166-635: Canada Gate forms part of the Queen Victoria Memorial scheme in London . An entrance to the Green Park, one of the eight Royal Parks in central London, the gate was presented to London by Canada (then the senior Dominion of the British Empire ) as part of a vast memorial scheme dedicated to Queen Victoria , who died in 1901. The entire memorial, more an act of town planning than funerary monument,
332-468: A Bronze Age bridge were found on the south River Thames foreshore, upstream from Vauxhall Bridge . Two of the timbers were radiocarbon dated to 1750–1285 BC. In 2010, foundations of a large timber structure, dated to 4800–4500 BC, were found on the Thames' south foreshore downstream from Vauxhall Bridge. Both structures are on the south bank of the Thames, where the now-underground River Effra flows into
498-529: A condenser for cooling boilers which used fresh water rather than corrosive salt water. In 1838 the first screw-propelled steamer in the world, SS Archimedes , was launched at Ratcliff Cross Dock, an alternative to the less efficient paddle steamer . By 1845 the Admiralty had settled upon screw propellers as the optimal form of propulsion, and a slew of new battleships were built in London dockyards equipped with
664-489: A global city of immense importance. It was the largest city in the world from about 1825, the world's largest port, and the heart of international finance and trade. Railways connecting London to the rest of Britain , as well as the London Underground , were built, as were roads, a modern sewer system and many famous sites. During the 19th century, London was transformed into the world's largest city and capital of
830-547: A byword for extreme poverty. Infamous since the mid 18th century, St. Giles was defined by its prostitutes, gin shops, secret alleyways where criminals could hide, and horribly overcrowded tenements. Lord Byron excoriated the state of St. Giles in a speech to the House of Lords in 1812, stating that "I have been in some of the most oppressed provinces of Turkey, but never under the most despotic of infidel governments did I behold such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my return in
996-565: A coke-fueled steam locomotive and lit with gas lamps to provide illumination in the tunnels. The line was a success, carrying 9.5 million passengers in its first year of operation. An extension to the western suburb of Hammersmith was built and opened in 1868. In 1884 the Metropolitan was linked with the Metropolitan District Line at Aldgate to form an inner circle encompassing Central London (the modern Circle Line ), with
1162-638: A developing tram network which accessed Central London and provided local transport in the suburbs. The first horse-drawn tramways were installed in 1860 along the Bayswater Road at the northern edge of Hyde Park , Victoria Street in Westminster, and Kennington Street in South London. The trams were a success with passengers, but the raised rails were jolting and inconvenient for horse-drawn vehicles to cross, causing traffic bottlenecks at crossroads. Within
1328-507: A drunken man or woman, and the air was obscene with sounds of jangling and squabbling." By the time of Jack London's visit in 1903, the reputation of the East End was at its lowest ebb after decades of unfavourable attention from journalists, authors, and social reformers. The 1888 Whitechapel murders perpetrated by Jack the Ripper brought international attention to the squalor and criminality of
1494-548: A faster version of the East Indiaman sailing ship, while the naval engineer John Scott Russell designed more refined hulls for the ships constructed in his Millwall Iron Works . London shipyards had supplied about 60% of the Admiralty's warships in service in 1866. The largest shipbuilder on the Thames, the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company , produced the revolutionary broadside ironclad HMS Warrior (1860),
1660-529: A larger area, similar in size to Greater London, although some outer districts are excluded and some just outside included. The Greater London boundary has been aligned to the M25 motorway in places. Further urban expansion is now prevented by the Metropolitan Green Belt , although the built-up area extends beyond the boundary in places, producing a separately defined Greater London Urban Area . Beyond this
1826-515: A multitude of styles and typologies, with an almost endless variation in the layout of streets, gardens, homes, and decorative elements. Suburbs were aspirational for many, but also came to be lampooned and satirised in the press for the conservative and conventional tastes they represented (for example in Punch's Pooter ). While the Georgian terrace has been described as "England's greatest contribution to
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#17330852988061992-403: A population density of 802 per acre (325 per hectare). In addition to the growing number of stores selling goods, such as Harding, Howell & Co. —one of the first department stores —located on Pall Mall , the streets had scores of street sellers . London's overcrowded conditions led to cholera epidemics, claiming 14,000 lives in 1848, and 6,000 in 1866. Rising traffic congestion led to
2158-623: A population in itself that if it were a city it would have ranked as the third largest in England, and was about equal to the combined populations of Limerick , Belfast , and Cork . London also became home to a sizable Jewish community , estimated to be around 46,000 in 1882, and a very small Indian population consisting largely of transitory sailors known as lascars. In the 1880s and 1890s tens of thousands of Jews escaping persecution and poverty in Eastern Europe came to London and settled largely in
2324-549: A population of 7,172,036 in 2001 and a population density of 11,760 inhabitants per square mile (4,542/km ). The extended area known as the London Metropolitan Region or the London Metropolitan Agglomeration, comprises a total area of 3,236 square miles (8,382 km ) has a population of 13,709,000 and a population density of 3,900 inhabitants per square mile (1,510/km ). Modern London stands on
2490-610: A population of 8,866,180 in 2022. The wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe , with a population of 14.9 million. London stands on the River Thames in southeast England, at the head of a 50-mile (80 km) estuary down to the North Sea , and has been a major settlement for nearly 2,000 years. Its ancient core and financial centre , the City of London , was founded by
2656-564: A post- Brexit exodus of stock listings from the London Stock Exchange , London remains a European economic powerhouse, and one of the world's major financial centres . It hosts Europe's largest concentration of higher education institutions , some of which are the highest-ranked academic institutions in the world: Imperial College London in natural and applied sciences , the London School of Economics in social sciences , and
2822-411: A short stretch running from Aldgate to Whitechapel. In 1880 an extension line to the north-west was opened from Baker Street tube station to the village of Harrow , via Swiss Cottage and St. John's Wood , expanding further over the coming decades and allowing prosperous suburbs to be developed around formerly rural villages. A succession of private enterprises were formed to build new routes after
2988-542: A temperate oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfb ). Rainfall records have been kept in the city since at least 1697, when records began at Kew . At Kew, the most rainfall in one month is 7.4 inches (189 mm) in November 1755 and the least is 0 inches (0 mm) in both December 1788 and July 1800. Mile End also had 0 inches (0 mm) in April 1893. The wettest year on record is 1903, with a total fall of 38.1 inches (969 mm) and
3154-510: A week or more to offload their cargoes, which left the ships vulnerable to theft and enabled widespread evasion of import duties. Losses on imports alone from theft were estimated at £500,000 per year in the 1790s – estimates for the losses on exports have never been made. Anxious West Indian traders combined to fund a private police force to patrol Thames shipping in 1798, under the direction of magistrate Patrick Colquhoun and Master Mariner John Harriott . This Marine Police Force , regarded as
3320-881: A year the outcry was so great that the lines were pulled up, and trams were not reintroduced until the Tramways Act 1870 ( 33 & 34 Vict. c. 78) permitted them to be built again. Trams were restricted to operating in the suburbs of London, but they accessed the major transport hubs of the City and the West End, conveying passengers into and away from the suburbs. By 1893 there were about 1,000 tram cars across 135 miles worth of track. Trams could be accessed in Central London from Aldgate , Blackfriars Bridge , Borough , Moorgate , King's Cross , Euston Road , Holborn , Shepherd's Bush , Victoria , and Westminster Bridge . 19th-century London
