London Read online

  Acclaim for Peter Ackroyd’s

  London: The Biography

  “The book requires a leisurely pace; anything quicker would endanger the pleasure to be had from the variety on offer…. There is nothing quite like it.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “Ackroyd gives London a gift, the likes of which more callow cities can only hope, one day, to get.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Invariably exciting and immensely enjoyable…. Ackroyd coruscates with ideas and fancies…. The total effect is spectacular and vastly stimulating. ‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.’ The same could be said with equal justice of any reader who finds no pleasure or instruction in Ackroyd’s books.”

  —The Spectator

  “Ackroyd writes in a wonderfully graphic style that carries the reader through historical byways effortlessly.”

  —The Denver Post

  “A tour de force by a writer of immense skill…. A treasure of information and anecdote about one of the world’s great cities, a book to be taken up again and again for the pleasures that lie within.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “Ackroyd deserves great praise for writing a book equal to its gargantuan subject…. [It] succeeds on the most expansive and most intimate levels.”

  — The Orlando Sentinel

  “Packed with strange delights and bizarre occurrences…. Ackroyd is a writer of memorable, eccentrically rhythmic sentences that one wants to quote at length.”

  —Newsday

  “Enthralling…. Witty and imaginative.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred)

  “Wonderful and weighty…. Ackroyd has created a rich celebration of a unique city.”

  —The Wall Street Journal

  By the same author

  FICTION

  The Great Fire of London

  The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde

  Hawksmoor

  Chatterton

  First Light

  English Music

  The House of Doctor Dee

  Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem

  Milton in America

  The Plato Papers

  BIOGRAPHY

  T. S. Eliot

  Dickens

  Blake

  The Life of Thomas More

  POETRY

  The Diversions of Purley

  CRITICISM

  Notes for a New Culture

  Peter Ackroyd

  London

  Peter Ackroyd is a bestselling writer of both fiction and nonfiction. His most recent books include the biographies Dickens, Blake, and Thomas More and the novels The Trial of Elizabeth Cree, Milton in America, and The Plato Papers. He has won the Whitbread Biography Award, the Royal Society of Literature’s William Heinemann Award (jointly), the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and The Guardian fiction prize. He lives in London.

  For Jain Johnston

  and

  Frederick Nicholas Robertson

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Chronology

  Acknowledgements

  The City as Body

  From Prehistory to 1066

  1 The Sea!

  2 The Stones

  3 Holy! Holy! Holy!

  The Early Middle Ages

  4 You Be All Law Worthy

  London Contrasts

  5 Loud and Everlasting

  6 Silence Is Golden

  The Late Medieval City

  7 This Companye

  Onward and Upward

  8 Rather Dark and Narrow

  9 Packed to Blackness

  10 Maps and Antiquarians

  Trading Streets and Trading Parishes

  11 Where Is the Cheese of Thames Street?

  A London Neighbourhood

  12 The Crossroads

  London as Theatre

  13 Show! Show! Show! Show! Show!

  14 He Shuld Neuer Trobell the Parish No More

  15 Theatrical City

  16 Violent Delights

  17 Music, Please

  18 Signs of the Times

  19 All of Them Citizens

  Pestilence and Flame

  20 A Plague Upon You

  21 Painting the Town Red

  After the Fire

  22 A London Address

  23 To Build Anew

  Crime and Punishment

  24 A Newgate Ballad

  25 A Note on Suicide

  26 A Penitential History

  27 A Rogues Gallery

  28 Horrible Murder

  29 London’s Opera

  30 Raw Lobsters and Others

  31 Thereby Hangs a Tale

  Voracious London

  32 Into the Vortex

  33 A Cookery Lesson

  34 Eat In or Take Away

  35 Market Time

  36 Waste Matter

  37 A Little Drink or Two

  38 Clubbing

  39 A Note on Tobacco

  40 A Bad Odour

  41 You Sexy Thing

  42 A Turn of the Dice

  London as Crowd

  43 Mobocracy

  44 What’s New?

  The Natural History of London

  45 Give the Lydy a Flower

  46 Weather Reports

  47 A Foggy Day

  Night and Day

  48 Let There Be Light

  49 Night in the City

  50 A City Morning

  London’s Radicals

  51 Where Is the Well of Clerkenwell?

  Violent London

  52 A Ring! A Ring!

  Black Magic, White Magic

  53 I Met a Man Who Wasn’t There

  54 Knowledge Is Power

  A Fever of Building

  55 London Will Soon Be Next Door to Us

  56 Nothing Quite Like It

  London’s Rivers

  57 You Cannot Take the Thames with You

  58 Dark Thames

  59 They Are Lost

  Under the Ground

  60 What Lies Beneath

  Victorian Megalopolis

  61 How Many Miles to Babylon?

  62 Wild Things

  63 If It Wasn’t for the ‘ouses in Between

  London’s Outcasts

  64 They Are Always with Us

  65 Can You Spare a Little Something?

  66 They Outvoted Me

  Women and Children

  67 The Feminine Principle

  68 Boys and Girls Come Out to Play

  Continuities

  69 Have You Got the Time?

  70 The Tree on the Corner

  East and South

  71 The Stinking Pile

  72 The South Work

  The Centre of Empire

  73 Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner

  74 Empire Day

  After the Great War

  75 Suburban Dreams

  Blitz

  76 War News

  Refashioning the City

  77 Fortune not Design

  Cockney Visionaries

  78 Unreal City

  79 Resurgam

  An Essay on Sources

  List of Illustrations

  BLACK-AND-WHITE INSERT I

  Early Londoner admiring London Stone (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London)

