thinks fit for the remuneration of the Lord Mayor, or the expenses of his office, and to choose a Town Clerk and other officers, and to pay them such salaries as it sees good, but that no member of the Council other than the Lord Mayor or Sheriff should hold any office of profit under the Council. At present the head of the staff of the County Council is the deputy chairman, one of the elected members, who receives a salary. We have taken much evidence upon the relative advantages of this system and of that obtaining in provincial municipalities generally, under which the head of the staff is the Town Clerk, a permanent officer, usually possessing legal qualifications. We have not been able to ascertain that there were any reasons either of expediency or of experience which induced the departure from ordinary practice adopted in the organisation of the London County Council, and it seems possible that it was in some measure due to the accidental circumstances of the time. We think it highly desirable that the head of the staff should be independent of the party divisions and conflicts necessarily found in the Council, and we are impressed with the inconvenience that would arise if at a critical moment the Corporation, through the chances of a contested election, were deprived of the services of Its principal officer. We are, therefore, decidedly of opinion that the system provided by the Municipal Cor- porations Act is to be preferred" (^Report of the Commissioners, p. i6). The following details as to the powers, duties, etc., of old Corporation and the new were proposed. Practically it was suggested that the new Corporation should take over the whole of the powers and should administrate the whole of the property both of the London County Council and the City. " Ceremonial Functions of the Lord Mayor, etc. As the new Corporation would thus inherit and succeed without breach ot continuity to the powers and possessions of the existing Corporation, and as it would be within its discretion to assign to the Lord Mayor such sums as might be thought proper to meet the expenses of his office, we may look for the maintenance in the future of all the useful and many of the stately traditions of the past ; and in particular the Lord Mayor may be trusted to represent before the world the great community of which he is the head with the splendour becoming his position. It may be noted in this connection, that among the privileges which would be transferred, should our recommendations be approved, would be the right of special access of the Corporation to the Sovereign, and of the presentation of petitions at the Bar at the House of Commons. TEMPORAL GOVERNMENT 79 Officers The officers of the old Corporation should, as far as possible and convenient, be transferred to the new, on equitable terms of employment, remuneration, and retirement if necessary. As the functions of the Commissioners of Sewers would be vested in the new local authority for the old City, their officers would naturally remain attached to it, and it may also be convenient that some of the officers of the old Corporation should remain connected with the old City. BEATINO THE TOWER BOUNDARY IN IS42 From The Illustrated London News. Law and Justice The Sheriffs of London should be appointed by the Council of the new Corporation, as provided in the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882. The jurisdiction of the court of Quarter Sessions and Justices of the County of London should extend into the area of the old City, which should cease to be a county of itself The justices by charter of the City of London should be abolished, but the names of the existing Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the old City of London should be included in the Commission of the Peace for the County of London. It would probably be ultimately found convenient to extend the Metropolitan Police Court Acts to the old City, and to make the Mansion House and Guildhall Justice Rooms Metropolitan Police Courts as elsewhere ; but pending legislation for the police courts of the whole Metropolis we see no objection to the present aldermen 8o LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY continuing to serve these courts so long as they can furnish a rota. The jurisdiction of the aldermen appears from the evidence given before us to be both efficient and popular with the classes which frequent the justice rooms, and the assistance of commercial men is not unreasonably claimed to be an advantage in dealing with commercial cases. In the large provincial municipalities paid and unpaid magistrates not uncommonly sit together or in adjacent courts, and we think the same system might be usefully tried in London, especially if means could be found of allotting to separate courts the trial of cases not properly of a criminal character though involving penalties such as summonses under the Education, Metropolis Management, Building, and other Acts, which often require the attendance of respectable women and young children, to whom the contaminating atmosphere and companionship of the ordinary police court are an unnecessary evil. We have proposed that the City of London Court should pass to the new Corporation, at all events for the present, and a similar course should be followed with regard to the Mayor's Court, the jurisdiction of which should be extended over the whole Metropolis. The new Corporation would also take the place of the Corporation of the old City in relation to the London Chamber of Arbitration. Obsolete courts and offices, such as the Court of Hustings, the Borough Court and Bailiwick of Southwark, and the judicial power of the City Chamberlain over apprentices and masters, which is concurrent with that of the magistrates, should be abolished. The Recorder of London should be the Chairman of Quarter Sessions for the County of London. The present Chairman of Quarter Sessions and the Common Serjeant should be Deputy Recorders, each with power to hold a Court of Quarter Sessions by himself subject to a scheme to be approved by a Secretary of State. Power should be taken for the new Corporation to petition the Crown for the appointment of additional Deputy Recorders as required. No sufficient reasons exist for maintaining the present anomalous mode of appointment of the Recorder, and we recommend that he should in futu're be appointed, as in other boroughs, by the Crown. The Central Criminal Court should continue as at present, except that the Aldermen should no longer be included in the Commission. In any legislation dealing with this court it might be well to restrict its area to the Administrative County of London, apart from special removals under Palmer's Act. Freemen and Liverymen Freedom by patrimony, apprenticeship, redemption, and gift, should be abolished, with the exception that it should be lawful for the new Corporation to TEMPORAL GOVERNMENT 8i grant the honorary freedom of the City of London to any person as a mark of distinction. The existing freemen of the City, who are liverymen, would retain the Parliamentary franchise, and the freemen, their widows, children, or orphans, should retain such rights to charities and schools as they at present possess. We elsewhere recommend that the management of these schools and charities should be reserved to the local governing body of the old City. The power of granting and fixing the numbers of the Livery of the City Companies should be transferred to a department of the Imperial Government, probably the Privy Council, which at present deals with the grant of charters to such companies. The customs of the old City, so far as they are inconsistent with the common law, remain to be considered. The only important customs at present appear to be those of Market Overt and Foreign Attachment. Of these the latter is practically obsolete, as a recent decision of the House of Lords has rendered it necessary to observe the custom in the letter, and modern conditions of commerce make it almost impossible to do this. The question whether the custom of Market Overt should cease or be extended to the area of the enlarged City must depend upon the view taken of its expediency in relation to commerce. No reason can be given for upholding such a custom in Cheapside which would not extend to the Strand, but the determination of the general question seems to lie outside our particular inquiry. Ecclesiastical Patronage The Municipal Corporations Act, 1835, provided (sec. 139) that all ecclesiastical patronage in the hands of the corporations with which it dealt should be sold as the Ecclesiastical Commissioners might direct, that the proceeds should be invested in Government securities for the use of the body corporate, and that the annual income payable thereon should be carried to the account of the borough fund. The question of the sale of ecclesiastical patronage generally is now occupying the attention of Parliament, and, pending a decision upon it, we only recommend that the patronage of the City of London should vest in the new Corporation, and should be dealt with, hereafter as Parliament may determine " {^Report of the Commissioners, pp. 21-23). The Report concluded with certain suggestions as to local administration and the powers of local authorities. The points of greatest importance in this Report are (i) the assumption that amalgamation was desirable, and (2) the conservative spirit in which it was shown that the enlargement of area would only carry on the old traditions of the City and preserve the continuity of its history. The Report, however, was received by the City with unanimous hostility. 82 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY There were many reasons for this hostility. The Corporation refused to see in the recommendation of the Comrhissioners the preservation and the continuance of their own body : they saw its extinction and its absorption by the London County Council : in the apportioning of the property they saw spoliation actual ; and in the proposed legislation as to the freemen and the Livery Companies they saw spoliation possible and intended. Considering the question after five or six years we must remember that there was a good deal of reading between the lines. There were many who made no secret of their intention to lay hands on the property of the City and to use it for other purposes : there were certain persons who were notoriously hostile to the City for private reasons : the silence and omission of the Report suggested suspicion. Moreover, it was complained that scant courtesy had been shown the City : that the Commission contemplated amalgamation as a step admitted to be desirable, whereas the Corporation had not by any means agreed to this assumption : that the City had tendered twenty witnesses whose evidence was hurried through in three days and a half while the four witnesses of the County Council were heard at respectful length in seven days and a half. The Corporation in adopting the Report of a Committee appointed for the purpose, agreed with the Commission in the redistribution or creation of local Boards " with the full strength and dignity of Municipal Government." " We reiterate our opinion that the recommendations of the Commissioners are not justified by the evidence adduced before them ; indeed, were the suggestion of the Royal Commissioners to create a new Corporation carried into effect, it would simply mean that the Corporation of London, instead of being the gradual development and time-honoured result of very ancient Charters, would be the offspring of a modern Statute. We repeat in the most emphatic manner our adhesion to the principle too constantly enunciated by ourselves and as often endorsed by your Honourable Court to the effect that the Metropolis will be best locally governed by the creation of separate Municipal Corporations, each consisting of a Mayor, Alderman, and Councillors, with powers and authorities, rules and regulations, similar to those used, had, and enjoyed by the reformed JVIunicipal Corporations throughout the country, save so far as the same may be effected or varied by the creation for defined purposes of common interest, of a Central Body or Council composed of Representatives from the whole of the Metropolis, with the Aldermen added by the several Metropolitan Municipalities in lieu of the undesirable system of co-optation " {^Report of Committee, London Government, pp. 15-16). The reception of this Protest by the Press of London clearly showed the hold which the ancient corporation had upon all classes of the people of London. An unfortunate speech by Mr. Asquith, in which he charged the Corporation with TEMPORAL GOVERNMENT 83 confining the gifts of Gresham and John Carpenter to the narrowiimits of the City — a charge most absurdly untrue — deepened the hostiHty of the whole City. Those who would have seized upon the City and its property did not understand what the City means. It is not only the heart of the great Metropolis — the centre of its life — but it is the cause of its life. The vast population residing in the 120 square miles surrounding the City are supported by the City. The greater part of the men of all ages flock into the City every morning and work for the income which supports their families in the suburbs. All day long the suburbs are left to the women and children, and servants ; to the clergy, the medical men, the schools, the shops, and the people who live in and by the shops : and all — women, children, servants, clergy, doctors, teachers, shopkeepers — all — are maintained by the man who goes into the City. To quote the words of Sir Faudel Phillips : — " If London has assumed such gigantic proportions it is through the development of the City. The 300,000 or 400,000 daily inhabitants of the City, representing in all probability a million of souls, are the blood forced by the heart into the arteries represented by Kensington, Bayswater, Camberwell, Dulwich, Islington, and Belgravla. The merchants earn their money by day in the City, and expend it outside. There is no proposition, I apprehend, at this moment to absorb ' naturally ' the Bank of England and the remaining London bankers, each one of whom has his head centre in the City. It would be inconvenient to remove the port of London to Belgrave Square ; nor could the wool sales, the tea market, and the grain sales be conveniently carried on in Hyde Park ; nor would it be suggested that the Stock Exchange would benefit by a transfer to Long Acre. The City of London represents not only the commerce of England but in many instances the international trade of the world. I confidently submit that the City of London deserves and requires a separate municipality, with its legal tribunal of special adaptability, its own markets, schools, library. Mansion House, and Guildhall, the whole held under its time-honoured charter of eight centuries" {^Report of Committee, London Government, p. 5). It is very much to be regretted that the Commissioners of 1893-4 advocated a " new Corporation " when it would have been quite easy to enlarge, as the Committee of the Corporation was willing to admit, the boundaries of the old : the organisation was ready to their hands : it involved no more change than an exclusion of the franchise and the enclosure of the suburbs in the wards. The Aldermen of the wards might still have been the Aldermen of the larger wards, and the wardmote might have continued taking the place of the vestries and the local authorities. In this way a natural development continuing the history and traditions of the City would have been probably accepted readily : there would have been no opposition : the splendour and dignity of the Lord Mayor and the Corporation 84 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY would have been maintained, and tliere would have been no attempt at spoliation. The Commissioners, in a word, saw what ought to be done, but they failed to see how it could and might be done : they failed because in their eagerness for Reform they could not understand the sentiment of the situation : the pride of London — not the City only, but greater London — in their institutions and their history. The Englishman hates injustice and oppression and unfairness — but he loves the old ways : he will not sweep them away if he can avoid it, because they were the ways of his forefathers. The London Government Act of 1899 was framed and was passed in general deference to the wishes of the representatives of London. That is to say, the City remained untouched : Greater London was divided into twenty-eight boroughs : each borough is to have a Town Council, a Mayor, Alderman, and Councillors. The new boroughs will take over all the powers and duties of the vestries ; they will also take over the Baths, Libraries, and Burial Boards ; they will have powers of working under the Acts for Housing the Working Classes ; they will arrange with the County Council about the transfer of other powers ; they will enforce the bye- laws as regards dairies, slaughter-houses, and offensive trades and industries. These are the main points of the new Bill. It will be understood that the Corporations thus created will be shams, or at best imperfect. A borough which has a Mayor and a Corporation without power over the Police, Fire, Lighting, Education, Drainage, and Sewage is only part of a borough : again, a Borough created suddenly has no weight or authority except that conferred by law : no one is likely to respect the Borough of Peckham or of Wapping. There can be, again, no local feeling. When, as at Wimbledon or Hampstead, all the men go off to the City every day, coming home to rest in the evening, what local feeling can exist ?' What kind of Town Council will be elected ? Surely it will consist of exactly the same materials as the vestry which it displaces. There will be the local tradesman and the local builder ; there will be the same keenness after private interests ; the same eagerness to get contracts ; the same jobs. There will be a multiplication of offices, the temptation to borrow money largely ; there will be rapid increase of rates, and there will be a grinding and a gnashing of teeth and a wailing over the good old days of the vestries and their simple ways — they may have been dark and tortuous, but they were harmless. CHAPTER IV By George Turnbull The importance of the City in relation to the rest of the Metropolis arises not from its area or its population, although the day population numbers between 300,000 and 400,000 persons, or even its rateable value, which in 1900 was over ^4,500,000, but from its central position, and from the magnitude of the mercantile and pecuniary transactions within its limits. THE LORD MAYOR The history of the creation of a municipality and the election of the first Mayor has already been related (see Medieval London, vol. ii.). The title of the Chief Magistrate to be styled " Lord Mayor " dates from the Fourth Charter of Edward HL (1354). The prefix of " Right Honourable" rests on historical grounds, and at the death of the Sovereign his Lordship is summoned, and attends and sits among the Lords of the Privy Council, and signs the Proclamation of the successor to the throne. Since the year 1546, the election of the Lord Mayor has taken place on Michaelmas Day (September 29). The Livery return two candidates for the office out of such Aldermen as have already served the office of Sheriff; of these the Court of Aldermen selects one. The Liverymen usually nominate the two senior Alder- men who have not passed the chair. Before any citizen can attain to the office of Lord Mayor of London, he must have submitted himself to election on four different occasions, and by different bodies of electors : — (i) by the rated inhabitants of the Ward he desires to represent as Alderman (this election being subject to the approval of the Court of Aldermen) ; (2) by the Livery, in Common Hall assembled, on election as Sheriff (and then subject to the approval of the Sovereign) ; (3) by the Livery, in Common Hall assembled, on selection, with another Alderman, for the office of Lord Mayor ; and (4) by the Court of Aldermen, on final election to that office. 1 Abridged and edited from the " Statement as to the Origin, Powers, Duties, and Finance of the Corpora- tion of London," submitted by the City to the Royal Commission of 1893. 85 86 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The Lord Mayor Elect is next presented to the Lord Chancellor for the approval, by the Sovereign, of the citizens' choice ; and is afterwards, namely, on the 8th and 9th November respectively, sworn at Guildhall, and before the Judges of the High Court, for the due execution of the office. In the City the Lord Mayor takes precedence of every subject of the Crown, including Princes of the Blood Royal, and holds a quasi-Sovereign position. Should the office become vacant by death or otherwise, the Corporation usually does no important Corporate Act until the election of a successor has been completed, the senior Alderman acting mean- while as /ocum tenens. By virtue of his office, the Lord Mayor is head of the City Lieutenancy, and has the privilege of recommending to the Sovereign the names of persons to fill vacancies occurring therein. He is ex-officio Chairman of the Thames Conservancy ; a Trustee of St. Paul's Cathedral ; and a Visitor of the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy. He is, by custom, Coroner of London, and perpetual Escheator of the City (First Charter of Edward III.). No troops are to pass through the City without his leave being first obtained. He summons and presides over the several courts and meetings of the Corporation — the Court of Aldermen, of Common Council, of Husting, and the Common Halls. A great part of his time is occupied in the daily discharge of his magisterial duties at his official residence, the Mansion House, where the Justice Room for the south part of the City is located. He is the first named in the Commission of Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol Delivery of the Central Criminal Court, the principal Criminal Court of the realm. He attends at the opening of each Session of that Court, and hears objections by persons summoned to serve upon the Grand Jury. Each Lord Mayor receives from the Corporation out of the City's Cash the sum of ^10,000; but he expends a much larger sum than this during his year of office. In all cases of great public calamity the Lord Mayor of the day is the acknow- ledged Public Receiver and Almoner of Donations. Taking only the period com- prised in the years 1872-92, he raised, by means of funds organised at the Mansion House, a sum of ;^2, 117,019, including the following: — In 1874, for the Bengal Famine Relief Fund, ^129,164; in 1875, foi" the French Inundation Relief Fund, ^26,497; in 1877, for the Indian Famine Relief Fund, ^515,200; in 1878-9, for the "Princess Alice" Relief Fund, ;^38,246; in 1879-80, for the Irish Relief Fund, ^35,431 ; in the same year for the Abercairn Colliery Explosion Fund, ^33,008; in 1880-1, for the Chios Earthquake Relief Fund, ^24,750; in 1882, for the Relief Fund for the persecuted Jews in Russia, ^108,809; in 1885, for the Fund for raising a National Memorial to General Gordon, ;^2i,733; in 1886, for the Relief Fund for the London Unemployed, ^78,629 ; and in the same year, for the Defence of Property in Ireland Fund, ^21,422; in 1889, for the China Famine Fund, .^^32,655 ; in 1892, for the Fund for the Relief of Sufferers by the THE LORD MAYOR INSTALLED AT THE GUILDHALL 88 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY fire at St. John's, Newfoundland, ^^24,635; in 1893, foi" the Victoria Disaster Fund, ^68,883 ; and during those twenty years alone upwards of ^700,000 for the Metropolitan Hospital Sunday Fund. The Famine in India Relief Fund, 1898, amounted to ^550,423; and Devastation in Essex Relief Fund to ;^27,938 ; for the Hurricane in the West Indies Relief Fund, 1899, the Lord Mayor raised ^46,121 ; and for the Gordon Memorial College at Khartoum, ;^22,953. Between 1898 and 1900 the Transvaal Refugees' Relief Fund collected ^178,950; the Transvaal War Fund, ^209,587; the Indian Famine Relief Fund, ^394,021 ; and the Fire at Ottawa Relief Fund, ^54,527. THE COURT OF ALDERMEN The inhabitants on the Electoral Roll of every Ward, except that of Bridge Without, have the right to elect a Freeman to be their Alderman, who must then be approved and admitted by the Court of Aldermen before he can take his seat as such. The right of Election of Aldermen is fixed by Statute 30 Vict. cap. i, which enacts that every male person of full age, not subject to any legal incapacity, who shall for not less than twelve months previous to the first day of December have been in occupation, solely or jointly, of premises in the City or the Liberties for which he is rated in his own name to the amount of not less than .zf^io per annum, or jointly rated to an amount which, when divided by the number of occupiers, shall give a sum of not less than ^10 per annum for each, to the Police or any other Rate, shall be entitled to vote in any Election for Alderman in the Ward in which such premises shall be situate ; every person on the Parliamentary Register shall be entitled to vote, and every such person may be excluded from such Register only by the fact of non-residence in the Ward in which the premises for which he would have been entitled to be on the Register shall be situate. If the electors of any Ward return a person who had been adjudged and determined by the Court of Aldermen to be unfit to support the dignity and discharge the duties of the office of Alderman, the Court may, after rejection three times in succession, themselves elect a fit and proper person to fill the office. The Court also exercises jurisdiction over the Livery Companies. In the exceptional cases of apprehended breach of the peace, action is taken by the Court to ensure a sufficient number of special constables. Under the City Police Act, 1839, it devolves upon the Mayor and Aldermen to approve such rules and regulations as the Commissioners shall frame, for the general government of the Force ; and under the Metropolis Streets Act, 1867, similarly, to give their consent to regula- tions framed by the Commissioner as to the route for vehicular traffic in the City. Within these categories, the Aldermen regulate cab, cart, and omnibus standings, and carry out arrangements as regards timekeepers. The following officers of the THE CITY 89 Corporation are appointed by the Court : — The Recorder ; the Steward of South- wark; the Clerks and Assistant Clerks at the Mansion House and Guildhall Justice Rooms, and also the subordinate officials. THE ALDERMEN AS JUSTICES All the Aldermen of the City are Justices of the Peace for the County of that City in virtue of" their office. This privilege was conferred upon some of them BANQUET AT THE GUILDHALL under previous Charters, but in consequence of the increase of magisterial business within the City George II. acceded to the petition of the Lord Mayor and Alder- men of that day to extend the privilege to all. Although the Crown possesses no direct power to discharge from the Commission, as in the case of other Justices, the public opinion of the Court of Aldermen has always been found sufficient to impose upon any Alderman the propriety of resigning his gown, when that necessity has arisen. The Petty Sessional business transacted at the Mansion House Justice Room, where the Lord Mayor usually presides, includes that which arises to the southward of a boundary line drawn from Leadenhall Street to Holborn Viaduct ; at the Guildhall Justice Room, where a Rota is formed under which a daily attend- 90 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ance of the Aldermen is secured, the business embraces that arising in so much of the City as Hes to the northward of that hne. The Aldermen as Justices have extensive powers under various statutes. By 42 EHzabeth, cap. 2, sec. 8, every Alderman may, within his Ward, execute such duties under the Act as are appointed and allowed by the Act to be done and executed by one or two Justices of the Peace of any County. The Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1848, gives the Lord Mayor, or any Alderman, power, when sitting at either of the City Justice Rooms, to do alone (in the absence of any express enactment to the contrary) any act which by any statute, past or future, is directed to be done by more than one Justice. Sub-sec. 10 of sec. 20 of the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879, enacts that the Lord Mayor or any City Alderman, when sitting in a Court at which he is authorised by law to do alone any act authorised to be done by more than one Justice, shall be deemed to be a Court of Summary Jurisdiction consisting of two or more Justices, and also to be a Court of Summary Jurisdiction sitting in a Petty Sessional Court House. The return of business at the Mansion House Justice Room for the three years ending September 30, 1892, showed an annual average of 1569 persons in custody charged with offences, including remanded cases and persons appearing on summonses for criminal offences ; and an annual average of 928 summonses for Poor and other rates, assaults, and other offences. During the same period at Guildhall Justice Room the average number of charges and summonses heard was 3160 yearly, exclusive of police summonses, which averaged 2570 yearly. In addition to the daily sittings of Justices at the Mansion House and Guildhall Justice Rooms a Magistrate sits twice a week in one of the Courts at Guildhall for the purpose of hearing summonses taken out by the police for offences under the City Police Act, 1839, and Metropolitan Streets Act, 1867 and 1868, the Hackney Carriage, and other Acts. The average number of such summonses heard annually during the six years 1887-1892 was 3524. The Quarter Sessions of the City, at which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen attend in their magisterial capacity, are held eight times in the year, but in recent years it has not been found necessary fully to exercise the power of these, which are the same as at any other Quarter Sessions (14 and 15 Vict. cap. 55), by reason of the fact that criminal cases arising in the City are, as a matter of convenience, tried at the Central Criminal Court, which possesses concurrent jurisdiction with the Court of Quarter Sessions. All the Aldermen are Justices of Oyer and Terminer, and as such are named in the Commission for holding the Old Bailey Sessions. Those Aldermen who have passed the chair are Justices of South wark by Charter of Edward VI., and are distributed in turn for attendance at the four Southwark Sessions ; but the business transacted is now purely formal. THE CITY 91 SPECIAL SESSIONS The City of London is a borough for the purposes of the Licensing Acts, 1872 and 1874, and the Aldermen, as Justices, administer the Acts, their powers in this respect having been left intact under the Local Government Act, 1888. By the Intoxicating Liquor Licensing Act, 1828, the City is exempted as to the time of holding the Special Session called the General Annual Licensing Meeting, and such meeting is always held on the second Monday in March. In accordance with the provisions of the Licensing Act,' 1872, a Committee of seven Justices is appointed for the purpose of hearing applications for new licences. The grant of a new licence by the Licensing Committee is not valid unless it is confirmed by the whole body of Justices, or the majority of them present at the Confirmation Meeting, which is held annually in April. A Special Sessions is held annually, in July, for the purpose of granting licences to persons being house- holders and keepers of shops in stalls within the City, to deal in Game, pursuant to I and 2 Will. IV. cap. 32. In accordance with the provisions of sec. 18 of the Valuation (Metropolis) Act, 1869, a Special Sessions is held annually in December for hearing appeals against the Valuation List of the City of London Union, on the ground of the unfairness or incorrectness of the valuation of any hereditament in the City. Special Sessions are held from time to time for the purpose of hearing applica- tions for closing courts, passages, etc., in pursuance of the Closing Courts, Alleys, etc.. Metropolis Management Act, 1813. Special Sessions are also held for the purpose of hearing summonses against overseers of parishes within the City for non-payment of Union contributions ; these summonses are granted on applications made under the hand of the Chairman of the Board of Guardians of the City of London Union, and the Justices are empowered to issue a warrant to cause the amount in arrear to be levied and recovered from the overseers by distress on their goods (2 and 3 Vict. cap. 84, sec. i). Orders for the adjudication of the settlements of pauper lunatics, and for the removal of paupers, are made in the Police Summons Court by two Justices. VISITING COMMITTEE, H.M.'S PRISONS Twelve Aldermen (Justices) are annually appointed as the Visiting Committee of Newgate Prison, under the Prison Acts, 1865- 1877. In accordance with the Rule made by the Secretary of State, dated March 10, 1890, six Aldermen (Justices) are appointed annually to act in conjunction with six Justices of the County of London, as the Visiting Committee of Holloway Prison. 92 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY FIRE INQUESTS, LUNACY, ETC. Charges of arson preferred under the City of London Fire Inquests Act, 1888, are heard before an Alderman sitting at the Mansion House or Guildhall. The making of Reception, Urgency, and other Orders, under the Lunacy Act, 1890, is performed by the Aldermen as Justices. In the same capacity they have juris- diction under the Habitual Drunkards Act, 1879, and under the Inebriates Act, 1888 ; and power to make orders in connection with the recovery of drowned bodies, under 48 Geo. III. cap. 75, as amended, by 49 Vict. cap. 20. OTHER DUTIES DISCHARGED BY THE ALDERMEN Each Alderman has the government of his Ward, and the appointment of a deputy from among the Common Councilmen for his Ward. In the Wards of Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Farringdon Within, and Farringdon Without, two deputies are in each case appointed. A deputy can execute the majority of the Ward duties of the Alderman, but not preside at the Wardmote held on St. Thomas's Day, nor perform statutory duties cast upon the Alderman. The approval of at least three Aldermen is required to any Orders or Regulations framed by the Commissioner of City Police, for the general government of the Police Force (2 and 3 Vict. cap. 94). Other duties under this Act also devolve upon each Alderman, in connection with the making of rates in his particular Ward, both in respect of the expenses of the City Police Force, and the expense incurred in connection with the holding of Wardmotes, Ward meetings, and other local purposes connected therewith. Four Aldermen are annually placed upon the Visiting Committee of the City of London Lunatic Asylum. Among their numerous other offices they are trustees of Morden College, Blackheath, Governors, with the Lord Mayor, of Emanuel Hospital, Governors of the Royal Hospitals, and are included in the Commission of Lieutenancy of the City of London. Six Alder- men are appointed to serve on the Board of Governors of the City of Guilds Institute for the advancement of technical education ; nine are nominated by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to be, with the Lord Mayor and the Recorder, Governors of the United Westminster Schools. They have also duties in con- nection with the Irish Society. A person who refuses to serve as Alderman, on being elected, is liable to a fine of ;^500 unless he is in a position to satisfy the Court of Aldermen that at the time of his election he was not worth ^30,000 (Act of Common Council, April 17, 181 2). < X Q 3 o u ^ o O "2 u z 'i o u s o u o o u THE CITY 93 GRAND, OR GREAT, COURT OF WARDMOTE This Court is held on Plow Monday, at Guildhall, under the Presidency of the Lord Mayor, with whom the Aldermen sit. It is held for the purpose of receiving the returns from the several Wards of the elections on St. Thomas's Day ; petitions (if any) against the returns ; and returns of the Ward Inquests ; also to admit the City Marshal, Ward Beadles, and other extra Constables, by declaration. Petitions against the returns are referred to the Court of Aldermen, to be heard and adjudicated upon ; that Court being a Court of Record, and having power, in the case of a disputed election, either to declare upon whom the election has fallen or to declare it void and to order a fresh election. THE COURT OF COMMON COUNCIL An Act of Common Council in 1692 declared that the election of Aldermen and Common Councilmen for the several Wards of the City appertained only to Freemen being householders in the City and paying scot and bearing lot. This step was taken as many of the inhabitants who were not Freemen had been in the habit of exercising the franchise at Wardmotes, to the prejudice of the Freemen. The provisions of the Act were embodied in the City Election Act (11 Geo. I. cap. 18). It is enacted by 12 and 13 Vict. cap. 94, sec. 5, that every Freeman occupying premises within the City or the Liberties rated not less than ;^io per annum, and who is registered in the Parliamentary Register of Voters in respect of such premises, shall be capable of being elected a Common Councilman for the Ward in which such premises shall be situate. In addition to this statutory qualification the ancient customal qualification remains, which entitles any person to be elected a Common Councilman who is a Freeman-householder in the Ward, namely, a person who, being free of the City, is rated for a house, paying scot and bearing lot. By sec. 9 of the same Act the disqualification of Common Council- men is fixed ; the grounds of disqualification being insolvency, absence from duty for more than six months consecutively without reasonable cause, and fraud or crime. Any person becoming disqualified and ceasing to hold such office by reason of having made any composition with his creditors shall, however, on payment of his debts in full, be capable (if otherwise qualified) of being re-elected to such office. The qualifications entitling a person to vote at an election of Common Councilmen are fixed by the City of London Municipal Elections (Amendment) Act, 1867, and are the same as those for the election of Aldermen. 94 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY THE CITY WARDS The City is divided, for the purpose of municipal government, into twenty-six wards of unequal size. The names of these, and the number of Common Council- men that each returns, are as follow : — Aldersgate (8), Aldgate (8), Bassishaw (4), Billingsgate (8), Bishopsgate (14), Bread Street (8), Bridge (8), Broad Street (8), Cheap (8), Candlewick (6), Castle Baynard (8), Coleman Street (8), Cordwainer (6), Cornhill (6), Cripplegate Within (8), Without (8), Dowgate (6), Farringdon Within {14), Farringdon Without (16), Langbourn (8), Lime Street (4), Portsoken (8), Queenhithe (6), Tower (8), Vintry (6), Walbrook (6). The total number of Common Councilmen is therefore 206. The total rateable value in 1900 was ^4,548,034.^ The two Cripplegate Wards return an Alderman jointly. There is also a Ward called Bridge Without, which was added after the Borough of South- wark had been granted to the Corporation in 1550. No Alderman has ever been elected by the inhabitants of Southwark, nor has any election of Common Council- men ever taken place for this Ward. The Aldermanry is a nominal dignity. In 1 71 1 it was ordained that the senior Alderman who had passed the chair should remove to the Ward of Bridge Without, and should he decline to accept it, this Aldermanry would fall to the next Alderman in seniority above the chair, and so on, toties q^wt^es. THE WARDMOTE The whole of the Common Councilmen annually go out of, and cease to hold, office at midnight of the 20th December, and on the 21st the elections to fill their places are held at the various Wardmotes, which are summoned by precept of the Lord Mayor, under an Act of Common Council of Henry VIII. If a poll be demanded, the City of London Ballot Act, 1887, defines the course of proceeding. It is very similar to the Parliamentary Ballot Act, 1872. The Returning Officer has a casting vote. The provisions of the Municipal Elections Act, 1884, and of Part IV. of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, apply to municipal elections in the City of London, subject as set forth in sec. 35 of the 1884 Act, sub-sees, i to 8. " Municipal election " means an election to the office of Mayor, Alderman, Common Councilman, or Sheriff, and includes the election of any officer elected by the Mayor, Aldermen, and Liverymen in Common Hall ; the expression " corporate office " includes each of the aforesaid offices ; and the expression " Borough " applies to the City. The expression " Burgess " means, in relation to each municipal election, any person entitled to vote at such election. The Court of Common Council, the full style of which is " The Lord Mayor, 1 This is exclusive of Inner Temple, .£23,483, and Middle Temple, ;£i4,5oo. THE CITY 95 Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London in Common Council assembled," consists of the Lord Mayor, 25 Aldermen, and 206 Commoners, making a total of 232. The Lord Mayor, or, in his unavoidable absence, his locum tenens, takes the chair at all meetings. By custom, a duly constituted Court consists of forty members or upwards, of whom one must be the Lord Mayor (or his locum tenens), and two, at least, must be Aldermen. The proceedings of the Court are largely regulated by 102 Standing Orders, which include the following : — If any person holding any place of emolument in the gift or appointment of the Court, or of any Committee of the Court, accept the office of Common Council- man of the City, his place shall be immediately vacated. GOG AND MAGOG AT THE GUILDHALL All sittings of the Court shall be open to the public unless the majority of members present shall otherwise determine. As often as there shall be occasion for disbursing any sum of money exceeding one hundred guineas out of the Chamber, the Court shall be first consulted, and their assent had thereto. No Committee or Commission appointed by the Court shall be allowed to draw for any money on account of their expenses in any one year beyond the sums following, viz. : — City Lands, .^400; Bridge House estates, ;!^300 ; Gresham, ^50; Coal and Corn and Finance, ;^200 ; Improvement and Finance, ;^i75; Streets, ;^i75; Sanitary, £\T^\ General Purposes', ^200; Library, .;^20o ; Police, ;^350; City of London School, .1^150; Officers and Clerks, ;^I50 ; Orphan School, .^^175; 96 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Music, £150; Law and City Courts, ^150; Port of London Sanitary, ^150; County Purposes, ^200; Central Markets, ;^i50; Cattle Markets, ;^I50; Billingsgate and Leadenhall Markets, ;^i50; Epping Forest, ;^200 ; Accounts, ^75 ; Visiting Committee City of London Asylum, ^100. No member of th^ Court who shall be a shareholder in, or concerned for, or in any way pecuniarily interested in any public company or undertaking which shall in any manner be opposed by the Corporation in Parliament or elsewhere, shall be eligible to sit or vote upon any Committee to which is delegated the opposition or the consideration of the propriety of opposition to any such measure, during the time the same shall be under the consideration of the Committee. No member who is a shareholder in, or officer of, any undertaking shall be eligible to vote in the Court or any Committee whilst any matter affecting or concerning such undertaking shall be under consideration. No member of the Court, or his partner, or other person on his behalf, shall be a contractor for, or shall be employed directly or indirectly in, any work to be performed in his business or profession for or against the City, or the Court, or any of its Committees, or any Committee or Society the members whereof are appointed by the Court, or shall accept any order or employment of any kind from the Court of Aldermen ; or be engaged in the supply of any materials or the sale of any goods, or the transaction of any general or pro- fessional business which is to be paid for out of the City Cash, or out of funds held in trust by the Corporation, over which the Corporation, or any of its Committees or Commissions, has control ; and no member of the Court who shall act in contravention of this Standing Order, either in his own person, or by his partner, or by any other person whomsoever, shall at any time during his then present or any future membership of the Court be elected or continue on any Committee of the Court. No person shall be allowed to be a candidate for any office or situation in the gift or appointment of the Court who is a member of the Court ; or who has been so within six calendar months of the day of election, unless the office or situation has become vacant since such person ceased to be a member of the Court. No son or daughter of any member or officer of the Court shall be admitted a candidate for any office or situation in the gift or appointment of the Court or any Committee of the Court. There are usually about twenty-four Calendar Courts each year, but the Lord Mayor can call a Court at any time, and seven members can requisition him to call a Special Court. Numerous appointments by Governors and others are made by the Court, including twelve Governors to each of the Royal Hospitals, and the THE CITY 97 Legal Assessor, Arbitrator, and Registrar of the London Chamber of Arbitration. The Court is patron of the following livings : — St. Peter-upon-Cornhill ; St. Margaret Pattens (alternately with the Crown) ; St. James, Dukes Place, and St. Catherine Cree (alternately with Magdalene College, Cambridge) ; St. Bartholomew, Bethnal Green ; St. Mark, Victoria Docks ; St. Peter, Bethnal Green ; St. Mark, Clerkenwell ; and St. George the Martyr, Southwark. The Court controls the Corporation Markets, and also the Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Southwark Bridge, and Blackfriars Bridge. It is the Local Authority for the City under the Tramways Act, 1870; and also under the Metropolis Act, LORD mayor's day — THE INAUGURATION, 1842 From The Illustrated LoTidon News. 1 87 1, except in regard to the power of calling upon the Water Companies to supply fire-plugs at the ratepayers' expense, which is controlled by the County Council. It has the Supervision of Dairies and Milk Supply in the City, under the Public Health (London) Act, 1891 ; and discharges functions under the City Improvement Act, 1847, the City Gas Acts, Metropolitan Water Companies Acts, and numerous other Statutes. All Corporation bye-laws are made by the Court, and under some Statutes are required to be made by Act of Common Council. The Court has the appointment of the City Officers of nearly all departments, but most of these — including the Town Clerk, the Comptroller, the Remembrancer, the Solicitor, the Secondary, the Surveyor, and the Veterinary Inspector — are subject to annual election. 7 98 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY THE COMMON HALL The full style of the Common Hall is " The Meeting or Assembly of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Liverymen of the several Companies of the City of London in Common Hall assembled." It consists of the Lord Mayor, or his locum tenens, four Aldermen at least, the Sheriffs (or one of them), and such of the Liverymen of the Companies as are the Freemen of the City. The Livery meet in Common Hall twice in each year — viz. on Midsummer Day and Michaelmas Day — for the election of the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, Chamberlain, Bridge Masters, Auditors of the City and Bridge House accounts, and other Officers. The Common Hall is presided over by the Lord Mayor, and attended by the Aldermen, Sheriffs, and City Officers in full state. The elections are taken by show of hands, except in the event of a poll being demanded, when they are conducted in accordance with the provisions of the City of London Ballot Act, 1887. The names of the City Companies, with the number of Liverymen entitled to vote in Common Hall Elections, were in the year 1894 as follows : — Apothecaries . 60 Founders 98 Armourers and Braziers 90 Framework Knitters . 96 Bakers 156 Fruiterers 96 Barbers .... 130 Gardeners 31 Basketmakers 30 Girdlers . 82 Blacksmiths 91 Glass Sellers • 37 Bowyers . n Glaziers . 79 Brewers . 49 Glovers . 87 Broderers 40 Gold and Silver Wire Drawers 102 Butchers 132 Goldsmiths . 169 Carmen . 4 Grocers . 186 Carpenters 139 Gunmakers 23 Clockmakers 72 Haberdashers 431 Clothworkers 153 Horners . 49 Coachmakers and Coach Harness Innholders 121 Makers 115 Ironmongers 27 Cooks . 84 Joiners . . 86 Coopers . i8s Leathersellers 138 Cordwainers 108 Loriners ■ S°5 Curriers . 79 Makers of Playing Cards 100 Cutlers . lOI Masons . 28 Distillers 37 Mercers . . 148 Drapers 275 Merchant Taylors 259 Dyers 73 Musicians 44 Fanmakers III Needle Makers 3 Farriers . ]02 Painters . 119 Feltmakers 60 _ Patten Makers . 6 Fishmongers 355 Pewterers 103 Fletchers 15 Plaisterers 54 THE CITY 82 112 80 158 38 Turners Tylers and Bricklayers Upholders Vintners Wax Chandlers 22 1 81 25 ■ 183 ■ 38 207 21 1 352 Weavers . Wheelwrights Woolmen 102 140 20 265 107 68 (Total for the year 1894) ending May 31 . 8,807 99 Plumbers Poulters . Saddlers . Salters . Scriveners Shipwrights Skinners Spectacle Makers Stationers Tallow Chandlers Tinplate \\'orkers THE SHERIFFS Notwithstanding the removal, by the Local Government Act, 1888, of the right to elect a Sheriff of Middlesex out of the hands of the citizens — to whom it had been granted by Henry I., and for which they had ever since paid an annual rent — the City continues to elect two Sheriffs. In 1878 an Act of Common Council repealed the existing and irregular method of election, and declared that the right of election to the office of Sheriff should vest in the Liverymen of the several Companies of the City, in Common Hall assembled, the 24th day of June in each year being fixed as the election day, and casual vacancies being filled up by elections on days to be fixed by the Court of Aldermen. The Lord Mayor nominates, in that Court, a number of Freemen, not exceeding three, to be publicly put in nomination for the Shrievalty to the Liverymen ; such nomination to remain in force for five years. In addition to persons thus nominated, every Alderman who has not served the office of Sheriff is, ipso facto, in nomination, in priority to any other person, and it is competent for any two members of the Common Hall to nominate any Freeman of the City to the office. The absolute estate and interest in it belongs to the Corporation, which consequently retains the fees and emoluments of the office. An allowance of ^^750 is granted by the Corporation to the Sheriffs annually, they discharging thereout two Fee Farm rents {£\o and £\o respectively), payable by the Corporation, and making their own arrangements with their Under-Sheriffs. The Sheriffs are required to attend every Session, of the Central Criminal Court ; they are expected to be in attendance on the Lord Mayor in the discharge of many of his official functions, and they take charge of the. business of the Common Hall in his absence; and it is their duty to present, at the Bar of Parliament, petitions on behalf of the Corporation. The average cost to each gentleman serving the office may be put down at from ^3000 to ;^4000. A penalty is imposed upon any person who, being duly nominated, refuses to take office. lOO LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT This Court, as now existing, was established by the Central Criminal Court Act, 1834. The Judges are the Lord Mayor, the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, all the Judges of the High Court, the Dean of Arches, the Aldermen of the City, the Recorder, the Common Serjeant, the Judges of the Sheriffs' Court, and any retired Judges or others whom the Crown may appoint. THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT, OLD BAILEY, 1842 From The Illustrated London News. Any two or more of such Justices are authorised to inquire of, hear, determine, and adjudge all treasons, murders, felonies, and misdemeanours committed in the Metropolis and certain parts adjoining thereto, and any which may be heard and determined under any Commission of Oyer and Terminer for London or Middlesex, Essex, Kent, or Surrey, respectively, or Gaol Delivery for Newgate, and to exercise all the powers of Justices of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery. By sub-sec. i of sec. 89 of the Local Government Act, 1888, it is enacted that the Central Criminal Court shall be construed as if the County of London were THE CITY loi throughout mentioned therein as well as the County of Middlesex, and by sub-sec. 3 the Counties of London and Middlesex are, subject to Rules of the High Court, to be deemed one County for all criminal proceedings except those at Quarter Sessions. Indictments found at Sessions of the Peace for the Cities of London and Westminster, the Liberty of the Tower, the Borough of Southwark, and the Counties of Middlesex, Essex, Kent, and Surrey, may be removed by certiorari to the Central Criminal Court, under sec. 16 of the Act of 1834. By 19 and 20 Vict, cap. 16, any indictment for felony or misdemeanour committed out of the jurisdic- tion of the Court may, by order of the Queen's Bench Division, be removed by certiorari into the Central Criminal Court if it shall appear to the Court that the interests of justice demand it. The Queen's Bench Division has also power by 25 and 26 Vict. cap. 65 to order any person, subject to the Central Criminal Court and accused of murder or manslaughter in England and Wales, to be tried at that Court. The Home Secretary having made Rules relating to the Court District, and doubts having arisen upon them, the Central Criminal Court (Prisons) Act, 1881, was passed. The Judges of the High Court have power, by 44 and 45 Vict. cap. 68, sec. 18, to fix the Sessions, but the Lord Mayor and Aldermen still attend the meeting held for that purpose, and their convenience is, as far as possible, consulted. A List, or Rota, prepared by the Town Clerk, regulates the attendance of the Aldermen at the Sessions. The expenses of the Court, including salaries and officers' expenses, are defrayed by the following Counties in these proportions, namely : — County of London, thirty-five fortieths; County of Middlesex, two fortieths; County of Essex, two fortieths ; County of Surrey, one fortieth. During the ten years ending December 31, 1892, the Corporation paid .^71,503 in connection with the administration of justice at this Court. SESSIONS HOUSE (OLD BAILEY) When the Central Criminal Court was established in 1834, sec. 15 of the Act directed that the Sessions of such Court should be held twelve times a year at the least in the City or Suburbs. They have ever since been held at the Sessions House, Old Bailey, adjoining Newgate Prison. The Courts are held monthly, and presided over by His Majesty's Judges, the Recorder, the Common Serjeant, and the two Judges of the Sheriffs' Court. The Corporation maintains the building and pays the salaries of the Recorder, the Common Serjeant, and the Judges of the Sheriffs' Court. It also bears the expense of taking and circulating reports of the proceedings, which amounts, on an average, to a sum of ^880 yearly. I02 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY THE CITY QUARTER SESSIONS This Court is held at the Guildhall and consists of the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, and the Recorder. By sec. 17 of the Central Criminal Court Act, 1834, the City Quarter Sessions, as well as other Quarter Sessions within the district of the Central Criminal Court, were restrained from trying most offences, but that section was repealed in 1851, and since then the City Quarter Sessions has had the same powers of trying offences as any other Quarter Sessions in the country. Criminal cases arising in the City are, however, as a matter of convenience, tried at the Central Criminal Court. A part of the business of the Sessions was taken from it by the Local Government Act, 1888. That connected with the provision, maintenance, and visitation of the City of London Lunatic Asylum, with the Gas Meter and Gas Meter Testing Acts, and the power of controlling the salary of the Coroner was transferred to the Court of Common Council. To the London County Council was handed over the duty of granting music and dancing licences under 25 Geo. II. cap. 36. The Court hears compensation cases and appeals, and also transacts business with regard to forfeited recognizances, under 3 Geo. IV. cap 4,6. The number of convictions filed (principally under the Summary Juris- diction Acts) in the ten years 1881-1890 averaged 261. By i Geo. IV. cap. 100, no warrant can be issued for the raising of the City of London Trophy Tax, a kind of County rate for defraying the costs of the City Militia, until the accounts of the Trophy money last raised shall have been examined and allowed by a majority of the Justices at some General or Quarter Sessions and certified to be Commissioners of Lieutenancy. SOUTHWARK SESSIONS The proceedings of this Court are purely formal. The Mayor, Recorder, and Aldermen who have passed the chair are Justices of Southwark. The Stewards' Court, or Court Leet, formerly held twice a year on days fixed by the Recorder, is still held on behalf of the Corporation, as Lords of the Manor, as occasion may require. The Recorder still holds a separate appointment as High Steward of Southwark, for which he receives a nominal salary of ^79 : 7s. ; but the Aldermen (or Justices) receive no emolument whatever. CITY COURTS OF LAW The Mayor's Court The Lord Mayor and all the Aldermen are the nominal Judges, the Recorder sitting by custom as the sole Judge ; and by the Mayor's Court of London THE CITY lO- Procedure Act, 1857, sec. 43, in the absence of the Recorder the Common Serjeant presides as Judge. In the case of illness or unavoidable absence of both the Recorder and Common Serjeant, they, or either of them, or, in case of their inability, the Court of Common Council, may appoint a Barrister, who has practised at least seven years, to act as a Deputy. The Court was, until 1853, a closed Court, and only a limited number of Counsel and Solicitors had audience or liberty to practise; but ! since that date the Court has been open to all Barristers and Solicitors, the former having exclusive audience in Court, but Solicitors being granted audience on Judgment Summonses. The Mayor's Court has an equitable as well as legal jurisdiction, partly THE MANSION HOUSE, CIRC. 187O derived by custom and partly by statute. It has exclusive jurisdiction over a variety of causes arising out of the City customs ; as foreign attachments, sequestration, disfranchisement, apprenticability, arrest for better security in certain cases of defamation, for the recovery of the City Grain Duty (35 and 36 Vict. cap. 100), and in penal offences under Acts of Common Council. The equitable powers of the Court are, in ordinary suits, the same as those of the Chancery Division ; but the proceedings are similar to those in use in the Court of Chancery before the Judicature Act. This jurisdiction, however, is confined to cases where the whole cause arises within the City. The Common Law jurisdiction of the Court is concurrent with that of the High Court in all personal actions of contract and torts, and also in ejectment, but it has no jurisdiction in replevin. Apart from the I04 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY jurisdiction founded on statute, the Court has power only to deal with cases in which the whole cause of action arises within the City ; and the Court can deal with such cases, no matter what the amount claimed may be. The jurisdiction of the Court was extended by the Mayor's Court of London Procedure Act, 1857, and sec. 89 of the Judicature Act, 1873; while certain sections of the Common Law Procedure Act, 1852, 1854, and i860, a part of the Local Court of Record Act, 1872, the Bills of Exchange Act, 1855, and other Acts were applied to the Mayor's Court. Speaking generally, the nature of the business in the Court is of a commercial character, and similar to that of the Chancery and Queen's Bench Divisions of the High Court. The fees are the property of the Corporation, by whom all the expenses of the Court are paid. On the application of the Corporation, the Lord Chancellor appointed the Registrar and the Chief Clerk of the Court to be Commissioners to administer Oaths in respect of proofs in Bankruptcy, for which no fees are charged. THE SHERIFFS' COURTS— THE CITY OF LONDON The City of London Court, known until 1867 as the Sheriffs' Court, is a Local Court of Record, exercising the same jurisdiction as the County Courts, and in addition a special jurisdiction conferred upon it by the London (City) Small Debts Extension Act, 1852. The Act practically transferred to the City of London Court the business of the ancient customary courts known as the Sheriffs' Courts, styled " The Sheriffs' Court holden for the Poultry Compter, London," and " The Sheriffs' Court holden for the Giltspur Street Compter, London " (the first being con- sidered to be the Court of the Senior Sheriff, and the latter that of the Junior Sheriff). The Court has, also, Admiralty jurisdiction, conferred upon it by Order in Council, in pursuance of 31 and 32 Vict. cap. 71, and jurisdiction under the Companies' Winding-up Act, 1890; but it has no jurisdiction in Bankruptcy; nor can actions commenced in this Court be removed into the High Court (35 and 36 Vict. cap. 86, sec. 8) except in accordance with the provisions of the County Courts Act, 1888, and the rules made thereunder. The Judge or Judges of this Court were, until the passing of the Local Government Act, 1888, appointed by the Corporation; but by sec. 42 of that Act the appointment of any future Judge is vested in the Crown, although the right of the Corporation to fix the salary and emoluments of the office remains unchanged. They have power to appoint a deputy. Under the Act of 1852 the Treasurer of the Court is the Chamberlain, for the time being, of the City of London ; and the Registrar, High Bailiff, Clerks, and Bailiffs are 'appointed by the Corporation. The fees of this Court were assimilated THE CITY 105 to those of other County Courts by the City of London Court Act, 1871. The average number of plaints per annum from 1852 to 1861 was 11,999; from 1862 to 1871 the average was 19,043 ; from 1882 to 1891 the average was 27,132. The number of plaints issued in 1892 was 32,382. The Judge of this Court has power to appoint a Deputy, by virtue of the provisions of the Local Courts of Record Act, 1872 ; but before such appointment can take effect it requires the approval of the Lord Chancellor and confirmation by the Court of Common Council. THE COURT OF HUSTING This is the oldest Court of Record within the City. At one time it had an appellate jurisdiction over all personal actions in the Sheriffs' Court, but this was abolished in 1852. One of the principal functions of the Court from the earliest times — certainly from 1252 — has been the enrolment of deeds and wills; and this jurisdiction continues to the present day. The term " busting " signifies " a Court held in a house." The Court is held weekly, on the raised part of the Guildhall called the Hustings, by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs, who are the Judges, the Recorder sitting with them as Assessor to pronounce the judgment of the Court. CHAMBER OF LONDON The origin of the Chamber of London is veiled in obscurity, but it is known to have existed from very early times. The appointment of Chamberlain was anciently vested in the Crown, but in more modern times the Chamberlain has usually been chosen from among persons of rank and standing in the Corporation. He is described, in the latest Deed of Covenant entered into by him with the Corporation, as having been from time immemorial Treasurer or Banker of the City, and in that capacity has had the care and custody of the monies of the Corporation of London called the City's Cash, and of the several Funds committed to the management of the Corporation and of the Chamberlain. In his capacity of Treasurer or Banker, he has received for his own benefit the profits and emoluments derived from the interest and dividends and use of the securities and cash balances from time to time in his hands, and otherwise from the investment thereof The system of accounts is based upon the consideration that the Chamberlain is a Banker, and his accounts are kept and rendered in a form more in accordance with the custom of a Banking business than the practice adopted in mercantile concerns. io6 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The share of the profits of the office to be received by the Chamberlain is limited to the amount fixed by the Corporation for his remuneration. The salaries of his staff are also limited, and the surplus profit at the end of each year is carried to the credit of the City's Cash, to be applied towards the payment or reimbursement of the salaries of the Town Clerk, Comptroller of the Chamber, and the City Solicitor, and their Clerks. Some idea of the financial business of the Chamber of London may be formed from the fact that on account of City Cash only, i.e. exclusive of Public and Trust funds, the receipts in the Chamber for the ten years ending December 31, 1892, amounted to ;^6,893,736, and the payments out during the same period to ;!^6,902,o76, making a total of .^13,895,852 which passed in that time through the Chamberlain's hands. Among the ancient duties of the Chamberlain is that of keeping the Roll of Freemen admitted either by patrimony or service, as well as of the Courts of Aldermen and Common Council, for their approval. All fees received in connection with admission to the Freedom are carried to the credit of the account of the Freemen's Orphan School. Another time-honoured duty is the exercise of his jurisdiction over City apprentices. This Court is, at the present time, constituted of the Chamberlain and the Comptroller of the Chamber as judges. Most masters prefer the jurisdiction of the Chamberlain's Court, when their apprentices require correction, to the concurrent jurisdiction of a Police Court. CITY POLICE The Police Force, formerly superintended by the Aldermen, was remodelled in 1832 in the form in which it existed up to 1839. Its duties during those seven years were entirely confined to the daytime, and the force consisted of ninety-nine men. A -City Officer, called the Under- Marshal, was at the head of the whole force, and a Police Committee of the Court of Aldermen sat every Saturday to receive the weekly report of the Superintendent. The " Nightly Watch " was a totally distinct establishment of watchmen under the control of the Alderman and Common Council of the Ward, the expense of which was defrayed by a Ward Rate levied by authority of the Common Council. By the Act of 1839 for regulating the Police in the City of London it was enacted that the Corporation should appoint a fit person, subject to the approval of the Sovereign, as Commissioner of the Police Force of the City of London, and that the Sovereign or the Court of Mayor and Aldermen might remove the said Commissioner for misconduct and other reasonable cause. The Act further pro- vided that the Police should be appointed by the Commissioner, in such sufficient THE CITY 107 numbers as the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons should from time to time direct. The Force in the year 1900 was constituted as follows : — Commissioner (salary, ^1462 per annum); Assistant Commissioner {£750); Surgeon (^500); Receiver (^597); 3 Clerks ; 2 Superintendents; 45 Inspectors; 74 Sergeants.; 1024 Constables ; and i Messenger. In 1874 an Act was passed (37 Vict. cap. 94) for making better provision for the superannuation and other allowances specified in sections 11 and 12 of the Act of 1839; and a further Act was obtained in 1889 (52 and 53 Vict. cap. 127) which provides a scale of pensions and gratuities in the Force, and authorises life pensions THE POLICE QUELLING A RIOT IN 1844 From The Illustrated Londoji News. to a retiring constable who has completed twenty-five years of service and is not less than fifty years of age ; or who has completed fifteen years, and is incapacitated for performance of his duty by infirmity of body or mind, except the cause has been vice or intemperance. Members of the Force have 2\ per cent of their pay deducted for superannuation allowance. The Corporation contributes one-fourth part of the expenses of the Force ; and the Common Council fixes an assessment upon the Wards to defray the other three-fourths. The total cost of the Force is about ^136,000 a year. Under an Act passed in 1867 the Commissioner has full power for the prohibi- tion of scavenging, except between certain hours; also as to the deposit of goods in the streets, on the footways and carriage-ways ; as to the driving of any cattle ; the [o8 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY prohibition of advertisement, the regulation of hackney carriages within the City, and other measures ensuring the regulation of traffic and the security of persons passing through the streets. The administrative headquarters are in Old Jewry. The six station houses, — one to each division — have all been built since 1865. The hospital, which is situated in Rose Alley, Bishopsgate, was erected in 1865, and a block of dwellings, containing accommodation for nineteen married constables, was built in Rose Alley in 1876. A lease was taken of twenty-five houses in New Union Street, as dwell- ings for about seventy married members of the Force ; but as the men are not permitted to reside within one mile of the City boundary the lease was allowed to expire in 1893. COMMISSIONERS OF SEWERS— PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT The Commissioners of Sewers were constituted by the Common Council under the Sewers Act of 1848, which vested in the Corporation the sole power of ordering and scouring the common sewers and paving the streets within the City (see chapters on Main Drainage and Paving). By the Act passed in 1898 the Com- mission was abolished and the Public Health Department of the Corporation founded in its place. THE IRISH SOCIETY This Society is constituted by Letters Patent, and has possession of the estates in the Province of Ulster granted by the Privy Council to the Corporation of London by Articles of Agreement on January 28, 1610. Portions of the estates were subsequently granted to the City Companies, who, as well as the Corporation, undertook this "plantation of Ulster" with great reluctance. The Society consists of a Governor (who must be an Alderman), Deputy- Governor and twenty-four assistants : — six assistants, including the Governor, being Aldermen of the City (the Recorder being also an assistant), and the Deputy- Governor and the remainder of the assistants being Common Councilmen. It is elected annually at the Common Council, twelve new members taking the place of the same number retiring after two years' service. In 1832 an attempt was made by the Skinners' Company to make the Society accountable to the City Companies for the disposition of their funds, and a Chancery suit was commenced with that object. The Corporation and the Irish Society were, however, successful in opposing the Bill, and in 1838 it was dismissed by the Master of the Rolls (Lord Langdale), whose judgment was subsequently sustained by the House of Lords. THE CITY 109 In reviewing the duties of the Society, the Lord Chancellor (Lord Langdale) said they were public duties within the discretion of the Society, and, after these public objects had been satisfied, the surplus which remained had been usually paid over to the Companies. The City exercised a control over the Society, but the members of the Society were public officers, in no respect amenable to the private Companies for the manner in which they discharged their duties. A Select Com- mittee of the House of Commons on the subject in 1889 reported that there appeared to be no complaint as to the manner in which the Irish Society performed its duties ; and with regard to the different City Companies it was admitted that, till recently, they had acted with liberality. They had built churches and schools throughout their respective districts, and had subscribed with great liberality to the local charities. Several of the Companies applied to the Committee to be heard, and a Select Committee was again appointed in 1890, which took evidence. The Committee was reappointed in 1891, and their report was followed by legal proceedings in the Irish Court of Chancery, in which the Corporation, the Irish Society, and several of the Livery Companies are dependants. PRINCIPAL OFFICERS The Recorder is the principal officer under the Corporation. He is the Senior Land Officer of the Corporation and the Representative of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their judicial capacity, and as such presides over the Court of Husting and the Mayor's Court. When any question touching the customs of London arises in the Courts, he certifies and declares by word of mouth whether such be a custom or not, a particular custom of London as certified being afterwards considered as settled law. He also holds the appointment of High Steward of Southwark, and is ex-officio a Commissionei" of Lieutenancy, a member of the Irish Society and of the City and Guilds Institute for the advancement of Technical Education, a Governor of Christ's Hospital and of the United Westminster Schools. The Recorder is elected for life by the Court of Aldermen, but by the Local Govern- ment Act, 1888, he is subject to the further sanction of the Sovereign to perform judicial functions. The nomination of Assistant Judge of the Mayor's Court rests with the Recorder. The duties of the Chamberlain, who is subject to annual election by the Livery, will be found set forth under " Chamber of London." The Town Clerk (originally called the Common Clerk), who is subject to annual election by the Court of Common Council, among other duties, keeps an account of the charters, records, etc., belonging to the City, in his official custody ; advises the Aldermen and the Common Council and their Committee (with certain exceptions) on procedure, records their minutes, and carries out such duties as they no LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY may impose ; generally advises the Lord Mayor, and advises concerning the laws, customs, liberties, and privileges of the City. He also carries out the duties allotted to him under the City of London Ballot Act, 1887. He is one of the three Corporation Trustees and, ex-officio, a Commissioner of Lieutenancy. The Common Serjeant presides as one of the Judges at the Central Criminal Court ; and in the absence of the Recorder, as one of the Judges of the Lord Mayor's Court. He attends, when required, and advises the Lord Mayor, the Court of Aldermen, the Common Council, and the Committees. By the Local Government Act, 1888, the election of Common Serjeant, which had hitherto rested with the Common Council, was vested in the Crown, although the Corporation still finds the salary and defines the duties of the office. The Common Serjeant is one of the Law Officers of the Corporation. The Jiidges of the City of London Court discharge duties similar to those of a County Court Judge, and in addition exercise a special local jurisdiction given by the London (City) Small Debts Extension Act, 1852, and the customary jurisdiction of the old Sheriffs' Courts. They have the same jurisdiction in equity as the judge of the County Court. They exercise Admiralty jurisdiction, the district thereby including five County Court districts on the north side of the Thames and five on the south. The Judges of the Sheriffs Court holden for the Poultry and Giltspur Street Compters, in addition to their duties as judges of the City of London Court, are Commissioners of the Central Criminal Court, and assist in the trial of prisoners at the Old Bailey. The Assistant Jttdge of the Mayor's Court, who must be a barrister of not less than seven years' standing, was authorised to be appointed by the Recorder, under the seventh section of the Borough and Local Courts of Record Act, 1872, to execute any particular duty or portion of duty of the Judge. Owing to the great increase in the business of the Court, it became necessary in 1874 to appoint an Assistant Judge. The appointment must be confirmed by the Lord Chancellor and by the Corporation. The Commissioner of the City Police is responsible for the efficiency of the City of London Police Force, and for the preservation of order. He is appointed by the Court of Common Council, subject to the approval of the Sovereign. The Comptroller of the Chamber and of the Bridge House Estates, who is also Vice-Chamberlain, is the custodian of the title-deeds, leases, plans, etc., of the City's property, and is Clerk to the City Lands and the Bridge House Estates committees, whom he advises, and whose minutes he keeps. He is a certified solicitor, and acts as Conveyancer to the Corporation, in respect of all or any of the estates in trust or otherwise, and performs such other duties as may be directed by the Court of Common Council. He is appointed by the Court of Common Council, THE CITY III and is subject to annual election. The Comptroller is one of the three Corporation Trustees, one of the three Custodians of the City Seal, and also a Law Officer of the Corporation. He is, ex-ojfficio, Keeper of the Monument. The City Rcine7nbrancer makes all arrangements with respect to ceremonies, such as arise from the presentation of addresses to the Crown, etc. ; the Accession and Proclamation of a successor to the Crown ; presenting the Lord Mayor Elect to the Lord Chancellor ; public thanksgiving and funerals ; and similar occasions of a ceremonial character in which the Lord Mayor and citizens are concerned. The Parliamentary duties of the Remembrancer, in which he enjoys the privilege of a seat under the gallery, involve a daily attendance at the Houses of Parliament, a constant watching of all measures likely to affect the Corporation. He reports accordingly to the Court of Aldermen and to the Court of Common Council, and acts as the Parliamentary Agent of the Corporation when no other Agent is specifically instructed. He is one of the Law Officers of the Corporation. The City Solicitor is appointed by the Court of Common Council, and is subject to annual election. He conducts all proceedings at law and equity to which the Corporation is a party; prepares Acts of Common Council, bye -laws and regulations, and prosecutes parties for disobeying the same ; prosecutes persons presented by the inquests of the several Wards for various offences and nuisances ; sues the City's tenants for arrears of rent ; conducts all legal work in connection with open spaces under the control of the Corporation, and transacts all such other business as may relate to or concern the estates or revenues of the Corporation. He acts as City Bailiff, and checks the receipt of fines and forfeited recognizances by the Secondary of London, and receives from him the same on behalf of the Corporation. The City Solicitor also acts as Legal Adviser to the Commissioner of City Police, to the Visiting Committee of the City of London Lunatic Asylum, to the Governors of Emanuel Hospital, and the Trustees of the late Alderman Wilson's Charity; and he is one of the Law Officers of the Corporation. The office is recognised as a public one by the Act for consolidating and amending the several laws relating to attorneys and solicitors practising in England and Wales (6 and 7 Vict. c. ']'^. The Secondary performs all the duties which ordinarily attach to an Under- Sheriff. Formerly there were two Secondaries ; one of the Poultry Compter, the other of the Giltspur Street Compter. From 1832, however, when the latter officer died, till 1871, the duties were performed by the Secondary of the Poultry Compter. In 1 87 1, on the death of the then Secondary, the offices were amalgamated by Act of Common Council. The office of Secondary is held direct from the Corporation, which is liable to the Crown for any misconduct on the part of the Sheriffs, Secondary, and Sheriffs' Officers. The Sheriffs, personally, derive no pecuniary benefit from their office, and they and the Corporation are indemnified against loss 112 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY by the Secondary, who gives a bond to the Corporation, himself in an unlimited amount and with two sureties jointly and severally bound in the sum of ^2500, to discharge efficiently all the duties devolving upon him as the representative of the Sheriffs ; his official place of business being called the " Office of the Sheriffs of London." Among these duties are — to execute and return all writs and processes directed to the Sheriffs ; to execute precepts for empanelling Compensation juries ; to levy and collect all fines and forfeited recognizances in the City of London, and to hand over the proceeds to the City Solicitor as the City Bailiff (the Sheriffs, under the custom of the City, were formerly allowed to take these fines, etc., as part of their emoluments, but an Act of Common Council was passed in 1869 abolishing this custom) ; to superintend and conduct the Parliamentary elections and the elections in Common Hall, and to act as Deputy Returning Officer for the City of London in connection with School Board Elections and County Council Elections ; to prepare the City of London Register of Parliamentary and County Electors, as to which he acts in a capacity similar to the Town Clerk of a Municipal Borough, and to prepare a Register of Electors in Common Hall. His emoluments consist of the balance of the receipt of ancient and statutory fees over expenditure, estimated to produce ^^1500 per annum, and his tenure of office is subject to annual election. The present Secondary is also High Bailiff and Returning Officer of Southwark, and in that capacity it is his duty to receive and execute all writs for the election of members to serve in Parliament for the three divisions of the borough. He prepares the Jury Lists, summons Jurors, and arranges for holding Special Sessions in all cases of compensation or assessments of property within the Borough ; receives all fines, amerciaments, escheats, etc., and all goods disclaimed In Southwark. Since the passing of the Local Government Act, 1888, he has acted as Deputy Returning Officer In London County Council elections for West Southwark, Rotherhithe, and Bermondsey. The Corporation pays the High Bailiff, who is subject to annual election, a yearly salary of £\o^, In addition to which he receives the ordinary fees payable to a Returning Officer in connection with Parliamentary and county elections, and the preparation of the Registers of Voters. The Lord Mayor is, by custom, the Coroner for London and Sott-thiuark, but the officiating Coroner is elected by the Court of Common Council, and is admitted to office by the Court of Aldermen. In addition to the usual functions of a Coroner he performs important functions under the City of London Fire Inquests Act, 1888, which provides for the holding of inquests in cases of fire where no deaths have arisen. The Coroner exercises similar jurisdiction under this Act to that exercised by him when holding post-mortem inquests. The jury may find a verdict of arson, and their verdict or inquisition has all the force of an Indictment. For the extra work cast upon the Coroner by the Act the Corporation allows him an additional THE CITY 113 ^100 per annum. The Corporation also pays ^935 per annum (making a total salary of ^1035) to the Coroner, and he receives from the London County Council a sum of ;^i35 towards his salary as Coroner for Southwark, being the amount which was previously paid by the Surrey Magistrates. The office of Clerk of the Peace was originally attached to that of Town Clerk, and the duties were executed by a Deputy appointed by that officer, until 1801, when, upon the death of the then Town Clerk, the Court resolved that the same should be a distinct and separate office. The Clerk of the Peace formerly also held the office of Clerk to the Licensing Magistrate, but the two offices were separated in 1859. In times past the office was paid by fees, the original scale being fixed by the Court of Common Council on December 7, 1801 ; but by subsequent Acts of Parliament many of such fees were taken away, and by 14 and 15 Vict. cap. 55 the power to make a scale of fees was given to the Justices, with the sanction of the Secretary of State ; sec. 9 of the Act also giving to the Justices the power to fix the remuneration of the office. His duties include : to issue precepts for holding the several Sessions and summoning the Jurors ; to issue writs of subpoena to compel the attendance of witnesses to give evidence ; to file all recognizances and convictions returned to the Sessions ; to make out a calendar of prisoners, and to perform other duties of a similar character. The salary is .;^2io per annum, including all the expenses of the office. The City Surveyor W3.s formerly designated Architect and Surveyor, until 1891. His duties include attendance on the Court of Aldermen, Court of Common Council and Committees, whenever required ; making surveys and valuations of all corporate estates ; advising as to the lettings of all property ; directing the sale of materials of old buildings ; determining all questions between tenants relating to party walls, etc. ; surveying every year premises the leases of which will expire within the following three years ; examining the time-sheets and paying wages of workmen ; collating same, and charging the several Committees interested ; preparing designs and all necessary drawings and specifications for new buildings ; instructing quantity surveyors, superintending the works, etc. This officer has a salary of ^1000 per annum, and is subject to annual election. THE LIEUTENANCY OF LONDON This is a Commission holding similar powers to those vested in a Lord Lieutenant within his county, so far as relate to the Reserve Forces. The Lord Mayor is head of the Commission, and the following also are ex-officio Lieutenants : — The Aldermen, the Recorder, the Chamberlain, the Town Clerk, the Common Serjeant, the Deputies of the City of London for the time being. The Lord Mayor may also recommend to the Sovereign Directors of the Bank of 114 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY England, and other eminent merchants and citizens, for inclusion in the Commission, The necessary charges and incidental expenses — including those of the Commission, and the support and maintenance of the headquarters of the Militia — are defrayed out of the Trophy Tax, which the Commissioners are empowered to levy every year, but which as a matter of fact is usually levied about once in three years, and amounts on an average to a rate of about ^d. in the £. The powers of the Commissioners are regulated by the following Acts of Parliament : — 42 Geo. Ill, cap. 90 and i Geo. IV. cap. 100, amending Acts of 36 and 39 Geo. III. ; 34 and 35 Vict. cap. 86 and 45 and 46 Vict. cap. 49. THE CITY OF LONDON LUNATIC ASYLUM This Asylum was a result of the Lunatic Asylums Act, 1853, which required that separate provision should be made for the care and treatment of the insane poor. It was erected in 1866 by the Corporation on a site of 2,3 acres purchased by them at Stone, near Dartford, Kent ; the cost of the building, including the purchase of the freehold, being £'jj,ooo. At first the accommodation was for 125 patients of either sex, but extensive alterations and additions were made, entailing the purchase of 107 additional acres of land in 1888; and by 1894 there was accommodation for 215 males and 240 females, making a total of 455 patients. Paying patients of the private class are received in pursuance of a resolution of the Visiting Committee which came into operation on January i, 1892, and the profit made by the maintenance of such patients during that year was about ;^267. The Asylum was the first in England to undertake the systematic training of attendants and nurses by annual courses of lectures, clinical instruction, and examinations ; and certificates were granted from the Asylum after examination, until the Medico-Psychological Association undertook to grant certificates of proficiency after similar training. The recovery rate from 1888 to 1892, inclusive, was 52.24 per cent, calculated on the admissions, the recovery rate for England and Wales for decade 1883 to 1892 being 39.73. The death-rate also was below the average asylum death-rate for England and Wales. From 1866 to 1888 the Asylum was controlled by a Committee of Visitors composed of the members of the Court of Aldermen and the Recorder, under the Act of 1853. When the Local Govern- ment Act, 1888, came into operation, however, the management was transferred to the Court of Common Council, which, in pursuance of its powers under this Act and the Lunacy Act, 1890, by sec. 240 of which the Common Council was constituted the Local Authority for the City of London, appointed twelve of its members, as the Visiting Committee of the Asylum. This Committee consists of four Alder- men and eight Common Councilmen, and is annually appointed. (r^;«i ft^f f ^'',r^ "■••-' ' ia. ^ "#i SMITHFIELD MEAT MARKET Pictorial .lij-fucy. THE CITY 115 THE CITY MARKETS Billingsgate is the most ancient of the Corporation markets and dates from time immemorial. The Act 42 Geo. III. (1802) was passed for the better regulation of the sale of fish wholesale at Billingsgate; and 9 and 10 Vict. (1846) consolidated and amended the several Acts previously passed, and enacted that on every day of the week, except Sunday, this should be a free and open market for the wholesale and retail sale of all sorts of fish, and in any quantity. The debt amounted at the end of 1892 to ;^268,ooo. The receipts in 1892 were ^24,794, and the expenditure ^20,450. In 1888, in response to a petition from the London Fish Trade Association, the Corporation acquired additional land, and put up a block of buildings to be used for purposes akin to Billingsgate Market, opposite to that market, and known as Billingsgate Buildings. The Central Markets, standing partly on the site of Old Smithfield Market, comprise a meat market, a poultry and provision market, and a general market. In the general market there is a poultry provision section, an inland fish section, and a fruit, vegetable, and flower section, the last-named having been established on the discontinuance of Farringdon Market in June 1892. The live-stock market was removed from Smithfield to the Caledonian Road, Islington, in 1855. The dead-meat market was transferred from Newgate Street to the new Central Markets when the first portion of the latter was opened in 1868. The Act establishing the Meat, Poultry, and Provision Market was passed in i860, and authorised the utilisation of part of the site of Old Smithfield Market for the establishment of the new market, and also conferred powers for the purchase of additional lands. Although a portion of the site of this market was outside the City, it was by the Act declared to be within the City, and to form a part of the Ward of Farringdon Without. An Act was passed in 1862 for the purpose of improving the western approach to the New Market, and further sums of ^70,000 and ^115,000 were authorised to be borrowed. Again, in 1864, the raising of further capital was authorised. The market is strictly wholesale, except on Saturday afternoons, when the " People's Market " is held, and meat is retailed to thousands of the poorer classes of London. The meat, poultry, and provision section of the Central General Market was constructed under the powers of the London Central Markets Act, 1875, and was originally intended for a fruit, vegetable, and flower market. An Act was, however, obtained in 1882 — the Metropolitan Markets (Fish, etc.) Act — for its conversion into an inland fish market, and it was in due course opened as such. In 1886 further Parliamentary powers were obtained to extend the area of this Ii6 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY market and make it available for the sale of fruit, flowers, vegetables,^ and other marketable commodities as well. To meet the exigencies of the time, the market intended for the latter purposes was converted into an additional market for the sale of meat, poultry, and general provisions ; and an inland fish market was built on a site immediately opposite. The fruit, vegetable, and flower section was erected on land to the north of Charterhouse Street, and was opened in 1892 upon the discontinuance of Farringdon Market, which had become inconvenient BILLINGSGATE FISH MARKET and incommodious. The Railway Company has a total area of about 100,000 feet under the Central Markets on lease from the Corporation, with large hydraulic lifts to the level of the markets and inclined roadways for vehicular traffic. The debt on the whole of the London Central Markets at the end of 1892 was ^1,742,000. In that year also the total receipts of the whole of the Central Markets amounted to /i 12,974, and the total expenditure to ^93,096. The Metropolitan Cattle Market, Islington, is worked principally by the Act 1 Covent Garden, the great London market for these commodities, is not held by the City Corporation. THE CITY 117 of 1857, which provided that Smithfield Market having ceased to be a market for the sale of cattle and horses, and the Metropolitan Cattle Market having been substituted by the Corporation, no new market for the sale of cattle or horses should be opened in the Cities of London or Westminster, or the Liberties thereof, or in the Borough of Southwark, or at any place distant less than seven miles in a straight line from St. Paul's Cathedral. In 1865 an Act was passed for removing doubts as to the nature of the borrowing powers of the Corporation in connection with this market; and another Act in 1875 varied the leasing powers relating to parts of the site of the market. The Foreign Cattle Market, at Deptford, was opened in 1872 as a result of COVENT GARDEN the Contagious Diseases Act, 1869, which constituted the Corporation the Local Authority in and for the Metropolis — with a view to prevent the introduction into Great Britain of contagious diseases among animals. The market was subsequently enlarged, and additional land acquired under the powers of a Provisional Order of the Local Government Board, dated April 7, 1881. The annual surplus, amounting on an average to ;^2 1,850, is applied in accordance with the provisions of the Act : first, in repayment of principal and interest in respect of money borrowed for the purposes of the Foreign Cattle Market, and next in repayment of principal of money borrowed in connection with the Metropolitan Cattle Market under the Acts of 1857 ^"^ 1867, and subject thereto in discharge of expenses incurred in the execution of Part III. of the Act. The extension and improvement of Leadenhall Market were authorised by ii8 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY an Act in 1871, which, however, was repealed by the Act of 1879. The latter abolished the then existing market, and conferred powers upon the Corporation to erect a new one for the sale of meat, fish, and poultry, and other provisions. The new market was opened on December 15, 1881, and the total amount of capital raised for the rebuilding, together with the cost of the approaches and avenues, was ;^247,8oo. Smithfield Hay Market is held in the open space adjoining the London Central Meat Market. Under the Act of 1876 a Clerk or Toll Gatherer was appointed by the Corporation to collect the toll authorised by that Act to be taken, and to enter an account of all hay and straw sold in such market, the register to be open for the inspection of any person on payment of id. A subsequent Act (1856) required the Clerk to weigh any hay or straw offered for sale upon complaint being made that it is deficient in weight, and authorised him, in the case of deficiency or adulteration, to summon the offenders. Certain persons are exempt from the toll, so far as their own goods are concerned, namely. Freemen of the City and tenants of certain lands at Enfield and Havering-atte-Bower, and other places specially exempted by charter, and occupiers of demesne lands of the Crown. The business done is not large. In 1892 the receipts were ^86: 16 : 9 and the expenditure £\o : 5 : 9. The control of the markets is under three Ward Committees, each consisting of six Aldermen and twenty-nine Commoners. These Committees consider all applications for space in the markets under their respective jurisdictions, but they are bound to submit them for the approval of the Court of Common Council. OPEN SPACES In 1872 the compulsory metage on grain brought into the port of London was abolished, and the metage due was fixed at j^d. per cwt. of all grain brought in for sale. This was called the City of London Grain Duty, and the Act of 1872 em- powered the Corporation to hold this duty for the preservation of open spaces in the neighbourhood of London, not within the Metropolis as defined by the Metropolis Management Act, 1855. Borrowing powers were granted up to ^99,000; but further power in this direction was obtained in 1877 and 1878 — ;!f 50,000 on each occasion — in addition to ;^i 5,000 in accordance with the Highgate and Kilburn Open Spaces Act, 1886. The open spaces under, the control of the Corporation comprise a total area of 6488 acres, consisting of : — Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, West Ham Park, Epping Forest, Wanstead Park, Higham Park, Burnham Beeches, St. Paul's Churchyard, Coulsdon Commons, Highgate Wood, Queen's Park, Kilburn, and West Wickham Common. The largest of these is Epping Forest, containing a total area of 5347 acres, which was secured to the public by the Corporation at a cost of ;^29i,o87. The THE CITY 119 management is regulated by the Epping Forest Act, 1878. Sec. 4 disafforested the Forest and provided for the cessation of all the Sovereign's rights therein, and the abolition of all Forest courts, grants, appointments of officers, and the transfer of the deer to the Conservators (the Corporation) to be preserved as objects of ornament. By sec. 5 all rights of common and of pasture, and of common of mast //; i". Campbell. A HIT OF EI'I'ING FOREST or pannage, were to continue ; and by sec. 6 all rights of cutting down trees, digging gravel, etc., were to be subject to the Act. Sec. 29 continued the right of the several Forest Parishes to nominate their Reeves and Assistant Reeves. Sec. 30 appointed four Verderers to hold office until March 25, 1880; after which, elections were to be held septennially, the Electors being the Commoners of the Forest, and the Verderers to be resident in one of the Forest Parishes, but not to be members I20 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY of the Corporation. These verderers, with twelve members appointed by the Common Council, form the Epping Forest Committee, which has authority to exercise the powers and discretion and do the Acts the Conservators were empowered to exercise and do. Numerous claims by owners and occupiers for compensation were settled by the Arbitrator appointed under the Act — Sir Arthur (afterwards Lord) Hobhouse. ^8000 was paid for equality of exchange in acquiring Wanstead Park (in pursuance of the power conferred by the Act of 1880), consisting of 182 acres of the most beautiful part of the Forest. The total sum paid from the passing of the first Epping Forest Act to the close of the Arbitration, after deducting the amounts paid to the Conservators for quieting the titles to the 485 acres allowed to remain unenclosed, was ;^i09,505. In 1889, 15 acres of woodland at Theydon Bois, known as the Oak Hill enclosure, were, by the generosity of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton and Mr. Edward North Buxton, added to the Forest. A portion of Higham Park, comprising over 30 acres, was purchased in 1891 for ^6000, of which the Corporation contributed one-half out of City Cash. The total cost of maintenance and management since its acquisition has averaged about ;^5000 per annum, towards which, however, there is an income from wood-throwings, fees for licences, and rents, amounting, on an average, to about ;^iooo per annum. In 1879 Queen Victoria appointed H.R. H. the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn to be Ranger of the Forest, pursuant to sec. 2 of the Act of 1878. Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (4 acres) was preserved as an open space by an Act in 1867 (30 and 31 Vict. cap. 38); power being reserved, however, to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, whose estate of Finsbury the Corporation hold on lease, to assume the management of the ground as an open space by giving six months' notice in writing to the Town Clerk. West Ham Park {'j'j acres) was purchased in 1874 for ^14,000, of which the Corporation contributed ^10,000. Under the terms of the agreement with Mr. Gurney, the vendor, the Park was to be managed by a joint committee of fifteen managers, eight of whom were to be appointed by the Corporation, four by Mr. Gurney (and his successors), and three by the Parish of West Ham. East Burnham Common and Burnham Beeches (375 acres) was the first of the open spaces acquired by the Corporation under the powers of the Act of 1878; the purchase -money was ;^6ooo, and .1^1625 for timber. The opening to the public of the railed space around St. Paul's Cathedral {^i acre) was the result of an agreement entered into in July 1878 between the Dean and Chapter and the Corporation, in pursuance of the power given by sec. 3 of the Act of 1878. Coulsdon Commons, comprising 347 acres of the enclosed portions of the four Commons known as Riddlesdown, Kenley, Farthing Downs, and Coulsdon, were purchased in February 1883 for ^7157 : los. THE CITY 121 Highgatc Wood (69 acres) and Kilburn Park (30 acres) were conveyed to the Corporation by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners under the Highgate and Kilburn Open Spaces Act, 1886. Sec. 2 contained a direction, so far as Highgate Wood is concerned, that the natural aspect thereof was, so far as possible, to be preserved. Under sec. 5 the Corporation borrowed ^5000 in connection with the necessary expenses of laying out these open spaces. West Wickham Common (25 acres), in Kent, was acquired in October 1892 ; a Local Preservation Committee had already collected .1^1500 towards the cost, and the Corporation paid the balance of ^500. In addition to the above open spaces, Shiplake Island on the Thames, con- taining an area of i acre 2 roods 1 7 poles, was purchased for ;^700 by the Corpora- tion under a licence in mortmain, in 1891, to preserve it from being built upon. A portion of the North Park Estate, situate at Walton-on-the-Hill, in Surrey, consisting of about 63 acres, was purchased from the Earl of Egmont in 1892, under the sanction of the Chancery Division of the High Court. The metage on grain dues expiring in 1902, the large balance of the various loans remaining due at the expiration of the statutory period will fall upon the estates and revenues of the Corporation, together with the annual cost of the maintenance of the open spaces. In 1896 the Corporation gave .1^500 towards the preservation of the piece of land adjoining the burial-ground of St. Botolph, Alders- gate, known as " the Postmen's Park," where a cloister erected by Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., for the commemoration of heroes in humble life was opened in 1900. THE PORT OF LONDON SANITARY AUTHORITY The Corporation of London was legally constituted the Port of London Sanitary Authority in 1872, by the 20th section of the Public Health Act. This Act was repealed in 1875 ^y a new Public Health Act, which, however, re-enacted the constitution of the Corporation as the Sanitary Authority, and made a similar provision in regard to the discharge of its expenses by the Corporation out of its corporate funds. The Nuisance Removal Acts, 1855, 1863, and 1866, and the Sanitary Act, 1866, were repealed by the Act of 1875, but the Local Government Board continued to reissue the original Order of 1872, giving certain powers under these Acts to the Port Sanitary Authorities until the anomaly was corrected by a clause which the Corporation caused to be inserted in sec. 8 of the Diseases Prevention (Metropolis) Act, 1883, namely: "The Local Government Board shall be deemed to have been empowered to assign to the Port Sanitary Authority of the Port of London for the whole of the said port, the powers, rights, duties, etc., which they have assigned to them ; and the said Board may from time to time assign to the said Port Sanitary Authority for the whole of the said port, any 122 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY powers, rights, duties, etc., of an Urban Sanitary Authority under the Public Health Act, 1875, with such modifications and additions (if any) as may appear to the Board to be required." This section also gave the Authority power to acquire and hold lands for the purpose of their constitution, without any licence in mortmain. On March 20, 1884, the Local Government Board issued an Order under the above section assigning certain powers under the Act of 1875, and reassigning the former powers as to the appointment of a Medical Officer of Health and Inspectors of Nuisances, together with Assistant Medical Officers and Assistant Inspectors. By further Orders in 1887 the Sanitary Authority was constituted the Registration Authority, and the Authority for supplying copies of the regulations made by the Local Government Board under the Canal Boats Act, 1877, ill respect of Grand Surrey Canal, Regent's Canal, and Thames River. By sec. 142 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, sec. 291 of the Public Health Act, 1875, constituting the Corporation the Port of London Sanitary Authority, was repealed, but sec. 1 1 1 of the later Act practically renewed the repealed section by enacting that "the Mayor, Commonalty, and Citizens of the City of London shall continue to be the Port Sanitary Authority of the Port of London, as established for the purposes of the laws relating to the customs of the United Kingdom, and shall pay out of their corporate funds all their expenses as such Port Sanitary Authority." Sec. 10 of the same Act enacts that for the purposes of the Act any vessel lying in any river or other water in the district of a Sanitary Authority shall (subject to the provisions of the Act with respect to the Port of London Sanitary Authority) be subject to the jurisdiction of that Authority in the same manner as if it were a house within such district, the master of the vessel being deemed to be the occupier thereof. Sec. 112 of the Act gave the Board power to assign to the Port Sanitary Authority any of the powers, rights, duties, capacities, liabilities, or obligations of a Sanitary Authority under that Act, or under the Public Health Act, 1875, and any Act extending or amending the same, and an order was accordingly made by the Board on March 20, 1892. The limits of the port are defined by a Treasury Minute, dated August i, 1883, and extend down both sides of the river Thames, from high -water mark at Teddington Lock, to an imaginary line drawn from the pilot mark at the entrance of Havengore Creek, in the County of Essex, to the Land's End at Warden Point, in the Isle of Sheppey in the County of Kent, such point being the north-western limit of the Port of Faversham ; and extend up and include both sides of the river Medway to an imaginary straight line drawn from the south-east point of land westward of Goalmouth Creek, thence across the river Medway to the westernmost point of the piece of land which forms the eastern side of Stangate Creek, or in other words the north-west point of Fleet mark ; and from thence in a southerly direction to Swale Church in the County of Kent, and thence in a southerly THE CITY 123 direction to Elmly Chapel, in the Isle of Sheppey, a supposed direct line from Elmly Chapel to Swale Church being the western limit of the Port of Faversham ; and include the islands in Havengore Creek, called Potton and Rushly Islands, and so much of the said creek and watercourse as extends from it to the town of Rochford ; and also including all other islands, rivers, streams, creeks, waters, watercourses, channels, harbours, docks, and places within those limits. For some years a hospital ship was stationed on the Thames about a mile below Gravesend for the purpose of treating patients entering the port suffering from infectious diseases. In 1882, the ship being out of repair, it was considered advisable to provide a hospital on land in its place. This hospital was erected at Denton, and opened on April 17, 1884, since which time patients have been received there. The river is patrolled by two Sanitary Inspectors in steam launches. An Inspector visits each dock daily to inspect the ships, and make careful inquiries as to the health of the crews. To prevent the importation of cholera, a boarding hulk is provided at Gravesend, where two Medical Officers are always on duty, one of whom visits every vessel arriving from foreign ports. The expression " dangerous infectious diseases " means any one of the following : small -pox, diphtheria, membranous croup, erysipelas, scarlatina or scarlet fever, typhus fever, typhoid fever, enteric fever, relapsing fever, continued fever, puerperal fever, measles. POLLUTION OF THE RIVER THAMES The Government appointed a Commission in 1882, with Lord Bramwell as Chairman, to inquire into the question of the pollution of the river. The Corporation, the Thames Conservancy, and several other bodies appeared as complainants, and the Metropolitan Board of Works as respondents. The Commission confirmed the existence of the evils arising from the discharge of the sewage into the Thames, and added that these evils imperatively demanded a prompt remedy. As a result, soon after the final report was published, the Metropolitan Board of Works commenced the construction of extensive works at Barking, and subsequently of works at Crossness. The Inquiry before the Commissioners cost the Corporation upwards of ^20,000. RAILWAY RATES AND CHARGES Active and united opposition was organised by the Corporation against the movement for increasing railway carrying rates. The action began in 1885, when Bills were introduced into Parliament by the principal railway companies for the purpose of consolidating and revising their scales of rates and charges for the conveyance of goods. As a result of the communications opened by the 124 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Corporation with private traders, public bodies, and associations throughout the Kingdom, about a thousand petitions were presented against the Bills, and after several postponements the railway companies decided not to -submit them for a second reading. In 1889 objections were lodged by the Corporation to the classifications proposed by the railway companies to apply to the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888, as it was calculated' that these would affect the cost of carriage on the food-supply of the Metropolis; and on July 26, 1889, a large meeting of representatives of municipal corporations, trading, agricultural, and other bodies interested in the question, was held at the Mansion House, the outcome of which was the formation of the " Mansion House United Association on Railway Rates." The Corporation appeared by counsel at the Board of Trade inquiry on the question of Railway Rates held from October 1889 to May 1890, at which certain concessions were obtained for traders. Assistance was also afforded to the Master Carmen and Contractors' Association in their endeavour to obtain an increased rebate from the railway companies for cartage. WEIGHTS AND MEASURES ^s regards the Article of Bread. — The Statute 3 and 4 Geo. IV. cap. 106 repealed all the Acts then in force, and prescribed the regulations under which it might for the future be sold within the City, at the same time saving all prescriptive rights. This Act was amended by the Weights and Measures Acts, 1889 (52 and 53 Vict. cap. 21). As regards the Measuring and Weighing of Coal. — The chartered and statutory duties leviable by the Corporation on coals were, as from July 5, 1889, extinguished by the London Coal Duties Abolition Act, 1889. The Corporation is, however, still the Local Authority in the City for weights and measures both by prescription and under the Local Government Act, 1888, the Weights and Measures Act, 1878, and the Weights and Measures Act, 1889. By i and 2 William IV. cap. 76, sec. 52, every carriage laden with coals for sale, or to be delivered, must carry a perfect weighing machine, duly marked. The Court of Common Council, as the Local Authority in the City for weights and measures, has made bye-laws as to the sale of coal, requiring that the name and address of every seller of not exceeding 2 cwt. shall be registered ; that the coal shall be sold in sacks containing either 2 cwt., i cwt., \ cwt., or \ cwt., with a metal label attached indicating the correct weight ; and that a stamped weighing instrument, duly verified, shall be carried in every cart, etc. Also that the seller of not exceeding 2 cwt. shall deliver to the purchaser a weight- note before the coal is unloaded. THE CITY 125 As regards Gaugeable Liqtiors. — By 5 Geo. IV. cap. 74, sec. 25, all vessels of wine, oil, honey, and other gaugeable liquors brought into the Port of London and landed within the City may be gauged by the Lord Mayor, as Gauger, or by his deputies, the contents being ascertained by the standard measure, and insufficient vessels, with their contents, are liable to forfeiture, the Lord Mayor accounting to the Crown for a moiety thereof. By the Weights and Measures Act, 1878, sec. 67, the rights of the Founders' Company are saved, and by sec. 68 the rights of the Corporation and of the Lord Mayor with respect to the stamping or sealing of weights and measures and the gauging of gaugeable liquors, are also saved. By the Weights and Measures Act, 1889, sec. 16, the City is excluded from the jurisdiction of the County Council, and by sec. 17 a person using weights and measures in the City shall not be required to have them verified or stamped by more than one authority. By the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878, the Weights and Measures Acts are applied to weights and measures used in a factory or workshop in checking or ascertaining the wages of employes. In 1 89 1, with a view to relieving ratepayers in the City from the considerable increase in the expenditure necessitated by the Act of 1889, the Court of Common Council agreed to transfer to the Commissioners of Sewers, during the pleasure of both bodies, all the fees received by the Corporation, the Commissioners paying the rent of buildings and all other expenses. The Staff of the Department in 1892 consisted of a chief inspector at £a^ : 4s. weekly ; three inspectors (^^3 each) ; and seven assistants. The duties of gauger are performed by an officer called the Deputy Gauger, who was appointed in 1883 ; he is paid by fees in accordance with a scale authorised by the Court of Common Council, and is required to tender an annual account to the Chamberlain of London. The duties of fruit meter are performed by an official appointed by the Court of Common Council at a salary of ^150 per annum. He has an assistant, and the Court also appoints a receiver of fruit metage at £'~)0 per annum. THE LONDON CHAMBER OF ARBITRATION This Chamber was inaugurated on November 23, 1892, to give effect to the increasing desire for the settlement of disputes by arbitration. It is under the control of a Joint Committee of Management composed of twelve members appointed in equal proportions by the Corporation of London and the London Chamber of Commerce — the two originating bodies. The officers of the Chamber are appointed by the Court of Common Council. A legal assessor has been appointed, whose services may be obtained when necessary, and also a registrar whose fee is fixed at one guinea. There is a panel of some 1143 arbitrators, nominated by. the London Chamber of Commerce, and appointed by the Corpora- 126 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY tion, representing nearly every branch of commerce, trade, and industry in the City. The fees are low, and the rules admit of a very speedy settlement of disputes ; while the forms of submission are so drawn as to constitute a binding contract between the parties and the arbitrators. GUILDHALL LIBRARY, MUSEUM, AND READING ROOM These buildings involved an initial outlay of about ^100,000 from City Cash, and were opened in 1872, replacing others which had been in existence for many years. The Library contains about 90,000 volumes, and is rich in topography, particularly that of London. The Corporation defrays the whole of the expenses out of City Cash, and makes an annual allowance of ;^iooo for the purchase and binding of books, etc. In addition to this the expenditure for salaries and other expenses is about ;^6ooo a year. GUILDHALL ART GALLERY This Gallery was opened in June 1886, and contains works of art belonging to the Corporation. The expenses are defrayed out of City Cash, and amount on an average to about £1 100 per annum. Nine Loan Exhibitions of Pictures held from 1890 to 1900 were attended by 1,912,164 persons. EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS The endowment of the Ctiy of London School is derived from the profits of certain lands and tenements bequeathed to the Corporation in 1442 by one John Carpenter, then Town Clerk of London. The bequest was " for the finding and bringing up of foure poore men's children, with meate, drink, apparell, learning at the Schooles, in the Universities, etc., until they be preferred, and then others in their places, for ever." From time to time various schemes were framed extending the educational benefits provided by the bequest. On January 18, 1832, the Court of Common Council resolved that, at an annual cost of ^420, four boys from eight to sixteen years of age, sons of Freemen, should be sent for education and maintenance to the Skinners' School at Tonbridge, on leaving which each should receive a premium of .^100 to be applied towards his advancement in life. Eventually in August 1834 the Corporation was empowered by Act of Parliament to erect a school for boys on the site of the Honey Lane Market in Milk Street, Cheapside, and for this purpose to charge certain lands, tenements, and heredita- ments called the Carpenter Estates (which up to that time had been charged with a yearly sum' of £\^ : ids. in connection with the John Carpenter Bequest) together with other hereditaments belonging to them, with the perpetual annual sum of .1^900 towards the support of such school, which was to be maintained by THE CITY 127 the Corporation " for the religious and virtuous education of boys, and for instructing them in the higher branches of literature and all other useful learning." The school cost nearly ^20,000, and was opened for work in 1837, when upwards of 400 pupils assembled. The building at length proved too small, and, there being no room for extension, the Corporation procured the passing of the City of London School Act, 1879, under which they erected the present school buildings on the Victoria Embankment at an expenditure of about ;^ioo,ooo. On December A7tjriisli)i Risch^ii2. CITY OF LONDON SCHOOL, MILK STREET, CITY 12, 1882, the new school was opened by the Prince of Wales. It was designed for the accommodation of 680 boys, but the average number of pupils is 700. The headmaster is the principal classical master, and the second master is the principal mathematical master. Both have to present themselves annually to the Court of Common Council for re-election. The number of scholarships is 47, tenable at Oxford or Cambridge, the London University, and the City of London School. The receipts from fees are about /i 1,200 a year, but the school is by no means self-supporting. Freemen's Orphan School VidiS established by the Corporation in 1850 under the 128 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY authority of the Act of that year, " for the maintenance and the reHgious and virtuous education of orphans of Freemen of the City of London." It is partially supported by the rents of freehold estates, devised in former times by charitable persons connected with the Corporation, but its principal source of income is City Cash. Originally the principal hereditament of the Governors of the Fund, which existed for the better relief of the poor of the Kingdom (Act 13 and 14 Car. II. cap. 12), was the London Workhouse. In the course of time the workhouse became unnecessary for the purpose for which it was established, owing to the removal of the labouring poor to the outskirts of London and the erection of houses of correction and parochial workhouses within the City. An Act was accordingly obtained in 1829 (10 Geo. IV. cap. 13) which enabled the President and Governors to sell or grant leases of the workhouse and other hereditaments vested in them, and to purchase other estates for the education and apprenticing of poor children. The Statute declared that the Governing Body should consist of the Aldermen of the City of London and sixty citizens, chosen annually by the Common Council, and such other persons as should give not less than ^20 for the purposes of the Charity ; the Lord Mayor for the time being remaining President. The sum standing to the credit of the Governors in 1850 was ^6450, and the Corporation in that year established the school, offering to allocate towards its support all sums received in respect of Sheriffs' fines, and also the fees payable to the Corporation by persons admitted to the Freedom. It was erected at Brixton on a freehold site belonging to the Corporation, and, with subsequent additions, cost ^27,221. The number of children in the school was originally fixed at 100, namely, 65 boys and 35 girls; but this number was increased in 1863 to 150, namely, 100 boys and 50 girls. On leaving the school each child is provided with an outfit ; and those who are meritorious and make application are apprenticed to suitable trades. Applications for admission to the school are submitted to the Committee in the first place, but the elections take place in the Court of Common Council by ballot. The Guildhall School of Music was founded about the year 1879 as the Guildhall Orchestral Society, and occupied a large warehouse in Aldermanbury, the property of the Corporation. The present school, opened in 1886, stands upon a site on the Thames Embankment belonging to the Corporation, and was erected by that body at an expense of about ^26,000. It contains 42 class-rooms, with a hall for orchestral practice. The object of the school is to provide a thorough musical education at a minimum cost, and there are now about 3500 scholars, taught by upwards of 100 professors. The City of London School for Girls (founded by William Ward) was established under a scheme settled and approved by Mr. Justice Chitty in proceedings in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice for giving effect to the charitable THE CITY 129 bequest of William Ward, of Brixton Hill, Surrey, who by his will, dated June 3, 1 88 1, bequeathed ^20,000 to the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, to be applied and expended by them in or towards the building on lands belonging to them and in maintaining a high school for girls, to be called " The City of London School for Girls, founded by William Ward." The Corporation solved the difficulty of a site by making a free gift of one upon the Thames Embankment. The wishes of the founder were that the school should correspond as nearly as might be to the City of London School for Boys. It is capable of accommodating 400 pupils, and priority of admission is given to the daughters of persons who are free of the City of London, or are householders therein. The Court of Common Council exercises a general control over the institution, and appoints a committee from time to time for its management and superintendence. The Chamberlain, Town Clerk, and Comptroller of the City of London are the Trustees of the Fund. The United Westminster Schools consist of St. Margaret's Hospital, Palmer's Charity, and Emery Hill's Charity. The connection of the Aldermen with this Foundation commenced when in 1873 the School Branch of Emanuel Hospital was separated from the Almshouse Branch, under the scheme of the Endowed Schools Commissioners, and allied with the above three charities in Westminster. The governing body of twenty-one members is composed of : — The Lord Mayor and the Recorder, who are ex-officio members ; nine Governors nominated by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and ten nominated by those members of the London School Board who are elected by the Westminster Division. Besides the endowments of the three above-mentioned foundations, these schools receive two-thirds of the net rents of the Brandesburton Estates in Yorkshire, the remaining third being devoted to the use of Emanuel Hospital. The City Ward Schools belong to the Corporation, are eleven in number, and provide accommodation for 2147 children. They are : — Aldersgate, Cripplegate Within, and St. 181 Aldersgate Street. Alphage Society Aldgate . . . . 2 Mitre Street. BiUingsgate, Bridge, Candlewick, Dowgate, 32 Botolph Lane. and Tower Bishopsgate (Girls) Spital Square, Bishopsgate, E. Broad Street ... 59 London Wall. Castle Baynard, Vintry, and W. Queenhithe . 6 Sermon Lane and Brickhill Lane. Cordwainer and Bread Street . Shooter's Hill. Cornhill, Lime Street, and Langbourn . 43 St. Mary Axe. Coleman Street . . Cross Keys Court, London Wall (Little Swan Alley — Infants). 9 I30 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Cripplegate Without . . . .16 Bridgewater Square. Sir John Cass's Foundation Schools . . 26 Jewry Street, Aldgate. The City Board Schools, and the accommodation they provide, are as follows : — Church Row, Aldgate High Street (604). Goodman's Yard, Minories (no, infants only). Greystoke Place, Fetter Lane (436). Gravel Lane (600). Swan Street (348). A large number of the children who attend these schools come from outside the City, the schools being mostly situate near the City boundary. CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS The Royal Hospitals consist of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Christ's Hospital, St. Thomas's Hospital, and Bethlem, the last being now connected with Bride- well. With the exception of Christ's the Lord Mayor is head of the governing body of the hospitals by the ordinance made by the " Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of London, Governors of the Possessions, Revenues, and Goods of the said Hospitals, 1557," the negotiations having been begun by the Corporation just after the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII. had rendered destitute and homeless vast numbers of poor and sick people as well as children. All the Aldermen are ex-officio Governors, and twelve Common Council Governors are also appointed under 22 Geo. III. cap. jj. Until the year 1890 Christ's Hospital was governed in exactly the same way as the other royal hospitals, but since that time it has been subject to the scheme of the Charity Commissioners, under which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen remain ex-officio Governors, but, with the exception of the Lord Mayor, have been deprived of their rights of presentation. The Lord Mayor is also an ex-officio Almoner, and the Court of Aldermen has the power of recommending for appointment by the Governors six nominative Almoners to act on the Council of Almoners. The Christ's Hospital Seal remains in the custody of the Chamberlain of London, and is the same as that used for the other royal hospitals. The Corporation is represented on the City of London Parochial Charities by four members on the Central Governing Body. They are nominated by the Court of Common Council, in pursuance of the provisions of clause 8 of the Central Scheme formulated by the Charity Commissioners in 1891, under the power given by sec. 11 of the City of London Parochial Charities Act, 1883. The Mitchell {City of London) Charity originated in 1876. In that year the THE CITY 131 will of Mr. T. A. Mitchell, M.P., was made known, by which he gave to his Trustees the sum of ^^80,000 out of his residuary personal estate, upon trust, to allow, during twenty-five years, his partners in the firm of Mitchell, Yeanes, and Co. to retain and employ such sum for the purposes of the business, without being accountable to his estate for any interest or profits in respect thereof, and he gave an absolute direction to the Trustees of his will to determine at what time the said sum of ^80,000 should be recalled to his estate, and upon the receipt thereof the same was to be held by them upon trust, half for his wife, and the other half to be paid or transferred to the Chairman for the time being of Her Christ's hospital Majesty's Board of Works, " to be applied by the said Board for any such charitable purposes benefiting the City of London, in which I have passed my life, as the Board for the time being shall, in their absolute direction, think best." Subject to the other bequests of his will, he gave the whole residue of his estate and effects "to the Chairman for the time being of the Board of Works, for the like purposes as are before declared by the preceding gift to such Chairman." The Metropolitan Board of Works claimed the bequest, whilst Her Majesty's Board of Works intimated that as they were not officially interested in the bequest, they did not propose to take any action in the matter. In the latter event the Corporation set up a claim. The matter was fully argued before Vice-Chancellor Bacon on March 16, 1877, when he gave judgment in favour of the Corporation. Eventually 132 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY a scheme was settled by which fifteen Trustees were appointed, nine representative and six co-optative. Four of the former were to be appointed by the Corporation, three by the School Board, and two by the Governing Body of Christ's Hospital, and they were to hold office for five years. One-third of the income ol the Charity was to be applied for the relief of the poor of the City of London, by monetary assistance, grants to dispensaries, etc., workmen's clubs, and pensions to deserving and necessitous persons ; and the remaining two-thirds for the advancement, education, and benefit of the children of poor parents connected with the City of London, by apprenticeship premiums, weekly payments to encourage attendance at school, the granting of scholarship exhibitions, the granting of rewards and prizes, the maintenance and education at proper schools or asylums of orphans and children physically and mentally disabled, subscriptions in aid of technical schools, etc. Pensions are only granted for three years (subject to renewal at the discretion of the Trustees) ; they do not exceed £t)6 per annum, and are forfeited by insobriety or immoral conduct. The Fund is not in any way controlled by the Corporation, beyond the appointment of four Trustees. The Clerk to the Trustees is uncon- nected with the Corporation. Wilson s Loan Charity allows young tradesmen in the City, or near it, to acquire loans ranging from ;^ioo to .^300 at a nominal rate of interest, the principal being repaid in five years. The Charity was founded by Samuel Wilson, of Hatton Garden, who by his will in 1766 bequeathed ^20,000 to the Chamberlain of the City of London for the above general purpose. The qualifications of borrowers were slightly enlarged under the scheme settled and approved by the Court of Chancery in 1868. The Charity is regulated by this scheme, which vests the management and control of it in the Lord Mayor, the two Senior Aldermen, the Recorder, and the Chamberlain for the time being- as Trustees. The Chamberlain is the Treasurer and Banker of the Charity. A borrower must be under forty years of age ; must have been in business one year, and not more than three years, in the City of London or within five miles th^eof, either alone or in partnership ; must be able to give satisfactory security ; muSt be honest, sober, and industrious ; must satisfy the Trustees that he has gained on the whole rather than lost since being in business, and that he is solvent, and a Protestant. Loans are not granted to persons engaged in the liquor trade. The expenses of executing the Trust are limited to .^200 per annum, including all, except legal, expenses. Emanuel Hospital was founded in 1600 under the will of Lady Ann Dacre, who directed her executors to purchase certain lands in Tothill Fields, Westminster, and build thereon a hospital for twenty poor folks and twenty poor children, for which purpose she bestowed ;^300. The hospital has been under the control and management of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London since 1623. In 1794 ten out-pensioners were elected, and the number of boys on the THE CITY 133 Foundation was increased by eight. In 1822 the Charity was still further extended, and again in 1843. ^^ "^^73 the Educational Branch was severed from the Hospital Branch by a scheme of the Endowed Schools Commissioners, and was allied to other schools in Westminster under the title of the " United Westminster Schools," of the Governing Body of which the Lord Mayor and Recorder for the time being are ex-officio members, and of which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen also nominate nine other members. The Corporation of " The Poor of Emanuel Hospital " was dissolved by the provisions of the scheme, but the Almshouse Branch was continued under the control of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, who, by an Order of the Charity Commissioners of August 3, 1877, were constituted a corporate body, with a Common Seal, under the name of " The Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, Governors of Emanuel Hospital (Registered)." The scheme of 1873 directed an apportionment of the property and income of the Charity, two-thirds to go to the School Branch and the remaining one-third to the Almshouse Branch of the Foundation. In 1892, owing to the very serious reduction that had occurred in the rents received from the Brandesburton Estate in Yorkshire, the Governors sold the site and buildings of the hospital for the sum of ;^37,500. A scheme for the future regulation of the Charity was then referred to the Chancery Division of the High Court. The scheme received the sanction of Mr. Justice Chitty in 1894. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen were continued as the governing body. Out-pensions only were now granted, and the number was increased from ten to forty. The amount of the out-pensions was raised from ^10 to £2^^ per annum. The London Almshouses were founded from the surplusage of the large sums subscribed to celebrate the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. The funds, however, were exhausted in the purchase of the land and the erection of the buildings, and the Corporation agreed to the request that they should take over the charge of the Institution. Accordingly, in 1848 the Institution at Brixton, which was originally called the Reform Almshouses, came under the control of the Corporation, and has since been known as the London Almshouses. The Almshouses were rebuilt in 1885 at a cost of ^11,437, for the reception of twenty married couples and twenty single persons in distressed circumstances. The qualifications for admission are that the men must have been freemen house- holders of the City for at least seven years, and the women widows or daughters of freemen householders for the same period. Married couples receive i6s. a week and single persons 12s. a week, and two tons of coals per annum. No married couple is admitted who have between them an income which, with the Almshouse allowance, would amount to over ^60 per annum ; or, in the case of a single person, to ^50 per annum. Inmates are selected in rotation from the various City Wards, being nominated by the Alderman and Common Councilmen 134 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY of each Ward in turn, and admitted by the Court of Common Council after approval by the Orphan School Committee. Sir Thomas Greskam, by his will, directed the Corporation of London, so long as it should hold its moiety of the Royal Exchange, to distribute ^53:6:8 yearly among eight almsfolk, whom the Corporation should appoint to inhabit his eight almshouses in the parish of St. Peter le Poor, each of such almsfolk to receive ^6:13:4 annually. These almshouses were removed to Brixton in 1883, new buildings being erected at a cost of ;^4250, which was paid out of the City Cash. Photochrotu Co., Ltd. LONDON FROM THE TOWER BRIDGE The management of the almshouses is entrusted to the Joint Grand Gresham Committee, and they are maintained at a cost to the City's moiety of the Gresham Estate of £\Z1 : 17 : 2 annually. The number of inmates is eight, and the pensions now paid out of the City's moiety of the Gresham Estate amount to an annual sum of ;^26o (the inmates receiving £■^2 : los. per annum each), in addition to which a sum of ;!f45 : i6s. is annually spent on clothing for them. Rogers Almshouses, Brixton, date from the reign of James the First, when Robert Rogers bequeathed to the Corporation ^600 for building almshouses in the City of London for six aged couples being Freemen and Freewomen of the THE CITY 135 City, and paying to them ^24 per annum ; tp this sum was added, by his executors, ;^30 and five marks. The almshouses were erected in Hart Street, Cripplegate, but in 1856 the old building was pulled down, and a new one erected upon land belonging to the Corporation at Brixton. The inmates are appointed by the Court of Aldermen, upon the nomination of the Lord Mayor. Formerly, £1 a quarter was paid to each couple, making together the ^24 per annum. Each couple likewise received ;^i : los. per annum, being the amount of interest on .;^300 Consolidated Annuities transferred, in 1838, by Mr. W. R. N. Brown into his own name and the names of the Trustees for the Corporation, to be applied for the benefit of the poor occupying these almshouses. In 1841 the Court of Common Council added, out of the City Cash, £6 : los. per annum to the allowance of each couple, making it ;i^i2 per annum, and in 1861 the Court, from the same source, further increased the allowance of each couple to ;^26 per annum, and of each single inmate to ;^i8 :4s. per annum. In 1876 the allowance to each couple was increased to ^41 : 1 28., and to each single inmate to ^31 :4s. per annum. The Court of Aldermen grant two tons of coals annually to each of the inmates. Morden College was founded by the will of Sir John Morden, dated 1702, for the reception and maintenance of poor or decayed merchants of the City, to whom he directed that pensions should be paid out of the revenues of his estate. A scheme was settled in 1871 for the regulation and management of the Charity by seven Trustees. Litigation took place in 1879 regarding the construction by the Charity Commissioners of Sir John Morden's will, so far as concerned the filling-up of vacancies in the trusteeship ; the result of which was that the Master of the Rolls gave judgment to the effect that, as the " Turkey merchants " and the East India Company had become extinct, the testator's intention was that new Trustees must be Aldermen of the City. There are forty in-pensioners, who receive ^113:128. per annum each, besides coal and wood, and furniture to the value of £2^ on entry, if required; and eighty-five out-pensioners, who each receive ;i^8o per annum. The entire management is vested in the Trustees, of whom two are Aldermen of the City. Thomas Russell s Charity is a fund dating from 1593, by which ;^io is paid annually by the Drapers' Company, under the will of one Thomas Russell, to augment certain payments which the Corporation makes to preachers at St. Paul's Cathedral out of the income of funds bequeathed for that purpose. In 1886 the Drapers' Company informed the Corporation that under a scheme made by the Charity Commissioners for the administration of the Charity, the Company were directed to pay "to twenty preachers yearly preaching at Paul's Cross, not being beneficed, los. each, if and so far as any such payment can be made," and, therefore, as from that time the payment would only be made in respect of those preachers who were non-beneficed. A list is prepared of the non-beneficed clergy so £ s. d. 8o,299 3 2 4,231 5 6,891 3,765 4,028 10 27,047 10 1,132 10 12,840 15 560,234 19 6 16,951 86,975 ^804,396 12 8 136 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY preaching at St. Paul's, and the Drapers' Company refund to the Corporation the sum of los. for each non-beneficed clergyman. Expenditure of the Corporation for Charity Purposes during Fifty Years from 1843 to 1892 Almshouses Asylums .... Cathedrals, Chapels, and Churches Dispensaries Fire, sufferers by Hospitals . Infirmaries, etc. Institutions (other) Schools Societies, etc. Miscellaneous THE FELLOWSHIP PORTERS OF THE CITY OF LONDON The constitution of this ancient Fellowship controlled by the Corporation was altered from time to time. By the last Act of Common Council concerning it, on June 9, 1887, it was declared to consist of the Governor and Deputy-Governor, who were ex-officio Rulers, and three other Rulers, one of whom was elected by the Fellowship, while the other two were appointed under the Metage on Grain (Port of London) Act, 1872, sec. 19 of which enacted that, Whereas it is expedient that two persons connected with the Corn Trade of London should be appointed to be Rulers of the Fraternity of Porters, one of the Directors of the Corn Exchange Company and one Director of the London Corn Exchange Company should be annually appointed to be Rulers of that Fellowship. The members of the Fellowship were not to exceed 3000 in number ; every applicant having to be free of the City, and having to pay upon admission such sums, not exceeding five guineas, as should from time to time be fixed by the Court of Rulers, Originally all the carrying work at Billingsgate, and from the wharves to the warehouses in the City, was performed by the Fellowship Porters, but of late years they had to compete with outside free labour, very much to their detriment. A majority of the body presented a petition to the Court of Common Council, praying that the Fellowship be wound up. The petition was agreed to and the Fellowship disbanded by the Corporation on March 15, 1894. CHAPTER V chronological sequence of events By George Turnbull The transformation of London, and the interests which animated the people, can be gauged by a chronological record of the great period of expansion — namely, the sixty years following the accession of Queen Victoria. Though the volume from which mainly the following tables are prepared^ deals ostensibly with the City, the move- ment of the whole Metropolis is more or less reflected. I Principal New Buildings and Improvements, City of London 1837. The City of London School, Milk Street, opened by the Lord Mayor (February 2). The building cost the Corporation ^T 20,000, and was designed by Mr. J. B. Bunning. Four hundred pupils were registered, the first Headmaster being the Rev. Dr. J. A. Giles. 1838. Considerable improvements at Newgate Gaol ; the prisoners' quarters enlarged ; separate confinement partially introduced ; silence enforced ; hot and cold baths furnished, etc. The Royal Exchange burned down (January 10). Improvements in Eastcheap, Little Tower Street, and Gracechurch Street ; Upper Thames Street widened from Eastcheap to Fish Street Hill. The Corporation voted ;{^500 towards a statue to the Duke of Wellington in appreciation of his services in obtaining for the citizens the London Bridge Approaches Act. 1840. Armourers' and Braziers' Hall, Coleman Street, erected. 1 84 1. Newgate Street and Fetter Lane widened. 1843. Thames Tunnel opened (March 25). The new Gresham College, Basinghall Street, opened. The Hall of Commerce, Threadneedle Street, was erected by Mr. Edward Moxhay, to accommodate merchants during the recon- struction of the Royal Exchange. The Corporation signified their assent ^ Modem History of the City of London, by Charles Welch, 1896. 137 138 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY to a scheme for Thames Embankment between Blackfriars and West- minster, proposed in a letter from Lord Lincoln, Chairman of H.M. Com- mission of Metropolis Improvements. 1844. The Queen, accompanied by the Prince Consort, opened the new Royal Exchange, designed by Mr. (subsequently Sir) William Tite, and erected at a cost of ^150,000. 1845. The Corporation purchased the Fleet Prison for ^25,000, and afterwards demolished the building. Photochyoin Co., Ltd. THE ROYAL EXCHANGE 1846. During the last twenty-two years the Corporation had expended ^1,021,421 on the approaches to London Bridge. One of the most important of the improvements thus effected was the construction of Moorgate Street. 1847. The City was excluded this year from the operation of the Act for improving the Health of Towns in England. The Committee of Sewers, in giving the reasons why the City should be excluded from it, stated that during the last sixteen years they had built new and capacious sewers at a cost of about ^200,000, thus bringing up the City drainage to an extent of forty- CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF EVENTS 139 eight miles of sewers ; and they claimed to have had special success in the paving and sanitation of courts and alleys. 1849. The new Coal Exchange opened by Prince Albert (October 30). Built from the designs of Mr. J. B. Bunning, Clerk of the City Works, with one front in Lower Thames Street, the other in St. Mary-at-Hill ; the cost of site and structure amounted to ;^9 1,000. 1852. The new Holloway Prison formally handed over to the City Prison V Committee (October 5). Built upon land purchased by the Corporation for a cemetery during the cholera epidemic of 1832, it was designed by Mr. Bunning, and cost nearly ;ii' 100,000. The new Billingsgate Market constructed from the designs of Mr. Bunning. Furnival's Inn was sold for ;^55,ooo Cannon Street widened and lengthened to St. Paul's Churchyard, at a cost of ;^200,ooo. Basing Lane was removed. The Stock Exchange opened ; designed by Mr. Thomas Allason, junr. (1855. Old Smithfield Market was closed on June 11 for the sale of cattle, horses, and sheep, and two days later the new Smithfield or Metropolitan Cattle Market was opened in Copenhagen Fields by the Prince Consort. The total sum expended on the site and the building was ^504,842. The architect was Mr. J. B. Bunning. The market occupied about 75 acres, and afforded accommodation for 7190 beasts, 35,946 sheep, 1920 calves, and 1440 pigs. Prior to its removal from Smithfield the market produced an annual profit of some ;^6ooo, but after removal the yearly loss amounted to about the same sum. Giltspur Street Compter taken down, and part of the site added to the grounds for Christ's Hospital. Gresham House built on the site of the Excise Office in Broad Street. 1857. The new schools at Hanwell for the pauper children opened. The new City of London Cemetery at Ilford was consecrated by the Bishop of London on November 16. Of the total area of 89^ acres 49 were consecrated, and 21 reserved for the use of dissenters. The new Record Office, Fetter Lane, was completed. 1858. Mr. Disraeli's Bill proposed that Parliament should levy a special rate on the Metropolis for the purpose of purifying the river and completing the main drainage ; the money to be borrowed on the guarantee of the Government, and repaid by a special rate of 3d. in the pound (to be called the sewage rate), in forty years by annual instalments, the work to be completed in five years and a half by the Metropolitan Board of Works. The Bill was passed. The work was estimated to cost ;^3,ooo,ooo, but four years later the actual outlay had risen to ^5,000,000. 1863. The Salters' Almshouses in Monkwell Street, established in 1641 and rebuilt HO LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY after the Fire in 1666, were taken down to make way for warehouses. New almshouses were built at Watford. The Common Council agreed to the erection of artisans' dwellings on a portion of their ground in Victoria Street (afterwards called Farringdon Road) at an estimated cost of ^20,000. 1864. The site of the old Fleet Prison was acquired by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company for ;^6o,ooo. The premises occupied by the Colonial Life Office at the western end of Lombard Street were sold at the rate of one million and three-quarters sterling per acre. 1865. A new workhouse for the poor, chargeable to the West London Union, was , opened at HoUoway. I 1866. The City of London Asylum, Stone, near Deptford, Kent, opened (April 16). ^ The building and freehold cost ^77,000. Provision was made for 125 patients. The Asylum was afterwards enlarged to accommodate 456 patients, the total cost to the Corporation being ;^i 26,898. (1867. Metropolitan Meat and Poultry Market at Smithfield opened on November 24. V It was designed by Mr. Horace Jones, and cost ;if20o,ooo, while a sum of ;^420,ooo was borrowed for the purchase of additional land and the making of the necessary approaches. 1869. Blackfriars Bridge and Holborn Viaduct opened by the Queen on November 9. The bridge was designed by Mr. Joseph Cubitt, and cost ^401,131. The Viaduct was a much more costly undertaking, as it involved the purchase of valuable property; the total cost was ^2,552,407. From the Circus at its western end to Giltspur Street at its eastern end the Viaduct is 1825 feet long and 80 feet wide. The height of the level of the Viaduct above the former roadways, as they existed in 1893, is 32 feet at Farringdon Street Bridge, which spans the deepest portion of the Fleet valley. Mr. Haywood, engineer to the Commissioners of Sewers, superintended the work. 1870. The Tower Subway, a circular iron tube extending from Great Tower Hill on the north side to near Pickle Herring Stairs on the south side of the Thames, constructed by a Joint Stock Company, was opened for foot- passengers, who were charged a toll of ^d each. The Prince of Wales inaugurated the northern Thames Embankment, which the Metropolitan Board of Works named the Victoria Embankment. The Lord Mayor's procession this year went for the first time to Westminster by way of the Embankment. 1 87 1. Asphalte was first adopted for road-paving by the Commissioners of Sewers. The Queen opened the new St. Thomas's Hospital, a magnificent pile of buildings opposite the Houses of Parliament. The cost, exclusive of the CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF EVENTS 141 site, was about ^400,000. Columbia Market, Bethnal Green, was now transferred to the Corporation. It had been erected by the Baroness (then Miss) Burdett-Coutts, in 1868, and two years later converted into a fish market. In 1874, however, as the market still proved a failure, the property was retransferred to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. Queen Victoria Street, opened on November 4, transformed the aspect of the south-western part of the City, and completed the new and spacious thoroughfare from the Houses of Parliament to the Mansion House. The formation of Queen Victoria Street cost .^52,000, and the purchase price of property along the line of route reached over two millions sterling. This year also witnessed the opening of the new thoroughfare connecting Ludgate Hill with Holborn Circus. Ludgate Circus was completed in 1875. The Foreign Cattle Market at Deptford was opened on December 30. The total cost to the Corporation of site and structure was ;^379,500. 11872. Guildhall new Library and Museum, designed by Mr. Horace Jones for the Corporation, was opened by Lord Selborne. The total cost of the . building, including the estimated value of the site, was about ^100,000 [ 1873. The new Post Office building in St. Martin's-le-Grand was opened in January, V and the telegraph department removed thither from Telegraph Street. The principal front towards St. Martin's-le-Grand, and that towards Bath Street, were each 286 feet long. The total cost of the building was about half a million. Kew Bridge was opened, free of toll, by the Corporation and the Metropolitan Board of Works. 1874. The Wool Exchange, Coleman Street, erected. 1875. The new Poultry and Provision Market, Smithfield, was opened on November 30. The building, in the Italian style, was designed by Mr. Horace Jones, and cost ;^5o,ooo, apart from the site and approaches. The new terminus of the Great Eastern Railway, Liverpool Street, was opened. The Com- missioners of Sewers purchased Letts's Wharf, Commercial Road, Lambeth, at a cost of ^24,5 25, where stabling, sheds, and appliances for dealing with the City refuse were constructed at a further cost of .1^25,530. 1877. The new Billingsgate Fish Market.was opened on July 20. The building is Italian in style, of Portland stone, with red granite plinth. It occupies an area of about 40,000 feet, and the river front presents a handsome arcade of eleven bays with a central pediment. The architect was Mr. Horace Jones, and the cost ;^272,ooo. The first ferry on the Thames— between the Tunnel and Rotherhithe — was opened on October 31. The City was rapidly undergoing a process of reconstruction, the prevailing style of architecture being some kind of Renaissance, but there were many Gothic buildings, some Elizabethan, as the large Inn in Fenchurch Street, 142 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY and some Queen Anne, as in Aldersgate Street and Farringdon Road. On the south side of Fleet Street, next to Salisbury Court, ten houses, erected in 1665, were pulled down this year and replaced by a handsome pile of buildings in the Renaissance style. A complete peal of twelve bells was presented to St. Paul's Cathedral by several of the City Com- panies, the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and the Corporation. 1880. A large new building was erected in Queen Victoria Street for the Savings Photochrom Co., Ltd. THE LAW COURTS i88f. 1882. Bank department of the General Post Office. It was designed by Mr. James Williams, of H.M.'s Office of Works and Public Buildings. The new Leadenhall Market was opened on December 15. The cost of rebuilding was ^99,000, and the cost of the approaches and avenues ^148,000. The new Law Courts, erected after the designs of Mr. G. E. Street, R.A., were opened by the Queen on December 4 ; they cost nearly ^1,000,000. The City of London School, on the Victoria Embankment, was opened by the Prince and Princess of Wales on December 12. CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF EVENTS 143 1883. The new Central Fish Market in Farringdon Street was opened on May 10. The building had been intended originally as a market for fruit and vege- tables, and together with the site was valued at ^436,000. The Prince and Princess of Wales opened the new buildings of the City of London College, White Street, Moorfields. 1884. The thoroughfare of Eastcheap was inaugurated. The new Hospital for Infectious Diseases, near Gravesend, opened on April 17. The City and Guilds of London Technical Institute at South Kensington was opened on June 26 by the Prince of Wales. The new building erected at Pictorial Agency. ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL, HAMMERSMITH Hammersmith for St. Paul's School was opened on July 19 by the Lord Chancellor. The new Council Chamber at Guildhall was formally opened on October 2. 1885. Two large blocks of labourers and artisans' dwellings were erected by the Commissioners of Sewers in Petticoat Square. Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution's new building was opened by the Prince of Wales. 1886. The new Corporation Art Gallery was opened on June 24. The new build- ing for the Guildhall School of Music, on the Victoria Embankment, was opened on December 9, and near at hand the new building for Sion College was opened by the Prince of Wales on the i6th. 1887. A new thoroughfare was constructed from Monument Yard to the Coal 144 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Exchange in Lower Thames Street, with the object of relieving the con- gestion of traffic at Billingsgate. 1888. A reredos of marble was erected in St. Paul's Cathedral at a cost of about .1^25,000. The new Fish Market on Snow Hill opened. 1889. The building lately occupied by the Inland Fish Market in Farringdon Road was reopened as a Poultry and Provision Market. Contracts were entered into with two companies, afterwards merged in the City of London Electric Lighting Company, to light the whole of the main thoroughfares in the City by arc lamps at a cost of about £12,2^2 per annum. The lighting was inaugurated on February 3, 1891. 1892. The new Fruit and Vegetable Market, in Farringdon Road, to the north of Charterhouse Street, was inaugurated. 1893. The widening of Ludgate Hill, from 47 to 60 feet, was completed, at a net cost to the City of about .1^200,000. 1894. The Mercers' School was removed from College Hill, Cannon Street, to the new buildings erected in Barnard's Inn, Holborn. The City of London School for Girls (Ward's Bequest) was opened. St. Bride Foundation Institute, specially intended for the benefit of young men engaged in print- ing and allied trades, was opened ; also the new Bishopsgate Institute. The Tower Bridge, opened by the Prince of Wales, took nine years to build, and cost ;^88o,ooo. 1897. O^ behalf of Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales laid the foundation-stone of the new buildings at Horsham for Christ's Hospital. Except for the his- torical associations of the site, the removal from Newgate Street, where, during 350 years, many thousands of Bluecoat boys had been maintained and educated, was anticipated as a great advantage. It meant a change from 5 acres closely built round on all sides and assailed by the roar of City traffic, to 1 200 acres in the open country. II Principal Social Occurrences affecting the City 1837. Influenza epidemic; many deaths. St. Paul's Cathedral opened to the public free (December 14). St. Chad's Well, King's Cross, sold by auction. 1838. Severe frost from January 20 to February. People crossed the frozen river below bridge ; skittles were played opposite the Custom House ; fires were lighted and refreshments sold on the ice. London terrorised by " Spring-heeled Jack," who specially selected women for attack. CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF EVENTS 145 1 84 1. The Times having exposed one Allan Bogle's extensive forgeries of letters of credit, and successfully defended a libel action which followed, the merchants of London subscribed ^2700 as a testimonial. The proprietors of the Times directed that this money should be invested in scholarships for boys at Christ's Hospital and the City of London School. 1842. Credulous people were alarmed by pretended prophecies of the destruction of London by earthquake. March 1 7 was the date named. The prophecies purported to be derived from ancient documents in the British Museum. 1848. Chartists assembled on Kennington Common and other centres, and marched with a monster petition-roll to Westminster, Throughout the Metropolis 17,000 special constables were enrolled; military were posted at various points ; and at the Tower thirty pieces of field ordnance were kept in readiness. No disorder of an unusual character occurred. The Excise Office was removed from Old Broad Street to Somerset House. 1850. Anti-papal movement among the people. 1853. The Common Council adopted a motion to establish a Free Library and a Free Circulating Library in the City. The proposition was rejected by the ratepayers in November 1855. 1857. For the first time for many centuries there was no water procession on Lord Mayor's Day. The Corporation were no longer the only conservators of the Thames, and it was therefore resolved that the route should be entirely by land. 1858. Postal districts established. [859. London Rifle Brigade established (July 21). i860. The third-class railway carriage, resembling an open "cattle-box," had by this time on several railways been superseded by an improved form, and in some second-class carriages cushions were placed. The vis-a-vis omnibus was run for the first time between Brixton and the City, and arrangements were being made for starting similar vehicles throughout the Metropolis. (861. The total receipts of the Indian Relief (Mutiny) Fund, inaugurated by Lord Mayor Finnis in 1857, were ;^466,42 2. The progress of City improve- ments, coupled with the increasing tendency of the trading classes to occupy suburban dwellings, had caused a great decline in the number of resident citizens. The decrease since 1851 was about 10.70 per cent in the whole of the City. 1862. Mr. George Peabody, an American merchant in London, gave ^150,000 to the London poor. This was afterwards increased by further donations to ;^500,ooo. Mr. Peabody was presented with the freedom of the City. 146 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 1863. The City Police adopted the helmet in place of the old-fashioned civilian's tall hat. 1865. The Rev. William Rogers brought forward a proposal for a scheme of middle-class education in the City. A charter was eventually obtained for the establishment of the Cowper Street School. 1866. May 10 was known as Black Friday in the City. The failure of Messrs. Overend, Gurney, and Co. caused a commercial panic and many other failures. Mr. Gladstone commenced the suspension of the Bank Charter Act, which had the effect of allaying the panic. Cholera raged during the summer and autumn. 5548 persons died of it, and 2692 of diarrhoea OMNIBUS IN i860 and other similar ailments. The Lord Mayor's fund for the relief of poor sufferers amounted to ;^i 7,000. 1868. Crosby Hall, Bishopsgate Street, opened as a restaurant. 1870. A Martyrs' Memorial was unveiled on March 11 in Smithfield by the Earl of Shaftesbury, under the auspices of the Protestant Alliance. 1 87 1. Cholera epidemic. The verderers of Epping Forest held a Court of Attachments at the Town Hall, Stratford, on November 11, and subse- quently the ancient procedure of summoning the " Swain mote " was revived for the first time since 1640. 1872. The Baroness Burdett-Coutts received the honorary freedom of the City; she was the first lady upon whom such a distinction had been conferred. CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF EVENTS 147 A similar record was created as regards the freedom of the Haberdashers' Company, which the Baroness received in 1880. 1873. The first Board School in London was opened, in Old Castle Street. 1875. The Tower of London opened free to the public on Mondays and Saturdays. Its last use as a prison was in 1820, when the Cato Street conspirators were lodged there. The Royal Menagerie was abolished in 1830. POLICEMAN IN TALL HAT 1882. Owing to the approaching completion of the Law Courts, the civic pro- cession for the purpose of presenting the Lord Mayor to the Judges took place to Westminster for the last time on November 9. 1889. The Lord Mayor organised a scheme for the thorough equipment of the volunteer force within the Metropolitan area; ^42,000 was raised. 1900. During the South African War the City raised, equipped, and sent to the front 1700 volunteers — horse, foot, and artillery. 148 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY III Government and Administration, City of London 1839. The Corporation obtained the exemption of the City from the Metropolis Police Act, 1839. The Thames Police now merged with the Metropolitan. 1840. Sheriffs Evans and Wheel ton imprisoned for an alleged breach of privilege (January 21). On February 12 Mr. Wheelton was discharged on account of ill -health; but Mr. Evans was not released till May 6. The Corporation, who had supported the Sheriffs all through the proceedings, presented each with a piece of plate at a public dinner on June 12, 1841. The mode of election of Common Councilmen reformed (May 8). Four members each were allotted to the- Wards of Bassishaw and Lime Street ; six each to Dowgate, Candlewick, Cordwainer, Cornhill, Queenhithe, Vintry, and Walbrook ; eight each to Bread Street, Bridge, Billingsgate, Broad Street, Cheap, Coleman Street, Cripplegate Within, Cripplegate Without, Tower, Langbourn, Castle Baynard, Aldersgate, Aldgate, and Portsoken ; fourteen each to Bishopsgate and Farringdon Within ; sixteen to Farringdon Without. Penny Postage system came into operation. 1841. The number of constables for the City Police fixed at 542 (December 2). 1842. The report upon the City Police for 1842 stated that the annual cost of the day and night watch under the old system was above ^^48,000 ; under the new system it was ;^38,ooo. 5002 persons were charged. The value of stolen property amounted to ;^6559. The vagrant and destitute cases numbered 2083. 1843. The number of persons to be nominated by the Mayor for the Shrievalty reduced, and the period of eligibility to serve limited. Sir William Heygate, Bart., who was this year elected Chamberlain, entered into a deed of covenant with the Corporation, as to the regulation of his office and the disposition of its profits — the first instance of such a deed. 1847. The disused Debtors' Prison in Whitecross Street was now called into being as a prison for the purposes of the Sheriffs' Court (December 21). Mr. David Salomons, elected Alderman of Cordwainer Ward, was the first Jew to hold this dignity in the City (December 6). 1848. The "Commissioners of Sewers in the City of London" were constituted under the City of London Sewers Act, by which it was provided that the Commission consisting of the Lord Mayor, Recorder, Common Serjeant, not more than six Aldermen, and eighty-three Commoners, should control the sewers and paving of the City. The Reform Alms- CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF EVENTS 149 houses at Brixton were now placed under the control of the Corporation, and were henceforth known as the London Almshouses. 1854. The Government Commission of Inquiry into the Corporation presented their report in May. They declined to recommend a Municipality for the whole of London on the ground that it would extend the civic authority from an area of 723 acres to one of 78,029 acres, a population of 129,128 to 2,362,236, and an assessment of ^953,110 into an assessment of /9,964,348. The creation of a Metropolitan Board of Works was proposed, and it was suggested that the Metropolitan and City Police should be amalgamated. Mr. Potter, Secondary, stated before the Commission that he gave /5000 for the office under an arrangement with his predecessor, who sold it to the Corporation for /8000, the Corporation finding ^3000 of the money and the witness /5000. Mr. Potter, who died in 1871, was the last to accede to the office by purchase. A Committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into the want of additional bridge accommodation over the Thames reported in July. They stated that a great increase of traffic through the London streets had occurred in four years, 1850-54, the number of railway passengers at the London Bridge terminus having risen from 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 a year, while the number of pedestrians and vehicles had also been much augmented. The abolition of tolls was recommended, and it was suggested that the expense of maintaining bridges and roads should be met by a rate levied on the whole Metropolitan District. 1855. The Metropolitan Board of Works constituted by Act of Parliament. 1856. Street tolls abolished in the City. 1857. The Thames Conservancy Act, passed this year, vested the soil of the river in a body of Conservators, reserving only a small part to the Crown. Twelve Conservators were appointed, namely, the Lord Mayor, two Aldermen, four members of the Common Council, the Deputy-Master of Trinity House, three members appointed by the Government, and one by the Trinity House Corporation. These arrangements, however, were subsequently altered, and still further modified by the Act of 1894. The Conservators now have powers extending from Cotswold Hills to the valley of Gravesend, and from Warwick to Winchester. The Board consists of thirty-eight members, representing County Councils and Boroughs, the Water Companies, the Board of Trade, the Admiralty, etc. 1858. Sir George Grey introduced a Bill in the House of Commons for the reform of the Corporation of the City of London. It proposed to divide the City into sixteen wards, each containing as nearly as possible an equal population. The Common Council would consist of 112, and the electors ISO LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY need no longer be freemen of the City. The Lord Mayor would be elected by the Common Council. The Bill also dealt with the Coal Dues. The opposition was so strong that Lord John Russell decided to drop the metage clauses. Eventually the whole Bill was shelved. 1859. The City of London Gas, Light, and Coke Company perpetually incorporated by an Act passed this year. Power was given to the Corporation, on a requisition of not less than five consumers, to appoint a competent person to test the quality of the gas at the Company's works, with power to institute proceedings in case of defective quality. The Home Secretary (Sir George Cornewall Lewis) brought in a Bill into the House of Commons " for the better regulation of the City of London " (July 7). It was again introduced on January 30, i860. The measure practically embodied the recommendations of the Royal Commission, and was limited to the constitution of the Corporation. i860. The City assessments had gone up ^^996, 469 in ten years. This was attributed chiefly to the passing of the Union Assessment Act, which gave to another body the power to revalue the City. 1867. The County Courts Act of this year effected a change in the title of the Sheriffs' Court, which from January i, 1868, was known as the City Court. 1868. Executions in public were abolished. 1870. The supervision exercised over brokers by the Court of Aldermen for nearly six centuries was now abolished. In future it was resolved there would be no sworn brokers, and the brokers of London would stand in the same position as their class in any other part of the kingdom. The first election of London School Board took place on November 29. 1872. The Corporation was legally constituted the Port of London Sanitary Authority by the Public Health Act, 1872. 1887. The Port of London Sanitary Authority was made the registration authority under the Canal Boats Act, 1877, in respect of the Grand Surrey Canal, the Regent's Canal, and the Thames River. 1 89 1. In the application of the Public Health (London) Act of this year, the City was exempted from bye-laws made by the County Council, and it was pro- vided also that the powers of the County Council under the Act to proceed in case of default of a sanitary authority should not extend to the City. 1894. The Royal Commission, appointed to consider how an amalgamation of the City and County of London could " be effected, issued their report proposing the creation of a new central body for London, and the practical extinction of the "old Corporation," most of whose powers and privileges were to be transferred to a new Corporation. The Liberal Government, which was pledged to introduce legislation on the lines of this proposal. CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF EVENTS 151 was defeated in the following year before it had an opportunity of doing so. 1897. Bill for effecting the incorporation of Southwark with the City rejected. 1898. The Commission of Sewers dissolved, its work being taken over by the Corporation proper. 1900. The Metropolitan Debt amounted now to ^46,268,871 — including the London County Council (^23,031,516), the School Board, the Metro- politan Asylums Board, the City Corporation, the Borough Councils (successors to the Vestries by the Act of 1899), Poor Law Guardians, etc. EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT CHAPTER I education By Sir Walter Besant London, were it not before her immense population impoverished her in this respect, was certainly rich in endowed schools. St. Paul's, St. Peter's, the Merchant Taylors', the Charter House, Christ's Hospital — these alone form a good list of grammar schools : there were also the charity schools, the number of which was continually increasing, especially at Westminster ; there were the private schools, at which the greater number of the boys were educated ; and the dame schools. At the grammar schools the teaching was almost entirely of Latin and Greek ; science, modern languages, history were neglected ; writing was taught ; mathematics and geography were attempted ; drawing was also taught. But the staple of educa- tion was Latin and Greek. Flogging and caning went on daily and all day long. The private schools were considered more useful than the public school, as offering advantages in making friendships likely to prove of advantage in after-life. In other words, those who were going to trade in the City made early friendship with other boys going to trade in the City. At these schools, situated for the most part in the immediate suburbs, the charge for board and lodging was generally ^20 a year, but, as nearly everything was an extra, and as extortionate charges were made for books, paper, pens, repairs of clothes, and servants' vails, the bills generally amounted to nearly double the professed charge. The schoolmaster, often a broken-down tradesman, hardly ever a university man, who relied on his wretchedly paid assistants for the teaching, sometimes did very well. Except at the public schools, however, a schoolmaster was held of no account, and to be an usher was to be a mere drudge and an object of profound contempt. This feeling grew up out of the unfortunate fact that, alone of all the professions, that of education has never had any protection or any organisation : nor has it until this very day. It is still possible for the broken-down tradesman to start a school, but now, happily, more difficult than it was to persuade people to trust their boys to him. It is still possible for a man who has worked through the best years of his life in a public school to be set adrift at the caprice of a new headmaster. 155 156 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY In the country there were men who offered to take boys at ;^io a year; there were others who charged sixteen guineas ; others thirty guineas. At St. Paul's the inclusive charges were nearly £^6. The girls' schools professed to teach French, music, singing, dancing, geography, history, and fine needlework. As places of education they were mostly beneath contempt. If, however, the girls became good housewives, thrifty wives, and judicious mothers, their husbands cared very little whether they could spell or not, whether they were totally ignorant of history or not. It is not easy to ascertain how far the children of the working classes were educated ; there were the dame schools ; there were the charity schools ; there were, towards the end of the century, the Sunday schools. We come across hints also of schools kept for the children of the working man by a working man in- capacitated by disease or accident from carrying on his trade. I do not think that these schools were at all common. And it is, to me, quite certain that by far the greater number of the working people were entirely ignorant of books, and could neither read nor write. But they knew more than we imagine. There was always among the people a great mass of historical knowledge, which was handed down orally. The whole range of agriculture, all the natural history, known to the people, all the herbal medicine, the domestic surgery, all the various trades were taught and handed down from father to son, from mother to daughter by word of mouth. How far back in history the popular knowledge extended one knows not. Was there a William the Conqueror? Had they any knowledge of King John? The flames of Smithfield they certainly remembered, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot, the expulsion of King James ; they were indignant at the wickedness of the Pope ; and, though they had no religion of their own, they bawled in turn for High Church and for Protestant. As regards geography, a nation of sailors could not be quite ignorant of foreign parts ; it was the chief amusement in the places where sailors resorted to exchange yarns of adventures ou^re mer. We may very easily exaggerate the ignorance of those who knew not the tools by which education is acquired. There is such a thing as learning outside books. It requires no printed page to tell the people how to avoid pillory, flogging at the cart tail, the prison and the gibbet. They were superstitious, perhaps, because they knew not how to read. Well, we all know how to read in these latter days, and we are superstitious still. Nay, the most superstitious amongst us are sometimes those who have received the best education that the world has, so far, been able to provide. The working classes, the soldiers, the sailors, the rustics, the watermen, the porters, and the " service " generally could not read. People put up cards in windows, offering to write letters for those who could not write ; these were explained to those who could not read by their better-informed friends. As for the dame schools, I suppose they were a kind of creche for the little children of the better sort of working people. The COOKERY CLASS IX A LOXDOX HlGHI'lR-GKAlJlC BOARD SCHOOL P„l.>,;.,/.lg,„cy. AR'J' CLASS AT LOXDOX HOARD SCHOOL EDUCATION 157 Horn Book, which is said to have been the only lesson-book, contained the alphabet, the Lord's Prayer, and the figures in Arabic characters with perhaps one or two additions. This Horn Book composed at once the whole machinery of knowledge and the literature that was to last through life. Do you believe that the Dame taught them nothing more? I do not. I believe that the old lady gathered the little ones round her and held them rapt and charmed while she crooned for them an ancient ballad of Fair Rosamond or Robin Hood ; while she told them a fairy story ; while she related the witcheries of the old women where she was born ; while she warned the girls as to the errors to which they were prone, and told them of bridewell — mincing no words ; and the boys she warned of the gibbet — using plainness of speech ; while she told them of the superstitions which it was not thought a shame to remember and to believe. The Dame, I am sure, taught these children a thousand things which they would never forget ; for the people teach each other, in youth and in age, far more still than can be taught by books. The number of private schools in London and the vicinity in the eighteenth century was estimated at about 4000, with scholars amounting in number to 100,000. The number of children attending charity schools was about 16,000, and the number received into schools that were without endowment was about 24,000, of whom 6500 paid. This accounts for 40,000. Suppose another 40,000 were taught more or less ; out of a population of a million there are 200,000 children at least of an age which ought to be under education. In the Sunday schools — when they were founded— there were soon found between forty and fifty thousand more, with five thousand Sunday school teachers, who gave their work voluntarily. It will be seen, therefore, that there was already some attention paid to the education of the working classes ; but the education was not under superintendence, there was not nearly enough of it, and it was not obligatory. To protest against the imitation of manners by the class supposed to want none, is always with us. Therefore, one reads a letter from an indignant moralist to the London Chronicle upon the subject without surprise. Every village, he says, round the City of London, has one or two boarding schools with the inscription over the door, " Young ladies boarded and educated." These schools are for the children of the lower class of tradesmen, the shoemaker, the blacksmith, and the alehouse-keeper. The girls are taught on the same plan as the daughters of gentlefolk, a thing which strikes the writer as ridiculous and absurd. The girls learn, in fact, French of a kind, dancing, and embroidery or needlework. They are called " Miss," and the schoolmistress is called the Governess. What is the consequence? They run away when they go home to the " licentious liberties of a ball of prentices" : at these agreeable reunions, it appears, many innocent girls have been ruined. Also when the " young lady " returns home will she assist her father in weighing out soap in the shop ? Will she scrub the floor ? Will she not 158 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY despise her father and his shop and run away with the first man who offers her a silk gown ? The writer advocates Reform ; he would teach the girls plain work, reading, writing, accounts, pastry, pickling, preserving, cooking, weaving, and washing. Then, he says, they will become a comfort and assistance to their parents and husbands. The full meaning of the word " Education " has taken a very long time to get itself understood. The progress of this gradual development may be set forth in two or three lines. 1. Poor people have no need of books. They must learn their craft — and contentment therewith. 2. If any book-learning is to be taught, let it be simply the art of reading — which they will straightway forget, for want of books. 3. If boys who are to be apprentices learn anything also, let it be writing and accounts only — witness the "writing school" of Christ's Hospital. 4. Since it is desired to teach children reading so thoroughly that they will actually be able to read as well as their betters, let their education be accompanied by " safe " books which shall keep them in the right line of orthodoxy and content. That the working and agricultural classes should actually read free and outspoken newspapers was not even considered possible. 5. Lastly, it has been discovered that the true function of education is to make men and women intellectually free. The earliest attempts at educating the people were by means of the Lancaster British School, and the charity schools. Yet so late as the years 1839-41 there were 367,894 married couples, of whom 122,458 men and 181,378 women could not write. The endowments of education amounted to no more than ;^i 50,000 a year. And in 1844 there were 2,262,000 children belonging to the poorer classes who had no education or schooling whatever. The recent legislation for education and the present condition of education in London is dealt with in the chapter that follows. In Jonas Hanway's Letters on the Importance of the Rising Generation (1767) he devotes a good deal of attention to the question of education. He advocates the teaching of children how to read, but no more ; he shows that the prevalent fear that if children learn to read they will become too grand for their place may be set aside, for the simple reason that if all learn to read there will be no superiority in the accomplishment. He does not seem to see that his reasoning applies to writing as well. However, we learn from his pages that, as a matter of fact, the children of the poor in London never learned to read or anything else : there were no schools at all for them. Those in the hospitals, such as the Foundling, the Grey Coat, and the Blue Coat, Westminster, learned to read but nothing more. They were quite early set to some trade or occupation. He instances, as showing the humanising power of reading, a case that came under his own notice : — EDUCATION 159 " If all the children of the poor were taught to read, none could pretend to the least superiority, consequently no one would be, on that account, the worse qualified for the laborious offices of life. I saw a plain proof of this in the persons of several hundreds of young North Britons sent to sea in the King's service in the last war. Every one of them could read and say his prayers. Every one was tight and clean ; and no one, that I remember, was inclined to the diabolical practice of profane AiigHseitt Rischgitx. HER MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1839 AS SHE APPEARED ON THE OCCASION OF HER STATE VISIT TO THE OPERA, DRURV LANE THEATRE From the Painting by Parris. swearing and lying. They were the dregs of mankind, as to poverty, but there seemed to be a purity of manners which could arise from nothing but education : they were not come to an age of any hypocritical sanctity. Upon inquiry, I found they had all been disciplined so far, that they were questioned and instructed, at certain periodical visitations, by their clergy. With grief I beheld numbers of our English boys of the same class, dauntless, indeed, and so far proper for seamen, and no doubt capable of as good impressions i6o LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY as their companions of North Briton ; but, for want of instruction, shamefully deficient in the qualities above mentioned." Colonel George Hanger, however, takes a totally different view of this important question. His observations on the matter were written in the year 1801, and they contain a statement of the general illiteracy of the eighteenth century, which is valuable. He makes it quite certain, for instance, that village children, at least, were not taught to read and write. " They will say, how shocking it is not to have the poor children taught to write and read, without which they will be little better than heathens, and incapable of being instructed in the Christian faith ! But I say it is no such thing ; and, what is more, I will prove it. Reading only enables them to study seditious and bad books ; and a knowledge of writing and accounts has brought many a man to the gallows, who otherwise would have lived a useful member to the community. When I was a boy, I remember well, no servant in my father's family could write or read, except the butler and the housekeeper, and I am certain no one of the swinish multitude in the parish ever knew one letter in the alphabet ; and it will be allowed, I am certain, that the churches were as much frequented, and the people as religious in those days as they are now. And although there was some Jacobins, there was no such thing as Jacobinism, or French principles, to be dreaded in the whole country. Without being able to read, they repeated the prayers after the clergyman and clerk, knelt down, stood up, turned round, and bowed, just as well as they do now ; though, perhaps, they did not perform the latter ceremony of the bow with as much grace as in this accomplished age, in which footman and servant-maid learns to dance. To those who disapprove of my beneficial method of providing for the children of the poor, I will reply that it is as dangerous to a state to instruct, and enlighten by education, the swinish multitude as it is dangerous to a farmer to take the rings out of his pigs' noses and turn them into a field of potatoes." The School Board ^ By George Turnbull School provision in London prior to the advent of the School Board was notoriously inadequate. From the early part of the century until 1834 — when the first granting of Government assistance opened a new era — the work of elementary education was carried on chiefly by two bodies : the National Society, founded in i Superseded by the Board of Education in 1900, and so far as London is concerned by the London County Council in 1904. THE SCHOOL BOARD i6i 1811, supported by members of the Church of England; and the British and Foreign School Society, founded in 1808 as the Royal Lancastrian Institution, and supported mainly by Dissenters. When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 the Statistical Society was conducting an inquiry into the condition of the parishes of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, St. Clement Danes, St. Mary-le-Strand, St. Paul Covent Garden, and the Savoy, which showed that only one in fourteen of the population received any instruction at all. Going farther east, there were in Bethnal Green alone from 8000 to 10,000 children not only without daily instruction, but for whom no daily instruction was provided. The situation was equally serious elsewhere, and continued with small improvement until by the year 1870 there were in London 574,693 children of school age, while the schools provided accommodation for only 261,158. Out of this necessity came the Elementary Education Act, 1870, which relied upon the formation of school boards as a last resource for putting elementary education within the reach of every child. In front of the School Board offices on the Thames Embankment there is a statue to the framer of the Act, bearing this inscription: "William Edward Forster. Born July 11, 1818. Died April 5, 1886. To his wisdom and courage England owes the establishment throughout the land of a national system of elementary education." The Act required a preliminary inquiry to be made before a School Board could be established anywhere, but London's need was so well known that this formality was dispensed with. By sec. 58 the Metropolitan Board of Works were authorised to lend to the Board for the erection of schools such sums as the latter might borrow with the approval of the Education Department, a power which was extended in 1872 so as to include the erection of offices. Great public interest was manifested in the election of the first Board, which took place on November 29, 1870. Lord Sandon, Professor Huxley, and Mr. Samuel Morley were among the members elected, and under Lord Lawrence, as chairman, the Board immediately set to work. Originally there were 49 members ; but the number was later raised to 55, composed as follows : Chelsea 5, the City 4, Finsbury 6, Greenwich 4, Hackney 5, East Lambeth 4, West Lambeth 6, Marylebone 7, Southwark 4, Tower Hamlets 5, Westminster 5. The Board was elected on the cumulative voting system, and every one whose name appeared on the rate-book was qualified to vote. As the organisation develops we see the work of the Board being performed chiefly by six Standing Committees, with about twenty-five sub-committees ; the members for each division meet at regular periods and discuss the work in their district, and they also nominate local managers to whom the Board delegates certain duties ; those managers, of whom there are about 2000, never go out of office so long as they make a minimum number of attendances — they nominate the assistant teachers, and take part in the selection of the head teachers ; the minutes of the Board's i62 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY proceedings are forwarded every week to all the rating authorities of the Metropolis, together with copies of all reports of committees and financial statements, in accordance with sec. 62 of the Act of 1870. The Act was amended in 1873 ; in 1876, when, by Lord Sandon's Act, compulsory education was adopted and school attendance committees were appointed; in 1880, when children were required to pass a certain standard before they could go to work; in 1891 and in 1893. In the latter Act education was made compulsory for blind children between five and sixteen years, and for deaf children between seven and sixteen. The Defective and Epileptic Act of 1899 made education compulsory for defective and epileptic children between the ages of seven and sixteen, wherever suitable provision had been made for the education of such children. Gradually perfected under men of conspicuous ability the School Board for London is probably the finest organisation of the kind in the world. When the Board presented their first report to the Education Department there was a deficiency of more than 100,000 school places, while the increase of population alone called for an annual supply of twelve schools, each for 1000 children. The Board's aim was, " A place for every child, and every child in its place." In many cases the existing voluntary schools were transferred to the Board, but the Board built or secured sites for eighty-six schools — the first of these to be erected was in Old Castle Street, Whitechapel, opened on July 12, 1873.^ By the year 1873 they had provided 58,581 school places, and the number of children on the roll was 59,606. In 1880 they could boast that they had 165,900 children under instruction. By Lady Day 1899 the Board had 540 schools under their control, and had provided places for 746,306 children, while other 48,000 were being arranged for. The bye-laws under sec. 74 of the Act of 1870 provide that children must attend a certified efficient school or receive instruction in some other efficient manner. Although the compulsory school age is five, the Board opened the schools still to younger children. Thus in May 1899 the number of children between three and five years in the schools was 176,344. At one or two schools we find at the end of the century babies under three received, and dolls and toys provided for them ; and being introduced at the age of three to the alphabet, they soon learn to make letters out of cardboard cut for the purpose. From this stage they go on to arithmetic, wooden sheep and dogs being employed as figures. The obligatory subjects taught in the Board Schools are reading, writing, and arithmetic ; and also drawing for boys and needlework for girls, in addition to a class subject such as English, geography, history, etc. Optional subjects recognised by the Education Code are English, geography, 1 There were thus the two types of elementary schools now in London, each aided by the State, each charging fees. But while the Board schools were supported from the rates, the schools of the reUgious organisations relied upon voluntary contributions in lieu of rate-aid. A LONDON BOARD SCHOOL — INTERIOR A LONDON BOARD SCHOOL — EXTERIOR i64 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY elementary science, history, needlework, and domestic economy (for girls). Specific subjects, for which no child below Standard V. can enter, are algebra, animal physiology, book-keeping, botany, chemistry, domestic economy (for girls), Euclid, French, German, horticulture, hygiene, Latin, mechanics, mensura- tion, navigation, principles of agriculture, and shorthand. Any other subject may be taught if sanctioned by the Department. The fees charged by the Board ranged from id. to 6d. per week, except in two schools where the fee was gd., but a further Parliamentary grant to all public elementary schools in 1891 enabled the Board to provide free education in all their day-schools, and August 28, 1891, was therefore the last day upon which fees were charged.