3486-640: Is 1,049.8 millibars (31.00 inHg) on 20 January 2020. Summers are generally warm, sometimes hot. London's average July high is 23.5 °C (74.3 °F). On average each year, London experiences 31 days above 25 °C (77.0 °F) and 4.2 days above 30.0 °C (86.0 °F). During the 2003 European heat wave , prolonged heat led to hundreds of heat-related deaths. A previous spell of 15 consecutive days above 32.2 °C (90.0 °F) in England in 1976 also caused many heat related deaths. A previous temperature of 37.8 °C (100.0 °F) in August 1911 at
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#17330852988063652-508: Is agreed that the name came into these languages from Common Brythonic ; recent work tends to reconstruct the lost Celtic form of the name as * Londonjon or something similar. This was then adapted into Latin as Londinium and borrowed into Old English. Until 1889, the name "London" applied officially only to the City of London , but since then it has also referred to the County of London and to Greater London . In 1993, remains of
3818-528: Is formed of two tiers: a citywide, strategic tier and a local tier. Citywide administration is coordinated by the Greater London Authority (GLA), while local administration is carried out by 33 smaller authorities. The GLA consists of two elected components: the mayor of London , who has executive powers , and the London Assembly , which scrutinises the mayor's decisions and can accept or reject
3984-689: Is headquartered in Thames House on the north bank of the River Thames and the foreign intelligence service ( MI6 ) is headquartered in the SIS Building on the south bank. Crime rates vary widely across different areas of London. Crime figures are made available nationally at Local Authority and Ward level. In 2015, there were 118 homicides, a 25.5% increase over 2014. Recorded crime has been rising in London, notably violent crime and murder by stabbing and other means have risen. There were 50 murders from
4150-572: Is held by an independent . The ministerial post of minister for London was created in 1994, however as of 2024, the post has been vacant. Policing in Greater London, with the exception of the City of London , is provided by the Metropolitan Police ("The Met"), overseen by the mayor through the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC). The Met is also referred to as Scotland Yard after
4316-553: Is known as London . It is the capital of the United Kingdom and of England by convention rather than statute. The capital of England was moved to London from Winchester as the Palace of Westminster developed in the 12th and 13th centuries to become the permanent location of the royal court , and thus the political capital of the nation. Greater London encompasses a total area of 611 square miles (1,583 km ) an area which had
4482-523: Is the vast London commuter belt . Greater London is split for some purposes into Inner London and Outer London , and by the River Thames into North and South , with an informal central London area. The coordinates of the nominal centre of London, traditionally the original Eleanor Cross at Charing Cross near the junction of Trafalgar Square and Whitehall , are about 51°30′26″N 00°07′39″W / 51.50722°N 0.12750°W / 51.50722; -0.12750 . Within London, both
4648-512: The 2012 Summer Olympics . London is an ancient name, attested in the first century AD, usually in the Latinised form Londinium . Modern scientific analyses of the name must account for the origins of the different forms found in early sources: Latin (usually Londinium ), Old English (usually Lunden ), and Welsh (usually Llundein ), with reference to the known developments over time of sounds in those different languages. It
4814-529: The Black Death in the mid-14th century, London lost nearly a third of its population. London was the focus of the Peasants' Revolt in 1381. London was a centre of England's Jewish population before their expulsion by Edward I in 1290. Violence against Jews occurred in 1190, when it was rumoured that the new king had ordered their massacre after they had presented themselves at his coronation. In 1264 during
4980-507: The British Empire . The population rose from over 1 million in 1801 to 5.567 million in 1891. In 1897, the population of " Greater London " (defined here as the Metropolitan Police District plus the City of London ) was estimated at 6.292 million. By the 1860s it was larger by one quarter than the world's second most populous city, Beijing, two-thirds larger than Paris, and five times larger than New York City. At
5146-520: The Canary Wharf development. This was born out of London's increasing role as an international financial centre in the 1980s. Located about 2 miles (3 km) east of central London, the Thames Barrier was completed in the 1980s to protect London against tidal surges from the North Sea . The Greater London Council was abolished in 1986, leaving London with no central administration until 2000 and
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5312-648: The Corn Laws in 1846 was specifically aimed at weakening Dutch economic power. London then overtook Amsterdam as the leading international financial centre. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, an unprecedented growth in urbanisation took place, and the number of High Streets (the primary street for retail in Britain) rapidly grew. London was the world's largest city from about 1831 to 1925 , with
5478-553: The Georgian era , new districts such as Mayfair were formed in the west; new bridges over the Thames encouraged development in South London . In the east, the Port of London expanded downstream. London's development as an international financial centre matured for much of the 18th century. In 1762, George III acquired Buckingham House , which was enlarged over the next 75 years. During
5644-581: The Grand Union Canal to Limehouse . The Regent's Canal , as this new branch between Paddington and Limehouse became known, was the only canal link to the Thames, connecting a vital shipping outlet with the great industrial cities of The Midlands . The Regent's Canal became a huge success, but on a local rather than a national level because it facilitated the localized transport of goods like coal, timber, and other building materials around London. Easy access to coal shipments from northeast England via
5810-567: The Great Famine of 1848, giving the area the name "Little Ireland", or "The Holy Land". Government intervention beginning in the 1830s reduced the area of St. Giles through mass evictions, demolitions, and public works projects. New Oxford Street was built right through the heart of "The Rookery" in 1847, eliminating the worst part of the area, but many of the evicted inhabitants simply moved to neighboring streets, which remained stubbornly mired in poverty. Mass demolition of slums like St. Giles
5976-598: The Haymarket to avoid St. James's Square ), and crosses Piccadilly (thus creating Piccadilly Circus ), from where it curves west via the Quadrant and then runs due north, joining with Langham Place and Portland Place to create the link to Regent's Park. The area achieved its intended purpose as a thriving commercial district, lined with shops of every variety to rival the quality of nearby St. James's . 1890 London had 5,728 street accidents, resulting in 144 deaths. London
6142-467: The Industrial Revolution gathered pace, an insatiable demand for capital investment in railroads, shipping, industry and agriculture fueled the growth of financial services in the city. The end of the Napoleonic Wars also freed up British capital to flow overseas; there was some £100 million invested abroad between 1815 and 1830, and as much as £550 million by 1854. At the end of the century,
6308-609: The King's Road , Chelsea and Carnaby Street . The role of trendsetter revived in the punk era. In 1965 London's political boundaries were expanded in response to the growth of the urban area and a new Greater London Council was created. During The Troubles in Northern Ireland, London was hit from 1973 by bomb attacks by the Provisional Irish Republican Army . These attacks lasted for two decades, starting with
6474-600: The London Ambulance Service (LAS) NHS Trust , the largest free-at-the-point-of-use emergency ambulance service in the world. The London Air Ambulance charity operates in conjunction with the LAS where required. Her Majesty's Coastguard and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution operate on the River Thames , which is under the jurisdiction of the Port of London Authority from Teddington Lock to
6640-708: The London Smallpox Hospital in St Pancras (moved to Highgate Hill in 1848–50), were all that existed to treat smallpox victims until the latter part of the century. This changed with the creation of the Metropolitan Asylums Board in 1867, which embarked on the building of five planned smallpox and fever hospitals in Stockwell , Deptford , Hampstead , Fulham and Homerton to serve the different regions of London. Fearful residents succeeded in blocking
6806-748: The Mediterranean was normally through Antwerp and over the Alps ; any ships passing through the Strait of Gibraltar to or from England were likely to be Italian or Ragusan . The reopening of the Netherlands to English shipping in January 1565 spurred a burst of commercial activity. The Royal Exchange was founded. Mercantilism grew and monopoly traders such as the East India Company were founded as trade expanded to
