A photograph of Regent Street in the nineteenth century, with its relatively new phenomenon of the “sandwich man” as well as the horse-drawn omnibuses.
The porters at Billingsgate were well known for their characteristic attire. In a city of appearances, and street theatre, it was important to be dressed for the part. No man, whatever his trade, was seen without a hat.
Old houses in Bermondsey, at the end of the nineteenth century; they were swept away, or bombed, while in their place arose one of the great council estates of south London.
Clerkenwell Green: this inoffensive and often overlooked “green,” in the middle of Clerkenwell, has been the site of more riots and more radical activity than any other part of London. What is its secret?
River scavengers: these were the real tradesmen of the city, earning a meagre living by combing the banks of the tidal river.
Women sifting dust mounds: in a city where everything had its price, there was money to be made out of refuse of every kind. These women, sometimes known as “bunters,” inherited their noxious trade.
A wheel at the exhibition in the 1890s (and a similar wheel at Bartholomew’s Fair in the seventeenth century) anticipated the modern wheel of the “London Eye” in the year 2000. In a similar echoic spirit, the modern Lloyd’s building was erected on the site of the old London maypole.
William Whiffin’s marvellous photograph of children following a water cart. Many London children went barefoot in all weathers, however.
The stance and attitude of this ragged boy epitomise the defiance and independence of London children who were often brought up “on the stones.” The miracle is that they survived at all.
A photograph of a Millwall street, taken in 1938. Street games have been characteristic of London children ever since London was established, and somehow the most barren districts have become areas of play. Not all streets, however, are shadowed by great ships.
The “London particular” was the name given to the characteristic fogs of the city which descended without warning and created darkness at noon. This gaily dressed citizen is attempting to protect himself against what was considered to be a bearer of disease.
The “smog” of the Fifties and Sixties was a miasma of fog and smoke.
A Paraleytic Woman: Géricault visited London in the 1820s and was at once intrigued and horrified by the predicament of the poor. In a city based upon money, the indigent and the vagrant are the sacrificial victims.
Stanley Green, “Protein Man,” walked up and down Oxford Street for many years, parading the same dietary message. He was commonly ignored by the great tide of people who washed around him, and thus became a poignant symbol of the city’s incuriosity and forgetfulness.
The ruins of Paternoster Row, beside St. Paul’s, photographed during the air-raids of the Second World War by Cecil Beaton. It had been a street of stationers and publishers for three hundred years, but is now only a name.
Don McCullin’s photograph, taken near Spitalfields in 1969, provides an image of anger and helplessness. The poor and the desperate have always been a part of London’s history, and it might be said that the city is most recognisable by the shadow they cast.
The omnibus first emerged upon the streets of London in 1829 and, twenty-five years later, there were some three thousand of them, each one carrying approximately three hundred passengers a day. There is a painting of 1845 by James Pollard, entitled A Street Scene with Two Omnibuses, which vividly recalls the transport of that period. Each of the two buses is being pulled by two horses; in the first bus eight gentlemen in stove-pipe hats are sitting on the open roof behind the driver, while other passengers can be glimpsed sitting within. The bus is painted green and in large letters along the side it is advertised as part of the “FAVORITE” group; a board on a post attached to the back proclaims that it drives between Euston and Chelsea, while on the side are painted its other destinations. The original fares were sixpence rising to a shilling, so this form of transport was not favoured by the labouring classes of London, yet steady competition reduced the prices of tickets to twopence or a penny. The first journey of the day was filled with office clerks, and a second with their employers, the merchants and the bankers; towards midday “the ladies” entered the bus for shopping expeditions, together with mothers taking their children “for a ride.” In the evening the vehicles were filled with all those returning to the suburbs from the City while, in the other direction, travelled those who were “out for the night” at the theatres or supper-clubs.
A traveller in 1853 noted that “the omnibus is a necessity and the Londoner cannot get on without it,” and added that “the word ‘bus’ is rapidly working its way into general acceptation”; he remarked upon the prepossessing appearance of these carriages, brightly painted red or green or blue, as well as the high spirits of conductors and drivers alike. The former shouted out “All right!” and banged the roof of the vehicle to signal that it was time to move on, and all through the journey he was “never silent” but calling out destinations continually-“Ba-nk! Ba-nk!”
The London horses deserve attention and celebration, also, because their training in the streets and their “natural sagacity” meant that they could proceed through the crowded thoroughfares at a good pace without causing accidents. One late Victorian recalled that, at one of those moments when traffic came to a halt, he could see “hundreds of horses” which “tossed their heads and blew air from their nostrils” while their drivers “shouted and bellowed” greetings and pleasantries to one another.
Of all vehicles, however, the hansom-cab became most closely associated with Victorian London. Introduced in 1834 it was a four-wheeled vehicle with an interior more comfortable than that of the previous two-wheeled cab, and with the driver at a more impersonal distance behind the carriage. Once again the changing appearances of transport reflected the changing culture of London. But if the form of the cabs was altered, the appearance and manner of their drivers remained constant; they were well known for their “chaff” or insolence, and their dishonesty. “Whenever a stranger is bold enough to hail a cab, not one, but half a dozen come at once”; this German traveller’s observation is supported by other accounts of the violent competitiveness of cab-drivers all over the capital. They became the tutelary spirits, or imps, of the road. Although there were statutory fees they would attempt to bargain, with the customary phrase “What will you give?” They were also notorious for their drunkenness and, in turn, for their argumentativeness. “An old Londoner only may venture to engage in a topographical or geometrical disputation with a cabman, for gentlemen of this class are not generally flattering in their expressions or conciliating in their arguments; and the cheapest way of terminating the dispute is to pay and have done with the man.” The drivers of the hansom cabs were “as full as exacting and impertinent as their humbler brethren,” the drivers of the growlers or four-wheeled cabs, but they had more spirit, “most skilful in winding and edging their light vehicles through the most formidable knot of wagons and carriages.” London’s cab-drivers epitomise the spirit of the city-fast, restless, audacious, with a propensity for violence and drunkenness. They are closely related to the butchers and the street-criers, whose trades are also intimately attached to the life of the city: all part of London’s family.