^ School books and apparatus are also free. Attendance at school is compulsory up to the age of fourteen, though after twelve certain half-time exemptions operate, conditional on Standard V. being passed, and a child between twelve and fourteen who has reached the seventh standard is totally exempt from attendance. Attendance officers co-operate in each division with the teachers in securing the attendance of children, but prosecutions are only ordered after all other means have failed to bring a child up. The Board's machinery for enforcing attendance — benefiting voluntary as well as Board schools — developed until it cost nearly ^^50,000 a year. Apart from subjects which came under the Code the School Board for London introduced important special classes. Needlework was taken up first ; cookery was begun experimentally in 1874 ; and to these were added in turn science lectures, mechanics, laundry work, housewifery, manual instruction in wood and metal work, swimming, and other subjects. Flowers are supplied from the Royal parks of the Metropolis for use in the teaching of botany and drawing in certain schools. At first there was a little opposition on the part of parents to their children attending cookery and laundry classes, these being viewed as derogatory by some parents, but this idea was soon dispelled and the real value of the instruction appreciated. In 1899 there were 172 cookery centres, which in the previous year had provided a course of lessons for 31,000 children, and 117 laundry centres, where nearly 15,000 children had been trained. The practical character of the instruction is seen by the following extract from the first course of housewifery lessons : The principles involved in the variety and selection of foods : their preparation and arrangement for meals : importance of regularity in meals : rules for eating, and behaviour at table. Directions and practice in setting the dinner-table. Tidying the kitchen. Rules for the tea-table. Making the tea. Washing dishes, glass, pots, and pans. In the second stage the girls are trained in : Blackleading a grate, cleaning fender and fire-irons, both steel and brass. Cleaning a sitting-room. Sweeping a carpeted floor. Directions for cleaning linoleum and oilcloth. Brushing of furniture. How ^ The voluntary schools in London continued to charge low fees until 1905, when by the decision of the County Council all those fees were abolished. THE SCHOOL BOARD 165 to make furniture polish. Directions for polishing of furniture. Cleaning of lamps. Precautions in using lamps and oils. Suitable lamps. How to put out a fire caused by a lamp having been upset. Availing themselves of the provisions of the Industrial School Acts of 1866, 1879, 1880, relating to children wandering, or not under proper control, or begging, or not under proper guardianship, or persistently truanting from school, or charged with felony, the Board arranged for such cases being sent to industrial schools. They always endeavoured to utilise as far as practicable the existing industrial schools, both in London and the provinces, as this plan, besides being economical, has many advantages in connection with the care and training of the children and their after-disposal. Accordingly, the Board made agreements with sixty-three schools under voluntary management. But they also organised six industrial schools under their own management, namely, one for boys (Davenport-Hill Boys' Home, Brentwood), and one for girls (Gordon House, Isleworth), one training-ship {^Shaftesbury, off Grays, Essex), two truant schools (Upton House, Homerton, and Highbury, Highbury Grove), and a day industrial school in Drury Lane. In the case of the truant schools the children are licensed out, after a short deten- tion, on condition that they attend an ordinary day-school. The discipline they have undergone has so deterrent an effect that in the majority of cases the boys attend school regularly afterwards, but in the case of failure the licence is revoked and the boy is taken back to the school for further treatment. Forty-three centres are maintained for those children who by reason of physical or mental defects cannot be properly taught in the ordinary standards or by ordinary methods. According to an estimate made by the Departmental Com- mittee in 1898, one in 100 of the children between the ages of seven and fourteen require this special instruction. About 1700 children receive it to-day. They are taught in mixed classes, and are classified as far as practicable. They attend the classes for cookery, laundrywork, and woodwork when considered suitable for them, although in the case of these subjects no Government grant is received for their in- struction. Blind and deaf and dumb children likewise receive their education apart. The blind generally attend as half-time scholars at the ordinary day-schools, and during the remaining half of the school-time they receive instruction at special centres, of which there are eight under the Board. At these centres there were 160 children on the roll at Lady Day 1899. Reading and writing are taught by the Braille system, written arithmetic by Taylor's arithmetic boards, and geography by the aid of relief maps and globes, while special attention is given to mental arithmetic, physical exercises, and manual work. The deaf are taught speech on the oral system, supplemented in the case of backward children by the manual alphabet. Seventeen centres, with 510 pupils, are in operation, and at some of these there are also evening classes for deaf and dumb. Where the Board think it is necessary, however, they send blind and deaf and dumb children to homes and institutions, i66 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY which they are empowered to do by the Act of 1893. ^t °^^ t'"^^ '^he Board were the responsible managers of the Royal Normal College for the blind, at Upper Norwood, but in 1899 — when there were forty children in the college who had been sent by them — it was retransferred to the former voluntary managers at the same amount for which it had been purchased by the Board. In 1882 the Board inaugurated Evening Continuation classes, which are now established in every part of the Metropolis. They are open to all persons except young children who are compelled by law to attend a day-school. Besides the ordinary subjects, manual training and wood-carving are taught, and in some of the schools ambulance and home-nursing. In every case instruction is given in some form of physical exercise. Recognition of the importance of physical education became indeed a great feature of the end-of-the-century movement — the only reference to such instruction in the early Codes was that attendance of boys at drill might be counted as school attendance. Swimming is taught in the summer months, social entertainments are held in season, and the libraries of the schools are open for the free use of the students, of whom in the session of 1898-99 the number admitted was 109,000, and the average attendance 28,189 on a roll of 42,109. The expenditure of the Board in the year ended March 25, 1899, was /^2,6^8,^i4, and the revenue ^2,756,722, leaving a surplus of .1^108,308. The amount of education grants received was .^440,433. For the year 1899- 1900 the estimated expenditure was ^2,795,800, of which salaries of teachers accounted for ^^1,358,700; instruction of pupil teachers, ^20,400; and books, apparatus, and stationery, ^100,000. The average salaries paid are ^289 to a headmaster, ^205 to a headmistress, .^134 to an assistant-master, and .1^103 to an assistant-mistress. There are nearly 10,000 teachers ; not including upwards of 2000 pupil teachers and pupil teacher probationers, for whose instruction there are 12 central schools. At the end of the century there were estimated to be 785,000 children requiring public elementary school accommodation, compared with 455,000 in 1872. By March 1900 the Board had provided 546,483 school places; there were 536,019 children on the roll, and the average attendance was 439,744; while the voluntary schools provided for 219,921 children, as compared with 261,000 in 1870, and had an average attendance of 174,702.^ In 1872, the first year during which the schools of the Board were open, the amount levied on the rates was ^40,000; in 1898 it was ^1,852,326; the rate having risen in the same period from .48d. to i2.37d. per £.'' 1 The Ragged School Union, founded in 1844 for the elementary tuition of waifs and strays in great cities, had in 1870 about 200 London schools, educating 23,000 pupils. - A rate of id. in the £ produced ^85,000 in 1872, and about ^150,000 in 1900. CHAPTER II ART By Sir Walter Besant The history of Art in London belongs to the country rather than the City. Art in London is like Literature ; it is Art in England ; it is Art in the Three Kingdoms ; it is Art in the Empire, because the best and the most ambitious of her followers flock to London. This, therefore, is not the place for the story of Art. A few notes, however, are necessary if only as a preface to the creation of the Royal Academy, which is certainly one of the Institutions of London. England was slow in following the example of the Dutch and Flemings in developing a school of native painters. Of the mediaeval frescoes and portraits very little remains : the most remarkable being the portrait of Richard the Second in Westminster Abbey and that of Edward the Fourth in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries. Henry the Seventh welcomed Jan Gossart (Mabuse) to his court. Holbein came later : there were other Flemish or Dutch painters in London during the sixteenth century. Of English painters, as yet there were none. Under James the First and Charles the First there are a crowd of foreign names : — Paul von Somer, Cornelius Janssen, Daniel Mytens, Rubens, knighted by Charles, 1630, and Vandyck, knighted in 1732. At this time British painters begin. Theodore Russell was the nephew of Janssen ; the names of Jameson and Dobson are remembered. Charles the First was like Richard the Second, a connoisseur in Art : the States of Holland presented him with bric-a-brac and wall-paintings by Tintoret and Titian ; he bought the collections of the Duke of Mantua ; he encouraged artists. Cromwell was a patron of Peter Lely. Under Charles the Second Lely continued to flourish. Verrio and Vareht ad Hondius were received and welcomed during his reign. English painters, Wright and Fuller, also successfully competed with the foreigners. It was under the Georges that native painters began to hold their own 167 i68 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY with foreigners. Of the latter there were : — Kneller, Cipriani, Zuccarelli, Angelica Kauffmann, Laguerre, Le Sueur, Dohl, Zoffany, Zincke, Monawy, Serres, Roubillac. Of the former the eighteenth century could show : — Thornhill, Hogarth, Richard Wilson, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Jonathan Richardson, Romney, Wright, Morland, Hayman, Hudson, Wish, Copley, Opie, Laurence, Barry, and many others. Later names, such as Etty, Shee, Villia, Haydon, Linnell, Anstall, and Turner, bring us down to the Victorian era. The first school of Art in London was that opened by Kneller in 1711. The only way for a learner had been to attach himself to some painter, and to use his studio and paint under his directions ; often he was employed to paint in the curtains, the scenery, and the setting of a portrait. The school of Kneller was followed by that of Thornhill, Hogarth's father-in-law; on his death, in 1734, it was continued by Hogarth and by Moser. In 1760 the Society of Artists held their first exhibition ; in 1765 they obtained a Royal Charter of Incorporation. The members of the Society quarrelled and fell apart, though the Society continued to exist for many years. In 1768 the King founded the Royal Academy of Art, which rapidly swallowed up all other Societies and Associations existing for the purposes of Art. The objects of the Royal Academy were set forth in a document which Maitland produces in full. It is as follows : — Royal Academy " The principal object of the Institution is to be the establishment of well- regulated Schools of Design, where Students in the Arts may find that instruction which hath so long been wanted, and so long wished for in this country. For this end, therefore, there will be a winter Academy of living models of different characters to draw after; and a summer Academy of living models of different characters to paint after : there will also be Laymen with all sorts of Draperies, both ancient and modern, and choice casts of all the celebrated antique Statues, Groups, and Basso-relievos, nine of the ablest Academicians, elected annually from amongst the forty, are to attend these Schools by rotation, to set the figures, to examine the performance of the Students, to advise and instruct them, and to turn their attention towards that Branch of the .Arts for which they shall seem to have the aptest Disposition. And in order to instruct the students in the Principles and Laws of Com- position, to strengthen their Judgment, to form their Taste of Design and Colouring, to point out to them the Beauties and Imperfections of celebrated performances, and the particular excellencies and defects of great Masters, to fit them for an unprejudiced study of Books, and to lead them into the readiest and ART 169 most efficacious Paths of Study, there are appointed a professor of Architecture, one of Anatomy, and one of Perspective, who are annually to read a certain number of public lectures in the Schools, calculated for the purposes above recited. Furthermore, there will be a library of Books of Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, and all the Sciences relating thereto ; also of Prints of Bas-reliefs, Vases, Trophies, Ornaments, ancient and modern dresses. Customs, and Ceremonies, Instruments of War and Arts, Utensils of Sacrifice, and all other Things useful to Students in the Arts. The Admission to all these establishments will be free to all Students properly qualified to reap advantage from such studies as are there cultivated. The professors and Academicians, who instruct in the Schools, have each of them proper salaries annexed to their employments : as have also the Treasurer, the Keeper of the Royal Academy, the Secretary, and all other Persons employed in the Management of the said Institution ; and His Majesty hath, for the present, allotted a large House in Pall Mall for the purposes of the Schools, etc. And that the effects of this truly Royal Institution may be conspicuous to the World, there will be an annual Exhibition of Paintings, sculptures, and designs, open to all Artists of distinguished merit, where they may offer theiri Performances to public view, and acquire that degree of Fame and Encouragement which they shall be deemed to deserve. But as all Men, who enter the Career of the Arts, are not equally successful, and as some unhappy never acquire either fame or encouragement, but after many years of painful study, at a time of life when it is too late to think of other pursuits, find themselves destitute of every means of subsistence ; and as others are, by various infirmities incident to Man, rendered incapable of exerting their Talents, and others are cut off in the Bloom of Life, before it could be possible to provide for their Families ; His Majesty, whose Benevolence and Generosity overflow in every action of his life, hath allotted a considerable sum annually to be distributed, for the relief of indigent artists and their distressed families. This is but a slight sketch of the Institution of the Royal Academy of Arts, yet sufficient to convince the World that no Country can boast of a more useful Establishment, nor of any established upon more noble principles. The first Officers under this Charter were Sir Joshua Reynolds, President ; Sir William Chambers, Treasurer ; G. Michael Moser, Keeper ; Francis Milner Newton, Secretary ; Professor of Painting, Edward Penny ; of Architecture, Thomas Sandby ; of Anatomy, Dr. William Hunter ; of Perspective, Samuel Wale ; Council, George Barrett, Sir William Chambers, Francis Cotes, Nathaniel Hone, Jeremiah Meyer, Edward Penny, Paul Sandby, Joseph Wilton ; Visitors, Agostino Carlini, Charles Catton, G. Baptist Cipriani, Nathaniel Dance, Francis Hayman, Peter Toms, Benjamin West, Richard Wilson, Francesco Zuccarelli." 170 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The schools were first held in some rooms in Pall Mall, and were removed to Somerset House by the hospitality of George III. in 1771, though the exhibition of pictures continued to be in Pall Mall till 1780, when the various branches of the Academy were reunited in the new Somerset House on its completion. In 1837 the space in Somerset House being required, a substitute was offered by the Government in a part of the National Gallery. When this space was in its turn required, the question arose as to whether the Academy had any right at all to be housed at the country's expense. Happily its claims were conceded, and Burlington House, offered to the Society at a peppercorn rent, was accepted. After large BURLINGTON HOUSE, 1828 From a Print in the Grace Collection. additions had been made, the Academy moved here in 1869. The absolute stability of this National Institution is now unquestioned, and it is curious to reflect that in the first struggling years of its existence it failed to pay its way, and that the differences between its receipts and expenditure were made up from time to time by George III. to the tune of ;!f5000. The govern- ment of the Academy is now carried on by a President and ten members of Council. There are forty Royal Academicians elected from the Associates of the Academy. Let us take the names of the Presidents of the Royal Academy since its foundation. In the eighteenth century we have Sir Joshua Reynolds; bridging ART 171 the two centuries, Benjamin West; then temporarily James Wyatt;^ again Benjamin West, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir M. A. Shee, Sir C. L. Eastlake, Sir F. Grant, Lord Leighton, Sir J. E. Millais, Sir Edward J. Poynter. But this is an unsatisfactory method of recalHng the names of our great artists ; there are other names which will arise in every one's mind, still better known than some of those who have held the high office. To take only a few at random, Edwin Abbey, Sir L. Alma-Tadema, Sir Edgar Boehm, Sir E. Burne- Jones, Vicat Cole, John Constable, T. S. Cooper, Sir Luke Fildes, John Flaxman, Sir Hubert von Herkomer, John Hoppner, Sir E. Landseer, B. W. Leader, J. MacWhirter, Sir W. Q. Orchardson, W. W. Ouless, Sir H. Raeburn, Sir W. Richmond, Briton Riviere, J. S. Sargent, Sir G. G. Scott, Turner, G. F. Watts, Sir David Wilkie. Many of these are still living, others born in the eighteenth century have long passed away. It is a splendid list. If in Literature it is the glory of London to have produced Chaucer and Milton, besides a host of lesser lights, so in Art it is her. glory to have produced Hogarth and Turner; but Hogarth died in 1764, and so wholly belongs to the eighteenth century (see London in the Eighteenth Century). The other London painter, Turner, was born of humble parentage. It is remarkable that, while Hogarth's birth and early companions influenced him and determined his kind of work. Turner's environment produced no perceptible influence upon his work at all. The barber's boy is not to be discerned in Turner's landscapes ; there is no influence attributable to his early companions shown in his splendid sunsets and his glowing haze. Turner died in 1851. 1 West resigned in 1805, and James Wyatt was elected President, but his election was never approved by the Sovereign, and in the following year West was re-elected. CHAPTER III COMMERCIAL ASPECT OF LITERATURE By Sir Walter Besant In the autumn of the year 1884 half a dozen men of letters conceived the idea of founding an association which should not be an Academy of Letters ; should not aim at rewarding genius ; should not attempt to raise the standard of literary work ; LORD TENNYSON From a Painting by G. F. Watts, R.A. but should simply content itself with the management, treatment, and defence of literary, dramatic, and musical property. All men and women of letters are con- cerned with literary property : it is their own property unless they part with it. 172 COMMERCIAL ASPECT OF LITERATURE 173 The Society attracted at first that kind of derision and aspersion which are generally wanted to prove the courage of the founders and the true worth of a cause. For many years there had been grave discontent among writers with the treatment they experienced from publishers. The copyright of their books was always claimed by them ; the laws of copyright were supposed to concern the publisher alone and not the creator of the property ; the whole business of production, adver- tising, and management of a book was treated as mysteries never to be revealed to authors. But the worst feature in the case was the fact that the publisher alone among men claimed the right of having his word taken for granted without audit, or proof, or vouchers. It became obvious, when the first ridicule had spent itself without doing the infant society any harm, that many publishers were growing anxious about the possible future of the Society. One of the leading publishers actually wrote to some of his authors and begged them as a personal favour not to join the Society. Others contented themselves with declaring that the Society was powerless ; that it contained no leading men of letters ; that it was one man's hobby ; that its statements were false, and so on. But the Society grew. It now numbers nearly all the leading men of letters in its lists ; its Council presents a formidable array of names : its presidents have been Lord Tennyson and Mr. George Meredith ; its chairmen have been, in succession, Mr. Cotter Morrison ; the late Sir Frederick Pollock ; the writer of these lines ; the present Sir Frederick Pollock ; Sir Martin Conway, and Mr. Anthony Hope Hawkins, Mr. H. Rider Haggard. Its membership is about 1700; it runs a monthly paper devoted to questions of literary property and exposures of tricks and frauds ; it has commenced a Pension Fund ; it has subdivisions on Educa- tion, the Drama, and Music. It has prepared a new Copyright Bill : above all, it has ascertained and published the whole of the facts concerning the Production and the Trade in books. It has shown what is meant by the various methods of publishing. It acts for its members legally; recovers money due to them; advises on agreements ; warns them against the tricks of the dishonest ; and steadily keeps authors from going to certain publishers whom its secretary knows to be dishonest. All these things have not been effected without a considerable amount of misrepresentation and abuse. The Society has been abused ; the chairman has been abused ; from time to time one publisher after another, smarting under the necessity of being fairly honest, writes letters of rage and misrepresentation to any paper which will take them. These letters, whenever they are answered, have been found to do the greatest possible service to the Society. In my own chairmanship of five years I must have written scores of letters defending the Society, and stating over and over again its aims and its work. These are, indeed, such that no honourable publisher can reasonably object to. 174 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The effect of these letters was to raise the membership from two or three hundred to a thousand. There is a great deal of work still before the Society : if it were dissolved to-morrow it would be created afresh the day after. It has become a necessity for the profession of Letters. Nothing in my own life, if I may speak in this place for once of myself, has given me so much gratification as the work that I have given to the Society of Authors. Registration and the Stationers' Company The Committee of the House of Lords was repeatedly urged to enforce Registration of books ; the advice was explained to mean Registration by the Stationers' Company. In other words the Committee of the House of Lords were urged to recognise publishers as the only persons concerned with literary property and its natural guardians. Yet they are only the middlemen who stand between the creators and the original owners of literary property and the public. It is as if the whole question of the coal-supply of Great Britain was considered from the coal merchants' point of view and referred to the Coalmongers' Company, if there were one, for their decision and administration. To be sure, the Committee went very far in this direction when they began their investigation by calling in a publisher first. Let us, however, consider the claims, if any, that the Stationers' Company has to become the Registry of Literature. The Company sprang, it is believed, from the ancient Fellowship of Text Writers which divided into two branches, one of which became the Scriveners and the other the Stationers. The reason why the latter became essentially a Printers' and Booksellers' Company was probably the fact that the stations or stalls where the humble fraternity sold their wares, which were all those things required for writing, illuminating, etc., were chosen by the printers who had no Fellowship or Company of their own for the exhibition of their printed books, chapbooks, and broadsides. When the Company was organised they constituted certain stocks or separate books such as the English, the Latin, the Bible, and the Ballad Stock. Queen Mary conferred upon the Company some kind of censorship of the Press. Queen Elizabeth confirmed the charter granting this power. The Com- pany, if it still possesses any such power, has long ceased to exercise it. It is now a City Company whose members are printers, publishers, and booksellers : no authors belong to it : there are about 445 freemen on the books and 312 liverymen. Printers' apprentices are still enrolled on the books of the Company. Its income is about .2^4700, including ^1600 in trust: it maintains a school for 180 boys : it subscribes £12^ a year to Guy's Hospital : it maintains its COMMERCIAL ASPECT OF LITERATURE 175 own poor, numbering 168 pensioners. The return made by the Stationers' Company to the Commission of 1884 makes no mention of Literature or of authors at all : the Company speak of " the trade," meaning apparently the printing trade : they also speak of certain living men acting as publishers of certain works the profits of which they divide. Now, what claim has such a body to represent Literature or any part or branch ROBERT BROWNING From a Photograph. of Literature ? Clearly, none whatever. The new Copyright Bill contains no recommendation for Registration. If any such recommendation is moved as an amendment the Society, it is hoped, will interfere with a protest. Registration might be entrusted to the Society if it were subsidised : or it might be sent to Somerset House or to the Board of Trade, but it must not be given over to a private irresponsible company of a few hundred printers and publishers, the latter of whom, with the collusion of the Company, use it for carrying on trade for their own profit and advantage. CHAPTER IV MUSEUMS By Sir Walter Besant Let us pass briefly in review the various museums in Greater London. The Society of Antiquaries now domiciled in Burlington House, Piccadilly, possesses a collection of books and antiquities of very great value. As a corporate body the present Society dates only from the year 1751. But there was a College of Antiquaries "founded by Archbishop Parker in the year 1572, among whom were Camden, Cotton, and Stow." This Society incurred the displeasure of James I. for some reason unknown, and the members were forbidden to meet. It is said that they continued to meet in each other's houses. It is, however, idle to pretend that there was any continuity of existence between the suppression by James I. and the revival in 1707. No doubt there continued to be antiquaries; and those persons united by a common pursuit doubtless met in each other's houses. That, however, does not by any means involve the continuance of a society. In the year 1707 three antiquaries, by name Wanley, Bagford, and Talman, agreed to meet once a week, and agreed also that their business should be limited to research into the antiquities of the country. The association thus began continued these weekly meetings at various taverns for forty-five years. In 1751 it received a charter from King George II. limiting the number of its members to one hundred and fifty. Their first house, acquired in 1753, was in Chancery Lane. In 1777 George III. gave them rooms in Somerset House, where they remained- until 1875. There are now about 600 fellows. The publications of the Society form a treasury of researches and discoveries that are invaluable. I have elsewhere acknowledged my indebtedness to these papers. The Library contains about 20,000 volumes. The Museum is remarkable for its portraits, its proclamation, its early ballads, its casts of seals, and its rubbings of English monumental brasses. Among the portraits are those of Edward IV. ; Richard III.; Margaret Plan- tagenet. Duchess of Burgundy ; Queen Mary ; and various members of the Society. Among other technical or special museums not well known to the general public we may enumerate some. 176 MUSEUMS 177 The Architectural Museum in Tufton Street, Westminster, was created by the exertions of Ruskin, Beresford Hope, Sir Gilbert Scott, and others. It contains a series of models of English cathedrals, etc., with many miscellaneous bits of architecture and casts. The College of Surgeons possesses a very large museum in Lincoln's Inn. The contents are, as may be guessed, of a professional character. There are skeletons, bones of all kinds, and things in bottles, certainly of the highest interest and value to the professional visitor, but neither interesting nor useful to one who is ignorant of the anatomy, structure, physiology, and diseases of the body. The Hygienic Museum is, like that of the College of Surgeons, interesting chiefly to persons concerned with the objects exhibited. The Royal Naval Museum at Greenwich contains models and relics of ships, etc. It is not so well known as the Painted Hall with the relics of Nelson and the pictures of sea battles. In Jermyn Street will be found the Museum of Practical Geology, open free, and of interest only to students of that science. The Museum of the Royal United Service Institution is now placed in the Banqueting Hall of Whitehall, for a long time a Chapel Royal. The Museum contains a most valuable collection of models of warships, weapons of all countries and of all ages, historic relics, etc. It is open all the week, but on Wednesdays only by member's order. Sir John Soane's Museum on the north side of Lincoln's Inn Fields contains a miscellaneous collection. It is, however, of very great interest. Hogarth's "Election" and his "Rake's Progress "are here: and here are other pictures by Turner, Canaletto, etc., together with architectural drawings by Sir John Soane. Here also is the Egyptian sarcophagus, discovered by Belzoni at Thebes in 1816. The British Museum began in 1753 with the purchase of the Library and Collections of Sir Hans Sloane. These were transferred in 1759 to Montagu House, Bloomsbury, with other collections, such as the Harleian MSS., 6000 in number, belonging to the Duchess of Portland. The Sloane Collection cost ;^20,ooo ; the Harleian MSS. ^10,000, and Montagu House ^10,250. The principal additions to the Museum have been the Cotton MSS. (1700); the Edwards Collection (1738); the Royal Library given by George II.; the Thomason Collection of pamphlets relating to the Civil War ; the Banks Collection ; George the Third's Library; the Bridgewater MSS.; the Yule Collection of Oriental MSS. ; the Royal Society's Collection of curiosities ; the Townley Marbles ; the Phigaleian Marbles ; the Elgin Marbles ; the Franks Collection ; the Christy Collection of prehistoric antiquities; the Greenwell Collection of flint instruments ; the Castellani Collection; marbles, sculptures, etc., from Lycia, Cyrene, Halicarnassus, Etruria, etc. 178 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The general arrangement is quite simple. The Library is a part of the Museum. It contains 2,000,000 printed volumes and a priceless collection of MSS. Is entitled to a copy of every work published in the United Kingdom and the Colonies. The Reading-Room is a circular hall, 106 feet high and 140 feet in diameter. It is provided with a reference library of over 2000 volumes including dictionaries, encyclopaedias, etc. Any respectable person can obtain a ticket for the Reading-Room. THE READING-ROOM, BRITISH MUSEUM The Museum of Natural History, South Kensington, is a department of the British Museum. It was built by Mr. Alfred Waterhouse. The towers which flank the main entrance are 192 feet in height. "The Central Hall, adorned with statues of eminent modern biologists, Richard Owen, Charles Darwin, and T. H. Huxley, shows instructive specimens of both plant and animal life. At the north end of this is the Gallery of British Zoology, a very complete and interesting collection. MUSEUMS 179 The ground floor of the west wing (entrance to the left near the main entrance) is occupied by recent zoology. A gallery extending the entire length contains the Ornithological Collection. The gallery to the north, parallel to the Bird Gallery, contains the collection of corals, sponges, etc., and across this run side galleries devoted to fishes, insects, reptiles, starfish, shells, British birds' nests, etc. A staircase on the north side of the Bird Gallery leads down to the new Whale PhoUKhi-oin Co., IJd. THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON Room which, for juvenile naturalists, seems one of the most attractive parts of the whole collection. Here is a show of huge Cetacean monsters, ' restored ' as to one side of them, but on the other open, so as to display their skeleton conformation. The largest are a common rorqual or fin whale, 69 feet, captured in the Moray Firth in 1880; a sperm whale, 54 feet; and a right whale, 49 feet. The ground floor of the east wing is occupied by the Palseontological Collection. The front gallery contains remains of mammalia, the larger objects, such as the American mastodon, the mammoth, the great extinct Irish deer, the Northern manatee or sea-cow, being placed in the centre of the room. i8o LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The upper floors of the wings consist of single galleries extending along the whole front. On the first landing of the great staircase is a statue of Charles Darwin (d. 1882) by Boehm ; and on the landing at the second floor a marble statue of Sir Joseph Banks (d. 1820) by Chantrey. The first floor of the west wing is devoted to stuffed mammals (there is a specially large and varied collection of monkeys), and the second floor to skeletons and skulls of mammals. The first floor of the eastern wing is occupied by the Mineral Collection, Photochroni Co., Ltd, SCIENCE AND ART DEPARTMENT, SOUTH KENSINGTON many of the examples of the precious stones being specially worthy of note. In the pavilion is a collection of meteorites. In the east corridor of this floor is the Gould Collection of humming birds, and in the west corridor a fine show of African antelopes. On the second floor of the eastern wing are the Botanical Collection and an extensive Botanical Library, zoological and geological specimens, and an extensive herbarium of dried plants " {BlacMs Gtiide to London, 1900, p. yj). The Victoria and Albert Museum, commonly known as the South Kensington Museum, is situated at the junction of Brompton, Cromwell, and Exhibition Roads, near the underground station of the same name. It was founded MUSEUMS i»i after the Exhibition of 1851, and, under the direction of the Department of Science and Art, it is especially intended to stimulate progress in the Arts and Sciences. The permanent buildings, designed by Fowke, of red brick and terra-cotta in the Italian Renaissance style, are now supplemented by a number of galleries opened to the west on the site of the Exhibition of 1862. In 1899 the Queen laid the Pkoiockrotn Co,, Ltd. THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE foundation-stone of a new building, when the Institution was rechristened the Victoria and Albert Museum. A complete transformation is thus in view ; and in any case the arrangement of the contents is subject to alteration, especially as regards those exhibits which may be on loan. "At present the Institution includes (i) a very extensive collection, ancient and modern, of objects of applied or ornamental art ; (2)3 miscellaneous collection of paintings, including the British Fine Arts Collection (chiefly the gift of the late I»2 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY John Sheepshanks), the Historical Collection of British water-colour drawings, and the Dyce, Forster, and Constable Collections ; (3) an Art Library, consisting of upwards of 70,000 volumes and over 240,000 drawings, engravings, and photographs, chiefly illustrative of architecture, ornament, etc. ; (4) a Science and Education Library, containing about 65,000 volumes, embracing chiefly works on scientific subjects and educational books and periodicals, many of them being presentations, or contributions on loan from educational publishers; (5) the Southern Galleries, west of Exhibition Road, containing the Science Museum ; (6) the Western Galleries, entered from the Imperial Institute Road (and adjoining the Imperial Institute), containing additional science and teaching collections ; (7) the Indian Section Museum, also in this road ; (8) the Cross Gallery, lying between the Indian Museum and the Western Science Galleries ; (9) the Royal College of Art, and the Royal College of Science, at north-east angle of the main building ; and (10) the Royal College of Music in Prince Consort's Road, behind the Cross Gallery above named " {^Black's Gitide to London, 1900, pp. 73-77). The Imperial Institute contains collections of Colonial and Indian commercial and economic products. A part of the buildings has been set aside for the University of London. The most interesting of all the London museums to my mind is the small collection at the Guildhall. Here one may find things Roman and British, mediseval and eighteenth century. Here are portions of the old Roman Wall side by side with the eighteenth-century signs ; here are mediaeval arms and armour with British weapons ; here are conveyances and deeds and charters which you may decipher if you can. It is quite a small collection, and so labelled that the whole of it can be studied in a single morning. The Museum is part of the Guildhall, which, with its Gog and Magog figures, its statues and busts, its Common Council Room, its Free Library and Reading-Room, its venerable crypt, and the Art Gallery, forms a great museum full of interest and historical associations. This is the City museum, and if we go farther eastward we find the East End also not without its museum, namely Bethnal Green, opened in 1872. The intention of the founders was that the place should become for the East End what the South Kensington Museum is for the West. It is furnished with a permanent collection of articles used for food, the Dixon Collection of paintings, the Cruikshank Drawings, etc. Minton's great St. George Fountain in majolica stands in front of the building. For a long time the National Portrait Gallery was banished to this place, where it was completely thrown away upon a population wholly ignorant of the people whose portraits were exhibited. Other collections from time to time are sent here ; notably the Wallace Collection of pictures and decorative art ; the Indian collections of the Prince of Wales ; the Dulwich Gallery MUSEUMS 183 pictures ; flint implements ; pottery and porcelain, etc. It may be stated, generally, that the exhibitions have been conducted without the least regard to any systematic educational effort ; and that the people who flock here on wet days, especially the children, who are sent here to keep them out of mischief, bring away from the place exactly what they took there of historical and artistic and antiquarian knowledge. In addition to these museums there are collections of interest to be seen at the City Companies' Halls, the head-offices of the Missionary Societies, the offices and buildings of other societies, and at some of the colleges and schools. To enumerate the whole would be impossible. CHAPTER V HALLS By Sir Walter Besant The principal halls available for public meetings, etc., are as follows : — The Agricultural Hall, Islington, where the cattle shows, horse shows, dog shows, and military tournaments are held. It was erected in 1861-62. The building covers 3 acres of ground and has a hall 384 feet long, 217 feet wide, with galleries. The Albert Hall is a building elliptical in stucture, 200 feet by 160, covered with a dome 140 feet high. The building was commenced in 1868 and opened in 1 87 1. It will accommodate 6000 people, besides an orchestra of 200 and a band of 1000. The organ is one of the finest in the world. It is designed for great musical performances, exhibitions of art and science, and important assemblies. The Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, used for public performances and shows. Exeter Hall, Strand, was built in 183 1. It was used for the annual meetings of the religious societies and for the oratorios performed by the Sacred Harmonic Society. It was taken over and partly rebuilt in 1880 by the Young Men's Christian Association. The Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, was rebuilt by Cockerell in 1867. The Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, stands on a small part of the site of the Fleet Prison. It was built in 1874 to commemorate the bicentenary of the ejection of the 2000 clergymen in 1662. It contains a great hall, which will seat 1200 persons, a library, and various offices. Olympia, Addison Road, a great building, used for shows of the larger and more important kind. Princes' Hall, Piccadilly, was erected in 1881 for a Company called the Piccadilly Art Galleries Company. There are galleries in which the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and the Institute of Painters in Oils hold their exhibitions. It has also a hall for concerts, etc. Queen's Hall, Langham Place, contains a great and a small hall. It is used for concerts, meetings, and preformances. HALLS 185 Steinway Hall, Lower Seymour Street, is also used for lectures, concerts, and entertainments. St. George's Hall, Langham Place, is used for dramatic performances. St. James's Hall, Piccadilly, is used for concerts, especially the Monday and Saturday concerts ; the Ballad concerts ; the Richter, the Symphony, and the Sarasate concerts. St. Martin's Hall is used for meetings and lectures, etc. Other halls are the Theatre of the Society of Arts ; the Mansion House ; the Vestry Halls of the Suburban Unions ; the Theatre of London University ; and many small local halls, too numerous to mention. CHAPTER VI theatres and music-halls By Sir Walter Besant The last thirty years have witnessed a very surprising increase in the number of theatres, and of interest in the drama. For many years, as is well known, the two patent theatres were Drury Lane and Covent Garden. In 1737 an Act was passed forbidding the granting of new licences. This Act remained in force until the year 1843, over a hundred years. Yet the Act did not prevent the erection of new theatres and the performance of every kind of play : it is indeed difficult to understand fully the disabilities under which unlicensed theatres laboured when melodrama was played at the Adelphi, Shakespeare and the legitimate drama — in the summer only, perhaps — at the Haymarket, comedy and farce at the Olympic, farce at the Strand, and opera everywhere from time to time. Any one who remembers the theatre in the early Victorian days and compares it with the theatre of to-day would remark, first of all, that the pieces are far better mounted ; that there is much greater attention bestowed upon dress and properties ; that the minor parts are more carefully played ; that the broad farce which formerly led to " breadths," not calculated to raise the theatre in the estimation of the family circle, has now vanished ; that the theatres are now kept entirely free from the women who clustered about the foyers sixty years ago ; that the best part of the house, the pit, is now (known as the stalls) the most fashionable and the dearest ; that the Theatre opens later and closes earlier — formerly, the play began at six or half-past and went on with two or three pieces till after twelve ; that matinees are now common and are crowded with people from the suburbs ; that favourite pieces have enormous runs ; that the theatres, numerous as they are, will generally be found well filled ; that the country theatres are now opened only by travelling companies playing pieces which have been popular in London. As regards the character of the modern drama very great advance may be observed on the slipshod plays of, say, Douglas Jerrold ; the construction is more artistic ; the dialogue is more natural and yet more literary ; the plots and characters more true to life. At the same time the play has not advanced so much as the 1 86 THEATRES AND MUSIC-HALLS 187 novel — I mean taking the average play or the average novel. The standard of the latter has been greatly raised in the last thirty or forty years ; the average of the former has been raised, but not so greatly. There are signs, however, of further advance : one need not mention the names of living dramatists : they will, indeed. THE QUEEN O.N HEK FlRSl VISIT 10 COVENT GARDEN THEATRE From an old Print. occur to every reader : it is enough to say that recent work seems to show that we are entering upon an epoch where the drama will once more attract the best and noblest genius of the time. The great obstacle is the difficulty of getting a piece on the stage : it is as if a novelist had his MS. refused time after time until he was ready with his masterpiece. If there were any theatre — say a school of acting — where no piece was run for more than a week or two ; and where the scenery and i88 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY the mounting were inexpensive, there would be the same chances for the aspirant in drama as there are now for the aspirant in literature. A novelist can get his book produced if a publisher's reader thinks it has sufficient merit to command a sale of the 500 or so required to pay its expenses with a small margin. When the dramatist can find corresponding facilities for the presentation of his piece there will be encouragement to continue at the work. Another sign of the times which one must note is the rise of the suburban theatre ; many of the suburbs during the last thirty years have become great towns. Brixton, for instance, Islington, Clapham, and West Ham. It is natural that they should have their own places of amusement within easy reach. The suburbs began with the music-hall, they have now gone on to the theatre. The following is a list of the principal theatres arranged alphabetically, with a few notes on each : — Name. Adelphi, 411 Strand, opened 1806 Avenue, Northumberland Avenue, opened March 11, 1882 Britannia, Hoxton Street Brixton . Comedy, Panton Street, opened Oct. 15, 1881 Court, Sloane Square, rebuilt 1888 Covent Garden Criterion Crouch End Daly's Theatre Drury Lane Historical Notes. Originally called the " Sanspareil." Its name changed to the "Adelphi "in 1820: rebuilt in 1858. The house of melodrama. Among the principal actors connected with this theatre are Paul Bedford ; Wright ; Yates ; O. S. Smith ; Madame Celeste ; Miss Woolgar ; Mathews, and Benjamin Webster. Comedy. A theatre of the more popular kind. Mrs. Lane has long conducted it. Plays chiefly melodrama and pantomime. A suburban theatre, open for any kind of performance. Comedy and farce. Mr. C. H. Hawtrey's name is chiefly associated with this theatre. The play of 0/ma was first produced here. Herman Merivale's JVAi'fe Pilgrim was also brought out at this theatre. The first theatre on this site was built in 1733 for the Lincoln's Inn Fields Company. This being destoyed by fire, a new theatre was erected in 1809, Smirke being the architect. In 1847 Covent Garden became an opera house: in 1856 it was again burned down: a new house by Barry was opened in 1858. The opera season lasts from April to the end of July : there is sometimes opera at popular prices in the winter : sometimes promenade concerts are given here. This theatre has been connected with the name of Charles Wyndham from the opening to the year 1900. An opera house in the suburb of that name. Leicester Square. Here was performed the Taming of the Shrew by Daly's Company, including Miss Ada Rehan. The first theatre on this site was built in 1663 for the " King's servants." This was burned in 1672, when Sir THEATRES AND MUSIC-HALLS 189 Duke of York's, St. Martin's Lane . Elephant and Castle, New Kent Road Gaiety, built on the site of Exeter Change, and opened 1868-69 Garrick, Charing Cross Road, opened in 1889 Globe Grand, Islington High Street Haymarket Her Majesty's Theatre Lyceum, Wellington Street and the Strand Lyric, Shaftesbury Avenue . Lyric Opera House, Hammersmith Novelty .... Olympic, Wych Street Opera Comilque, 209 Strand Palace, Cambridge Circus Christopher Wren built a new theatre : this again was rebuilt while Sheridan was manager ; was destroyed by fire in 1809 and rebuilt in 1812. Among the many illustrious names associated with this House must be mentioned Steele, Garrick, Mrs. Siddons, Nell Gwynne, the Kembles, the Keans, Young, Bannister, Elliston, Macready, Phelps, Benjamin Webster, Farrar, Madam Vestris, and Helen Faucit. A new theatre. Comedy and farce. Like the Britannia at Hoxton. A popular theatre. This theatre will always be associated with the name of John HoUingshead, who, for many years, presented with great success burlesque and opera bouffe upon its boards. High-class drama and comedy. Built in 1868 for Sefton Parry. The theatre is small : it has a chequered history, and of late has been frequently closed. It is situated too far east for the convenience of playgoers. A popular suburban house. Often presents pieces that have been successful at the West End. This theatre is nearly two hundred years old, having been opened in 1720. Its associations and history are extremely interesting. Among the names connected with it are those of Colman, Foote, Fielding, Buckstone, Farrier, Webster, Bancroft, and Beerbohm Tree. The old Opera House which stood here, after remaining empty for a long time, was at last sold and demolished. On its site has been erected a new and very handsome theatre, which was taken by Mr. Beerbohm Tree, who came across the road from the Haymarket. His management has already been remarkable for his presentation of Julius Caesar, King John, Rip Van Winkle, and other pieces. Originally built for miscellaneous entertainments in 1765, rebuilt for a theatre in 1834. The theatre of late years has been associated with Sir Henry Irving and Miss Ellen Terry. Opened in 1888 for light opera. Also a suburban theatre. A small house in Great Queen Street. At this theatre Ibsen's Doll's House was produced. Originally built of wood from old men-o'-war ships. Burned down in 1849. Rebuilt in 1890. At this theatre Robson played for many years. At this theatre were produced many of Gilbert and Sullivan's operas. Built for English opera. At its opening in 1891 was produced Sullivan's opera of Ivanhoe. It has since been con- verted into a music-hall. I go LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Pavilion, 85 Whitechapel Road Prince of Wales's, Coventry Street Princess's, Oxford Street Royal Aquarium, Broad Sanctuary Royalty, Dean Street, Soho . ^I^fi A popular theatre. Opened in 1884 for opera. Opened in 1841 : was for many years associated with the Shakespearian revivals of Charles Kean. In 1880 rebuilt and opened by Mr. Wilson Barrett. The theatre is attached to the place of popular amusement, but does not form a part of it. This small house has seen some good acting, especially when Miss Oliver was the lessee. '^>-^y«;,H^fi&^^>:i«^>^^kjsj^/£>'A^)*..t£';/ :>, %k#i>^«>^!«;ffeie^i^;9 '^ ; :. v^ rif t' trrr: I'.'i f I .. r 'VU^ itfHlifciife- ^^ ■^^^S^fTJZT^^. ST, James's theatre, 185 i From a Print in the Grace Collection. Sadler's Wells, St. John's Street Road St. James's, King Street Savoy, Thames Embankment Shaftesbury, Shaftesbury Avenue Standard, 204 Shoreditch Strand, 168 Strand Surrey, Blackfriars Road . A theatre standing beside the old Sadler's Wells Gardens. Associated especially with the name of Phelps. Originally built for Braham the singer in 1835. It has been under the management of Messrs. Hare and Kendal and since 1891 that of Mr. George Alexander. Opened in 1881 for the performance of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. . Opened in 1888. A very large theatre at popular prices. Rebuilt in 1882. Comedy, farce, and burlesque. An old and favourite theatre. Many of Douglas Jerrold's pieces are performed here. THEATRES AND MUSIC-HALLS 191 Terry's, 65 Strand . Opened in 1887. Comedy and farce. Vaudeville, Strand Opened in 1870. At this theatre was produced the Comedy of Our Boys. Irving played here with Thorne and James. Wyndham's Theatre, Cranbourne Street . Opened by Mr. Charles Wyndham. In addition to the suburban theatres already mentioned are — the Metropole, Brixton ; the Notting Hill (" Coronet ") ; the Kennington ; the Kingsland Road ; the West Ham theatres ; the Greenwich theatres, and others. The number of music-halls scattered over the whole area of London is said to be over 500. They are principally the resort of the working classes : in many cases a girl or a young man engaged during the day at a factory will in the evening take a " turn" on the stage of a music-hall. They are everywhere — at the West End as well as in other parts — devoted solely to popular amusement, with songs, dances, feats of acrobats, and performances of all kinds. The best known and the most frequented are the Alhambra, the Empire, the Palace, the Canterbury, the Tivoli, the London Pavilion, the Oxford, the Royal, and the South London. CHAPTER VII theatres By the late John Hollingshead Any observant writer who attempts to describe the condition of the stage near the close of the nineteenth century must be struck by these prominent points : the immense improvement in theatre building, the great increase in the numbers of the dramatic profession, free and easy theatres and piecemeal entertainments, and the stationary number of dramatic writers. The production of playhouses, like all material production, obeys the divine law of supply and demand. Whether there were more London theatres and bull- rings in Shakespeare's time, in proportion to population, than there are theatres and music-halls at the present day may be passed without discussion, on the assumption that there were exactly as many as were wanted, neither more nor less. The same may be said of our present theatres. Fashion moves westward in London, as in most cities, and playhouses follow fashion to be " in the market," though no longer the born thralls of monopoly and patronage. We are some distance yet from free trade in public amusements, but we are happily unfettered by pernicious "patents" that nourished Dog-in-the-Manger management. These privileged managements, under the pretence of encouraging art, obtained actors and actresses at nominal prices by restricting the market for their labour. If the popularity of so-called " Variety " performances both at the regular theatres, licensed by the Lord Chamberlain, and the irregular theatres, licensed by the municipal authorities, works to a certain extent against the interest of the drama, properly so-called, the blame, if any, rests upon the old Patent Monopolist Theatres — Drury Lane and Covent Garden. In the intervals, much too frequent, between the cultivation of Shakespeare, Taste, and the Musical Glasses, those model houses not only gave piecemeal or variety entertainments themselves, but prevented the minor houses, as they were called, from being anything much more elevated than suburban sing-songs. Attempts to play coherent dramas or to represent the masterpieces of English dramatic literature were rigorously suppressed, sometimes by whining appeals at the foot of the throne, and sometimes by invoking the penal 192 THEATRES 193 law, and punishing unpatented competitors with fine, imprisonment, and hard labour. Shakespeare, in modern days, according to the mouth of Chatterton and the voice of Boucicault, was said to spell bankruptcy ; sixty years later it spelt picking oakum. The east end of London (where David Garrick made his first London appearance) and the Surrey side of the river were the localities chiefly watched and raided, while the Lyceum Theatre in the Strand (for some time called the English Opera House) was so harassed and degraded, that like a "penny gaff" in Whitechapel it stooped to the indignity of giving two performances a night. If it ventured upon Shakespeare it was only in the form of " selections." These were sometimes pre- faced by a few " words " from an actor in plain clothes to present it in the disguise of a "lecture." Sometimes a song with pianoforte accompaniment was introduced in an act of a play like Macbeth — an interpolation weakly supposed to turn the tragedy into a burletta. Such were only a few of the contemptible subterfuges imposed by the Royal patentees on their less fortunate competitors. When Macready came upon the scene he strove vainly against the chartered monopoly, and with an ungovernable temper soured, and energy stimulated, he joined Bulwer, Dickens, Talfourd, and a score of others, and got Parliament to annul the paralysing patents. The two Temples of Art, where tight-rope walkers and dancing elephants had been encouraged, and such " palmy day " monuments of dramatic culture as "Monk" Lewis's Castle Spectre had been produced and admired by audiences suckled by protection, were very properly reduced to the necessity of fighting for their living in the open market. Their smaller rivals, released from their fetters, set them examples of taste and enterprise which they were bound to follow, and actor-managers, like Macready, did his best to justify the new liberty he had helped to create. Of course, like most actor-managers, he often played parts for which he was physically unsuited, but his stage productions always showed the guiding hand of a cultivated artist and gentleman. The scenic embellishments of his plays established a standard of excellence which those who came after him had to respect and copy. The theatre under his influence ceased to be a copy of " Bartlemy Fair " under cover, and acquired at once the dignity of an Institution. While the centre showed these gratifying signs of artistic progress, the outskirts proved their appreciation of freedom. One by one a number of modest playhouses sprang up — many of them built in tea-gardens, like the summer theatres of Germany. They suited their local audiences by giving musical entertainments in a dramatic form, keeping up a shadowy connection with the " sing-songs " and " harmonic meetings " they left behind them. In some cases, notably at the "Grecian" in the City Road, they became very creditable little opera-houses. They could afford to pay for competent actors and singers, as they retained their original tavern features, and had the " profits from the sale of refreshments " — a term that included smoking and drinking in the auditorium — in addition to the entrance money. They acquired the 13 194 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY name of " Saloon Theatres^' and worked under the old music and dancing act of the last century — the 25th Geo. II. cap. 36 — as administered by the Middlesex or Surrey Bench of Magistrates. Their success very soon excited the envy of the central managers. The emancipated slaves had already forgotten their slavery. They complained of the " pothouse " privileges of their suburban rivals, and the Lord Chamberlain with his stage-play act — the 6th and 7th Vict. cap. 68 — compelled the " Saloons " to declare themselves either theatres or music-halls, and to cease being composite places of amusement. Some of the saloons elected to die, and some elected to become Lord Chamberlain Theatres, while the Central Houses, fortified by a Refreshment Act — the 5th and 6th Wm. IV. cap. 39 — obtained a few years before, which gave them the power of selling drink at numerous appointed bars, though not in the auditorium, hugged themselves in the delusive belief that they had effectually destroyed the Tavern Theatres. The Lord Chamberlain of the period — about 1844 — was possibly not aware that smoking theatres in Italy, Germany, Bohemia, etc., were quite as numerous and popular as the non-smoking theatres, and he probably rejected the knowledge if he really possessed it — that in Shakespeare's days the aristocratic playgoers sat at each side of the stage, smoking the rank weed only recently introduced by Sir Walter Raleigh, and choking the " groundlings " in the Inn- Yard, who stood knee-deep in damp straw to witness the performance of England's greatest dramas. He had divorced the drama, in the middle of the nineteenth century, from tobacco smoke, if not from drink, and as an officer of the Crown, autocratic and irresponsible to Parliament or public opinion, he was officially satisfied. The practical abolition of " Saloon Theatres " did not destroy the germs of the " music-hall," and these, falling on congenial and fruitful ground, were destined to grow into something much more formidable than the Tavern playhouse. Less than ten years after the action of the Lord Chamberlain the Variety Theatre began to show itself. It first saw the light in Lambeth, in the form of the " Canterbury Music Hall." This hall, having a large gallery of modern paintings attached to its concert-room, obtained the honourable title of the " Royal Academy over the water." Its " entertainments " were limited and maimed by Act of Parliament, and the watchful jealousy of Protectionist theatrical managers who conveniently forgot the time- when they themselves were compelled to dance their own particular hornpipes in legal fetters. The days of imprisonment and oakum-picking for illegal but harmless performances of technically so-called " stage-plays " were past, but this did not prevent vexatious prosecutions. The judges, with an ingenuity that seemed almost malicious, gave more or less authoritative definitions that promoted litigation and delighted attorneys and barristers. One judge held that Henry Russell, sitting at a piano, without any accessories of scenery or theatrical costumes, and singing " The Ship on Fire," was performing a stage-play, and THEATRES 195 transforming the room, which had the appearance of a Board School, where his audience were assembled, into an unlicensed theatre. No wonder in face of this that Mr. Charles Morton, the founder of the Canterbury, produced his entertain- ments with one eye on his audience and the other on the Police Courts. Such an important beginning having been made in Lambeth, it was not long before an even more important development took place in the centre of London. An imposing building in Leicester Square — the finest example of Moorish architecture ever erected in England — sanctified by the possession of a gigantic organ, patronised by bishops, the clergy, and the superior classes, had been opened with prayer, and dedicated to the cultivation of popular science under the name of the Panopticon. No money had been spared upon this worthy enterprise, but unfortunately it never enhsted the sympathies of the general public. In due course it went into liquidation, the building and contents were put up for sale at a Pall Mall auction-room, and were bought by a speculative showman. The organ was sent in one direction, and the engines and working models in another, a stage was erected, a licence obtained, and after a brief career as a circus, the building ultimately fell into the hands of a purchaser with plenty of energy and capital, who made it fulfil its destiny by opening it as a colossal Theatre of Varieties. Mr. F. Strange, the new proprietor, was not a dabbler in half-measures. He believed in the policy of giving the public the best of everything at the lowest possible price. He engaged a big band, a big chorus, and a big ballet, and covered the vast bare area of the ground fioor, or pit, with an acre of valuable carpet. That carpet was important. It not only helped to decorate and give an air of distinction to the first real Variety Theatre or " Palace " opened in London or in England, but it sealed the doom of dirt and discomfort in the leading London theatres. This was in 1864, and from that moment the immediate reform of badly-built, badly-kept, badly-ventilated, badly-lighted, and badly-furnished play- houses was inevitable. The managers knew it, and instead of imitating the example of the Alhambra Palace, and setting their houses in order, they resolved to prosecute their formidable rival for a breach of the law, by trying to prove that a ballet was a stage-play within the meaning of the Act — the Alhambra being only licensed as a music-hall. For some weeks well-paid legal ingenuity engaged the Judges of the Superior Courts in discussions about ballets of action, ballets with stories, and ballets without stories, and in the course of this discussion, the blessed French word Divertissement came into Court, and remained there. The Judges welcomed it, as it helped to get them out of a difficulty. They held that there was an important distinction between a Ballet and a Divertissement, that the latter could not be the former, although the former might be the latter ; that the evidence, as far as it had gone, had proved the representation of the latter, but not (as far as it had gone) the representation of the former ; and although, if more evidence 196 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY r on this knotty point had been forthcoming, their decision might have been different, they must allow the Dagger Ballet or Divertissement, lifted bodily as it was from Auber's Enfant Prodigue, as performed at Drury Lane Theatre, and represented nightly, and well represented, at the Alhambra, to walk out of Court without a stain upon its character. An undecided judgment such as this, suspended, like Mahomet's coffin, naturally encouraged further litigation. The Alhambra and its friends were not idle, and in 1866, under the chairmanship of the Right Honourable Mr. Goschen, was appointed a special Parliamentary Committee, which sat many days and took evidence from authors, managers, actors, officials, and others, and ultimately reported in favour of giving music-halls dramatic privileges. Thirty years have elapsed, with no result but a blue-book and the appointment of another Parliamentary Committee in 1892, which went practically over the same ground, and ended by reporting practically in the same spirit. This has added another blue-book to the vast and mouldy stores of the House of Commons. The Committee of 1892 had this advantage over their predecessors in 1866. They saw the immense amusement industry represented by the Variety Theatre which had sprung up in twenty-six years in spite of legislative opposition and restrictions, the Rip Van Winkle lethargy of Parliaments, and an ignorant and complicated licensing system. Nothing in this world is without its uses, and the Committee of 1866 did this good— it drove much traditional official nonsense out of the Lord Chamberlain's department — a department having the power to license playhouses in and around London, within certain Parliamentary limits — these limits not extending to Chelsea, Battersea, Kensington, Bayswater, and other western suburbs, because they were not boroughs entitled to return members to Westminster at the time of the passing of the Theatres Act of 1843. This nonsense extended to a belief that the licences issued from time to time from the Stable Yard, St. James's, ought to be regulated by " the wants of the neighbourhood." Under this restrictive system, the Strand was put on a level with the High Street, Hoxton, although it is the great thorough- fare of the universe, and has no more " neighbourhood " to regulate its ceaseless flow of cosmopolitan humanity, than the Maelstrom or the Falls of Niagara. The Committee called the Lord Chamberlain of the day— the Right Honourable Earl Sydney— to give evidence, and he wisely threw overboard official tradition and declared himself ready to license any theatre or " place of amusement " anywhere, at any time, as long as it conformed to the requirements of his building surveyor. If trading enterprise chose to build playhouses as close together as apple-stalls in Covent Garden Market, if it made economical mistakes and rushed to its doom— the Bankruptcy Court— it must only blame itself and not the Crown Department. Utterances like these, followed by liberal licensing, stimulated theatrical enterprise, and capitalists were encouraged to turn their attention to theatre building— the THEATRES 197 most profitable investment in bricks and mortar. "Sites" were inquired after, those having access to leading thoroughfares being the favourites, and in 1868, the first improved theatre, called the Gaiety, was built and opened in the Strand as a companion to the Lyceum, the proprietor being a great newspaper owner, and the first manager a journalist. The " Queen's " in Long Acre, designed by the same architect, and belonging to the same proprietor, had been built and opened a short time before, but it had no features to distinguish it as a progressive building. It was ultimately sold to Mr. Henry Labouchere, M.P., and he parted with it to buyers who converted it into a co-operative store. The Gaiety, which had absorbed a music-hall and part of Exeter Street in its construction, was a distinct advance upon most other London theatres. It was open on four sides, but it had several defects. Its stalls on the ground floor, owing to the Wellington Street incline, were level with the first floors in the Strand, and had to be reached by a long staircase. Not being built on the cantilever principle, its lines of sight were intersected from foundation to roof by supporting columns. The effect was architecturally elegant, but defective for working purposes. The chief feature of the theatre was an advanced balcony in place of a retiring "dress circle," copied from the Theatre Lyrique in Paris, and the lobbies were arranged with every regard for sanitary decency and the material comfort of the audience. It was attached to a large restaurant built on the Strand and Catherine Street frontage, the approaches from the theatre, on the first balcony and upper-balcony levels, being excellent exits as well as entrances, broad and level enough to allow of a gig being driven from one property to another. The original design was to provide a place where visitors could drive and walk into the theatre after dinner, and could walk into the restaurant out of the theatre to supper, if they felt so disposed, after the performance. This civilised scheme was opposed by the licensing authorities the first year, who refused to license the restaurant, and the decision was only rescinded on appeal, by the exercise of press and social influence and the arts of the professional agitator. The civilised junction of theatre and cafe was not, however, destined to endure for long. About three years after the theatre was opened, a new licensing Act was passed by Lord Aberdare. This was a shining example of pig-headed Legislation, and it was then discovered that the Gaiety Siamese Twins must be ruthlessly divided. A restaurant was a public- house, licensed by the Middlesex (or Surrey) magistrates sitting at Brewster Sessions; a theatre was a place of amusement, licensed by the Right Honourable the Lord Chamberlain, a Crown officer, and only a public-house under the Act of William IV. (before alluded to) getting its drink, as a matter of course, from the Excise, without let or hindrance. Those whom man had joined together, must be forcibly divided, if not torn asunder. One roof might cover them as a building, but no pig-headed Legislator could tolerate the harmonious working of 198 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY two jurisdictions, although their common objects were scarcely distinguishable the one from the other. The eating and drinking public-house had to be separated from the acting, singing, and dancing public-house, and separated by a two-foot brick wall. This brick wall still exists, and the poor, patient, stupid British public, regardless of its own convenience, allows the pig-headed Act of Parliament to exist likewise. The Gaiety Theatre was carried on in a liberal Catholic spirit, with no theories and no prejudices, and its management was distinguished from the first by the earnest endeavour to abolish those petty charges which, levied in an awkward manner at an awkward time, damp the pleasure of the playgoer at the b^inning of his evening. The " No Fee " system had been tried before, notably by Mr. William Harrison at Covent Garden, and Mr. Benjamin Webster at the Adelphi, but there was a want of faith and earnestness in the experiment which deprived it of its usefulness. At the Gaiety " No Fees " was a stern reality, and in time the example spread to all the most distinguished managements in London. The same principle that governed the abolition of fees at theatres, governed the abolition of Toll-Bars. Roads, like theatres, had to be maintained by charges ; the problem was to collect the tax in a way that caused the least vexation and annoyance. The tolls were merged in the local rates, and the " Fees " included in the box-ofifice charges. The Gaiety once started, many new theatres followed ; the architects, builders, and proprietors, in many cases, improving on their pioneer and model. The im- proved theatre was a great and cheering fact, but it by no means implied a corresponding improvement in the drama, or the art of acting. The drama is a hardy plant that can grow on the most rocky ground, and acting, in its natural and uncultivated state, may thrive on a dunghill. The inn-yards, the damp straw, the bull-baiting groundlings, the insolent smoking patricians, the scenery — a painted board, the stage — a tap-room, did not check the growth of the great Elizabethan drama, or deprive the world of works which will live till the day of judgment. The small money rewards bestowed upon actors and authors, who were not actor- managers, or author-managers, with an interest in bull-baiting, did not check the rich output of Shakespeare's mysterious genius, or the illumination of the poet's ideas by the intelligent acting of Burbage. On the other hand, the growing theatrical luxury of the 'seventies, 'eighties, and 'nineties of the nineteenth century, has not increased the production of presentable plays, or done more, except in a few individual instances, than increase the rank and file of the dramatic profession. The improvement of the theatre, as a theatre, we may regard as an outward and visible sign of material progress, and may place it side by side with that evolution of the eating-house, which has turned the sanded tavern into the carpeted restaurant. Electric lighting, first introduced at the Gaiety in 1878, has aided the transformation. THEATRES 199 During the last thirty years the stage more than any other artistic industry, has been affected by those improved means of communication, by land, sea, and electricity, which have turned the world into one unbroken theatrical circuit. The theatrical provinces of England and the suburbs of London are now America, Africa, India, Australia, and New Zealand. Often, before a drama — light or heavy, musical or fantastic, serious or farcical — is produced in London, if the author is known or the theatre of origin is popular, it is sold as regards two-thirds of the Universe : and forty-eight hours after it has passed safely through the ordeal of the " first night " it is sent " on the road " with several companies, often numbered from one to five respectively, or distinguished by alphabetical signs. The provincial managers (except at pantomime time) are reduced to the level of lodging-house keepers. They no longer retain " stock companies," as their audiences are fed with pap served out with a London ladle. The provincials, on the other hand, are not home-keeping youths with homely wits, but are constantly forming part of the " floating population " of the Metropolis. This " floating population " has grown so extensive, that the holding capacity of all the theatres, music-halls, theatres of variety, palace rinks, concert - rooms, town halls, entertainment galleries, circuses (if we had any), casinos (if we had any), and other metropolitan places of amusement, would not be sufficient to accommodate the nightly visitors (excluding children and idiots), leaving the five millions of Londoners proper, apparently untouched. The effect on theatres of this floating audience, changing almost nightly, is good for the manager, and the author, and only good, with an important qualification, for the actor. The floating audience sustains phenomenal " runs " — the one-year, two-years, three- and even four-years unbroken performances — and it feeds and clothes the actor at the cost of his education. He may have come into the theatre with little or much experience, he may be the natural product of a multiplicity of theatres and tours (English and Colonial), a recruit who " goes on the stage " in default of any other occupation, who learns his part like a well-drilled mediocrity, and plays it, growing more mechanical every day, until the termination of the " run " finds him increased several stone in weight and saves him from im- pending idiocy. A chance matinee may come to his relief, or a brother actor may charitably borrow him for a " benefit," but otherwise, year after year, he must go on with his monotonous task, rolling his ever-returning stone up the Thespian hill, and living in the fond belief that he is really an actor. This mill-horse member of the dramatic profession has many companions in the same position, both male and female, but they have nothing to complain of and much to be thankful for. They are before the public — in the main, an undis- criminating public. The popular photographer is always at their service ; the watchful " interviewer " is their most obedient servant ; the illustrated papers give them pictorial publicity; columns of flatulent "gossip" record their minutest doings 200 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY and their social successes ; knowing they have passed no apprenticeship to their trade, they are encouraged to state the sources of their inspiration. If they are lucky they are painted by some erratic artist and may be honoured with a bit of wall- space at the Royal Academy Exhibition. The miscellaneous matinee, first started at the Gaiety Theatre at the beginning of the 'seventies, has done much for this cabined, cribbed, and confined actor, and more for the great sprawling suburban public. It has established a permanent afternoon theatre. There is no novelty in this, as there is no possible novelty in the dramatic world. Sir William Davenant, who invented " transformation scenes " two centuries before Beverley was thought of, gave afternoon performances at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre ; even the music-hall "turn" system— playing at two theatres each night — was practised by Grimaldi, the clown, at Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden in the early part of the present century, and continued by Benjamin Webster thirty years ago. New pieces, quaint revivals, new actors, and new experiments were tried at these matinees. They performed the functions of a regular Conservatoire, in a rough and ready manner, and were another proof of the unorganised training of the anti-scholastic, independent English theatre. The undoubted increase in the lighter forms of entertainment, the multiplicity of theatres with no settled policy or programme, living, so to speak, from hand to mouth, and watching the fluctuating signs of public taste, lead naturally to the engagement of presentable persons of both sexes, who are licked into shape by long and laborious rehearsals. The system of engaging actors and actresses for the " run of a piece," avoiding long stock engagements — a system probably originated and certainly advocated by the late Dion Boucicault — raises up a class of hand-to-mouth professionals. Theatres with no repertory can hardly require or ask for actors or actresses who are "up" in a repertory. The "revivals" that take place, from time to time, rarely go beyond Sheridan and Goldsmith, and the plays that are produced as a stop-gap, or to give us a slight taste of the past, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. In these " revivals " one or two per- formers may perhaps be found, who inherit the " traditions " and give little trouble to the stage manager, while the others have to be laboriously taught and drilled and brought up to what is supposed to be the standard of efficiency. If asked suddenly to play a part like Mr. Hardcastle or Sir Peter Teazle, the untrained one would probably ask for a month's rehearsal. In the old days when the patent theatres had a repertory, — though, like the Comddie Frangaise of to-day, they only played it as often as they were compelled to do so, — the actors and actresses had to live almost within call of the playhouse, like a singer at the opera, never safe from a sudden change of programme. The salaries for these trained services, in the good old days of dramatic protection, were far from brilliant, judging by modern prices. Figures are easily accessible in the long, weary theatrical records, but the following weekly THEATRES 20I salaries taken from the Drury Lane Treasury Book of 1802- 1803 may be found sufficient : — £ s. d. John Bannister 25 Charles Kembl e . .11 Dowton. 1 2 Pope 10 Suett . 10 Broughton 10 R. Palmer 10 Wewitzer 5 Cherry . 6 Collins . 5 Russell . 5 £ s. d Dwyer . 9 Barrymore 6 Raymond 4 Mrs. Glover . 8 Mrs. Mountain 10 Miss de Camp. 7 Miss Mellors . 10 Mrs. Sparks . 8 Mrs. Powell 8 Miss Pope 12 Mrs. Pope 8 Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the author and manager, drew ^30 per week. The next season (1803) the following figures are given : — £ s. d. ;£ s. d John Philip Kemble . 30 Farley . 600 Charles Kemble 12 Murray . 700 Cooke . 25 Simmons 600 Munders 14 Mrs. Siddons . 25 H. Siddons 8 „ H. Siddons 14 Emery . 9 ° „ Maddocks 800 Lewis . 12 „ Glover . 900 I. Johnstone 10 „ Devonport 700 Knight . 7 „ Litchfield 1500 Blanchard 7 „ Gibbs . 800 Fawcett 10 Fancy prices were occasionally paid for " Stars," so much per night, as in the case of Edmund Kean, who received ;^50 per night for a short engagement, after he had made his meteoric success. Later in the century, Tyrone Power, the great Irish actor, received the same sum per night, but these were exceptional contrasts, dependent upon the real or supposed drawing power of the actor. In comparatively modern times Blondin has had as much as .i^ioo for a single ascent on the high-rope at the Crystal Palace, and Leotard, at the Alhambra, in the 'sixties, had ^30 a night or ^180 per week for his trapeze performance. Modern salaries under unrestricted competition show how much better the actor is now rewarded for his labour, although he often has to play only one or two parts, instead of twelve or twenty. The following figures, not hearsay figures, or subject to theatrical discounts, but hard facts, will show the financial difference. The figures are taken from one West End house and one Company in the 'seventies : — 202 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY £ s. d. lOO lOO 100 20 35 20 20 Mr. Samuel Phelps (per week) Mr. Charles Mathews „ Leading Low Comedian „ Leading Man „ Soubrette „ 2nd Low Comedian „ Leading Lady „ with many salaries varying from £e^ to ^10 a week. In the 'eighties at the same theatre,' salaries were paid of ^70, .^^50, ^40, ^30, ^25 (many at ^^15) per week, for long engagements, on a sliding scale upwards, few being for less than a three years' term, and many for a period even longer. In the same decade, at the same theatre, Madame Sarah Bernhardt, after her inevitable secession from the Thddtre Franpais, was paid ^80 a night, or .1^560 per week, for six nightly performances and one matinee. If the London stage during the last quarter of a century has not done much for the increase of first -class dramatic authors, the fault is undoubtedly more due to the authors than to the managers. The splendid prizes open to dramatic authors seem to tempt very few great literary workers, as they tempted Bulwer, Talfourd, and others in the not very distant past. Bulwer, with his wonderful adaptability, owed much, no doubt, to Macready, the practical stage hand, but " Tennyson, even with the equally valuable aid of Henry Irving, could not be trans- formed from a poet into a dramatist. Charles Dickens with all his love for the stage, his theatrical friendships, and his melodramatic spirit, seen in some of the most lurid passages of his novels, never struck root as a dramatic author. When Albert Smith became the authorised adapter of his novels and Christmas stories, Dickens gave his help to the dramatist, as he gave it afterwards to his friend Charles Fechter — the Anglo-Frenchman and finest romantic actor of his time — when the Tale of Two Cities was produced on the Lyceum Stage. He was associated with Wilkie Collins when The Frozen Deep was taken to Robson at the Olympic, and when No Thoroughfare was produced with Fechter and Webster at the Adelphi. He watched over Wilkie CoUins's abortive Red Vial at the Olympic — a diseased example of the Arseneal School — and blamed Frederic Robson — the one real man of genius seen on the London stage since the death of Edmund Kean — for not saving the piece from utter failure. The footlights had a weird attraction for him all through his busy life, and he died a great dramatic author, but not a dramatist. Thackeray, though with milder theatrical proclivities, had a little dramatic ambition, and made one effort in a timid gentlemanly way, seemingly half ashamed of his temerity. This crude creation was entrusted to Mr. Alfred Wigan, a cultivated character actor and manager, then lessee of the Olympic, but he found /■7//J- 0- n 'aUry- Ellis &■ Ualtry. SIk ARTllL R >L"I.1J\ AX W s (;il,HI',R'r cnARij:s wn'jXdiiam as dwhj i;arri( I-roni the PnintiiiK In' Joliii I'etlMj, R.S.A. II. lililLRliOIlM TKIili THEATRES 203 it so full of amateur impossibilities that he declined to produce it. Mr. Alfred Wigan as a judge of plays was right : as a diplomatic manager he was wrong. Thackeray was a great name to conjure with, and in no case could the manager have been a loser. The still-born play was taken back by the author, and formed the ground -work of Philip, a serial story, when Thackeray started the Cornhill ]\Iagazinc. Wilkie Collins, with his Parisian leanings, determined to conquer the stage in a more workmanlike fashion. He had studied in the melodramatic school of D'Euncry and Paul Fcval. He neither failed, nor altogether succeeded. His success was a succcs cfcslii/ic. He was author, or part-author as a novelist, of a dozen dramas. The U'cv/nru in White still holds the stage, mainly through the effective character of Count Fosco : and his best plays are probably The New Magdalen and Man and Wife. The last work was originally written as a play, but the author having his doubts about its adaptability for the stage consulted the present writer. Certain objections were made, with the result that the author decided to launch his story first in the form of a novel, and reconstruct it as a drama afterwards. Charles Reade was one of the few distinguished novelists who succeeded equally on the stage and in book-form. The leading and living dramatists proper of the day are not numerous. When we have registered the distinguished names of Arthur Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones, and Sydney Grundy, and added to them Carton, Barrie, Brandon Thomas, and one or two others, we shall have almost exhausted the list of the " Immortals." W. S. Gilbert stands alone, having founded a special dramatic school where none but himself can be his parallel. Drury Lane under the energetic and intelligent managership of Sir Augustus Harris has divided the machine-made drama with the Adelphi, and the cleverness and somewhat vitriolic humour of " Owen Hall " and his many imitators have provided abundant entertainment for not too exacting audiences who strengthen their dramatic water with a good deal of music-hall spirit. When the " Smoking Theatre " comes, as it is bound to come in the fulness of time, these will be the audiences and this will be the stage pabulum. There is nothing degrading or depressing in the fact. There is the instructive observance of the law of supply and demand and the survival of the fittest (for the time being) shown by grinning through a horse-collar. It is not the same horse-collar used for what is called old time Gaiety Burlesque, but it is a veritable horse-collar notwithstanding. The old Gaiety horse-collar is enjoying what in theatrical language is called " a well-earned holiday." In the terms of an Era advertisement it is " resting." The inevitable pendulum, however, still hangs above, ready to swing as a time-serving indicator. The moment an authoritative critical announce- ment is made that a particular form of dramatic entertainment is dead, that is the 204 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY first and surest signal for its resurrection. The majority of playgoers are mere seekers for amusement and recreation — people who have not learnt the idle trick of reading, and who cannot sit at home and bite their fingers. For the special gratification of these patrons the horse-collar theatres exist, and they are liberal and steady paymasters. The stage in its highest form owes much to Henry Irving and his consistent and elevated management. Like his predecessors, Macready and Charles Kean, he has played many parts, for some of which he was not physically suited. As a manager and leading actor he is not altogether to be blamed for this, for a piece SIR HEXRY IRVING produced at the Lyceum would be little without the chief performer. The blame, if any, falls on the choice of the piece. Irving is not bound to revive every Shakespearian play, and many of his most sincere admirers justly complain that he has not used his great position, talent, and judgment to do more for the modern English drama. His record in this direction has shown taste, caution, and wisdom, but not much literary enterprise. He has left it to Mr. Wilson Barrett to worship at the shrine of Oberammergau, and to go as near it as the Stage Censorship would allow him in producing the sacred drama. He has left it to two of the youngest managers to revive the romantic play — Mr. Alexander, at the St. James's, with the Prisoner of Zenda, and Mr. Forbes Robertson, at the Lyceum, with For the Crown, a poetical drama by a French poet, done into admirable English by an THEATRES 205 English poet. Henry Irving is too broad-minded and liberal and has the welfare of the higher stage too much at heart not to be pleased at these successes achieved by others in his absence. That, however, is not the question. The admirers, high and low, of the acknowledged head of the English stage would like to see him take his right position as a discoverer of authors and chief creator of the literary drama. The theatre in England is, above and beyond all, a commercial undertaking. The manager incurs heavy trading responsibilities, and he can only efficiently cultivate art by suiting the tastes of his audiences. He has no State subsidy, nor is he likely to get one. Subsidies have only been successful in small German towns where no theatre, worthy of the name, could possibly exist unless partially supported out of the rates and taxes. Subsidies in large cities like Paris do more harm than good, especially at the present time. It is more than doubtful if they did much good in the past : it is certainly not doubtful that they do little good in the present. The history of the Theatre Frangais would prove this if honestly and fearlessly written. For years this important institution has done far less for theatrical progress than theatres free from State support : and its prominent members, since their fatal visit to London in 1879, have shown that they are as much money-grubbers as the Transvaal miners. All that the State has ever done for the Stage in England, or probably could do, is to license it overmuch, and to suck as much blood from it as it can in the shape of rates and taxes. The English Stage, governed in the main by the laws of commerce, must stand behind its counter to serve its customers, and must serve them with what they ask for and what they want and will have, instead of what the intelligent caterer may think is good for them. As these conditions must be observed, it is not surprising that pieces succeed commercially in the inverse ratio of their literary and artistic merits. The three greatest financial successes of the last quarter of a century, taking them in chronological order, have been Our Boys, The Private Secretary, and Charley's Aunt. The secrets of their long life are their simplicity of construction, the smallness of their initial cost of production, and the economy of their working. "Runs" of three or four years' duration are not obtained by pieces involving great outlay in scenery and dresses and requiring a large and expensive company and an army of supernumeraries to keep them going. The pocket comedy is your only real treasure, and the pocket theatre is your only real gold-mine. Our Boys was a genuine play of real Cockney humour. Its author, Henry J. Byron, was the Dickens of the Stage — the farcical, not the melodramatic, Dickens. He was full of observation of middle-class life, knew what the stage wanted and could present effectively, was a brilliant writer of dialogue, and a thorough theatrical workman. He was fortunate in his actors, because he picked them himself He 2o6 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY went into Mummers' Market with instinctive and trained knowledge, and seldom committed the mistake of choosing a round peg for a square hole. The Private Secretary was "made in Germany." Adaptations, like dramatic versions of novels, often have independent merits. Tom Taylor's Ticket-of- Leave Man and George Henry Lewes's Game of Speculation— hoxh. marvels of rapid workmanship and clever localisation — are cases in point. The Private Secretary owed its success to a general contempt for namby-pamby character, and this ITSENOUGnTeMAKE A CAT LAUGH David Allen &- Sons, Ltd. REPRODUCTION OF A LONDON THEATRE POSTER character was more natural and amusing on English than on German ground. The mild curate, created by Mr. Beerbohm Tree, lost nothing by being passed on to Mr. W. J. Penley, whose representation of Charley s Aunt has been the chief cause of the phenomenal popularity of that play. Charley s Aunt scarcely requires, and certainly would not bear, dissection. It is a game of romps — a schoolboy freak — a pantomime in plain clothes, but it deals with youth in its wholesome aspect ; it has, like its two predecessors, the great and blessed gift of English humour, and it could be played with propriety in a young ladies' boarding-school. This quality is THEATRES 207 not everything, and is often the distinguishing characteristic of the milk-and-water drama, but it is a quaHty always found in pieces of great, enduring, and universal popularity. The characters in all the plays mentioned are human beings, not theories and principles on legs, not philosophical abstractions dressed up by the theatrical costumier or the fashionable milliner and tailor, not playhouse puppets taken out of a dusty property-room box and galvanised into jerky make-believe vitaHty. They represent human Nature drawn by the authors to the best of their ability, and human Nature is a good marketable commodity in that small corner of the world — the theatre. The whole or partial failures of pieces of a more pretentious class, in face of these comparatively vulgar successes, has led competent thinkers to invent explanatory theories. A term of reproach has been created and applied to several recent dramatic productions, which has the same withering effect on the existence of a drama as the word hydrophobia has upon the life of a dog. When the phrase " problem play " has been uttered, no further argument seems to be required. The worship of names, as distinguished from things, has always been a more or less degrading superstition in this country, but " problem play," if rightly used and examined, would describe one -half of the masterpieces of the British drama. The Stranger — a play acclimatised from the German — is a problem play that has not outlived its welcome in England, and many more can be found without going to Shakespeare. At the opening of the nineteenth century Samuel Taylor Coleridge predicted that with the advance of civilisation tragedy would go the way of bull-baiting. Coleridge was a poet, but not a prophet. Civilisation has advanced, but tragedy is not dead. It has just come to vigorous life at the Lyceum in For the Crown : it is thriving in the play at the Lyric, The Sign of the Cross, which brings Oberammergau almost within sight of the Seven Dials. Just as the " crack of doom " is announced to destroy the " serious drama," the serious drama rises like a giant refreshed with sleep and makes its deep voice heard in the leading temples of Thespis. The truth is, the drama is an ever-revolving circle, the ring of which is studded with the various forms of theatrical invention. They are not numerous. As about six root-plots form the foundations of all universal fiction, as seven notes form the foundation of all the infinite varieties of harmony, so a very few divisions represent the whole gamut of the dramatic author, ancient and modern. None of these divisions can any more become extinct, or "go out of fashion," to use the modern phrase, than the chief planets of the universe can drop out of the astronomical system. An eclipse is only a passing shadow, and not the end of all things. The "problem play" has no enemies. One thing, however, is necessary. It must be a play. If it is only a problem, it will die in a night. A theatrical failure is sometimes caused by producing the wrong piece at the wrong theatre at the wrong time. The Second Mrs. Tanqueray was a steady problem 2o8 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY play, and consequently justified its birth ; The Benefit of the Doubt was an undecided work, more problem than play, and, great as were its merits, it has probably gone to the Histrionic Hospital for Incurables. More is the pity. In writing it would not have disgraced Thackeray. The healthy condition of the modern London stage is proved by its authors, its actors, and its theatres. Whatever the defects and merits of its chief authors may be, whatever difference there may be in the comparative value of their production, measured against their own works, or the works of each other, no one will deny that they are earnest writers, and above the meanness of slop-work. London is not now altogether dependent upon Parisian authors, and the occasional utilisation of a French or German play is the exception rather than the rule. The Berne Copyright Convention has done something, but the self-respect and inventiveness of English authors have done more to save us from those constantly warmed-up omelettes which never tried to hide their country of origin. French dramatic workmanship is always worthy of study, especially for construction, but the British playgoer can afford to pay for a native drama, and ought to have one if he wants it. Tom Robertson — himself at times an adapter — was one of the first to show that real English characters drawn from life are appreciated in the playhouse. But for his ill-health and premature death, he would have left more plays than Caste to keep his memory green. He was essentially an author who knew the business. Mr. W. S. Gilbert, happily assisted by Sir Arthur Sullivan, has invented a new form of theatrical composition — something which seems to combine farce, burlesque, comedy, and opera. The long and distinguished partnership existing between these two collaborateurs — one gifted with a peculiar humour of writing, the other with a peculiar vein of musical humour — is quite as remarkable as anything in theatrical history. There is no occasion to go as far back as Beaumont and Fletcher. Meilhac and Halevy (working with Offenbach) and Erckmann-Chatrian in France are something like parallels, the former being the most prolific, inventive, and popular. The OfTenbachian librettos are master- pieces. The happy theatre that from the first has been supplied by Gilbert and Sullivan — this exceptional combination of author and composer — is in possession of a special and exclusive blend of entertainment that is self-patented, and relieves the fortunate director from the ordinary cares and vicissitudes of management. The actors and actresses of the modern stage show no signs of decay, even compared with the palmiest days of theatrical enterprise. Happily for them, they are not concentrated in big companies like the old professionals, and a sensational caste is now almost an impossibility, except at a " Matinde Benefit." The leaders naturally go into management, forming the centres of their own systems : but probably at no time, owing to vigorous competition, has the theatrical market been so well supplied with capable and meritorious comedians. Touch-and-go THEATRES 209 engagements are the sole cause of their occasional deficiency in acting harmoniously with their fellows, but ensemble is only to be arrived at by a company playing steadily for many months together. In individual intelligence and executive ability they might be trusted to rival the best French companies in what, after all, is rather a mechanical accomplishment. With little regular training, limited experi- ence in comedy, no academic drilling, and the paralysing influence of monotonous " runs " they still show that English acting is not a lost art. Given the worthy piece, there is small difficulty in casting it worthily. fi^indow and Grove. JVindoto and Grove. ELLEN TERRY AS PORTIA ELLEN TERRY AS OLIVIA The principals of the profession, though they form no particular "school" (and " schools " are not the one thing needful), are quite able to stand before the most critical European audiences. Those who have seen Miss Ellen Terry in "Olivia" and Henry Irving in " Shylock " and Duboscq and Lesurgues in the " Courier of Lyons " have seen representations rarely equalled, and never surpassed. John Hare, Forbes Robertson, Miss Winifred Emery, E. S. Willard, Charles Wyndham, Beerbohm Tree, William Terriss, Charles Warner, George Alexander, Miss Lottie Venne, Mrs. John Wood, Mr. Brandon Thomas, and a score of others might be mentioned as comedians, character actors, romantic actors, and something 14 210 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY more, while the list of low comedians would fill an advertising column. Singers, dancers, and pantomimists (thanks chiefly to the variety theatres) are equally numerous and efficient. Scenic art, always good in England, and now — except, perhaps, for architectural pictures — superior to that of most countries : correct and brilliant costumes, careful stage management, and well-selected orchestras are only a few of the features that do honour to the present stage. Managers and actors, no doubt, have benefited from time to time by the visits of foreign actors and foreign companies. The sudden appearance of Salvini, and his performance of Othello at Drury Lane Theatre, reminded Burlesque London that there were such things as dramatic power and dignity. It was not only the voice, like a fine church organ, but that indefinable presence and will, that capability of filling the stage at one step and awing a crowded audience, that brought back to some of the spectators a recollection of Macready in his best parts and his best days. Macready, who was described by the father of our most amusing theatrical and musical critic as a " mad byll," was sane enough to be an English Salvini, while Salvini was good enough to be an Italian Macready. The visit of the ComMie Franpaise to London in 1879, when the Company was at the height of its strength and grandeur (though Sarah Bernhardt was not a " star " until the English public determined to make her one), showed those who cared to study it what was the perfection of the highest artificial acting. The art was not quite successful in concealing itself, especially in the romantic plays, but the natural French genius for the most delicate comedy — a liberal gift from Nature — was polished, and perhaps restrained, by the most cultivated training. There was a tone, an atmosphere hovering over the stage at every performance, which gave even the most stilted tragedy of Voltaire an air of distinction. The visit of the Saxe-Meiningen Company to Drury Lane Theatre and their representation of Julius Caesar was another educational opportunity. To strengthen their state company they had borrowed Herr Barnay, an actor of great reputation in Germany. His style appeared to be a little ponderous and rhetorical, but it was a grand style that made itself felt. The revelation, however, came in the stage management. Never was such a large and animated crowd seen on the stage — each super appearing to be an actor or actress. It was no longer the careless Drury Lane costermonger exposing his gnarled legs in the ungainly toga (or " togs " as his slang dictionary puts it) looking for his " pal " in the upper gallery, but one of a crowd of excited Roman citizens struggling in the forum. The material advance of the theatre, as shown by the increased number of well-built and luxuriously appointed playhouses and music-halls, is a fact that strikes the eye on all sides, and requires little critical analysis or explanation. Theatres are built by capitalists as an investment, and are built, we have a right to assume, to the exact number of the tenants willing to take them. There are THEATRES 21 I no new and "eligible" theatres vacant, and therefore the presumption is that there has been no overbuilding. Judging from the rents demanded and obtained, there is no better building investment for the landlord. The manager may be, and is, a speculator, making sometimes great gains and sometimes proportionate losses. The landlord stands on a different footing. He is a secured owner, and the speculator to him is merely a passing tenant, who has paid a considerable amount of rent in advance, and given material guarantees for his good behaviour. The landlord reserves certain seignorial rights, and retains a private box, at least, as his own private property. The theatres proper are under the control of the Lord Chamberlain, an THE OLD AND NEW HAYMARKET THEATRES officer of the Crown, who licenses all the legitimate theatre buildings, except those in Parliamentary boroughs like Chelsea, created since 1843, ^^^ always excepting the Theatres Royal — Drury Lane and Covent Garden. These two leading theatres, by virtue of two personal patents granted by Charles the Second to two of his friends, Sir William Davenant and Thomas Killigrew, claim to be beyond the Lord Chamberlain's licensing control. Covent Garden was the original claimant, but after Sheridan, the great dramatist, orator, and manager, made a hocus-pocus purchase of half the Killigrew and Davenant combined patents, Drury Lane set up a claim for theatrical freedom on totally inadequate evidence. The Lord Chamberlain's Department has no funds, and possibly no taste for fancy law-suits ; so it gained its case. The Lord Chamberlain, beyond this, has the power of licensing all plays produced in England, even in buildings outside his jurisdiction, 212 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY and his " Licenser of Plays," another Crown officer, is all that remains of a censorship which once extended to newspapers, books, and public speaking. The variety theatres, music-halls, and other places of public entertainment requiring a music and dancing licence, or merely a simple music licence, are under the control of the London County Council, elected by the ratepayers, whose authority in this respect, taken from the old Middlesex and Surrey Magistrates, extends to what is called "The Administrative County of London" — an area that is co-equal to the twenty-mile radius. The London County Council is clothed in much authority, that may or may not be brief, but it has no power of censorship. The places under its control are far more numerous and, in some cases, much larger than the theatres, but their entertainments are not licensed as to their works and actions. The result naturally follows : — a song may be forbidden or mutilated at " Daly's Theatre " in Leicester Square, while across the road, at the Alhambra, it may be sung with impunity. The control of buildings as buildings : — the surveying authority — is in the hands of the London County Council, subject, as to theatres proper (except outside the Parliamentary limits before mentioned), to a certain editorial supervision of the Lord Chamberlain. The Lord Chamberlain sits in his office every day, and licenses a theatre in twenty-four hours : the London County Council work with committees and sub-committees, and, as a rule, only sit to license music-halls, theatres of variety, etc., once a year during two days in the autumn. Any mistake made, any injustice committed in October one year can only be rectified in October the following year. Councils, like vestries, are only human — sometimes very human. When the Lord Chamberlain sends the Theatrical Manager on his road with his licence, the Manager goes to the Excise Office at Somerset House, and obtains, as a matter of course, a permit to sell drink during all the hours of actual theatrical performance. To this extent he becomes a publican. What he pays for his licence to serve out dramatic literature may be about ^4. What he pays for his hcence to serve out gin and beer may be five times that amount. Drink in this country, in spite of temperance teachings, has to produce one-third of our national income. The London County Council when it grants its simple music licence, or its more choice and luxurious music and dancing licence, in October sends the Variety Theatre Manager out into the world to seek the power of selling drink from another tribunal. The Variety Theatre Manager has to wait from October to March until what remains of the old Middlesex or Surrey Magistrates — the amateur nominees of the Lord Chancellor — sit in Brewster Sessions, and grant or refuse the necessary drink licence. If the Variety Theatre Manager gets this treasure — a treasure under our so-called licensing system that has a market value of ^5000 — he goes to the Excise for a tobacco licence, and is then fully equipped for general business. If he fails to get this treasure, he may conduct a music-hall, as THEATRES 213 a music-hall, and sell any fluid filth that is warranted non-intoxicant, but for all practical purposes his place of business may be a dairy or a ginger-beer stall, but not a tavern. In the working of theatres and music-halls, the Acts of Parliament supposed to regulate the performances at both "places of amusement" are about as useful as a blue-book, or the report of a Parliamentary Committee. Prosecutions are unfashionable ; the old-time Protectionist theatrical manager appears to be as extinct as the Dodo; the "common informer " is not encouraged, and officialism has no particular interest to excite activity. The natural result is that a "go-as-you-please" policy has grown up in the music-hall. The law is nightly treated with ostentatious contempt, and stage-plays, under the title of " sketches," are performed wholesale. " Illegal Theatres," " Dis- orderly Houses," and other fearful "sinks of iniquity" flourish on every side, and, to be perfectly truthful, no one seems a bit the worse for it. The theatres in London, licensed by the Lord Chamberlain, excluding Covent Garden and Drury Lane (the first devoted mainly to opera, and the second to drama and pantomime) number thirty-three. Three East End theatres, one entertainment hall, and seven local theatres (eleven in all) may be excluded from this list, although one, the Britannia at Hoxton, about sixty years old, is the most prosperous playhouse in England. This leaves twenty-two more or less central theatres, eleven of which may be classed (at present) as comedy houses, five as devoted to drama (two to melodrama, and three to the high drama), one devoted to a special musical piece (a compound of comic opera and refined burlesque), and five to a class of play called musical farce or comedy, using many lively features of the music-hall and variety theatres. Several of these theatres, like Parisian theatres, are worked by private " syndicates," but only one, the Gaiety, trades openly as a Limited Liability Public T. 11: Tyrrtll. THE OLD GAIETY THEATRE 214 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Company. These twenty-two central theatres represent a nightly holding capacity of about 32,000, and a capital value of about ^840,000. The number of theatres licensed, in and about London, by the London County Council is eight, the only one of which having a recognised metropolitan reputation is the Court Theatre at Chelsea. This house is a few yards out of the jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberlain, but sufficiently so for all licensing purposes, except the censorship. The London County Council has under its separate authority, in addition to these theatres, 190 "places of amusement " divided as follows : — Music-halls and theatres . . . . . .40 Public-houses ....... 