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6972-594: The New Model Army entered London in 1647, and they were levelled by Parliament the same year. London was plagued by disease in the early 17th century, culminating in the Great Plague of 1665–1666, which killed up to 100,000 people, or a fifth of the population. The Great Fire of London broke out in 1666 in Pudding Lane in the city and quickly swept through the wooden buildings. Rebuilding took over ten years and
7138-554: The New World . London became the main North Sea port, with migrants arriving from England and abroad. The population rose from about 50,000 in 1530 to about 225,000 in 1605. In the 16th century, William Shakespeare and his contemporaries lived in London during English Renaissance theatre . Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was constructed in 1599 in Southwark . Stage performances came to a halt in London when Puritan authorities shut down
7304-590: The Old Bailey bombing . Racial inequality was highlighted by the 1981 Brixton riot . Greater London's population declined in the decades after the Second World War, from an estimated peak of 8.6 million in 1939 to around 6.8 million in the 1980s. The principal ports for London moved downstream to Felixstowe and Tilbury , with the London Docklands area becoming a focus for regeneration, including
7470-484: The Romans as Londinium and has retained its medieval boundaries. The City of Westminster , to the west of the City of London, has been the centuries-long host of the national government and parliament . London grew rapidly in the 19th century , becoming the world's largest city at the time . Since the 19th century, the name "London" has referred to the metropolis around the City of London, historically split between
7636-530: The Royal Albert Dock (1880), and finally, the Port of Tilbury (1886), 26 miles east of London Bridge. The Victoria was unprecedented in size: 1.5 miles in total length, encompassing over 100 acres. Hydraulic locks and purpose-built railway connections to the national transport network made the Victoria as technologically advanced as it was large. It was a great commercial success, but within two decades it
7802-637: The Second Barons' War , Simon de Montfort 's rebels killed 500 Jews while attempting to seize records of debts. During the Tudor period , the Reformation produced a gradual shift to Protestantism . Much of London property passed from church to private ownership, which accelerated trade and business in the city. In 1475, the Hanseatic League set up a main trading base ( kontor ) of England in London, called
7968-568: The Stalhof or Steelyard . It remained until 1853, when the Hanseatic cities of Lübeck , Bremen and Hamburg sold the property to South Eastern Railway . Woollen cloth was shipped undyed and undressed from 14th/15th century London to the nearby shores of the Low Countries . Yet English maritime enterprise hardly reached beyond the seas of north-west Europe . The commercial route to Italy and
8134-402: The Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders opened on West India Dock Road in 1856, a small population of Chinese sailors began to settle in Limehouse , around Limehouse Causeway and Pennyfields. These men married and opened shops and boarding houses which catered to the transient population of "Chinese firemen, seamen, stewards, cooks and carpenters who serve on board
8300-495: The Thames , its primary geographical feature, a navigable river which crosses the city from the south-west to the east. The Thames Valley is a flood plain surrounded by gently rolling hills including Parliament Hill , Addington Hills , and Primrose Hill . Historically London grew up at the lowest bridging point on the Thames. The Thames was once a much broader, shallower river with extensive marshlands ; at high tide, its shores reached five times their present width. Since
8466-428: The Tower of London ; the site featuring the Palace of Westminster , Church of St. Margaret , and Westminster Abbey ; and the historic settlement in Greenwich where the Royal Observatory defines the prime meridian (0° longitude ) and Greenwich Mean Time . Other landmarks include Buckingham Palace , the London Eye , Piccadilly Circus , St Paul's Cathedral , Tower Bridge , and Trafalgar Square . The city has
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#17330852988068632-414: The Victorian era the Thames has been extensively embanked , and many of its London tributaries now flow underground . The Thames is a tidal river, and London is vulnerable to flooding. The threat has increased over time because of a slow but continuous rise in high water level caused by climate change and by the slow 'tilting' of the British Isles as a result of post-glacial rebound . London has
8798-491: The counties of Middlesex , Essex , Surrey , Kent , and Hertfordshire , which since 1965 has largely comprised the administrative area of Greater London , governed by 33 local authorities and the Greater London Authority . As one of the world's major global cities , London exerts a strong influence on world art , entertainment, fashion , commerce, finance, education , healthcare , media , science, technology, tourism , transport , and communications. Despite
8964-487: The "artisans and laboring poor" on Commercial Street in 1864. The Metropolitan Board of Works (the dominant authority before the LCC), was empowered to undertake clearances and to enforce overcrowding and other such standards on landlords by a stream of legislation including the Labouring Classes Dwelling Houses Acts of 1866 and 1867. Overcrowding was also defined as a public health 'nuisance' beginning in 1855, which allowed Medical Officers to report landlords in violation to
9130-401: The 11th century, London was clearly the largest town in England. Westminster Abbey , rebuilt in Romanesque style by King Edward the Confessor , was one of the grandest churches in Europe. Winchester had been the capital of Anglo-Saxon England , but from this time London became the main forum for foreign traders and the base for defence in time of war. In the view of Frank Stenton : "It had
9296-434: The 18th century, London was said to be dogged by crime, and the Bow Street Runners were established in 1750 as a professional police force. Epidemics during the 1720s and 30s saw most children born in the city die before reaching their fifth birthday. Coffee-houses became a popular place to debate ideas, as growing literacy and development of the printing press made news widely available, with Fleet Street becoming
9462-426: The Abyss , described the bewilderment of Londoners when he mentioned that he planned to visit the East End: many of them had never been there despite living in the same city. He was refused a guide when he visited the travel agency of Thomas Cook & Son , which told him to consult the police. When he finally found a reluctant cabbie to take him into Stepney , he described his impression as follows: "Nowhere in
9628-428: The Board of Health. In 1890 the shortcomings of the existing legislation were refined and condensed into one comprehensive piece of legislation, the Houses of the Working Classes Act. This empowered the LCC to construct its own housing on cleared land, which it had been prohibited from doing before; thus began a social housing building program in targeted areas like Bethnal Green and Millbank that would accelerate in
9794-420: The City of London and the City of Westminster have city status . The City of London and the remainder of Greater London are both counties for the purposes of lieutenancies . The area of Greater London includes areas that are part of the historic counties of Middlesex , Kent , Surrey , Essex and Hertfordshire . More recently, Greater London has been defined as a region of England and in this context
9960-409: The East End around Houndsditch , Whitechapel , Aldgate , and parts of Spitalfields . Many came to find work in the sweatshops and markets of the rag trade , refashioning and re-selling clothing, which itself was centered around Petticoat Lane Market and the "Rag Fair" in Houndsditch, London's largest second-hand clothing market. As members of the Jewish community prospered in the latter part of
10126-494: The East End, a third of whom lived in poverty. The Cheap Trains Act 1883 , while it enabled many working class Londoners to move away from the inner city, also accentuated the poverty in areas like the East End, where the most destitute were left behind. Prostitution was rife, with one official report in 1888 recording 62 brothels and 1,200 prostitutes in Whitechapel (the real number was likely much higher). The American author Jack London , in his 1903 account The People of
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#173308529880610292-465: The East End, while penny dreadfuls and a slew of sensational novels like George Gissing 's The Nether World and the works of Charles Dickens painted grim pictures of London's deprived areas for middle and upper class readers. The single most influential work on London poverty was Charles Booth 's Life and Labour of the People in London , a 17-volume work published between 1889 and 1903. Booth painstakingly charted levels of deprivation throughout
10458-413: The Greenwich station was later disregarded as non-standard. Droughts can also, occasionally, be a problem, especially in summer, most recently in summer 2018, and with much drier than average conditions prevailing from May to December. However, the most consecutive days without rain was 73 days in the spring of 1893. 19th-century London During the 19th century, London grew enormously to become
10624-417: The London Docks (in 1869). In Rotherhithe , where the Greenland Dock was operating at the beginning of the century, new docks, ponds and the Grand Surrey Canal were added in the early 19th century by several small companies. The area became known for specializing in commerce from the Baltic , Scandinavia , and North America, especially for its large timber ponds and grain imports from North America. In 1864
10790-435: The London area. This called for the Corporation of the city to extend its jurisdiction and administration over expanding areas around the city. Fearing an attempt by the Crown to diminish the Liberties of London , coupled with a lack of interest in administering these additional areas or concern by city guilds of having to share power, caused the Corporation's "The Great Refusal", a decision which largely continues to account for
10956-423: The Metropolitan inaugurated the world's oldest mass transit system , the London Underground ; it was created by the cut-and-cover method of excavating a trench from above, then building reinforced brick walls and vaults to form the tunnel, and filling in the trench with earth. The Metropolitan initially ran from Farringdon in the east to Paddington in the west. The open wooden passenger cars were propelled by
11122-402: The North of England, where labor and overhead costs were lower, and iron and coal deposits much closer. The ancient Royal Dockyards at Woolwich and Deptford , founded by Henry VIII in the 16th century, were too far upriver and too shallow due to the silting up of the Thames, forcing their closure in 1869. The City of London 's importance as a financial centre increased substantially over
11288-421: The Port of London meant that a profusion of industries proliferated along the Regent's Canal, especially gasworks, and later electricity plants. Within a few years, the West India Docks were joined by the smaller East India Docks just northeast in Blackwall, as well as the London Docks in Wapping . The St Katharine Docks built just east of the Tower of London were completed in 1828, and later joined with
11454-409: The Thames. Despite the evidence of scattered Brythonic settlements in the area, the first major settlement was founded by the Romans around 47 AD, about four years after their invasion of 43 AD. This only lasted until about 61 AD, when the Iceni tribe led by Queen Boudica stormed it and burnt it to the ground. The next planned incarnation of Londinium prospered, superseding Colchester as
11620-415: The United Kingdom's population and over 16% of England's population. The Greater London Built-up Area is the fourth-most populous in Europe, with about 9.8 million inhabitants as of 2011. The London metropolitan area is the third-most populous in Europe, with about 14 million inhabitants as of 2016, making London a megacity . Four World Heritage Sites are located in London: Kew Gardens ;
11786-414: The Victoria Embankment reclaimed over 37 acres (15 hectares) of land from the Thames, allowing a broad east–west boulevard to be built and a series of public gardens. All three sections of the Thames Embankment are faced in grey granite, mounted with handsome cast iron lamps, and lined with London planes . In 1878, the lamps of the Victoria Embankment were converted from gas to electric light, making it
11952-602: The Viking incursions formally agreed by the Danish warlord , Guthrum and the West Saxon king Alfred the Great in 886. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Alfred "refounded" London in 886. Archaeological research shows this involved abandonment of Lundenwic and a revival of life and trade within the old Roman walls . London then grew slowly until a dramatic increase in about 950. By
12118-685: The appearance of the riverside between Chelsea and Blackfriars . There were three different sections: the Victoria Embankment , built between 1864 and 1870; the Albert Embankment (1866–70); and the Chelsea Embankment (1871–74). The embankments protected low-lying areas along the Thames from flooding, provided a more attractive prospect of the river compared to the mudflats and boatyards which abounded previously, and created prime reclaimed land for development. The Victoria Embankment
12284-558: The aspirational middle classes, and later with the lower middle classes in more industrial areas of London such as the East End . While many areas of Georgian and Victorian suburbs were damaged heavily in The Blitz and/or then redeveloped through slum clearance , much of Inner London 's character remains dominated by the suburbs built successively during Georgian and Victorian times, and such houses remain enormously popular. In contrast to
12450-560: The astonishing successes of the shipbuilding industry in the first half of the century, in the last decades of the 19th century the industry experienced a precipitous decline that would leave only one large firm, the Thames Ironworks, in existence by the mid-1890s. London shipyards lacked the capacity, and the ability to expand, for building the large vessels in demand by the later 19th century, losing business to newer shipyards in Scotland and
12616-399: The beginning of the 19th century, the urban core of London was bounded to the west by Park Lane and Hyde Park , and by Marylebone Road to the north. It extended along the south bank of the Thames at Southwark , and to the east as far as Bethnal Green and Spitalfields . At the beginning of the century, Hyde Park Corner was considered the western entrance to London; a turnpike gate
12782-609: The building of the Hampstead hospital, and residents in Fulham obtained an injunction preventing all but local cases of smallpox from being treated in their hospital. Thus, with only three hospitals in operation when the epidemic of 1881 began, the MAB was overwhelmed. HMS Atlas and Endymion were leased as hospital ships and entered service in July 1881, moored at Greenwich . The following year
12948-459: The capital of a massive empire, London became a draw for immigrants from the colonies and poorer parts of Europe. A large Irish population settled in the city during the Victorian era , with many of the newcomers refugees from the Great Famine (1845–1849) . At one point, Irish immigrants made up about 20% of London's population. In 1853 the number of Irish in London was estimated at 200,000, so large
13114-399: The center of English commerce. The working population swelled from some 200,000 in 1871 to 364,000 by 1911. London's great expansion in the 19th century was driven by housing growth to accommodate the rapidly expanding population of the city. The growth of transport in London in this period fueled the outward expansion of suburbs, as did a cultural impetus to escape the inner city, allowing
13280-596: The centre of the British press. The invasion of Amsterdam by Napoleonic armies led many financiers to relocate to London and the first London international issue was arranged in 1817. Around the same time, the Royal Navy became the world's leading war fleet, acting as a major deterrent to potential economic adversaries. Following a fire in 1838, the Royal Exchange was redesigned by William Tite and rebuilt in 1844. The repeal of
13446-440: The century contained £20 million worth of gold reserves. It employed over 900 people and printed 15,000 new banknotes each day by 1896, doing some £2 million worth of business each day. The result of the shift to financial services in the city was that, even while its residential population was ebbing in favor of the suburbs (there was a net loss of 100,000 people between 1840 and 1900), it retained its historical role as
13612-709: The century, many left the East End and settled in the immediate suburbs of Dalston , Hackney , Stoke Newington , Stamford Hill , and parts of Islington . An Italian community coalesced in Soho and in Clerkenwell , centered along Saffron Hill , Farringdon Road , Rosebery Avenue , and Clerkenwell Road . Out of the 11,500 Italians living in London in 1900, Soho accounted for 6,000, and Clerkenwell 4,000. Most of these were young men, engaged in occupations like organ grinding or selling street food (2,000 Italians were classed as "ice cream, salt, and walnut vendors" in 1900). After
13778-436: The city stood at just 37 years in midcentury. The most serious disease in the poor quarters was tuberculosis , until the 1860s cholera , as well as rickets , scarlet fever , and typhoid . Between 1850 and 1860 the mortality rate from typhoid was 116 per 100,000 people. Smallpox was a dreaded disease across London: there were epidemics in 1816–19, 1825–26, 1837–40, 1871 and 1881. A speckling of workhouse hospitals and