34 Coffee taverns ....... 9 Town halls and assembly rooms, including clubs, drill halls, exhibitions, and skating rinks ... ■ • • 95 Parochial halls . . . . . . .12 190 The total nightly seating capacity of these places, given in an official Parliamentary Return in 1892, is about 160,000, which far overtops the Lord Chamberlain's figures. The principal theatres of variety, all worked by Joint-Stock Limited Companies, are more imposing and costly than the largest of the legitimate playhouses. A list of a few, with the capital they represent, will show the wonderful growth of this very old, but newly developed amusement industry : — The Alhambra, Leicester Square p^i 15,000 The Empire, capital value ^200,000 50,000 The London Pavilion, Piccadilly 180,000 The Tivoli, Strand .... 170,000 The Oxford, Oxford Street 170,000 The Paragon, Mile End 90,000 The South London, London Road 69,000 Queen's, Poplar .... 55,000 ;£899,000 Or, with the increased capital value of the Empire (a very low estimate), one million and forty-nine thousand pounds sterling for nine variety theatres — an average of nearly ^117,000 each. These nine music-halls or variety theatres, taking their paid-up capital only, exceed the capital value of the twenty-two principal theatres. The quarter of a century which has witnessed their growth has witnessed the destruction of the old opera-house in the Haymarket which existed for two centuries, and the retirement of the two leading playhouses, Covent Garden and Drury Lane, into the second rank — the first being now chiefly used for operas, circus entertainments, and fancy balls, the two latter scarcely justifying its alleged THEATRES 215 " patent " — and Drury Lane, having relinquished its old title of the " National Theatre." The variety theatres that stand in the front rank cannot be equalled in Europe. Their spectacular ballets, as brilliant productions, have not been equalled since the brightest days of the Empire in Paris. To find their equals now it is necessary to go to the highly subsidised opera-houses of Berlin and Vienna. Their orchestras are of operatic strength and efficiency, and if a little of the old music-hall or " sing-song " vulgarity clings to the miscellaneous portion of their programmes, the fault lies at the door of the stupid and brutal Georgian Act of Parliament which is supposed to regulate them. The most backward pupil at a Board School knows that the London of to-day is not the London of Hogarth and " Gin Lane," and it is only the Legislature and blithering idiots who have yet to learn this everyday knowledge and act upon it. We have emancipated the slave, and it is now time that we emancipated public amusements. The most healthy sign in connection with the stage is the fact that theatres are gradually getting into the hands of intelligent directors. Education, taste, and gentlemanly instincts are not found to disqualify a man for theatrical management. The theatre had its trials not very long ago, and was dragged through the mud by unworthy successors of Sheridan and Lord Byron. Even now mere trading Semitic " syndicates " are a little too plentiful, but pot-boys, pugilists, and box-keepers are no longer in the ascendant. Names like Henry Irving, Comyns Carr, Forbes Robertson, Frederick Harrison, George Alexander, Wilson Barrett, E. S. Willard, Charles Wyndham, Augustus Harris, Beerbohm Tree, D'Oyly Carte, and Augustin Daly, to mention no others, are names to be proud of. They are names to encourage the best work of the best authors, the best actors, and the best critics, and to attract audiences a little above the multitude. It is melancholy to think that the finest acting is like writing on the sands of the seashore, but the memories that sincere and elevated work can leave behind it, will always " smell sweet and blossom in the dust." OPEN SPACES CHAPTER I the squares By Sir Walter Besant London has every reason to be proud of her squares, with their wide open spaces, the green turf, the flower-beds, the trees ; they constitute places of refreshment in the dreary wilderness of houses and streets. They are of comparatively modern construction. It must be remembered that when every part of the City lay within a quarter of an hour of green fields, when the citizens had their gardens in Clerkenwell and their own places of rural resort within a mile of any City gate, the square was not thought necessary. Old London had its open spaces — its " Roomlands," and its open markets. Later London had its markets, but they were enclosed and its Roomlands were built over, while even its churchyards were contracted and encroached upon. The squares began to be built when the necessity of preserving some open places began to be felt, that is to say, towards the end of the seventeenth century. Perhaps as it became evident that the garden, which had formerly been a part of every house, could no longer be depended upon, it was thought well to supplement it by a garden common to all the houses. Fountains and trees our wearied pride to please, Even in the midst of gilded palaces : And in our towns the prospect gives delight, Which opens round the country to our sight. We may divide the squares into those of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Let us consider a few of the more important among them. I. Those of the seventeenth : The most important are Bloomsbury Square, Bridgewater Square, Berkeley Square, Charterhouse Square, Devonshire Square, Gough Square, Leicester Square, Lincoln's Inn Fields, Red Lion Square, St. James's Square, Soho Square, and Wellclose Square. Bridgewater Square is described in 1708 as "a new, pleasant, though very small square on the east side of Aldersgate Street." It stood on part of the grounds of the town residence of the Earls of Bridgewater. Strype says that 219 220 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY "the middle is neatly enclosed with palisado pales and set round with trees." It now preserves nothing of its former aspect. Berkeley Square was built in 1698 on ground which had formed part of the very extensive gardens of Devonshire House. At the same time Lansdowne House with its gardens was also taken out of the same grounds. It stands on the south side of the square. The building of the houses forming the square took the best part of a hundred years to complete. It has always been aristocratic. We are not here concerned with the old associations which will be found fully dealt with in another place, ^ but with the present condition of the square. It is still one of the most fashionable places of residence in London. At the time of writing there are the Earl of Carnarvon, Lord Ernest St. Maur, Lord Percy St. Maur, the Earl of Rosebery, Lord Blantyre, Earl Powis, Lord Fitzhardinge, and the Marquis of Lansdowne among the residents. Sir Squire and Lady Bancroft represent the drama ; Mr. Steinkopf and Mr. Harmsworth represent finance and journalism. Bloomsbury, another of the seventeenth -century squares, was built by the Earl of Southampton in 1665,^ and was first called Southampton Square. . It seems at present to be peculiarly dedicated to medicine and the law, and learning. - The College of Preceptors, the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, and the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland are to be found here ; while every second house is the office of a firm of solicitors. Devonshire Square, like Bloomsbury Square, was originally the ground in front of a nobleman's town house, built upon on three sides, having the house on the third. Very few people will know this square even by name. It is in Bishops- gate Without, facing the entrance to Liverpool Street, and is now only a flagged courtyard connected with the street by archways. The Quakers' principal meeting- house is close to Devonshire Square. Charterhouse Square^ was called by Howell a "large yard " containing "many handsome palaces, as Rutland House, and one where the Venetian ambassadors were used to lodge." When Howell wrote it had been "conveniently railed." On the north side are the Charter House and the Merchant Taylors' School ; on the east side the solid and substantial houses are occupied by the Masters of the school ; the square itself, close to Smithfield Market, is, with its green turf and its trees and the venerable buildings of the Charter House, one of the most delightful spots in the whole City. The chief interest in Gough Square is due to the fact that Johnson lived here for ten years, and these years were perhaps the most melancholy of his life. It is now a little flagged court shut in by houses, and entirely without any attraction. Leicester Square,* once Leicester Fields, has been laid out so as to form a 1 See Mayfair, Fascmation of London Series. — Ed. 2 See Holborn and Bloomsbury, ibid. s See Clerkenwell, ibid. i See The Strand, ibid. THE SQUARES 221 public garden, presented by Baron Albert Grant in 1874. The great music-halls to the north and east dominate the other houses. St. James's Square ^ has always been in the heart of the fashionable world. Cunningham says that it was "commenced" in 1676, in which year thirteen occupants, mostly of the nobility, were rated as of St. James's Square— a clear proof that it must have been " commenced " some time before. St. James's can certainly boast of a longer list of distinguished, or notorious, characters, than any other square of London. Among the present residents in St. James's Square are Lord Avebury, Earl Cowper, Earl of Strafford, Marquess of Bristol, Earl Egerton of ^^^ -^^••^..:^-i ?tf**''**Pa»^';^S?; ;■ ST. JAMES S SQUARE IN IS12 From a Print in the Grace Collection. Tatton, Duchess of Buckingham, Lord Kinnaird, Sir William Rose, the Duke ot Norfolk, the Bishop of London, and the Earl of Derby. Here also are certain departments of the War Office ; the London Library ; the Board of Agriculture ; and the Sports, Portland, Nimrod, Windham, and East India Service Clubs. Soho Square^ was originally King's Square : it was built in 1681, in the reign of Charles IL It is called Soho Square by Shadwell (1691) and King's Square by Maitland (1739). On the site of the house where Madam Cornelys gave her enter- tainments is now a Roman Catholic chapel, the house of Beckford is the " House of Charity," the north-east part of the square is taken over by a great jam factory. ^ See The Strand, Fascinaiioji of London Series. 222 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY There are several hospitals, and the Roman Catholic Church of St. Patrick with a high campanile tower. Also in contrast the humble French Protestant Church, well designed in red brick, but tightly wedged in between its neighbours, so that it is apt to be overlooked. Soho Square is, to my mind, the pleasantest- square in London, with its well-grown and leafy plane-trees, and the old-world air which some of its houses, notably the offices of the jam factory, still keep. It has a peculiar interest, too, in having been the birthplace of this book. Red Lion Square is a homely little place, so called after the Red Lion Inn. Jonas Hanway died in this square. There would be no other interest attached to the square save for the curious tradition that beneath an obelisk which once stood in the centre lay the bones and ashes of Cromwell. The obelisk was inscribed with the following mysterious legend : — " Obtusum Obtusions Ingenii Monumentum. Quid me respicis viator? Vade." To whom did the inscription refer? Wellclose Square is a small square in the centre of which was formerly the Danish Church. This was superseded by a school. Among these seventeenth-century squares we have not included Kensington, which lies in what was at that time a suburb. It was formed almost at the end of the century, and will be found fully described elsewhere.-^ Passing on to the eighteenth century we have Cavendish Square, Finsbury Square, Golden Square, Grosvenor Square, Manchester Square, Hanover Square, and Queen Square, Bloomsbury. There are many other squares in the Bloomsbury district, which seems to have taken with peculiar kindness to this form of architecture, but the others belong mostly to the nineteenth century. Cavendish Square^ was planned in 1715, and named after the Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holies, wife of Harley, Earl of Oxford. The whole of the north side was intended to be occupied by the town house of the Duke of Chandos, but the wings only were built. It was here that the tragic event took place which extinguished the honours of the house of Chandos. " The occasion was a sumptuous entertainment, given by the Duke to celebrate the christening of his infant heir, to whom George the Third and his Queen had consented to become sponsors. The guests, including the royal family, had assembled in the gorgeous apartments ; with all due parade the child was being borne to the place appointed for the ceremony of its initiation into the Church, when suddenly an awful transition reversed the scene. Affected, it is said, by the excessive glare of light, the child was seized with convulsions. The ceremony of course was stopped, the guests took their departure to their respective homes, and, before midnight, the infant pride of the princely Chandos had breathed its last. 1 See Kensington, Fascination of London Series. — Ed. 2 See Hampstead and Marylebone, id. THE SQUARES 223 The Duke, deeply affected by his bereavement, died shortly afterwards, when all his honours became extinct. The grief of the Duchess was probably quite as poignant. She retired from the world, but not from the house which had witnessed the wreck of her fondest hopes, for here she is said to have conceived a melancholy pleasure in residing to the last " (Jesse, vol. i. pp. 44-45). Among the residents in this square are the Earls of Crawford, Durham, Hardwicke, Viscount Duncannon, Marquis of Breadalbane, Lord Balcarres, and a large colony of about thirty medical men — physicians, surgeons, and dentists. The SOHO SQUARE From a coloured Print published in 1812. garden is kept for the use of the residents, and is of considerable extent, with trees, shrubs, flower-beds, and lawns. Finsbury Square can hold its own for size with any of the prominent West End squares. It was built on a part of Moorfields and was completed in 1791. It is as much associated with the medical profession as Harley Street is. In the centre is a garden laid out in tennis-courts, and so surrounded by thick shrubs as to be screened from the gaze of passers-by. Golden Square^ was built in 1704 or thereabouts. Lord Bolingbroke lived here as one of its earliest inhabitants. Here lived Anastasia Robinson, Countess of Peterborough. 1 See The Strand, Fascination of London Series. 224 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY When Anastasia's voice commands the strain, The melting warble thrills through every vein ; Thought stands suspended, silence pleased attends. While in her notes the heavenly choir descends. Golden Square is now almost entirely dedicated to business premises ; it is a backwater, off the main current of traffic, and though it lies within a short distance of Piccadilly Circus, few except those whose business takes them there ever find it. Grosvenor Square, so called from standing on the property of Sir Richard Grosvenor, who died in 1732, was built early in the century. Pope mentions it in the year 1716. Among its most distinguished present residents are Sir Howard Vincent, Duke of Portland, Earl FitzWilliam, Sir W. Cunliffe Brooks, Earl of Home, Lord Dunglass, Lord Farquhar, Sir Samuel Scott, Lord Amherst, Lord William Cecil, Sir Arthur Hayter, the Italian Ambassador, Earl of Londesborough, Duke of Somerset, Lord Calthorpe, Earl of Harrowby, and Sir Charles Tennant. The square was aristocratic from the beginning, and, as may be judged from the above list, is aristocratic still. The garden, which was laid out by Kent, is in the usual style of Square gardens, and is exclusively preserved for the use of the inhabitants. Manchester Square was begun (1776) by the erection of Manchester House on the north side. The house has been successively the residence of the Duke of Manchester ; the Spanish Ambassador ; the Marquis of Hertford ; the French Embassy, with Talleyrand and Guizot as ambassadors ; and Sir Richard Wallace, and is now the home of the great Wallace Collection. The square is now chiefly occupied by physicians. Portman Square was built in 1764-84. Here at the north-west corner is Montagu House, where lived Mrs. Montagu, the well-known Queen of literary society. Among the present residents are the Duke and Duchess of Fife, Duke of Manchester, Earl of Eldon, Earl of Dundonald, Lord Tredegar, Earl of Ducie, Viscount Portman, Viscount Gort, Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte, and others. Hanover Square was named in honour of George I., and built in 1718. At present the Zoological Society, the Anthropological Institute, and the Society for the Protection of Birds find a home at No. 8. ; various Agricultural Societies have offices at No. 12 ; various Medical Societies at No. 20; here is the Royal Orthopaedic Society and some clubs for ladies. But the chief feature is St. George's Church, which holds its own as the chief place for fashionable marriages, even though of late years it has had formidable rivals. Lying as it does surrounded by three great arteries, Oxford Street, Bond Street, and Regent Street, the square receives its full complement of traffic. The roadways are so wide that the garden centre is much reduced in area. THE SQUARES 225 Queen Square, Bloomsbury/ was built early in the century : it was open on the north side so as to command the view to Hampstead. Here are the Alexandra, the National, and the Italian Hospitals; also St. Katherine's Convent and School of Ecclesiastical Embroidery ; and the Art for Schools Society. The remaining squares of importance belong to the nineteenth century. As might be expected, they are chiefly to be found in the outlying parts ; an exception to this, however, is found in Trafalgar Square at the very heart of London. Northward in Bloomsbury we have Gordon and Tavistock Squares, NORTH SIDE OF TRAFALGAR SQUARE IN 1842 From The Illustrated London News. squares in nothing but name ; the same remark applies to Bryanston and Montagu Squares, which are in the form of rectangular strips. Trafalgar Square^ took long in building. It was begun in 1829 but not finally completed, by the last stone of the Nelson column, until 1849. It is peculiarly identified with the nineteenth century. It was designed by Sir Charles Barry and is one of the finest open spaces in London. Belgrave Square^ was built in 1825 on part of the " Five Fields." It is about ' See The Strand, Fascination of Londo?i Series. " See Mayfair, ibid. 15 226 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY lo acres in area. The houses are imposing and massive. Among the present residents are the Earl of Ancaster, Lord Willoughby de Eresby, Duke of Bedford, the Austrian Embassy, Earl of Feversham, Lady Herbert of Lea, Lord Carew, Earl of Stradbroke, Lord Digby, Earl of March, and the Duke of Richmond. In the centre is a fine garden. Eaton Square^ was built in 1827, also on part of the Five Fields. At present we find Viscount Knutsford, Viscount Falkland, Viscount Halifax, Lord Aberdare, the Marquis of Hertford, Lord Cottesloe, and Lord Middleton as residents. At the eastern end is the fashionable church of St. Peter, which rivals St. George's, Hanover Square. Lowndes Square^ was built in 1837. Russell Square,^ one of the finest of the London squares, was built in 1804. The immense garden in the centre, reserved for the use of the residents, contains a statue of the fifth Duke of Bedford. The houses round the square, though not beautiful externally, are large and roomy. The square is much sought after by solicitors. Though it is very different in many ways from those already enumerated, a word must be given to Vincent Square,^ Westminster. The wide area of this square forms magnificent playing-fields for the boys of Westminster School, with whom it has been associated from its formation. Its very name is taken from a former master of Westminster School, Dr. Vincent, who died in 181 5. 1 See Mayfair, Fascination of London Series. ^ See Holborn and Bloomsbury, ibid. 5 See Westminster, ibid. CHAPTER II THE PARKS, COMMONS, AND OPEN GROUNDS Bv Sir Walter Besant There is certainly no other great city in the world which possesses so many parks in its midst and so many corqmons, heaths, and open grounds in its suburbs as London, and this in spite of the many enclosures and encroachments which have only been stopped by recent legislation. Thus within the nineteenth century, on the north, Hainault Forest has been almost entirely destroyed, a loss irreparable ; Epping Forest has been curtailed to 3000 acres ; Finchley Common has been enclosed. Kingsland Common and many other " Greens " have disappeared. On the west we have lost Tothill Fields and Chelsea Common : on the south the losses have been very much heavier. Battersea Fields, greatly curtailed, have become Battersea Park ; Wandsworth Common is but a small cantle of what it was ; the Lock Fields, St. George's Fields, North and South Fields have disappeared wholly; South Lambeth Common, Stockwell Common, Knights' Hill, Lee and Penge Commons, have disappeared; Ruth Green and Hithe's Green are gone. Yet, with all these losses, there is still no other great city which can show so many wild commons and so many lovely parks. Many of the latter are, of course, of recent creation. During the last twenty years or so the parks of London have received a very large addition to their number. It is no longer considered that a park belongs to the Court and the aristocracy, a place where gentlefolk may ride or drive, and people of society may meet each other. I subjoin a list of the parks, commons, heaths, and open spaces in and around London. It will be found, I believe, correct, save with the omission of small areas and " Greens " which hardly need to be mentioned. Alexandra Park. Bushey Park. Dulwich Fields. Battersea Park. Camberwell Park. Dulwich Park. Blackheath. Chislehurst Common. Eel Brook Common. Bostall Wood. Clapham Common. Eltham Common. Brockwell Common. Clissold Park. Epping Forest. Brook Green. Crystal Palace. Green Park. 227 228 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Greenwich Park. Hackney Downs. Hampstead Heath. Hampton Court. Hornsey Downs. Hyde Park. Kennington Park. Kensington Gardens. Kew Gardens. London Fields. Peckham Rye. Plumstead Common. Primrose Hill. Putney Heath. Queen's Park. Ravenscourt Park. Regent's Park. Richmond Park. St. James's Park. St. Paul's Cray Common. Southwark Park. Stoke Newington Common. Streatham Common. Tooting Common. Vauxhall Park. Wandsworth Common. VVanstead Park. Waterlow_Park. West Ham Park. Wimbledon Common. Woolwich Common. Wormwood Scrubs. In the case of the older parks it is impossible to confine oneself to the present aspect. What would St. James's Park be without its associations with the Stuart kings ? Could we speak of Kensington Gardens and ignore the monarchs of the Hanoverian line ? The most famous of all the Parks is that called Hyde. It formed part of the ancient manor of Eia described in Domesday Book. This manor was divided into three, viz. Hyde, Ebery, and Neyt or Neate. The first is now covered by Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens ; the second pom- prised, roughly speaking, the quarters now called Belgravia and Pimlico ; the third was beside the river. It was afterwards known for its market-gardens and certain houses of resort called neat-houses, which stood with the Neat- House Gardens on the ground now lying between Lupus Street and the river. The original intention and reason of a park was as a hunting-ground. Henry VIII. acquired the Manor of Hyde from the Abbey of Westminster, giving in exchange the Priory of Hurley in Berkshire. He added this area to St. James's Park : it was probably then under cultivation, but he fenced it round and converted the whole, forming an enclosure of nearly looo acres, into a hunting-park, stocked with deer for his own sport. Queen Elizabeth, if she did not herself follow the hounds, looked on while her visitors hunted. In 1592 this park is described as "substantially impayled with a fayre lodge and princelye standes therein. It is a stately parke and full of fayre game." James I. and Charles I. kept up the hunting in Hyde Park. In the latter reign we find the first intimation that the place, although a private park belonging to the King, was thrown open to use by the public. Horse and foot races were held in the Park, apparently without permission asked and without let or hindrance. Yet one can hardly believe that the King contemplated the free use of the Park for the whole world. Perhaps an explanation of the throwing open of the Park may be found in the fact that both James and Charles had other hunting-grounds at Theobalds, Windsor, and Greenwich, which were larger and offered better sport. When the Park was sold in 1652-53 there were still deer left in it. After the Z, ^ D J P o w THE PARKS, COMMONS, AND OPEN GROUNDS 229 Restoration the Park was again stocked witli deer, but they were not allowed tc roam at will over the whole ; they were confined in an enclosure called the Paddock or the Deer Harbour, in the north-west corner of the Park. Here they were looked after by a keeper, and there was an occasional shooting party of royal guests allowed into the enclosure. The path called Buckhill Gate seems to mark the eastern boundary of this enclosure. The sale of the Park was in three lots : the north portion abutting on Bayswater Road, which fetched ^4144:11:0; the south part, which fetched £3906 : 7 : 6 ; and the middle part, which realised .1^9020 : 8 : 2. The purchaser endeavoured to get some of his money back by charging an admission fee of a shilling for a carriage and sixpence for a horse. Evelyn calls him a " sordid fellow" for doing so. Pepys speaks of Hyde Park often. It became the fashion to drive in Hyde Park, a fashion adopted, or set, by Cromwell himself, who was once, while driving six in hand, upset and thrown into the road, a pistol which was in his pocket going off with the fall. Fortunately he was not hurt, to the great grief of his enemies, who revenged themselves by an epigram : Every day and hour has shown us his power, And now he has shown us his art. His first reproach was a fall from his coach, And his next will be from a cart. James Shirley in his play called Hyde Park (1637) alludes to the "opening" of the Park. Was there, then, any formal opening of the Park to the public? If so, it would surely have been a surrender of the rights of the Crown, which certainly does not seem to have been recognised when Charles II. took back the Park from those who had bought it, and proceeded to build a wall of brick round it. On the other hand it was already, in 1637, a place of public resort, and never ceased to be so. At the keeper's lodge were refreshments, consisting of milk, cheese-cakes, syllabub, March pane, mince-pies, and China oranges. The lodge was also called the cake-house and the mince-pie-house. It was a pretty rustic cottage which should have been kept standing ; it was pulled down, however, in 1826. Hyde Park has witnessed many famous duels. The first is that between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun. It took place on November 15, 171 2, and ended in the death of both combatants. On February 24, 1750, there was the duel between Admiral Knowles and Captain Holmes; on September 14, 1780, that between "Fighting Parson Bate" and Mr. Richardson; on October i, 1797, that between Colonel King and Colonel Fitzgerald; on November 16, 1763, that between John Wilkes and Samuel Martin ; in the same year that between Lord Cornwallis and Captain Rigby ; on November 27, 1779, that between Charles James Fox and Mr. Adam ; and on March 23, 1780, that between Fuller and Lord Shelburne. 230 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY In the years 1730-33 the Serpentine was made by Queen Caroline. She threw several ponds into one : they appear to have been continuous ponds like those of Hampstead and Highgate, with connecting sluices, and fed by the West- bourne stream. This stream becoming foul with drainage was cut off in 1834, and the water supplied by the Chelsea Water Works. Hyde Park has been the scene of many reviews and functions. On August i, 1814, a public fete was held there in order to celebrate the return of peace : there were illuminations, a fair, a balloon ascent, and a miniature sea-fight. The Coronations of George IV., William IV., and Queen Victoria also offered occasions for public festivities. The great Exhibition of 1851 is perhaps the most important event connected with Hyde Park. There have been many and more splendid exhibitions since, but not one has succeeded in expressing the imagination so deeply as this, the first. At the north-east corner of the Park, where Cumberland Gate now stands, was the place of execution for soldiers. They were sometimes shot and sometimes hanged there. The meeting of the Four-in-Hand every year was originally the meeting of the "Whip Club," the first appearance of which was on June 9, 1808, when fifteen barouche-landaus, each with four horses, met in Park Lane and their owners drove out to dinner at Harrow. For two hundred years Hyde Park has always been, as it is now, the resort and meeting-place of fashion ; it has always been the exercise-ground of most of our statesmen and great men. Lord Chatham used to ride a pony up and down the Row. The Duke of Wellington could be met every morning riding slov/ly along, lifting his finger to his hat every moment in return for the salutations of the people, all of whom knew him by sight. As a boy I have myself had the honour of taking off my hat to the great Duke. The Park has always been the haunt, in the evening, of thieves, and footpads, and women of the worst kind : the rowdy element is never wanting where the Court gathers together nobles and courtiers, and soldiers and their followers, and hangers-on and parasites. It was the resort, in the days of the Regent, of the beaux, who dressed for and against each other like women : when Brummell considered that with economy a man might dress on .^700 a year and when George Hanger actually spent .^900 in one year on his attire and his adornment. It was by slow degrees that the " Cit " found himself in Hyde Park. He first began to show himself there on Sunday ; he went there with his wife and daughters to see the fine ladies ; presently his sons began to go disguised as fine gentlemen, riding hired horses, putting on aristocratic side, dressed in the hues of the golden West, rather than the simple brown and blue of the City : they fondly imagined THE PARKS, COMMONS, AND OPEN GROUNDS 231 that they passed muster and were taken for gentlemen. But the man of fashion has always upon him some hall-mark, some private sign, some trick of the moment, by which he is known as part of the inner circle. As it is at the present day when the " outsider " in Piccadilly cannot deceive the young man of the inner ring, because he carries his umbrella wrongly or is ignorant of the right use of the buttonhole, so in the eighteenth century. The buck, and the exquisite, and the beau looked on with contempt at the Sunday " cit " and retired to their own club to talk of the " plebs." I do not know any time in our history, if we may judge by certain wearisome novels of the period, when there was a greater separation of classes than the first twenty years of the nineteenth century. We were not only in full eighteenth century : we were in the eighteenth century grown worse, more exclusive, more haughty, more contemptuous of the folk below. The Reform Bill was coming : the railways were coming : all the forces which have levelled up and levelled down were just beginning. Not the least has been the right of the people to hold meetings in the Park. In the 'sixties it seemed horrible that such a right should be claimed : it was argued that the Park was Crown property, should the people meet on Crown property ? They have met ; they meet there constantly ; and no harm has come of it. They will go on meeting ; the people are quick to be inflamed by fierce speeches, but they are quick to distinguish, when the speeches have been reported, between wisdom and wind-bag. Many reviews of troops have been held in the Park : the most important was that of the troops in 1 814 in the presence of the allied sovereigns and that of the volunteers in i860 by the Queen. There have also been riots in the Park : notably those which " demonstrated " against the Sunday Trading Bill of 1855 ; those against the high price of food in the same year; the Garibaldi Riots of 1862; and those of the Reform League of 1866. There have also been Fenian meetings. Eastern Question meetings, Irish Church meetings. Rights of Women meetings, preachings, exhortations, and fights of all kinds. The Achilles Statue, made from cannon taken at our victories of Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse, and Waterloo in 1822 ; the Albert Memorial, the Albert Hall, the Marble Arch, the flower-beds and walks of the Park, and its broad stretches of turf constitute its most remarkable features at the present day. Kensington Gardens are a continuation of Hyde Park. Yet they were never a part of the Park. It is pointed out by Loftie {Kcnsiiigtojt, 1888) that a map of Hyde Park in 1725 has exactly the same western boundary as one in 1737, when Queen Caroline, who is generally said to have cut the Gardens out of the Park, died. Queen Caroline enlarged the gardens of Nottingham House, now Kensington Palace, and took in a large part of Nottingham Park which joined Hyde Park. 232 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Nottingham House had been bought by William III. with 26 acres of land : Queen Anne added 30 acres and laid out the gardens : Queen Caroline took in The rest. These Gardens, the most delightful of any in London, have been a favourite place for walking ever since they were laid out by Queen Anne. Tickell thus speaks of the gardens : — " When Kensington high o'er the neighbouring lands, 'IMidst green and sweets a regal fabric stands, And sees each spring, luxuriant in her bowers, A snow of blossoms and a wild of flowers : The dames of Britain oft in crowds repair To gravel walks and unpolluted air. There while the town in damp and darkness lies They breathe in sunshine and see azure skies : Each walk with robes of various dyes bespread. Seems from afar a moving tulip bed, When rich brocades and glossy damasks show And chintz, the rival of the showery bow." St. James's Park was originally a garden or a meadow belonging to St. James's House for Lepers. When St. James's Palace was built it was taken over by Henry VIII., who walled in part of a hunting-ground for himself It was a low- lying piece of ground, once part of the vast marsh lying around Thorney Island-: after the land was reclaimed and at the time when Henry built a wall round it, the place contained a good many small ponds and many trees. In the south-west corner of the Park was a pond larger than the rest called Rosamond's Pond, beside which rose a small artificial mound with a tree upon it. This pond was left when the others were thrown together to make the long straight canal constructed by Charles II. when he improved the Park and laid out paths and gravel walks. " But stay, my man, let's view that noted Pond That bears the name of beauteous Rosamond, Where herds of happy shes sometimes repair To take the breezes of the evening air.'' The Mall was laid down for the better enjoyment of the game played there — the " Pall Mall" or " Paille Maille " : the earth was prepared and strewn over with powdered cockleshell rolled hard. At the south-east end of the canal was a small island formed by the channels and inlets of fanciful form for the use of the birds. It was called Duck Island. St. Evremond was made Governor of Duck Island. Under Charles II. the Park was thrown open and at once became a favourite place of resort. The literature of the period is full of references to St. James's Park. In the summer people of fashion made up parties which stayed in the Park till the morning ; they brought fiddlers with them and danced on the grass. These midnight meetings gave rise to scandals and fell into disrepute. '.M •r. 'A rm THE PARKS, COMMONS, AND OPEN GROUNDS 233 Ned Ward gives a very good description of the Parle in his time, early in the eighteenth century : " We stept over its boarded bounds into Duke Humphrey's Walk, as my friend informed me. Here he showed me abundance of our neighbouring Bull Factors [?'.«. Irishmen], distinguished by their flat noses and broad faces, who were walking away their leisure hours beneath the umbrage of the lime trees. The worthy gentlemen who chiefly frequent this sanctuary are non-commissioned officers, I mean not such who have lost their commission, but such as never had any, and yet would be very angry should you refuse them the title of captain, tho' they never so much as trailed a pike towards the deserving it. From thence we took a walk upon the parade, which my friend told me used in a morning to be covered with the bones of red herrings, and smelt as strong about breakfast time as a wet-salter's shop at midsummer. [This is a hit at the Dutch Guards who had then but newly been sent back to Holland.] But now, says he, it's perfumed again with English breath, and the scent of Oronoko tobacco no more offends the nostrils of our squeamish ladies, who may now pass backwards and forwards free from all such nuisances, and without the danger of being frightened at a terrible pair of Dutch whiskers [i.e. moustaches]. From thence we walked up the canal, where the ducks were fishing about the water and standing upon their heads, showing as many tricks in their liquor as a Bartholomew Fair tumbler. We turned up from thence into a long hme-walk, where both Art and Nature had carefully preserved the trees in such exact proportion to each other that a man would guess by their appearance they all aspire in height and spread in breadth to just the same dimensions, and confine their leaves and branches to an equal number. The termination of this delectable walk was a knot of lofty elms by a pond-side [Rosamond's Pond], round some of which were commodious seats for the tired ambulators to refresh their weary pedestals. Here a parcel of old worn-out Cavaliers were conning over the Civil Wars, and looking back into the history of their past lives, to moderate their anxiety and the infirmities of old age with pleasing reflections on their youthful actions" {Larwood, pp. 129-132). The Park was within the verge of the Royal Court, so that no bailiff had a right to arrest any one within its precincts. In Fielding's Amelia Mr. Booth walks in St. James's Park when he was afraid to be seen anywhere else. To be seen in St. James's Park in the daytime was a proof that one was not contaminated with any profession, trade, or honest industry, because all those who have to stoop to the infamy and degradation of work must give their days to labour. The Park, however, was open to hawkers and vendors of all kinds, especially the smaller articles of women's dress. Thus speaks one of the hawkers : — " Pomatum, my lady, of all sorts ; lip-salves, forehead cloths, night-masks, and handkerchiefs for the face and neck; right chemical liquor to change the colour of the hair, and trotter-oil and bear's-grease to thicken it ; fine mouse-skin eyebrows, that will stick on so as never to come off. . . . Besides these I have many other things for the ladies ; and, to blind the men, who will sometimes be examining, I carry artificial flowers, ribbons, and gloves" {Larwood, pp. 157-158). As usual, the beaux and bucks displayed their wit in talking to the girls who sold these things and fruit in baskets. " With bounding Bell a luscious chat they hold, Squabble with Moll, or orange Betty scold." 234 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The Park was a great place for races, for deciding bets, and for feats of endurance or skill. As for the gossip and the scandals ; the fair ladies and the beaux ; are they not told in the. letters and the essays, the verses and the plays of the period ? It is impossible to describe the beggars, the gamblers, the disorderly women, the vagrants who congregated there at night. Fielding, when he was magistrate, cleared the Park and made it clean and respectable — for a time. During the Commonwealth, though Hyde Park was sold, St. James's was saved. Cromwell preserved it and used it as his own private garden to which he allowed certain persons admission. Milton was one of these when he lived at Whitehall or in his house in Petty France. It was alleged, with disparagement to her rustic habits, that Cromwell's wife kept her cows in the Park. But Marie Antoinette also kept cows — Why not ? The history of St. James's Park during the eighteenth tentury is a long array of fashionable gossip and scandal. Reigning beauties were mobbed : beaux, dandies, jessamies, and maccaronies paraded the Mall and had their little day of success ; soldiers were reviewed there ; camps were set up in the Park ; chairs were introduced for the accommodation of the company ; but as a garden it was neglected. The final extinction of the Park as a place of fashionable resort was due, it appears, to the change of the dinner hour from four or five to seven or eight. The walk of the summer evening which had done so much to enliven the Parks in the eighteenth century then came to an end. Phillips, in his Walk from London to Kew, laments the change. " My spirits sunk and a tear started into my eyes as I brought to mind those crowds of beauty, rank, and fashion, which, till within these few years, used to be displayed in the centre Mall of this Park on Sunday evenings during the spring and summer. How often in my youth had I been a delighted spectator of the enchanted and enchanting assemblage ! Here used to promenade for one or two hours after dinner the whole British world of gaiety, beauty, and splendour ! Here could be seen in one moving mass, extending the whole length of the Mall, five thousand of the most lovely women, in this country of female beauty, all splendidly attired, and accompanied by as many well dressed men ! What a change, I exclaimed, have a few years wrought in these once happy and cheerful personages. How many of those who on this very spot then delighted my eyes are now mouldering in the silent grave ! . . . A change of manners has put an end to this unparalleled assemblage to this first of Metropolitan pleasures, though of itself it was worth any sacrifice. The dinner hour of four and five, among the great or would-be great, having shifted to the unhealthy hours of eight or nine, the promenade after dinner in the dinner full- dress is consequently lost" (Sir R. Phillips, 1820). The Green Park was formed by Charles II., who joined St. James's Park to Hyde Park by the purchase of certain fields south of Piccadilly and enclosed them with a brick wall at the cost of .1^2400. He also built an ice-house in the Green Park, and turned in deer. Queen Caroline had a private walk made for herself and her family for their own diversion, and she would have taken over the whole Park S>' ^m«i HfS t 'miitisilltiiil yk'kniil THE PARKS, COMMONS, AND OPEN GROUNDS 235 but for Walpole, who told her, when she asked what it would cost, " Probably three crowns." There was also a Rosamond's pond in the Green Park, so called in imitation of that in St. James's ; its site is marked by the hollow dip of the ground about the middle, just south of Piccadilly. A long rectangular pond also lay a little to the east, parallel with Piccadilly. In 1769 the papers reported that the Green Park was infested with villains who attacked many persons passing through it in the evening ; it was useless to lock the gates, because there were keys. Later on towards the close of the century a good deal of the fashion of St. James's Park came here in the summer evenings. The first of the new parks is Regent's Park. This broad expanse of turf, 372 acres in extent, was formerly the Marylebone fields. In 181 1 the Crown obtained an Act of Parliament for the conversion of the fields into a park. It was laid out in 1 81 2, and named after the Regent, who thought at one time of building a palace on the north-east part of the Park. It contains the Zoological Gardens and the Botanic Gardens. In spite of its enormous area and vast population, I think that no city in the world can compare with London for the number, the extent, and the beauty of its parks : I say this, although I admit that we have no single park in which there is so much beauty and variety of scenery as in one of the two which I remember in America, and especially the Central Park of New York and the Park at Albany. Of the more modern parks there is little to say that is interesting ; Battersea Park, Clapham Common, Putney Heath, Wimbledon Common, and many another mentioned in our list are merely open spaces which, for one reason or another, have been left unbuilt on. As for the glorious playgrounds of Richmond Park and Kew Gardens in the west, Hampstead Heath on the north, and Epping Forest on the north-east, these are dealt with in perambulation.^ There are, however, other breathing places about London, though smaller ; there are gardens belonging to the Temple Inn ; there are the Square Gardens ranging in size and splendour from Lincoln's Inn Fields to Hoxton Square, some of which are thrown open to the people in the summer ; there are gardens constructed by the London County Council in crowded places, notably the " Island Garden " of the Isle of Dogs : in the suburbs there were formerly so many great and beautiful gardens, but they are now rapidly falling into the builders' hands ; however, breathing-places remain wherever there is an old churchyard or an old cemetery or an old common — for the health, and the joy, and the solace of the people who live in the crowded streets around them. Then there are also the burial-grounds ; so many of which are now public gardens. These are dealt with in a chapter by themselves. All these gardens are of easy access : there are few parishes which are not near ' See Hampstead, Putney, etc., Fasciiiatioii of London Scries. 236 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY one or two of them. In the very heart of the City there is St Paul's Churchyard ; not far off is the " Postmen's Park " at St. Martin-le-Grand ; in the worst part of the old Ratcliffe Road is a lovely garden made out of an old churchyard. The churchyard of St. George's, Southwark, on which Little Dorrit used to look down from her father's room in the Marshalsea, where the unhonoured bones of Bishop Bonner lie, is now one of the most charming little gardens to be seen anywhere ; and so of a hundred others. The work is due to a Society of which the Earl of Meath is the President and the Director. CHAPTER III BURIAL-PLACES By Sir Walter Besant If one looks at a map of London and its environs in or about the year 1830 he will presently become aware of the absence of cemeteries and parish burial-grounds in the suburbs. One or two there are ; St. George's, Bloomsbury, and St. George the Martyr, Queen Square, have their burial-places behind the Foundling Hospital ; St. Martin's-in-the-Fields has one at Camden Town ; in the Uxbridge Road is the burial-place of St. George's, Hanover Square ; in West Smithfield is a burial-place of St. Sepulchre's ; and that apparently exhausts the list, unless we include Bunhill Fields and the "Jews" Burial-Place. At the present day large cemeteries are found all round London in places where, when they were first established, was open country. There are now, in most cases, popular suburbs surrounding them. Before long new cemeteries will have to be taken further out. Meantime they are found at West Kensington, Kensal Green, Willesden, Hampstead, Highgate, Finchley, Bow, West Ham, Nunhead, Norwood, Dulwich, and wherever convenient places have been found ready of access and not too far removed from London. These cemeteries mark a very important step in advance. The subject, which belongs especially to the nineteenth century, must find a place in these pages. About the year 1838 the public mind began to be agitated about the dangers and scandals of its burial-grounds, and after that the agitation went on continuously. The dangers arose from overcrowding in the very narrow space allotted as churchyards and burial-grounds about the churches of London and the great towns. The condition of London in respect to the limited extent of the ground set apart is recorded in one of the numerous pamphlets published at the time by Dr. Walker, Dr. Southwood Smith, and others. As a record of what was thought sufficient for parishes numbering many thousands, I have transcribed the following Report : — " St. Sepulchre, Snow Hill, the writer must consider one of the worst situated in this respect. \Vith a population including Middlesex of 13,500, it has two 'slips' on either side of the church, which together 237 238 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY can scarcely, if at all, exceed a quarter of an acre. There are vaults under the church ; but if any one, having perceived the effluvia some yards from the open door, can descend, unimpelled by duty or private feeling, he has stronger nerves than the writer's, although sorely taxed in this troublesome world. At St. Andrew's, Holborn, the vaults are inoffensive ; but for about 45,000 inhabitants it has only this crowded ground and the reduced one in Gray's Inn Road, elsewhere mentioned. St. Bride's is almost exactly on a par with St. Sepulchre's ; and fever is said to be almost every year produced in the neighbourhood. St. Bartholomew the Great (2000 inhabitants), Smithfield, the oldest church in London or Middlesex, has too small a churchyard, but by no means in proportion to the foregoing. The same applies to Cripplegate (15,000 inhabitants), where is a bastion of the old wall of London. St. James's, Clerkenwell, with about 60,000 inhabitants, has the limited ground, certainly consider- ably less than an acre, at the church— all trodden ground— grass is rare and evanescent ; perhaps an acre at Pentonville Chapel, rather better, but inconvenient for this distance ; and a small plot, common to St. John's, which has its own ' slip ' at the back of the church, still less. At IsUngton the old churchyards are so crammed that it is almost impossible to sink a new grave in them. The coffins in the vaults (all lead) are above the level of the ground, and visible through the grated windows — not a desirable circumstance in some respects. There is a better ground at the Chapel of Ease, Holloway, not so much used as it might be. Besides a small general one styled ' New Bunhill,' these are the only ones for 55,000. St. Luke's, Old Street (50,000), is better, from a noble private gift of four or five acres at the back of the church, but this is, not slowly, filling. At Shoreditch the old churchyard is not very large, about three acres, and the poor-ground, very dirty, not half that size. But as there are churchyards at Hoxton and Haggerston, the aggregate parish, with upwards of 80,000 inhabitants, may not be so badly situated as some others. Bethnal Green, with 75,000, has, the writer regrets to find, only the old churchyard, perhaps three acres and a half, rather improved. Ten new churches have been estabhshed, and the writer fully believes that the poor (whose wretched condition he described at length in a statement in the Morning Herald at Easter 1838) are much more kindly attended to — but not one burying-ground. Whitechapel, upwards of 30,000 inhabitants, has a churchyard (besides a ' poor-ground '), less than an acre and a half, — less than a third of what it ought to be, — and its appearance is very far from creditable to the parish ; though in all such cases a churchyard must resemble a kitchen-garden much more than a field ; not a pleasant, but, unhappily, a very true comparison. The ground (to the south only) of the large church of Spitalfields is too small for 20,000 inhabitants. St. George's, and other parishes beyond the Tower, are rather better ; but if the whole of Stepney churchyard is not yet occupied, it cannot always, though very large, last as the only one for 90,000 inhabitants. Some suburbs — as Hackney (especially), Kensington, Chelsea, and Newington, but not the ' Borough ' — are in a better state than more inward parishes ; but reasons for a better system will occur in more than one of them. In the Borough, St. Saviour's churchyard has very properly, though too lately, been closed. The writer first perceived a certain effect above ground here, in London. There is also a small enclosure at some almshouses — the aggregate quite insufficient for 20,000 inhabitants. Christ Church, with the same population, is not much better furnished — the ground very dirty. St. George's, with 46,000 inhabitants, the writer believes, much too limited : St. Olave's and St. John's better. The town district of Lambeth tolerable. St. John's, Waterloo Road, auxiliary to the same, has a ground of moderate size, much and becomingly ornamented with flowers, but fast tenanted. St. Paul's, Deptford, though a very considerable churchyard, is said to be, in parts, in a very bad condition, not very unlike the most horrible of all — Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. At Greenwich the churchyards are getting inadequate to the doubled population — 30,000. Of extra-mural City parishes, Aldersgate has a very neat churchyard, but not sufficient for 5000 inhabitants. Bishopsgate, 12,000, must be termed both limited and slovenly; the keeping graves for the BURIAL-PLACES 239 poor enclosed and unfilled up here, a practice stopped several years ago at St. Giles, has been denounced by the press. Aldgate, 10,000, is said to have half an acre, but it looks to the writer much less. A shocking accident here, a few years back, called attention to the subject. The inhabitants of neighbouring houses are often obliged to keep their windows shut to exclude the vitiated atmosphere ; — surely a crying fact, requiring little addition" (Urban Burials and London Churchyards, Pamphlet I. pp. 4, 5-7). " In considering the ' City ' churchyards, the Population Table should be consulted^ and some other circumstances inquired into : the whole might, in some cases, tell a very lenient tale, in others a very shocking one. Some, from associations, it rather goes ' against the heart ' to speak against. If not large, they are sometimes, as at All Hallows, Thames Street, and St. Olave's, Crutched Friars, decent and secluded. In some cases they are behind the church, scarcely to be seen at all, as St. Martin's, Ludgate ; but it may be gathered that they are very small, little more than the site of a dwelling-house. Two of the neatest open ones, of respectable size, are in the neighbourhood of Queen Street, one belonging to the handsome church of St. Michael Royal, College Hill. St. ^Martin Orgars' — a tower without a church — is tolerably large. Of too small ones are St. Magnus, London Bridge, with a third parish added, All Hallows Staining, Mark Lane, probably St. Ann's, Blackfriars, and too many others. St. Andrew's Undershaft, Leadenhall Street, with a grand interior, the ' King,' facile princeps, of churches which survived the Fire, is disgraced, beyond most, in its burying-ground. Dr. Knapp, Sub-Dean of St. Paul's, formerly known to the writer, gave evidence before a Parliamentary Committee that he was obliged by medical direction to leave the parsonage-house, immediately in front, to save his life, owing to the pernicious effects of the church- yard. Little needs adding, beyond wonder that parishioners would keep it up. The population is over 1200. But the provision for funerals may be twenty yards by eight — about twice as large as a ' merchant's dining-room,' and looking much like a fallow cabbage-bed. St. Catherine Cree, adjoining (2000), has a small ground behind the church. But as the door — there is no gate — is kept rigidly locked by the sextoness, even on Sundays, it may be supposed, without uncharitableness, that as it must be very small, concealment may not be undesirable. St. Mary-at-Hill, a very respectable church (the parish containing part of the Custom House), with similar population to St. Andrew's, is even worse off in size. The ' churchyard ' is about fifty feet by twenty-five ! However, it has been lately covered with mould and gravel ; let us hope with an honest conviction of an early cessation of occupation. St. Peter's, Cornhill (about 700 inhabitants), has a ground the size of two not very large parlours. It is covered with grass, but the ' bone vault,' when once left carelessly open, told an ugly tale. St. Michael's is larger, and appears little used, but the reader must not be sure where he sees a 'flower- bed ' — however politic or amiable to place it there — that there are not bodies within two or three feet of the surface. Probably this does not apply here, but the general hint may not be undesirable. St Stephen's, Coleman Street, considered a humane and liberal parish, with the largest population ST. CATHERINE CREE IN IS42 From The Illustrated London Neivs, 240 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ' within the walls,' nearly 4000, is dreadfully situated as to burial. On the north side is an extremely small ' slip,' and on the south what appears merely a paved yard, but is known to be almost ' bursting ' with coffins, in vaults. In fact, without this, the interment of the dead would be miraculous, and, as it is, may be judged of by others. Three abolitions of churches and churchyards have occurred within the last twenty years. St. Michael's, Crooked Lane — and here the consequences of removing the bodies were recorded, at the time, to have been so miserable and cruel, that, coupled with former threatened riots at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields (under the writer's own observation), they will be a warning against any such system — St. Bartholomew's, Exchange, and St. Benet Fink " ( Urban Burial and London Churchyards, Pamphlet I. pp. 8, 9). " Going now out of the City, St. Pancras churchyard, though not a crying bad one, cannot, however, be sufficient with seven acres for 126,000 inhabi- tants. The fact of there being other grounds within the parish, occasionally used by the in- habitants, may mitigate blame. Marylebone, 146,000, having two or three grounds, is better, but there are no alien grounds, to the writer's knowledge, available within the parish. St. Martin's ground has been improved, and a tall iron railing erected on the east side, instead of a dwarf wall. Here are many good almshouses, at the west end, erected under the incumbency of the good Archdeacon Pott ; which are the best ornament that could be wished. Paddington has a very large and neat church- yard, with an addition, for its 25,000 inhabitants, and is one of the best instances of proportion in London. Hampstead, besides its beautiful old hilly churchyard, with antique spreading yews, has one of fair size on an opposite slope. Highgate, besides a very small ground, is merged in St. Pancras. The church ground at St. Giles-in-the-Fields may be very reasonably closed, on account of the sufficient ground at St. Pancras" (Urban Burial and London Churchyards, Pamphlet I. pp. 10, 11). "At the west end we find first, beyond Temple Bar, the worst in London, St. Clement Danes, with about 16,000 inhabitants, all but 'damned to everlasting fame' for its graveyards. At the church a decent grave can only be had at the paved west end, at proportionate expense. The rest of the ' border,' for it is little more round the church, is, from incessant disturbance, as loose as the ' shaking fen of Croyland.' The writer, however, knows that the rector, the Rev. Mr. Ellis, is an honourable and humane man, therefore would not fear his opposition to improvement. The Portugal Street ground is truly shocking. On the testimony of two professors of King's College, who examined it to see if planting trees were practicable, it is crammed with coffins no less than two feet, in some places fifteen inches, below the surface, and yet 'the work goes on.' The dreadful practice carried on in rather a ' shambles ' than a ' Golgotha ' (about a third of an acre) has been exposed half a dozen times. One thing the writer will add from ocular observation. They are obliged to put up ' coping boards ' on the side of a grave, to prevent the public seeing the ' work,' before the digger is in to his knees. This, however, does not save the inhabitants of overlooking houses in Clement's Lane, who make dreadful complaints ; in addition to which, fever, ' The Pestilence that walketh in Darkness,' broods over the ST. MARYLEBONE CHURCH IN 1842 From The Illustrated London News. BURIAL-PLACES 241 miserable place. Anything ought to have been done by a metropolitan parish, perhaps kind in other respects to its poor, sooner than have kept up this abomination. St. Mary-le-Strand, with 3000 inhabitants, has, besides vaults, a very poor and small ground, rank and dirty, in Russell Court, Drury Lane, seen through a rusty iron and wooden gate, and overlooked by houses, perhaps in extent little more than half a rood. The Savoy precinct, under 500 inhabitants, has a small ground decent in appearance, but effluvia has been strongly complained of when the ground is opened. ' The Society for establishing Baths and \Vash-houses ' may and does do much good ; and the writer has the pleasure of knowing the honorary secretary, Mr. James Farish, M.B., ever the gratuitous and charitable friend of the poor. He will merely submit for such gentlemen's consideration, that it will be little use for the poor man to get cleaned, if he must anywhere return to an atmosphere vitiated by one of the most dreadful of earthly causes. The ground at Covent Garden would appear comparatively sufficient for 6000 inhabitants ; its appearance, however, when turned up, and other statements, show it to be, in parts, not in a good state. Without knowing the opinion on this precise subject of the esteemed rector, the Rev. Mr. Bowers, the writer has had reasons to know he would support anything he thought of sound policy and humanity. St. James's cemetery, with Dr. Stebbing's chapel, has been elsewhere alluded to. St. Margaret's, Westminster — 30,000 inhabitants — appears to the writer about one acre and a quarter. This was condemned by a Parliamentary Committee thirty years ago, or upwards, as 'a place which could not be kept up, affecting the cellars of neighbouring houses ' (since pulled down). Rather a strong fact. Effluvia here, above ground, has been several times mentioned, and felt by the writer. But he was told by the present humane Dean of Westminster, not a friend to abuses, that this was caused by a gas pipe, and wishes that may account for the whole. Parts of this ground may be comparatively favoured — in others the ' walls of coffins ' and ' baskets full of bones ' speak otherwise. Illness and sudden death of the grave-diggers have been recorded ; but it is not singular in that. There is also a small ground in the ' Broadway.' This, some years back, was painful to examine. A coffin of a poor man was deposited barely eighteen inches from the surface, and there was effluvia from open graves. Another of a ' respectable man ' — three feet — was stated to be a good depth there. This ground has been curtailed by the erection of an enlarged church ; it can scarcely, therefore, unless mpch disused, have practically improved. St. John's, the remarkable edifice with four cupola towers of Vanbrugh (25,000), is much better, having a ground, green and neat, of four acres, a short distance from the church" {Urban Burial and London Churchyards, Pamphlet I. pp. 12-14). So much for the space. There are many people still living who can remember the appearance of the small City churchyard, the surface littered about with skulls, and bones, and bits of coffins. But there were far worse places than the yards of the City churches : there were the private burial-grounds carried on for a profit by the proprietors whose only care was to see that room could be made for new graves from day to day. I proceed to give some of the evidence adduced by Dr. Walker. I. The Spa Fields Burial-ground. "Spa Fields burial-ground was originally taken for a tea-garden; the speculation failed, and a chapel was built upon it, in which some ministers of the Church of England preached. The Bishop refused to consecrate, and it was ultimately bought by Lady Huntingdon ; she inducted one of her chaplains, and it is now much frequented. The burying-ground is very large, but absolutely saturated with dead. This place offers a difficult problem for solution ; no undertaker can explain it, excepting by a shrug of the 16 242 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY shoulders. I can affirm, from frequent personal observation, that enormous numbers of dead have been deposited here." " This ground is surrounded by houses, many of them tenanted by respectable individuals. On the right is a one-story erection, a bone-house. For some months past the neighbouring inhabitants having observed flame and sparks issuing from the chimney, entertained apprehensions that improper practices were in progress, and, on a recent occasion, called upon the engine-keeper of the parish for his assistance in extinguishing what they believed to be a fire. He demanded admission, but was refused and resisted by the grave-digger. Being determined, however, to execute his duty, he seized a crowbar, and having threatened to break in the door, it was opened. He observed a great quantity of coffin wood piled round the room drying, a fire made entirely of coffins in the grate, and portions of human bones also. The engine-keeper particularly noticed the appearance of the chimney, and charged the grave-digger with having used water to extinguish the flame, which was denied ; and he was told what he ' thought was water, was pitch ' ; and this was the fact. Thick flakes of pitch were adhering to the inside of the chimney, thus giving palpable evidence of the material consumed, viz. coffin wood, — about 2 lbs. of pitch being used in 'pitching' round the inner joints of an ordinary coffin. The inhabitants of Exmouth Street, Fletcher Row, Vineyard Gardens, and Northampton Row, in the immediate neighbourhood, have frequently complained of ' a tremendous stench ' of a pecuHar kind, which they say proceeds from the burning of human remains and coffins. On a late occasion, when Walters, the engine-driver — an active, intelligent, and determined man — proceeded with the engine on an alarm of fire in the bone-house, he was surrounded by a great crowd composed chiefly of women, who declared that 'the stench was abominable,' and adjured him 'for God's sake to do all he could to get rid of this.' Wheelbarrow loads of coffin wood have frequently been removed across the ground from an opposite building to the bone-house, and hot ashes conveyed from it in return and thrown into the graves. This burying-ground does not contain more than two acres, which will receive and give decent burial to 2722 adults. Spa Fields ground has been employed for interment upwards of fifty years. The average yearly number may be stated at 1500. There have been thirty-six burials in one day, but, strange to say, scarcely a human bone can be seen on the surface, it being the practice to have the ground raked and levelled every Monday morning" {Spa Fields Golgotha, Pamphlet II. pp. 13-14). II. Enon Chapel, Clement's Lane, "is situate on the western side of Clement's Lane, Strand. It is surrounded on all sides by houses, which are crowded with inhabitants, chiefly of the poorer class. The upper part of the building was opened for the purposes of public worship on the i6th April, and the first body was deposited on the 6th October 1822. A boarded floor separates the chapel from the cellar beneath, which has been devoted to the dismemberment and desecration of the dead. This lower part, kitchen, cellar, or ' dust-hole,' call it what you will, which used to be entered by a crazy flight of five or six wooden steps from the inside of the chapel, its dim and murky area being illumined by the miserable light of a few candles, which served to render its horrors and its darkness more apparent, was for many years the cheap burying-place of this miserable, this wretched district. The reverend proprietor, thinking himself as much entitled to a vested right in pestilence as some others, stuffed his chapel in the very midst of human habitations, and, as I have informed you, commenced his exhortations to the living, and his ' management ' of the dead, almost at the same time. The burial-place measures in length 59 feet 3 inches, or thereabouts, and in width about 28 feet 8 inches, so that its superficial contents do not exceed 1700 square feet. Now, allowing for an adult body only 12 feet, and for the young, upon an average, 6 feet, and supposing an equal number of each to be there deposited, the medium space occupied by each would be 9 feet ; if, then, every inch of ground were occupied, not more than 189 (say 200 in round numbers) could be placed upon the surface; and admitting (an extravagant admission most certainly) that it were possible to place six tiers of coffins upon «ach other, the whole space could not contain more than 1200; and yet it is stated with confidence, and BURIAL-PLACES 243 by credible authority (as you shall presently see), that from 10,000 to 12,000 bodies have been deposited in this very space within sixteen years ! The ' dust-hole,' as it is familiarly called by undertakers, is entered from the inside of the chapel by a trap-door, and the joists which support the floor of the chapel are not even covered with the usual defence — lath and plaster. Let us now proceed to reveal from the mouths of competent witnesses the modes of ' management ' which enabled the reverend proprietor to derive during a period of about six years, that is, from October 6, 1822, to December 1828, the sum of Nine Hundred and Fifty-One Pounds Five Shiliings for burials in a cellar measuring 59 feet by 29 feet, while he rendered it perhaps the most infamous of the charnel- houses of this metropolis. Mr. Samuel Pitts, cabinetmaker, of 14 Catherine Street, Strand, thus describes the place: 'At the time I attended it, which was from about the year 1828, for six or seven years, there were interments, and the place was in a very filthy state ; the smell was most abominable and very injurious ; I have frequently gone home myself with a -severe headache, which I suppose to have been occasioned by the smell, more particularly in the summer-time ; also, there were some insects, something similar to a bug in shape and appearance, only with wings, about the size of a small bug. I have seen in the summer-time hundreds of them flying about the chapel ; I have taken them home in my hat, and my wife has taken them home in her clothes ; we always considered that they proceeded from the dead bodies underneath ; there was nothing but the thin boards between the depository and the chapel, and there were openings between owing to the shrinking of the boards.' In order to explain the difficult problem of placing in such a receptacle 10,000 or 12,000 bodies, Mr. Pitts stated that numbers of the bodies had been removed to make room for others ; that the minister's copper, employed for the purposes of washing, was warmed with coffin wood, and his kitchen fire was kept going with the same material ; that a sewer ran through the very centre of the vault, so situate that any inconvenient surplus might be quietly disposed of ; and finally, that a Sunday School for children was held over this abominable receptacle of putrid and decaying mortality. But our evidence does not rest here. The removal of human remains — the clearing out of the place — was distinctly proved by Mr. William Burn, the master carman who did the job. The sewer, to which I have just alluded, was enlarged and made more secure by the Commissioners of Sewers. Mr. Burn says the work was superintended by persons connected with the office of the Commissioners; that he removed upwards of sixty loads of 'dust' from the hole — so much 'rubbish,' as he called it, — which was shot at the foot of Waterloo Bridge. The rubbish (among which, he says, was a human hand as perfect as his own, and which did not appear to have been buried a month) consisted of human bodies in a state of putrefaction. This rubbish assisted to fill up inequalities where 'rubbish might be shot' Mr. Burn says that, to him, the work was most disgusting and repulsive. ' He never saw such a sight, with coffins broken up.' When questioned touching the sewer, Mr. Burn replied, 'I have no doubt whatever that bodies have been slipped down the sewer ' " [Metropolitan Graveyards, Sec. 2, Pamphlet III. PP- 15-17)- III. The Green Ground, Portugal Street. " This ground belongs to the parish of St. Clement Danes ; it is commonly known by the name of the ' Green Ground,' and has been in use as a burying-place beyond the memory of man. The soil of this ground is saturated, absolutely saturated, with human putrescence. On Saturday the 27th April 1839, at 5 p.m., I went, accompanied by a friend, to Nos. 30 and 31 Clement's Lane, and, upon looking through the windows of the back attics, we saw two graves open, close to the south-eastern extremity of this burying-ground. Several bones were lying on the surface of the grave nearest to us a large heap of coffin wood was placed in readiness for removal, and, at a small distance, a heap covered with coarse sacking was observed, which, when the covering was taken off, proved also to be long pieces of coffin wood, evidently not in a decayed state. The nails were very conspicuous. Several basketfuls of wood were taken to a building at the south-west extremity of the ground. We were informed that this sight was by no means a novel one ; it was commonly, almost daily, observed. The cloth covering of 244 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY the wood appeared to be nearly as fresh as when interred. The grave-diggers were seen to take off tin plates from the coffins broken up" (Walker's Gatherings from Graveyards, pp. 150-15 1). In this place was buried Joe Miller of facetious memory, who died August 15, 1738, aged fifty- four years. IV. St. Clement's Church, Strand. "There is a vault under this church called the 'Rector's Vault,' the descent into which is in the aisle of the church near the communion table, and when opened the products of the decomposition of animal matter are so powerful that lighted candles, passed through the opening into the' vault, are instantly extinguished; the men at different times employed have not dared to descend into the vault until two or three days had elapsed after it had been opened, during which period the windows of the church also were opened to admit the perflation of air from the street to occupy the place of the gas emitted ; thus a diluted poison is given in exchange from the dead to the hving in one of the most frequented thoroughfares of the metropolis. The other vaults underneath the church are also much crowded with dead. From some cause, at present doubtful, these vaults were discovered to be on fire upwards of fifty years ago ; they continued burning for some days, and many bodies were destroyed. At the eastern side of this church a pump was formerly fixed ; this, within the previous month, has been removed, and a brick erection placed upon its site ; the well was sunk in the year 1807, but the water had become so offensive, both to smell and taste, that it could not be used by the inhabitants '' (Walker's Gatherings from Graveyards, pp. 158-159). V. " Drury Lane Burying-Ground belongs to the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields ; many thousands of bodies have been here deposited. The substratum was, some years since, so saturated with dead that the place ' was shut up ' for a period. The ground was subsequently raised to its present height — level with the first floor windows surrounding the place — and in this superstratum vast numbers of bodies have, up to this period, been deposited. A short time since a pit was dug (a very common practice here) in one corner of the ground ; in it many bodies were deposited at different periods, the top of the pit being covered only with boards. This ground is a most intolerable and highly dangerous nuisance to the entire neighbourhood. Rather more than two years ago, in making three areas to the centre houses on the western side of this burying-ground, many bodies were disturbed and mutilated ; the inhabitants of the houses are frequently annoyed by the most disgusting and repulsive sights" (Walker's Gatherings, pp. 162-163). VI. Russell Court. " This burying-ground belongs to the parish of St. Mary-le-Strand ; in its original state it was below the level of the adjoining ground, now the surface is on a line with the first floor windows of the houses entirely surrounding this place. It has long been in a very disgusting condition, but within the last month the surface has been 'cleaned up,' and the whole may now be called 'the whited sepulchre.' A man who had committed suicide was buried here on the 20th May 1832 ; the body was in the most offensive condition, and was placed within a very little distance of the surface. About twenty years ago, Mr. , a very respectable tradesman in the neighbourhood, was employed to make a ' cold air drain ' at the west end of this ground ; for this purpose it was necessary to cut through the wall of an adjoining house ; on taking up the ground floor of this house, large quantities of human bones were found scattered about — it was supposed they had been dragged thither by rats, vast numbers of which annoy the inhabitants in the proximity of this burying-ground" (Walker's Gatherings, pp. 163-164). VII. St. Giles's Churchyard. " What a horrid place is Saint Giles's churchyard ! It is full of coffins up to the surface. Coffins are broken up before they are decayed, and bodies are removed to the ' bone-house ' before they are sufficiently decayed to make their removal decent. The effect upon the atmosphere, in that very densely populated spot, must be very injurious. I had occasion to attend the church with several gentlemen on Tuesday ; being required to wait, we went into this Golgotha ; near the east side we saw a finished grave, into which projected a nearly sound coffin ; half of the coffin had been chopped away to complete the shape of the BURIAL-PLACES 245 new grave. A man was standing by with a barrowful of sound wood, and several bright coffin plates. I asked him, ' Why is all this ? ' and his answer was, ' O, it is all Irish.' We then crossed to the opposite corner, and there is the ' bone-house,' which is a large round pit ; into this had been shot, from a wheel- barrow, the but partly-decayed inmates of the smashed coffins. Here, in this place of 'Christian Burial,' you may see human heads, covered with hair; and here, in this 'consecrated ground,' are human bones with flesh still adhering to them. On the north side a man was digging a grave ; he was quite drunk, so indeed were all the grave-diggers we saw. We looked into this grave, but the stench was abominable. We remained, however, long enough to see that a child's coffin, which had stopped the man's progress, had been cut, longitudinally, right in half; and there lay the child, which had been buried in it, wrapped in its shroud, resting upon the part of the coffin which remained. The shroud was but little decayed. I make no comments ; every person must see the ill effects if such practices are allowed to continue " (Walker's Gatherings, pp. 165-166). These extracts are enough, and more than enough, to prove the truly awful condition of the burial-places of London. Dr. Walker gives many more facts, but they are repetitions. We find in all of them the same things — the deep grave piled and packed with coffins of the poor to within a few inches of the surface ; the violation of the grave ; the cutting up of the bodies with the spade and shooting all together into a common pit ; the burning of coffin wood all day and all night ; the robbery of dead women's hair, and dead men's teeth, and coffin plates and handles ; the horrible stench from vaults and from open graves ; fever always clinging to the houses round the churchyards ; the grave-diggers a drunken savage crew, many of whom fell victims to the dangers of their horrible calling and died, as one of them described it, rotten through and through. If it is amazing to read such things and to realise that worthy and God-fearing men and women knew of them and paid no heed, it is still more amazing to read the arguments by which Dr. Walker had to persuade people that something must be done ; how he had to prove that these places were dangerous to the public health ; how they were unnecessary ; how shameful and disgraceful it was that the poor remains of one whose life had perhaps been a long pilgrimage spent in good deeds, bestowing and receiving love and respect, should be torn up a few weeks after death and brutally chopped to pieces by a grave-digger. However, he succeeded in awakening the conscience and the indignation of the people. At last, in 1850, the Board of Health was made a Burial Board for the metropolis, and power was given to the Privy Council to close the City graveyards. As regards the old City churches. There was something to be said from the side of sentiment. Old families had vaults where their people had been buried for generations : their monuments were in the churches : they felt that they belonged to the parish and should be buried in the parish. On the other hand, there were not many of these families. The City folk come and go : to-day there are a hundred names in great honour : look again in a hundred years and not one will be left : so it has been from the beginning. I have already called attention to the fact that the great merchants of London have not, as a rule, founded great families 246 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY continuing as merchant adventurers. Also, in the first third of the century London was rapidly clearing out into the country. By the year 1840 or so very few wealthy or well-to-do people were left as residents. The question of the burial- ground, therefore, chiefly affected the poor — the " service " — who remained behind. Another objection, which does not seem to have been raised, was this. It is undoubtedly a loss to the religious feeling of a town when they have no longer before them the comtemplation of death and burial. Formerly the "frequent funeral blackened " the streets every day ; and every day the citizen going about his business saw the group standing around the grave while the clergyman in white read the service of consolation and of hope. As this objection was not raised, it was not, probably, felt. By the new arrangements we only see dust committed to dust and ashes to ashes when it is one of our own flock who has been taken away and will be no more seen. Again, there can be no doubt that the introduction of cremation is certain to spread and to become the general practice. From every point of view it must. The imagination recoils at the thought of the loathsome end, the long putrefaction of this poor body when the soul has fled ; the numbers which one hears — in one of the cemeteries in the East Finchley Road there have been 300,000 interments since it was opened some thirty years ago. This multitude are all, I believe, undistinguished. When the grandson goes, the memory of each perishes. Why lumber the earth with his grave ? Why set up a stone to commemorate a name no longer on the lips or in the documents of men ? And if the dead man was in his time a person eminent and distinguished, what need of a stone to keep his memory green ? Better far the wholesome fires of the crematory and the little vase with its handful of white ashes. In the twentieth century the cemeteries will be closed, the graves levelled, the headstones removed: they will became like the older churchyards, gardens and recreation grounds, while in some building will be preserved in rows, as long as any survive who desire their preservation, the vases which contain the ashes of the dead. Turning now more especially to the City graveyards, we find that these burial-places, closed and locked up, fell into a decaying and scandalous condition ; the headstones sank down and inclined backwards or forwards ; the square tombs showed broken slabs and ruined sides ; the place itself, a small enclosure neglected, never opened, hidden away up a court and surrounded by houses, became a receptacle for rubbish of every kind ; broken bottles, bones, tins, paper, bits of rusty iron, every worthless and ignoble thing conceivable was thrown out of the windows into these poor, melancholy, deserted burial-places : the iron gates rusted away ; the padlock and chain that fastened the gates were rusting away ; the places were clean forgotten ; no one cared for them ; the dead, whose names had been in mocking commemoration on illegible headstones, had long since been forgotten even as to their existence, to say nothing of the place of their interment — the average BURIAL-PLACES 247 Londoner never asks, never cares to know, who and what were his ancestors ; if he rises a little in the world, he is ashamed to inquire ; if he rises a great deal he is apt to " hitch on " to some family of position whose name resembles his own. But the great-grandfather, whose bones lie mouldering in the miserable burial-ground of Drury Lane among other ignoble and forgotten dead, he neither knows nor remembers. When, therefore, it was proposed to convert these waste and scandalous places into recreation grounds and gardens, there was no one, as a rule, to offer the least objection. " The tombstones," said the innovators gravely, " shall be removed reverently and preserved." On such occasions enough has been done for the dead when the word reverently has been pronounced. Then the workmen are turned in. They " reverently " preserve the headstones by placing as many of them as space allows against the wall ; they level the earth ; they chuck the bones into a wheelbarrow ; they leave the most handsome cellar tomb on which is a name that no one knows — where — where are the descendants of the occupants immortalised by these memorial stones ? They plant the turf; lay down asphalte for paths ; put up benches ; lay out flower-beds ; put in shrubs, and the burial-ground becomes a garden, and the last trace of those who lie buried beneath is obliterated. It is, of course, much better so. By this time nearly all the old City church- yards are gone. In their place we have hundreds of pretty gardens with walks, and seats, and shrubs, and flowers ; we have asphalted spaces on which the old men walk and the children play. All the year round, except in the very severe weather when the snow is falling and icicles hang from the wall, we may see the old people who are past work sitting in the sun ; we may see the little girls carrying their smaller sisters ; we may see the children playing over the spot which was once foul with every kind of abomination. CHAPTER IV the plunder of the city churches By Sir Walter Besant For the last twenty years the hand of the Destroyer has been busy with the City churches. No historical associations, no veneration for the churches of our forefathers, have been able to protect the ancient sites and the buildings, now at least two hundred years old Not a church in the City but had its history, covered the bones of some great citizens, and was enshrined around and below by the dust of dead citizens. The plea has been, first, the desertion of the city ; and next, the need of money to build new churches in the outlying districts of the Metropolis. It is, indeed, wonderful that no one. Archbishop, Bishop, or Commissioner, has shown the least regard for consecrated churches and church- yards. The former have been ruthlessly pulled down, and on the human dust and ashes below warehouses have been built. Where there were vaults, we were informed that the bones had been " reverently " removed. Those who have seen the men at work with their shovels will appreciate the " reverence." I have before me a pamphlet issued by the " City Church Preservation Society" (1894) called the Plunder of the City Churches. This pamphlet exposes the facts that the destruction of the churches and the sale of the sites, although defended by the assurance that all the money goes to the erection of suburban churches, has in every case ended in the lawyers, and others interested in the sales, getting most of the money. The following figures are taken from this pamphlet. Up to i860 only four churches, of those which survived, or were erected, after the Fire, had been destroyed, viz.: St. Christopher le Stock, incorporated in the Bank of England; St. Michael, Crooked Lane ; St. Bartholomew by the Exchange, and St. Benet Fink — the last two in order to improve the thoroughfares near the Royal Exchange. In place of these four churches one new church, St. Bartholomew, Moor Fields, has been erected. " Vested interests and costs swallowed up the remainder of the sum realised by the disposal of these sites." In i860 came the Union of Benefices Act. The first church destroyed was 248 THE PLUNDER OF THE CITY CHURCHES 249 St. Benet, Gracechurch Street, united with All Hallows, Lombard Street. The figures are very instructive. The amount realised by the sale was ^24,650. The costs were as follows, with shillings and pence omitted : — Auctioneers ^0659 Legal Expense -^545 Removal of Human Remains . . ;62io4(?) Expended on All Hallows, Lombard Street . -^5 5 00 Erecting and Endowing St. Benet, Stepney . ^15,000 So that out of ;^24,ooo three-eighths were expended before anything was given to the suburban church. In addition it is stated that ^12,000 was lost in the sale of the site, which ought to have fetched ^36,650. So that practically not five-eighths but five- twelfths, a good deal less than half, were given for the suburban church. The church of St. Dionis, Backchurch, was united to All Hallows in 1876. It was provided in the scheme of union that ^200 a year should be given to St. Michael's, Clapton, one of the most wealthy of suburban churches, which contributed from ^500 to ^600 a year to Home and Foreign Missions. The sum of ^^150 a year was given to a church in a really poor neighbourhood. The church of St. Mary Somerset, Thames Street, produced the sum of ^10,587. The costs were .1^3071. St. Mildred's, Poultry, realised ^49,550. Of this large sum ^9000 was given for the erection of St. Paul's, Clerkenwell, for which no endowment was granted. On the church of the United Benefice ^6000 was spent, and ^1500 was given for the augmentation of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe. The cost and expenses are not given. St. Martin, Outwich, produced ^37,631. On the church of the United Benefice ^10,843 was spent. On three new churches ^24,000. St. James's, Duke Place, Aldgate, produced ^6601. On the church of the United Benefice ^4621 was spent, and towards the erection of St. John, Red Lion Square, ^1980, and so on. In all, up to 1894, the amount realised by the sale of nine churches was ^^228, 324, and the amount spent on erecting twelve suburban churches was ^133,719. But ;^50,ooo is estimated as a sum to be added to the value of the churches, making the total ^^278, 324. So that less than half has been devoted to the purpose which permitted the only excuse possible for the destruction of these churches. It is hoped, however, that public opinion has been awakened, and that the parishioners will at last refuse their consent to the destruction of more churches. Of course the same excuse might be alleged as a reason for pulling down St. Paul's and selling the site and the materials. Very likely it will be so alleged when there is another demand for money. SOCIETIES AND CLUBS CHAPTER I societies By Sir Walter Besant The growth of the feeHng that in endeavour, in action, in objects of every kind, union and united effort are better than individual effort has been very rapid during the nineteenth century and especially during the latter half of it. It is now well understood that if anything has to be done or attempted, if trade interests are to be defended, if injurious legislation is to be checked, if a grievance has to be removed and an evil prevented, then a Society must be formed. Formerly if a man had acquired special information, or had hunted down a particular wrong, he wrote a pamphlet about it. In a few cases the pamphlet proved effective ; in ninety- nine cases out of a hundred it fell flat. This method has now fallen into decay. Next, this reformer wrote to the papers ; perhaps Jie obtained the distinction of large type ; perhaps he was honoured with a leading article on the subject ; there the matter rested until, as Mr. Gladstone used to say, public opinion was " ripe '' for the reform desired. How is public opinion ripened ? There is but one way : to keep on hammering at the thing in season and out of season, and the best method of doing this is by means of a Society. I have taken for the purposes of this chapter the list of societies published in Kelly's Directory of London. This list contains 1302 associations, societies, unions, leagues, committees, etc., for various objects. It is a most surprising list, partly on account of the vast interests represented; which are those of the whole trade of London and the country ; partly because it includes most of the crafts ; partly because the associations cover so many branches of work and research, and partly because they include so many people — the sick, the poor, the aged, the afflicted of all kinds, and the helpless — and partly because they include so many societies for the promotion of fads and hobbies. I do not think that this list includes all the unions and associations of the trades. Mr. Charles Booth ^ gives under each trade a list of the unions belonging to that trade. It is not, however, my object to enumerate them or to make a complete list of trade societies. It will be sufficient in this place to illustrate the extent to ■' Life and Labour of the London Poor. 253 254 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY which voluntary association has been carried by a rough analysis of the list given in the Directory. The first list is called General. It contains a great many societies which might be more fitly placed under the head of " Trades and Professions." I will consider them all under this head. Some of the religious associations might also be carried over to other classes. Let us, however, select a few. Some of the societies which fall under the heading of Political are very important ; some may become important. The London Reform Union, the International Arbitration League, the Commons and Footpaths Preservation Association, the Charity Voting Reform Association, the Peace Society, the Early Closing Society, the Municipal Corporation Society, all of these look as if there was plenty of work for them. Others, again, have a hopeless look ; the International Brotherhood League — surely born before its time ; the Personal Rights Association ; the Ladies' National Association ; the Labour Protection Society — one asks how far these associations are practical. There is a Society called the " Copyright Protection Office," which gives an address at Islington; one would like to know the history and the present work of this Society. The Anglo-American Travellers' Association may be carrying on an excellent and most laudable work, but its nature is hardly indicated by its title. One fails, at first, to understand the meaning of the Roads Improvement Society. The Personal Rights Society looks aggressive. In all there are some twenty-six societies which may be called Political. These, however, do not include the many Liberal and Conservative bodies which are found in every borough. Medical. Under this head I do not include the Hospitals, Infirmaries, and Dispensaries. I observe a Society for the Abolition of Vivisection, a London Anti-Vivisection League, a National Anti-Vivisection League, a National Anti- Vivisection Society, and a National Anti-Vivisection Hospital Fund. Surely here is considerable waste of rent, salaries, and committee work. But the multi- plication of these societies proves how strong is the feeling against the practice of vivisection, and how very slow the public mind is to be convinced that the word of the doctors is to be believed and that vivisection is conducted by means of ansesthetics. A great many societies take in hand discharged prisoners, for whom they find employment ; we have reformation for the young, refuges for the destitute, life-boats, life-saving, and the protection of life ; the societies aim at protecting children, animals, and birds, from cruelty ; they exist vaguely for improving the position of the labouring classes, as a Humanitarian League, an Industrial League, and a Female Philanthropic Association. There are societies for the cultivation of sports — athletics, polo, cricket, football, field sports, hunting, cycling, archery, skating, and perhaps more. SOCIETIES 255 Agriculture demands societies for cart horses, hackney horses, sheep, dogs, shorthorns, etc. There are societies for different nationalities and countries — the Highland Society, the Gaelic, the Irish, the Scottish Corporation, the East Anglians, the Armenians, Poles, French, Belgians, Germans, Italians, Foreigners, etc. There is an extremely interesting Branch which includes fads, hobbies, and sovereign remedies. It is natural that worthy people should think that " Vice," by which they always mean one form of wickedness, can be easily suppressed by legislation, policemen, and societies. Therefore, we have the Society for the Abolition of Vice— a broad and ambitious title; the Society for the Protection of Public Morality ; a Vigilance Society ; a National Vigilance Society ; a Moral Instruction Society; and a Social Purity League. These societies have been in existence for many years : one has not heard, so far, of any diminution in the scandal of the London streets. There are Ethical Societies, which may mean anything according to the learning, or the want of it, among their members : there is a Spiritualist Society — when the doors are closed, do they permit a smile or a wink ? The London Philatelists have their Association — surely there is no more worthy or ennobling pursuit than the collection of old postage stamps. There is a National Anti-Gambling League; a Society for the Suppression of Street Nuisances; a Society for preserving Historical Monuments; a Vegetarian Society; a Society for Promoting the Festival of May. Of Benefit and Provident Societies there are 80, representing the following trades : — Artists. Beer and Wine Trade. Bookbinders. Booksellers. Builders' Foremen. Costermongers. Dealers in Fine Arts. Dock, Wharf, Riverside, General \\'orkmen. General Labourers. and G.E.R., G.N.R. Girls. Iron Founders. Law Clerks. Leather and Hide Trades. Medical. Milliners and Dressmakers. Newsvendors. Postal Telegraph (K). Post-Office Employees. Railway Guards. Shipwrights. Stationers. Stock Exchange Clerks. Teachers. Tram and Bus Workers. United Law Clerks. \Varehousemen, Travellers, Clerks. and There are 218 Benevolent Societies. They include the following trades, and endeavour to benefit the classes mentioned : — Trades Actors. Architects. Artists. Barristers. Boot and Shoemakers. Builders' Clerks. Butchers. Cab Drivers. Cabmen's Shelters. Chartered Accountants. Cheesemongers. Coal Trade. 