13944-478: The city's metropolis. The City of London at its core once comprised the whole settlement, but as its urban area grew, the Corporation of London resisted attempts to amalgamate the city with its suburbs , causing "London" to be defined several ways. Forty per cent of Greater London is covered by the London post town , in which 'London' forms part of postal addresses. The London telephone area code (020) covers
14110-437: The city, painting a bleak but also sympathetic picture of the wide variety of conditions experienced by London's poor. The extreme population density in areas like the East End made for unsanitary conditions and resulting epidemics of disease. The child mortality rate in the East End stood at 20%, while the estimated life expectancy of an East End labourer was only 19 years. In Bethnal Green , one of London's poorest districts,
14276-412: The city, to intimidate the inhabitants. In 1097, William II began building Westminster Hall , near the abbey. It became the basis of a new Palace of Westminster . In the 12th century, the institutions of central government, which had hitherto followed the royal English court around the country, grew in size and sophistication and became increasingly fixed, for most purposes at Westminster , although
14442-405: The closest bridge was Battersea Bridge , three miles upstream. The four stone bridges grew progressively more decrepit as traffic increased: Westminster Bridge was badly subsiding by the 1830s, and several piers collapsed in 1846. Blackfriars was structurally unsound, requiring substantial repairs between 1833 and 1840. Old London Bridge, whose 20 piers dated back to the 13th century, so impeded
14608-588: The combined revenue expenditure by London councils and the GLA amounted to just over £22 billion (£14.7 billion for the boroughs and £7.4 billion for the GLA). The London Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service for Greater London, run by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority . It is the third largest fire service in the world. National Health Service ambulance services are provided by
14774-454: The comprehensive University College London . It is the most visited city in Europe and has the world's busiest city airport system . The London Underground is the world's oldest rapid transit system. London's diverse cultures encompass over 300 languages. The 2023 population of Greater London of just under 10 million made it Europe's third-most populous city , accounting for 13.4% of
14940-403: The conspicuous wealth of the cities of London and Westminster, there was a huge underclass of desperately poor Londoners within a short range of the more affluent areas. The author George W. M. Reynolds commented on the vast wealth disparities and misery of London's poorest in 1844: "The most unbounded wealth is the neighbor of the most hideous poverty...the crumbs which fall from the tables of
15106-419: The construction of the iron-girded roofs of Alexandra Palace and the 1862 International Exhibition building. London engineering firms like Maudslay, Sons and Field and John Penn and Sons were early developers and suppliers of marine steam engines for merchant and naval ships, fueling the transition from sail to steam powered locomotion. This was aided by the 1834 invention by Samuel Hall of Bow of
15272-460: The course of the 19th century. The city's strengths in banking, stock brokerage, and shipping insurance made it the natural channel for the huge rise in capital investment which occurred after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. The city was also the headquarters of most of Britain's shipping firms, trading houses, exchanges and commercial firms like railway companies and import houses. As
15438-612: The creation of the Greater London Authority . To mark the 21st century, the Millennium Dome , London Eye and Millennium Bridge were constructed. On 6 July 2005 London was awarded the 2012 Summer Olympics , as the first city to stage the Olympic Games three times. On 7 July 2005, three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus were bombed in a series of terrorist attacks . In 2008, Time named London alongside New York City and Hong Kong as Nylonkong , hailing them as
15604-482: The creation of the London Underground , the world's first urban rail network . The Metropolitan Board of Works oversaw infrastructure expansion in the capital and some surrounding counties; it was abolished in 1889 when the London County Council was created out of county areas surrounding the capital. From the early years of the 20th century onwards, teashops were found on High Streets across London and
15770-427: The criminality and the population of Chinatown. London was both the world's largest port, and a major shipbuilding center in itself, for the entire 19th century. At the beginning of the century, this role was far from secure after the strong growth in world commerce during the later decades of the 18th century rendered the overcrowded Pool of London incapable of handling shipping levels efficiently. Sailors could wait
15936-463: The day. This type of work was low-paid and highly unstable, drying up depending on the season and the vagaries of world trade. The poverty of the dock workers and growing trade union activism coalesced into the Great Strike of 1889 , when an estimated 130,000 workers went on strike between 14 August and 16 September. The strike paralysed the port and led the dock owners to concede all of the demands of
16102-497: The docks could accommodate close to a million tons of storage, with the Import and Export basins able to moor almost 400 ships at a time. The Commercial Road was built in 1803 as a conduit for newly arrived goods from the Isle of Dogs straight into the City of London, and in 1812 an Act of Parliament provided for the docks to be integrated into the national canal system via the extension of
16268-713: The driest is 1921, with a total fall of 12.1 inches (308 mm). The average annual precipitation amounts to about 600mm, which is half the annual rainfall of New York City . Despite relatively low annual precipitation, London receives 109.6 rainy days on the 1.0mm threshold annually. London is vulnerable to climate change , and there is concern among hydrological experts that households may run out of water before 2050. Temperature extremes in London range from 40.2 °C (104.4 °F) at Heathrow on 19 July 2022 down to −17.4 °C (0.7 °F) at Northolt on 13 December 1981. Records for atmospheric pressure have been kept at London since 1692. The highest pressure ever reported
16434-603: The first Muslim mayor of a major Western capital. The mayor's statutory planning strategy is published as the London Plan , which was most recently revised in 2011. The local authorities are the councils of the 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation . They are responsible for most local services, such as local planning, schools, libraries, leisure and recreation, social services , local roads and refuse collection. Certain functions, such as waste management , are provided through joint arrangements. In 2009–2010
16600-514: The first major dock construction work of the 19th century, the West India Docks , on the Isle of Dogs . Situated 6 miles east of London Bridge, shipping could avoid the dangerous and congested upper reaches of the Thames. The three West India Docks were self-contained and accessed from the river via a system of locks and basins, offering an unprecedented level of security. The new warehouses surrounding
16766-644: The first modern police force in England, was a success at apprehending would-be thieves, and in 1800 it was made a public force via the Depredations on the Thames Act 1800 . In 1839 the force would be absorbed into and become the Thames Division of the Metropolitan Police . In addition to theft, at the turn of the century commercial interests feared the competition from rising English ports like Liverpool and Plymouth . This spurred Parliament in 1799 to authorize
16932-411: The first street in Britain to be electrically illuminated. Walter Thornbury praised the new construction in his Old and New London of 1878: "not only has the [Victoria] Embankment added a handsome frontage to the side of the Thames, which previously had been a public eyesore, but it has also been the means of getting rid of the unequal deposits of mud in its bed, assisting the removal of the scour of
17098-435: The flow of the river that it formed dangerous rapids for boats, and its narrow width of 26 ft could not accommodate modern traffic levels. It was the first to be replaced, by a 49-foot (15-metre) wide granite bridge with five supporting arches. "New" London Bridge was built from 1824 to 1831, with the adjacent "Old" London Bridge fully dismantled by 1832. New Westminster Bridge, made of cast iron and resting on seven arches,