256 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Commercial Travellers. Corn Exchange. Dairymen. Domestic Servants. Dramatic and Musical. Drovers. Factory. Firemen. Fishermen. Gardeners. Goldsmiths. Governesses. Grocers and Tea Dealers. Hackney Carriage Proprietors. Hairdressers. Lloyds. London General Porters. Merchant Seamen. Music Hall. Needlework. Omnibus Men. Papermakers. Pottery and Glass Trade. Printers. Railway Officials. Silversmiths. Silver Trade. Smiths and Hammermen. Solicitors. Stock Exchange. Tailors. Teachers. Trained Nurses. Watch and Clock Makers. Wine and Spirit Trade. Working Lads. Aborigines. Armenians. Belgians. Blind. Children. Convalescents. C.O.S. Cripples. Daughters of Officers. Epileptics. Classes Fatherless. Feebleminded. Foreigners. French. Germans. Ibero- Americans. Inebriates. Italians. Jews. Maternity. Poles. Poor Clergy. Scots. Seamen. Strangers. Widows. Working Girls. Working Ladies. Working Lads. Young Servants. There are 14 Associations for tlie help of the Blind, Deaf and Dumb; i for advancing the cause of cremation ; 50 for Educational purposes, including the Settlements, Polytechnics, the Sunday School Union, the "Navy League, etc. ; for emigration, 6; for the benefit of the Jews, 16. For Learned, Artistic, and Scientific purposes there are 141, including the following branches of science and research : — Agriculture. Anthropology. Archaeology. Architecture. Astronomy. Bibliography. Botany. Chemistry. Climatology. Clinical Work. Comparative Legislation. Dermatology. Economy. Engineering — Electrical, Mechanical, Mining. Entomology. Epidemiology. Geography. Geology Gynecology. History. Horticulture. Linnsean. Mathematics. Medicine. Meteorology. Microscopic Science. Naval Architecture. Neurology. Numismatics. Obstetrics. Ophthalmics. Optics. Ornithology. Patents. Pathology. Philology. Photography. Physical Research. Physics. Records. Statistics. Topography, London. Zoology. SOCIETIES 257 Law demands 9 societies. The Military and Naval services take 7. There are 22 Musical Societies. There are 115 Political in addition to those already mentioned under that head. These are more strictly Political than those previously enumerated belonging to party. Of Religious Societies there are 60 Church of England, 8 Roman Catholic, and 99 General. There are also 89 societies connected with mission work, tracts, and the Bible. There are 26 Temperance Societies. Finally, there are numbers of societies, associations, unions, etc., for the various trades, professions, and crafts practised in London ; altogether my list comprises over 150. This list includes the following trades, etc. : — Accountants and Auditors. Actors. Agriculture. Amusements. Aquarium Society. Architects. Art Workers. Artists. Association of Royal Warrant Holders Auctioneers. Authors. Bakers and Confectioners. Bankers. Barge Owners. Bell Porters. Bookbinders. Boot and Shoe Makers. Brewers. Bricklayers. British and Irish Millers. British Sea Anglers. Builders. Builders' Labourers. Building Societies. Butchers. Cab Drivers. Cab Proprietors' Association. Cabinet Makers. Carmen. Carpenters and Joiners. Carriage Builders. Chemical Manure Manufacturers. Chemists' Assistants. Cider Makers. Cigarette Makers. Civil and Mechanical Engineers. Clergy and Artists' Association. Coal Factors. Coal Merchants. Commercial Travellers. Compositors. Coopers. Corn Trade. Couriers. Dairy Farmers. Decorative Needlework Designers. District Surveyors. Dock, Riverside, and Wharf Union. Dramatic Authors' Society. Drapers, Mercers, Hosiers, and Haberdashers. Draughtsmen. Electrical Trades. Engine Drivers and Firemen. Engineers. Fish and Oyster Merchants. Fish Trade. French Polishers. Furniture Makers. Gas Company Protection Association G.N.R. Mutual Guarantee Fund. Gold Standard Defence Association. Goldsmiths. Grain Trade. Grocers 17 258 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Grocers' Assistants. Gun Makers. Harbours, Docks, and Piers Association. Hatters. Head Masters' Association. Head Mistresses' Association. Hop Growers. Hotel and Club Supply Association. House Decorators and Painters. Institution of Clay Workers. Institution of Gas Engineers. Inventors. Iron Trade. Jewellers. Ladies' Works. Lady Guide Offices. Law Students' Debating Society. Licensed Victuallers. Licensed Victuallers' Association. Linotype. London Employers' Association. London Penny Omnibus Association. Magistrates' Clerks. Marine Engineers. Masons. Masseuses. Master Lightsmen. Master Tailors. Medical Officers of Health. Medical Practitioners. Men Servants' Home and Mission. Music Hall Artists. Music Hall Workers. Music Publishers. Musical Instrument Makers. National Co-operative Festival. National Sea Fisheries Protection Society. National Union Boot and Shoe Operative Society. Navy Employment Agency. Newsagents and Booksellers. Newspaper Society. Oil, Colour, and Varnish Trade. Oil Seed. Oil Trades. Paper Makers. Parochial Engineers. Patent Agents. People's Refreshment House Association. Police. Postmen's Federation. Pressmen. Printers. Printers' Assistants. Printers' Warehousemen. Printsellers. Public Analysts. Public Notaries. Publishers. Railway Servants. Rice Brokers. Saddlers and Harness Makers. Sailing Barge Owners. School Masters. Ship Owners. Shipping. Shop Assistants and Clerks. Society for Promoting Employment of Women. Society for Promoting Female Welfare. Solicitors' Managing Clerks. Steamship Owners. Sugar Clearing. Tea Brokers. Tea Buyers. Teachers' Guild. Traction Engine Owners. Undertakers. Union of Typists. Union of Women Workers. Vellum Binders. Watch and Clock Makers. Waterworks Engineers. West India Planters. Wharfingers, Warehouse Keepers, and Granary Keepers. Wholesale Drapers and Grocers. Wine and Spirit Sellers. Women Journalists. Women Teachers' Agency. Women's Industrial Council. Women's Trades Union. Wood Carvers. Workers' Union. CHAPTER II CLUBS By Sir Walter Besant Without doubt the greatest social force of modern times has been the club. The sprightly Ned Ward has written a volume in which he enumerates an immense number of clubs : certain writers on social topics have accepted his descriptions as facts. Of course, he drew upon his imagination and invented clubs to suit all classes and divisions of mankind, such as the fat men's club, the thin men's club, the tall men's club, the short men's club, and so on. All through the eighteenth century every man had his club ; most men had more than one club ; the members met once a week as a rule ; sometimes they dined together ; always they drank together. There was the political club, such as the Rota, of which Milton, Marvel, Harrington, and Cyriac Skinner were members. The club advocated the retirement of members of Parliament by rotation : they also desired the use of the ballot box for all voting purposes. There were the October Club, and the Calves' Head Club, and many others. There was the Wednesday Club which met in the reign of William III. to discuss matters of finance. From this Club sprang the Bank of England. There was the Little Club, originally of three members only, who met once a week at six to discuss things of the past. This was in 1708. In 1739 they moved from the "Young Devil" Tavern to the " Mitre," having arrived at a membership of a hundred. In 1770 they began the publication of their transac- tions called the Archceologia, and in the following year the King granted them rooms in Somerset House as the Royal Society of Antiquaries. The Royal Society began in 1645 also as a small club, meeting in Dr. Goddard's lodgings in Wood Street ; then in taverns in Cheapside ; and afterwards became an incorporated society, in Gresham College. A more lively book than Ned Ward's might be written on the modern clubs, whose name is legion. The club of the present day is a kind of superior hotel in which peace and quiet reign undisturbed. The old festive club has gone, save for a few exceptions. Boodle's, the old " Topboot and Worsted Stocking " Club, still exists, but its former reputation for bad cookery has vanished. The " Sgavoir 259 26o LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Vivre " Club, which was founded to show what good eating should be, has long since vanished. The clubs whose objects was simply merriment seem to be impossible in these days. Can we conceive of sober and responsible persons like Rogers the poet and Fitzgerald belonging to a club called the " Keep the Line," whose object was to try the temper of the members by making every one rise and offer his best thanks to any other member for insulting him. What has become of the " Fielding," a literary club which actually played a pantomime at Covent Garden .-' Where are the " Owls " who kept up a perpetual drink at a tavern in Bridge Street, Covent Garden ? One reads of clubs which are now no more than names, such as the " Fabs " and the "Jelly Bags." Yet the "Vagabonds," the "Beefsteak," the "Savages," and others keep up something of the traditional good spirits and cheerfulness which were formerly considered necessary in a club. Another Society which has its origin in a club is the Royal Literary Fund. It began in a club which met at the " Prince of Wales " in Conduit Street. At one time Benjamin Franklin was its chairman. A proposal to organise something for the benefit of the poverty-stricken author was brought forward at this obscure club ; and out of this proposal, at first ridiculed but afterwards adopted and carried into effect, arose the Royal Literary Fund. The development of the West End Social Club has been a very remarkable sign of the times during the last fifty years. It indicates a great increase in wealth ; a very considerable extension of the limits within which it was formerly considered possible to call oneself "gentleman " and therefore to be admitted into a West End club : a great change in the standards of comfort, those young men who formerly were content with their steak and pint of stout now sitting down every day to a set dinner with a bottle of good wine and with all the luxuries of a club : and it marks, together with the increase of men eligible for clubs, an ever -increasing desire for separation and exclusion. I proceed to some classification of the clubs. Kelly's Directory for London presents a list of about 450 clubs of all kinds. This list must not, however, be taken as exhaustive, and it is always changing. There are an immense number of clubs which can never be introduced into a Directory, for instance, college clubs, the clubs of an institution, such as the People's Palace and the Polytechnic, clubs of boys and girls started in various parishes and connected with chapels, clubs of employes in large shops, and others. Kelly's list, however, may be taken as complete enough for the present purpose. He divides his clubs into three classes, without naming any one class. The first contains the larger and more important West End clubs, the second those of less importance with clubs for special trades, sports, etc., and the third those which belong for the most part to the working classes. Taking the first list of 98 clubs, I find that they are all more or less social clubs : in fact, the political or any other objects of the club would hardly be CLUBS 26r guessed by one entering the walls of these clubs casually. There are 12 political clubs, 9 service clubs, 5 university clubs, 7 women's clubs, and 1 1 clubs for enthusiasts in certain games and pursuits, viz. an alpine club, an automobile club, a fine arts club, a golfers' club, a polo club, and 4 clubs for hunting and sport. In the second class we find a good many social clubs which might very well have been set down in the first. It is not necessary, however, to pick them out. Among the 194 forming this class I find 39 political clubs, 4 religious, 14 for women, 2 for girls, a great .number for games, such as cricket, fencing, racquet and tennis, lawn tennis, athletics, canoeing, photography, angling, chess, cruising, yachting, fly-fishing, cycling, racing, shooting, football, and gymnastics : some for callings and trades, as the press club, the writers', the theatrical clubs, the scientific clubs ; those for nationalities, as the French, the German, the Irish, the Italian, the Caledonian ; those of trades, as the mantle makers, the cooks, the diamond merchants and jewellers, the coach makers ; and those for girls, lads, and young men. In the third class, which contains 154 clubs, we have a great many belonging to churches and chapels. They have, therefore, a religious foundation. There are between 30 and 40 of these clubs, but, as I said above, the list can never be exhaustive or complete, and it must be always changing. Of political clubs there are 27 : the working men have 10 clubs, or, including other objects, a great many more; the girls, not counting the church clubs, 15; young men and boys, not counting the church clubs, 13 ; the rest are social, foreign, and trade clubs. Many clubs are for gambling and betting purposes : many for dancing ; some for Sunday theatricals and recitals : some, under the name of a club, carry on what is practically a " disorderly " house : on these the police are always making raids ; but driven out of one place the people only flock to another. The old-fashioned club which met at a tavern or a coffee-house once a week, where members were all friends or at least acquaintances, seems to have quite fallen into decay. There are, however, a few clubs which still keep up the name, if not altogether the spirit, of the past. For instance, the Sublime Society of Beef- steaks continues : Johnson's Literary Club is said to be asleep and not dead ; the Dilettante Club, the Glee and Madrigal Club, "Our" Club founded by Charles Dickens, the Royal Astronomical Club as old as the Royal Society, the Urban Club, the Johnson Club, the Sette of Odde Volumes, the Noviomagians still continue. For ten years there was a Rabelais Club which attracted sixty or seventy from among the better known of literary men : there is now an Omar Khayyam Club which meets and dines from time to time. There are, no doubt, a great many more. There was some time ago a Toper's Club, but I fear the weakened heads of the time have succumbed to the rigour of the Rule. 262 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The development of the club and its present prospects would form an interesting subject for investigation. The lines may be here briefly indicated. We find in the nineteenth century the City families flocking in large numbers out into the country. They went north and south ; on the north they created the suburban towns of Islington, Barnsbury, Highgate, Hornsey, Hackney, and Stoke Newington. On the south they spread over Camberwell, Brixton, Clapham, Dulwich, and the riverside as far as Richmond. The old gregarious and social life of the City was thus destroyed. In its place was substituted the life of the suburb without any society ; no social gatherings or institutions ; as dull a life as mankind UNITED SERVICE CLUB, I63I From a Print in tlie Grace Collection. ever tolerated. The young men, however, as soon as they could afford to escape from the dulness of their homes, went to live in chambers and in lodgings, occupying that broad belt of London which has the longitude of Drury Lane and Fetter Lane for the west and east boundaries, and spreading north as far as the Foundling Hospital. These young men took their dinner at the Cock or the Cheshire Cheese ; they spent their evenings at the theatre and dancing Casino, in the billiard room, in each others' rooms over cards. It was not a remarkably desirable life, but it was a natural revulsion from the dreariness of the suburb. These young men gradually drifted into clubs ; it became necessary to belong to one or two clubs. Then they dined at the club instead of the tavern. And they sat down to whist in the club card-room instead of in their own chambers ; CLUBS 263 and certain amusements, formerly popular, such as the Casino and the late supper rooms, ceased to be the correct form. Of late years, however, the suburbs have developed a social life of their own ; they have theatres, they have lawn tennis clubs, they have bicycle clubs, they have their own social clubs, they have dances, dinners, subscription balls, concerts, and receptions. The girls have come out of their old retirement ; they keep up the life of the place ; they make the suburb very much more interesting to the young men than the dismal old chambers at Gray's Inn or the quiet rubber at the club. ST. JAMES'S STREET IN 180O, liROOKs's AND EOODLE's CLUBS IN THE FOREGROUND From a Print in the Grace Collection. The result is that the young men are going back to the country. There has been a very great falling off in the numbers of those who dine at the clubs ; many of the best clubs are almost deserted in the evening. Another cause of the desertion of the club is the increased popularity of the restaurants. They are more expensive than the club ; but they are bright and lively. Ladies can, and do, go to these restaurants without reproach : their presence has made a great alteration : there is always an atmosphere of cheerfulness, if not of exhilaration ; one is always welcome ; the waiters are all obliging ; and the dinner is often a great deal better than that provided at the club. All the year 264 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY round the higher class restaurants are crowded : many of the people are visitors to London : but many — an increasing number — are men who, if they were not dining here, would be dining at the club. The future of the modern political club seems doubtful. I am, for my own part, disposed to think that the principal clubs will remain : they will absorb the less important and will become themselves of much greater importance — already the National Liberal and Constitutional number nearly 7000 members apiece. As regards the ordinary social club — those who want to meet other men, that is, those whose work is of a solitary character, will always want a club : those who want to meet old friends will belong to an exclusive club, such as a service or a university club, where they are likely to meet them : those who have retired from active life and want a place where they may escape monotony and solitude will always belong to a club. But I think that to a very large number of men a club will before long be considered as no longer useful in any way. They will fall off: and the clubs of to-day will in a few years be greatly diminished both in number and in importance. I am here speaking of the West End Club. The City Club, as a luncheon club, will, of course, continue : so will the suburban club : the clubs for games and sports will, of course, go on. And, for a time, the clubs of working men will increase greatly in numbers and in power. I have not as yet been able to satisfy myself that we know the whole truth concerning working men's clubs as they at present exist : but the working man is certainly drifting away from the public-house : my reasons for thinking so are set forth elsewhere. He wants a place where he can meet other men, sit in comfort, take his tobacco and his beer, and spend the evening. In order to do this in comfort he will multiply his clubs. To sum up we may say roughly that there are now (1900) in London roughly 150 leading clubs ; this is taking a wider range than that to which the Directory is limited. Out of this astonishing total we can count about a baker's dozen confined exclusively to ladies, and possibly half as many for both sexes in common. Clubs to the number of seven survive from the eighteenth century, namely : — Arthurs', Boodle's, Brooks's, Cocoa Tree, M.C.C., Royal Thames Yacht, Smithfield. Among the most important of those founded in the last half of the nineteenth century are the Alpine, Arts, Authors', Automobile, Bachelors', Baldwin, Bath, Beaufort, Blenheim, Caledonian, Cavalry, Colonial, Conservative, Constitutional, Cyclists' Touring, Devonshire, Hurlingham, Imperial, Isthmian, Junior Army and Navy, Junior Athenaeum, Junior Carlton, Junior Conservative, Junior Constitutional, Junior Naval and Military (1899), Marlborough, National Liberal, National Sport- ing, Naval and Military, New Oxford and Cambridge, New University, Primrose, Prince's Skating, Queen's, Ranelagh, Royal Societies, Sports, Turf. The majority of these bespeak in their names an outburst of activity, mental or physical, among us. CHARITABLE WORK CHAPTER I THE SLUMS Bv Sir Walter Besant We have seen something of the slums in London in the eighteenth century, when the lowest class touched a depth of degradation never before reached, I firmly believe, by human creatures. At the close of the eighteenth century, and early in the nineteenth, there were quarters of London which could only be traversed or visited by a posse of constables ; there were no schools for the children ; the Churches were empty; there was no respect for law; every other house was a tavern, and the house between stood open for the receipt of stolen goods. The children were sent out every day to rob and pilfer ; defiance of the law was the only virtue ; the meaning of morality was unknown in any sense of the word. The houses were mostly filthy tenements in courts where there was no watch and no paving, and no attempt at all at decency or cleanliness in any shape. The worst slums were those of St. Giles', Clerkenwell, Whitechapel, Westminster, and the Borough. This state of things continued, as I have now to show, far down into the nineteenth century. But those who imagine that in visiting the worst places in the whole of the City they are looking upon a slum of 1820 or thereabouts are mistaken. There are places bad enough, but none quite so bad as those of eighty or fifty years ago. To prove this assertion I lay my hand upon a pamphlet written by George Godwin, F.R.S., Editor of the Builder, and published in 1854, and from it borrow some descriptions. There were slums of poverty pure and simple : places for working people of the unskilled kind, dependent on casual jobs, frequently out of work, and generally drunken and debauched. And there were places for poverty and for vice, where all were criminals or prostitutes, sometimes in plenty, sometimes in misery. The latter places were the so-called " Rookeries," of which there were a great many. Soho contained then, as it does still, a Rookery of the worst kind ; another occupied the site of the present High Courts of Justice ; another was at the riverside end of Villiers Street, Strand ; another beside Berwick Street and the Marlborough Police Court ; another beside Golden Square, Regent Street. Take, 267 268 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY for example, a court leading out of Berwick Street, Oxford Street. On one side of the steps was a water tank, on the other side a dust-heap, in the corner the common latrine for the whole court ; the dust-heap was seldom taken away ; the water was turned on for a quarter of an hour or so every day. The pavement consisted lof broken stones which had formerly been flat slabs ; the court contained eight rooms in front and two at the back, and was inhabited by fifty-four persons. A very crowded slum of poverty was that of Clerkenwell. To this day the place is a network, a labyrinth, of narrow courts and lanes. One lane, evi- dently the narrowest in London, is here described : until a year or two ago every house was filled with people in this terrible alley, through which the breath of heaven could never flow. But some of the courts have been taken down or widened. Thus Frying Pan Alley in St. John Street has gone ; it was 20 feet long and 2 feet broad ; it led into a long lane of squalid houses, among which were other courts — Rose Alley, Peartree Court, Broad Court, and others. At the back of these houses ran the Fleet River, open at this point till about the year i860, and thus the common sewer for a population of nearly half a million, a black, fetid stream, wafting fever and putrid vapours upward from its surface. In the rooms of these houses there were whole families living without a scrap of furniture except beds rolled up, sacking and shavings, a basket perhaps for the sale of fruit in the street ; a woman perhaps sifting old bones, cinders, scrap-iron picked up in the street. Another of the Clerkenwell slums was called Charlotte's Buildings ; this contained fifteen houses. Godwin takes one and describes every room in it. He begins with the ground-floor front : — " There are no bedsteads, chairs, or tables, a few ragged clothes are drying before a little fire in the grate, above the mantel are a looking-glass about three inches high and some torn prints of the Crucifixion, etc. ; in the cupboards, without doors, are pieces of broken crockery ; a kind of bed in one corner, with children asleep ; the floor rotten in many parts, the walls and ceiling sadly cracked. The rent is 2s. 3d. per week, which is called for every Monday, and must be paid at latest on Wednesday. The ground-floor back presented a sad scene of distress, — the man, his wife, and some children earn a living by chopping firewood ; the man had been ill, and not able to rise for two days. He was lying on a quantity of wood-shavings, and was partly covered with an old black and ragged blanket ; his skin did not appear as if it had been washed for weeks ; he was very ill, and evidently in a state of fever ; his wife was almost equally dirty. ' We have no wood to chop,' was the expression of their ultimate distress. This room was much dilapidated, and they had suffered greatly during late severe weather, owing to the broken condition of the windows. The rent is is. gd. per week; the window overlooks a back yard, SLUMS 269 the condition of which was shocking ; the senses of these poor creatures have, however, become so deadened, that they seem only to be susceptible of cold and hunger, and the grossest impurity of the atmosphere is in no way cared for. Viewing the unwholesome state of the back yard of this house (the others are equally bad), and considering the numerous places in London where similar accumulations of filth are allowed, we cannot but wonder that before this time the necessity for the formation of a sanitary police has not been admitted. The first floor, both back and front, was crowded with inhabitants. The people acknowledged that fifteen persons slept in the two little rooms the previous night ; the walls were cracked and dirty, and the ceiling constantly falls upon the floor while the inmates are taking their food : one woman said that a part of the cracked hearthstone from above had fallen amongst the children. Some of the people in the front room were employed in chopping firewood, which the children are sent out to sell. It is difficult, since the new police regulations respecting lodging-houses, to get a true account of the number who actually reside in these places, as the parties are afraid of the particulars getting to the ears of the authorities ; they, however, confessed that fifteen grown people and children slept on this floor: the rent of the front room is 2s. 3d. ; back, is. gd. Continuing our way upstairs we found the state of the staircase and the rooms worse and worse. In the front room two-pair, when our eyes had become accustomed to the Rembrandtish gloom, we found fifteen persons : some had been selling onions, etc., in the streets ; some begging ; one or two were seemingly bricklayers' labourers ; and others had been working at the carrion heaps in the neighbourhood. It was a motley group : a characteristic Irishman was seated on the top of an iron cooking- pot engaged in conversation with one whom he called ' Mr. D.' at the chimney corner. They were exceedingly polite, and no gentleman in his arm-chair could have been more courteous than our friend on his iron throne. It is, unfortunately, difficult to get truth from the poor Irish, who will impose all manner of fables upon a stranger, and we did not find this case an exception. Nearly all the Irish by whom this court is occupied agree in stating that they were driven from Ireland by sheer distress, and that many fled from almost certain death at the time of the great famine. The rent of this floor is the same as that of the floor below. The attic exhibits, if possible, greater poverty than the room below. The walls are full of large holes, and the light is visible through the roof. The rent of the attics is the same as of the floor below : it may seem strange that the prices of the rooms should not vary, but this uniformity is effected by the landlord re- moving those whose necessities are greater, or who may be a shilling or so in arrear of rent, to the upper quarters. The first feeling after visiting this place is that of astonishment that persons should be allowed to let such dilapidated buildings to these poor people, who really 270 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY pay more than a fair rent for a good house ; the rooms are seldom unoccupied, and the loss trifling. The rent would be as follows : — s. d. Four front rooms at 2S. 3d. 9 o per week Four back rooms at is. gd. . . . 70,, 16 o „ or ^41 : i2s. per annum. The population of this small court is immense. If we take an average of fifteen persons in each floor of the houses visited, and this is greatly below the number, we find sixty persons are occupying one house, and nine hundred are in the court." The establishment of the " City Hospice," an early attempt at a Model Lodging-house, of the Field Lane Ragged School by the late Earl of Shaftesbury, and the passing of the Lodging House Act, helped to break up and improve this quarter : it is still plunged in poverty, but it is no longer the Rogues' headquarters, as it was formerly. In Oliver Twist there is an account of Field Lane, for instance, X3ne of the Clerkenwell Streets : — " Near to the spot on which Snow Hill and Holborn Hill meet, there opens, upon the right hand as you come out of the City, a narrow and dismal alley leading to Saffron Hill. In its filthy shops are exposed for sale huge bunches of second- hand silk handkerchiefs of all sizes and patterns ; for here reside the traders who purchase them from pickpockets. Hundreds of these handkerchiefs hang dangling from pegs outside the windows, or flaunting from the door posts ; and the shelves within are piled with them. Confined as the limits of Field Lane are, it has its barber, its coffee-shop, its beer-shop, and its fried-fish warehouse. It is a commercial colony of itself ; the emporium of petty larceny : visited at early morning and setting in of dusk, by silent merchants, who traffic in dark back parlours, and who go as strangely as they come. Here the clothesman, the shoe vamper, and the rag merchant, display their goods as sign-boards to the petty thief; here stores of old iron and bones, and heaps of mildewy fragments of woollen stuff and linen rust and rot in the grimy cellars." In the same way the Whitechapel of Godwin's pamphlet no longer exists : — " For an hour or more we traversed narrow alleys and places which do not deserve the name of streets. Some of the courts were in decent condition ; but, although in most instances the places within the liberties of the City are provided with main drains, many of them, owing to bad pavement and the dirty habits of the people, were partly strewed with decaying matter and stagnant water. In a narrow passage near " Rag-fair," there is a piece of land in a close neighbourhood, covered with the refuse of fish, vegetables, broken baskets, dead cats and dogs, piled up, enough to create a fever in any neighbourhood. Before the summer weather sets SLUMS 271 in, a remedy for such abuses should be found. In most of the small courts in this neighbourhood the landlord obtains a rent of 3s., 3s. 6d., and even 4s. for two very small rooms, and surely ought to attend to the provision of proper drainage and paving. It seems difficult to discover the climax of London poverty and destitution. In every depth there is a deeper still. The prices of various kinds of provisions in these neighbourhoods give a forcible notion of the condition of their swarming population. In most of these neighbourhoods you can purchase a halfpennyworth of fish or a halfpennyworth of soup, and other matters in proportion. The luxuries are singular in their price and character ; a farthing's worth of damaged oranges, for example, being hawked about the streets and sold in shops. ' Rag-fair,' that well-known mart for every description of second-hand clothing, will supply good habits at any price." Another truly dreadful place was Drury Lane and its courts and by-streets. The spot is a slum still, but it is gradually improving. Clare Market is better than it was ; the narrow streets between Lincoln's Inn Fields and Drury Lane no longer bear so bad a character as they did formerly. In the eighteenth century Drury Lane, Catherine Street, Whetstone Park, were the haunts and homes of the common prostitute, who was generally a thief as well, and sometimes a murderess. One feature peculiar, one hopes, to this locality was that " until very lately " — Godwin writes in 1853 — there was no sewer at all in this part : the houses were so crowded that there were no back yards, and cesspools had to be constructed actually under the houses ! The great railway stations destroyed a large number of slums and opened up many parts of London which had previously been closed to respectable people. Remember that there were no City missions, parish ladies, Bible women, ardent curates, young men of settlements, or school-masters in these places. No one was curious about them except a magistrate like Fielding and his hated brother, and Mr. Patrick Colquhoun. Their reputation protected them ; no visitors went into these streets and there were as yet no Metropolitan Police. So that when the Railway Companies came, they bought up a slum and took its place. Thus in 1750 the present site of the S.W.R. Terminus was still a garden with meadows and trees, a very pretty spot ; in 1830 it was entirely built over and already a slum of the blackest kind : the Railway planted itself down, made the road covering an area which increased year by year, causing the erection of new and well-built houses for the residence of its employes, and substituting order for disorder. So also the G.E.R. bought up and covered over a whole web of streets at Shoreditch. In this case, however, the slum was not removed ; it remains still. King's Cross, or Battle Bridge, as it was formerly called, was in 1850 a newly developed slum of the worst kind : — 272 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY "The first place visited — a large yard surrounded by houses — contained about twenty cart-loads of oyster-shells, kept there in store for laying the foundations of roads. The smell of these was most offensive : the proprietor of the yard was out of the way, and his wife could not think how any one could complain of ' clean oyster-shells ' — forgetting that large particles of the fish adhered to each shell, and were left there to putrefy. In another part of the yard was a stack, containing many cart-loads of cowhouse and stable refuse, piled up against the back wall of a house ; here (in this very house) the doctor had at the time a case of typhus fever. The water comes in on Saturday night at six o'clock, and there is no more until six o'clock on Monday night. On Sunday night there was no water in this or the adjoining houses. In one of the houses, within a few yards of that attacked by fever, we learned, by the peculiar and dismal howl, that the Irish inmates were ' waking ' some one dead. You may wander on amid scenes of dilapidation, and -enter rooms with miserable atmospheres : it is a sad sight to see young and helpless infants in such places. To all our inquiries, ' There was no water last Sunday ' was the reply, and of course none during the greater part of Monday. There are numerous pig-styes, giving forth foul odours, close to the doors, and below the dwellings of the people, although it is contrary to law to allow these animals to be kept in populous towns. It is also illegal to stack up mountains of vegetables and other refuse ; and as these illegal acts are the undoubted cause of many deaths, a heavy responsibility must rest on the guardians of parishes, whose duty it is to see the sanitary laws for the welfare of the poor carried into effect. In a dilapidated house, thickly inhabited, and for which the inhabitants pay about .^27 a year, the back yard was disgraceful; a cesspool was overflowing and spreading over the ground, and deep pools of stagnant and poisonous matter filled the cracks of the pavement. No description can give an idea of this place. There was no water last Sunday, ' not a drop of water in the next yard, nor in the next and the next.' There are cesspools open or closed below and adjoining the houses. One or two streets have lately had drains made through them : in the large remainder all lies on the surface ; — heaps of the refuse of piggeries, cowsheds, and stables, vegetables, fish, etc. — with bad pavement, great poverty, and for nearly two days in the week no water ! Even the dumb animals — horses, cows, pigs, and asses — must also be equally ill provided with this necessary. Such are the notes of a neighbourhood, which we venture to say is not much exceeded in ill condition amongst savages, and is certainly disgraceful to the parish of St. Pancras. This ' Paradise,' and parts adjoining, are positively worse now than at the time of our first visit six or seven months ago. Let none regard our description as overcoloured. So far from this being the case, the abominations are underrated, and this we will prove by a few further categorical statements. We will commence SLUMS 273 with Pancras Place, Pancras Road. There are sixteen consecutive houses in this row in a most filthy and dilapidated state, as they have been for years. A person residing opposite to them informs us they have not been painted for thirty years ; others say they cannot remember them undergoing repair. Apparently, if one were taken down, they would all fall ; in fact, they are not fit for human habitation. The cesspools are in a most offensive state, being only partly covered, so that the contents often rise over the boards which form the flooring. The stench is, as the occupiers observe, ' horrible.' These houses are mostly let to five or more families, each family occupying a room, for which they pay respectively, from the kitchen upwards, 3s., 2S. gd., is. 6d., and is. per week, or at the rate of ^^29 : 5s. per annum, for places not fit for pigs to dwell in ! " The worst feature about all these slums of 1850 was the scarcity of water. That is to say, water was laid on, but not turned on, except for a very short time every day, and on Sunday not at all. The people fought for it while it was running — about half an hour or an hour a day — and they went about begging for it when it was turned off. The rent of the wretched houses in these places varied from is. 6d. to 2s. a week, and in some cases to 2s. 6d. or 3s. Let us turn to Westminster and take the evidence of Bardwell in 1839 : — "Another of the peculiarities which this district presents is the number of middle-men it contains ; these generally possess themselves of a house or houses, with gardens, large or small as it may happen ; here they erect, in open defiance of all building or sewers Acts, a number of tenements of the most wretched description, and to which the only access is by a passage through one of the front houses : in process of time these become lanes, or courts, or alleys, or places, or buildings, or yards. These tenements are divided into separate rooms, and let weekly by the middle-man, who subsists upon his beneficial interest in the concern ; and so numerous are the houses of this description in the district, that considerably more than one-half of the number proposed to be removed are let to weekly lodgers ; but these places, most of them old and very slightly built, frequently with boards held together by iron hoops, are so utterly destitute of every convenience, that the heretofore pleasant gardens of Tothill are most terrible nuisances. It is in these narrow streets, and in these close and insalubrious lanes, courts, and alleys, where squalid misery and poverty struggle with filth and wretchedness, where vice reigns unchecked, and in the atmosphere of which the worst diseases are generated and diffused. That uncleanness and impurity are an unerring index, pointing out the situation where the malignancy of epidemics more or less exists, is a truth known and admitted from the earliest ages. . . . " By far the greater portion of these parishes is either without common sewers at all, or that where they exist they are, from dilapidation or other causes, wholly 274 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY inefficient ; to the extent tliat it is dreaded some serious evil will arise. All the endeavours of the inhabitants to keep their vicinity clean and wholesome are frustrated for want of drainage, there being no common sewers. And in parts where a sewer is said to traverse, its channel is so far above the level of the floors of the basement stories of the houses that they are consequently occupied by standing water, holding in solution the most disgusting and hurtful impurities. In Strutton-ground we found the cellars deeply covered with offensive matter issuing from the neighbouring soil, and there are no means of removing it except by pumping during the night ; we are of opinion that if some decided measures are not taken to remove the nuisance in this street, a contagious fever of no ordinary malignity is likely to be produced. . . . From the total want of drainage, the fluids which soak out of, and through, large dung-heaps, either stagnate on the surrounding surface, or are carried out in soils, to be added to the other noisome contents of the open street gutters ; unmixed soil, in fact, has been observed stagnating in ruinous and badly constructed drains, open for many feet together, to be at length absorbed by the surrounding earth, or to find its way into the deeper of the adjacent cellars." The great difference between the slum of 1798 and that of 1898 is the diminution of lawlessness. There is no longer any Alsatia, Sanctuary, or Mint. The policeman patrols the place ; ladies visit it ; the clergy know all the people ; one is neither murdered nor robbed in the place ; the worst that can happen, perhaps, is to be mistaken for a School Board official, when things may be poured upon your head and bits of broken plates may fly across the street and knock off your hat. There is also great improvement in cleanliness; there is more water; the worst of the old courts have been swept away or rebuilt ; the paving is whole ; a gas lamp burns in it all night ; the sanitary arrangements are more decent. Overcrowding, drunkenness, dirt, depravity, there is still in plenty, but in every one of these respects there is improvement. The children are educated — which means that they are washed ; ladies work unmolested in the worst places ; the children run after these ladies and love them ; the rough lads are got at by the ladies and by the young men of the settlements ; there are clubs formed for them, where they work off their energies in the gymnasium, or with the boxing-gloves, and amuse themselves harmlessly at least, if not intellectually : the women are collected together and form some kind of social life, or club life, previously unknown to them. Light and hope, in a word, have been brought into the slum. Yet it must be owned there is still a great deal to be desired, and a great deal to be done. From time to time there are outbreaks of lawlessness, chiefly among the lads of sixteen and upwards. It is a point of heroism with them to defy the police : they buy knives and revolvers ; they become brigands and highwaymen ; they form companies and carry on war with each other ; they knock down the passenger and SLUMS 275 jump upon him. They are larrikins or hooligans; they are descendants of the brave boys of the Mint. Presently there arises a cry for more police, when the people ought to take the law into their own hands and arrest the lads ; or some one is killed, generally one of themselves. Then the thing dies away and is heard of no more, until the same turbulence is repeated in some other part. There are many places in London where such things are possible. The Borough, perhaps, especially that part of it lying between the High Street and the Blackfriars Road, is at the moment (August 1898) the scene of such a turbulent lawlessness : it will doubtless be repressed before many weeks are over. A small area between St. Pancras Road and Hampstead Road, another near Lisson Grove, another about Cable Street, a part of Limehouse, a surviving slum of Clerkenwell — these are most of the districts which are dangerous as being the haunts of the criminal classes. The erection everywhere of the huge barracks known as Model Lodging-houses has also done a great deal for the improvement of the slums. Not only do they occupy a large area and cover a great deal of ground, but they contain a vast population which requires close to hand shops and markets, for which in the days of the slum there was no demand. The site on which they stand has become respectable, and with it a wide surrounding fringe occupied by the purveyors and the providers. If we visit Whitecross Street or Drury Lane, we can begin to understand in some measure the vast proportions which the new housing has assumed. If we cross the river and gaze upon the endless lines of these barracks, which are monotonous, and would be intolerable but for the human interest of their occupation, we understand more. For in these Southwark barracks there are housed more than half a million of the working class. There are reports that all is not admirable in these barracks. On some staircases the occupants are terrorised by ruffians ; in others there is practised immorality, open, shameless ; in others there is social drinking. All this means that the people are not yet educated to the point of creating and watching over their own civilisation. They must be protected still, until they learn how to protect themselves. It is a practice with the fearless women who work under the rule of the Salvation Army to find out such a staircase as that hinted at above, and to take rooms upon It. There they shame the people into cleanliness by washing the stairs with their own hands ; they stand between the drunken father and the drunken mother ; they part the fighting women; they save the girls from shame, the sons from crime. Presently a new spirit fills this staircase and its occupants : it becomes quiet. But, indeed, there are so many agencies at work in every slum at the present day, that in a few years there will be no slum left. The poor we shall always have with us ; but the poor so changed that if one of the eighteenth century could rise from the dead he would not know the slum of the twentieth, or the people in it. CHAPTER II penitentiary work By Sir Walter Besant One phase of the philanthropic work of the early nineteenth century is summed up in a Report of Committee on establishing a penitentiary. The need of such work is shown by the fact that in the six criminal prisons of London there were confined in the year 1816, 1357 lads and 326 girls under twenty years of age ; this terrible total included 1017 boys and 264 girls under seventeen; and 788 boys and 169 girls under seventeen for felonies alone. In some of the prisons, as in the New Prison, Clerkenwell, the boys, some of them mere children, were mixed with the men, most of them hardened criminals. Many of the poor little boys were in for nothing ; three for tossing for pennies in the street ; one was kept there three months for selling a work without having a licence. There were thousands of children brought up to no trade except thieving ; there were orphans who had no means of subsistence except what they could pilfer or pick up, who slept in the street, in outhouses, anywhere, they had no friends ; when they were in prison nobody visited them ; they were flogged and sent out without a farthing ; the next day they were brought back again. The machinery for helping these poor children was (i) the Refuge for the destitute, which housed 40 males and 60 females. About two-thirds of these people were reclaimed. (2) The Philanthropic Society which received 41 girls and 160 boys, children of convicts. The success of this Society seems to have been most satisfactory. (3) The Magdalen Hospital which received 80 women. This Hospital was founded in 1758 ; it was believed that two-thirds of the women were reclaimed to virtue. (4) The London Female Penitentiary with 100 women. (5) The General Penitentiary, with 52 men and 76 women. 276 CHAPTER III THE SALVATION ARMY Bv M. England The Salvation Army is carrying on its work \x\. forty-five Countries and Colonies, and in the Mission Field among the following races : — In India : The Tamils, the Gujeratis, the Bengalis, the Marathis, the Sikhs, the Bheels, the Singhalese, the Niaks, the Santhaks and the Telugus. In Africa : The Zulus, the Kafifirs, the Bechuanas, and the Mashonas. In Japan and other Countries : The Japanese, the Sandwich Islanders, the Maoris, the North American Indians, the Natives of Java, and the Aborigines of Australia. The Officers exclusively engaged and supported by the Army are Stations or Towns occupied Number of separate Meetings held every week Average weekly attendances at the above, exclusive of those held in the open air . ..... . . Number of voluntary unpaid Officials specially selected and appointed to definite work Number of separate Newspapers and Magazines, published in fifteen languages . The IJarkest England Scheme Is the work of the Salvation Army for the homeless, criminal, and destitute classes, at home and abroad, and comprises (1897) 346 Separate Institutions, including Shelters and Cheap Food Depots, Workshops, Land Colonies, Prison Gate Homes, Labour Bureaux, Rescue and Maternity Homes, Nursing Institutions, Slum Posts, etc., etc. . 346 The above are under the direction of Officers . 1,3^2 Number of desolate people beneficially dealt with every year . 4,599,000 Number of lost girls and women passed through its Rescue Homes each year, 70 per cent of whom are known to afterwards do well . . . 4,000 Number of homeless people housed under its roofs each night, nearly 10,000 Number of ex-criminals in its Houses of Reformation . 381 " The Salvation Army is a force of men and women united together in love to God and man for the purpose of publishing His Salvation to the whole world. A 277 G. Britain The World 4,209 12,192 1,447 5,691 66,000 613,448 1,538,461 25,252 41,878 6 53 278 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY self-sustaining and self-propagating agency for the spread of the Gospel of Christ among the poor, by the poor, and with funds mostly given by the poor, by singing and speaking in the streets and in such buildings as can be hired for meetings, and in visiting from house to house," according to its own official statement. " A vital force for righteousness, reaching and uplifting multitudes whom the Churches thus far have failed to reach ; directing attention to the fact that often the social environment must be improved before spiritual natures can be made receptive to the truth ; exerting its influence always on the side of temperance, social purity, righteous municipal and civic life," is the testimony offered by some of New York's most prominent citizens and philanthropists ; while the judgment passed upon the Salvation Soldiers by one of the Roman Catholic papers of Montreal, Canada, runs as follows : — "They have made the name of God ring in ears that have never heard before. They have carried the spirit of faith to the very threshold of those who would not put themselves out of the way to look for it. They have consoled the suffering,, reformed the culprit, and converted souls, which, had it not been for them, would never have known that there was such a thing as a future for which we ought to prepare." To understand properly the growth of this widespread organisation, it is necessary to sketch briefly the personal history of the two individuals to whom the inception, and to a very great measure the carrying-out of the original scheme is due. In January 1829 was born one of the most remarkable women of this century, Kate Mumford, better known through the length and breadth of the Empire as Catherine Booth ; and in April of the same year her future husband, William Booth, the founder and first General of the Salvation Army. The son of an energetic, able, business man, and of a woman whose character won her the love of all who knew her, he inherited from both parents the qualities which were in after- life to make him capable of such valuable service to humanity. At the death of his father, which took place while he was still very young, he was apprenticed to the same firm, and early showed great aptitude for all business details. Though brought up in the Church of England, he owed his first serious impressions of religion to the Wesleyans, by whose simple services he had been attracted, and with the full consent of his mother he joined them, giving immediate proof of the reality of his conversion by the zeal with which he devoted all his spare time to work in connection with his Chapel. He and the band of friends whom he collected round him made use, even at that early period, of many of those methods of dealing with ignorant people afterwards so successful when adopted by the Salvation Army. We hear that in their meetings for rough lads they had " lively songs, short and sharp exhortations, insisting upon decision for Christ upon the spot, which was to be signified by coming out and kneeling at the round table that stood in the middle THE SALVATION ARMY 279 of the room." In this way so much good was done through his efforts, that at the the age of seventeen he was officially appointed lay preacher, and two years later was urged to offer himself for the ministry. This he objected to do on the score of health, being then very delicate ; and it was not until three years later that he eventually gave up his business and became a Wesleyan Minister, joining the Reformed Methodists, who had broken off from the main body, carrying with them many of the most gifted among the younger ministers. Mr. Booth was appointed to the Binfield House Chapel, Clapham, and it was here that he met Miss Mumford, already one of the class-leaders of that chapel. They became engaged in April 1852. During the three years which intervened before their marriage, they worked hand in hand, and the letters which have been since given to the world in Mrs. Booth's Memoirs breathe so deep a spirit of affection for one another, and whole-hearted devotion to the service of God and man, to which both were pledged, as to explain the secret of their extraordinary success in after-life. After four years of faithful work, Mr. Booth resigned his connection with the Methodist New Connexion, owing to their refusal to reappoint him as a travelling Evangelist, to which post he felt distinctly called. With the entire approval of his wife, he threw up all chances of a successful ministerial career, and prepared to recommence life without a penny, and with no friends except his near relations. Accompanied by Mrs. Booth, who had begun to speak in public twelve months before, Mr. Booth began a series of missions throughout England. Invited as a rule by Wesleyan Ministers, his first meetings were held in their chapels, and were largely attended. But finding that in spite of all efforts to attract them, the very disreputable still fought shy of all religious buildings, Mr. Booth determined to try a new plan, and at Cardiff hired the circus and preached there. He afterwards devised still more popular meetings in Walsall, where he invited all the local celebrities, whose lives had been lately changed, to help him. These men, who included poachers, prize-fighters, reformed drunkards, and well-known gaol-birds, drew enormous crowds, and much good was done. In 1864 the Booths took a small house in Hammersmith and commenced operations in London. The first East End meeting was held in the disused Quaker burial-ground at Mile End on Sunday, July 2, 1865. Mrs. Booth, who was consulted by her husband upon all points, moved the family quarters from Hammersmith to Hackney that they might be nearer the work, saying, " If you feel you ought to stay, stay. We have trusted God once for our support and we can trust Him again." At this juncture Mr. Samuel Morley came forward to help the " East London Mission," as the Booths called their work, and became a most liberal supporter, defending and assisting his friends until his death ; though towards the end of his life he disagreed with some of the developments of the work and ceased to be a subscriber. 28,0 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY In 1866 it was considered necessary to find some official centre from which the operations of the mission workers could be superintended, and a low beer-house, "The Eastern Star," 188 Whitechapel Road, which had been rebuilt, was bought by Mr. Booth. There, in the tiny rooms, were held the first Committees by which the Mission was managed, and in the smallest of all was Mr. Booth's desk, at which he sat to receive reports and to interview the earliest seekers for help. At that time, as he tells us himself, " we had no definite plans for the future. My first idea was to get the people saved, and send them to the churches. This proved at SERVICE IN A SALVATION ARMV SHELTER the outset impracticable. First : they would not go when sent. Second : they were not wanted. Third : We wanted some to help us. Our original idea was to form a mammoth working-man's Society in the East End, but as we spread into the provinces we came to accept our mission to preach the Gospel to every creature, and to arrange accordingly. All our methods and agencies and successes and organisations have, we think, grown out of these four simple principles : — (i) Going to the people with the message of salvation — hence the open-air operations, processions, bands, colours, reviews, and the like. (2) Attracting the people — by means of varied placards and other announcements. THE SALVATION ARMY 281 (3) Saving the people —hence the services for conversion, hoHness, and consecration. (4) Employing the people — out of which has grown the varied classes of officers, and the continued encouragement shown to every man, woman, and child to use and exercise whatever gifts they may have received from God in the service of His rebellious world." From the very beginning the Mission was worked by voluntary workers as far as possible, nearlv all of whom were chosen from among the working people themselves ; but money was naturally required for many purposes, and had to be begged from the various sympathisers the Booths' self-devotion had secured for them. This money was regularly accounted for, and in 1S6S the Mission issued its first Balance HOMELESS OUTCASTS AT A SALVATION ARMY SOUP KIICHE.X Sheet, duly audited by a well-known firm of accountants. In spite ol the wide- spread belief to the contrary, this rule has never been departed from since, and from the printing oi that first short statement to the present day, when the entire annual income ot the organisation is considerabl)' over one million sterling, ever\' penny is accounted lor, and lull statements of its expenditure, properly audited by Chartered Accountants, are issued every year. Roughly speaking, three-fourths of this sum are raised locally from the voluntary contributions of the people dealt with, only one-toLirth coming in th<* lorm of subscriptions from other friends ol the mo\'ement. In 1S6S the Mission's first Maga/ine was pLiblished — a tiny monthl)- pa[jer known as the J:as/ f.omLni livaiin^clisl. This was edited by Mrs. liooth, and proved so great a success that alter being altered, enlarged, and twice renamed, it was eventuall)' replaced in iXXo by a weekly sheet, the now well-known War 282 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Cry. Without advertisements, financial or sporting items, politics, or police-court reports, it has, with its various editions in other countries, reached a weekly circula- tion of nearly one million copies. The revenue derived from the sale of the varied literature issued from the Army press is very large, yielding in 1895 ^n income of rather more than a hundred thousand pounds. This of course includes the sale of special hymn-books, and all the many volumes written by the Booth family, the entire profits of which they have from the beginning devoted to the MRS. L'ATHERIXE I'.OOlll extension of the work. Mrs. Booth's first book was published about 1872, under the title of Hozo to Reach the Masses ivitli the Gospel. It was circulated with difficulty, but through it the Mission gained one of its most enthusiastic workers, George Railton, a " latter-day George Fox," as a brother-officer calls him. Some of the most enthusiastic and vividly written of the yearly reports of the Army's work have come from his pen. He is to-day one of the most valued members of the Headquarters Staff. The large income derived from the sale of their literature, and the difficulty experienced by the members of the Mission in obtaining the serge for their THE SALVATION ARMY 28- regulation uniform, eventually led to the institution of a Trade Department for the supply ot such objects as unilorms, musical instruments, tea, and other goods. Great efforts are made to give good value, and to avoid "Sweating" and other nefarious practices, and it is confidently ho[)ed that in course of time the profits accruing from this Department will make the Army independent of all outside support. A Bank and Life Insurance Society properly constituted and incorporated GENERAL llOOill From a Pliulograph taken aljoiit 1S97. has also been established, and is in full working order, its business being by no means limited to the members of the Army. In 1870 the Mission was renamed " The Christian Mission," and its work extended to Edinburgh and some of the London suburbs. Early in that year Mr. Booth fell ill, and during his illness the direction of all operations devolved upon his wife. She did not attempt to evade this responsibility, and appears from the first to have displayed unusLial powers of administration. In November of the same year Mr. Booth had summoned his workers to a Conference on the management of the Mission, but it was not until June 1874 284 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY that the first Annual Conference of Mission Workers was held; its most distinctive feature, showing the lines upon which the work was to be carried on, was that out of its thirty-seven members eight were women. For the next four years the Mission continued to be managed by a system of committees, which, as may be imagined, hampered its work considerably, for in spite of the unanimity of all concerning the end aimed at, opinions were naturally very diverse as to the means to be adopted to attain it. Mr. Booth felt this keenly, especially as the work was spreading through the provinces with such rapidity that no orders could await the confirmation of Committees. Accordingly, in 1877, he announced that the management must be altered, and boldly advertised the Conference of 1878 as a "War Congress." At this meeting no less than fifty stations under eighty-eight Evangelists were represented. From this year dates also the adoption of that military organisation which has proved so successful. While discussing the form of the Christmas Appeal for 1878 the question arose, "What is the Christian Mission?" Some one suggested "A Voluntee;; Army." " No," said Mr. Booth, " we are not Volunteers, for we feel we must do what we do, and we are always on duty " : and after a moment's pause, he leaned over his secretary's shoulder, picked up a pen, ran it through the word "Volunteer," and wrote above "Salvation." The use of military titles, which has given so much offence, soon became a matter of necessity, though the title " Captain " was originally used at Whitby to attract the fishermen, by whom all skippers and labour organisers are so known along the east coast. The rest came naturally, growing out of the necessity of distinguishing the duties and position of each worker : Mr. Booth, who had long been dubbed " General " by his more intimate fellow-workers, at length accepting the title as belonging by right to his official position as leader of the movement. Some uniform was found to be a necessity, and, after a few variations, it settled down into its present well-known form, though it has always varied somewhat. The Mission stations received the name of " Corps " that same year, and the first Army colours were presented by Mrs. Booth to the Coventry Corps Com- mander. Like all Salvation Army decorations the flag is symbolic. The blue border for Holiness, the scarlet ground as a perpetual reminder of the central lesson of Christianity — Salvation through the Sacrifice of Christ, the yellow star denoting the Baptism as by Fire of the Holy Ghost, and round it the well-known motto of the Mission, " Blood and Fire. " — By the Blood of Christ and the Fire of the Holy Spirit. Under this banner the soldiers of the Army have since braved every kind of persecution, and it has been carried by them, in spite of all opposition, into every western kingdom except Russia, and into every eastern one except THE SALVATION ARMY 285 China. Beneath it men and women of every race and colour in the world are working side by side for the redemption of the whole human family. As the organisation had now become consolidated into a permanent form, it was necessary to draw up a constitution ; to prepare a trust deed for the guardianship of its property ; to lay down rules and regulations for the guidance of its members. In the Deed Poll drawn up, under legal advice, in 1878, the General, for the time being, was made Trustee for all property, including lands and buildings, possessed by the Army ; and its constitution and fundamental doctrines were clearly stated. " Only those doctrines were included which appeared to be necessary to salvation — only those regulations were introduced which should serve as a skeleton for whatever addition differences of time and nationality might demand, and only those fundamental objects were enacted which were to be the eternal and unchangeable pursuit of the Salvation Army so long as a single sinner remained to be saved." The following comprise the principal Salvationist doctrines : — 1. Belief in the Trinity. 2. Belief in the Fall of Man. 3. Belief in the possibility of Redemption through the Atoning Death of Christ. 4. That Christ died for all men. 5. That salvation is by Grace, not by Works. 6. That the conditions of salvation are Repentance towards God, and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. 7. That Conversion means " the change which God effects in man when He delivers him from the power and love of sin." 8. In the assurance of salvation. 9. In the possibihty of entire sanctification, i.e. that a man can be delivered from all sin, and enabled to do the will of God continually in this life (Luke i. 74-75) (Rom. vi. 22). 10. That sanctification means "the cleansing of the heart from pride and unbelief, and all other evil impulses, thus making growth in grace possible and certain." 11. That this sanctification is expected by God from every sincere Christian, and that Jesus Christ was sent into the world for the express purpose of delivering mankind from their sins (Matt. i. 21). 12. In the immortality of the spirit. 13. In a general judgment of all mankind at the end of the world. 14. That in the end of the world Christ will come again. 15. In Hell, i.e. the place of punishment to which God consigns the wicked after death for ever ; and in a personal Devil. 16. In the Bible as the inspired statement of God's will concerning the deliverance, duty, and destiny of mankind. 17. That God also speaks directly to the heart by His Spirit, and by His Spirit through one man to another, but that the Bible is the divinely authorised standard by which all other professed revelations are to be tried, and " if any professed revelation square not according to that standard, such revelation is to be rejected as false." t8. In the right of women to preach. These doctrines, as will be seen, are those common to all Christian churches, with the exception of the last, "The Right of Women to Preach," which, however, is as strongly held by the Society of Friends. 286 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY " One of the leading principles upon which the Army is based is the right of women to an equal share with men in the great work of publishing Salvation to the world. By an unalterable provision of our Foundation Deed she can hold any position of authority or power in the Army, from that of a local officer to that of the General," says one of the official regulations, and male staff-officers are particularly ordered to set an example to the rest by " promoting women to all such positions of trust and power as they shall be able to occupy " — by rendering all possible assistance to women officers and by " regarding and treating women as being equal with men in all the social relations of life, whether it be as mothers, wives, sisters, or comrades." The organisation of this large band of workers caused the publication of the first edition of " Orders and Regulations," which are based upon those issued by the English " War Office " This has since grown into a large and important volume, containing all particulars relating to a field-officer's (Evangelist's) duty. Other similar books, arranged for the Staff and Social Wing officers, also exist, in which rules are clearly laid down concerning action under all circumstances. They also contain minute directions for the conduct of the marriage and burial services of soldiers and officers, and also of that touching ceremony devised by the Army for the dedication of children. The Salvation Army is governed almost entirely by military principles, and promotion follows the usual grades, though based upon merit, and not on length of service. Besides the military staff there are secretaries over each depart- ment, through whom its affairs are managed. Each country invaded is divided into territories under commissioners, whose commands are further broken up into provinces, each under a provincial officer. He, again, has under him divisional officers, who have under them all the corps at work in their districts, each corps being commanded by a captain, who has entire control of all meetings, together with the direction and supervision of all the funds collected at his station. Working with him is a lieutenant, and occasionally one or more cadets. Besides these commissioned officers there are a large number of local or non-commissioned officers, who work with the corps without pay, and only in their spare time. Such are the treasurer, secretary, sergeant-major, bandsmen, corporals, etc., who are required to wear uniform, abstain from the use of alcoholic drinks and tobacco, submit to the Orders and Regulations, and no one of whom may be appointed if known to be in debt or careless as to running into it. Commissioned officers are chosen with great care from those who have shown themselves worthy of the post by the consistency of their life as soldiers attached to some Corps for at least one year. They are required to undergo a course of training, and none are accepted as candidates without the recommendation of three local THE SALVATION ARMY 287 officers, besides their field-officer (Captain), and are further obliged to submit to medical examination. The International Training Homes for both men and women are at Clapton, and can accommodate about two hundred and fifty cadets of each sex at once. The course of training lasts ten months. After this course a cadet is gazetted as probationary officer with the rank of either lieutenant or captain, according to his capacities, for the space of one year, during which he is required to continue his studies under the supervision of his commanding officer. The classes from which the cadets are mostly drawn are : — For women, those of servants, factory and mill hands, shop-assistants, and dressmakers. The men show a somewhat wider range, being recruited from among labourers, skilled mechanics, clerks, and even, in some cases, among newspaper reporters, managers of factories, etc. The largest number of cadets, both men and women, come, it is estimated, from the London Province, while Scotland supplies the most valuable men, and the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire the best women. A most interesting fact concerning the cadets sent up during the last year or two is, that 90 per cent have been converted in the meetings of the Army itself. Most careful instruction in Bible history, doctrine, and all details of Salvation Army warfare, are given to the cadets while at the Homes as well as in the rudiments of educational knowledge, singing, music, and housework, under the supervision of a thoroughly experienced staff. Rules are strict that no fault should be passed over ; and most careful reports are kept of the progress made by each cadet. A second medical examination takes place during the training, after which all showing any weakness of mind or body are sternly weeded out as unfit for important duties. By a wise regulation the Training Home Staff is made responsible for any resignation sent in under two years' service, the papers dealing with that officer's training being required for inspection. In this way, the harm accruing to the whole work from the appointment of unsuitable officers is, as far as possible, avoided. The difficulties and hardships of an officer's life are put plainly before these uneducated, untrained lads and lassies, whose average age seldom exceeds two-and- twenty. The self-denial involved, insisted upon, and the high standard of life required of them are clearly pointed out ; while at the same time every glimmer of originality is carefully fostered, and each is urged to develop every talent possessed, however varied, that it may help him to succeed in the field. Probably nothing about the army is a greater attraction to the intelligent man or woman who, while conscious of his ignorance of book-learning, is equally conscious of a certain original power of his own, than the opportunity it offers him of using any gift, great or small, he may possess in the service of humanity. The possibility of marriage, which, though hedged round with most stringent 288 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY regulations, is allowed, and proves no hindrance to successful leadership, must also be an attraction to many, who, though eager to give up their lives for their brethren, resent the prohibition of marriage obtaining in some other religious societies, as an uncalled-for interference with their personal liberty. The statement that the exhausting demands, which the duties of a devoted Salvationist make upon him, shortens life has been proved by careful statistics to be untrue. In fact, the opposite is the real truth, for the Army death-rate is consider- ably lower than that of any other given number of English men and women of the same age, while the sick roll is never a long one. The pay of all officers is very small, and each commander of a corps must collect it himself from the station to which he is appointed. No debt upon buildings is allowed, and rents, taxes, and expenses are required to be paid before a penny is taken for salary. The allowances for field-officers are as follows : — Married men, 27s. (for each child under fourteen is. per week) ; male captains, i8s. ; lieutenant, i6s. ; woman captain, 15s. ; lieutenant 12s., with house rent and a certain share in the profits of the literature of the Army, according to regulation. All furnishing and travelling expenses, stationery, telegrams, and necessary advertising are paid by the corps. The army does not recognise the idea of salary at all. " Every officer is pledged to do his duty without any guaranteed salary whatever," and though arrears may be paid up, should the treasurer be satisfied that the corps finances have increased sufficiently to make it advisable, he is not allowed to do so without the consent of his divisional officer. The requirements of military obedience are now so well understood throughout the mission that all regulations are easily enforced by the officers in command, both male and female, and the periodical transfers, which are an inviolable rule throughout the field force, create no disturbance. Six months is the usual length of each captain's appointment, and no entreaties from corps or officer are, as a rule, successful for its prolongation. One of the principal duties urged upon each field officer by his chief is the instruction of the children of his corps. The importance of their training, while still of an age to be easily influenced, is fully recognised by the leaders, who devote much time and energy to what they call " The Junior Soldiers' War." A carefully edited paper. The Yotmg Soldier, is published weekly. Companies are formed at every corps, and a " Young People's Legion " has been organised, for which an extensive programme of evening clubs, classes, both instructive and religious, besides periodical examinations, for which prizes are given, in all questions relating to the Army operations, is drawn up. Any children over fifteen, who are desirous to become Salvation Army officers, and have the consent of their parents or guardians, may apply to their captain to be made "corps cadets." If he considers them suitable, he will enrol them in his brigade in order that at the age of THE SALVATION ARMY 289 eighteen, if still considered worthy of the privilege, those same cadets may be accepted as candidates for training as officers. The Arjny's work naturally provoked opposition in all quarters ; the worst in England coming from the action taken by local magistrates as to the street- preaching, which was considered obstruction. This has been strenuously contested by the Salvationists, and at the cost of many imprisoned officers they have won their point at the hands of the Supreme Legislature. Lately no opposition has been made to any of their operations. SALVATION ARMY CONGRESS HALL, CLAPTON Showing Cadets marching out. So soon as the Army ceased to be handicapped by an almost ceaseless conflict with the law-makers, it was able to turn its attention to extension throughout the world, especially in heathen lands. Such extension meant increased expenditure, and, finding that support from the general public was most difficult to get, the appeal was made to its own people, which has led to the institution of an annual "Self-Denial Week" throughout the whole army, during which every corps is incited to raise a given sum by the self-denial of its members and by increased efforts in collecting from the inhabitants of its district. No less than ^25,250 was 19 290 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY collected in Great Britain alone in 1 896. A certain proportion of the proceeds of Self-Denial Week goes back to the divisions from which it comes ; some is spent on the training of officers and other Home work, and the larger part used for the support and extension of missionary work abroad. It was during the Self-Denial Week of 1890 that Mrs. Booth, "The Army Mother," passed away, after a long and painful illness. Her last letter, written in anticipation of this season, was to them : — My dear Children and Friends — I have loved you much, and in God's strength have helped you a little. Now at His call I am going away from you. The War must go on. Self-denial will prove your love to Christ. All must do something. I send you my blessing. Fight on, and God will be with you. Victory comes at last. I will meet you in Heaven. Catherine Booth. The Foreign Field As the success of the work became known, pressing invitations were received by the Army leaders to extend their operations to France, and in March 1881 these were accepted, the General's eldest daughter, with Miss Soper, now Mrs. Bramwell Booth, and two other ladies, leaving England to open the campaign there. The people dealt with from the very beginning were, as a police sergeant bore witness, "half the cut-throats in Paris," and Herbert Booth's description of the crowd he saw gathered in the original hall in the Rue d'Angouleme was " the most awful, degraded, and miserable-looking people I ever saw in my life, whose skeleton forms reminded me more of demons escaped from hell than of human beings. Many carried weapons to the meetings, and, when a cry was raised that we were Jesuits, would stand up and open their knives ! " The place became the resort of the worst characters in Paris, and the police, dreading a riot, ordered the hall to be closed. A new one was at once rented in the Quai Valmy, and in 1882 the " Marechale," as Miss Booth has been dubbed by her French converts, opened yet another building in the Rue Oberkampff, in which the most violent scenes as yet experienced took place, pistol, dagger and knife being freely used against the officers. In 1889, the year of the Great Exhibition, the Army had so thoroughly established its position that it was able to hold large meetings during the General's visit. In the country towns and villages the reception was warm from the beginning, and in 1897 Commissioner Booth-Helberg and his wife. Commissioner Lucy Booth, could count under their command, which includes Switzerland, 264 corps and outposts, 432 officers, and some 4000 soldiers. In 1882 Switzerland was attacked. Col. Clibborn, a member of the Society of Friends, who had joined the Army in France, going forward to pioneer. At first everything appeared to promise an easy victory, but by February 1883, after a series of stormy meetings, the police interfered, and the Mardchale and Miss THE SALVATION ARMY 291 Charlesworth were expelled from Geneva, on the plea of having broken the law. They went to Neuchatel to recommence operations there on the same lines. Here the authorities forbade meetings of any kind, and when, in spite of all prohibitions, a strong corps of soldiers had been enlisted, the Marechale was arrested and sent to prison. Here she remained twelve days, though after a three days' trial at Boudry, which excited the attention of all Europe, she and her companions were acquitted, and in spite of the imprisonment of Miss Stirling for a hundred days in the Castle of Chillon, under a charge of attempting to proselytise minors without their parents' consent, the authorities have since been disposed to view the Army and its work with toleration, if not favour, and upon the occasion of the visit of the General to Berne in 1896, even members of the Federal Government shared in his enthusiastic welcome. Germany and Belgium have corps stationed in their chief towns, and even in Italy some work has been begun ; but It is in Scandinavia, Denmark, and Holland that the Mission has met with the greatest success. All grades of society, from the King and Queen of Norway and Sweden, and the King of Denmark down- wards, support the work, while its officers are recruited in greater numbers from the ranks of the upper classes than in any other countries. Iceland, Lapland, and even Finland, in spite of Russian official objections, have strong corps. Russia, though many of her subjects truly sympathise with the objects of the Army, is as yet without a corps, owing to the refusal of the Government to allow any such organisation to exist for any purpose. Meanwhile, there are many Russians to be found among the members of continental corps, including even a princess. The Army has from the first recognised that its commission was to all the world, and as early as February 1882 America was invaded on the urgent representations of Amos Shirley, a Coventry Salvationist, who had emigrated to Philadelphia in 1879, and a,t once attempted to instil Army principles into his new friends. George Railton, with a band of seven "Hallelujah Lassies" carrying colours presented to them by Mrs. Booth, formed the first contingent sent out. They experienced much difficulty in finding a meeting-place, owing to the refusal of the municipal authorities to license them for street-preaching, but the newspapers proved their best friends, for the sensational reports they published of the work in England led to an invitation to hold a meeting on the Sunday evening after their arrival at " Harry Hill's." The manager of this notorious hall considered them likely to prove so good a "draw" that he offered them free leave to do as they would, and proposed to pay them handsomely for their services ! Though the fee was refused, the meeting was gladly held, and proved the beginning of a work in New York which has increased steadily ever since. Throughout the length and breadth of the United States the Army is doing work, as much among the coloured people and Chinese immigrants as among native Americans, and in 1897 had some 292 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 6000 auxiliaries, i.e. Governors of States, mayors, clergymen of every church, principals and professors of universities, citizens of the front rank in every profession and business, except those necessarily tabooed. In the spring of 1896, owing probably in a great measure to the strained relations then existing between England and America, the General's second son, who had been for the past nine years in command in the United States, was induced to break away from his father's control, and to abandon his position in the Army. This was a great blow, but the American work has not been seriously injured, and under the leader- ship of Commissioner and Mrs. Booth-Tucker, its operations are being extended in all directions. Canada was not included in the field until 1882. There the only real opposition came from the drink interest, which is extremely powerful in some cities. The Canadian authorities have from the first " treated the Army as it deserves," and the law has generally upheld its rights of public speaking, though there have been sad exceptions to this rule, no less than thirty-five officers having been imprisoned on trivial charges in 1885-86. Both the Labrador Fishing Fleet and the Red Indian Reserves are regularly visited, and only a few of the towns in the French Settlement are without a corps, while in Toronto social work is also well established. The campaign in Asia was commenced in 1882, and owes its inception and success to the devotion and ability of Commissioner Tucker, who planted the colours in Bombay in the autumn of that year. Mr. Tucker was trained for the Indian Civil Service, and it was when he had already made his mark in India that he was struck by the possibilities of such an organisation as the Salvation Army and obtained leave to return to England to study its methods. Later he resigned his Indian appointment, joined the Salvationists, and returned to India barefooted and penniless, in the garb of a mendicant, to devote himself to preaching the Gospel of Christ. A welcome was accorded to the Army by the people themselves ; the famous Baboo Keshub Chunder Sen, one of the most enlightened Hindoo teachers of this generation, actually organised a mass meeting to petition the Viceroy to inter- fere on behalf of the Salvationists and protested against the opposition they were receiving from the police ! Since that day Gujaratis, Tamils, Marathis, Cingalese, have all had the Gospel preached to them in their own language by Europeans, who have become as kinsmen to them, wearing their dress, eating their food, living among them with no more self-indulgence than one of their own fakirs. A very large number of native officers of all castes and races dwelling on the Indian peninsula and in Ceylon are now working among their own people, under the Army flag. Commissioner Tucker has long been recalled, and the work he began single-handed is now divided into THE SALVATION ARMY 293 four provinces under separate commanders, the whole territory being ruled directly from Queen Victoria Street by means of a special secretary. "We need you as fast as fire and steam can bring you," wrote the pioneers from Adelaide in 1880, and ever since the landing of the first two officers in 1881, the Mission has never relaxed its efforts to cope with the extremely rough elements of which the lower strata of Colonial society are composed. Colony after colony has been invaded, and in no country outside England has the social work made greater progress, or received more cordial recognition from the civil authorities. The first Prison Gate Brigade was established in Melbourne, the work done among the ex-convicts being so valuable as to win a Government grant from the Colony, which has since been increased. At the end of 1896 the Australasian Force stood at 491 self-supporting corps, 684 regularly worked outposts, and i486 commissioned officers, while the missionary field, which the Australian Commandant proposes to work without any help from England, stretches from Fiji to Java and Sumatra, and from the shores of New Guinea to the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The social work has increased, and is still growing, shelters, labour and rescue homes, workshops, and farm colonies being established or projected in every colony. The ruffianism of the low-class white population was the greatest of the many difficulties which had to be overcome by the officers sent out in 1883 to form a corps in Cape Town, and at first the want of Dutch -speaking officers proved another hindrance, though one long since overcome. But perhaps their greatest difficulties rose out of the resolute attempt made by the leaders to overcome the race prejudice, and compel whites and natives to serve together in the same corps. However, in spite of all obstacles, the work has been steadily pushed forward, and in 1896 there were 65 corps, 242 officers, and some 1700 active workers on the roll. Social Institutions were early found to be much needed in the great towns, so shelters, rescue homes, and a maternity hospital in Cape Town, and shelters in Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth, have been opened, and are doing good work. In 1896 a Special Commissioner was sent out to report on the native problem with a view to ascertaining the lines upon which successful missionary work might be carried on. The result of his report was that a batch of twenty cadets, volunteers for the native work, sailed for South Africa in December 1896. In Zululand and Kaffraria work among the natives is already well organised, grants of land known as " Locations " having been leased to the Commissioner in both States. Leave is given to any respectable native to build his hut on the Army land, schools for native children and those white children who would otherwise have no means of education have been opened, and it is hoped that before long the confidence of the natives will be won, and some solution of the problem of dealing with them successfully arrived at. 294 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY After two years' work in Japan the Army could boast of sixteen Japanese officers, six corps in four towns, and a prison gate Iiome at Tokio, which is looked upon with favour by the Government. Jamaica also appears to be able to provide a wide field among her coloured population, whilst South America, with its native, Spanish-speaking people, and its crowds of European immigrants of all nationalities, has already responded warmly. So far 14 per cent of the missionary agents there belong to the Salvation Army, which was able to win the confidence of both people and governors in the very hour of its landing in Buenos Ayres by providing food and shelter to the sufferers from the revolution then in progress. The welcome accorded to the Army officers there also gives fair ground for the contention of its leaders, that the Catholics of Europe would, as a rule, appreciate and benefit by their services quite as much as the Protestants. Besides, as they say truly, "Neither in Spain, Italy, Belgium, or the most Catholic cities of France, have we met with any such opposition as in the Protestant countries, notably England and Protestant Switzerland. Therefore, our greatest difficulty in Catholic countries will probably always be — the extreme poverty of the masses, and the infidelity and bigotry of the wealthy." Darkest England Scheme The " Darkest England Scheme " is that wing of the Salvation Army which is specially charged with its efforts for the material and moral deliverance of the lowest classes of the people. In 1890 General Booth startled the whole English-speaking world by the proposals which he embodied in his book. In Darkest England and the Way Out, for the moral and material regeneration of the large section of the London poor classed by him as "The Submerged Tenth," i.e. those who through sin, incapacity, or temporary misfortune were unemployed and dependent upon what they could beg or steal from their more provident fellow-citizens for the maintenance of them- selves and their families. This class had long been the despair of all philanthropic agencies, and, owing to the rapidity with which revolutionary and atheistic doctrines were being promulgated amongst them by professional agitators, had become a danger to the safety of the community. During the thirty years that the Salvation Army had been working among the masses, they had come much in contact with these people, and knew their possibilities and needs as well as, if not better than, most people. When the General, therefore, boldly asserted that " whatever his peculiar character and circumstances might be, if the prodigal would come home to his Heavenly Father, he would find enough and to spare in the Father's House to supply all his need, both for this world and the next ; thousands, nay, tens of thousands, having with little or no temporal assistance come out of the THE SALVATION ARMY 295 darkest depths of destitution, vice, and crime, to be happy and honest citizens, and true sons and servants of God." Even the incredulous men of the world believed him, and the ^100,000 he asked for to enable him to start his relief work was quickly provided by subscribers of all ranks and creeds. With that money a work was begun which has certainly relieved much destitution, opened a door of hope to many despairing men and women unemployed through accident rather than vice, reclaimed drunkards, put backbone into the shiftless, given the gaol-bird the opportunity no one else would offer him of redeeming his character and blotting out the past by honest work, provided cheap, good food, and warm, comfortable shelter for thousands, saved the children left by careless or criminal parents to go to ruin on the streets, and, above all, and alongside all, has never ceased day or night to teach and prove to the most criminal, depraved, worthless man or woman that even for him there is hope and a way of salvation from his very worst sins through the sacrifice made for him by Christ. The scheme concerns itself with three classes : — the homeless, the chronic workless, and the workers whose small and uncertain earnings keep them always in danger of falling into the classes below them, and from whom those classes are mainly recruited. For their aid shelters, food depots, lodging-houses, known as metropoles, labour bureaux, workshops, labour factories, and also a land colony have been founded. [Table 296 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY SCHEDULES OF SHELTERS FOR MEN AND WOMEN This Schedule gives a fair idea of the accommodation of the shelters and the way in which they meet the needs of the men with only a penny, and also of those a little better off. At each shelter a meeting is held from 8 to 9 p.m., and, though the attendance is in no way compulsory, most of the lodgers, as a matter of fact, not only attend but take part in the singing, and appear to like it. Mr. G. Penn Gaskill, of the Charity Organisation Society, thus describes such a meeting: — " The addresses of the officers are usually short, practical, and earnest, and excellently adapted to their hearers. Indeed the meetings seem in every way appropriate to the class for whom they are intended ; and what is more impressive, perhaps, even than the service itself, is the air of happiness and cheery contentment amongst the Salvation officers. Not a few have been what their hearers are, and when they speak of the change which has been wrought in them, their looks as well as their words testify that the change 1 These are known as Poor Men's Metropoles. THE SALVATION ARMY 297 has been a happy one. Yet, as these men well know, the officers have, in a worldly sense, little cause for satisfaction with their lot. Their pay is small, their lives are hard, and they are expected to be unremitting in their devotion to the work." The men turn in about nine, and are called at six or earlier if their work requires it. Disturbances are unknown, and it is rarely that an oath or obscene word is heard, and yet those catered for are some of the most helplessly broken- down men in London, criminals, mendicants, and tramps, the outcasts of Society. In the morning they go their several ways, or are sent, at their own request, to other departments for advice and help. Those requiring work go to the nearest elevator or workshop, there to try their skill and prove the sincerity of their desire for honest work at some one of the following industries: — wood -chopping, mat-making, mattress-making, wood-sawing, carpentry and joinery, carpet-weaving, painting, tin-working, cabinet-making, tambourine-making, engineering, paper-and- rag sorting, sachel- making, brush -making, wheel wrighting, tailoring, shoemaking, match and matchbox making, cardboard-box-making, baking, clerks' work in offices. Among the men seeking employment in the elevators are to be found those drawn from every class of life, and from every trade ; even occasionally doctors, lawyers, merchants, shopkeepers, accountants, clerks, skilled mechanics, and artisans, besides large numbers of unskilled labourers. Many are the victims of misfortune, while others have sunk through drink or other crimes. During his first week at the elevator a man is provided with food without regard to the value of his work, as either from bodily weakness or want of skill he is at first unable to produce much, however willing. By the end of that time it is generally possible to classify him, and he is then put under the foreman of the particular department to which he is allotted, and paid for his work in tokens according to the value of his earnings ; food in proportion to the face value of his token being supplied to him at the Home. In this way idleness is corrected by hunger, greater industry bringing with it a proportionately increased allowance of food. The system is carefully explained to each applicant, and he is required to sign a paper agreeing to these conditions before he is allowed to enter the workshop. The Army also reserves the power of instant dismissal should it be necessary. The chopping of wood, and the collection and sorting of paper, rags, and other "salvage" supplies unlimited work for the unskilled, and is usually the department in which most newcomers graduate, being passed on to the carpenter's bench, and engineer's shop according to the faculties they develop, or the past training which they have had. The moral value of thorough work is well known to the leaders, and no department foreman passes any work below a certain standard, and the actual joinery turned out by the carpenters' shop in Hanbury Street is as well finished as that which was the pride of English joiners of the eighteenth century. 298 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Out of the City Labour Homes, those who choose are passed on to the farm colony; The Army possesses about 800 acres of land at Hadleigh in Essex, between Southend and Tilbury, which is laid out as a farm, besides 300 acres of fruit and market garden, a poultry farm, and brickfields, making bricks and drain- pipes, both for the use of the colony and for sale. As the property has a river frontage a wharf has been constructed and barges acquired, which save much expense in freight, as they not only provide work for the colonists but transport all the plant, etc., required by the colony. Though originally arranged as a means of training in preparation for emigration, the farm has proved most valuable in improving the physique of the town-bred men, further weakened by insufficient food and bad air, and has besides done much for the moral weakling, who, though capable of producing rather more than he consumes under the influence of the love and strict discipline with which he can be surrounded there, falls at once into his former habits of loafing when sent out to earn his living among his old acquaintances. The Army leaders argue that this being proved to be the case they ought to be supplied by the State with the funds necessary to retain and employ such men under oversight, as a cheaper alternative than their maintenance in the workhouse, prison, or asylum, into which they all ultimately sink. It is estimated that the cost of supporting a man in elevator or farm over and above what he earns is only is. 2d. per week, while in prison he would cost 8s., in the workhouse 6s., and in the lunatic asylum 9s. 2d. And so well organised is the working of the whole City colony that out of an outlay, in 1896, of ^98,600, ^94,000 was returned by the earnings of the people themselves, leaving only the small balance of ^4600 to be supplied by outside charity. A Boys' Shelter was opened in Fetter Lane ; this can house some sixty boys, and it appears to be much appreciated by the newspaper-sellers, messengers, and other street boys of the neighbourhood, most of whom had before its institution to choose between the filthy "doss house" and the railway arch for a night's lodging. As many of the lads who use the Shelter have run away from home, the Shelter officers devote much time and patience to the task of reconciling them to their friends, and have persuaded numbers to return. On the other hand, many are orphans, to whom life has shown itself little more than one long-continued struggle for bare existence, and it is for them that more homes and a land colony are so much needed. But of all the wanderers in our great cities perhaps none are more friendless than the discharged prisoners. However anxious a man may be to do right and to earn an honest livelihood when he comes out, he finds it almost impossible to make the attempt, for the hand of society with one consent is against him. No one will give him a chance, and even if, as has often happened, he does find work by concealing his past history, and 'performs his task honestly and well, that will not THE SALVATION ARMY 299 prevent his instant dismissal should his employer discover that he has once been in prison. The Army early recognised the need such men had of a helping hand, if they were to be saved from sinking into the class of habitual criminals, and their Prison Gate Home, 30 Argyle Square, King's Cross, never closes its doors against any discharged prisoner, whatever his crimes or length of sentence ; and, besides housing him, the Army provides him with temporary employment at its workshop in Paradise Street, King's Cross, and, where possible, eventually finds him employment and a new start in life. Two men from each Home attend at the various prison gates every morning ; one of those generally sent from Argyle Street being known as " Daddy," a zealous Salvationist, once a burglar, who has spent some forty years of his life in convict and local prisons. The value of this branch of the Social Wing may be judged from the opinion expressed by the Home Office Prisons Committee (1894) that "it is quite certain that a considerable number of apparently hopeless cases have been satisfactorily dealt with." In almost every foreign country where the Army has become well known, the officers are admitted from time to time into the prisons, and in South Africa, South America, and many of the cities of the United States, they are allowed to hold meetings for the prisoners. The other branch of this work, the Police Court Mission, provides officers to attend regularly in the courts to render what assistance they can in dealing with persons charged with minor offences, and it is now becoming a common practice among the magistrates to hand over such cases, especially those of inebriates, to the care of the Salvation Army. Social Work among Women Like all the other branches of Salvation Army work, the rescue work has grown from a very small beginning, until it has arrived at its present carefully- thought-out scheme of operations. The first systematic attempt to help the many cases brought under the notice of the officers in their Evangelistic work was made in 1884 in Whitechapel. One of the women soldiers of that corps, the wife of a working printer, was eager to rescue any repentant girl from her old life, and brought such girls to her own home until she procured for them permanent work. Finding, as her children increased in number, and the girls she had helped continually sent in others, that it was impossible to continue her efforts single- handed, she applied to the Salvation Army for help. They moved her into a larger house, offered to be responsible for the extra rent, and put Mrs. Bramwell Booth in charge of the new scheme. From the first it was worked on novel lines. There were no bolts and bars, no strict rules, no harsh condemnation. The women were treated with the utmost consideration. 300 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY As they Idarnt to understand the Army officers, and to recognise in them their true friends, piteous stories of villainy and cruelty were related. These, after being investigated, led to Mr. Stead's articles in the Pall Mall Magazine, the infamous Armstrong case, and the storm of public indignation, which culminated in the passing of a Bill by Parliament, which raised the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen. Since that time the rescue work has been widely extended, until, as will be seen by the accompanying table, it not only takes these unfortunate women away from the streets, but never loses sight of them until they are safely placed in some good situation, earning their livelihood honestly, and in many instances restored to friends and relations. General Divisions of the Women's Rescue and Social Work Rescue Work 2 Receiving Homes — i in London, i in Cardiff. 14 Rescue Homes — 7 in London, 7 in the Provinces. I Maternity Hospital, London. 3 Slum Maternity Posts. I Home of Rest. 1 Inebriates' Home (included in list of Homes). 40 Slum Posts in Great Britain. 80 Slum Sisters. 2 Registry Offices. 3 Prison Gate Posts. 2 Midnight Posts. Shelters and Metropoles for Homeless Women 3 Night Shelters, receiving 586 nightly. 4 Metropoles, payment 4d. and 6d. 3 Lodging-houses, for women employed in various trades. Industries Steam Laundry. \ Knitting Factory. [-All in London. Bookfolding Factory. J Number of girls passed through the Homes from May 1884 to September 30, 1886 . . . 14,032 Twelve months ending September 30, 1896 Total number dealt with in the present year (1896) 1535 Dealt with thus ; Situations Friends 743 27s Trade 64 Infirmaries and other Homes 184 Married 3 Unsatisfactory 266 153s THE SALVATION ARMY 301 Special pains are taken to keep in touch with the women after they leave the homes by means of a careful system of letters and reports. The number of those who look upon the home as their own, and return on every opportunity, is very large, and speaks volumes for the genuine kindness shown to them by every worker. It is estimated that, out of the yearly average of some 1500 who pass through the homes, 70 per cent prove satisfactory. The large majority are sent to service, for which they receive a little training during their six months' stay in the homes. "Salvation is profitable for all things," writes an officer, "even for scrubbing floors or washing windows, and the girls are made to understand that for their share in the financial responsibility of the homes, they are to smash the least possible number of dishes, and to keep their sewing as clean as they can." Herein is explained one of the great secrets of the success of this rescue work. Besides the actual spiritual teaching, which is the basis upon which all the work is grounded, its practical bearing upon daily life is strongly insisted upon, and these weak characters are strengthened and built up. Just as we have seen that no "scamped" work is tolerated in the Hanbury Street workshops, so in every rescue home the only proof recognised of a sincere repentance is work done conscien- tiously and well, the result being that the needlework turned out by these women is good enough to find a ready sale, and to return a large profit. The training in housework is equally carefully superintended. Many of the cases brought in are, of course, unsuitable either through ill- health or former position for domestic service, and for these women employment has been contrived by the institution of three Industries — a steam laundry, bookfolding, and machine knitting — which afford steady work for 100 women, who are paid a wage of 8s. to 12s. a week, the total income received during the year ending September 1896 from the girls' work in the London homes being given as ^1223 : 6 : 9! Three lodging-houses exist for the women employed in the Salvation Army factories, in which the charge of 8s. a week not only pays for the women but also the board and salary of the two officers in charge of the twenty inmates. There are practically no rules in these homes, each inmate being free to come and go as she will, provided she behaves quietly and observes the hours for meals. Each woman who has passed through the homes is encouraged to pay back the £1 which her rescue cost the Army. When they have done this their names are inscribed on the " Roll of Honour." Almost every home has at least one Bed supported by old girls who are doing well in service. This " Out of Love " Fund, as it is called, was started with the view of making the women feel independent by providing a method by which they could help the work after having been helped by it, and it has been eagerly taken up, over 100 having been sent in during 1896. Many touching tokens of their gratitude are continually being received. One, out 302 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY of wages of ;^ii annually, put aside a shilling for several weeks, and sent it "for Christmas pudding for the Home girls." Another wrote, " I am sending some of my clothes, which I have mended for the girls at the Home." Nightly patrolling in Piccadilly is carried on by the Midnight Brigade, which was organised in 1893, and consists of women, who, besides talking to the girls in the streets, and providing those who will come with a hot supper, have a home in Tolmers Square, to which any girl desirous of leading a new life is welcome. Much good has already been done ; many girls, who would not come themselves, sending others to the home ; while the most hardened seem to appreciate the service on their behalf. There is another distinct branch of the rescue work. It affords help to young women in their first departure from right, and works in connection with a Maternity Home, from which the girls are passed into the Hospital, and to which they again return with their infants. One ward is reserved for married women, its patients being the respectable wives of working men, who are nursed through their confinements for a charge of 15s. a week. A Maternity District is connected with the Hospital, the nurses visiting the wives of artisans daily for a small fee for a certain time at and after the birth of their children. The Nursing Instittde of the Hospital supplies well-trained ladies' nurses, and also prepares ladies from without the Salvation Army for the examination of the London Obstetrical Society. This slum maternity work brings the nurses into contact with the most pitiful cases of destitution, for maternity cases are not the only ones undertaken, though they constitute the part of the work for which the officers are specially trained. " We go to everybody and anybody," writes a nurse, " whether they can pay or whether they cannot. We don't pauperise the people. If they can pay ever so little, we charge them. Some will pay by instalments, and if they are unable to do this, we beg the money from some friend and tell them it has been paid for." But slum work is not confined to these nurses. There are in Great Britain forty slum posts and eighty slum sisters, whose duty it is to live with and work among the dwellers in those narrow, overcrowded alleys and courts of the great towns known as " slums." Each slum post is in fact " a settlement," whose members live under the same conditions as their neighbours, and as far as possible conform to their customs. They act as both spiritual and temporal advisers, hold small meetings in the streets and houses, visit the sick, tend the dying and little children, and do their utmost to reconcile those who are wont to fight savagely when under the influence of drink. Close to the small house where the rescue work was first begun is the Hanbury Street Shelter, where 200 women and their children can be received THE SALVATION ARMY 303 nightly, and for a payment of 2d. provided with a bunk and leather mattress, kitchen fire, opportunities for washing themselves and their clothes, and, besides, a welcome and all possible assistance from the whole staff both for their temporal and spiritual needs. In connection with this Shelter is a food depot open all day, and a metropole or cheap lodging-house, where, for the payment of 4d., single beds with clean sheets, and the use of a sitting-room, wash-house, and kitchen fire can be obtained. These shelters form the first stepping-stones to better things for many an outcast, and from them a large number of the cases dealt with in the rescue homes are obtained, while the evidence their inmates show of the terrible effects of drink has led to the foundation of the Inebriates' Home, Hackney, opened in 1896 under Major (Mrs.) Reynolds, the first woman Captain whose corps received a flag. The house accommodates twenty-eight cases, under seven officers, who are divided into three classes : those who can pay the full terms, those who can only afford a little, and those who have no means at all. Though this home has only been open twelve months, the Army has proved that drink may be conquered. Large numbers of cases are known to the workers, they have watched for years, and they know that the penitents are to-day leading sober lives ; in this small home Major Reynolds is already able to report a fair measure of success among her patients, who remain there for periods varying from six to twelve months. The difficulty of providing those who leave with suitable work is still great, as the prejudice against drunkards is very strong. The Women's Police Gate Brigade, which works on the same lines as the men's, has been in England and the Colonies the means of preventing numbers of women from relapsing into their former evil courses, besides saving them from the dangerous influence of their old associates. Two women officers visit the prison gates at 8 a.m. every morning, to offer every discharged woman a home and work, besides which much visiting in the cells is carried on from corps stationed near prisons. In close connection with, and growing out of all the other rescue work is that office at the Headquarters, 259 Mare Street, Hackney, known as the Inquiry and Affiliation Department. It was first started in 1888 as the outcome of a conviction that it was not sufficient to win girls from the paths of sin, whilst those who were the means of their ruin ignored all responsibility. Legal measures are taken if necessary, and so carefully is the work performed that out of the 300 cases taken up in the past year in two -thirds of them the men have been made to acknowledge their legal responsibilities, and to make a proper allowance for their children. Besides this work the office gives legal advice to poor people, and has an Inquiry Agency, which undertakes to search for missing friends and relations. It is estimated that every person traced costs the Army 4s. 6d., and though all who can are expected to pay for inquiries set on foot in their name, a very large number 304 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY are quite unable to do so, and few pay the whole amount. Owing to the world-wide distribution of Army corps, and the immense circulation of the War Cry, in which the advertisements are inserted, the Office has been wonderfully successful in its work, and its returns show for 1896 a total of 673 persons found out of 1783 sought — an average of nearly one-third. In conclusion, to use Mr. Booth's own words : "The Social Scheme, it must always be remembered, is but one branch of a vast, world-wide work, out of which it has grown, and by the success of which alone it has been suggested and made possible. The Salvation Army exists to deal with that deeper degradation and intenser hunger of the poor, which has come upon all nations alike, and which is, we believe, the fountain from which all the external miseries spring. Had the love of Christ prevailed amongst even Christian nations, they would not have allowed so many millions of their ' neighbours ' to become homeless and immoral. Therefore, the Army aims at forcing upon the attention of all, whether they have forgotten or have not so much as heard of Him, the Saviour crucified for the whole world. To this end the Army applies to the propagation of the Gospel the same principles of adaptation to the existing need, of hard work, of business-like enterprise, of military discipline, precision, and devotion which characterise the work described in this review. By means of open-air meetings and processions, bands of music, flags, uniforms, popular announcements, and every other lawful device it continually advertises the love of Christ to the lost and hopeless, and the duty of devotion even to death for the salvation of others. The teachings of the Army are limited to those great elementary truths of the Gospel which are admitted by all Christian peoples, and these it reiterates in speech and song, in language such as the common people understand, and with a loving urgency to which millions yield." Mr. Gaskill, of the Charity Organisation Society, writes in his Report on the Social Work: — "This conversion shows a complete triumph, which could never have been obtained by any form of material charity. Habitual drunkards changed to sober men, wife -deserters into devoted husbands and fathers, and men, who had attempted suicide, now living brave and contented lives ; all these, and other equally strange transformations, 1 have seen in those who have been through the Shelters." GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS CHAPTER I the general post office By Sir Walter Besant Letters had been carried, up to nearly the end of the eighteenth century, by post- boys whose movements were slow, not more than four or five miles an hour. The first great reform was the substitution of mail-coaches which left London at a certain hour, mostly eight o'clock in the evening, travelled on an average at eight or nine miles an hour, and were protected by a guard armed with a blunderbuss. So great was the satisfaction with the mail-coach system that there seemed no hope or chance of any future reform. During the early part of the nineteenth century, just before the introduction of railways. Macadam had succeeded in improving the roads, so that there was no country in the world which had better roads than England. They offered, indeed, what Johnson thought one of the pleasures of the world — bowling along in a carriage on a smooth road. Johnson, we may remember, belonged, in his youth, to a time when a good road was unknown. The staff of the Post Office consisted of i8 principal officers, 62 clerks, 25 messengers, 120 inland letter carriers, 30 supernumeraries, and 28 foreign letter carriers. We shall see presently how this staff has been augmented in a hundred years. The business of the office so rapidly increased that in 18 14 there was already talk of a larger and a more commodious office. In 1830 the new office on the site of St. Martin-le-Grand — a site which had been covered with small houses and tenements — was opened ; it was a large office, but only about a third of the size of the present great building : it was not until 1838 that the mail-coaches were stopped and the mails carried by the railways : the convenience of the new system speedily reconciled the officials, who were, as usual, conservative, to the change. The charges for carrying letters then depended on the distance : there were a penny post and a twopenny post in London, but only within the limits of the City. For letters into the country the public had to pay 4d. for a distance not exceeding 15 miles; id. for every additional 10 miles. Thus the postage to Manchester was iid., to Edinburgh i^H., to Brighton 8d., to Cork i7d. But the letter had to 3°7 3o8 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY be a "single" letter written on a single sheet — everybody has seen the old letters written on a single sheet folded and sealed. The weight had to be a quarter of an ounce — and no more. If it were more the postage became enormous. Thus a letter of over if oz. and under 2 oz. to Brighton cost 4s. 8d. These excessive rates led, of course, to all kinds of illicit conveyance. A common trick with sailors and men away from home, in order to show that they were alive and well without paying postage, was to fold and address a sheet of paper ; this being delivered to the mother or the sweetheart or any one concerned was refused, but the addressed envelope had given them the information they wanted. All the carriers and stage-coaches carried letters illegally ; the merchants' travellers carried letters; everybody who came to town or went into the country carried letters. It was a case in which the law, stringent as it might be, could not be enforced. The carrier conveyed letters as safely as the Post Office : when he reached London he dropped them into the penny or the twopenny post-box and no one was any wiser. For many years the system of high postage and contraband carriage went on : the Post Office was attacked in the House of Commons over and over again, the principal assailant being one Mr. Wallace, but without result : the conservative element in the administration of the Post Office was too strong to admit of any reform. As everybody knows, the advocate of cheap postage was Rowland Hill. In January 1837 he produced his pamphlet on "Post Office Reform: Its Importance and its Probability." It was a time when the pamphlet might be a great power in the land: at the present day, Rowland Hill would have sent his work to the Nineteenth Century, which would have published it ; people would read it ; the notices of magazines would say that there was a remarkable paper — and there would have been an end, because in four weeks' time there would be another remarkable paper on something else. But the pamphlet, if it was important, was not snuffed out in four weeks ; it came to stay ; it lay about for months on tables and on counters ; it was read over and over again ; it produced, in fact, the same kind of effect which a novel may produce at the present day. Rowland Hill was sent for by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who heard his suggestions, but was not inclined to do anything. Thereupon ensued an agita- tion for a uniform Inland Penny Postage ; this spread over the whole country, and lasted two years and more before the Government gave way. They appointed a Parliamentary Committee, which reported in favour of a penny postage, and in 1839 a Bill passed through both Houses dealing with the matter and establishing the much-desired system of penny postage. In January 1840 Rowland Hill's proposal for Uniform Inland Penny Postage came into operation. For business men, apart from ordinary social purposes, the Act was of the greatest importance. There was an end of the "single" letter w u O P-, a o w X H THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 309 nuisance ; the only restriction was that the letter must not weigh more than half an ounce. Observe, the number of letters instantly and enormously increased, in fact it was more than doubled in the first year ; at first, of course, there was some financial loss, but in a few years, this increase of letters continuing, the loss was converted into a gain. There is, however, a great deal more. The Post Office has undertaken an INJERIOR OF THE G.l'.O. IN IS42 From The Illustrated London Xnfs. immense deal of Work not originally contemplated for the Department. Among this is : — I. The Registration of Letters.— This formerly cost is. a letter. It was reduced by Rowland Hill to 6d. ; afterwards it was still further reduced to 4d. ; and then to 2d. , ,- • ^ r Book Post.— This was established, I believe, durmg the torties. One ot my early^recollections is that of receiving a present of a book by the Book Post, with , . ^- „ „,,f the p-reat advantages of this new method of sending books. a letter pomtmg oui lho g & 3IO LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 3. Post Cards, by which the cost of postage in ordinary and unimportant letters was halved, and much trouble was saved. 4. Parcel Post. — The question had been asked over and over again why, if a book could be sent by post, any other kind of parcel could not be sent as well. Henry Fawcett organised the Parcel Post system, which was started in 1883. The scheme has proved highly popular. 5. The Annuity Insurance Scheme. — The method is good, but the working is bad. The overworked post offices have no time to represent what their scheme means. Yet a safe and economical method of insuring a life, or of endowing a child with a deferred annuity, ought surely to command attention. I do not know how much business is done every year on these lines, but I fear very little. Yet I would not call this branch a failure. It needs only some plan by which it can be fairly and persistently kept before the public. 6. The Extension of the Penny Post to the Colonies. — -This is an increase of importance only equalled by Rowland Hill's scheme. It was introduced in 1898, and is principally due to the efforts of Mr. Henniker Heaton. 7. The Express Letter Service. — This is another boon to the man of business. He wants an answer to a letter in an hour. He cannot say all that he wants to say by a telegram ; for an answer to a letter posted in the usual manner he must wait five or six hours. By the Postal Express a boy goes off by omnibus, delivers his letter, and brings back his answer in the time required for going and returning. 8. The Telegraph Service. — Acquired in 1870. 9. The Money Order Business, which is now enormous. — This branch was introduced in 1798, but has been greatly developed in the nineteenth century. The Postal Order system has, since 1881, been a formidable rival to the old Money Order business. ID. Lastly, the Savings Bank Department. There are now 8,000,000 depositors with ^730,000,000 standing to their credit. Such, briefly, is the present state and the history of the Post Office, which is perhaps the only Government department which is quite satisfactorily organised and managed. The present condition of the Post Office may be illustrated by the following figures (Whitaker's Almanack, 1901) : — The number of letters in 1900 was 2,246,820,000, being an increase of about 5,400,000 on the number in 1891. The number of post cards in 1900 was 400,300,000, being an increase of 170,000,000 on the number in 1891. The number of books and newspapers in 1900 was 866,300,000 against 637,750,000 in 1891. THE GENERAL POST OFFICE 311 The number of telegrams in 1900 was 90,415,123, being an increase over the numbers of 1891 of 24,000,000. The number of parcels in 1900 is not given, but that of 1899 was 74,497,487, being an increase over those of 1891 of 26,000,000. These figures are somewhat startling. The Central Office, without counting the many branches, requires the services of the following numbers : — Postmaster-General and Private Secretaries The Secretary's Office Supplementary Establisliment Confidential Inquiry Office and Inspectors Registry Branch Accountants' Department Postal Order Central Telegraph Office Engineers' Department London Postal Service Department 4 District Office SS Medical Department 70 Money Order Office 335 Returned Letters 5 Savings Bank 66 Solicitors' Department 18 Postal Stores 42 Examiners 54 Factories 65 Surveyors' Office 62 8 15 17 132 14 23 22 4 79 CHAPTER II COMMUNICATION By Sir Walter Besant The means of communication from one part of London to another in the eighteenth century, as we have seen, were few. Hackney coaches there were, over a thousand in number ; and there were the watermen and their boats on the river. The richer citizens, especially those who had a house in the suburbs, kept riding-horses ; in every principal street were standing about and waiting men who held the horses. They were distinguished by a red coat with metal buttons : there were also messengers in the streets who wore white aprons, ran messages, took errands, and carried parcels. The introduction of the cab was an attempt to get cheaper and quicker communication. The hackney coach was first intro- duced about the year 1639, when a certain Captain Bailey set up four hackney coaches at the May Pole in the Strand. As the venture proved suc- cessful, imitators crowded in until there were sometimes, it is said, twenty of these cabs together. The introduction of the hackney coach and the success of the innovation indicate a certain improvement in the roadway and the growing custom of the people to walk in the streets instead of taking a boat or riding. The vehicles were abused by the tradesmen on the ground that people in a coach could not stop at the shops, and also that the noise the traffic made in the streets prevented the letting of the upper rooms to members of Parliament and visitors. The coaches were also attacked by the watermen of the river for taking away their fares. Taylor the water poet led the cry : 312 A HACKNEY COACH IN 1S42 From The lllnsUated Lonilon Ne^tis. COMMUNICATION ;i3 " ' Canoches, coaches, jades, and Flanders' mares. Do rob us of our shares, our wares, our fares : Against the ground, we stand and knock our heels. Whilst all our profit runs away on wheels ; And whosoever but observes and notes The great increase of coaches and of boats. Shall find their number more than e'er they were By half and more, within this thirty year. The watermen at sea had service still, And those that staid at home had work at will : Then upstart helcart-coaches were to seek, A man could scarce see twenty in a week ; But now, 1 think, a man may daily see More than the wherrys on the Thames can be.' " The number of hackney coaches allowed to ply was limited by the law. There were 50 in 1637, 300 in 1659, 1000 in 1 771. The hackney coaches had at first iron shutters perforated so that the pas- sengers could see without being seen ; these rattling, noisy things were later replaced by glass shutters, when the coach was called a glass coach. The light and convenient cabriolet, with the driver by the side which followed the hackney coach, was given to upsetting in turning a corner ; the hansom cab re- placed it as a " Patent Safety Cab," being lower, broader, and with the driver behind for better balance. The modern four- wheeler shows the natural development of the old hackney coach transformed for practical reasons into a small box on low wheels with a strong roof capable of bearing heavy luggage. It may be doubted whether any form of conveyance for carrying both passengers and luggage has ever been invented more convenient than the four-wheel cab. Communication by water, formerly the common mode of getting from one part of London to another, fell into disuse, so far as the boats were concerned, by the building of so many bridges, the improvement in the streets, the introduction of the omnibus, and the invention of the steamboat. The latter kept the river from being deserted for many years. Unfortunately, the steamboat company or companies came to an untimely end. Then for some years the river above bridge, with its broad bosom deserted save for an occasional barge or string of barges with a tug, reproached the City for not making use of its old and favourite highway. Another company of steamboats has now been started, and something of the old life has returned to the river. A HANSOM IN 1842 From The I Ihistratcd London News, 314 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The underground railways are to a certain limited extent convenient as a means of communication from one part of London to another ; but the underground is only useful for those who are near the stations. If one stands in Cheapside and watches the stream of vehicles pass slowly by, he will presently remark that nearly all are omnibuses. There is no city which has a finer service for passenger traffic than London. The tram-cars do not increase and extend their lines in anything like the same proportions as the omnibuses. Nor AN OMNIBUS IN CHELSEA IN 1842 From The Illustrated London NfTvs, can the railway ever take the place of the omnibus in taking up and setting down where they choose the people who go up and down the streets on their daily business. The omnibus has possession of all the highways ; it goes into all the suburbs ; the lines stretch from one end to the other of the huge city ; and it is the cheapest as it is the readiest way of getting from one place to another. The invention of the omnibus belongs to Paris and the year 1662, when the first company was started for carrosses a cinq sous, and seven such carriages were started, each holding eight persons. There was a rush at first, but only among COMMUNICATION 315 the wealthier classes : when it was no longer the fashion, the poorer sort for whom the carrosses a cinq sotis were intended did not take them up, and the enterprise failed. In 1827 the idea was revived and the Entreprisc Gt'iK'ralc des Omnibus was started with coaches which carried from fifteen to eighteen people inside. The omnibus was brought over to London two years later by Mr. Shillibeer, who ran a pair of omnibuses from the Bank to the New Road. They were drawn by three horses, and they carried twenty-two passengers, all inside. Outside passengers were gradually provided with seats beside the driver, behind the driver, and on the roof; for those on the roof the "knife-board" was placed, with a low rail for the feet, which in course of time was raised so as to afford some protection ; the ladder up which the outsiders climbed was narrow and perpendicular ; the conductor hung on by a leather strap, standing on a ledge. The ledge has become a covered porch ; and the ladder a stair, by which ladies can easily mount ; and for the knife-board are substituted light seats. In addition the fares have been lowered until it has become cheaper, considering shoe leather, to sit in an omnibus than to walk. The motor car, which is gradually beginning to appear in the streets, may possibly supersede all other vehicles. A man may have his own car, which would require nothing but a little cleaning : an omnibus company may fit their vehicles with the machinery, and they can sell all their horses : the family coach may take the form of a family motor : people will set out on a journey in a motor to hold two, three, five, or any number. They can go as far as they please and stop when they please, without considering the fatigue of the horse. The application of the machinery, however, is uncertain ; the motor must be made cheaper, and it must be worked without jar and without the smell of oil : if this can be done great changes in convenience of communication will certainly be effected by its means. CHAPTER III LIGHTING By George Turnbull Only about seven years of the nineteenth century had passed before a revolution in street and house Hghting was heralded by the introduction of gas in place of oil and candles. The application of coal-gas had been discovered by William Murdock (a Scotchman who changed his name from " Murdoch" out of regard for the Englishman's pronunciation), and after a few years of experimenting, including a successful trial by James Watt at Birming- ham, the new light was brought under the notice of the people of London in 1803 by means of lectures delivered in the Lyceum Theatre, Strand. The lecturer was Mr. Frederick Albert Winsor, a foreigner, but as he burnt the gas in a very impure state at these exhibitions, the public were at first somewhat prejudiced against the in- vention. More successful was the trial he made on June 4, 1807, when a row of lamps in front of the colonnade at Carlton House was lighted by gas, this being the first time the light had been applied to a London street. During 1809 and the following year Winsor lighted one side of Pall Mall, from the house which he then occupied in that street, the other side being still lighted by oil. Meantime an investigation was proceeding before a Committee of the House of Commons, which was to result in certain persons being incorporated, as we shall see presently, " for procuring coke, oil, tar, pitch, ammoniacal liquor, essential oil, and inflammable air from coal." 316 THE GOOD EFFECTS OF CARBONIC GAS ! ! ! LIGHTING 17 The dexelopiiiL-nt ot gas-ligluiiig is l)Ouin.l u\) with the history ot the private companies which troin tliis time came into existence to supply it. The origin of these was due in the tirst instance to the zealous advocacy oi Mr. Winsor. This gentleman in 1S05 issut-d a circuhu" to "great philanthropic and commercial men" announcing that he had made impro\-ements in his patent-light stoves, purihed the gas-lights from all scent, and incre.ised their histre ; and he (offered the "inclosed plan for a prohtable national company," assuring subscribers at the same time that with their patronage a national coricern would "soon be raised to 0[jen a mine ol wealth in iM'itain, and add to the despair of our foes in the devices lor our ruin." The result was that in iSio the Gas-Light and Coke Company was incorporated by charter, and empc^wered to contract with any parishes or other persons for the m' w .\ I'EEr XY THE GAS-LIGHTS IN T.iLL M.VLL supply of gas. Owing to some misunderstanding with the persons with whom he was associated, it appears that Winsor did not obtain that recompense for his labours which he had looked for, and shortly afterwards he set sail for F" ranee. Londoners were scepjtical about the gas-light, and by a number of scientific men, among whom was Sir Humphry Davy, it was condemned as unsafe. The lighting of Westminster Bridge in 181 3, however, was a very popular step; and in the following year the parish ol .St. Margaret's discarded the old oil lamps and set upi gas. A second company — the City ot London — was formed in 1S17, with the same area of supply as the other, namely, " the Cities of London and Westminster, and the Borough of Southwark " ; but in 1821 the first concession of e.xclusive rio-fit to supply certain districts was made to a third concern, the Imperial Gas Company. Parliamentary inquiries conducted in 1822 established the safety of gas as a means 3i8 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY of illumination, and when the machine-made iron pipes at length took the place of the old musket barrels and other tubes that had originally been used to convey the gas from the mains to the house, no further doubt remained as to the accept- ance of the new light. Whereas in 1814 there had been only one gasometer in London— that of the Gas-Light and Coke (or "Chartered") Company in Peter Street, Westminster— in the next decade there were about fifty, and two new companies, the Ratcliff (1823) and the Phcenix (1824), had come upon the scene. This growth of companies produced an attempt to confine each to a particular district of its own. The proposal coincided with a report laid before the Home Secretary in 1823 by Sir William Congreve, but an additional suggestion by Sir William that the regulation of prices should be controlled by Government was opposed by the companies, and the whole report fell. Parliament was able, however, to throw open the gas-supply to public competition. The natural result was keen rivalry amongst the companies, and a reduction in price. Between 1829 and 1850 many other companies came into being — the Inde- pendent, the Equitable, the South Metropolitan, the London, the Commercial, Great Central, Surrey Consumers, and Western. There were now over 30,000 street lamps in London, and about 40,000 private consumers of gas. As many as four different companies sometimes shared the public thoroughfares with their mains. As an instance of how competition reduced the charges, the district south of the Thames may be quoted. Before the advent of the Surrey Consumers in 1848 the price of gas there was 6s. per 1000 feet ; with the appearance of that company it fell to 4s. But the companies grew wise for their own interests : they perceived that all this competition meant a net loss to them, and therefore the " Chartered," the London, and the Equitable applied to Parliament in 1850 for permission to divide their districts. The application was rejected. Next year the Phoenix, London, South Metropolitan, and Surrey Consumers companies voluntarily agreed to confine their operations to allotted districts, but again in 1855 Parliament refused to sanction the arrangement. A similar voluntary agreement was entered into in 1857 by the companies north of the Thames, and the era of competition, which had lasted since 1830, was brought to a close. Increased prices now produced a great outcry against monopoly. Long inquiries took place before Parliamentary Committees, and eventually the position was somewhat improved by the passing of the Metropolitan Gas Act, i860. This Act prescribed that certain accounts should be rendered annually by the companies and kept open for public inspection ; it compelled them to provide pipes and supply gas and meters at prescribed rates, and to light all public lamps ; without stipulating as to the pressure, it provided for a certain supply of gas ; it limited the illuminating power of common gas to 1 2 sperm candles and of cannel gas to 20 candles ; made important provisions for testing the purity of the gas ; abolished the system LIGHTING 319 whereby payment of the debts of outgoing by incoming tenants had been a condition of supply ; and fixed the maximum charge for common gas at 5s. 6d. and for cannel gas at 7s. 6d. per 1000 feet. It incorporated, as far as was consistent, the Gasworks Clauses Act, 1S47, which prescribed 10 per cent on the paid-up capital as the maximum of annual dividend, but the companies were debarred under the new measure from making up deficient back revenues for more than six years. These restrictions in regard to dividend were abolished by the City of London Gas FRED A. WINSOR Originator of Public Gas Lighting ; Founder of the Gas-Light and Coke Co., incorporated by Charter, i8i. Act, 1868, as to the City, and by the South Metropolitan Company's Act of 1869, the Commercial Company's Act, 1875, and the Gas-Light and Coke Company's Act, 1876, as to those three companies. The Act of i860, however, also recognised " districting " — each company being assigned a certain area of operations, subject to triennial revision — and thereby benefited the companies to such an extent that whereas in 1859 none had been able to declare a 10 per cent dividend, in i866 every one of the thirteen companies had either attained or nearly attained that consummation. The public complained of the absence of competition thus induced. In 1864 the Government sought to improve the Act, but their Bill was withdrawn 320 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY in the face of opposition. A select Committee of the House of Commons considered the subject in 1866. In the following year the President of the Board of Trade, Sir Stafford Northcote, introduced a Bill to amend the Act of i860 and make further provision for regulating the supply. The Metropolitan Board of Works and the Corporation did all they could to get this measure passed, but the companies withdrew their consent to the Bill as soon as they were refused permission to make up back dividends to 10 per cent. After further parliamentary inquiries, presided over by Mr. (afterwards Lord) Card well, important advantages to consumers were secured by the City of London Gas Act, 1868, the provisions of which were also extended immediately to the whole of the area lighted by the Gas-Light and Coke Company. The illuminating power was fixed at 16 candles and the maximum price at 3s. gd. per 1000 feet. Right of purchase of the existing undertakings was also conferred on the Corporation, but as this was subject to the acquiescence of all the Companies supplying the City — namely, the Gas-Light and Coke, the City of London, and the Great Central — nothing came of it. The Act contained powers for the three companies to amalgamate, and they united in 1870 as the Gas-Light and Coke Company. It purchased the undertaking of the Victoria Docks Gas Company in the same year. Having a capital of ;^2, 150,000, it was now supplying a district comprising the whole of the City and a consider- able area adjoining, and a large district in West London. Other companies that became merged into the Gas-Light and Coke Company were the Equitable in 1871, the Western in 1872, and the Imperial and the Independent in 1876. Another union, which took place in 1875, when the Commercial took over the Ratcliff, was remarkable in that the sliding scale of price and dividend was embodied in the Act then passed. Thus for the first time it became the interest of a large company to supply gas at the lowest possible rate, the theory of the sliding scale being to give the consumer a pecuniary interest in the economy of the gas company.^ But first we may note the circumstances immediately preceding this achievement. The extensions carried out by the Gas-Light and Coke Company had led to their raising the price of gas in 1874 to 5s., an addition of 8d. to the price allowed for the year 1873. The Imperial likewise increased their price from 3s. 9d. to 4s. 8d., while the South Metropolitan were supplying gas of the same lighting power for 3s.— or 6d. under the maximum price they were empowered to charge. The dissatisfaction aroused by the high prices was great and widespread. It was manifested by public meetings, action on the local boards, deputations to the Board of Trade, and appeals to the Metropolitan Board of Works. The latter public authority had declined in 1868 and again in 1870 to promote compre- hensive measures, but they now united with the Corporation in three Bills, 1 Mr. George Livesey, who initiated this idea, also in 1889, as head of the South Metropohtan, founded a system of profit-sharing with the company's employes. y. •3 'f. - a - y. M'lILL^ LIGHTING 321 the first providing for the purchase of the gas companies, the second to secure power for the Corporation and the Board to manufacture and supply gas independently of the companies, the third to fix a certain price (3s. gd. per 1000 feet) and to provide in case of an increase of price for a reduction of dividend, and vice versa. The first two of these bills were withdrawn, and the third was not required, as the Gas-Light and Coke Company had themselves introduced a Bill of a similar character. This became the Gas-Light and Coke Company's Act, 1876, and besides securing to the consumers all the advantages that had been sought for by the Board and the Corporation, it provided that all future capital raised was to be offered for sale by public auction or tender within the Metropolis. The South Metropolitan Gas Act was passed the same year. The result of the legislation of 1875 and 1876 was of great importance. Under it the three companies we know to-day — who had then an authorised share capital of ^9,865,000 — were required to provide gas having a lighting power of sixteen candles when consumed at the rate of 5 cubic feet an hour, the gas to be free from impurities in the shape of ammonia and sulphur compounds beyond a certain limited quantity, and to be delivered under a sufficient pressure ; the standard price was fixed at 3s. gd. in the case of two companies, 3s. 6d. in the case of the South Metropolitan ; but this price was made subject to increase or reduction from time to time according to the companies' circumstances, the incentive to good manage- ment being that for every id. by which the price was reduced a company might divide among its shareholders an additional ^ of one per cent of dividend over and above the standard rate of 10 per cent, while for every id. by which the price was increased the shareholders must submit to a reduction of ^ of one per cent.^ Gas became cheaper in 1877 than it had ever been before. The South Metropolitan were charging 3s. 2d., the London 3s. 3d., the Phcenix 3s. 4d., the Commercial 3s. 5d., and the Gas-Light and Coke Company 3s. 6d. per 1000 feet. The Surrey Consumers, who in 1878 had been charging 3s. gd., were absorbed in the following year by the South Metropolitan, who also took over the Phoenix in 1880. The disappearance of these companies left the London the only one to be governed by the Act of i860, and this company, in turn, was absorbed by the Gas- Light and Coke Company in 1883. An attempt of the latter to amalgamate with the South Metropolitan was frustrated by the Board of Trade. Two other local companies — the Woolwich Equitable, and the Woolwich, Plumstead, and Charlton Gas Consumers — were absorbed by the South Metropolitan in 1884. A Parliamentary Committee, which reported on the metropolitan companies in 1899, recommended that the area south of the Thames, at present part of the district of 1 After the conversion of the South Metropohtan Company's stocks from lo to 4 per cent in 1896, an increase of Jjy per cent was allowed to that company for every decrease of id. per 1000 feet. 21 !22 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY the Gas- Light and Coke Company, acquired by them from the absorption of the London Gas Company in 1883, should be transferred to the South MetropoHtan, "fair and reasonable price" being paid by the latter for it. Another recom- mendation of the committee was that the charge made by the Gas-Light and Coke Company for the rents of automatic meters and stoves should be the same to consumers north and south of the Thames for fittings of the same quality and capacity, and that the prices charged by all the companies for these slot meters and fittings " require regulation, having regard to the fact that the business is a new- one and has extended with extraordinary rapidity throughout the Metropolis." Taking the penny-in-the-slot meters of the Gas-Light and Coke Company alone, as many as 75,258,000 pennies were dropped in by 114,668 customers in the year 1899. In the following year an Act authorised that the charge for the use of the prepayment meter and fittings and for collection should be lod. per 1000 cubic feet. Up to the end of 1900 the amount of capital raised by the three principal gas companies was: Gas-Light and Coke, ^27,272,216; South Metropolitan, ^8,041,791 ; Commercial, ;^i,i03,252. The revenue and expenditure of each during the year 1900 were as follows (their trade embraced in the aggregate 612,000 private consumers, 78,700 public lamps, and they had 3300 miles of mains) : — Total Receipts. Expenditure. Profit on Trading. Maintenance. Management. Total Expenditure. Gas-Light and Coke South MetropoUtan Commercial .£4,526,308 1,982,022 475,496 ;£3,305,565 1,566,744 372,701 .£140,073 61,380 13,712 .£3,445,638 1,628,132 386,413 .£1,080,670 353,890 89,083 Total . .£6,983,826 ;£5,245,OIO .£215,173 .£5,460,183 .£1,523,643 While the gas -supply of London is chiefiy in the hands of three large companies, certain outlying districts are supplied by others. On the next page is a complete list, showing the operations of all the companies for the year 1898. It will be seen that the Gas-Light and Coke Company charge a higher price than the two other large companies. A conference of local authorities, which met in 1900, urged that the time had come when the sliding scale of 1875-76 should be revised in the interests of the gas consumers ; that the Gas-Light and Coke Company should transfer its interests south of the Thames to the South Metropolitan Com- pany. An Act in 1900 authorised the lowering of the illuminating power of gas supplied by the South Metropolitan Company from July i, 1901, to 15 candles, and the standard to 3s. 2d. ; and from July i, 1905, to 14 candles and 3s. id. : — LIGHTING 323 ,c Hii andswor and Putney. yi ^ ■a CO ; tT u-\ CO -^ 'I ^ rC 06" !>. n CO r^ LOCO rl ^s. ri ^^ m LO LO "-I & ^ c Hti n ri ^ CO ri -+ rt oj u M i-v rn OGO vO CO -C^-^'S '/I tn 00 LO CO r^ .■^ rt ;:: . £ \n Ul ^ -^ LO LO ■^ cr ri LO CO s 1 = _-_ rO CO ri Ln Cl n "_ —^ •^3 ^ r^iW rt c c oco r:J-00 ^ -g_o ■0 u u m ■ Ln I>>. vO 0" CO ^ ON 1 i-^ to CI ^ in '-' n r^ LO n -'-; ri S "^ ^ — V— "^ ■■ F LO LO 00 M n ^ t^ Lt ■a M ON n a^o ^ r^ ^ rt y5 ! CO . »J^ md 00 ^ r^ 00 — tn l-l HI LO r^ w n LO "-• _. f^ ", OJ H vD n w &- ri ri *>« M CO t^ \n rO LO CO n CO n LO HH n X) LO LO n CO C0\0 i\ LO -+ r^ ri LO '-' ^ LO LO On CI l=fl i ^~ c , O" Oh 3 ■•CO CO r^ 00 CO CO '-' Cl (N CO r^ Cl Cl "- O NO -13 NO ^■-^ T3 73 CO CO CO \0 O M LO NO CO MO no' nO CO _ ^ LO Cl ON CO CO *M) tf-i ,•>-. "-J QJ w ;^ o o ^^ -2 NO ^ r ^ 324 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The only considerable rival to gas as an illuminant is electric light, which was largely adopted for streets and public buildings, as well as large factories and warehouses, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. As early as 1858 the works of the new Westminster Bridge had been illuminated by Watson's electric light, but for twenty years the invention remained in an experimental stage in London. In June 1877 an apparatus for producing electric light was tested at West India Docks, with candles invented by Mr. Paul Jablochkoff, an officer in the Russian engineering service. These consisted of two carbons, with a slip of insulating substance between them, which burnt away exactly like the wick of a wax candle. The experiment was successful, and each candle was said to be equal in power to 100 gas jets. Other systems in use about this time were the Serrin, the Rapieff, Farmer- Wallace (with which the Liverpool Street terminus of the Great Eastern Railway was lighted), Werdermann, Lontin, De Meritens, Browning, and Carre. A scare was produced in 1878 among the holders of gas shares by the announcement — which proved to be premature — that Mr. Edison had discovered a means of subdividing the electric current so as to make it a cheap and ready light not only for streets, but for houses. An exhibition of various apparatus took place at the- Albert Hall on May 7, 1879, in presence of the Prince of Wales, and about this time Waterloo Bridge and the British Museum were lighted by the new illuminant, and a few lights were set up on the Thames Embankment. A trial of three systems in London streets in 1881 proved that in almost equal areas the cost of lighting by the Brush System was ;^i4io, by the Lontin .1^2930, and by the Siemen ^^3720. The Electric Lighting Act of 1882 enabled the local authorities to purchase supply undertakings in their, district (for the then " fair market value ") at the expiration of twenty-one years or of any subsequent period of seven years. Sir Frederick Bramwell, F.R.S., was among those who uttered a strong protest against this legislation, which, he pointed out, put the local authorities in the position of saying : " As long as there is no profit, or a poor profit, you, the undertakers, may continue to work, but the instant you get anything like an adequate return then we will come and buy you up at a price which must inevitably be a comparatively small fraction of the capital you have laid out in your undertaking." As representing the not inconsiderable body of opinion which held the making of the governing bodies into traders to be a grave mistake, he regarded the Bill as a monstrous proposal, and declared that its passing must be looked upon as the beginning of the end of the carrying out of public enterprises by means of private enterprise. Sir Frederick had measured the immediate effect of the Act with perfect accuracy, and a change soon became necessary in the provision giving compulsory power to the local authorities to acquire supply undertakings. In 1888 the section enacting this compulsory power was repealed on account of the deterrent effect it was having upon the development of electric lighting, ELECTRIC LIGHTIIs'G. KING'S CROSS STATION ELECTRIC LIGHTING. LIVERPOOL STREET STATION LIGHTING 325 and a new provision was made whereby the power of compulsory purchase by local authorities was not to come into operation until after the expiration of forty-two years or such shorter period as might be specified by Parliament when an undertaking was authorised, or at the expiration of any subsequent period of ten years. These facilities gave great impetus to enterprise. One ot the first places to adopt the electric light had been the Grosvenor Art Gallery, New Bond Street, whose founder. Sir Charles Coutts, installed it in 1885. Finding, however, that he had more plant than was necessary for his own requirements, Sir Charles Coutts acceded to the request of shopkeepers and others in the neighbourhood to supply the light to them ; and the installa- tion developed until, under the Act of 1888, it assumed larger dimensions and waS' formed into the London Electric Supply Corporation, with a capital of .1^1,500,000. Numerous other companies were formed, and the vestries competed by setting up generating plant of their own. St. Pancras Vestry led the way in this movement in 1S91, when it established works to supply that parish. Hampstead \'estry followed in 1S94, and Islington in 1896. Shoreditch took a step forward in the following year by using its refuse-destructor as a means for generating electricity, and after the first quarter's operations the combined works produced a considerable profit to the ratepayers. Hammersmith Vestry began with only nine consumers on its books when it opened electric-supply works in 1897; Poplar lighted 10 miles of its streets in 1900, and promised to devote the profits from the undertaking to bringing the electric light into the houses of ratepayers at a moderate cost ; while Battersea, Bermondsey, Bethnal Green, Camberwell, Hackney, Lambeth, Newington, Fulham, and Whitechapel all adopted schemes for supplying themselves. By the end of the century some 200 miles of streets and roads were lighted by electricity, and the light had become popular for factories, hotels, large warehouses, railway stations, trains, and the houses of the rich. In most places, however, gas or paraffin lamps were held in reserve in case of failure in the current. To a deputation of residents of Marylebone, who complained of the failure of the Metropolitan Electric Supply Company in this respect, Mr. Ritchie, President of the Board of Trade, stated in 1900 that the Board issued regulations which required the company to maintain a constant supply, and in the case of default they were liable to penalties, unless it were shown that the default was caused by inevitable accident or hy force majeure. " The Board of Trade had really no power to compel. The only power was that of summoning before a magistrate and getting the company mulcted in penalties. The only real remedy for faults of that kind, alike with regard to quality, with regard to efficiency, and with regard to price, was competition." At this period the Metropolitan had 8000 consumers on their books; were selling nearly ten million units a year; and paid a dividend of six per cent. The prices charged for the light ranged in 326 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY different districts and under different undertakings from fourpence to eightpence per unit. The revenue and expenditure of the lighting and power companies and local authorities for 1900 were approximately as follows : — E xpenditure. Total Excess of Local Authority or Company. Total Revenue. Expenditure. Revenue over Expenditure. Maintenance. Management. Borough Councils — I J, d. £ s. d. I s. d. £ s. d £ s. d. Hammersmith 17,844 19 3 10,225 16 II 987 4 4 11,213 I 3 6,631 18 Hampstead 31,811 14 1 1 18,242 8 6 2,295 13 1 1 20,538 2 5 11,273 12 6 Islington 42,387 18 II 26,401 8 1 1 3,128 5 7 29,529 14 6 12,858 4 5 Poplar 3,013 II 2,477 II II 388 10 II 2,866 2 10 147 8 2 St. Pancras 49,064 13 6 30,246 5 6 2,363 1 1 8 32,609 17 2 16,454 16 4 Shoreditch 31,015 3 5 25,000 14 7 2,007 i6 3 27,008 10 10 4,006 12 7 South wark . 7,799 19 7 5,536 1 1 9 668 13 7 6,205 5 4 1,594 14 3 Stepney 6,410 16 10 4, 1 1 5 12 5 1,715 10 9 5,831 3 2 579 13 8 Companies — Blackheath and Greenwich 3,542 7 I* 2,632 10 9* 709 I 3 3,341 12 0* 200 15 I Brompton and Kensington 36,125 4 5 11,962 II II 2,838 8 1 1 14,801 10 21,324 3 7 Charing Cross and Strand 87,098 18 44,861 14 4,720 2 9 49,581 16 9 37,517 I 3 Chelsea .... 38,011 19 9 '3,946 1 1 I 2,749 13 II 16,696 5 21,315 14 9 City of London 219,550 2 147,179 3 2 12,777 13 3 159,956 16 5 59,593 5 7 County of London and Brush Provincial . 59,615 4 1 1 30,158 8 6 2,993 3 I 33,151 1 1 7 26,463 13 4 Crystal Palace District . 5,694 1 1 3 5,099 19 10 591 7 4 5,691 7 2 3 4 I Kensington and Knightsbridge 54,916 II I 34,177 7 10 4,463 16 7 28,641 4 5 26,275 6 8 London 63,700 5 I* 50,384 15 7* 4,489 13 54,874 8 7* 8,825 16 6 Metropolitan . 210,349 16 5* 114,329 19 I* 16,601 2 130,931 I I* 79,418 15 4 Notting Hill . 19,963 6 2 7,081 17 9 3,025 8 5 10,107 6 2 9,856 St. James and Pall Mall . 93,188 10 33,793 13 II 7,850 9 8 41,644 3 7 51,544 6 5 South London 17,721 12 6 15,154 4 1 1 3,457 I 10 18,611 6 9 -889 14 3 Westminster .... 151,512 7 10 53,627 9 7 13,708 7 3 67,335 16 10 84,176 II Woolwich District . Total 5,637 19 9 2,544 15 3 372 19 9 2,917 15 2,720 4 9 1,280,754 18 I 703,958 18 I 94,903 16 798,862 14 I 481,892 4 * Reckon as follows for purchase of current by Blackheath and Greenwich, £6\ : 1 1 ; London, ;^24,687 : 13 : 5 ; Metropolitan, £2^;,. Note.— The above accounts of Islington and Stepney Borough Councils are for fifteen months. On the same accounts the net revenue showed a balance available for distribu- tion of ^548,000. At this time the total called-up capital of the fifteen companies was ^8,182,000; while of the ;^822,ooo borrowed by the eight local authorities for their supply undertakings, less than ^55,000 had been repaid. CHAPTER IV CHIMNEY SWEEPING By Sir Walter Besant An examination into the Debates and Acts that have been held and passed for the protection of the chimney-sweep shows how extremely hard it is to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Nothing could be said, one would think, in favour of the old practice. Children of quite tender years were dragged out of their beds before daybreak ; marched through the streets carrying a heavy sack, and bawling " Sweep ! Sweep ! " all the way ; and forced to climb up dark and narrow chimneys, half suffocated by the falling soot, their knees bleeding from the rough bricks ; rendered liable to a most painful and terrible disease ; driven by the most cruel beatings to their horrible work — it would seem as if the case had only to be stated to be remedied. But it was the time when children worked all night in the cotton mills, and were kept in the coal-mine for fourteen or sixteen hours 327 328 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY at a stretch^ — with no thought of the cruelty and barbarity. There was an Act to regulate chimney-sweeping in the year 1789; then the question slept : in 1834 another Act regulated the trade to a certain extent: in 1842 an Act prohibited the taking of apprentices under sixteen years of age, that is, until they were too big to get up chimneys : this Act was made more stringent by a clause prohibiting the climbing of a chimney to any one under twenty-one years of age. Other Acts to the same effect were passed in 1864 and in 1875. For the Acts were resisted to the uttermost before they were passed, and evaded and broken constantly after they were passed. The master chimney-sweepers persistently declared that it was impossible to sweep chimneys except by the hands of children. Certainly the construction of chimneys lent some appearance of truth to the assertion ; they were carried across the ceilings of rooms ; they were curved and bent ; they were twisted this way and that way in order to bring them out so as to form part of a stack. The objections, however, were met by the construction of " soot-holes," places in the chimney where the bricks could be taken out and the machine inserted. Some of these chimneys are repre- sented in the accompanying plates. (Diagrams marked I., II., III., IV., V.) In some cases the chimney-sweepers falsified the shape of the chimney in order to mislead the legislators. Here is a diagram showing : — (i) The true shape of the chimney. (2) The shape as presented by the chimney-sweepers to the House of Lords. CHAPTER V SEWAGE Bv George Turnbull Centuries ago, when artificial drainage was first introduced, the sewers were made to follow the lines of those streams which, flowing into the Thames on each side, formed the natural drainage for this part of the river basin. But as London developed and the population increased, the discharge of a growing volume of sewage into the Thames constituted a serious danger to the- health of the inhabitants, especially in view of the fact that the river was the principal source of their water- supply. Cholera's lesson was slowly taken to heart. In 1865 a reform which had long been urgently required was carried out, and London was presented with a system of main drainage which became the admiration of the world. The principle of it is that of interception. Lines of conduits laid at right angles to the sewers receive the sewage and carry it in an easterly direction to points on the banks of the river sufficiently remote not to affect the health of London. At those points the sewage is discharged, and after chemical treatment the remaining sludge is carried in vessels fifty miles out to the open sea. The perfection of the sewage system was entirely a work of the nineteenth century. We may glance at the very different conditions which prevailed in London's younger days, before the construction of underground sewers was thought of In the twelfth century the inhabitants had a refuse-pit attached to each dwelling; and the pits were emptied by nightmen, and the refuse conveyed to lay-stalls at Dowgate, Whitefriars, or other points. The streets sloped down to a channel in the centre, which carried off the rainwater and most of the slops ; the citizens were required to keep clean the pavement and channels in front of their dwellings, and the filth swept up was removed by a class of men called rakers, who placed it in carts. A great many latrines overhung the river ; the Master of the Temple was bound to keep up one for public gratuitous use. The little stream called the Walbrook was literally lined by one long street of these devices, for which the public each paid a shilling a year. There was also a public convenience in Moorfields. In 1307 a Commission of Sewers was created to purify the River Fleet, the exhalations 329 330 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY from which had been strong enough to overcome the incense burnt at the altars in neighbouring churches. This river, indeed, became inaccessible for ships on account of the accumulation of filth. Other statutes of a local nature were made in 1225, 1436, 1438, 1489, and in 15 15, under which the conditions for executing drainage works were partially regulated ; but no measure of a general character was passed until 1 53 1. This was renewed in 1548, and in 1607 James I. extended its application so as to include all places within two miles of London. In 1732 the River Fleet was covered in and formed into a sewer behind Holborn ; the Ranelagh and the King's Scholars' Pond sewers, and other important arterial drains, were closed in about the same period. With this brief historical outline we take up more particularly the tale of the last hundred years. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the sewers, which discharged into the Thames, were still permitted to be used only for the purpose of carrying off the surface or rain water. To cast any house drainage or other offensive matter into them was a penal offence. All offensive house refuse was collected into cesspools, the contents of which were removed from time to time and carted away for use in the country. There was generally behind every house a small yard or garden, at the end of which stood the privy over a cesspool. An important advance in general cleanliness and sanitation was marked by the introduction of water-closets to the houses in the year 18 10. Although it was slow to be adopted at first, the advantages of this invention were gradually recognised, and in the course of twenty years water-closets were in fairly general use. Originally they were made to discharge into the cesspools, and the large addition this formed to the contents of the latter rendered necessary the laying of overflow drains from them, running into the street sewers. As London grew and cesspools multiplied, they were found to be sources of annoyance, and where badly constructed they were often fruitful breeding-places of disease. Water-closets, on the other hand, presented new facilities for effective and immediate removal of the sewage, and the practice was introduced of discharging it (with the aid of a now improved water-supply) into the street drains, whence it was conducted to the Thames. But soon a serious complication arose — the river was becoming dangerously impure. At this period (1834) there were seven Boards of Commissioners of Sewers existing within a circle of ten miles from the Post Office. These boards had to deal only with rain water from the streets, the open grounds, and the roofs of houses. They were appointed by the Crown, and each had separate and independent jurisdiction over its own district, the districts being the City and Liberties of West- minster, and part of the county of Middlesex ; Holborn and Finsbury, and part of Middlesex ; Blackwall or Poplar and Stebenheath Marsh ; City of London ; Tower SEWAGE 33^ Hamlets ; from the River Ravensbourne in Kent to the Ember branch of the River Mole in Surrey ; and Regent Street. Five of the Commissions were guided by local Acts ; two, the Blackwall and the Tower Hamlets, were guided by the old law contained in the celebrated Bill of Sewers passed in 1531. The defects of the whole system of drainage administration were practically identical in character with those which characterised London government generally. There was no uniformity in the action of the boards ; publicity was utterly unknown in their affairs ; there was no rigidly enforced code of responsibility. Rates might be equal, while the advantages reaped by the ratepayers were widely at variance. A citizen having property in Finsbury, Westminster, and the City might find himself subject to a penalty for acting in any two of these divisions in the same manner as he had acted in the third. Nor was a man compelled to drain his house. Sewer rates were exacted from all, but no inhabitant could make a connection with a sewer unless he paid the sum of 17s. 6d. The death-rate reflected the unhealthy con- ditions of life ; in 1838, 1839, and 1840 the average annual rate was 37.38 per 1000 of the population, and in certain congested districts it was over 60 per 1000. An illustration of inconvenience arising from the absence of a common understanding among the authorities occurred in the City, through which it was necessary for part of the Holborn and Finsbury sewage to pass on its way to the river. The Holborn and Finsbury sewers had been greatly enlarged, and the City sewers were unequal to the task of carrying off their contents. The result was that houses in the vicinity of the river were inundated every time there was a fall of rain, the contents of their drains, in addition to the waters from the high lands in the neighbouring division, being forced back into the houses by the volume of water that occupied the main sewer. Neither Cheapside nor Leadenhall Street was sewered at this time ; these routes formed the highest ground, and for excrementitious matter they possessed cesspools, which were dug through the clay or loam down to the gravel, allowing the whole of the fluids to percolate into the earth and probably contaminate the water-supply. A slight compensation for the confusion of the sewage manage- ment in the Metropolis was the latitude which the system allowed to officials in the several districts who cared to exercise genuine efforts for improvement. Thus Mr. Roe, the engineer to the Holborn and Finsbury Commissioners, made the new sewers in that district of an egg-shape, whereby a narrower channel was secured for the small volume of flow in dry weather than was the case with the nearly circular sewer ; and he also demonstrated the ease with which sewers could be cleaned by flushing with water. The idea of a system of intercepting sewers was first suggested in 1834 by Mr. John Martin, a painter of some distinction, who took active interest in water-supply and drainage. His proposal was that both sides of the Thames should be embanked, and an intercepting sewer constructed in each embankment 332 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY for the purpose of collecting the sewage and conveying it to points in the river below the most populous area. But although the inhabitants by the cholera epidemic of two years before had recognised the harmful effect of the existing system of sewage-disposal upon the health of the community, they were not yet educated up to the acceptance of Martin's plan, which fell in face of the strong opposition it encountered. Eleven years later the idea was revived by Mr. Thomas Wickstead, engineer to the East London Waterworks Company, who proposed carrying the points of outfall for the sewage to Barking Creek on the north and Greenwich Marshes on the south side, and added provisions for deodorising the sewage by chemical means before its discharge into the river. In the same year (1845) Mr. J. J. Morewood brought before Parliament plans for intercepting the sewage by low-level tunnels on each side of the river — a scheme which was considered again in 1858, but was not accepted. No advance towards unifying the medley of sewage authorities was made until the year 1848. Meanwhile the local Commissions ruled with the old absence of common principle. Metropolitan sewers were, it is true, regarded as the best examples of such work in the country, their great defect being the construction which enabled deposits to accumulate within them. But larger sewers were made to discharge into smaller ones, sewers with upright sides were connected with egg-shaped ones, and sewers of the latter design having the narrow part upwards were made to connect with similar sewers having the narrow part downwards. In 1844 the Westminster board, which was only less important than the City board itself, made the novel departure of requiring its engineer to qualify for his position by passing a stringent competitive examination ; and some of the other boards evinced about this time a desire for self-improvement. But all such attempts only touched the surface of the problem. A radical change was necessary. The force of public feeling on the question led eventually to an Act being passed on September 4, 1848, by which the whole of the authorities, with the exception of the City, were united into one board, called the Consolidated Commission of Sewers. This body held jurisdiction in any places or parts in the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, Essex, and Kent, or any of them, not more than twelve miles in a straight line from St. Paul's Cathedral, but not being within the City of London or the liberties thereof Twelve members of the board were appointed by the Crown, and five others were ex-officio representatives from the City. The duration of office was two years, and the members were unpaid. They had power not only to keep the existing sewers in order, but to make any new ones that were necessary. Every house was now required by the Act to be provided with a proper water- closet or privy, and to be drained into the main sewers. The Commissioners therefore set themselves to abolish the cesspools, of which there were still 200,000 SEWAGE ^^^ in existence, and to introduce pipe-sewer communications between the houses and the main drains. Water-closets being now established in all the houses, the waste products were conveyed by the sewers into the Thames, the Lea, and the Ravensbourne, and the great waterway in the heart of London thus became a huge open sewer. As the tide rose it closed the outlets in many places, and poured back the sewage flowing from high ground, which then accumulated in low- lying portions of the sewers and remained there stagnant during the greater part of the day — often for eighteen out of the twenty-four hours. During stagnation, more- over, the heavier ingredients fell to the bottom, and from day to day accumulated in the sewers. Lighter refuse was carried up river on the rising tide, and churned back again to the City with the ebb. And this state of affairs was soon rendered still worse by the receipt of refuse from districts in the upper reaches of the river. When the town of Richmond wished to carry its sewage to the Old Deer Park, which was a Crown possession, the Crown authorities objected, and the Commission forthwith conveyed the sewage to the Thames. Their example was followed by Twickenham, Isleworth, Kew, Brentford, and other communities outside the juris- diction of the Commission. The Commissioners who held office in 1849 — a year marked by another epidemic of cholera — proposed that the sewage should be kept out of the Thames altogether, and that lines of sewers should be laid down which would converge into large tanks or "sumps," from which the sewage could be pumped up and carried away for agricultural purposes. On the other hand, ]Mr. Phillips, the chief surveyor, recommended an extension of the proposed intercepting system for discharging the sewage into the river below London. The Commissioners were unable to decide which of these schemes to adopt, and finally they advertised for competitive plans for a complete systematic drainage of the Metropolis. No fewer than 116 designs were received in response to this invitation ; the Commissioners, finding themselves unable to agree upon any one, resigned office. Their successors continued the examination of the plans, and were attracted by one in which Messrs. Maclean and Stileman, adopting the principle of interception, proposed carrying the outfalls to the sea, and using the sewage to reclaim waste lands on the Essex coast. The Commissioners, however, among whom at this time was Mr. Robert Stephenson, decided to prepare a scheme of their own, and plans were accordingly drawn up for them by Mr. Forster, who had long been one of Mr. Stephenson's most able railway assistants. This gentle- man proposed to drain the south side of the Metropolis by forming an intercepting sewer to which the sewage would be raised by pumping — the physical configuration of this part of London making it impossible that any of it would flow away by gravitation. A reservoir at Woolwich Marshes was to receive the sewage during the intervals of the tides, and it was to be discharged into the river at the top of Woolwich Reach, eight miles below London Bridge. On the north side Mr. Forster 334 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY proposed to intercept the whole of the existing drainage by means of two main conduits, the first at such a height as would allow the water to be discharged by gravitation, the second at a lower level to meet the outfalls of the lowest sewers. These intercepting lines were to converge to a point on the eastern bank of the River Lea, where a pumping station was to be erected, and the waters from the low- level sewer raised to the upper one ; thence the united sewers were to lead to a reservoir near Galleon's Reach, and the sewage be discharged there at such period of the tide as would prevent its reflux to London. The scheme was to cost ^1,500,000, but the Commission had no power to raise the money, and another deadlock ensued. In the next Commission Captain Vetch, R.E., brought forward a scheme of his own, which caused a division of opinion ; and the fifth Commission (1852) was confronted by a plan submitted to Parliament by a private company called the Great London Drainage. This was Mr. Morewood's scheme for con- structing two lines of low-level sewers, one on the north and one on the south side of the Thames, each designed to carry the sewage to deodorising works below London, where it was proposed to precipitate, and to sell the manure. About this time also the Metropolitan Sewage Manure Company was making the experi- ment of taking sewage by underground pipes from Pimlico sewers to the market gardens at Fulham, where it was distributed on the land by movable hose and jet. A scheme was proposed in 1854 by the General Board of Health, which sought to introduce a separate system of drainage whereby independent channels would be provided for the removal of the sewage and the rainfall, but although the Home Secretary gave his approval to this idea, it did not commend itself to the Commissioners, who thereupon resigned. The sewage continued to be dis- charged directly into the Thames by means of the sewers running practically at right angles to its course. The sixth Commission (1854) also considered new plans. Still no decision was taken. The people were becoming exasperated. Even the Commissioners themselves realised that they were not competent to deal with the subject. Cholera again breaking out, the Government awoke to grapple with the difficulty. " I was determined," said Sir Benjamin Hall, the First Commissioner of Works (to whom the reform now introduced was directly due), " on the merciful abatement of the epidemic that ravaged the Metropolis, to turn my attention to the state of this vast city. I knew that unless great and speedy radical changes in the constitution of its local affairs were affected, it was utterly hopeless to expect that those affairs would be well conducted." The Metropolitan Management Act (1855) was then passed, which created the Metropolitan Board of Works, a central authority holding jurisdiction over local bodies and district boards. It was composed of three members elected by the City Corporation, two members sent from each of six parishes, one member from each of seventeen parishes, and one SEWAGE 335 member from each of fourteen districts. The main sewers were placed in charge of this new central Board, while the others were controlled by the vestries and district boards. A plan for new main sewers was prepared by the Board's engineer, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Joseph Bazalgette, based on the scheme of Mr. Forster, who had died during the period of recrimination. Barking Creek on the north and Plumstead Marshes on the south were proposed as the points of outfall for the sewage. Three distinguished engineers. Captain Douglas Gallon, R.E., Mr. James Simpson, and Mr. Thomas E. Blackwell, reported for the Government (1857) upon the Board's proposals, and selected Higham Creek and Macking Lighthouse for the outfalls ; but the Board hesitated about accepting this recom- GOING DOWN INTO THE SEWERS mendation, on the ground of cost. They appointed Mr. Bazalgette, Mr. G. P. Bidder, and Mr. Thomas Hawksley to consider the subject, and upon the report of these experts in 1858 the ultimate scheme was based. The points of outfall chosen were Barking Creek and Crossness Point, places respectively 3^ and 2^ miles from the metropolitan boundary, situated in low and dreary marshes and as far as possible from human habitations. The necessity for Government sanction was dispensed with by an Act of Parliament on August 2, 1858, and thus the last obstacle was removed and the Board were free to proceed with the work. That it was urgently required was evidenced by the stench from the river, which pervaded the Houses of Parliament in hot weather. The pent-up refuse which was deposited in the sewers entailed upon the Board an annual expense of about ^30,000 to flush 336 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY the filth into the river. In summer months ^^900 per week had been spent on disinfectants in order to keep down the stench and prevent plague. The scheme now carried out provided for the removal of 11,500,000 cubic feet of sewage per day on the north side of the Thames, and 5,750,000 on the south side ; the removal of a rainfall of 28,500,000 cubic feet per day on the north and 17,500,000 on the south; the relief of the low-lying districts from the effects of ordinary floods and tide-locking ; the delivery of the sewage and rainflow at points on the river where they should not be injurious to the health of the inhabitants or , prejudicial to navigation ; facilities for treating the sewage chemically with a view to its disinfection before admitting it to the river, and for discharging the sewage at the most desirable period of the tide and securing its transmission in an innocuous IN THE SUBWAY. THE BRIDGE, CHARTERHOUSE STREET condition to the sea. The work was so far advanced in 1863 that temporary arrangements were made for discharging the northern sewage at Barking. By 1864 both northern and southern outfalls were in use; and on April 4, 1865, the great drainage system, by which the existing 1300 miles of sewers in London were reinforced by 82 miles of main intercepting sewers, was formally opened by the Prince of Wales, in presence of a large assemblage, which included members of the Legislature and representatives of all the scientific and learned bodies in the capital. The low-level sewer on the north side was delayed by the construction of the Thames Embankment, of which it forms a part, and some pumping stations remained to be finished, so that not until 1875 were the works finally completed. Mean- while great progress had been made with local sewers. A glance at the work accomplished by some of the districts will show the activity that prevailed SEWAGE 32,7 among sewage authorities since the Act of 1855 had enforced uniformity of design by requiring these bodies to submit their plans to the Aletropohtan Board before proceeding. In 1856 Lambeth drainage was shallow and inefficient, being chiefly dependent on the Effra open sewer, running from Norwood to Vauxhall ; by the year 1S70, 53 miles of sewers had been laid down. Camberwell in the former year was almost wholly drained into offensive open sewers, several miles in extent ; by 1870 it had executed 50 miles of sewers. Hardly a fifth of Greenwich was sewered in 1856; fourteen years later four-fifths of it were well drained by 31 miles of sewers. In Wandsworth the change was even more striking, for there a district which had next to no sewers, but only open ditches and cesspools, possessed in 1870 no fewer than 142 miles of sewers on which upwards of a quarter of a million sterling had been expended. Other vestries had been cor- respondingly active, and outlying districts such as Hornsey and Beckenham made arrangements for conveying their sewage to the intercepting sewers after these had been in operation for some time. To-day, then, the County Council main- tains a system of main drainage whereby the whole of the sewage passing into the local sewers vested in the City Corporation and Borough Councils is collected by 280 miles of main sewers (at right angles to the river) and intercepting sewers (parallel to the river), and conveyed to outfall works for treatment and disposal. Broadly, on either side of the Thames there are three large intercepting sewers. On the south the district between Battersea, Ber- mondsey and Deptford is drained by the low-level sewer ; the two sewers which drain the higher parts— Clapham, Tooting, Brixton, Streatham, Peckham, etc.