17264-426: The form of a screen consisting of 5 portals of gilded wrought iron , the central section being the principal and largest gate; the double gates are supported on columns of iron. The two wrought iron bays flanking the central gate contain smaller gates, while the two terminating bays contain smaller pedestrian gates. The screen is terminated by two massive pillars of Portland stone surmounted by patriotic statuary. On
17430-704: The formation of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855. They included the Embankment from 1864, Northumberland Avenue , Clerkenwell and Theobalds Roads all from 1874. The MBW was authorized to create Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue in the Metropolitan Street Improvement Act 1877 ( 40 & 41 Vict. c. ccxxxv), the intention being to improve communication between Charing Cross, Piccadilly Circus , Oxford Street , and Tottenham Court Road . This required extensive demolition in
17596-442: The great railway terminals developing to connect London with its suburbs and beyond, mass transport was becoming ever more important within the city as its population increased. The first horse-drawn omnibuses entered service in London in 1829. By 1854 there were 3,000 of them in service, painted in bright reds, greens, and blues, and each carrying an average of 300 passengers per day. The two-wheeled hansom cab , first seen in 1834,
17762-402: The inner city areas. The new railway lines were generally built through working class areas, where land was cheaper and compensation costs lower. In the 1860s, the railway companies were required to rehouse the tenants they evicted for construction, but these rules were widely evaded until the 1880s. The displaced generally stayed in the same area as before, but under more crowded conditions due to
17928-554: The largest warship in the world and the first iron-hulled, armor plated vessel, alongside its sister HMS Black Prince (1861). Over the next few years, five out of the nine armored ironclads commissioned by the Navy to follow the example of the Warrior would be constructed in London. The Thames Ironworks was employed not just in shipbuilding, but in civil engineering works around London like Blackfriars Railway Bridge , Hammersmith Bridge , and
18094-622: The location of its original headquarters in a road called Great Scotland Yard in Whitehall. The City of London has its own police force – the City of London Police . First worn by Met police officers in 1863, the custodian helmet has been called a "cultural icon" and a "symbol of British law enforcement". Introduced by the Met in 1929, the blue police telephone box (basis for the TARDIS in Doctor Who )
18260-467: The loss of housing. The first railway to be built in London was the London & Greenwich Railway , a short line from London Bridge to Greenwich , which opened in 1836. This was soon followed by great rail termini which linked London to every corner of Britain. These included Euston (1837), Paddington (1838), Fenchurch Street (1841), Waterloo (1848), King's Cross (1852), and St Pancras (1868). By 1865 there were 12 principal railway termini;
18426-409: The mayor's budget proposals each year. The GLA has responsibility for the majority of London's transport system through its functional arm Transport for London (TfL), it is responsible for overseeing the city's police and fire services, and also for setting a strategic vision for London on a range of issues. The headquarters of the GLA is City Hall , Newham. The mayor since 2016 has been Sadiq Khan ,
18592-427: The mortality rate stood at 1 in 41 in 1847. The average for Bethnal Green between the years 1885 and 1893 remained virtually the same as that of 1847. Meanwhile, the mortality average for those same eight years in the wealthy boroughs of Kensington and Paddington stood at roughly 1 in 53. London's overall mortality rate was tracked at a ratio of roughly 1 in 43 between the years 1869–1879; overall life expectancy in
18758-718: The most museums , art galleries, libraries, and cultural venues in the UK, including the British Museum , National Gallery , Natural History Museum , Tate Modern , British Library , and numerous West End theatres. Important sporting events held in London include the FA Cup Final , the Wimbledon Tennis Championships , and the London Marathon . It became the first city to host three Summer Olympic Games upon hosting
18924-650: The most diverse cities in the world. In 1951, the Festival of Britain was held on the South Bank . The Great Smog of 1952 led to the Clean Air Act 1956 , which ended the " pea soup fogs " for which London had been notorious, and had earned it the nickname the "Big Smoke". Starting mainly in the mid-1960s, London became a centre for worldwide youth culture , exemplified by the Swinging London sub-culture associated with
19090-456: The national railways. This feverish building obtained clear results: by 1880, the Port of London was receiving 8 million tons of goods a year, a 10-fold increase over the 800,000 being received in 1800. Shipping in the Port of London supported a vast army of transport and warehouse workers, who characteristically attended the "call-on" each morning at the entrances to the docks to be assigned work for
19256-451: The net total of British foreign investment stood at £2.394 billion. The 1862 Bradshaw's Guide to London listed 83 banks, 336 stockbroking firms, 37 currency brokers, 248 ship and insurance brokerages, and 1500 different merchants in the city, selling wares of every conceivable variety. At the centre of this nexus of private capital and commerce lay the Bank of England , which by the end of
19422-520: The new technology. The largest and most famous ship of its day, the SS Great Eastern , a collaboration between John Scott Russell and Isambard Kingdom Brunel , was constructed at the Millwall Iron Works and launched in 1858. It still holds the record as the largest ship to have been launched on the Thames, and held the record as the largest ship in the world by tonnage until 1901. Despite
19588-506: The next century. The East End of London , with an economy oriented around the Docklands and the polluting industries clustered along the Thames and the River Lea , had long been an area of working poor. By the late 19th century it was developing an increasingly sinister reputation for crime, overcrowding, desperate poverty, and debauchery. The 1881 census counted over 1 million inhabitants in
19754-399: The north (which had reverted to Crown ownership in 1811). The new road had several benefits: it cleared a warren of narrow streets in Westminster in favor of a symmetrical, aesthetically pleasing street which not only relieved traffic congestion but, by providing a direct north–south route, allowed the rural area around Regent's Park to be profitably developed for residential use. Regent Street
19920-467: The old Roman city. By about 680 the city had become a major port again, but there is little evidence of large-scale production. From the 820s repeated Viking assaults brought decline. Three are recorded; those in 851 and 886 succeeded, while the last, in 994, was rebuffed. The Vikings applied Danelaw over much of eastern and northern England, its boundary running roughly from London to Chester as an area of political and geographical control imposed by
20086-468: The palace. From the gate, a long double avenue stretches the width of the park through to Piccadilly . The gate is in the same style as those of Buckingham Palace and bears the coats of arms of six of the seven Canadian provinces of the time (left to right: Manitoba , Ontario , Quebec , Nova Scotia , New Brunswick , and Prince Edward Island ), while in the centre of the gate is the original coat of arms of Canada of 1868. In design, Canada Gate takes
20252-476: The pillars are reliefs of the shields of three other Canadian provinces, British Columbia (left) and Alberta and Saskatchewan (both right). The flanking inner columns are smaller and, like the iron posts, are crowned by gas lanterns of similar design to those on the pillars of the palace railings. London London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom , with
20418-551: The pressure on street traffic were first mooted in the 1840s, after the opening of the Thames Tunnel in 1843 proved such engineering work could be done successfully. However, reservations over the stability of underground tunneling persisted into the 1860s and were finally overcome when Parliament approved the construction of London's first underground railway, the Metropolitan Railway . Begun in 1860 and completed in 1863,
20584-486: The principal city of the Roman province of Britannia in 100. At its height in the 2nd century, Roman London had a population of about 60,000. With the early 5th-century collapse of Roman rule, the walled city of Londinium was effectively abandoned, although Roman civilisation continued around St Martin-in-the-Fields until about 450. From about 500, an Anglo-Saxon settlement known as Lundenwic developed slightly west of
20750-399: The prison, where the victims of a vitiated condition of society expiate the crimes to which they have been drive by starvation and despair; and the workhouse, to which the destitute, the aged, and the friendless hasten to lay down their aching heads – and die!" In Central London, the single most notorious slum was St. Giles , a name which by the 19th century had passed into common parlance as
20916-509: The resources, and it was rapidly developing the dignity and the political self-consciousness appropriate to a national capital ." After winning the Battle of Hastings , William, Duke of Normandy was crowned King of England in newly completed Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. William built the Tower of London , the first of many such in England rebuilt in stone in the south-eastern corner of
21082-624: The rest of Britain, with Lyons , who opened the first of their chain of teashops in Piccadilly in 1894, leading the way. The tearooms, such as the Criterion in Piccadilly, became a popular meeting place for women from the suffrage movement. The city was the target of many attacks during the suffragette bombing and arson campaign , between 1912 and 1914, which saw historic landmarks such as Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral bombed. London
21248-472: The rich would appear delicious viands to starving millions, and yet these millions obtain them not! In that city there are in all five prominent buildings: the church, in which the pious pray; the gin-palace, to which the wretched poor resort to drown their sorrows; the pawn-broker's, where miserable creatures pledge their raiment, and their children's raiment, even unto the last rag, to obtain the means of purchasing food, and – alas! too often – intoxicating drink;
21414-437: The river, and consequently improving the health of the inhabitants of London." There was a flurry of bridge-building along the Thames from the City of London westwards during the 19th century, improving overland communication to Southwark . In 1800 there were only three bridges connecting Westminster and the city to the south bank: Westminster Bridge , Blackfriars Bridge , and the ancient London Bridge . West of Westminster,
21580-401: The royal treasury came to rest in the Tower . While the City of Westminster developed into a true governmental capital, its distinct neighbour, the City of London , remained England's largest city and principal commercial centre and flourished under its own unique administration, the Corporation of London . In 1100, its population was some 18,000; by 1300 it had grown to nearly 100,000. With
21746-534: The sea. London is the seat of the Government of the United Kingdom . Many government departments, as well as the prime minister's residence at 10 Downing Street , are based close to the Palace of Westminster , particularly along Whitehall . There are 75 members of Parliament (MPs) from London; As of June 2024 , 59 are from the Labour Party , 9 are Conservatives , 6 are Liberal Democrats and one constituency
21912-509: The slums of Soho and St. Giles , with the MBW responsible for rehousing over 3,000 laborers in new-built tenements over the ten-year period it took to construct the roads. One of the most ambitious urban redesign initiatives was the building of Regent Street at the behest of the Prince Regent , who wished to build a grand boulevard linking his Carlton House in the south with Regent's Park in
22078-424: The start of 2018 to mid April 2018. Funding cuts to police in London are likely to have contributed to this, though other factors are involved. However, homicide figures fell in 2022 with 109 recorded for the year, and the murder rate in London is much lower than other major cities around the world. London, also known as Greater London , is one of nine regions of England and the top subdivision covering most of
22244-518: The stations built along the lines in exurban villages surrounding London allowed commuter towns to be developed for the middle classes. The Cheap Trains Act 1883 helped poorer Londoners to relocate, by guaranteeing cheap fares and removing a duty imposed on fares since 1844. The new working class suburbs created as a result included West Ham , Walthamstow , Kilburn , and Willesden . With traffic congestion on London's roads becoming more and more serious, proposals for underground railways to ease
22410-508: The steamers plying between Germany and the port of London". London's first Chinatown , as this area of Limehouse became known, was depicted in novels like Charles Dickens ' The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Oscar Wilde 's The Picture of Dorian Gray as a sinister quarter of crime and opium dens. Racist stereotypes of the Chinese which abounded in the 19th and early 20th centuries exaggerated both
22576-487: The streets of London may one escape the sight of abject poverty, while five minutes' walk from almost any point will bring one to a slum; but the region my hansom was now penetrating was one unending slum. The streets were filled with a new and different race of people, short of stature, and of wretched or beer-sodden appearance. We rolled along through miles of bricks and squalor, and from each cross street and alley flashed long vistas of bricks and misery. Here and there lurched
22742-413: The strike committee, including a number of fairer working arrangements, the reduction of the "call-on", and higher hourly and overtime wages. During the first half of the 19th century, the shipbuilding industry on the Thames was highly innovative and produced some of the most technologically advanced vessels in the world. The firm of Wigram and Green constructed Blackwall frigates from the early 1830s,
22908-512: The success of the Metropolitan, the first being the Metropolitan District Line, opened in 1865. This line extended along the Thames from Westminster to South Kensington at first, but by 1889 it had been extended eastwards to Blackfriars , and south-west all the way to Wimbledon . The next line to be built, and the first true "tube", dug with a tunnelling shield designed by J.H. Greathead rather than by cut-and-cover excavation,
23074-671: The theatres in the 1640s. The ban on theatre was lifted during the Restoration in 1660, and London's oldest operating theatre, Drury Lane , opened in 1663 in what is now the West End theatre district. By the end of the Tudor period in 1603, London was still compact. There was an assassination attempt on James I in Westminster, in the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November 1605. In 1637, the government of Charles I attempted to reform administration in
23240-451: The three underground railways then in operation, compared to 11,720,000 passengers in 1864 using the lone Metropolitan Railway. Before the century came to a close, a second deep-level tube was opened in 1898: the Waterloo & City Line . The shortest of the London tube lines, it was built to convey commuters between the City of London and Waterloo station . Many new roads were built after
23406-439: The two ships were purchased along with another, Castalia , and the fleet was moved to Long Reach at Gravesend , where it served 20,000 patients between 1884 and 1902. The floating hospitals were equipped with their own river ferry service to transport patients in isolation from the inner city. The ships enabled three permanent isolation hospitals to be built at Dartford , effectively ending the threat of smallpox epidemics. With
23572-691: The unique governmental status of the City . In the English Civil War , the majority of Londoners supported the Parliamentary cause. After an initial advance by the Royalists in 1642, culminating in the battles of Brentford and Turnham Green , London was surrounded by a defensive perimeter wall known as the Lines of Communication . The lines were built by up to 20,000 people, and were completed in under two months. The fortifications failed their only test when
23738-454: The urban form", the increasing rigour with which Building Act regulations were applied after 1774 led to increasingly simple, standardised designs, which by the end of the 19th century were accommodating many households at the lower end of the socio-economic scale. Indeed, more grandly designed examples became less common by this period, as the very wealthy tended to prefer detached homes, and terraces in particular now became associated first with
23904-614: The various companies amalgamated to form the Surrey Commercial Docks Company , which by 1878 constituted 13 docks and ponds. With the eclipse of the sailing ship by the steamship in mid-century, tonnages grew larger and the shallow docks nearer the city were too small for mooring them. In response, new commercial docks were built beyond the Isle of Dogs: the Royal Victoria Dock (1855), the Millwall Dock (1868),
24070-417: The very heart of a Christian country." At the heart of this area, now occupied by New Oxford Street and Centre Point , was "The Rookery", a particularly dense warren of houses along George Street and Church Lane, the latter of which in 1852 was reckoned to contain over 1,100 lodgers in overpacked, squalid buildings with open sewers. The poverty worsened with the massive influx of poor Irish immigrants during
24236-625: The world's three most influential global cities . In January 2015, Greater London's population was estimated to be 8.63 million, its highest since 1939. During the Brexit referendum in 2016, the UK as a whole decided to leave the European Union , but most London constituencies voted for remaining. However, Britain's exit from the EU in early 2020 only marginally weakened London's position as an international financial centre. The administration of London