— receive the sewage pumped from the low-level at Deptford, and the combined sewage of the whole of South London is finally pumped at the Southern Outfall sewer at Crossness, a height of 20 feet. On the north side of the Thames there are the high-level, the middle -level, and the low-level intercepting sewers. The high-level acts by gravity throughout its whole length, and receives the sewage- of Hampstead, Kentish Town, Highgate, Hackney, Clapton, Stoke LONDON SEWERS 338 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Newington, and other places. The middle-level sewer begins near Harrow Road at Kensal Green, and joins the high-level one at Old Ford, where there is an overflow for storm-water into the Lea ; from this point the two sewers pass by the way of Abbey Mills pumping station to Barking Outfall. The low- level sewer begins at Hammersmith, and is the main outlet for West London ; its sewage has to be raised at Pimlico (where there is a storm overflow into the Thames) to a height of 1 6 feet Into the upper end of the sewer.^ On reaching Bow Common this sewer is taken under the Lea to Abbey Mills, where its contents are again pumped 36 feet to the higher level. The aggregate stream of sewage then flows through on a concrete embankment across the marshes to Barking Creek. Originally the sewage was passed untreated into the river at the two outfalls. A Royal Commission, of which Lord Bramwell was chairman, reported in 1884 that evils did exist in the Thames demanding a prompt remedy, and that by chemical precipitation a certain part of the organic matter of the sewage would be removed. At the same time the Metropolitan Board gave the order to deodorise the whole of the sewage, but pollution of the river continued so offensive that in 1888, the Board, on the advice of Sir Joseph Bazalgette, sought a remedy by adopting the principle of chemical precipitation. It fell to Sir Alexander Binnie, engineer to the London County Council, the successors to the Metropolitan Board of Works, to finish the scheme. At Barking twelve precipitation channels were completed in 1889, each of a width of 30 feet, and varying in length from 860 to 12 10 feet, with a total capacity of 20,000,000 gallons, by means of which the clarified sewage that had been chemically treated was drawn off^a part of the affluent water passing into the old reservoir, while the remainder was discharged direct into the river. The process adopted under the advice of Mr. Dibdin, chemist to the County Council, consists of the addition to the crude sewage of about one grain of proto- sulphate of iron and four grains of lime per gallon, the latter quantity working out at about 5 cwts. of lime per million gallons. Similar works were completed at Crossness Outfall in 1892. In 1895 the County Council removed the weirs, over which the liquid passed, from each of the sludge-settling channels, and sub- stituted two high- and two low-level telescopic weirs capable of being lowered gradually. This improvement enabled the liquid to be drawn off at any time without taking any of the sludge along with it. A fleet of vessels, each of about 1000 tons capacity, conveys the sludge to the open sea, twenty miles below the Nore. As a result the river in the neighbourhood of the .outfalls is kept comparatively pure. Should the vessels be delayed owing to fog or any other cause, the sludge can be stored to the extent of many thousands of tons, exclusive of what is stored in the settling channels. In the year 1900 the total amount of 1 Out of the 121 square miles within the county, about twelve are situated below the level of high water in the Thames. The Isle of Dogs, the whole of which is below high-water mark, is served by a separate sewer, which also has a pumping-station at Abbey Mills. SEWAGE 339 sewage treated was 79,382,570,830 gallons, and the weight of sludge sent to sea 2,288,000 tons. By the end of the century there was need for considerable extension of the main drainage system. It had involved a capital expenditure of over ^8,000,000 since 1855 ; but the population it served was now over five millions, whereas the scheme had been designed to serve only about three and a half Additional sewers and machinery were therefore decided upon, estimated to cost ^4,000,000. CHAPTER VI PAVEMENTS By George Turnbull !•«** / / In the little London of the thirteenth century the people talked not of pavements, but only of highways. Robbers lurked in the bushes and trees along the roads between the markets, and more attention was paid to clearing out their hiding- places than to the actual question of improving the condition of the roads for traffic. Steps were taken to repair those in the m vicinity of St. Giles-in-the-Fields and Temple ^ Bar, and the first toll for that purpose was authorised in 1346, but the roads of West- minster were so bad that faggots had to be cast into the ruts to enable the King's pro- cession to make its way to Parliament. The Strand was an open highway. In 141 7 Holborn was paved at the instigation of Henry V., who, having noticed the miry and dangerous condition of this highway, em- ployed two vessels (up the Fleet) to bring stones for the purpose. In the sixteenth century many of the streets had become almost impassable, and the first Act for paving and improving the City of London, passed in 1532, described them as " very foul and full of pits and sloughs, so as to be mighty perillous and noyous, as well for all the King's subjects on DUSTMAN ■' . . horseback as on foot with carriages." Among the streets that were laid within the next few years were the Strand from Temple Bar to Strand Bridge ; Petty France, Westminster ; Grub Street, Shoreditch ; Goswell Street, and High Holborn. The streets of Southwark also were paved, and every one had to maintain the pavement before his own ground or forfeit to the King 340 A SrREEr ORHERLY CI.KAklNi; UP TIIIC REFUSE IN STREEl'S ROUND CO\E.NT GAKDEX I 5 t- Tt bWEEPING Willi A CIR( ULAR RRO.jlI A DUSTMAN' A SQIJKI'.GI.I, '■i.|':ani.\g Mil: streets wrni a hose 'I'ilV. CARI-: OI-' I III-; STkliETS /■'/vui Plivlu^Hiplis I'y Claikc ,iri,i Jlydc. PAVEMENTS 341 sixpence for every square yard so neglected. The sides of the streets were next paved with pebble stones for passengers, but, as this made rough walking -ground, the inhabitants in 161 5 set about laying broad freestones and flags before their own doors. About this time some of the streets of Westminster were raised and paved with flat stones for the convenience of pedestrians. Then it was found that hackney coaches destroyed the pavements to such an extent that in 1661 an annual tax of ^5 was imposed on each of these vehicles, of which there were about 400 in existence. After the Great Fire much zeal was manifested. The streets of the City were overhauled, being pitched and levelled for the convenience of traffic, and by Order of Common Council in 1671 all streets called " high " were paved round in causeway fashion. The poet, John Gay, in his Trivia, has described the streets as they were at the beginning of the eighteenth century (see London in the Eighteenth Century, Chap. VI.). The mud in the streets was terrible in wet weather, but a worse evil in the centre of the road was the stream of sewage, which could be turned to such mischievous account : " In harden'd orbs the schoolboy moulds the snow. To mark the coachman with a dext'rous throw. Why do ye, boys, the kenneUs surface spread. To tempt with faithless pass the jnatron's tread? Hoiij can you laugh to see the damsel spurn. Sink in your frauds, and her green stocking mour7i ? " Left to the tender mercies of the people themselves, the flagstones either became rough and irregular or disappeared altogether by the middle of the eighteenth century. The channels in the middle of the streets rendered driving alike disagreeable and unsafe ; the lower orders among the inhabitants were in the habit of throwing ashes and other rubbish in the streets, thereby blocking the channels and injuring passengers ; and as the footways were on the same level as the coachway — long rows of posts affording the only line of demarcation — the mud and water were common to both. Guernsey pebbles formed still the bulk of the pavement, but after 1765, when a complaint was lodged by the Commissioners of Sewers with the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, Purbeck paving was used for the footway and Scotch stones for the coachways. The inhabitants were fined 2s. if they failed to clean the pavement in front of their dwelling. With the laying of the Scotch stones came the end of the posts, and the double event was celebrated by somebody in the following doggerel : " The Scottish new pavement deserves well our praise ; To the Scotch we're obliged, too, for mending our ways : But this we can never forget, for they say As that they have taken our posts all away." The development of modern London had by this time begun, and legislation was demanded for other parts than the City. An Act passed in 1762 led to a slight 342 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY improvement, but the pavement it provided consisted of large pebbles and rounded boulders, whose character is indicated by the term " petrified kidneys " applied to it. The pavement of Piccadilly was the worst Jn the Metropolis about 1824, although to keep it in repair the Kensington Road Trust paid ^^looo a year out of the turn- pike tolls, which were then in the hands of Jews and realised an annual rental of ^^50,000. Bond Street had long been one of the finest and most fashionable streets in the Metropolis ; and in Oxford Street five carriages might drive abreast between two broad foot-pavements. Gravel roads still existed in some places, and, where the traffic was not heavy, these presented a fine appearance. In the East End, Commercial Road from the docks to the City was paved in the centre with wheel- tracks of smooth granite blocks, and the sides of the road covered with gravel. The difficulty of obtaining a regular foundation for roadways was not met until the period of John Loudon Macadam and Thomas Telford. The lines upon which these men proceeded were very different. Macadam, whose method became generally adopted after its appearance in 181 6, held that the subsoil would carry any weight so long as it was made dry by drainage and kept dry by an impervious covering. Telford, however, gained a large share of popular favour about 1820 with his system of pitched foundations for the broken stones. The pebbles or boulders of the early pitched roadways had now given place to roughly squared blocks. Parliamentary Committees to deal with the subject of paving sat in 181 6 and 1824, and in the latter year Telford, in a report on the parish of St. George, Hanover Square, recognised the importance of keeping the subsoil and the paving stones apart. The stones that were employed, however, varying from 4^ to y^ inches broad, and 7 to 10 deep, not only produced an uneven surface but gave an unsafe footing to horses. A stone 3 inches broad by 9 deep was next used, and the first of modern sett pave- ments was laid on Blackfriars Bridge in 1840 by Mr. Walker. The stones were laid on a bed of concrete a foot thick, and jointed with mortar. Meantime public carriages reached a high state of perfection, and gentlemen drivers, who took great pride in their animals and were adepts at harnessing, were largely instrumental in bringing about an improved condition of the main thoroughfares. A foundation of broken stone is common at the present day in many of the chief streets ; but a mixture of broken stones, brick rubbish, clinker, and old building materials is also largely employed for foundations. To get rid of the tolls out of which the roads were maintained the Metropolitan Road Commission was abolished in 1864, after an existence of about forty years, and the roads devolved again upon the parishes. As an example of what this parcelling-out meant, it was shown by the Society of Arts in 1872 that yy miles of thoroughfares were under the charge of no fewer than sixty-eight vestries or independent local authorities. Among the first good granite pavements was the Euston, which was laid in 1843 at the departure side of the Euston Railway Station. It consisted of neatly PAVEMENTS 343 dressed Mount Sorrel blocks of about 4 inches deep, 3 inches wide, and 4 long. Watling Street, at the crossing of Bow Lane, was also laid with this in 1845. A common practice about this time was to grout the joints with lime or sand, but in other respects there was no real improvement in granite paving for twenty years. In 1869 a new system was introduced in Duke Street, Smithfield. The roadway was laid openly with blocks of Carnarvon granite, the joints being packed with small pebbles and the interstices filled in with melted pitch and oil, instead of the joints being filled with ordinary grouting. This granite was later discarded owing to its slipperiness. Aberdeen blue granite is popular on account of the rough surface it presents, but the granite principally used at the present day is Guernsey. Iron as a paving material was tried in Blackfriars Road in the summer of 181 6, and the experiment led to a proposal that some of the streets of the City should be paved with it. This pavement did not come into notice again, however, until 1859, when it was laid down at the Paddington terminus of the Great Western Railway. Two years later iron was laid in King Street, Westminster. It was durable, and cleaner than other pavements ; the blocks were from 4 to 6 inches deep and 12 to 16 in diameter. In 1862 iron pavement was laid in Poultry, but there was a greater body of traffic here, and it was not so successful. It wore unevenly, and the blocks broke, while if horses fell upon it they rose with serious injuries. These defects, added to its cost, put iron pavement out of court. Another to be tried was cork. It was put down in recent years in some parts of Lambeth, Paddington, and Chelsea, in blocks 9 inches by 4J by 2. A few yards of rubber (for quiet) were laid privately, but owing to its expense no idea could be entertained of this material as a street paving. Wood pavement, however, is now long established in favour. When an experiment was made in Oxford Street in 1839 with various kinds of paving materials — wood, stone, bitumen, asphalte, and others — the one that attracted most attention was the wood. It was first hinted at in 1838, when one David Stead took out a patent for paving with sexagonal or otherwise formed blocks of wood saturated with tar. On January 29, 1839, Robert Carey patented an application of certain forms of blocks of stone, wood or other suitable material in the paving or covering of roads or streets ; and in the course of the year the first wood pavement was laid in Old Bailey. Hexagonal blocks of fir, measuring from 6 to 8 inches across and 4 to 6 inches deep, were bedded in gravel laid on a foundation which had been levelled and beaten. Mincing Lane in 1841 and Gracechurch Street in 1842 were laid under Carey's system, which became most popular of all. The blocks measured 6|- to 7I wide, 13 to 15 inches long, and 8 or 9 deep, and the sides and ends had projecting and re-entering angles locking the blocks together. But none of the wood pavement lasted more than seven years — the 344 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY average life of one nowadays is ten years — and as wood was more expensive than granite, the latter was adhered to for a time. It was about 1870 that the use of wood pavement began to increase. Easy for traction, and affording a good foothold for horses, it offered smaller chance of accidents than granite, and possessed the great recommendation of being a noiseless pavement. It was objected that the surface absorbed and retained putrescent matter such as horse-dung and urine, and that the Clark! &■ Hyde. REPAYING A LONDON STREET pavement was on that account injurious to health, but most authorities now are satisfied that, when properly prepared with rosin or creosote, wood is not injurious to health or liable to sudden decay. In 1871 the "improved" wood pavement was first laid down in Bartholomew Lane, the principal feature of this being a foundation of two layers of i-inch deal planks, saturated with boiling tar and laid upon a 4-inch bed of sand. In a few years this gave place to concrete foundation of Portland cement, with layers of tarred felt interposed between the paving and the concrete. At the present day the blocks are usually laid on 6 inches of Portland PAVEMENTS 345 cement concrete. There are various ways of jointing them, each surveyor following his own fancy, but the most popular method is to lay the blocks close and run them over with a bituminous composition of hot tar with a little pitch added. Between 1872 and 1875 wood was laid in Gracechurch Street, Ludgate Hill, Fore Street and Coleman Street, and the macadamised carriageways of the West End soon came under the same movement. High Holborn substituted granite for wood as early as 1857, but reverted to wood twenty years later. Oxford Street and Piccadilly were completely paved with it in 1876, the Strand in 1877, Pall Mall in 1879, Regent Street in 1880, and districts of Paddington, West Kensington and Clapham about the same time. Whereas there had only been 100,000 square yards in 1S43, there were 53 miles of wood pavement in the streets of the Metropolis in 1884. Within the last ten years West Australian and New South Wales hard- woods have been employed to a considerable extent, but the largest area is laid with creosoted yellow deal. This Baltic timber is the quietest of all pavements under traffic ; but its maintenance is costly. The perfect paving material, indeed, is still to find. Macadam involves least cost in first construction, and is most suited for roads under light traffic in residential neighbourhoods. During the last decade miles of macadam roads were pulled up and reconstructed with granite setts, which made the washing of the streets possible. Granite paving, the most durable and economical under heavy traffic, is impossibly noisy. Stone and wood share the streets of London with one other material, namely asphalte. This consists of pure carbonate of lime impregnated with mineral bitumen, the proportion of bitumen in carriage and foot pavements varying from 7 to 12 per cent. Although London introduced wood as a paving material long in advance of Paris, the French capital had already used asphalte for many years before its appearance here in the early 'seventies created a small revolution in the City. Threadneedle Street was laid in May 1869 with the compressed asphalte of the Val de Travers Company. Cheapside and Poultry were laid in 1870, and many other thoroughfares in subsequent years. The City Engineer in 1900 reported in favour of asphalte rather than wood in a thoroughfare like Holborn Viaduct, where the carriageway traffic represents about 12,000 vehicles in twelve hours. Less noisy than granite, it requires less tractive force than any other pavement, and being non-absorbent and without joints it is easily kept clean. One objection to asphalte, however, is that horses fall upon it on slight provocation, and even a little slop causes splashing. Against this may fairly be urged the recommendation that asphalte offers the easiest traction for automobile carriages ; and these give promise of being more abundant than horse-drawn vehicles in the London of the immediate future. Asphalte is derived chiefly from Val de Travers in Switzerland, Pyrimont Seyssel in the Jura mountains, Sicily, and Limmer and Vorwohle in Germany. 346 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY A frequent and long-standing grievance with the people of London is that the pavements should be torn up so rudely whenever a water or a lighting company- chooses to have business with their underground pipes. The responsibility for this does not lie with the surveyors, but is embodied with the independent privileges these companies enjoy. The chief complaint, however, respecting the pavement of the streets is that it varies so often from one material to another. This lack of uniformity, due of course to the presence of so many administrative bodies, has characterised the roads of London during the greater part of the nineteenth century. But the inconveniences of the latter end are small compared with the state of things in the middle of the century. In those days the scavenging was contracted out, and snow was allowed to lie deep in the streets for weeks at a time. The mud was scraped off the streets, but to use a broom was considered a waste of money and bad for the road. Steam-rollers were unknown, and the road metal had to wait for the traffic to grind it down. To-day the scavenging and washing of the roadways, the collection and disposal of refuse, the whole tremendous task of keeping the streets of London "sweet-smelling," are within appreciable distance of being an exact science. That task incidentally was made a little heavier by the Public Health Act of 189 1 in a manner which surveyors regarded as mistaken — the local authorities being made responsible for the cleansing of the footways. As to the scavenging, it has been calculated that an ordinary fall of snow in London necessitates an expenditure of at least ^30,000. From its 2000 miles of streets, some 2,000,000 cubic yards of material are removed every year. In Hampstead's 55 miles of streets, at the end of the century, the picking-up of paper was costing over ^5 a week in wages ; while the annual charge for watering, a process to which only the principal roads were treated more than twice a day, amounted to upwards of ^3500- The cleansing of the hundred miles of streets in the City of West- minster was costing about ^50,000 a year. CHAPTER VII THE WATER-SUPPLY By George Turnbull The people of London were hardly called upon to think seriously about their supply of water until early in the thirteenth century. They took their pitchers to the rivers or streams that passed through the City, and got a supply of water " without money and without price." A few wells there were, also, sunk into the sands above the chalk. Some of these sources became dried up by the erection of houses over the land, and, as the population increased, the question of going farther afield for fresh supplies pressed upon the attention of King Henry III. and the City authorities. As a result, the magistrates in 1236 bought from one Gilbert Sandford the liberty to convey from Paddington to the City, in leaden pipes, the waters of the Tyburn, a little stream which ran from St. John's Wood to the river, and in two years nine conduits were carrying this water to the City, the principal line of supply being to Cheapside or Westcheap, where a public cistern and a water standard were erected. A century and a half passed tranquilly enough, when again there was such scarcity that riots took place among the people who gathered around the public conduits. Steps were taken to store the supply from the Tyburn ; the Tunne in Cornhill, where suspected persons used to be confined, being in 1401 converted into a reservoir for this purpose; and the in- sufficiency of the Tyburn springs induced the Abbot of Westminster to grant to the Lord Mayor and citizens in 1438 the privilege of taking water from the Manor of Paddington. In 1544, as the existing sources were ever becoming more con- taminated with sewage, the Corporation obtained authority to exploit the springs among the hills of Hampstead, where works were completed half a century later ; and this property ultimately in 1692 became vested in a few persons called the Hampstead Water Company, who made ponds and reservoirs at Hampstead which supplied a large area for a few years longer. In 1546 water was brought from Hoxton Fields to supply a conduit at Lothbury, and the people living near the banks of the Thames continued to be supplied with Thames water by the City company of water-bearers, who brought it in leathern panniers slung on horses. The lift 347 348 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY pump had been invented in 1425, but not till 1582 was an enlightened attempt made to bring a plentiful supply of water conveniently to the houses of the people. It was in that year that Peter Moris, a Dutchman, erected wheels and pumps on London Bridge to utilise the tide as it rushed under the bridge, and raising the water at the rate of 216 gallons per minute, he forced it into the neighbouring houses. The Corporation granted Moris a lease of one arch of the bridge on the City side for five hundred years at a rental of los. per annum; in 1583 a second arch was granted on similar terms, and two others were ceded by the year 1761. Moris's enterprise attracted many competitors in the same line, the chief of whom was Bevis Bulmar, who erected a large horse engine at Broken Wharf; but Moris's rivals won only small success, and his device remained in use for two centuries, providing many of the citizens with their sole supply, which unfortunately was too often foul in quality. London, meanwhile, had thoroughly outgrown its water-supply, and although, by the thirteenth Act of the reign of Elizabeth, it had been proposed to bring the River Lea to the northern suburbs within a period of ten years, the City Fathers shrank before a task of such magnitude, and even the Plague had no effect in stimulating them into activity. Had they taken steps to introduce a supply of water, a precedent might thus have been established which would have had the effect of keeping the control of this necessary of life in the hands of the public ever after. But where public spirit did not operate, private enterprise stepped in. A Welshman named Hugh Myddleton, or Middleton, at last came forward in 1606 with an offer to bring water to London at his own expense. Prosperous goldsmith and citizen of London, Member of Parliament for his native town of Denbigh, with some experience of working Welsh mines, merchant-adventurer of England and friend of Raleigh, Myddleton was a religious man of dauntless spirit, well suited to carry out a philanthropic scheme in the face of that bitter opposition on the part of landowners and occupiers which he encountered. From King James I., through whose grounds at Theobalds the waterworks passed, Myddleton received financial support at a critical moment. This occurred when his funds became exhausted in 1 61 2, and the King agreed to pay half the complete cost of the works on con- dition that he should receive half the profits. The works cost £i'j,ooo; the reservoirs at the Head, Clerkenwell, were opened on Michaelmas Day, 1613; the only agency employed was gravitation ; the water was the most plentiful and best that the inhabitants had yet seen, and in the hands of the New River Company it continued for a century the only satisfactory supply in the whole of London. By the beginning of the eighteenth century every street had water running through it in pipes conveyed underground : the humbler dwellers were within easy reach of a cock or pump, while the middle and upper classes had the water brought into their houses. In 1722 the Chelsea Water Company began to supply water THE WATER-SUPPLY 349 from the Thames to Westminster and the adjacent parts; in 1785 the supply of South London was augmented by the erection of Lambeth Waterworks ; and other agencies were active in promoting commercial enterprises of the same kind. We thus arrive at the nineteenth century, the period with which the present chapter is more particularly concerned, when the companies in existence for supply- ing water were London Bridge Waterworks (Moris's scheme), New River Company, Shadwell Waterworks, York Buildings Water Company, Ravensbourne Waterworks, Chelsea Company, West Ham Company, Borough Waterworks, Lambeth Water- works, Grand Junction Canal Company. Some of these had their individuality extinguished by new companies which sprang up. The York Buildings Company is a notable example of the process of supersession. This concern, originally called the York Waterworks, dated from the reign of Charles H. The works stood on the site of old York House, but were destroyed by fire in 1690. By Act of Parliament in 1691 the proprietors were incorporated under the style and title of The Governor and Company of Undertakers for Raising the Thames Water in York Buildings. They also speculated in land early in the eighteenth century, buying up forfeited estates of Scottish Jacobites so cheaply that the market value of their ^10 shares rose to ;^305. From their works at the bottom of Villiers Street they supplied Piccadilly, Whitehall, Covent Garden, and the neighbourhood, their tenants in 18 18 numbering 2636. The advent of the new companies soon led to the York Company losing their customers. In 1818 they leased their pipes to the New River Company and parted with their business for a fixed annual sum ; the works were abolished in 1829. The London Bridge Waterworks Company collapsed about this time. This company was formed by a citizen goldsmith named Richard Soames immediately after he had purchased for ;^38,ooo the lease of Moris's works from the latter's family in 1701 ; but the future was with the New River Company, who could supply water to any desired elevation, while the London Bridge Company could not supply any higher level than the second storey of a house. The latter charged their tenants from £1 to over ;^20 per annum according to the amount of water supplied. In fixing this price a surveyor first examined the tenant's premises and reported what the consumption was likely to be, and if it was afterwards found that this estimate was too high or too low, the price to the con- sumer was amended accordingly. One butt was considered sufficient for a daily supply to a house, and any quantity beyond this was reckoned " extra service." The Company had over 10,000 customers, and supplied sixty-eight public buildings. In 1822, after experiencing such depression that their superintendent had described them as being "in a state of pauperism and much to be pitied," the Lohdon Bridge Waterworks Company sold their leases to the New River Company, and the South- wark portion to the proprietor of the Southwark Waterworks. The works remained )50 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY standing until the abolition of the old London Bridge in 1831. We may now conveniently glance at the history of each big company in turn. The water-supply was at the end of the nineteenth century in the hands of eight private companies, whose 620 square miles of area comprised the whole of the Metropolis and parts of Middlesex, Herts, Essex, Kent, and Surrey. The oldest of these, the New River Company, originated in 161 3, in the manner already described. The first shareholders were incorporated in 161 9, under the NEW RIVER WATERWORKS Stoke Nevvington Reservoir, showing outlet into ri\'er. Front a Plioto by J, F. Mostyn Clarke. title of " The Governors and Company of the New River brought from Chadwell and Amwell to London." The directorate was vested in twenty-nine persons, who held thirty-six adventurers' shares— so called in contradistinction to those held by the King and his assigns— which had originally belonged to Sir Hugh Myddleton, who at this time retained only two.^ James I. did not live to receive any profits himself, and the thirty-six King's shares were afterwards resigned by Charles I. 1 No particular area of supply was granted to the Company, and there was no limitation of capital in the Charter. A Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1821 stated the original cost to have been £369,600. Its capital m 1837 was .£1,200,000; revenue ;£io5,ooo; houses supplied, 73,000. The total income of the nine other companies then existing amounted in 1837 to £193,000. THE WATER-SUPPLY 351 in return for a yearly payment of ^500, which the Crown receives to this day : a paltry sum when compared with the great value the shares were destined to possess at a later date. No dividend was paid till 1633. By the end of the seventeenth century each share of the New River Company was earning a dividend of about /200, and in 1890 a King's share was sold for ^95,000. The Company was regulated by Acts of Parliament in 1738, 1739, 1767, 1779, 1805, 1822, and 1830, the last of which empowered it to erect two large impounding reservoirs at Stoke Newington. When the New River Company absorbed the old London Bridge Waterworks in 1822 they undertook at the same time to supply water to all citizens whom the old Company had served, and to secure the then dividend to the original proprietors for two hundred and sixty years, namely, to the expiry of the lease of five hundred years which had been granted in 1582. Thus the New River Company were bound to pay ^3750 per annum to the representatives of the original owners until the year 2082. Other undertakings bought by the Company were the Hampstead Waterworks, the North Middlesex Waterworks, and a private enterprise at Bush Hill Park. The New River rises at Chad well Spring, about a mile beyond Ware, in Hertfordshire. A short distance below this point the river is joined by a branch cut which conveys what became the main part of the Company's supply, namely the water from the River Lea. At first this supply was taken without let or hindrance, but after much litigation an arrangement was arrived at between the New River Company and the Lea Trustees whereby the amount of water to be drawn from the larger stream in the smaller was regulated. Originally the New River was 40 miles long, but short cuts over some of the valleys reduced the length considerably. The average quantity of water supplied by the Company is over 250,000,000 gallons of filtered water obtained from the River Lea, Chadwell Spring, and thirteen deep wells sunk into the chalk, and about 2,500,000 gallons of un- filtered water for other than domestic purposes from the same sources and from the Hampstead and Highgate Ponds. Surface water, which used to form a large proportion of the supply, has within recent years been as far as possible excluded from the river. The Company's district extends to 107 square miles, the actual area supplied is less than half, embracing the City and central London. Its boundaries may be described as, on the west, Charing Cross, Haymarket, and Hampstead Road, on the south the Thames, on the east the Tower and Stamford Hill, and on the north Southgate. The Company supply a population of 1,233,303. 2. The Chelsea Waterworks Company obtained their first charter from George L in 1723, the result of an Act passed in the previous year for better supplying the City and Liberties of Westminster and parts adjacent. The scheme was to bring water from the Thames into canals and ponds, from which it was to be raised into 352 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY reservoirs between Oliver's Mount and Hyde Park. A royal warrant in 1726 authorised them to convert two ponds in St. James's Park into reservoirs, and another in 1727 authorised the construction of a reservoir in Hyde Park. The works were situated on the north bank of the river, and the water was drawn from the Thames direct and distributed in its polluted state to the consumers. In 1809, when they were raising 1,456,000 gallons daily, the Company were empowered to take water from the Thames near Ranelagh Creek, and to lay pipes in the river-bed for a distance of 240 feet in order to obtain water below low-water mark. The first attempt at purification was made by allowing the impurities to subside in settling reservoirs, but this did not prove effective. The first filter-bed in London was then introduced in 1829 by Mr. James Simpson, the Company's engineer, who had been instructed some years before to give his whole attention to this subject. The filter- bed was made of gravel and sand, and before being filled with water had the appear- ance of several channels parallel to one another, formed by banks broad at the bottom and gradually sloping on each side to a point at the top. It had brick sides, occupied about an acre, and was supplied by reservoirs having an area of about an acre and a half First the water was pumped into the subsiding reservoirs ; then, without dis- turbing the sediment, it flowed through small pipes to the filter-bed, where it soon ' percolated through the three strata of gravel and sand, which were each 2 feet thick and laid over brick tunnels. In 1852 the Company's intake was removed to Seething Wells, and new works were completed there in 1856, but, as the floods flowing into the Thames from the Mole regularly made the water turbid, the Com- pany sought Parliamentary sanction in 1875 to remove the intake to a point higher up the river, about half a mile below Sunbury Lock, where, accordingly, new works were brought into operation in 1877. Two new filtered-water reservoirs with a total capacity of ii^ million gallons were completed at Putney Heath in 1900, and the storage capacity of the reservoir at Molesey was increased 50 million gallons by the raising of its banks. The Company's district of 2o|- square miles is bounded on the north by Old Brompton Road and Knightsbridge, on the east by the New River Company's district, and on the south and west by the Thames. They supply a population of 285,249, and may take 22 million gallons daily from the Thames. 3. Lambeth Waterworks were established under an Act of Parliament passed in 1 785 for supplying the inhabitants of Lambeth and parts adjacent with water from the Thames between Westminster Bridge and the confines of the parish of Christ- church. The works, containing an engine of only 20 horse-power, stood on Belvedere Road, close to the site where the footway over Charing Cross railway bridge now ends. One of the chief objects of the owners was to provide protection against fire, but in this respect they received no assistance from the all-powerful fire insurance companies. They had great difficulties to contend with at first owing to a large part of the district being below the ordinary high-water mark of the Thames. THE WATER-SUPPLY n C ~> 03 J Only 629 houses were on the first hst of the supply, and no dividend was paid for twenty \'ears, but the concern was controlled by far-seeing men who had no doubt ot their ultimate success. In 1S02 the area was extended t72, The charges levied by the Water Companies were placed on a more equitable basis in 1885. Hitherto they had been authorised by their Acts to charge for water supplied for domestic purposes at certain rates per cent upon the annual value of the premises supplied, and as houses increased in value a higher annual charge might be made although the quantity consumed remained the same. The Select Committee of 1880 reported that a considerable portion of the increase of the companies' receipts was due to this fact. In 1884, however, the House of Lords decided in the case of Dobbs versus The Grand Junction Company that certain deductions must be made from the rent or gross annual value in order to arrive at the "annual value" mentioned in the Waterworks Clauses Act, 1847, and other statutes. At the instance of Mr. Torrens, one of the representatives of the Borough of Finsbury, Parliament passed the Water-Rate Definition Act, 1885, which provided that the words " annual value " should mean the rateable value as settled from time to time by the local authority. The New River and the West Middlesex charges for domestic supply, fixed in 1852, were at the rate of 4 per cent on the annual value up to ^200, and 3 per cent when the value exceeded ^200. In 1826 the charges of the Grand Junction and in 1829 those of the East London were fixed at from "j^ per cent on an annual value of ;!^20 or under, in an ascending scale to 5 per cent when the value exceeded ^100; while in 1834 a similar scale was instituted for the Southwark and Vauxhall Company and for the Lambeth Company. From 1852 (when Acts were passed which regulate most of the companies) the charge was 5 per cent on the annual value in the cases of the East London Company and the Southwark and Vauxhall Company ; while the charges of the Lambeth Company, although rearranged in other respects in 1848, remained practically the same for domestic supply as they were in 1834. The scale of charges of the Kent Company — whose expenditure was less than that of the others owing to the water being derived from the chalk — fixed in 1864, ranged from 8s. for a house not exceeding £"] annual value to 4 per cent for a house exceeding ^95 in annual value. Each company made extra charges for water-closets, fixed baths, and supplies to houses a certain height above the high -water mark. A Bill introduced in 1884 to enable the consumer to pay for a supply of water by meter instead of by rate was rejected on the second reading. In 1887 the Water Companies (Regulation of Powers) Act provided that where the owner of a house and not the occupier was liable for the water-rate, no company should cut off the supply for non-payment of rate, but that such rate should be a charge upon the house in priority of other charges, and be recoverable from the owner or occupier for the time being. In 1864 the seven principal companies had a gross revenue of ;^702,059. The water rents receivable by the companies in 1877 amounted to ^1,318,603. In 1898 the eight companies were supplying daily 204,053,955 gallons to a population of 5,815,333, and their financial position was as follows : — 374 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Average Annual Water Company. Capital Cost. Revenue. Expenditure. Profits. Dividends on Ordinary Shares. Chelsea ;£l, 287,585 .£157,097 £ 51,991 .£105,106 io| per cent. East London 3,012,378 323,589 134,855 188,734 7r Grand Junction 1,796,786 203,933 98,521 105,412 7\ Kent . 1,009,567 167,062 58,895 108,167 9| Lambeth 1,886,456 268,195 103,148 165,047 9 New River . 3,731,808 559,097 226,012 333,085 13 Southwark and Vauxhall 2,913,097 253,828 108,189 145,639 6 West Middlesex . 1,647,338 239,968 104,174 135,794 10 Total . ;£i7,285,oi5 ^^2,172,769 .£885,785 £;i, 286,984 1 Average ^* Dividend. Total in igoo I S, 9 39, 08 8 2,3(>S,370 1,017,043 1,348,227 •^"i As the result of special clauses which the City Corporation were the means of introducing into the Bills of the East London, Lambeth, and Southwark and Vauxhall Companies in 1886, these three companies were required to offer their new debenture stock to the public by auction or tender, and any money received by way of premium over and above the nominal value of the stock was not to be considered as profit made by the company, but was to be applied in extending and improving the works, or in cancelling a proportionate part of the company's debt, and was not to be considered as part of the capital entitled to dividend. At the end of three years, after the issue of the new debenture stock, the companies were to carry to a sinking fund in each year such percentage on the amount of the stock as should be equal to the excess of the average percentage of the dividend or interest paid for that year on all the company's capital over the interest of the new debenture stock, together with an additional one per cent added thereto for management; such sinking fund to be held and applied by the Chamberlain of the City of London, as trustee, for the purpose of purchasing and extinguishing the company's share capital, or for such other purpose as Parliament might from time to time determine. In the Kent Company's Act of 1888, and in the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Act in 1 89 1, the above auction and sinking fund clauses were likewise inserted. The total received by the Chamberlain amounted in 1900, with accumulations, to .^5i>5o8. Another Purchase Bill was rejected in 1900, and the Welsh Supply Bill was withdrawn. But the century closed with the foreshadowing of that consummation urged by the Llandaff Commission— namely, acquisition of the companies' under- takings by a representative Board,^ coupled with adherence to the existing sources. 1 By Act of 1902 the undertakings were transferred to such a Board in the following year. CHAPTER VIII THE FIRE-BRIGADE By George Turnbull The work of preventing and extinguishing fires in London during the nineteenth century was performed successively by three different organisations, occupying three equal periods. The first organisation was an old one — dating from 1680, when an insurance company established a fire-brigade of its own. In course of time other insurance offices did the same in order to protect the buildings which were insured with them ; and those brigades were the most considerable though not the sole means of protection against fire in existence in London until 1833. That year witnessed the opening of a new era, arising from the amalgamation of the separate and individual brigades of the insurance companies, and the formation in this way of one body, called the London Fire-Engine Establishment. The third period of the history opened in 1866, with the transfer of the service from the insurance companies to a public authority. By this last change the system as it exists to-day was founded, the fire-brigade being controlled by the Metropolitan Board of Works until 1889, and afterwards by the successor of that body, namely, the London County Council. A brief review of the early means adopted for protecting London from fire will show from what beginnings the splendid organisation of the present day has evolved. When the first Lord Mayor was in office at the end of the twelfth century, all persons who dwelt in great houses within the wards of the City were required to keep a ladder or two ready in order to succour their neighbours in case of fire, and in summer to keep before their doors a barrel full of water for quenching such a fire ; ten reputable men of every ward, with ten aldermen, had to provide a strong crook of iron with a wooden handle, together with two chains and two strong cords ; and the beadle had to sound the alarm on a horn. More formidable precautions were set in motion after the Great Fire of 1666. This conflagration made plain the danger to which a community of wood buildings was exposed, and all over the City were provided leather buckets, ladders, engines, brass hand-squirts, pickaxe sledges, and shod shovels. Insurance of houses and goods against fire began about the same 375 376 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY time (1667), and in 1680 the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company established a fire- brigade to look after property which was insured with them. Other companies, as they came into existence, followed this novel example. Their firemen were always ready at a call, and were provided with poles, hooks, hatchets, and other instruments for doing their work. In 1707 Parliament set in operation the parochial system for protecting communities from fire, and the consideration of this departure brings the question into the nineteenth century. The Act then passed (6 Anne, cap. 8) provided for every parish within the Bills of Mortality keeping a large engine and a hand engine and hose. Other Acts were subsequently passed making sundry amendments, and the law was consolidated in 1774 by the statute 14 Geo. III. cap. 78. The parochial system, however, was not a success. The parishes neglected to keep their engines in a state of efficiency, and the bulk of the work fell to the brigades still maintained by the insurance companies. The nature of the efforts made by the latter may be judged from a description of the Sun Insurance Company's force, contained in a prospectus issued by that Office on June 24, 1820 : — " And for the further encouragement of persons insuring, this Office is provided with several Land Fire-Engines, also two powerful Fire-Engines which float on the River Thames ; aijd there are employed in the service of the said Office a number of engineers and firemen, to work the said Engines ; and also there is a Night-Patrole establishment, each with a watch-box, with the words Fire-Patrole, and a Sun illuminated, in different stations, to whom the public may apply in case of alarms or fires at all hours of the night, which tends greatly to the public security. The Firemen and Patrole are clothed in blue liveries, wearing silver badges, with the Sun mark. " The Sun Fire Office having at their sole expense, and unconnected with any other office, established a Fire Night-Patrole, for the purpose of preventing fires, and giving the earliest information whenever this happens ; the public is hereby informed that the stands for the Patrole men are situated as underneath, where the public are requested to give the earliest information in case of accident." This statement concluded with the addresses of ten land stations and two floating engines, the latter being the Trafalgar Float, moored off Surrey Stairs, Strand, and the Sun Float, King's Stairs, Rotherhithe. There was great rivalry among the insurance offices in their attendance at fires. Their firemen were not exclusively employed for this service ; as a rule they were drawn from the ranks of the Thames watermen, and to get them together when a fire broke out was often a slow proce.ss. As these men wore the livery of whatever fire-office they were attached to, their presence was a constant means of advertisement for their particular office. Often the brigades quarrelled among themselves about the rewards they earned for prompt attendance at fires ; the absence of any central control on such occasions frequently resulted in their duties being performed in a confused and inefficient manner ; and at best the exertions of one and all of those brigades were very largely confined to saving property which happened to be insured in their offices. The scene in the streets in the days of competitive fire-brigades is thus depicted in a volume of verse entitled Rejected Addresses, or the New THE FIRE-BRIGADE zil Theatrum Poetaritm, by the brothers James and Horace Smith, which was pubhshed in 1 812 : — " The summon'd firemen woke at call, And hied them to their stations all ; Starting from short and broken snooze. Each sought his pond'rous, hobnail'd shoes ; But first his worsted hozen plied. Plush breeches next, in crimson dyed, His nether bulk embraced ; Then jacket thick, of red or blue, Whose massy shoulder gave to view The badge of each respective crew In tin or copper traced. The engine thund'red through the street. Fire-hook, pipe, bucket, all complete ; And torches glared, and clattering feet Along the pavement paced. . . . The Hand-in-Hand the race begun, Then came the Phce?iix and the Sun, The Exchange, where old insurers run. The Etigle, where the new." Such competition meant on the whole a needless expenditure of energy and money by the insurance companies, yet it was some time before they took practical steps to remedy this state of affairs. In 1791 the Royal Exchange, Sun, and Phoenix Companies had formed the first combined organisation in London by establishing a fire-watch among themselves, and this enterprise was afterwards joined by other offices, but the unity was more nominal than real, inasmuch as the companies kept up the appearance of individual action. The founder of the Globe Insurance Company, Sir Frederick Morton Eden, was much impressed by the unnecessary expense and effort which characterised the system. In 1808, during his chairman- ship of that Office, he brought forward a proposal to amalgamate the forces belonging to the various companies. He took the Corps de Sapeurs Pompiers of Paris as his model, and proposed that each office should furnish twenty firemen, and that all affairs of management should be in the hands of an engine committee, each office contributing its share of the general expenses. Only one other company supported this scheme, and it was abandoned. The question was destined to come to the front again, however, and in 1825 the first step was taken towards the unification of the brigades. The Sun, Union, and Royal Exchange Companies in that year amalgamated their forces under one superintendent, and were thus able to do with fewer fire-engines. In a short time they were joined by the Atlas and the Phoenix offices, and the movement reached its full development in 1832, when the ten principal companies — the Alliance, Atlas, Globe, Imperial, London Assurance, Protector, Royal Exchange, Sun, Union, and Westminster — led by Mr. Charles Bell Forde, manager of the Sun Office, united in establishing one fire-brigade for the whole of London. For reasons of economy as well as of efficiency, therefore, the 378 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY existing brigades were consolidated into one body, which was named the London Fire-Engine Establishment. Two other companies joined the above ten in the first year, and in 1865 the total number forming the establishment was twenty-eight. The chief officer was Mr. James Braidwood, who had been master of fire-engines in Edinburgh. Only eighty men were employed at the beginning, and the cost in the first year (1833) was ^8000, which was contributed by the several fire-offices. London was now growing so rapidly that the expense of protecting it from fire became a big consideration for the insurance companies. They grumbled at being saddled with this burden, feeling that the control of the whole machinery for the work ought to be in the hands of a public body.^ A useful argument was soon put in their way by the fire at the Houses of Parliament (1834), the first revelation of the inadequacy of the Fire-Engine Establishment to cope with a great outbreak. They accordingly seized the opportunity to put their whole case before the Government, whose chief pro tern, was the Duke of Wellington, in a memorial presented in the following December. In this the representatives of the associated offices stated that the engines and men employed by them, " although always ready and anxious to afford all the assistance in their power upon every occasion of fire, are nevertheless private establishments, maintained for the immediate purpose of protecting the interest of their employers. They still form the main security of the public against the spread of fires ; but, where their service might require to be absorbed in the protection of the peculiar interests of the insurance companies, the uninsured portion of the public and the Government works must necessarily be left to the care of other engines. Thus, if during the late conflagration at Westminster, any insured property in danger, or any simultaneous fire or fires in other parts of the town, had imperatively called upon the superintendent to devote the services of the engines elsewhere, Westminster Hall and the public property adjoining must have shared the fate of the two Houses of Parliament. The only provision made by law for the suppression of fires will be found in the 14 George III. cap. 78, sec. 74. By this Act parishes are directed to maintain engines in an efficient state ; but the experience of this committee justifies them in stating, that neither the power of the engines, nor the means of proper attendance, nor the independent and unsystematic plan- upon which they are worked, will ever enable them to render any effective service, unless they should be placed under some general superintendence, and more especially be restrained on some occasions from placing themselves in the way of the more effective engines of the offices, and exhausting their supply of water. Though it is scarcely within our province to intrude on His Majesty's Government any suggestions for remedying these defects, we nevertheless (having judged it highly important to request your Grace's attention to them at a time when recent 1 It may here be noted that in a pubhc manifesto, issued in 1888, the companies maintained that they ought not to contribute towards the maintenance of fire-brigades. THE FIRE-BRIGADE 379 events have strikingly exemplified their existence) venture to state generally our views on the subject. With great deference, therefore, we give our opinion, that many of these evils would be corrected merely by placing the parochial engines under the inspection of the Commissioners of Police, as to their repair and efficiency for service (the fine of ^10 imposed by the Act above referred to on the church- wardens for neglect in this particular, appearing sufficient if rigidly enforced) and by placing the public and parochial engines at fires under the orders of one directing officer." The Duke of Wellington transmitted the communication to the Home Office, and it was acknowledged on February 28, 1835, by the Hon. Henry Goulburn, who wrote : — " I am not disposed to deny that there are cases of fire in which arrangements which you recommend might be productive of beneficial consequences ; but nevertheless it appears to me that in the majority of instances the interference of Government would be productive of little benefit, while it might, and probably would, relax those private and parochial exertions which have hitherto been made with so much effect and so much satisfaction to the public." And so the insurance companies continued to have charge of the work down to the end of 1865. The conditions, however, remained unfavourable to an adequate service, which was now more necessary than ever owing to the improved means of heating and the general use that was being made of gas. The fire-stations were grouped in the central district where the greatest risks lay and the important warehouses were situated. An engine took, on an average, twenty-eight minutes to reach a fire one mile distant from its station, and in 1862 it was still considered a good performance if the scene of a fire at Hampstead was reached forty-five minutes after the alarm had been received. In the northern district there was no fire-station beyond Holborn, in the west none between Chandos Street and Richmond. The attitude of the fire-offices at this time was explicable enough. Their primary object in maintaining the brigade was to secure that the loss to themselves from fire might be diminished as much as possible. They had indeed a liberal conception of the protection they might afford, apart from all question of whether buildings were insured or not, and the public were indebted to them for services times without number. When it came to be a matter of providing more stations and protecting the outlying districts, however, circumstances seemed to render inevitable the refusal of the companies to consent to any extension of the area of their responsibilities. In 1 86 1 the value of the insurable property within 6 miles of Charing Cross was estimated to be ;^900,ooo,ooo, but the actual amount insured represented only ;!f 266,000,000. As, therefore, 70 per cent of the property was uninsured and yet was receiving the benefit of protection by the fire-engines, the insurance companies were not only unwilling to add to their expenses by erecting additional stations where the insured property was of comparatively inconsiderable value, but they objected to continue to afford protection to property within the existing borders. 38o LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY which the returns showed was yielding them such inadequate compensation in premiums. All this time the parochial system of fire-protection was fading away. Most of the parishes paid no heed to the law which required them to maintain fire-engines and appliances, although collectively they were spending something like ^5000 annually for that purpose. Islington, Hackney, Paddington, and Marylebone kept efficient brigades, and in some cases more than one engine, but these parishes were exceptions. The majority kept no engine at all, and yet escaped the prosecution which non-observance of the statute of 1774 ought to have entailed. A favourite practice of the parish engines, which were usually kept at churches and workhouses under the charge of beadles or private persons, was to contrive to be first in reaching a fire, and thus secure the statutory reward for that achievement, whereupon they would retire into the background, and leave the brigade of the insurance companies to do the work. "The parish engines," said Sir Richard Mayne, Chief Com- missioner of the Metropolitan Police, "only clashed with the Fire-Brigade when they attended fires ; they were quite inefficient at great fires, and at small fires they were not wanted." The dock companies, of course, maintained independent fire-engines and apparatus, but they rarely went beyond their own regions to extinguish fire. Engines were also kept by a few private firms, chiefly large brewers and distillers, and these were frequently lent in the interest of the public when fire broke out in the neighbour- hood where they were situated. Notable services were rendered in this way by Mr. Frederick Hodges, distiller, whose premises near Lambeth Palace were in the heart of an ill-protected district, and by Messrs. Brown, Lenox and Co., fire-engine and anchor makers in the Isle of Dogs. In February 1862 a Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to report on the subject of fire-prevention in the Metropolis. A few days later the insurance companies formally announced to the Home Secretary that they intended giving up their Fire-Engine Establishment as soon as another organisation was ready to take its place. The Committee reported in May. They recommended that the direction of the brigade should be taken over by the police authorities — a system which had long been in operation in the principal large towns of England. The Government, however, did not follow this recommendation. On the contrary, the Home Secretary (Sir George Grey) consulted the insurance companies and the Metropolitan Board of Works with a view to the establishment by the latter of a fire-brigade, towards the cost of which the insurance offices and the Government should contribute. After rejecting, on the ground that they were too high, two estimates of cost, drawn up by Captain Eyre Massey Shaw, Sir George Grey adopted a third one, according to which he reported to the Board on March 27, 1865, his conclusion that a fire-brigade could be instituted at an annual cost of THE FIRE-BRIGADE 381 ^50,000 of sufficient strength to provide adequate protection to the whole district of the Board. In the same year Sir George Grey framed and passed through Parliament the measure which became the Fire-Brigade Act, 1865, under which the organisation as it exists to-day was founded. By this Act, which came into operation on January i, 1866, the duty of extinguishing fires and of protecting life and property in case of fire devolved upon the Metropolitan Board of Works, and for the first time London enjoyed a system under legal status, after having for thirty- three years been served by a body possessing neither charter, Act of Parliament, nor deed of partnership. London was far behind Paris and New York in its organisation for fighting fire. In 1866 Paris had 130 stations and 1270 men for an area of no square miles, and New York 35 stations and 1478 men for 23 square miles. London, however, had no more than 19 stations and 132 men to rely upon, for an area of 120 square miles. Thus, while the Metropolis of England had only one fireman for every 20,000 inhabitants, Paris could boast one for every 1338, and New York one for every 676. Much benefit to London, therefore, was expected from the new Act, under which all the men, stations, engines, plant, and appliances of the old establishment, subject to existing liabilities, passed into the service of the Metropolitan Board. The Treasury were allowed to make a grant not exceeding ^10,000 yearly to the expenses of the Brigade ; the contributions of the insurance companies, which were fixed at the rate of ^35 for every ;^i, 000,000 of property insured by them within the area, was estimated (on the basis of their business done in 1863) to yield about ^10,150; while the ;^30,ooo remaining to make up the required _;^50,ooo per annum was provided for by a rate of |-d. in the ^i. The experience of 1866, the first year of the new Act, showed this calculation working out successfully, the ratepayers contributing ^30,822, the fire-offices ^11,050, and the Government ^10,000. Increased pecuniary facilities were given in 1869 to meet the ever-growing requirements. The Board repeatedly asked an addition to its statutory resources, but did not succeed in obtaining it. To-day the annual cost of maintaining the Fire-Brigade is about ;^28o,ooo, and the insurance offices con- tribute about ;^36,ooo. The amount raised from the ratepayers is equivalent to i.29d. on the rateable value. A proposal to amalgamate the Fire-Brigade with the Police was brought forward in 1877 by a Select Committee of the House of Commons, which also recommended the consolidation of the separate water systems under one authority and the regulation of the structural arrangements of theatres and music- halls, with special reference to their liability to fire. Twenty-six of the vestries and district boards were against the proposal for making the Fire-Brigade a branch of the Metropolitan Police, and it was not carried into effect. Like the work of extinguishing fires, the fire-escape system was also for a long period upon a wholly unofficial basis. The only means used prior to 1828 for rescuing persons from burning houses was the parish ladder, which was often not 382 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY available at the right moment. In that year, however, an association called the Fire- Escape Society was founded at the instance of Mr. John Hudson, of Cheapside, who had been much concerned at the inadequacy of the existing arrangements. In 1836 the Society was merged into the newly-founded Royal Society for the Protection of Life from Fire. So unsuccessful was this Society at first that its operations were for a time suspended, but in 1843 it was remodelled and entered upon a useful career. It was dependent upon voluntary contributions, and the subscribers included nearly all the parishes and insurance companies, and frequently the Corporation. Trained men were kept by the Society in various parts of the Metropolis, whose duty it was when fire occurred in their district to proceed with all haste to the scene with a fire-escape, and, placing this in the most advantageous position, give their whole energy to the work of rescuing persons from the flames. The escape con- sisted of a long ladder on a wheel carriage, with apparatus for bringing persons down from the upper windows of a burning house in a shaft or trunk. This con- trivance originated in 1819 with Mr. J. Gregory, whose patent was for a fire-escape ladder consisting of sliding sections placed upon a movable carriage, and capable of being extended by the successive drawing-out of the separate parts. In 1843 the Society had only six escapes, but by the year 1866 it had eighty-five. These were placed about half a mile apart over an area of eight miles from east to west and six from north to south, with the Royal Exchange as the central point. On July I, 1867, all the Society's life-saving apparatus and the majority of the staff passed into the service of the Metropolitan Board, which, having carried on the work of fire-extinction for eighteen months, decided to undertake the kindred work performed hitherto by the Societj^ One of the duties of the County Council at the present day is to see that where more than forty persons are employed in a work- shop or factory, proper provision is made for escape in the event of fire. Enormous advance was made in the development of scientific appliances for extinguishing fire. Brass hand -squirts had been introduced at the end of the sixteenth century, and their efiicacy was increased by leather hose introduced from Holland in 1676, which enabled the water to be conveyed to remote places. The hand-squirt passed out of use owing to the perfection of the manual fire-engine in the latter part of the eighteenth century, but it was reintroduced about 1841. An air-vessel and valves were applied to the syringe at this time by Mr. William Baddeley, and other improvements were effected. It thus became a very efficient instrument, and at the middle of the century every engine of the Establishment carried one of these hand-pumps, which proved of the greatest service in keeping doors and windows cool. They were able to throw from 6 to 8 gallons of water per mmute to a height of from 30 to 40 feet, and could be used in any position. The steam fire-engine was invented in 1828 by John Ericsson, a Swede who arrived in London in 1826 and afterwards became a partner in the engineering firm of THE FIRE-BRIGADE 383 John Braithwaite ; and the first use in London was for the fire at the Argyle Rooms, Wells Street, on February 5, 1830. On that occasion the weather was so severe that the manual fire-engines became frozen and useless ; the services of the steam engine were offered, and it worked without a hitch, throwing a stream of water clear over the dome of the building. The engine was built by Messrs. Braithwaite and Ericsson; it was of 6 horse-power, weighing with complement of water and fuel 45 cwt., and in thirteen minutes it could raise steam sufficient to throw a stream of water equal to 45 tons per hour over a pole 90 feet high, through either one or two pumps. At a great fire at Barclay's Brewery in 1832 the efficacy of the steamer was again proved, but although in the United States and on the Continent the steam fire-engine was quickly adopted, London hesitated to introduce it on a large scale, Mr. Braidwood believing that the supply of water in the mains was insufficient for its requirements, while other objectors said it would take too long to bring into operation, and was at once too powerful and too heavy. The first land steam engine possessed by , the Establishment was introduced at a fire in July i860 at the back of Doctors' Commons. When fully equipped for service this weighed 4 tons 4 cwt., and required three horses to draw it. The first steam self-propelling fire-engine was built in 1862 by Mr. William Roberts, of Messrs. Brown, Lenox and Co.'s works, Millwall, and when in working trim weighed y^ tons, including 5 cwt. of coal and 40 gallons of water in the tank. Competitive trials of fire-engines took place in Hyde Park in 1861, and at the Crystal Palace in 1863, at which the English exhibitors were the firms of Merry- weather and Son, and Shand and Mason. The Society of Arts also offered medals for new developments in steam fire-engines. As a result of all this activity the machines were greatly simplified and improved, and by the year 1864 they had entirely superseded the old hand-engines. One virtue of the steam engine was its comparative inexpensiveness. Captain Shaw told the Parliamentary Committee of 1867 that "the steam fire-engines cost almost nothing to work at first, whereas the manuals cost 28s. per hour, and the same sum if they only work five minutes." Although manual floating fire-engines had been in use on the Thames for about a century, the introduction of the steam fire-engine there dates only from 1850. This engine was built by Mr. P. Clark, assistant engineer of the West India Docks, and was constructed from one of Downton's pumps fixed in a tug so as to be worked by the machinery which propelled the tug. The engine threw 600 gallons of water per minute 20 feet higher than the highest warehouse in the docks. The committee of the London Fire-Engine Establishment turned their attention to the new invention, and in the first place altered one of the floats previously worked by manual labour. This was made to yield at the ordinary rate of working 700 gallons of water per minute under a pressure of 70 or 80 lbs. on the square inch, results which were considered so satisfactory that another machine was constructed capable 384 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY of throwing 1400 gallons per minute, and of moving at the rate of 8 miles an hour, propelled by the reaction of two jets of lo-inch diameter. This float was m operation for nearly 400 consecutive hours at the great riverside fire in Tooley Street in 1861. About this time the telegraph was brought into use for fire-calls. The Act of 1707, which provided that the parishes should keep fire-engines, also provided for rewards being paid to the engine-keepers according to the order of their arrival at a fire with a proper equipment, namely, the first to receive 30s., the second 20s., and the third los., while the turncock who first turned on the water ready for the use of the engines was paid los. This system, which was extended to apply also to the engines of the fire insurance companies in 1763, led in turn to the engine-keepers paying a small reward to boys and others who apprised them of an outbreak of fire. Thus a regular custom of payment for calls to fires became established throughout the service. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Loss of Life from Fire also intro- duced a scale of fees for prompt calls, varying from is. to 5s. according as the escape arrived before or after the fire-engines, and whether lives were saved. Up to the year 1862 communication between fire-stations was always conducted by messenger. Then a new system of calls was introduced in the service. It required a fireman to reside in the centre of each district, and have a number of stations under his control. He was connected by telegraph with each of those stations, and with the central station. On a fire breaking out in any part of his district the intelligence was sent out to the nearest station of the district : the news was conveyed to the fireman, who then acted on his discretion. He telegraphed to the central station for further assistance if the fire was likely to be a large one, in which case the chief superintendent immediately attended the fire and judged for himself. If the summons arrived during the night the fireman on duty apprised the superintendent by means of a speaking tube which was laid on to his bedside, the superintendent consulted the Directory, and if the call was to an unimportant thoroughfare he left the matter to the fireman in whose district it was, and went to sleep again. If, however, it should be in the City or in any of the great West End thoroughfares the superintendent boarded the first engine and attended in person. The change which the telegraph brought about in respect to rewards was illustrated in the case of the West Middlesex Water Company, which in the year 1867 paid only ^10 :5s. for eighty-two calls of turncocks to fires, whereas for each of the four preceding years it had paid on an average ^55:65. for 442 calls. Moreover, the system of paying rewards for calls had lent itself to cases of deliberate fire-raising, the most conspicuous of which was that of William Anthony, against whom between the years 1869 and 1871 no fewer than 125 fires were recorded. He was sentenced to twelve years' penal servitude. In 1880 six circuits of fire-alarms were established, having an aggregate of forty call-points, which considerably reduced THE FIRE-BRIGADE 385 the distance to be run by persons wishing to call the brigade and also led to earlier information being received at the stations. The practice of rewarding with is. persons who brought information of a fire to a station was abandoned in 1885 ; this custom belonged, of course, to a date anterior to telegraphy, and it induced persons to proceed all the way to a station with their information in order to secure the reward, instead of stopping at an electric signal-post where the call could be given instantly. The disadvantage of the circuit arrangement consisted in the fact that if one fire-alarm became deranged the whole circuit was upset. The call-points were, therefore, as quickly as possible placed on the direct radial system. As an extraordinary amount of malicious injury was done to the alarms, the County Councils General Powers Act, 1893, declared it to be an offence to give a false alarm of fire to the brigade either by means of a fire-alarm or otherwise, and enacted that an offender should be liable to a penalty not exceeding ^^20. The Fire Inquiry Act, 1886, which came into operation on August i, 1887, enacted that in every case of fire within the Metropolis in which the loss or damage exceeded ^500 and the origin of the fire was unknown, or in any case where the chief officer of the Metropolitan Fire-Brigade should report that the circumstances showed proper cause for inquiry, an inquiry respecting the cause should be held before a Commissioner appointed by one of the principal Secretaries of State. Movable fire-stations were introduced in 1879. The first one, with a few men and light appliances, was placed in Ludgate Circus, and others were soon stationed in localities where the risk of fire was exceptionally great. Prompt service from these stations has often been the means of extinguishing a fire in its infancy before an engine has had time to come up. In late years the movable structures have been one by one superseded by permanent buildings of iron and wood, in which men are constantly on watch, and which are connected by telephone with the nearest engine station. When the London County Council replaced the Board of Works, and assumed charge of the Fire-Brigade in 1889, they found that the equipment had long been totally insufficient for great emergencies, and they therefore added 50 fire-escape stations, 25 hose-cart stations, and 200 fire-alarms, besides increasing the number of fire-engine stations. The headquarters of the Brigade had been moved from Watling Street to Southwark Bridge Road in 1878. Sir Eyre Massey Shaw, the chief of the. Brigade from its establishment in 1866, retired in 1891, and was succeeded by the second officer, Mr. J. Sexton Simonds, who held office until 1896. The next chief officer of the Brigade was Commander Lionel de Latour Wells, R.N., appointed on November 3, 1896. Latter-day improvements in appli- ances included the water-tower designed by Mr. Simonds and introduced in 1893, consisting of an arrangement enabling a fireman standing on the ground safe from falling walls to direct a powerful stream of water into a burning room 50 feet or more above him. About the same time a combined hose- tender and fire-escape 25 386 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY was introduced to take the place of the manual engine and fire-escape kept at the door of every station. Hose-and-ladder trucks also were placed at engine stations in place of the hose-cart hitherto used ; to move the hose-cart and fire-escape even at a slow pace had required three men, one for the hose-cart and two for the escape, but the hose-and-ladder truck could be taken a short distance by one man alone, and be comfortably moved by two men. Among the inventions of Commander Wells was an escape-carriage drawn by horses. This carried 506 feet of hose,. the same amount as the escape carried when it was hauled by men, but it had the great advantage of going to a fire side by side with the Brigade, and was ready for action as soon as wanted. Under the Metropolis Water Act, 1871, each water company, after it had placed any district on constant supply, had to give notice of the fact to the Fire- Brigade authority, which thereupon specified what fire-plugs or hydrants were necessary in order that the water company might provide and fix these at the Council's expense. The first experiments with hydrants were made on the Kent Company's system in 1873, but doubts were expressed concern- ing the sufficiency of the water pressure to maintain hydrants over the whole of the Metropolis, and it was not until 1878, after the City had installed a service of hydrants, that the Board of Works changed its attitude and laid these down all over London. The hydrants were fitted at distances of from 50 to 400 feet apart according to the necessities of the district. In 1890 the number was 10,000, and by 1897 there were 23,253. The Corporation also laid down 822 hydrants in the City, for fire-extinguishing and street-cleaning purposes, at a cost of ;^25,o.oo. The great increase in the work of the Fire-Brigade during the century may be seen from the fact that while in 1833 there were 458 fires, and in 1866 there were 1338, the number in 1898 was 3585, or one fire for every 1300 of the population. The area of the Brigade was divided into six districts, each denoted by an official distinguishing letter. The latest of these districts, the central, was constituted in 1898 and placed in charge of a new officer, called the chief superintendent, whose district comprised the dangerous areas of Scotland Yard, Whitefriars, and Watling Street on the north side of the river, and Headquarters, Waterloo Road, Tooley Street, and Kennington on the south. At the end of the century the Brigade had 63 horsed stations, 2 sub-stations without horses, 17 street stations, 41 horsed escapes, 104 hose-carts, 8 steam fire-engines on barges, 62 land steam fire-engines, 31 manual fire-engines, 7 steam-tugs, 12 barges, 12 skiffs, 213 hand fire-escapes, 3 emergency ladders, 11 long fire-ladders, 33 ladder- vans, 4 bicycles, 133 watch-boxes, no telephone lines between fire-stations, over 600 fire-alarm call-points, and some 160 telephone lines to police stations and to public and other buildings. There were over 40 miles of hose ready for use, and the horses, supplied by contractors, numbered over 220. When a call is received, the harness THE FIRE-BRIGADE 387 drops upon the backs of the horses, which are standing ready in the stable ; they trot briskly forward a few yards in charge of a driver, and pass through the large doors to the hall where the engine and escape -carriage await them ; in an instant more they are hitched to these cars, and the firemen, summoned from their quarters by the alarm-bell, have clambered up to their seats, the great doors swing open, and away the Brigade dashes to the region indicated by the electric call that has announced the fire. Wherever it goes the Fire-Brigade takes supreme charge of a fire. The staff numbers over eleven hundred officers and men, compared with 130 in 1866. The men are drawn from the Royal Navy and the Mercantile Marine, all applicants being eligible who are of good character and appearance, of an age between 21 and 28 years, and possessing their 4 years' A.B. discharge. They have to pass a test of strength, and then undergo three months' training at the Headquarters in Southwark Bridge Road, where a batch of twenty may be seen by the public almost any Wednesday afternoon going through the various evolutions of drill, life-saving, extinguishing fire, etc., with all the attendant excitement on the part of the spectators and coolness of bearing by the firemen themselves which characterise the operations of a serious conflagration. On the wall of a little room at Headquarters there hangs a huge broad oaken board, inscribed with the words " Roll of Honour," on which are fastened polished brass plates bearing the names of firemen who have perished in the performance of their duty. The record begins at the year 1861, and is headed by the name of the then superintendent, Mr. Braidwood. A silver medal, known among the firemen as their Victoria Cross, is awarded by the Council for exceptional bravery, and fifteen years' service is rewarded by a bronze medal. In February 1877 the Metropolitan Board of Works adopted a pension scheme for the Brigade, making a graduated scale of pensions and gratuities for the men in case of incapacity through age, sickness, or injury. Under this scheme a fireman was entitled, whether incapacitated or not, to retire at the age of 55, and after thirty years' service, on a pension equal in amount to two-thirds of his pay ; but in 1892, when a general increase of pay was given to the force, the period of service necessary to qualify for a pension was reduced to twenty-eight years. The first Salvage Corps actually established was that of 1704, when the promoters of the Fire Insurance project, which was set on foot at the Lombard House, Duke Street, announced that they had provided a competent number of watermen, carmen, and porters who were always ready to attend at fires and to help to remove insured goods to any place desired. They had also warehouses to which all those who had no other convenience might send for help without paying anything. The London Salvage Corps of to-day, however, was founded only in 1&66, after the Brigade came into the hands of the Metropolitan Board. Such a force was felt to be necessary, because, the Fire-Brigade being only called upon to 388 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY extinguish fires, the property affected would afterwards be left exposed to the weather and to thieves. During the first ten years the Salvage Corps attended 12,915 out of a total of 15,907 fires, rendering services at 5328. It costs on an average ^6000 a year, and is a private undertaking supported by contributions from the insurance companies. Of the great fires in the nineteenth century three stand out especially prominent. These are the fires of 1834 at the Houses of Parliament ; that of 1861 on the south bank of the river, which proved to be the greatest conflagration since the Great Fire; and the extensive fire in the City in 1897. At half-past six o'clock on the evening of October 16, 1834, flames were seen to burst forth frorh near the entrances, of the Houses of Parliament. In less than half an hour the whole interior of the building was a mass of fire. Firemen and soldiers, who were summoned, found that their efforts would be most effectually directed towards preserving Westminster Hall, and they were completely successful in this work, but the rest of the structure was mastered by the flames. The damage in the House of Lords comprised the destruction of the robing-rooms ; the committee-rooms in the west front ; the rooms of the resident officers as far as the octagon tower at the south end of the building ; the Painted Chamber ; and the north end of the royal gallery abutting on. the Painted Chamber, from the door leading into the latter as far as the first com- partment of columns. In the House of Commons the house, libraries, committee- rooms, housekeeper's apartments, the official residence of the clerk of the House,, and all the rooms of the Speaker's house from the oriel window to the south side of the House of Commons were entirely destroyed. The loss of records by the fire was not important, nearly everything of value being printed, but among those of the House of Commons destroyed were the test and qualification rolls signed by the members after taking the oaths. The King and Queen came to town the following day on purpose to see the ruins. An investigation was conducted by the Privy Council, whose report on November 8 stated that the fire was accidental, and wholly attributable to carelessness and negligence. It had originated in the flues used for warming the House of Lords, which had been overheated during the burning of some old wooden exchequer tallies, an operation entrusted to a labourer named Joshua Cross, and not sufficiendy supervised by the clerk of works. The- area of the riverside fire on June 22, 1861, was bounded by immense warehouses- between Tooley Street on the north side, the River Thames on the south, St. Olave's. Church on the west, and a lane leading from Tooley Street to a landing-place on the river to the east. The fire began in Cotton's and Dep6t Wharfs, which were stored with tea, silk, cotton, sugar, tallow, tar, and other merchandise. Here it originated in a new central building, the erection of which had given rise to- disputes between the insurance companies and Messrs. Scovell, the owners,. THE FIRE-BRIGADE 389 disputes which had been settled only a few days before the fire broke out. At an early stage in the work of extinction the chief of the Fire Brigade, Mr. Braidwood, was struck down and buried beneath some tons of brickwork. A gentleman named Scott perished by his side, and several firemen narrowly escaped sharing the fate of their chief. The whole south bank of the river from London Bridge to below the Custom House was one great mass of fire. None could approach the buildings, and the efforts of the Fire- Brigade, assisted by suburban brigades, were directed to saving the surrounding property from destruction. London Bridge railway station and Bermondsey owed their safety only to a sudden Co,, Ltd. THE NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT change in the wind. Cask after cask of oil tallow melted and floated down the river. A passing barge got drawn into the fire : in a few minutes it was ablaze from stem to stern. The glare of the flames was visible for 30 miles around. At four o'clock in the morning, after it had burned twelve hours and attracted thousands of spectators — who occupied ships' rigging, the Monument, and every other point of vantage— all danger of the fire's extending was at an end. London Bridge at dawn was thronged with cabs, omnibuses, and all kinds of vehicles. Refreshment shops in the vicinity were kept open all night doing business. A number of persons lost their lives in attempting to save tallow on the river. Four young men had almost filled a boat with this stuff when they were suddenly surrounded by a great flood of blazing fat which rushed out from one of the burning wharves. The grease in the 390 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY boat took fire, and the four men were seen to plunge into the river, where the mass of flame upon the water made rescue impossible. The loss to the insurance companies by this fire was estimated at a million and a quarter sterling. On November 19, 1897, another great fire occurred in the City. It broke out in Hamsell Street, Aldersgate, and extended over 17,000 square yards of a densely populated business quarter. It destroyed upwards of one hundred warehouses and buildings, and property to the value of two millions sterling. This fire led to the British Fire Prevention Committee being founded by Mr. Edwin O. Sachs, an eminent architect. The objects of this body, which in a single year gained the adherence of five hundred architects, surveyors, engineers, and municipal officers, were to discover the best means of preventing and combating fire, and to encourage the use of better materials, and the adoption of improved principles of construction. The theatres of London have been common victims of fire. Covent Garden was destroyed on September 20, 1808, in a fire which was attributed to the ignited wadding of the soldiers' muskets, fired off in the play of Pizarro, having lodged among the inflammable decorations of the scenery. Twenty-two persons were killed by the fall of the roof, and pieces of music by Handel, Arne, and many other com- posers, of which there were no copies, were destroyed. Again, on March 5, 1856, Covent Garden Theatre was burned. This was the fourth building since Mr. John Rich opened a house here in 1782 with Congreve's Way of the World. During the operatic recess the theatre had been let to a conjuror named Anderson, who con- cluded his series of entertainments by holding a bal masque. As the evening advanced and the more decorous among the dancers withdrew, the scene became one of unbridled indecency and drunkenness. The orgie was just about- to be brought to a close with the singing of the national anthem at a few minutes before five o'clock, when the roof was found to be on fire. The few remaining maskers were panic-stricken, but all managed to escape, though it was with difficulty the ballet- girls and minor characters of the masque were rescued from their dressing-rooms. After the fire of 1808 no insurance office had been found willing to insure the Covent Garden Theatre. Her Majesty's Theatre was burned on December 6, 1867. This beautiful opera-house, situated at the corner of Haymarket and Pall Mall, was built in 1792. Formerly called the King's Theatre, it had, until the establishment of the Royal Italian Opera at Covent Garden in 1847, enjoyed a monopoly of Italian opera in England, and been the means of introducing to this country the most famous operas and singers of the Continent. So completely did the fire do its work in less than' an hour, that it only ceased when there was no more fuel to feed it. Other places of public amusement destroyed by fire were Astley's Amphitheatre, South- wark, on September i, 1803, and again on January 8, 1841 ; the Royal Circus, St. George's Fields, on August 12, 1805 ; E)rury Lane Theatre, which was built of timber, on February 24, 1809; the Royalty Theatre, April 11, 1826; the English THE FIRE-BRIGADE 391 Opera- House in Exeter Street on February 16, 1830; the Pavilion Theatre, Whitechapel, on February 14, 1856; the Surrey Music Hall on June 11, 1861 ; the Royal Surrey Theatre, at the southern end of Blackfriars Road, on January 30, 1865 ; the Oxford Music Hall, partly destroyed on February 11, 1868, and again on November i, 1872. The Crystal Palace suffered on December 30, 1866, the north wing or tropical department being destroyed by fire on a Sunday when the place was deserted by all but one watchman. Alexandra Palace, M us well Hill, which was THE FIRE AT THE ROYAL EXCHANGE, IS From a Print in the British Museum, erected at a cost of half a million sterling from the materials which formed the Inter- national Exhibition of 1862, was destroyed in broad daylight on June 9, 1873, only a few days after it had been opened for the public as a centre of popular amusement. This fire was caused by the carelessness of workmen, who, during the dinner-hour, left a charcoal brazier unattended, which threw out a small spark of red-hot coal upon a crevice near the upper gallery of the outside dome. Two women were killed while incautiously viewing the ruins. A new building was opened four years later. Fire claimed the Royal Exchange on January 10, 1838, a night so cold that the hose and works of the fire-engines had to be thawed before they could be got to 392 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY operate. The fire was believed to have originated by the overheating of a stove in or below Lloyd's coffee-rooms, which formed part of the building. At Windsor Castle, 24 miles distant from Cornhill, the flames were plainly visible. A strange sensation was produced on the spectators on this occasion by the chiming of the bells in the familiar tunes, "There's nae luck aboot the hoose," "Life let us cherish," and the National Anthem. The statue of Sir Thomas Gresham, founder of the Exchange, was destroyed : it had been the sole surviving statue of the Great Fire of 1666. On November 12, 1839, eight lives were lost by a fire in Widegate Alley, Bishopsgate Street, which originated on the premises of a scale-board and hat-tip manufacturer. At the Tower on October 30, 1841, the Armoury founded by James II. took fire, and 280,000 stands of arms were destroyed. Appliances for extinguishment had at this period been much neglected at the Tower. The Corn Exchange and many warehouses in Mark Lane were destroyed by a fire which occurred on September 19, 1850; and the year 1856 was marked by a great blaze on June 9 at the warehouses of Messrs. Pickford, the carriers, situated at Chalk Farm. At West Kent Wharf on August 17, i860, and at St. Katherine's Dock on January i, 1866, damage was done to the extent of _;^2, 000,000 in each case, the latter fire taxing to the utmost the resources of the Metropolitan Fire-Brigade on the first day of its statutory existence. The destruction of a furniture depository known as the Pantechnicon, in Motcomb Street, Belgrave Square, on February 12, 1874, involved the loss of many historical collections which had been left there for safety while their owners were abroad. Among them were the armour and enamels of the Marquis of Hertford, and the valuable souvenirs gathered by Sir Garnet Wolseley in the Crimea, India, China, and Canada during his military career. The loss on this occasion was estimated at ^1,850,000. In Wood Street, Cheapside, a block of buildings occupied by Messrs. Foster, Porter and Co., Messrs. Rylands, and other large firms was almost entirely consumed on December 8, 1882, property being destroyed to the value of ^2,000,000. For the seventh time the premises of Mr. William Whiteley, the universal provider, caught fire on August 6, 1887, when four lives were lost by the sudden collapse of a wall, and property to the amount of ;^50o,ooo destroyed. On October 13, 1890, six lives were lost by a fire in Cloth Fair, at a hat and helmet manufactory. Property valued at ^400,000 was destroyed by a fire which originated in a paper warehouse in Thames and Victoria Streets on December 30, 1890. Enormous damage was done in Tooley Street on October 5, 1 89 1, a block of buildings used as storehouses of colonial produce being wholly ruined. The fire was still burning three weeks later. On January 2, 1895, by a fire on the premises of a French laundress in Edgware Road, eight persons, seven of whom were women, lost their lives. An instance of a fire extinguishing itself, so to say, occurred on October 3, 1807, at Whitbread's Brewery, Chiswell Street. The bearings of a large vat containing THE FIRE-BRIGADE 393 2071 barrels of beer were burned, and this mass of liquid, being suddenly released, extinguished the flames. At another brewery fire — Messrs. Barclay and Perkins's — on May 22, 1832, beer vats containing 2000 barrels were poured out to supply the engines. A unique expedient was resorted to in mastering the outbreak of fire in the Brandy Vault at London Docks on July 26, 1859, the vaults being flooded by the river. The tide was high at the time, and the work was speedily accomplished. During the operation, however, as many as fifty firemen at one time were lying help- less with sickness caused by inhaling the dense black vapour that issued from the vaults. When Savile House, Leicester Square, was on fire on February 23, 1865, vigorous assistance was given to the Fire-Brigade by the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Sutherland, Lord Richard Grosvenor, and several gentlemen of the suite. The Brigade only succeeded, however, in preventing the spread of the fire, the historic Savile House itself being burned to the ground. MISCELLANEOUS CHAPTER I NUMBERS OF DISSENTERS By Sir Walter Besant The strength and vitality of Dissent proves that it appeals very largely to a certain class of mind ; especially to the mind which is strong and active, demanding always something to work upon ; which is uneducated, and, therefore, unable to recognise the authority of learning and scholarship ; which, being active, loves to make its influence felt. Every sect also numbers among its members a small body of scholars and scholarly adherents. The independence and the narrowness which Non- conformity generally demands cannot be obtained — it is believed by those who stand outside — in the Church of England. If we consider the chapels, at least, and mission- houses of the Nonconformists at present, we shall find that their numbers have greatly increased since the eighteenth century, not only actually but in proportion to the position they formerly held. The following list, showing the various churches and the number of chapels, belonging to each in the year 1896, is taken from Kelly's Directory, and covers the ground occupied by that Directory : — Baptists . Particular Baptists Plymouth Brethren Calvinists Roman Cathohc . Catholic Apostolic Church of Scotland Disciples of Christ French Protestant . German Protestant Greek Church Independents (Congregational) Jews (Synagogues) Lutherans Methodist (New) . Moravian Swedenborgian lOI I 18 I 56 3 3 I 2 I 2 95 26 8 II I Chapels and Mission-houses. 