24402-495: The worlds of 'work' and 'life' to be separate. Suburbs varied enormously in character and in the relative wealth of their inhabitants, with some being for the very wealthy, and others being for the lower-middle classes. They frequently imitated the success of earlier periods of speculative housing development from the Georgian era , although the Victorian era saw a much wider array of suburban housing built in London. Terraced , semi-detached and detached housing all developed in
24568-964: Was bombed by the Germans in the First World War , and during the Second World War , the Blitz and other bombings by the German Luftwaffe killed over 30,000 Londoners, destroying large tracts of housing and other buildings across the city. The tomb of the Unknown Warrior , an unidentified member of the British armed forces killed during the First World War, was buried in Westminster Abbey on 11 November 1920. The Cenotaph , located in Whitehall ,
24734-418: Was also a city of poverty, where millions lived in overcrowded and unsanitary slums . Life for the poor was immortalized by Charles Dickens in such novels as Oliver Twist . One of the most famous events of 19th-century London was the Great Exhibition of 1851 . Held at The Crystal Palace , the fair attracted visitors from across the world and displayed Britain at the height of its imperial dominance. As
24900-416: Was also meant to provide a clear separation between the fashionable new development of Mayfair to the west, and the by then undesirable area of Soho to the east. The plans, designed by John Nash , were approved by Act of Parliament in 1813, and by 1819 Nash's grand colonnaded, stucco-covered buildings were largely open for business. The street stretches from Pall Mall at its southern end (built closer to
25066-409: Was becoming too shallow, and the lock entrance too narrow, for newer ships. The St. Katharine and London Dock Company built the Royal Albert Dock adjoining the Victoria; this new quay was 1.75 miles long, with 16,500 feet of deep water quayage. It was the largest dock in the world, the first to be electrically lit, featured hydraulically operated cranes, and like its sister the Victoria, was connected to
25232-483: Was designed by Sir Aston Webb . It takes the form of a processional route from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace . Beginning at Admiralty Arch , the project takes in The Mall and culminates in a "rond point" before the palace, with Sir Thomas Brock 's Victoria Memorial at its centre. The Canada Gate was commissioned, in 1905, along with the gates for Buckingham Palace and two other similar, but smaller gates presented by Australia and South Africa. The commission
25398-403: Was in operation there until 1825. With the population growing at an increasing rate, so too did the territory of London expand significantly: the city encompassed 122 square miles in 1851 and had grown to 693 square miles by 1896. During this period, London became a global political, financial, and trading capital. While the city grew wealthy as Britain's holdings expanded, 19th-century London
25564-446: Was intended as an underground artery for the movement of goods between Rotherhithe and Wapping , it opened as a pedestrian tunnel during its early decades (there were 1 million visitors to the tunnel in its first 3 months of opening). Only in 1865 was it purchased by the East London Railway and converted for railway use. The Thames Embankment was one of the most ambitious public works projects in 19th century London. It transformed
25730-437: Was once a common sight throughout London and regional cities in the UK. The British Transport Police are responsible for police services on National Rail , London Underground , Docklands Light Railway and Tramlink services. The Ministry of Defence Police is a special police force in London, which does not generally become involved with policing the general public. The UK's domestic counter-intelligence service ( MI5 )
25896-478: Was opened in 1862, replacing its unstable predecessor, and Blackfriars Bridge was demolished and rebuilt in cast iron beginning in 1864. In addition, several new bridges for road, pedestrian, and railway traffic were built: Southwark Bridge (1819), Waterloo Bridge (1817), Hungerford Bridge (opened in 1845 as a footbridge, and converted in 1859 into a combination footbridge/railway bridge for Charing Cross Station ), and Tower Bridge (1894). Further upriver,
26062-406: Was supervised by polymath Robert Hooke . In 1710, Christopher Wren 's masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral , was completed, replacing its medieval predecessor that burned in the Great Fire of 1666. The dome of St Paul's dominated the London skyline for centuries, inspiring the artworks and writing of William Blake , with his 1789 poem " Holy Thursday " referring to 'the high dome of Pauls'. During
26228-404: Was the City and South London Railway (later the city branch of the Northern line), opened in 1890. It was London's first underground line with electric locomotives, and the first to extend south of the river. Electrification allowed the tunnels to be dug deep below ground level, as ventilation for smoke and steam was no longer necessary. In the year 1894, an estimated 228,605,000 passengers used
26394-409: Was the most ambitious: it concealed a massive interceptor sewage tunnel, which channelled waste from a network of smaller tunnels away from the River Thames and out of Central London, towards the Northern Outfall Sewer at Beckton in East London. The Victoria Embankment also allowed an extension of the Metropolitan District Line underground to be built, from Westminster east to Blackfriars. In total,
26560-439: Was the most common type of cab on London's roads throughout the Victorian era, but there were many types, like the four-wheeled Hackney carriage , in addition to the coaches, private carriages, coal-wagons, and tradesmen's vehicles which crowded the roads. There were 3,593 licensed cabs in London in 1852; by the end of the century there were estimated to be some 10,000 in all. From the 1870s onwards, Londoners also had access to
26726-434: Was the site of the world's first traffic lights , installed at the crossroads of Bridge, Great George, and Parliament Streets outside the Houses of Parliament . The 20 ft (6-metre) high column was topped by a large gas lamp, and opened in December 1868. It was designed by the railway engineer J.P. Knight after a railway semaphore signal, with multi-coloured arms coming down to regulate traffic. 19th century London
26892-532: Was the site of unprecedented engineering marvels. One of these was the Thames Tunnel , declared the "Eighth Wonder of the World" when it opened in 1843. Designed by Marc Isambard Brunel , it was the first tunnel in the world to be successfully built under a navigable river and took 18 grueling years to complete. Laborers employed to dig the tunnel, with the protection of Brunel's tunneling shield , endured five serious floods and multiple gas and sewage leaks, which caused numerous casualties and long delays. Although it
27058-490: Was the usual method of removing problematic pockets of the city; for the most part this just displaced existing residents because the new dwellings built by private developers were often far too expensive for the previous inhabitants to afford. In the mid to late 19th century, philanthropists like Octavia Hill and charities like the Peabody Trust focused on building adequate housing for the working classes at affordable rates: George Peabody built his first improved housing for
27224-405: Was transformed by the coming of the railways. A new network of metropolitan railways allowed the development of suburbs in neighboring counties from which middle-class and wealthy people could commute to the centre. While this spurred the massive outward growth of the city, London's growth also exacerbated the class divide, as the wealthier classes emigrated to the suburbs, leaving the poor to inhabit
27390-458: Was unveiled on the same day, and is the focal point for the National Service of Remembrance held annually on Remembrance Sunday , the closest Sunday to 11 November. The 1948 Summer Olympics were held at the original Wembley Stadium , while London was still recovering from the war. From the 1940s, London became home to many immigrants, primarily from Commonwealth countries such as Jamaica, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, making London one of
27556-402: Was won by the Bromsgrove Guild (a company of modern artists and designers associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement ) who completed the work and had the gate in situ by 1911. The gate stands to the north side of the "rond point" at the junction with Constitution Hill ; today, a congested roundabout , but occasionally closed to traffic when the Mall is required for state processions from
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