397 398 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Presbyterian Church of England 77 Chapels and Mission-houses Primitive Methodist ■ 123 „ >. Friends . 10 „ „ Swiss Protestant . I Unitarian 20 United Methodist Free Church 46 Wesleyan • 355 In all there are over 970 chapels and mission-rooms. Many of these chapels, especially those belonging to the humbler sects such as the Primitive Methodists, are quite small and unimportant. Perhaps if we reckon 200 as an average congre- gation we shall be doing no injustice to the Nonconformists, of whom there would thus be in round numbers 200,000 in the London Directory District. Of Anglican churches there are about 660 on the same area. By far the larger number of these churches are well filled. We should not be wrong in reckoning 500 as an average number of seat-holders and worshippers. We have, therefore, 330,000 as the average attendance at Church of England places of worship. These figures, however, may very easily be misleading, as, for instance, they would seem to show that of a population of 5,000,000 less than one million attend the place of worship. This, of course, cannot be the case. CHAPTER II political refugees By Adolphe Smith For centuries England, but more especially London, has been the asylum of the defeated. Whether it be the Flemish weavers flying from the sword of the Duke of Alva and making new homes for themselves in Bethnal Green ; or, in more recent times, the Polish-Russian Jews flocking to Whitechapel as a safe refuge from the brutal attacks of anti-semitic rioters, one and all have found security from political and religious persecution in this great Metropolis. Carlist and Communist alike have enjoyed the same immunity in our midst, and thus London has become the haven of every fallen cause. Not a little of our commercial prosperity is due to this constant influx of foreign refugees ; for they have brought with them their knowledge and skill in various arts and industries with which the English were not acquainted or not so proficient. On the other hand, it cannot be expected that men who thus suffer exile for the cause to which they are devoted will at once abandon their political aspirations on reaching these shores. On the contrary, they not only continue to dream and to discuss, but they also scheme and conspire. Thus some of the most dramatic plots and important political upheavals of the European continent have been planned and prepared in London. A big volume could be written on this subject ; but for the present purpose it will suffice to mention one or two instances. Thus it will not be forgotten that this country was brought to the verge of war with France because it had harboured the Orsini conspirators. In those days Soho was the great centre for both French Republicans and Italian Mazzinians. Indeed the caricaturists inevitably associated the foreigner with Leicester Square, and it is in this neighbourhood that are still to be found the greatest number of foreign shops, restaurants, cafds, and hotels. But customs and fashions change even in regard to political refugees, and of late years there has been a considerable migration to the northern side of Oxford Street. The last great rush of political refugees occurred after the suppression of the Paris Commune at the end of May 187 1. Following the tradition left by the Republicans, who fled from France after the Coup d'Etat of December 2, 1851, the 399 400 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Communists, on arriving in London, sought for lodgings in the various and some- what dingy streets situated between Soho Square and Leicester Square. This quarter had not yet been opened out by the piercing of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. They found, however, that, in the interval between 185 1 and 1 87 1, a large number of foreign women of the worst repute had established themselves in this neighbourhood. Their presence had helped to enhance the rents charged while lowering the moral tone of the quarter. The political refugees did not care to be associated with the cosmopolitan vice of the Metropolis ; yet they wished to be near the old political quarter, where so many of the inhabitants speak French and Italian, and where there are so many foreign restaurants. Consequently they did not go far, but merely crossed Oxford Street and sought for lodgings between the Tottenham Court Road and Newman Street, and as far north as Fitzroy Square. Here also, in Tottenham Street, the Communist Arbeiter Vereinne had established the headquarters of the German Socialist refugees, with whom in spite of the recent war the French Communists at once and cordially fraternised. Thus, to this day, we have the political foreign quarter in the Fitzroy Square district, north of Oxford Street, and the non-political foreign quarter south of Oxford Street in the Soho Square District. Of course this demarcation line is not absolute, and the two elements somewhat overlap each other. It is, however, a curious co- incidence that the district which acquired its political character from the refugees of the Commune is associated with the foundation of the old Internationale, for this organisation largely contributed to bring the Paris Commune into existence. Of the eighty members who, on March 26, 187 1, were elected to the Paris Commune by 119,999 votes, seventeen were members of the International Working Men's Associa- tion. Prince Jerome Napoleon, in opposition to his cousin, the Emperor Napoleon III., sought for popularity among the progressive and even the republican elements of " French Society, and in so doing supplied the opportunity for establishing this associa- tion. He placed himself at the head of a movement which had for its object to elect and depute skilled French artisans to visit the Universal Exhibition held in London in 1862. These artisans were to draw up technical reports on the exhibits in so far as they were related to their respective trades, and this they did, and much more besides. In their leisure moments they met at the Hotel de la Boule d'Or, in Percy Street, a few doors from Rathbone Place. Here the leaders of the French delega- tion, notably Tolain, a bronze-chaser who, after the Commune, became a Senator, the well-known journalist Limousin, and Fribourg, a decorative engraver, met such notorious English working-men leaders as George Odger, Benjamin Lucraft, sub- sequently member of the London School Board, George Howell, late Member of Parliament, the German tailor Eccarius, for a long time general secretary of the Internationale, and others. It was thus, at the Bo7de dOr in the Fitzroy Square district, that the basis, the plan, the scheme of the celebrated Internationale was POLITICAL REFUGEES 401 conceived and drawn up. These projects were subsequently officially endorsed by congresses held at a meeting-place in the Adelphi Terrace, and also at the old St. Martin's Hall, but the Boiilc d'Or in Percy Street may be considered as the birthplace of the old International. What wonder then if, after the fall of the Commune, it was frequented by the partisans of that lost cause, notably by the artist Montbard, the caricaturist Emile Barere, and by the future diplomatist Camile Barere, both the direct descendants of the celebrated Bertrand Barere, member of the Convention and the Committee of Public Safety in 1793-94. The Bareres lived hard by in Newman Street, and here, in a narrow passage leading from this street to Rathbone Place, was established the Communists' soup- kitchen. This was situated on the top floor of so wretched a building that there was not space for a staircase, but the room was reached by means of a ladder with a very greasy rope that served in the stead of a balustrade. But here any refugee who could prove that he had fought for the Paris Commune was able to obtain a meal for twopence. It was the British Positivists, Mr. Frederic Harrison, Doctor Congreve, Professor Beesly, and their friends who were the main supporters of this political charity. They also established in Francis Street, on the other side of the Tottenham Court Road, Evening Classes, where the French refugees were taught English gratuitously so that they might better be able to earn their living in this country. Some of these pupils succeeded so well that In spite of the amnesty they have never left England, and among them was Richard, the prosperous French grocer In Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, whose shop has been for many years a head centre, where political refugees, as they arrive from the Continent, go for advice and help in finding lodgings or work, and where, of course, the continental police agents also flock so as to spy upon the land. On the same side of the street, there is Audlnet's Restaurant, where many an important gathering of political refugees has been held, and which was much frequented by Doctor Karl Marx and his sons-in-law, Longuet and La Fargue, who, In France, now represent the extreme right and extreme left wings of the Socialist party. Opposite, in a little public-house, there is a room on the first floor, which Is the meeting-place of the Dutch Social Democrats, and lower down, at the Blue Post, there Is a com- partment rarely penetrated by an Englishman, where foreign refugees of all nationalities, and their Inevitable suite of foreign police spies, indulge in continental drinks, and enjoy a few moments of leisure and chat. Still nearer to Oxford Street there is Lacassie's halrdressing shop and French newspaper agency. Since 1848 Lacassie has been the Figaro of the French revolutionists, who have made it a matter of convenience to be shaved and shorn by their devoted friend. And yet Lacassie Is a man of peace, and has always been a leading member of the Workmen's International Peace Association. For many years Lacassie had for his nearest neighbour the tobacconist Rackow, who, in the 26 402 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY early days of the German Socialist movement, was nearly elected member of the Reichstag for Berlin ; but, as he did not quite succeed in reaching the top of the poll, he had to fly from the wrath of Bismarck, and devote himself to the sale of cigarettes to his fellow-sufferers in England. Thus, if there was any particular move in revolutionary circles, it was sufficient to be a purchaser of a camembert at Richard's, to be shaved at Lacassie's, and to lay in a stock of tobacco at Rackow's, to gain a fairly correct idea of what was occurring. Entering Rathbone Place we have the Scandinavian Club, where the Socialists of Norway and Sweden congregate, and opposite, in Stephen's Mews, there was a celebrated anarchist club, where the British police, under pretext that they suspected gambling, made frequent raids. Of course it was said that this was only done to aid their colleagues— the police of the Continent — to unravel political plots. Here the celebrated Austrian agent provocateur and police spy Penchoit, who pretended to be an ardent revolutionist, used to make eloquent and violent speeches. " Now that we are all Socialists," the number of political refugees who dare not return to their own country is very much reduced. For the most part these are not Socialists, but Anarchists, and a very bitter feud separates the two parties. The Socialists, who are daily becoming more and more a parliamentary party, seeking gradually to bring about the nationalisation of everything, by the slow and legal process of legislative enactment, are treated almost as traitors by the Anarchists, who still dream of violent and sudden revolution. Besides, the Anarchist, if consistent, must seek to do away with all authority, legislature, government, and police, and depend only on voluntary effort to bring about his ideal ; while the Socialist on the contrary increases infinitely the attributes of government by making the State the sole organiser of the means of production, transit, and exchange. Therefore, Anarchism is the antithesis of Socialism ; but there is this connection, that both are equally opposed to the present capitalist system and economic organisation of society. Then, as both parties have been victims of persecution. Anarchist and Socialist have, when in exile, met on more friendly terms than when struggling in their own country for their political ideals. Thus we find in London foreign Socialists and Anarchists frequenting the same restaurants and the same quarter; and the German and Austrian Anarchist Club in Stephen's Mews was within two minutes' walk of the German Social Democratic Club of Tottenham Street. Throughout the Fitzroy Square district, but especially in the one straight thoroughfare that runs from this Square to Oxford Street, and which bears the three names of Fitzroy Street, Charlotte Street, and Rathbone Place, there are a great number of foreign shops of all descriptions, and the greater part of them were in the first instance, at least, opened by foreign political refugees of the revolutionary type. Here, also, the most revolutionary literature may be purchased, from the Socialist and staid Vorwarts of Berlin to the erratic and violent Libertaire of Paris. POLITICAL REFUGEES 403 Returning to Soho, but pursuing still in a straight line the same southward course, we come to the end of Greek Street nearest to Soho Square, and this is almost sacred ground to the Socialist. After the collapse of the Chartist movement in England, followed closely by the fall of the Republic in France, but little was heard of socialism in this country till Karl Marx and his friends began to influence the old International in 1864-65. This culminated in the Paris Commune, and died with the last Congress of the International held at the Hague in September 1872. Then for some eight years there was a period of complete eclipse, so far as socialism and the English workers were concerned. But in Greek Street, close to Soho Square, there is an archway leading to Rose Court, Denmark Street, and here in three or four houses of Greek Street, faith in the cause still faintly flickered. Throughout all these years there was a small club in Rose Court which was frequented by the few English workers who still believed in socialism. Even this one solitary nucleus of organisation could not have been maintained but for the support of foreign workmen who were far more numerous than their English colleagues. Still, this is the one spot where the light was kept burning, and as such it is likely to be revered by the partisans of socialism now that their cause is once more prominently before the public. The present revival of socialism in England is undoubtedly in the main due to the very active propaganda of the Social Democratic Federation which was founded in 1882. Needless to say that some of its first and most energetic adherents hailed from Rose Court Club. A few doors farther on is Wedde's German Hotel, and here for many years Karl Marx and Frederic Engels met Bebel, and other leading Social Democratic members of the German Parliament. Here many discussions were held, and many of the plans and stratagems prepared which in time led to the defeat of Prince Bismarck and the withdrawal of his Anti-Socialist laws. Immediately opposite, and in the premises now occupied by Lady Stanley's Club for Work- Girls, the poet Vermersch, editor, under the Commune of 1871, of the Pere Derschene, brought out his French paper, the Qui Vive. This was a somewhat slanderous sheet in which the author of Les Incendiaires attacked his fellow Communists even more virulently than he did the enemies of the Commune. There were consequently many rows, and Vermersch used always to place his revolver by the side of his editorial pen. Nor did he fail to let his readers know that he had taken this precaution, for he was often threatened. But neither the Qui Vive nor its editor was long-lived. The one died for want of funds, and the other for want of reason, and this need not be a matter of surprise, for the quarrels among the vanquished, embittered by the misery and poverty they suffered, might well destroy the reason even of strong men. Nevertheless, the name of Vermersch will live as that of the poet of the Commune, and the verses which he wrote on this spot will not be forgotten by those who recall that sinister page of history : 404 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY " Paris flambe k travers la nuit farouche et noire, Le ciel est plain de sang, et brule de I'histoire. Theatres et couvents, hotels, chateaux, palais. Qui virent les Fleurys apres les Triboulets, Se debattent parmi les tourbillons de flammes Qui'flottent sur Paris comme les oriflammes D'un peuple qui se venge au moment de mourir." Towards its other extremity, Greek Street is traversed by Old Compton Street, and at the angle made by two streets were two celebrated little hotels. The first, distinguished by a couple of bow windows on the street level, was the Albergo de Venezia. This place used to be frequented by one of Mazzini's confidential secretaries, and for many years was a popular rendezvous for the Italian revolutionists. Many an anathema has been hurled at the Pope and even against the burly head of Victor Emanuel from this place, and preparations made to support the raids organised by Garibaldi. Of all this, the house alone remains, but it is no longer an hotel or restaurant. Next door, however, the Hotel des Bons Amis still exists, though of late it has been much altered. Since 1846 this modest little house has been known to French refugees. The defeated of June 1848, the republican fugitives of December 185 1, and several members of the Commune of 1871 have put up under the sign-post of " The True Friends." A French dinner, soup, two courses, salad, dessert, half a bottle of wine, and a demi-tasse of black coffee, could be obtained for the modest sum of eighteenpence all included ; and, as the cooking was absolutely French, and hours might elapse without a word of English being heard in the establishment, the exile felt himself at home again, and this without too great a strain upon his slender purse. When international socialist or labour congresses were held in London, this house would be crammed with French- speaking delegates ; and several names now known to history would be found inscribed in the books of this hotel. Many a dramatic scene has occurred here when friends separated in battle, and who last saw each other behind barricades, unexpectedly met in this common refuge. But the hotel has quite recently changed hands, and the new proprietor has improved out of existence the stains and time- worn historical appearance which recalled the miseries of exile. All trace of dinginess has disappeared. There are brand-new decorations, electric light, and even an electric fan to ventilate artificially the inner dining-room where conspirators spoke with more security. Better but dearer dinners are served, and there is now a much larger influx of English visitors. Nor is this the only transformation that has taken place in this historical quarter. Round the corner of the next street that crosses Greek Street there was another modest restaurant kept by an Austrian. Here, also, excellent meals could be obtained for eighteenpence or two shillings, and many an impoverished refugee enjoyed the refinements of continental cookery. In an evil hour, however, for those who are poor but have refined tastes, a journalist was induced to visit the place, and was so delighted that he wrote a lengthy article POLITICAL REFUGEES 405 of praise which was pubHshed in The Times. This little restaurant used to do an average of thirty dinners per day, but on the morrow of the publication of the article a hundred and thirty strangers, who were all the more strangers because they were English, came to explore the place and sample the dinner. In a short time the little restaurant settled down to a steady average of ninety dinners a day. The premises had to be enlarged, the poor refugees fled from the place, horrified by the extravagances of the newcomers, the persistency with which they spoke the unknown English tongue and failed to express any revolutionary sentiments. Thus Ketner's restaurant became known as a fashionable West End resort, but it has lost its historical character, its poor, though interesting frequenters, and indeed Ketner himself has disappeared, for he did not long survive this unhoped-for and sudden prosperity. So also facing Ketner's, but on the other side of Greek Street, Bendi, the Garibaldian public-house-keeper, has likewise gone, and we have a flash modern establishment where doubtless more business is done but nothing of interest occurs. Bendi had two bars, one for the ordinary English customers, while the other was frequented almost exclusively by foreigners, the greater number being Italians. This bar led to a little inner room where private conversation could be held in which Bendi himself often joined, leaving his wife to serve the ordinary customers, with instructions accidentally to drop a pewter pot on the floor if among these she noticed a foreign political police spy. On the first floor there was a large room, and here the Communist Refugees' Society used to meet. This was a non-political association of politicians formed so as to help those who in their exiled life had no means of subsistence. The more fortunate refugees, who were able to earn their living, subscribed to help their brothers in arms. Sometimes help was obtained from charitable or sympathising outsiders. Thus on one occasion an English journalist brought in a subscription of ^10 which he had succeeded in obtaining from a wealthy manufacturer, and great were the rejoicings on that occasion. Many a despairing communist was saved from literal starvation by the numerous twopenny meals which this one donation provided, for this was the society which had organised the refugees' soup-kitchen off Newman Street. Still further down Greek Street we reach Newport Market and then Ryder's Court. Here the new Hippodrome and Daly's Theatre have swept away two very popular resorts. One was a French eating-house which frankly called itself the Restaurant de f Internationale, thus making no secret of its character and the class of customers who gathered there. Opposite was the Black Swan public-house, which was the head centre of the Universal Republican League, a very revolutionary body, whose universality extended all the way from Clerkenwell to Camberwell : these two districts formed the extreme points of the radius dividing the circle within which they had organised branches. In the court resided Bailey the tailor and 4o6 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Bailey the milkman, who were pillars of strength, for in their younger days they had been active members of the Chartist Party, and, ever since, had always been ready to support the most advanced movements. The foreign refugees found in them true friends in need, and were delighted with their Universal Republican League which strove to propagate the principles of the most advanced members of the Paris Commune. But the two Baileys are now dead, the old houses in Ryder's Court have been pulled down, the Black Swan and the Universal Republican League are no more, the International itself has ceased to exist, and its restaurant has followed the way of its customers. Toiit passe, tout casse, tout lasse. Thus the main artery of the political refugees' quarter in London runs in a straight line from Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Square, to the base of Ryder's Court, Leicester Square. But there are places of interest in the lateral streets, notably in Old Compton Street. Almost every other shop bears a foreign name over the door, and many of the occupants have wonderful stories to relate concerning the adventures and dangers from which they have escaped by establishing themselves in London. It is true that such adventures do not in every case wholly cease on this side of the Channel. Even here there is political danger, but there is the less romantic risk of poverty and starvation. There are the foreign political police ever hovering round, and the clever way in which these agents have been discovered and even photographed would fill many a chapter of a book on the romance of exile. Then there are the refugees whose minds have been unhinged by the perils they have faced, and who have become the victims of strange manias. Indeed volumes could be written on this subject. It must, however, suffice for the present purpose merely to indicate, in very broad lines, what is the principal refugees' quarter in London, and the nature of the interest that is attached to this district. The explorer can find out for himself much more than has been stated here ; and the deeper such investigations the clearer it will be seen that many great continental movements have originally been conceived and planned in London. INDEX Abbey, Edwin, 171 Abbey Mills, 338 Aberdeen, Earl of, 60 Achilles Statue, 231 Acton, 356, 359 Acts — Central Criminal Court Act (1834), 100; City of London Ballot Act (1887), 94; City of London Fire Inquests Act (1888), 92 ; City of London Municipal Elections (Amendment) Act (1867), 93 ; City of London Par- ochial Charities Act, 1 30 ; City of London Sewers Act, 148 ; City Police Act (1839), 88, 90; Diseases Prevention (Metropolis) Act, 121 ; Elementary Education Act (1870), 161 ; Epping Forest Act (1878), 118, 120; Gaswork Clauses Act (1847), 319 ; Hack- ney Carriage Act, 90 ; Highgate and Kilbum Open Spaces Act (1886), 120; Local Government Act of 1888, 75, 91; London Bridge Approaches Act, 137; London Coal Duties Abolition Act (1889), 124; London Govern- ment Act of 1899, 84; London Water Act, 370; Metage on Grain (Portof London) Act (1872), 136; Metropolis Local Management Act, 74; Metropolis Police Act, 148 ; Metropolis Streets Act (1867), 88, 90 ; Metropolitan Gas Act (i860), 318; Metropolitan Management Act(i855),77, 334; Metropolitan Police Courts Acts, . 79 ; Metropolitan Water Com- panies Act, 97 ; Metropolitan Water Amendment Act, 366, 367, 386 ; Municipal Corpora- tion Act (1835), 73, 78, 79, 81 ; Nuisance Removal Acts, 1 2 1 ; Palmer's Act, 80 ; Public Health Act, 121; Public Health (London) Act, 15; Sanitary Act (1866), 121; Southwark Water Company Act (1834), 356, 364, 374; Summary Jurisdiction Act (1879), 90 ; Thames Conservancy Act, 149 ; Union Assessment Act, 150; Valuation (Metropolis) Act (1869), 91; Water Companies (Regulations of Powers) Act, 373 ; Water Rate Definition Act (1885), 373; Waterworks Clauses Act (1847), 360, 366, 373 Addison Road, 184 Adelphi Theatre, 17, 186, 188, 198 Admiralty, 66 Advertisements, tax on, 24 Agar's, Mr., farm, 5 Agricultural Hall, 184 Albert Hall, 56, 62, 184, 231, 324 Albert Memorial, 231 Alderm anbury, 128 Aldermen, courts of, 106, 109, no, III, 112, 113; duties of, 79, 88- 114, 128-35, 149; election of, 88 Aldermen as justices, 89 Aldersgate Churchyard, 238 Aldersgate Street, 142 Aldersgate Ward, 92, 94, 148 Aldgate, 8 Aldgate Ward, 94, 148 Alexander, George, 190, 204, 209, 215 Alexandra Hospital, 225 Alexandra Palace, 369-91 Alexandra Park, 227 Alhambra, 191, 195, 212, 214 AUason, Thomas, 139 AUhallows, Broad Street, 8 Alma-Tadema, Sir L., 171 Almshouses, 7 Amusements, 10; bicycling, 30; Cave of Harmony, i 5 ; Caldwell's, 16; chess clubs, 30; club, 30; cock-fighting, 1 5 ; concerts, 30 ; cricket, 30; cycling, 36; dancing, 30, 36 ; debating societies, 30 ; dog-fighting, 1 5 ; dramatic per- formances, 36 ; excursions, 36 ; football, 30 ; free and easy, i 5 ; gambling, 19; golf, 36; gym- nastics, 30 ; Highbury Barn, 16 ; 407 lawn tennis, 36 ; lectures, 30, 36 ; of middle class, 16; music, 18, 30 ; penny gaff, 1 5 ; Pleasure Gardens, 5, 14, 18 ; Prize Ring, 15; rowing, 30; tavern, 16; theatre, 17 Archbishop of Canterbury, 41, 42, 48, 52 Area in 1837, 4 Area to-day, 5 Argyle Square, 299 Aristocracy, the, 10, 12, 13 Armourers' and Braziers' Hall, 137 Art for Schools Society, 225 Art in London, 167-71 Art Institutions, Collections, etc. — Bethnal Green Art Collection, 182 ; British Fine Arts Collection, 181 ; Guildhall Art Gallery, 182 ; Institute of Painters in Oil, 184 ; National Gallery, 170; Royal Academy, 168-71 ; Royal In- stitute of Painters in Water Colours, 184; Wallace Collec- tion, 184, 224 Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., 82 Astley's theatre, 17 Atheists, 10 Athenceum, 23 Avenue Theatre, i88 Baker, Sir Robert, 72 Balham, 29 Bancroft, Squire, 189 Bank of England, 61, 62, 315 Banks, 6 Bankruptcy Act, 19 Bannister, John, 189, 201, 202 Bard well quoted, 273 Barking, 123 Barking Creek, 332, 335, 336, 338 Barnard's Inn, 144 Barnes, 29 Barnes Common, 24 Barnsbury, 262 Barrett, Wilson, 190, 204, 215 Barrie, J. M., 203 Barrow Hill, 355 Barry, Edward Middleton, 188 4o8 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Barry, Sir Charles, 225 Bartholomew Lane, 344 Basinghall Street, 137 Basing Lane, 139 Bassishaw Ward, 94, 148 Bath Street, 141 Baths, 26 Battersea, 196, 325, 326, 337, 356 357, 364 Battersea Fields, 361 Battersea Park, 24, 227, 235 Battle Bridge, 2 7 1 . See also Kiitg's Cross Bayswater, 27, 83, 196 Bayswater Road, 4, 220 Bazalgette, Sir Joseph, 335, 338 Beaumont, Barber, 57 Beckenham, 337 Beckford, William, 2 1 Bedford House, 26 Bedford, Paul, 188 Beef-shops, 1 1 Belgrave Square, 83, 225, 392 Belgravia, 83, 228 Belvedere Road, 352 Berkeley Square, 219, 220 Bermondsey, 4, 5, 14, 28, 35, 112 335, 337, 366, 389 Bernhardt, Sarah, 202, 210 Berwick Street, 267 Besant's J^ifty Years Ago, 4 Bethlem Hospital, 130 Bethnal Green, 141, 161, 238, 325, 366, 397, 399 Bethnal Green Museum, 182 Bidder, G. P., 335 Billingsgate Buildings, i i 5 Billingsgate Market, 96, 115, 136, 139, 141, 144 Billingsgate Ward, 94, 129, 148 Binnie, Sir Alexander, 338 Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution, 143 Bishop of London, 48, 52, 70, 139 Bishopsgate Churchyard, 238 Bishopsgate Institute, 144 Bishopsgate Street, 5, 146, 220, 392 Bishopsgate Ward, 92, 94, 148 Blackfriars, 137 Blackfriars Bridge, 56, 97, 140, 342 Blackfriars Road, 190, 275, 343,391 Black Friday, 146 Blackheath, 227, 362 Blackwall, 330 Blackwell, Thomas E., 335 Blessington, Lady, 2 1 Blind Schools, 165 Blondin, 201 Bloomsbury, 4, 6, 177, 222 Bloomsbury Square, 219, 220 Bliicher, Marshal, 58, 59 Board Schools, 32, 36, 37, 130, 147, 160-66 Board of Trade, 320, 321, 367 Boards of Guardians, 74 Boehm, Sir Edgar, 1 7 1 Bogle, Allan, 145 Bond Street, 30, 224, 342 Book-clubs, 2 1 Book trade, 14, 21, 30 Booth, Catherine, 278-90 Booth, Charles, 253 Booth, General, 278-304 Borough. See Southwark Borough Court, 8b Borough High Street, 5, 51, 275. See also Southwark Borough Prison, 19 Bostall Wood, 227 Botanic Gardens, 235 Boucicault, Dion, 200 Boide d'Or, Hotel de la, 400, 401 Bow, 5, 354 Bow Common, 338 Bow Lane, 343 Braham, John, 190 Brandenburgh House, 72 Brandesburton Estates, 129, 133 Brandy, 1 1 Bramwell, Sir Frederick, 324 Bramwell, Lord, 123, 338 Bread Street Ward, 94, 148 Brent, the, 358 Brentford, 33, 333, 359 Brewer's drays, 9 Bridewell Hospital, 130 Bridge, Dr., 48 Bridge House Estates, iio Bridge Street, Covent Garden, 260 Bridge Ward, 94, 148 Bridge Without Ward, 94 Bridgewater Square, 2 1 9 Britannia Theatre, 188, 213 British Fire Prevention Committee, 390 British Institution, 18 British Museum, 145, 177, 324 Brixton, 6, 29, 30, 128, 145, 188, 262, 337, 353 Brixton Road, 4 Brixton Theatre, 188 Broad Sanctuary, 190 Broad Street, 364 Broad Street Ward, 94, 148 Brockwell Common, 227 Broken Wharf, 348 Brompton, 12 Brompton Oratory, 50 Brompton Road, 180 Brook Green, 227 Brown, W. R. N., 135 I Browning, Robert, 21 Buckhill Gate, 229 Buckingham Palace, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 49, 50, 52, 54, 56, 69 Buckstone, John Baldwin, 17, 189 Bulmar, Bevis, 348 Bunning, J. B., 137, 139 Burdett, Sir Francis, 361 Burdett-Coutts, Baroness, 141, 144, 146 Burgesses, 94 Burial-places, 237-47 ; All Hallows Staining, Mark Lane, 239 ; All Hallows, Thames Street, 239 ; Bow, 237 ; Bunhill Fields Burial- Ground, 118, 120, 237; dangers and scandals of, in the early part of the century, 237; Dulwich, 237 ; Finchley, 237; Hampstead, 237 ; Highgate, 237; " Jews' " burial- place, 237; Kensal Green, 237; Norwood, 237 ; Nunhead, 237 ; Portugal Street, 238, 243 ; St. Andrew Undershaft, Leadenhall Street, 239 ; St. Ann's, Black- friars, 239 ; St. Bartholomew's, Exchange, 240 ; St. Catherine Cree, 239 ; St. Clement Danes, 240, 243 ; St. George's, Blooms- bury, 237 ; St. George the Martyr, Queen Square, 237 ; St. George's, Hanover Square, in Uxbridge Road, 237 ; St. Giles -in -the - Fields, 240 ; St. James's Cemetery, 241 ; St. Magnus, London Bridge, 239; St. Margaret's, Westminster, 241 ; St. Martins -In -the -Fields, 240 ; St. Martins-in-the-Fields at Camden Town, 237 ; St. Martin's, Ludgate, 239 ; St. Martin Orgars', 239; St.-Mary-at Hill, 239 ; St. Mary-le-Strand, 241 ; St. Michael's, Cornhill, 239 ; St. Michael's, Crooked Lane, 240; St. Michael Royal, College Hill, 239; St. Olave's, Crutched Friars, 239 ; St. Pancras, 240 ; St. Paul's, Covent Garden, 241 ; St. Peter's, Cornhill, 239; St. Sepulchre's, 237 ; St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, 239; West Ham, 237 ; West Kensington, 237 ; Willesden, 237 Burlington House, 26, 170, 176 Burne-Jones, Sir E., 171 Burnham Beeches, 118, 120 Bushey Park, 227 Buxton, Edward North, 120 Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, 120 Byron, Henry J., 205 Cable Street, 275 Cabriolets, 9, 313 INDEX 409 Cabs, 3, 29, 313 Cabs, introduction of, 3 Caldwell's, 16 Calendar Courts, 96 Camberwell, 6, 29, 83, 262, 325, 337, 405 Camberwell Park, 227 Cambridge Circus, 189 Cambridge, Duke of, 48, 69 Cambridge House, 72 Camden Town, 6, 237 Campden Hill, 355, 359 Canal, Grand Surrey, 122, 150 Canal, Regent's, 3, 122, 150 Candlewick Ward, 94, 148 Cannon Street, 7, 26, 139, 144 Canterbury, Archbishop of, 41, 42, 48, 52 Canterbury Music Hall, 191, 194 Capital punishment, i 5 Carey, Robert, 343 Carlton House, 316 Carlyle, Thomas, i o, 2 1 Carpenter Estates, 126 Carpenter, John, 37, 83, 126 Carr, Comyns, 2 1 5 Carrington, Lord, 50 Carte, D'Oyly, 215 Carton, R. C, 203 Casde Baynard Ward, 94, 148 Catherine Street, 271 Cato Street Conspiracy, 147 Cavendish Square, 222 Celeste, Madame, 188 Central Criminal Court, 75, 78, 80, 86, 99, 100, 1 10 Central Criminal Court Act, 1834, 100 Central Markets, 96, 115 Chamber, Comptroller of the, iio Chamber of London, 105 Chamberlain of London, 109, 113, 125, 129, 132, 148 Chambers' s Journal, 23 Chancery, Court of, 132 Chancery Lane, 176 Chandos Street, 379 Chantrey, Sir F. L., 180 Chapel Royal, 43, 46 Chapels, 6 Chapels and Mission -houses, statistics, 397 Charing Cross, 69, 351, 352, 379 Charing Cross Road, 189, 400 Charitable Institutions — Bethlem Hospital, 130; Bridewell Hos- pital, 130 ; Christ's Hospital, 54, 109, 130, 132, 139, 144, 145 ; City of London Parochial Char- ities, 130; Emanuel Hospital, 92, III, 129, 132; Foundling Hos- pital, 6, 158, 237, 262; Free- man's Orphan School, 95, 106, 127; Hospital for Infectious Diseases, Gravesend, 143 ; Lon- don Almshouses, 133-49; Mag- dalen Hospital, 276 ; Mitchell Charity, 130; Morden College, 135 ; Reform Almshouses, Brixton, 148; Rogers' Alms- houses, Brixton, 134; Royal Hospitals, the, 130; Thomas Russell's Charity, 135 ; Salters' Almshouses, 139; Wilson's Loan Charity, 132. S^& a\so Hospitals, etc. Charitable Institutions, cost to the City Corporation, 136 Charity Organisation Society, 296, 304 Charlotte Street, 401, 402 Charlotte's Buildings, 268 Charter Act, suspension of, 39 Charterhouse School, 155, 220 Charterhouse Square, 219, 220 Charterhouse Street, 144 Chartism, 16 Chartists, 10, 145 Cheap Ward, 94, 148 Cheapside, 9, 29, 51, 54, 81, 331, 345, 347 Chelsea, 161, 196, 211, 238, 343, 359 Chelsea Common, 227 Chelsea Hospital, 58, 68, 361 Chelsea Pensioners, 68, 6g Chimney Sweeping, 327-8 China Association, 66 Chislehurst, 12 Chislehurst Common, 227 Chiswell Street, 392 Chiswick, 4, 356, 359 Cholera in London, 33, 146, 332, 334, 360, 363 Chop-houses, 1 1 Christchurch parish, 352 Christ's Hospital, 54, 109, 130, 132, 139, 144, 145, 15s, 158 Church of England, 15, 49, 397,398 Church House, Westminster, 49 Church services, i 5 Churches, 7 ; Allhallows, Broad Street, 8 ; All Hallows, Lombard Street, 249 ; All Hallows Stain- ing, Mark Lane, 239; All Hallows, Thames Street, 239 ; Brompton Oratory, 50 ; Christ Church, Borough, 238; Great Synagogue, 50 ; Holloway Chapel of Ease, 238; Pentonville Chapel, 238 ; St. Andrew - by - the - Ward- robe, 249; St. Andrew, Holborn, 238 ; St. Andrew Undershaft, Leadenhall Street, 239; St. Ann, Blackfriars, 239; St. Antholine, Budge Row, 8 ; St. Bartholomew, Bethnal Green, 97 ; St. Bartholo- mew, East Cheap, 8 ; St. Bartholomew, Exchange, 240, 248 ; St. Bartholomew, Moorfields, 248 ; St. Bartholomew the Great, 238; St. Benedict, Gracechurch Street, 8 ; St. Benet Fink, 8, 248 ; St. Benet, Gracechurch Street, 249 ; St. Benet, Stepney, 249 ; St. Botolph, Aldersgate, 121; St. Bride, 238 ; St. Catherine Cree, 97, 239 ; St. Clement Danes, 240, 243; St. Christopher - le - Stock, 8, 248 ; St. Dionis Back- church, 8, 249 ; St. George, Bloomsbury, 237; St. George, Borough, 238 ; St. George, Hanover Square, 224, 226, 237 ; St. George the Martyr, Queen Square, 237 ; St. George the Martyi", South wark, 97 ; St. Giles - in -the- Fields, 240; St. James, Clerkenwell, 238 ; St. James, Dukes Place, 97, 249 ; St. John, Borough, 238 ; St John, Red Lion Square, 249 ; St. John, Waterloo Road, 238 ; St. Luke, Old Street, 238 ; St. Magnus, London Bridge, 239 ; St. Margaret, Westminster, 50, 241 ; St. Mark, Clerkenwell, 97 ; St. Mark, Victoria- Docks, 97 ; St. Martin-in-the Fields, 30, 237, 240; St. Martin, Ludgate, 239; St. Martin Orgars', 239 ; St. Mary-at-Hill, 239 ; St. Mary Magdalene, 8 ; St. Mary Somer- set, 8, 249 ; St. Mary-le-Strand, 241 ; St. Mary Woolnooth, 8 ; St. Matthew, Friday Street, 8 ; St. Michael Bassishaw, 8 ; St. Michael, Clapton, 249 ; St. Michael, Cornhill, 239 ; St. Michael, Crooked Lane, 8, 240, 248 ; St. Michael, Oueenhithe, 8 ; St. Michael Royal, College Hill, 239 ; St. Mildred, Poultry, 249 ; St. Olave, Borough, 238 ; St. Olave, Crutched Friars, 239 ; St. Olave, Jewry, 8 ; St. Olave, Southwark, 8; St. Pancras, 5,240; St. Paul, Clerkenwell, 249 ; St. Paul, Covent Garden, 241 ; St. Paul, Deptford, 238 ; St. Peter, 226 ; St. Peter Ad Vincula, 71 ; St. Peter, Bethnal Green, 97 ; St. Peter-upon-Cornhill, 97, 239 ; St. Saviour, Borough, 238 ; St. Sepulchre, 237 ; St. Stephen, Coleman Street, 239 ; Swale, 122 4IO LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Churches destroyed during the Nineteenth Century — AUhallows, Broad Street, 8 ; St. Anthohne, Budge Row, 8 ; St. Bartholo- mew, East Cheap, 8, 248 ; St. Benedict, Gracechurch Street, 8 ; St. Benet Fink, 8, 248 ; St. Chris- topher le Stock, 8, 248; St. Dionis Backchurch, 8 ; St. Mary Mag- dalene, 8 ; St. Mary Somerset, 8 ; St. Mary Woolnooth, 8 ; St. Matthew, Friday Street, 8 ; St. Michael Bassishaw, 8 ; St. Michael, Crooked Lane, 8, 248 ; St. Michael, Queenhithe, 8 ; St. Olave Jewry, 8 ; St. Olave, Southwark, 8 Churches — Wren's, 7 Churchyards, 8. See also under Burial Grounds City and Guilds of London Tech- nical Institute, 92, 109, 143 City — Bill for effecting incorpora- tion of Southwark with, 1 5 ; churches, the plunder of, 248-9 ; churchyards, 8 ; decay of chapels, 6 ; decay of the churches, 7 ; de- population of, 5, 6 ; and Ecclesi- astical Patronage, 81 ; entertains Emperor Alexander L of Russia, 58 ; German Emperor, 64 ; King of the Belgians, 61, 62; King Frederick William III. of Prussia, 58 ; King Kalakua of the Sand- wich Islands, 62 ; King of Portu- gal, 61 ; King of Siam, 64 ; King and Queen of Denmark in 1893, 64 ; King and Queen of Greece, 62 ; Napoleon III., 61 ; Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, 64; Prince Nasrulla Khan, 64 ; Shah of Persia, 62 ; Shah, second visit, 64 ; Sultan of Turkey, 6 1 ; Sultan of Zanzibar, 62 ; Gas Acts, 97 ; Grain Duty, 103 ; graveyards, 25 ; Improvement Act, 97 ; and the Reform of London Local Government, 81 ; Relation to the Government of London, 7 5 ; roads, 4, 193 ; separation from Greater London, 73 City Companies, list of, 98 City Corporation, 47, 49, 56, 64, 65, 66, 69, 75, 76, 79; Art Gallery, 143 ; Government Com- mission of Inquiry into, 149; privileges of, 78 ; Royal Com- mission on amalgamation with County, 73 ; officers, 109 ; Chamberlain, 109, 113, 125, 129, 132, 148 ; Clerk of the Peace, 113; Common Serjeant, 1 10; Commissioner of Lieuten- ancy, 109 ; Commission of Police, no; Comptrollerof the Chamber, no ; Engineer, 345 ; Escheator, 86 ; High Bailiff and Returning Officer of Southwark, 112; High Steward of Southwark, 109 ; Re- corder, 109 ; Remembrancer, III; Secondary, 1 1 1 ; Surveyor, 113; Town Clerk, 1 09 City Fathers, 54 " City Hospice," 270 City Imperial Volunteers, 147 City Lieutenancy, 86 City Militia, 102 City Police, 92, no, ni, 146; constitution and regulations of, 106 City Quarter Sessions, 102 City Technical and Science College, 37 City Ward meetings, 92 City Ward Schools, 129 City Wardmotes, 92, 94 City Wards, 94. See also Wards City of London Ballot Act (1887), no; Cemetery, 139; College, 37, 143; Court, 104, no; Fire Inquests Act (1888), n2; Gas, Light, and Coke Company, 150; Lunatic Asylum, 92, 102, III, 114, 140; School, 37, 95, 126, 129, 137, 142, 145; School for Girls, 128 ; Theatre, 17 ; Trophy Tax, 102 ; Union, 91 Clapham, 4, 6, 30, 188, 262, 337, 345 Clapham Common, 4, 24, 227, 235 Clapham Road, 4 Clapton, 337 Clare Market, 9, 27 i Clarence House, 58 Clarence Theatre, I 7 Claridge's Hotel, 62 Class distinctions, 14 Claygate, 354 Clement's Lane, Strand, 242 Clergy, 7, 10, 15 Clerk of the Peace, 113 Clerkenwell, 5, 6, 14, 27, 219, 267, 405 Clerkenwell reservoirs, 348 Clerks, 6, 9, 28-29 Clissold Park, 227 Cloth Fair, 8, 392 Clubs, 259-64; Albion, 20; Alfred, 20; Alpine, 264; Arthur's 20, 264 ; Arts, 264 ; Athenaeum, 20 ; Authors', 264 ; Automobile, 264; Bachelors', 264; Baldwin, 264 ; Bath, 264 ; Beaufort, 264 ; Beefsteak, 260, 261 ; Blenheim, 264; Boodle's, 20, 259, 264; Brooks's, 20, 264 ; Caledonian, 264; Carlton, 20; Cavalry, 264'; Clarence, 20 ; Cocoa-tree, 20, 264 ; Colonial, 264 ; Conser- vative, 264 ; Constitutional, 264 ; Cyclists' Touring, 264 ; Crock- ford, 20 ; Devonshire, 264 ; Dilettante, 261 ; East India, 221 ; Garrick, 20; Girls', 36; Glee and Madrigal, 261 ; Graham's, 20 ; Guards', 20 ; Hurlingham, 264 ; Imperial, 264 ; Isthmian, 264; Johnson, 261; Johnson's Literary, 261 ; Junior Army and Navy, 264 ; Junior Athenaeum, 264 ; Junior Carlton, 264 ; Junior Conservative, 264 ; Junior Con- stitutional, 264 ; Junior Naval and Military, 264 ; Junior United Service, 20 ; Marlborough, 264 ; M.C.C., 264; National Liberal, 264 ; National Sporting, 264 ; Naval and Military, 264 ; New Oxford and Cambridge, 264 ; New University, 264 ; Nimrod, 221 ; Noviomagians, 261 ; Omar Khayyam, 261; Oriental, 20; "Our" Club, 261; Oxford and Cambridge, 20 ; Portland, 20, 221; Primrose, 264; Prince's Skating, 264 ; Queen's, 264 ; Ranelagh, 264 ; Royal Astro- nomical, 261 ; Royal Naval, 20; Royal Societies, 264 ; Royal Thames Yacht, 264 ; Savages, 260 ; Sette of Odde Volumes, 261 ; Senior United Service, 20; Smithfield, 264; Sports, 221, 264, Travellers', 20 ; Turf, 264 ; University, 20 ; Urban, 261 ; \'agabonds, 260 ; West Indian, 20 ; White's, 20 ; Windham, 20, 221 Clubs still surviving from eighteenth century, 264 Club-statistics, 260-64 Coaches, 4, 14, 15; coach-build- ing, 1 4 ; stage coaches, 9 Coal Exchange, 54, 139, 143 Goalmouth Creek, 122 Coburg, Duke of, 43 Coburg Theatre, 17 Cock-fighting, i 5 Coffee-houses, 11,31 Cole, Vicat, 171 Coleman Street, 137, 141, 345 Coleman Street Ward, 94, 148 College Hill, 144 College of Preceptors, 220 College of Surgeons museum, 177 Collins, Wilkie, 202, 203 INDEX 411 Colman, George, 189 Colquhoun, Patrick, 271 Columbia Market, 141 Comedy Theatre, 188 Commercial Road, 141, 342 Commissioners of Sewers, 76, 140, 243 Common Council, Court of, 86, 93- 97, 102-114, 124, 126, 145, 149, 341 ; qualifications for member- ship, 93 Common Halls, Court of, 86, 98, 99, 112 Common Serjeant, no, 113, 148 Commons. See Open Spaces Communication, means of, 312; underground railways, 314. See also Conveyances Companies, City, list of, 98 Comptroller of the City of London, 129 Congreve, Sir \\'illiam, 3 1 8 Connaught, Duke of, 51, 120 Constable, John, 1 7 1 Constitution Hill, 50, 52 Conveyances — Brewer's drays, 9 ; cabs, 29; cabriolets, 9, 313; four-wheel cabs, 313; gigs, 9 ; hackney coaches, 9, 312, 313, 34 1 ; hansom cabs, 313; omni- buses, 6, 9, 12, 15, 16, 28, 314, 315; post-chaises, 1 2 ; riding- horses, 312 ; sedan chairs, 9 ; stage-coaches, 9 ; steamboats, 313; tram cars, 3 1 4 Conway, Sir Martin, 173 Cook-shops, 1 1 Cooper, T. S., 171 Copenhagen Fields, 65, 139 Cordwainer Ward, 94, 148 Corn Exchange, 392 Comhill, 347 Comhill Ward, 94, 148 Coronations, 40 Coroners, 1 1 2 Coronet Theatre, i g i Corporation Art Gallery, 143 Coulsdon Common, 118, 120 Court Magazine, 23 Court Theatre, 188, 213 Courtney, Mr. Leonard, 73 Courts — of Aldermen, 86, 88, 106, 109, no. III, 112, 113, 150 ; Baihwick of Southwark, 80 ; Calendar, 96 ; City of London, 104, no; Common Council, 86, 93-7, 102-114, 125, 129, 134, •35, 136, 140; Common Halls, 86, 98, 99, 112; Gaol Delivery, 100 ; Hustings, 80, 86, 105, 109 ; Lord Mayor's, 80, 102, 109, no; Sheriffs', 104, 150; Ward- mote, Grand or Great Court of, 93 Coutts, Sir Charles, 325 Covent Garden, 188, 241, 349 Covent Garden Theatre, 17, 26, 186, 188, 192, 198, 200, 2n, 213, 390 Coventry Street, 190 Cowper Street School, 146 Cranbourne Street, 191 Craven House, 26 Crawford, H. H., 73, 76 Crime, capital punishment, i 5 Crime, statistics, 15, 19, 32, 90, 102 Cripplegate, 5, 8, 27, 34, 238 Cripplegate Within Ward, 92, 94, 148 Cripplegate Without Ward, 92, 94, 148 Criterion Theatre, 188 Cromwell Road, I 80 Crosby Hall, 146 Crossness Point, 123, 335, 337, 338 Crouch End Theatre, 188, 191 Cruchley's map, 4 Crystal Palace, 44, 56, 61, 62, 64, 65, 227, 353, 383, 391 Cubitt, Joseph, 140 Cumberland Gardens, 356, 357 Cumberland Gate, 72, 230 Cunningham, quoted, 221 Custom House, 144. Dacre, Lady Ann, 132 Dalston, 29 Daly, Augustin, 215 Daly's Theatre, 188, 212 Dame Schools, 156 Dandies, 9 Dartford Works, 358 Darwin, Charles, 178 Davy, Sir Humphry, 317 Deaf and Dumb Schools, 155 Dean Street, 190 Debtors' Prison in Boulogne, 14 Debtors' Prisons, 19, 148 Decrease of drinking, 26 Denmark Street, 403 Denton, 123 Deptford, 27, 337, 357, 358 Deptford, Foreign Cattle Market, 117, 141 D'Orsay, Count, 9 Devonshire House, 220 Devonshire Square, 219, 220 Dibdin, Mr., 338 Dickens, Charles, 21, 22, 193, 202 Dining-rooms, 1 1 Diseases. See Epidemics Disraeli, Mr., 139 Doctors' Commons, 7,. 383 Dog-fighting, I 5 Dowgate, 329 Dowgate Ward, 94, 148 Drapers' Company, 49, 57, 135 Drapery trade, 14 Dress, 9 Drinking, 1 1 ; decrease of, 26 Drury Lane, 8, 28, 34, 165, 241 262, 271, 275 Drury Lane Theatre, 17, 26, 186, 188, 192, 203, 210, 211, 213, 214, 390 Duck Island, 232 Dudley House, 65 Duke of York's Theatre, 1 89 Duke Street, Smithfield, 343, 387 Dulwich, 83, 262, 353 Dulwich Fields, 227 Dulwich Park, 227 Duncannon Street, 50 Ealing, 359 Earthenware manufacture, 14 Eastcheap, 137 East End, 33, 53, 57, 342 East India Company, 14 East Loitdon Evangelist, 2 8 1 Eastlake, Sir C. L., 171 Eaton Square, 226 Eclectic, 23 Eden, Sir Frederick Morton, 377 Edgware Road, 4, 72, 392 Edinburgh, Duke of, 61 Edinburgh Review, 23 Education, 37, 155-66 Education Acts, 16 Educational Institutions — Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution, 143; Bishopsgate Institute, 144; Blind Schools, 165 ; Board Schools, 32, 36, 37, 130, 147, 160-66 ; Charterhouse School, 155, 220; Christ's Hospital, 54, 109, 130, 132, 139, 144, 145, 155, 158; City and Guilds of London Technical Institute, 92, 1 09, 143; City of London College, 37, 143 ; City of London School, 37, 95, 126, 129, 137, 142, 145; City of London School for Girls, 128 ; City Technical and Science College, 37 ; City Ward Schools, 129 ; College of Preceptors, 220 ; Cowper Street School, 146 ; Dame Schools, 156; Deaf and Dumb Schools, 165 ; Duke of York's School, 365 ; Evening Continua- tion Classes, 166; Foundling Hospital, 6, 158, 237, 262; Free- man's Orphan School, 95, 106, 127; Gresham College, 137, 259; Grey Coat Hospital, 158; Guildhall School of Music, 128, 412 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 143, 144; High Schools for Girls, 37 ; Industrial Schools, 165 ; King's College, 37 ; Mer- cers' School, 144; Merchant Taylors' School, 155, 220; Poly- technics, 36, 37 ; Royal Academy of Music, 27 ; Royal College of Music, 37 ; Royal Normal College for the Blind, 166; Royal School of Mines, 2>7 ) St. Bride's Founda- tion Institute, 144 ; St. Paul's School, 37, 143, 155 ; St. Peter's School, 155 ; School Board, 160- 1 56 ; Sir John Carr's Foundation, 130; Westminster School, 226; United Westminster Schools, 92, log, 129, 133; University College, 37 Eel Brook Common, 227 Egyptian Hall, 184 Electric lighting, introduction of, 198. See also Lighting Elephant and Castle Theatre, i8g Elgin Marbles, 177 EUiston, Robert William, 17, 189 Elmly Chapel, 122 Eltham, 5 Eltham Common, 227 Emanuel Hospital, 92, 1 1 1, 129, 132 Emery, Winifred, 209 Enfield, 1 1 8 Engels, Frederick, 403 English Opera House, 390 Epidemics, 33 ; cholera, 33, 146, 332, 334, 360, 363 ; influenza, 144 ; small-pox, 33 Epping Forest, 57, 96, 118, 120, 146, 227, 235 Ericsson, John, 382 Etty, William, 18 Euston Road, 342 Evans, Sheriff, 148 Excise Office, 145 Exeter Change, 189 Exeter Hall, 184 Exeter Street, 197 Exhibition Road, 180 Exhibition of Water Colours, 18 Exhibitions, 26 ; International Ex- hibition (185 i), 55, 62, 230 Farrar, 189 Farren, William, 17 Farrer, Sir Thomas, 73 Farrier, William, 189 Farringdon Market, 115, 116, 143, 144 Farringdon Road, 140, 142 Farringdon Street, 184 Farringdon Street Bridge, 140 Farringdon Within Ward, 92, 94, 148 Farringdon Without Ward, 92, 94, 148 Faucit, Helen, 18, 189 Faudel- Phillips, Lord Mayor, 51; quoted, 83 Fawcett, Henry, 310 Fechter, Charles, 202 Fellowship Porters, 136 Fenchurch Street, 141 Fetter Lane, 137, 139, 262, 298 Fielding, H., 189 Field Lane, 270 Fife, Duchess of, 49 Fife, Duke of, 49, 5 i Fife, Earl of, 44 Fildes, Sir Luke, 171 Finchley Common, 227 Finnis, Lord Mayor, 145 Finsbury, 24, 120, 161, 330, 331 Finsbury Square, 222, 223 Fire-Brigade, 368 Fire- Brigades, 375-93 ; fire-calls, 384; Fire-Brigade Act, 1865, 381 ; Fire-Escape Society, 382 ; floating fire-engines on the Thames, 376, 378, 383; Insur- ance Company, fire-brigades of, 375-380; London Fire-Engine Establishment, 375, 378, 383; Royal Society for the Protection of Life from Fire, 382, 384; transfer of control to London County Council, 385 Fire Inquiry Act (1886), 385 Fire of London (1666), 8, 13 Fires, Great, 388 Fish Street Hill, 137 Fishmongers' Hall, 65 Fitzroy Square, 400, 401, 402, 406 Fitzroy Street, 402, 406 Flats, 35 Flaxman, John, 171 Fleet Prison, 19, 138, T40, 184 Fleet River, 329 Fleet Street, 6, 11, 30, 51, 54, 69, 142 Flogging, abolition of, 26 Food and drink, 11, 30, 31, 32 Forde, Charles Bell, ■}>n Fore Street, 345 Foreign Attachment custom, 81 Foreign Cattle Market, Deptford, 117 Foreign Office, 72 Foreign Quarterly Review, 2 Foreigners' Quarters, 28 Forest Hill, 29, 353 Forster, William Edward, 161, 333 Foundling Hospital, 6, 158, 237, 262 Fowke, Francis, 181 Franchise, 15, 16, 26 Francis Street, 401 Eraser Magazine, 23 Free libraries, 26, 36 Freeman, 80, 82, 88, ro6 Freeman's Orphan School, 95, 106, 127 Freemasons' Hall, 184 Fruit-shops, 1 1 Frying Pan Alley, 268 Fulham, 12, 325, 334 Fuller's Church History, 7 Funerals, 8 '-^ Funerals — Canning, George, 72 ; Fox, Charles James, 68 ; Duke of Wellington, 68 ; Gladstone, William Ewart, 72 ; Lord Napier of Magdala, 71 ; Lord Palmer- ston, 72 ; Pitt, Wilham, 68 ; Queen Caroline, 7 1 Furnival's Inn, 139 Gaiety Theatre, 189, 197, 198, 200, 213 Galleon's Reach, 334 Galton, Captain Douglas, 335 Gambling, 16, 19 Gaming-houses, Argyll, 19; Jessop's, 19 ; Piccadilly, 19 Gaol Delivery, 86, 100 ; commission of, 78 Garibaldi, 65 Garrick Theatre, 17,189 Garter King-at-Arms, 70 Gas and water supply, 74 Gas Companies. See Lighting Gas, introduction of, 3 Gay's Trivia quoted, 341 General Post Office, 12, 141, 142, 307-311 ; contraband carriage of letters, 308 ; establishment of districts, 145 ; Fawcett, Henry, 310; Heaton, Henniker, 310; Hill, Rowland, 308, 309 ; Penny Postage, introduction of, 308 ; Penny Postage, extension to the Colonies, 310; St. Martin's- le-Grand, 307 ; Savings Bank Department, 310; Statistics, 310 ; Telegraph Service, 310 Ge?itle?nan's Magazine, 23 Geology, Museum of Practical, 177 George II., 89 George III., 47 George IV., coronation of, 40, 43 George Eliot, 1 5 Gilbert, W. S., 189, 190, 203, 308 Giles, Dr. J. A., 137 Giltspur Street, no, 1 40 Giltspur Street Compter, iii, 139 Gin, T I Girls' clubs, 36 Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 62, 146 INDEX 413 Globe, 23 Glover, Mrs., 18 Godwin, George, quoted, 267 Golden Square, 222, 223, 267, 364 Goodwin, Dr. Harvey, 49 Goswell Street, 340 Gough Square, 219, 220 Government. SecLoM/ Gm'cnimi'iit Gracechurch Street, 137, 343, 345 Grain Duty, City of London, 1 18 Grand Junction Canal Company, 149, 358 Grand Junction Road, 358 Grand Surrey Canal, 122, 150 Grand Theatre, 189 Grant, Baron Albert, 2 2 i Grant, Sir. F., 171 Gravesend, 64 Gravesend Hospital for Infectious Diseases, 143 Graveyards, 25 Grays, 165 Gray's Inn, 6 Gray's Inn Road, 238 Great Eastern Railway, 46 Great Fire (1666), 341 Great Queen Street, 184 Great Synagogue, 50 Grecian Playhouse, 193 Greek Street, 403, 404 Greenhithe, 358 Green Park, 12, 43, 227, 234, 235, 359 Greenwich, 27, 161, 228, 337, 358 Greenwich Hospital, 62, 66 Greenwich Marshes, 332 Greenv/ich Park, 227 Gresham College, 137, 259 Gresham Estate, 134 Gresham House, 139 Gresham, Sir Thomas, 83, 134 Grey Coat Hospital, 1 5 8 Grey, Earl, 41 Grey, Sir George, 149 Grillon's Hotel, 58 Grimaldi, 200 Grocers' Company, 57 Grosvenor Square, 222, 224 Grosvenor Art Gallery, 325 Grub Street, 340 Grundy, Sydney, 203 Guildhall, 49, 54, 56, 62, 64, 79, 86, 89, 90, 92, 143 Guildhall Art Gallery, 126, 182 Guildhall Library and Reading Room, 25, 126, 141 Guildhall Museum, 25, 126, 141, 182 Guildhall School of Music, 128, 143, 144 Gurney, Mr., 120 Hackney, 4, 5, 9, 12, 30, 161, 238, 262, 279, 303, 325, 337, 380 Hackney coaches, 9, 312, 313, 341 Hackney Downs, 228 Haggard, Mr. H. Rider, 173 Haggerston, 238 Hall, Sir Benjamin, 74, 334 Halls — Agricultural, 184; Albert, 56, 62, 184, 231, 324 ; of Com- merce, 137; Egyptian, 184; Exeter, 184; Free-masons', 184; London University theatre, 185 ; Mansion House, 185 ; Memorial, 184; Olympia, 184; Princes', 184; Queen's, 184; Steinway, 185; St. George's, 185; St. James's, 185 ; St. Martin's, 185 ; Society of Arts Theatre, 1 8 5 Hamilton, Lady Ann, 41 Hammersmith, 12, 72, 143, 189, 279, 325, 326, 338, 355, 356 Hampstead, 5, 12, 27, 29, 84, 325, 326, 337, 346, 347, 365, 379 Hampstead Heath, 24, 228, 335, 361 Hampstead Ponds, 351 Hampstead Road, 4, 275, 351 Hampton, 356, 357 Hampton Court, 228, 359 Hamsell Street, 390 Hanbury Street, 297 Hanger, Colonel George, quoted, 160 Hanover Square, 222, 224, 226, 342 Han way's Letters on the Importa7ice of the Rising Generation, quoted, 158 Han well, 359 Hanwell, pauper schools at, 139 Harcourt, Sir William, 75, 369 Hare, John, 209 Harley, John Pritt, 17 Harris, Sir Augustus, 203, 2 i 5 Harrison, Frederick, 215 Harrison, William, 198 Harrow Road, ■^2:7 Hart Street, Cripplegate, 134 Havengore Creek, 122 Havering-atte-Bowe, 118 Haverstock Hill, 5 Hawkers, 10, 12 Hawkesley, Thomas, 335 Hawkins, Mr. Anthony Hope, 173 Hawtrey, C. H., 188 Haymarket, 351, 390 Haymarket Theatre, 17, 186, 189 Hay Tax, 1 1 8 Haywood, Mr., 140 Heaton, Henniker, 310 Hendon, 356 Heralds' College, 7 Herkomer, Sir Hubert von, 171 Her Majesty's Theatre, 17, 189, 390 Heme Bay, 16 Heston, 359 Heygate, Sir William, 148 Higham Creek, 335 Higham Park, 118, 120 Highbury Barn, 16 Highbury Grove, 165 High Court of Justice, 25, 86 Highgate, 24, 27, 29, 262, 337 Highgate and Kilburn Open Spaces Act (1886), 118 Highgate Ponds, 351 Highgate Wood, 118, 120 High Holborn, 340, 345 Hill, Rowland, 308, 309 Hill's Charity, 129 Hithe's Green, 227 Hobhouse, Lord, 120 Hogarth, William, 177 Holborn, 6, 144, 270, 330, 331, 340, 379 Holborn Bars, 57 Holborn Circus, 140, 141 Holborn Viaduct, 56, 140, 345 Hold, R. D., 73 HoUingshead, John, 189 HoUoway Prison, 91, 139 Holloway Workhouse, 140 Holywell Street, 8 Homerton, 165 Honey Lane Market, 126 Hood, Lord and Lady, 41 Hope, Beresford, 177 Hoppner, John, 171 Horn Book, 157 Horns, Kennington, 353 Hornsey, 27, 262, 337, 354 Hornsey Downs, 228 Hornsey Wood, 24 Horse Guards, 43, 51, 69 Horticultural Gardens, 61 Hospitals, 32, 53 ; Alexandra, 225 ; Bethlem, 130; Bridewell, 130; For Infectious Diseases, Graves- end, 143 ; Italian, 222 ; London, 57 ; National, 225 ; Royal, 130; St. Bartholomew's, 130; St. Thomas's, 56, 130, 140 Houses, 27, 34 Houses, rent and value, 5 Houses of the fifteenth and sixteenth century still surviving, 8 Houses of Parliament, 25, 52, 69, 141 Housing of Working Classes, the, 84 Howard of Effingham, Lord, 41 Howell, quoted, 220 Hoxton, 238 Hoxton Fields, 347 Hoxton, High Street, 196 Hoxton Square, 235 414 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Hoxton Street, i88 Hunt, Leigh, 2 1 Hustings, Court of, 86, 105, 109 Huxley, Professor, 161 Hyde Park, 12, 34, 49, 58, 59, 66, 83, 228-31, 234, 352, 383 Hyde Park, military reviews in, 43, 49 Hyde Park Corner, 4, 54, 72 Hygienic Museum, 177 Ilford, 139 Imperial Institute, 49, 52 Imperial Institute Museum, 182 Imprisonment for debt, abolition of, 26 India Office, 61 Industrial Schools, 165 Influenza epidemics, 33, 144 Inns : Barnard's Inn, 7 ; Clement's Inn, 7; of Court, 7; Furnival's Inn, 7 ; Lyon's Inn, 7 ; Sarjeant's Inn, 7 Institutions of art and science, 26 International Exhibition ("185 i), 55, 62, 230 Irish society, 108 Irving, Sir Henry, 189, 191, 202, 204, 205, 209, 215 Island Garden, 235 Isle of Dogs, 235, 380 Isle of Sheppey, 122 Isleworth, 165, 333, 359 Islington, 5, 30, 83, 184, 188, 238, 262, 325, 326, 380 Islington, High Street, 189 Islington, Metropolitan Cattle Market, 116, 139 Italian Hospital, 122 James, David, 191 Jenner, Dr., 33 Jerrold, Douglas, 18, 186 Jesse, quoted, 223 Jews, 28 Johnson, Dr., 220 Jones, Henry Arthur, 203 Jones, Horace, 141 Jubilee Celebrations, 47, 52, 64 Judges, 7 Justice, administration of, 1 5, 86- 108 Kamehamehak, King, 59 Kean, Charles, 17, 189, 190, 204 Kean, Edmund, 189, 201, 202 Kelly's Directory of London, 253, 259, 260 Kemble, Charles, 189, 201 Kemble, Fanny, 18, 189 Kemble, John Philip, 189, 201 Kennington, 4, 29, 72, 386 Kennington Common, 145 Kennington Lane, 357 Kennington Park, 24, 228 Kennington Theatre, 191 Kensal Green, 338, 361 Kensington, 52, 83, 196, 283 Kensington Gardens, 12, 228, 231 Kensington Palace, 12, 41, 43, 231 Kensington Square, 222 Kent, Duchess of, 41, 69 Kentish Town, 5, 337 Kew, 333 Kew Bridge, 141, 359 Kew Gardens, 64, 228, 235, 357 Kilburn, S, 359 Kilburn Park, 120 King of Arms, 42 King Street, 190 King Street, Westminster, 343 King William Street, 7, 26, 51 King's College, 37 King's Cross, 144, 271, 299 King's Stairs, 376 Kingsland Common, 227 Kingsland Road, 4 Kingsland Road Theatre, 191 King's Theatre, 58 Knightsbridge, 352 Knight's Hill, 227 Labouchere, Henry, 197 Lady's Magazine, 23 Laing, Samuel, 56 Lambeth, 4, 14, 141, 161, 325, Zil, 343, 349, 352, 366 Lambeth Palace, 380 Landor, Walter Savage, 2 1 Landseer, Sir Edwin, 18, 171 Lane, Mrs., 188 Langbourn Ward, 94, 148 Langdale, Lord, 108, 109 Langham Place, 184 Lansdowne House, 220 Law Courts, 142, 147 Lawrence, Lord, 161 Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 171 Lawyers, 7, 11 Lea, 333, 334, 338, 348, 351, 354, 362, 365, 368, 371, 372 Lea Bridge Mills, 354 Lea Conservancy, 371 Leadenhall Market, 94, 117, 142 Leadenhall Street, 331 Leader, B. W., 171 Lee, 357 Lee Common, 227 Leicester Square, 214, 219, 220, 393, 399, 400, 406 Leighton, Lord, 1 7 1 Leotard, 201 Letts' s Wharf, 141 Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, 150 Lewisham, 357 Lieutenancy, commissioners of, 109, no, 113 Life Guards, 66, 68, 72 Lighting, 316-26; Blackheath and Greenwich Electric Company, 326 ; Brentford Gas Company, 323 ; Brompton and Kensington Electric Company, 326 ; Charing Cross and Strand Electric Com- pany, 326 ; Chelsea Electric Company, 326 ; City of London Electric Company, 144, 326 ; City of London Gas Act (1868), 319, 320; City of London Gas Company, 317, 320; Commercial Gas Company, 318, 320, 321, 322, 328 ; Commercial Com- pany's Act (1875), 319 ; County of London and Brush Provincial Electric Co., 326 ; Crystal Palace District Gas Company, 323; Electric Lighting Act of 1882, 324 ; electric hght, introduction of, 324 et seq. ; Equitable Gas Company, 318, 320; gas, intro- duction of, 316 et seq. ; gas statistics, 322 ; Gas-Light and Coke Company, 317, 318, 320, 321, 322, 323 ; Gas-Light and Coke Company's Act (1876), 319, 321 ; Gas Lighting Companies, list of, 323; Gaswork Clauses Act (1847), 319; Great Central Gas Company, 318, 320; Hornsey Gas Company, 323 ; Imperial Gas Company, 317, 320; Independ- ent Gas Company, 318, 320; Kensington and Knightsbridge Electric Company, 326; London Electric Supply Corporation, 325, 326 ; London Gas Company, 318, 321, 322; Metropohtan Electric Supply Company, 325, 326; Metropolitan Gas Act (i860), 318-20; Mitcham and Wimble- don Gas Company, 323 ; Notting Hill Electric Company, 326 ; oil and candles, 316; Phoenix Gas Company, 318, 321 ; Ratcliffe Gas Company, 318, 320; St. James's and Pall Mall Electric Company, 326 ; South London Electric Company, 326 ; South Metropolitan Act in 1900 author- ising lowering of illuminating power and standard, 321 ; South Metropohtan Gas Company, 318, 320, 321 ; South Metropolitan Company's Act of 1869, 319, 321,322,323; Surrey Consumers Gas Company, 318; Victoria Dock GasCompany, 320 ; Wands- INDEX 415 worth and Putney Gas Company, 323 ; Western Gas Company, 3 1 8, 320 ; Westminster Electric Com- pany, 326 ; Woolwich District Electric Company, 326 ; Wool- wich Equitable Gas Company, 321 ; Woolwich, Plumstead, and Charlton gas consumers, 321 Lime Street \\'ard, 94, 148 Limehouse, 275 Lincoln, Lord, 138 Lincoln's Inn, New Hall, 54 Lincoln's Inn Fields, 177, 219, 235, 238, 271 Lipton, Sir Thomas, 53 Listen, John, 17 Literature — book clubs, 2 1 ; book trade, 2 1 ; commercial aspect of, 172-5 ; condition of, 21-4 ; decay of the novel, 21 ; pamphlets, 23 Little Tower Street, 137 Liverpool Street, 220 Liverpool Street Station, 141, 324 Lively Companies, 88, 109 Liverymen, 80, 82, 98, 99 Local Government, 73-84 ; Act of 1888, 104, 109, no, 112, 114; Bill of 1888, 73; Board, 117, 121, 122 ; Royal Commission on Reform of London, 73 Lock Fields, 227 Lombard Street, 146 London and Birmingham Railway, 12 London and Blackwall Railway, 13 London and Brighton Railway, 13 London and Bristol Railway, 12 London and Colchester Railway, 1 3 London and Croydon Railway, 12 London and Dover Railway, 13 London and Greenwich Railway, 1 2 London and Southampton Railway, 12 London, Bishop of, 48, 52, 70, 139 London Bridge, 36, 44, 51, 54, 102, 138, 333. 348, 350, 357, 361, 389 London Bridge Station, 149, 389 London Central Market Act, 1875, H5 London Chamber of Arbitration, 80, 97, 125 London Chamber of Commerce, 1 2 5 London Chronicle, i 5 7 London County Council, 25, 50, 75, 76, 150, 151,212,338,370, 375, 385 London Dock Company, 354 London Docks, 393 London Fields, 228 London Fire-Engine Establishment, 375, 378, 383 London Fish Trade Association, 1 1 5 London Hospital, 57 London Library, 221 London Maij;a::inc, 23 London Pavilion, 191 London Rifle Brigade, 145 London Road, 2 14 London Salvage Corps, 387 London (City) Small Debts Exten- sion Act (1852), 104, no London Wall, 27 London Water Act, 370 London Workhouse, 128 Long Acre, 14, 83 Lord Mayor, 41, 44, 47, 53, 54, 56, 57, 64, 66, 69, -]-], 78, 79 ; Ceremonial Functions of, etc., 78 ; duties, privileges, powers, etc., 85, 128-34, 149; qualifica- tions, 85 ; salary, 86 Lord Mayor's Court, 102, 109, iio Lord Mayor's State Barge, 5 5 Lome, Marquis of, 47, 5 1 Lothbury, 347 Lotteries, abolition of, 26 Lower Thames Street, 54, 144 Lowndes Square, 226 Ludgate Circus, 141, 385 Ludgate Hill, 9, 14, 51, 54, 69, 141, 144, 345 Lunatic asylums, 33 Lupus Street, 228 Lyceum Theatre, 17, 189, 193, 197, 202, 204, 316 Lyric Opera House, 189 Lyric Theatre, 189 Lytton, Bulwer, 21, 22, 193, 202 Macadam, John Loudon, 342 Macking Lighthouse, 335 Macready, William Charles, 17, i8g, 193, 202, 204, 210 MacWhirter, 172 Magazines, 23, 30; Atfienaum, 23; Chambers' s Journal, 23 ; Court, 23 ; East London Eva?tgelisi, 281; Eclectic, 23; Edinburgh Review, 23 ; Foreign Quarterly Review, 23 ; Eraser, 23 ; Gentle- man's, 2 2 ; Lady's, 23 ; London, 23 ; Metropolitan, 23 ; Mirror, 23 ; Monthly, 23 ; Monthly Review, 23 ; New Monthly, 23 ; Penny Magazine, 2 3 ; (Quarterly Review, 22,; Saturday Magazine, 23 ; War Cry, 281 ; Westminster Review, 23 ; Young Soldier, 288 Mall, 51, 232 Manchester Square, 222, 224 Mansion House, 43, 52, 53, 65, 79, 86, 89, 90, 92, 124, 141, 185 Mansion House Funds, 33, 86, 145, 146 Marble Arch, 231 Margate, 16 Mark Lane, 192 Market Overt, custom of, 8i Markets, 115; Billingsgate Fish Market, 115, 139, 141, 144; Central, 96, 115; Columbia, 141 ; Deptford Foreign Cattle, 117, 141; Farringdon, 115, 116, 143, 144; Honey Lane, 126; Leadenhall, 94, 117, 142; Metropolitan Cattle, 116, 139; Metropolitan Meat and Poultry, Smithfield, 139, 140, 141 ; Smith- field Hay, 118 ; Snow Hill Fish, 144 Marlborough House, 62 Marlborough Street Police Court, 267 Marryat, Captain Frederick, 21 Marshalsea Prison, 19, 236 Martin, Sir George, 5 i Martin, John, 331 Martyrs' Memorial, 146 Marx, Karl, 401, 403 Marylebone, 161, 325, 360, 380 Marylebone Fields, 235 Mathews, Charles, 17, 188, 202 Mayne, Sir Richard, quoted, 380 Mayor's Court of London Procedure Act, 1857, 104 Medway River, 122 Melbourne, Lord, 42 Memorial Hall, 184 Mercers' School, 144 Merchant Taylors' School, 155, 220 Merchants' Houses, 4, 5, 6 Meredith, Mr. George, 173 Merivale, Herman, 188 Metropole Theatre, 191 Metropolis Act (1871), 97 Metropolis Improvements, Com- mission on, 138 Metropolis Management Act ( 1 8 1 3), 91 ; (1855), 118 Metropolitan Asylums Board, i 5 i Metropolitan Board of Works, 74, 75, 123, 131, 139-41, 149, 161, 320, 334, 337, 338, 360, 366- 370, 375, 380, 381, 385-87 ; duty of fire-control assumed by, 381 Metropolitan Cattle Market, 116, 139 Metropolitan Magasine, 23 Metropolitan Markets Act, 115 Metropolitan Water Amendment Act, 366, 367, 386 Metropolitan Water Companies Acts, 97 Middle class, 16, 17 4i6 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Mile End, 57, 214, 279 Mile End Road, 4 Milk Street, Cheapside, 126, 137 Millais, Sir J. E., 171 Milman, Dean, 21, 70 Mil wall, 383 Mincing Lane, 343 Minton, 182 Mirror, 23 Mitchell, T. A., M.P., 131 Model dwellings, 34 Model lodging-houses, 26, 270, 275 Molesey, 352 " Monk" Lewis, 193 Monkwell Street, 139 Montagu House, 177, 224 Montgomerie, 354 Monthly Magazine, 23 Monthly Review, 23 Monument, keeper of the, 111 Monument Yard, 143 Moore, Tom, 21 Moorfields, 68, 143, 329 Moorgate Street, 138 Morality, state of, 10, 13, 32, 267 Morden, Sir John, 135 Morden College, 92 Morewood, J. J., 332, 334 Moris, Peter, 348, 349 Morley, Samuel, 161, 279 Morning Advertiser, 23 Morrison, Mr. Cotter, 173 Morton, Charles, 195 Motcomb Street, 392 Moxhay, Mr. Edward, 137 Museums — Antiquaries, society of, 176; Bethnall Green, 182; British, 145, 177, 324; College of Surgeon's, 177; Guildhall, 182; Hygienic,' 177; Imperial Institute, 182 ; Natural History, 178 ; Practical Geology, 177 ; Royal Naval at Greenwich, 177 ; Royal United Service Institution, 177; Sir John Soane's, 177; Victoria and Albert, 180; Wal- lace Collection, 182, 224 Music-halls, 26. See also Theatres Muswell Hill, 391 Myddleton, Hugh, 348, 350 National Hospital, 225 Natural History Museum, 178 Neale, Thomas, 354 Nelson, Lord, funeral of, 66 New Bond Street, 325 New Cross, 29, 358 New Kent Road, 189 New Monthly, 23 New Oxford Street, 26 New River Company, 13, 348-52, 352. 3S5> 360, 362, 373, 374 New Road, 315 New Union Street, 108 Newgate Prison, 91, loi, 137 Newgate Street, 137, 144 Newington, 4, 27, 238, 325 Newman Street, 400, 401, 405 Newport Market, 405 Newspapers, 23, 26, 30 ; Globe, 23, London Chronicle, 157; Morning Advertiser, 23 ; Observer, 23 ; Times, 23, 145 Newspapers, price of, 23 Newspapers, tax on, 23 Nicholas I. of Russia, visit of, 59 Nine Elms, 65 Nonconformist chapels, 25, 30 Nonconformists, 6, 397 Norfolk Square, 359 Norwood, 337, 365 Northcote, Sir Stafford, 320 North Fields, 227 North Park Estate, 1 2 1 Northumberland Avenue, 188 Northumberland House, 7 Nottingham House, 231, 232 Nottingham Park, 231 Novelty Theatre, 189 Obseiver, 23 Old Bailey, 343 Old Bailey Sessions House, 90, 10 1, 1 10 Old Broad Street, 145 Old Brompton Road, 352 Old Castle Street, 147, 162 Old Compton Street, 404 Old Ford, 338, 354, 364 Old Jewry, 108 Oldenburg, Grand Duchess of, 58 Oliver's Mount, 352 Olympia, 184 Olympic Theatre, 17, 186, 189, 202 Omnibuses, 6, 9, 12, 15, 16, 28, 314, 315; introduction of, 3, 6, 31S Open Spaces, 12, 24, 118; Alex- andra Park, 227 ; Battersea Park, 227, 235 ; Blackheath, 227 ; Bostall Wood, 227 ; Brockwell Common, 227 ; Brook Green, 227 ; Bunhill Field Burial- ground, 118, 120, 237; Burn- ham Beeches, 118, 120; Bushey Park, 227 ; Camberwell Park, 227; Chelsea Common, 227; Chislehurst Common, 227 ; Clap- ham Common, 4, 24, 227, 235 ; Clissold Park, 227 ; Coulsdon Common, 118, 120; Crystal Palace, 227, 383 ; Dulwich Fields, 227 ; Dulwich Park, 227; Eel Brook Common, 227 ; Eltham Common, 227 ; Epping Forest, 57, 96, 118, 120, 146, 227, 235 ; Finchley Common, 227; Green Park, 227, 234, 235, 359; Green- wich Park, 227; HackneyDowns, 228; Hampstead Heath, 24, 228, 235j 361 ; Hampton Court, 228, 359; Higham Park, 118, 120; Highgate Wood, 118, 120; Hithe's Green, 227 ; Hornsgy Downs, 228 ; Hyde Park, 228- 231, 234, 352, 383; Island Garden, 235 ; Kennington Park, 24, 228 ; Kensington Gardens, 24, 228, 231 ; Kew Gardens, 64, 228, 235, 357 ; Kilburn Park, 120; Kingsland Common, 227 ; Knight's Hill, 227 ; Lee Common, 227 ; Lincoln's Inn Fields, 235 ; Lock Fields, 227 ; London Fields, 228 ; North Fields, 227 ; Peckham Rye, 228 ; Penge Common, 227 ; Plumstead Common, 228 ; Postmen's Park, J2I, 236; Primrose Hill, 228, 355; 362; Putney Heath, 24, 228, 235; Queen's Park, 118, 228 ; Ravenscourt Park, 228 ; Regent's Park, 4, 12, 228, 235 ; Richmond Park, 228, 235, 362; Ruth Green 227 ; St. George's Fields, 227; St. George's Church- yard, Southwark, 236 ; St. James's Park, 228, 232, 233, 234, 259, 352; St. Paul's Churchyard, 118, 236; St. Paul's Cray Common, 228 ; Shiplake Island, 121 ; South Fields, 227 ; South Lambeth Common, 227 ; Southwark Park, 24, 228 ; Stock- well Common, 228 ; Stoke New- ington Common, 228 ; Streatham Common, 228 ; Temple Gardens, 235 ; Tooting Common, 228 ; Tothill Fields, 132, 173, 228; Vauxhall Park, 228 ; Wandsworth Common, 227, 228 ; Wanstead Park, 118, 120, 228; Waterlow Park, 228 ; West Ham Park, 118, 228 ; West Wickham Com- mon, 118, 121, 126; Wimbledon Common, 24, 228, 235 ; Wool- wich Common, 49, 61, 228 ; Wormwood Scrubs, 228. See also Squares Opera Comique Theatre, 1 89 Orchardson, Sir W. Q., 171 Osborne's Hotel, 58 Ouless, W. W., 171 Oval, 5 Oxford Music Hall, 191, 214, 391 INDEX 417 Oxford Street, 26, 27, 36, igo, 214, 224, 342, 343> 345> 359, 399. 400, 401, 402 Oyer and Terminer, Commission of, 78, 86, 90, 100 Paddington, 6, 343, 345, 347, 359, 362, 380 Paddington Canal, 362 Paddington Station, 49, 50, 52, 57, 343 Paine, Thomas, 10 Palace Theatre, 189, 191 Pall Mall, 16, 50, 54, 69, 169, 316, 345, 390 Palmer's Charity, 129 Pamphlets, 23 Pancras Place, 273 Pancras Road, 273 Panics, 37 Panopticon, 195 Panton Street, 188 Paper duty, 24 Paragon Theatre, 214 Parks. See Open Spaces Parliament Street, 51, 72 Parliamentary Reform, 3 Parry, Sefton, 189 Paternoster Row, 14, 30 Pavements, 340, 346 ; Kensington Road Trust, 342 ; Metropolitan Road Commission, 234 ; Val de Travers Company, 345 Pavihon Theatre, 190, 214, 391 Peabody, George, 34, 145 Peacock, Thomas Love, 2 i Peckham, 84, 337 Peckham Rye, 228 Peel, Sir Robert, 60 Penge Common, 227 Penitentiary Work, 276 Penny Magazine, 2 3 Penny Postage, introduction of, 148 People's Palace, 49, 57, 64 Percy Street, Marylebone, 400 Peterborough House, 26 Peter Street, Westminster, 3 1 8 Petticoat Lane, 143 Petty France, 340 Phelps, Samuel, 189, 202 Phillips, Mr., 333 Philhps, Sir R., 1820, quoted, 234 Piccadilly, 36, 50, 54, 176, 184,214, 302, 342, 349 Piccadilly Circus, 26 Pickle Herring Stairs, 140 Pigtails, 9 Pimlico, 228, 338 Pinero, Mr. Arthur, 203 Pleasure-gardens, 14 Plumstead Common, 228 Plumstead Marshes, 335 Police, 9, 74, 7 5, 38 1 ; City, 1 48; New Metropolitan, 3 ; Thames, 148 Police Courts, 79 Political Refugees, 399 Pollock, Sir Frederick, 173 Polytechnics, 36, 37 Poplar, 214, 326, 330 Population, 4, 5, 6, 26 Port, 1 1 Port of Faversham, 122 Port of London Sanitary Authority, 121, I 50 Portman Square, 224 Portsoken Ward, 94, 148 Postage, and Postal Reform. See General Post Office Post-chaises, 12 "Postmen's Park,'' 121, 236 Potton Island, 122 Poultry, the, no, 343, 345 Poultry Compter, 1 1 1 Power, Tyrone, 201 Poynter, Sir Edward J., 171 Primrose Hill, 228, 355, 362 Prince Albert (Prince Consort), 43, 48, 54, 55, 61, 68, 70, 138, 139 Prince Adolphus of Teck, 5 1 Prince Charles of Denmark, 46, 49 Prince Ernest of Saxe-Gotha, 43 Prince Frederick William of Prussia, 44 Prince Metternich, 58 Prince of Naples, 64 Prince of Wales, 34, 44, 49, 51, 52, 53, 61, 62, 64, 142, 144, 324 Prince of Wales's Theatre, 17, 190 Prince's Theatre, 17 Princes' Hall, 184 Princess Alexandra of Denmark, 44 Princess Helena, 5 i Princess Louise of Wales, 44 Princess Maud of Wales, 46 Princess Victoria, afterwards Em- press of Germany, 44 Princess Victoria of Wales, 49 Princess of Wales, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 61, 62, 142 Princess' Theatre, 190 Printing House Square, 30 Prisons, 33, 91 ; Acts (1865-77), 91 ; Debtors', 19, 148 ; Fleet, 19, 138, 140, 184; Borough, 19; Holioway, 91, 139; Marshalsea, 19, 236 ; Newgate, 91, loi, 137 ; Visiting Committee, 91 Privy Council, 41,81 Prize Rings, 14, i 5 Psalmanazar, Medtccval History, 7 Public executions, abolition of, 26 Public wash-houses, 26 Publishers. See Book - trade and Literature Pulteney Hotel, 58 Punch, II Putney, 357 Putney Heath, 24, 228, 235, 352 Quarterly Review, 23 Queen Adelaide, 41, 54 Queen Caroline, 40, 54, 231, 232, 234 Queen Square, 222, 225 Queen Victoria, 4, 10, 34, 44, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 61, 68, 69, 120, 137, 138, 140, 141, 231 ; coronation of, 41, 42, 43 ; marriage of, 43 Queen Victoria Street, 7, 26, 141, 142 Queen Tamehamalu, 59 Queen's Bench Prison, 19 Queen's Hall, 184 Queen's Park, Kilburn, 118, 228 Queen's State barge, 55 Queen's Theatre, 17, 197, 214 Queenhithe Ward, 94, 148 Raeburn, Sir H., 171 Railton, George, 282 Railways, introduction of, 3 ; early days, 12 ; Rates and charges, 123; underground, 29 Ranelagh Creek, 352 Ratclifife Road, 236 Rathbone Place, 400, 401, 402 Ravensbourne stream, 333 Ravenscourt Park, 228 Reade, Charles, 203 Record Office, 139 Recorder of London, 80, 89, 109, no, 113, 132, 148 Red Lion Square, 6, 219, 222 Reform Act, 1832, 10 Reform Bill, 38 Reform of Penal Laws, i 5 Refugees, political, 399 Regent Street, 26, 30, 224, 331, 345, 361 Regent's Canal, 4, 122, 150 Regent's Canal Company, 358 Regent's Canal Docks, 4 Regent's Park, 4, 12, 228, 235, 356 Rejected Addresses, quoted, 376 Religion, 10, i 5 Remembrancer, City, 1 1 1 Repeal of the Acts against Com- bination, I 5 Republicans, 10, 16 Reviews. See Magazines Richmond, 12, 29, 333, 361 Richmond Park, 228, 235, 362 Richmond, Sir W., 171 Riots, 231 River Fencibles, 66 27 4i8 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY River pollution, Royal Commission on, 368 Riviere, Briton, 171 Roberts, David, 19 Roberts, Lord, 50 Robertson, Forbes, 204, 209, 2 1 5 Robertson, Tom, 208 Robson, Thomas, 189, 202 Rochford, 123 Roe, Mr., 331 RoUe, Lord, 42 Rookeries, 267 Rose Alley, 108 Rose Court, 403 Rotherhithe, 4, 33, 112, 141, 357, 358, 366, 376 Rothschild, 53 Royal Academy, 18, 168-71 Royal Academy of Music, 37 Royal Albert Hall, 56, 62, 184, 231, 324 Royal Aquarium, 190 Royal College of Music, 37 Royal Colonial Institute, 64 Royal Exchange, 7, 26, 60, 248 ; burning of the, 137, 391 ; open- ing of new, 54, 138 Royal Hospital, 130 Royal Jennerian Society, 33 Royal Literary Fund, 260 Royal Marriages, 43 Royal Menagerie, 147 Royal Naval Museum at Green- wich, 177 Royal Normal College for the Blind, 166 Royal School of Mines, 37 Royal Surrey Theatre. See Surrey Royal United Service Institution museum, 177 Royalty Theatre, 190, 390 Rushly Island, 122 Ruskin, John, 177 Russell Court, 241 Russell, Henry, 194 Russell, Lord John, 54, 150, 360 Russell Square, 226 Russell, Thomas, 135 Ruth Green, 227 Rutland House, 220 Ryder's Court, 405, 406 Sadler's Wells, 190, 200 Sadler's Withm the Royal Pavilion, 17 Saffron Hill, 28 St. Bartholomew's Hospital, 130 St. Brides Foundation Institute, 144 St. Chad's Well, 144 St. George's Circus, 5 1 St. George's Fields, 227 St. George's Hall, 185 St. George's Parish, 60, 342, 366 St. Giles-in-the-Fields, 267, 340, 366 St. James's Hall, 185 St. James's Palace, 41, 43, 46, 69 St. James's Park, 66, 228, 232-34, 352, 359 St. James's Square, 219, 220 St. James's Street, 50, 54, 69 St. James's Theatre, 17, 190 St. John Street, Clerkenwell, 268 St. John's Street Road, 1 90 St. Katherine's Dock,' 392 St. Luke's, Middlesex, 366 St. Margaret's Hospital, 129 St. Margaret's Parish, 317 St. Martin's Hall, 185, 401 St. Martin's Lane, 189 St. Martin's-le-Grand Post Office, 141 St. Mary Overies. See Soiithwark St. Pancras, 325, 326, 366 St. Pancras, parish of, 273 St. Pancras Road, 275 St. Paul's Cathedral, 43, 47, 49, SO, 51, 52, 54, 56, 58, 59> 64, 67, 69, 71, 86, 117, 120, 135, 144 St. Paul's Cathedral, marble rere- dos, 144; Peal of twelve bells, 142 St. Paul's Churchyard, 66, 1 1 8, 139, 236 St. Paul's Cray Common, 228 St. Paul's School, 37, 143, 155 St. Peter's School, 155 St. Thomas's Hospital, 56, 130, 140 Salisbury Court, 142 Salisbury, Marquis of, 64 Salomons, David, 148 Salters' Almshouses, 139 Salvage Corps. See London Salvage Corps Salvation Army, 277-304 Salvini, 210 Sanitation. See Sewage Sandon, Lord, 161 Sargent, J. S., 171 Saturday Magazine, 23 Savile House, 393 Savoy Theatre, 1 90 Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of, 51 Schools. See Educational Institu- tions School Board, 150, 160-6 School of Mines, 37 Scotland Yard, 386 Scott, Sir G. G., 171 Scott, Sir Walter, 2 1 Secondary, the, 1 1 i Sedan chairs, 9 Seething Wells, 352, 353 Sermons, i 5 Serpentine, 230 Sewage, 329-39 Sewage — Great London Drainage, 334 ; Metropolitan Sewage Man- ure Company, 334 Sewers, Commissioners of, 108, 125, 143, 148, 151, 243, 333, 334, 341 Shaftesbury Avenue, 189, 190, 400 Shaftesbury, Earl of, 146 Shaftesbury Theatre, 190 Shakespeare, 186 Shaw, Captain Eyre Massey, 380, 385 Shee, Sir M. A., 171 Sheepshanks, John, 181 Sheridan, R. B., 189 Sheriffs, 44, 57, 79 Sheriffs' Court, 104, no Sheriffs' qualifications, duties, etc., 99 Shillibeer, 3 1 5 Shiplake Island, 1 2 1 Shop-fronts, 9 Shopping, 29, 30 Shops, 9, 14 Shoreditch, igo, 238, 325, 326, 340, 367 Siddon, Mrs., 201 Silk-weaving, 14 Simpson, James, 335, 352 Sion College, 7 Slaughter-houses, 84 Sloane, Sir Hans, 177 Sloane Square, 188 Slums, 5, 267-75 Small-pox, 33 Smirke, Sir Robert, 188 Smith, Albert, 17, 202 Smith, Edward Orford, 73 Smith's Rejected Addresses, 376 Smithfield, 5, 140, 146 Smithfield Market, 115, 118, 139, 141, 220 Snow Hill, 270 Snow Hill Fish Market, 144 Soames, Richard, 349 Soane's, Sir John, Museum, 177 Societies, 253-8; Anglo-Ameri- can Travellers' Association, 254; Anthropological, 224 ; of Anti- quaries, 176; Art for Schools, 225; of Arts, 55, 62, 65, 185, 342, 383; of Authors, 172-4; of British Artists, 18; British and Foreign Schools, 161 ; Charity Voting Reform Association, 254 ; China Association, 66 ; Com- mons and Footpaths Preserva- INDEX 419 tion Association, 254 ; Copyright Protection Office, 254 ; Early Closing, 254 ; Institute of Chem- istry, 220 ; Institute of Painters in Oils, 184 ; International Arbi- tration League, 254 ; Interna- tional Brotherhood League, 254; Labour Protection, 254; Ladies' National Association, 254; Lon- don Reform Union, 254 ; Muni- cipal Corporations, 254 ; National, 160; Peace, 254; Personal Rights Association, 254 ; Pharma- ceutical Society of Great Britain, 220; Philanthropical, 276; Pro- tection of Birds, 224 ; Roads Improvement, 254 ; Royal In- stitute of Painters in Water Colours, 184 ; Royal Literary Fund, 260 : Royal Orthopedic, 224 ; Royal Society of Antiquaries, 259 ; Statistical, 161 ; Zoological, 224 Societies, list of, 255-8; statistics, 255-8 Soho,- 28, 190, 219, 267, 399, 403 Soho Square, 219, 400 Somerset House, 54, 145, 170, 176, 212, 259 Sons of the Clergy, Corporation of, 86 Soult, Marshal, 43 Southey, Robert, 21 South Fields, 227 Southgate, 351 South Kensington, 27, 143, 178 South Kensington Art Collections, 181 South Lambeth Common, 227 South London Theatre, 191, 214 South Sea Bubble, 37 Southwark, 4, 5, 14, 27, 28, 34, 90, 161, 261, 275, 317, 326, 340, 354, 356, 357, 366 Southwark, Bailiwick of, 80 Southwark, Bill for effecting incor- poration with the City, i 5 1 Southwark, Borough of, 117 Southwark Bridge, 97 Southwark Bridge Road, 387 Southwark, High Bailiff and Return- ing Officer of, 112 Southwark, High Steward of, 109 Southwark Park, 24, 228 Southwark Sessions, 102 Southwark, the Steward of, 89 Southwark Water Company Act (1834), 356, 364, 374 Spitalfields, 14, 238 Sponging-Houses, 19 Spring-heeled Jack, 144 Squares, 219 ; Belgrave, 225, 392 ; Berkeley, 219, 220; Blooms- bury, 219, 220; Bridgewater, 219; Bryanston, 225; Cavendish, 222; Charterhouse, 219, 220; Devonshire, 219, 220 Eaton, 226 ; Finsbury, 222 ; Fitzroy, 400, 401, 402, 406 ; Golden, 222, 364 ; Gordon, 225 ; Gough, 219, 220; Grosvenor, 222, 224; Hanover, 222, 224, 226, 342 ; Hoxton, 235 ; Kensington, 222 ; Leicester, 219, 220; Lincoln's Inn Fields, 219; Lowndes, 226; Manchester, 222, 224; Montagu, 225; Norfolk, 359; Portman, 224 ; Queen, 222, 225 ; Red Lion, 219, 222; Russell, 226; St. James's, 219, 220; Sloane, 188; Soho, 219, 400; Talbot, 359; Tavistock, 225; Tolmer's Square, 302 ; Trafalgar, 5-0, 225; Vincent, 226; Wellclose, 219, 222 Stable Yard, 68, 196 Stage, the. See Theatres Stage Coaches. See Coaches Stamford Hill, 35 i Standard Theatre, 190 Stangate Creek, 122 Staples, Lord Mayor, 49 Stead, David, 343 Steak-houses, 1 1 Steamboats, 1 5 ; introduction of, 3 Steam fire-engine, introduction of, 382 Stebenheath Marsh, 330 Steinway Hall, 185 Stephenson, Robert, 333 Stepney, 326, 354 Stepney Green, 4 Stock Exchange, 83, 139 Stockwell, 4, 6, 17, 29 Stockwell Common, 228 Stoke Newington, 262, 337, 351 Stoke Newington Common, 228 Strand, 30, 50, 54, 67, 69, 72, 81, 189, 190, 191, 196, 316, 340, 345, 376 Strand Bridge, 340 Strand Theatre, 17, 186, 190 Strange, F., 195 Stratford, 5, 146, 354 Streatham, 5, 337, 357 Streatham Common, 228 Street, G. E., R.A., 142 Street tolls, abolition of, 149 Suburbs, 29 Suffrage, extension of the. See Franchise Sugar-refining, 14 Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 189, 190, 208 Sunday Schools, 156, 157 Surrey Stairs, 376 Surrey Theatre, 17, 190, 391 Surrey Zoological Gardens, 1 8 Surveyor, City, 1 13 Sussex, Duke of, 43 Sydenham, 29, 56 Synagogue, Great, 50 Talbot Square, 359 Talfourd, Francis, 193, 202 Tanning, 14 Taverns, 11, 16 Tavistock Square, 225 Taylor, quoted, 3 1 2 Tea-gardens, 14 Teddington Lock, 122 Telford, Thomas, 342 Temple Bar, 7, 44, 51, 54, 67, 69, 340 Temple Gardens, 235 Tennyson, Lord, 21, 173 Terriss, William, 209 Terry, Ellen, 189, 209 Terry's Theatre, 191 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 21, 22, 202, 208 Thames, 329, 365 ; first ferry on the, 141 ; fisheries on the, 33 ; Mr. Disraeli's Bill for the purifica- tion of, 139; pollution of, 13, 123; purification of, 364, 365; its relation to sewage, 329-338 ; steamboats on, 315; water- supply, 347-374 Thames Conservancy, 86, 123, 356, 364, 371 Thames Embankment, 25, 137, 140, 142, 143, 190, 336 Thames Street, 392 Thames Tunnel, 137, 141 Theatre, the — Gilbert and Sullivan's Operas, 208 ; visit of CoinMie Fra?icaise, 210; Lord Chamber- lain's control of, 211; control of music halls, etc., 212; Plays — Our Boys, 205 ; The Private Secretary, 205 ; Charley's Aunt, 205 ; The Benefit of the Doubt, 208 ; Caste, 208 ; Courier of Lyons, 209 ; Second Mrs. Tanqueray, 207 ; Sign of the Cross, 207 ; visit of Saxe- Meiningen Company, 210; statistics, 213-14; prices, 17 Theatres, music halls, etc. — Adelphi, 17, 186, 188, 198; Alhambra, 191, 195, 212, 214; Astley's, 17 ; Avenue, 188 ; Britannia, 188, 213; Brixton, 188; Canterbury, 191, 194; City of London, 17; Clarence, 27 2 420 LONDON IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 17; Coburg, 17 ; Comedy, 188 Coronet, 191 ; Court, 188, 213 Covent Garden, 17, 26, 186, 188 192, 198, 200, 211, 213, 214 390; Criterion, 188,; Crouch End, 188, 191 ; Daly's, 188, 212 Drury Lane, 17, 26, 186, i8i 192, 203, 210, 211, 213, 214, 390; Duke of York's, 189 Elephant and Castle, 189 Gaiety, 189, 197, 198, 200, 21-3 Garrick, 17, 189; Grand, 189 Grecian Playhouse, 193 ; Hay- market, 17, 186, 189; Her Majesty's, 17, 189, 390; Ken- nington, 191 ; Kingsland Road, 191; King's, 58; London Pavilion, 191 ; Lyceum, 17, 189, 193, 197, 202, 204, 316; Lyric, 189; Lyric Opera House, 189; Metropole, 191; Novelty, 189; Olympic, 17, 186, 189, 202; Opera Comique, 189; Oxford, 191, 214, 391 ; Palace, 189, 191 ; Paragon, 214; Pavilion, 190, 214, 391 ; Prince of Wales's, 17, 190; Prince's, 17; Princess's, 190; Queen's, 17, 197, 214; Royal, 191 ; Royal Aquarium, 190 ; Royalty, 190, 390; Sadler's Wells, 190, 200 ; Sadler's Within the Royal Pavilion, 17 ; St. James's, 17, 190; Saloon Theatres, 194; Savoy, 1 90 ; Shaftesbury, 1 90 ; South London, 191, 214 ; Standard, 190; Strand, 17, 186, 190; Surrey, 17, 190, 391; Terry's, 191; Tivoli, 191, 214; Vaudeville, 191 ; Vic, 17 ; Wynd- hamSj 191 Thomas, Brandon, 203, 209 Thorne, 191 Thorney Island, 232 Threadneedle Street, 137, 345 Tickell, quoted, 232 Times, the, 23, 145 Tite, Sir William, 138 Tivoli Theatre, 191, 214 Tolmers Square, 302 Tooley Street, 5, 38 3, 386, 388 Tooting, 5, 337 Tooting Common, 228 Tothill Fields, 132, 228, 273 Tottenham, 5, 27, 29, 324 Tottenham Court Road, 27, 72, 400, 401, 402 Tower, 59, 62, 64, 71, 145, I47, 351, 392 Tower Bridge, 25, 97, 144 Tower Hamlets, 161, 330 Tower Subway, 140 Tower Ward, 94, 148 Town Clerk of the City, 109, 113, 129 Town halls, 25 Trade, 5 Trade disputes, 34 Trade during eighteenth century, 5 Trade-unions, 26 Trafalgar Square, 50, 225 Trams, 29 Tree, Beerbohm, 189, 209, 215 Trinity House, 149 Trinity House barges, 55 Trophy Tax, 114 Tunne, the, 347 Turner, J. M. W., 18, 171 Turnpikes, 9 ; abohtion of, 3 Twickenham, 333 Tyburn Stream, 347 University College, 37 Upper Thames Street, 137 Uxbridge Road, 237 Vaudeville Theatre, 191 Vaughan, Edwards, 356 Vauxhall, 337, 356 Vauxhall Bridge, 356 Vauxhall Creek, 357 Vauxhall Gardens, 5, 18 Vauxhall Park, 228 Venne, Lottie, 209 Vermersch, 403 Vestris, Madame, 18, 189 Vetch, Captain, 334 Vic Theatre, 17 Victoria and Albert Museum, 180 Victoria Embankment. See Thames Embankment Victoria Park, 24 Victoria Street, 392 Victoria Street (afterwards called Farringdon Road), 140 Villiers Street, Strand, 267, 349 Vincent Square, 226 Vintry Ward, 94, 148 Visitors, distinguished — Alexander n., Emperor of Russia, 62 ; Garibaldi, 65 ; King and Queen of Greece, 62 ; King Kalakua of the Sandwich Islands, 62 ; M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, 65 ; Li Hung Chang, 65 ; Shah of Persia, 62 ; Sultan of Zanzibar, 62 Volunteers, 34 Walbrook, 329 Walbrook Ward, 94, 148 Walker, Dr., quoted, 241-244 Walker, Mr., 342 Wallace Collection, 182 Walthamstow, 29, 354 Walton-on-the-Hill, 121 Wandle, the, 362 Wandsworth, 337 Wandsworth Common, 227, 228 Wanstead Park, 118, 120, 228 Wapping, 84 War Cry, 281 Wards, City — Aldersgate, 92, 94, 129, 148; Aldgate, 94, 148; Bassi- shaw, 94, 148 ; Billingsgate, 94, 129, 148; Bishopsgate, 92, 94, 148; Bread Street, 94, 148; Bridge, 94, 148; Bridge Without, 94; Broad Street, 94, 148; Candlewick, 94, 148 ; Castle Bay- nard, 94, 148 ; Cheap, 94, 148 ; Coleman Street, 94, 148; Cord- wainer, 94, 148 ; Cornhill, 94, 148; Cripplegate Within, 92, 94, 148 ; Cripplegate Without, 92, 94, 148; Dowgate, 94, 148; Far- ringdon Within, 92, 94, 148 ; Farringdon Without, 92, 94, 148 ; Langbourn, 94, 148 ; Lime Street, 94, 148 ; Portsoken, 94, 148 ; Queenhithe, 94, 148 ; Tower, 94, 148 ; Vintry, 94, 148 ; Walbrook, 94, 148 Ward meetings, 92 Wardmotes, 92, 94 Ward, Ned, 259; quoted, 233 Ward Schools, 129 Warner, Charles, 209 Wash way Brook, 356 Watchmaking, 14 Water Supply, 13, 347-74; Borough Waterworks, 349 ; Chelsea Waterworks, 349, 351, 359, 361, 362, 374 ; East London Waterworks, 354, 359, 360, 374 ; Grand Junction Waterworks, 358- 362, 373, 374 ; Hackney Waterworks, 354; Hampstead Waterworks, 351; Kent Water- works, 357, 368, 373, 374 ; Lam- beth Waterworks, 349, 352, 356, 357, 363, 364, 373, 374; Lea Waterworks, 351; London Bridge ■ Waterworks, 349, 351, 356; London Water Act (1892), 370 ; London (\\^atford) Spring Water Company, 362 ; London and Westminster Waterworks, 362 ; Metropolitan Waterworks, 361 ; Metropolitan Water Amendment Act (1871), 366, 367, 386; Metropolitan Water Companies' Act, 97 ; New River Company, 13, 348-352, 355, 360, 362, 373, 374 ; North Middlesex Water- works, 351 ; Plumstead, Wool- wich, and Charlton Consumers' INDEX 421 Pure Water Company, 358 ; Ravensbourne Waterworks, 349, 357 ; Richmond Waterworks, 357 ; Royal Commission on the Pollution of Rivers, 368 ; Shad- well Waterworks, 349 ; South London Wateiworks, 356; South- wark Waterworks, 349, 350, 356, 357 ; Southwark Water Com- pany Act (1834), 356, 364, 374 ; Southwark and Vauxhall \\'atcr- works Company, 356, 357, 363, 373) 374 ; Thames Conservancy Board, 356, 364, 371 Vauxhall Waterworks, 356, 357 ; Water Companies (Regulation of Powers) Act, 373 ; Water-Rate Definition Act (1885), 373; Waterworks Clauses Act (1847), 360, 366, 373 ; West Ham Waterworks, 349 ; West Middle- sex Waterworks, 355, 359, 362, 373. 374. 384 ; York Building Water Company, 349 Waterhouse, Alfred, 178 Waterloo Bridge, 324 Waterloo Road, 386 Waterlow Park, 228 Watling Street, 343, 383 Watts, G. F., 171 Webster, Benjamin, 18, 188, 189, 198, 200 Weights and Measures, 124 Wellclose Square, 219, 222 "Weller, Mr.," quoted, 9 Wellesley, Marquis. See Welling- ton, Duke of Wellington, Duke of, 38, 43, 58-60, 230, 378, 379 ; statue of, 137 Wellington Street, 189, 197 Wells Road, 355 Wells Street, 383 West, Benjamin, 1 7 i Westbourne, 30 Westbourne Stream, 230 Westcheap, 347 West Ham, 5, 120, 188, 354 West Ham Park, 118, 120, 228 West India Docks, 324, 383 West Kensington, 345 West Kent Wharf, 392 Westminster, 23, 42, 137, 140, 145, 161, 267, 317, 330, 331, 340, 346, 349, 351, 378 Westminster Abbey, 42, 47, 48, 59, 62, 72 Westminster Bridge, 4, 56, 317, 324, 352 Westminster Bridge Road, 5 1 Westminster Hall, 41, 42, 72, 378 Westminster Palace, 26 Westminster Review, 23 Westminster School, 226 Westminster schools. United, 92, 109, 129, 133 West Wickham Common, 118, 121, 126 Wheelton, Sheriff, 148 Whetstone Park, 271 White Street, 143 Whitechapel, 5, 14, 28, 162, 238, 267, 325, 391, 399 Whitecross Street, 28, 34, 275 Whitefriars, 329, 386 Whitehall, 50, 51, 69, 349 Whitehall Stairs, 54, 66 Wickstead, Thomas, 332 Widegate Abbey, 392 Wigan, Alfred, 202 Wilkie, Sir David, 19, 171 Willard, E. S., 209, 215 William IV., coronation of, 41, 54 Williams, James, 142 Wilson, Samuel, 132 Wilson's Charity, 1 1 i Wimbledon, 5, 84, 357 Wimbledon Common, 24, 228, 235- Winsor, Frederick Albert, 316, 317 Wolseley, Viscount, 5 i Wood, Mrs. John, 209 Wood Street, Cheapside, 362 Wool Exchange, 141 Woolgar, Miss, 188 Woolwich, 59, 61, 62, 358 Woolwich Arsenal, 58, 61 Woolwich Common, 49, 61, 228 Woolwich Marshes, 333 Woolwich Reach, 332 Wordsworth, William, 2 1 Workhouses, 33 Working classes, 5, 6, 10, 12, 14, 28f amusements of, 10, 15 ; combina- tion among, 16 ; condition of, 27,- 32, 267 ; housing, 34 Wormwood Scrubs, 228 Wren, Sir Christopher, 7, 189;. churches, 7 Wright, Edward Richard, 188 Wyatt, James, 1 7 1 Wych Street, 8, 189 Wyndham, Charles, 188, 191, 209, 215 Wyndham's Theatre, 191 Yates, Frederick Henry, 188 York Column, 71, 72 York, Duke of, 46, 49, 5 i York, Duchess of, 49 Young, Charles Mayo, 189 Young Soldier, 288 Zafiraki Effendi, 61 Zoological Gardens, 235 THE END Priiikd by R, & R. 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BEAUl IFUT, BOOKS OS LONDON WITH FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR FAMILIAR LONDON PAINTED AND DESCRIBED BY ROSE BARTON CONTAINING 60 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR Square Demy %vo. Cloth, Gilt Top. Post Free los. 6d. 20s. net. " Miss Barton yields to no artist as the pictorial chronicler of London. She gives us the London we know and love, the London which is part of the workaday lives we spend in the market of the universe." — DOUGLAS Sladen in The Queen. "We cannot recall a collection of London pictures that catches and conveys better the spirit, the genius, and the charm of modern London with deeper subtlety and finer execution." — Literary World. LONDON TO THE NORE PAINTED BY W. L. WYLLIE, R.A. DESCRIBED BY MRS. WYLLIE CONTAINING 6o FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR Square Demy %vo, Cloth, Gilt Top. Post Free 20s. 6d. 20s. net. " Now, at last, comes a volume which gives us the whole soul and figure, so to speak, of the great fleet-bearing, commercial, and warhke stream which constitutes the greatest port in the world — the port of London." — Daily Graphic. " It is an impressionist view in prose of what the workaday river is. The book is superbly illustrated by coloured pages of the never-ending scenes and pictures of men and things that Father Thames opens up to all who venture on his broad waters." — JOHN BURNS, M.P., in the Daily News. "This charming work is in every way welcome, and every Londoner who reads it will prize it. The reproductions are exquisitely done." — Pall Mall Gazette. THE THAMES PAINTED BY MORTIMER MENPES, R.I. DESCRIBED BY G. E. MITTON CONTAINING 75 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR Square Demy %vo, Cloth, Gilt Top. Post Free 20s. 6d. 20s. net. " There is in it just the desired touch of historical reminiscence, with never a line of pedantry, nor a phrase in doubtful taste. . . . The pictures themselves are characteristic of their author's happiest manner, which is but another way of saying that they are certain of popularity." — The Standard. " Rarely in the long series of coloured books have author and artist been so evenly matched. Miss Mitton writes as one who revels in the charms of the Upper Thames, and Mr. Mempes adds colour to the picture of beauty. Together they have produced a wholly delightful volume." — Review of Reviews. INNS OF COURT PAINTED BY GORDON HOME TEXT BY CECIL HEADLAM CONTAINING 20 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR Sqtiare Demy Zvo, Cloth. Post Free Ts. lid. Price Ts. (sd. vet. "The illustrations are excellent, as is usual in Messrs. Black's books ; there is no harsh colouring, no striving after effect, no over-colouring. One sees the places themselves to the life. And the letterpress is interesting, a carefully-written and descriptive account of the past of the Inns. . . . Altogether a delightful book, which will appeal to lovers of the picturesque as well as to the London lawyer." — Globe. THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF LONDON By G. E. MITTON CONTAINING 12 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR PY JOHN WILLIAMSON Square Crowji 8vo, Cloth, Gilt Top. Post Free 6y. ^d. Price 6^. " Children who have never seen London will read it with joyous anticipation of the delights in store for them, and those • who have spent their young lives in its borders will recognise the scenes they know and the sights they see with unfailing delight."— r;'2^//z. PUBLISHED BY ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK • SOHO SQUARE • LONDON • W. «^ kYfU