  John Stow (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London)

  Charter of William I (Corporation of London Records Office)

  Marcellus Laroon, Street merchants

  Aerial sketch of London, 1560 (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London)

  View of London Bridge by Anthonis van den Wyngaerde (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

  Panorama of London by Hollar (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London)

  View of Old St. Pau
l’s by Hollar (Guildhall Library/Corporation of London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  The Royal Exchange by Hollar (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Detail of map charting the Great Fire of London, 1666 (Royal Academy of Arts Library, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  17th c. firemen (Royal Academy of Arts Library, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  Hanging outside of Newgate Prison by Rowlandson (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Moll Cut-Purse (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Newgate Prison (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  National Temperance map of London (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Café Monico, Piccadilly Circus (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  COLOR INSERT I

  London from Southwark, Dutch School, c.1630 (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Entrance to the River Fleet, Samuel Scott (Guildhall Art Gallery, Corporation of London)

  Detail of the City from Braun and Hogenberg’s map of London, 1572 (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  Johann B. Homann’s map and prospect of London, 1730 (British Library, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  The Great Fire of London, 1666 aquatint after Philippe de Loutherbourg (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  The Burning of the Houses of Parliament, 16th October 1834, J.M.W. Turner (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA/Bridgeman Art Library)

  Jack Sheppard, William Thornhill (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Tom, Jerry and Logic Visiting Condemned Prisoners of Newgate Prison, George and Isaac Cruikshank (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  The Curds and Whey Seller, Cheapside, c. 1730, British School (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  The Meat Stall from The London Markets, engraved by M. Dubourg after James Pollard (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  Smithfield Market, engraved by R.G. Reeve after James Pollard (British Museum, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  The Frozen Thames, c.1677, Abraham Hondius (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Punch or May Day, Benjamin Haydon (Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY)

  A Rake’s Progress IV: The Arrested, Going to Court, William Hogarth (Courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum, London/Bridgeman Art Library)

  The Four Times of Day: Morning, William Hogarth (Upton House, Oxfordshire, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  Whitehall and the Privy Gardens from Richmond House, Canaletto (By courtesy of the Trustees of the Goodwood Collection)

  View of the Adelphi from the River Thames, William Marlow (Christie’s Images, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  COLOR INSERT II

  The Laying of the Water Main in Tottenham Court Road, George Scharf (British Museum, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  The Scavenger’s Lamentation, engraved by A. Sharpshooter (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London)

  The Enraged Musician, William Hogarth (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  The Railway Station, William Frith (Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, Surrey, UK/Bridgeman Art Gallery)

  The Crowd, Robert Buss (Guildhall Art Gallery, Corporation of London)

  Piccadilly Circus, Charles Ginner (Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY)

  Hammersmith Bridge on Boat Race Day, Walter Greaves (Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY)

  Noctes Ambrosianae, Walter Sickert (Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Nottingham, UK/Bridgeman Art Library/© 2001 Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York, NY/DACS, London)

  Hammersmith Palais de Danse, Malcolm Drummond (Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery)

  A Coffee Stall, Chas Hunt (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  The Coffee House, William Ratcliffe (Southampton City Art Gallery, Hampshire, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  Allen’s Tobacconist Shop, Hart Street, Grosvenor Square, Robert Allen (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  House, Rachel Whiteread (Anthony d’Offay Gallery)

  Two Sleepers, Henry Moore (The Henry Moore Foundation/Walter Hussey Bequest, Pallant House, Chichester, UK/Bridgeman Art Library)

  Devastation, 1941: An East End Street, Graham Sutherland (Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY)

  Canary Wharf, Isle of Dogs, 1991, Alan Delaney (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  BLACK-AND-WHITE INSERT II

  Regent Street in 1886, London Stereoscopic Company (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Covent Garden Porters, John Thomson (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Old houses in Bermondsey

  Clerkenwell Green

  River scavengers

  Women sifting through dust mounds

  The Great Wheel, Earl’s Court Exhibition, 1890, Charles Wilson (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Children Following a Water Cart, William Whiffin (Tower Hamlets Local History Library)

  Boy selling matches

  Children Playing Cricket in Alpha Road, Millwall, 1938, Fox Photos (Hulton/Archive)

  A Thoroughbred November and London Particular, engraved by George Hunt after M. Egerton (Guildhall Library/Corporation of London)

  Car in smog, Henry Grant (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  A Paraleytic Woman, Géricault (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris)

  Protein Man (Davidson/Evening Standard/Hulton/Archive)

  Bomb damage in Paternoster Row, 1940 (Cecil Beaton photograph, courtesy of Sotheby’s London)

  Near Spitalfields Market (© Don McCullin/Contact Press)

  PART OPENERS

  Plan of remains of Roman ship (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Matthew Paris map of London, 1252 (By permission of the British Library [ROY.14.C.VII f2])

  Dore, Ludgate Hill

  Tudor depiction of the market at Eastcheap (By permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library)

  Mid-16th c. map of Moorfields (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Marcellus Laroon, The Merry Milkmaid

  The Rookery of St. Giles (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Punch and Judy puppet show (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Great Plague of 1665 (Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge)

  Christopher Wren and John Evelyn plan of London after the Great Fire, 1666 (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Rowlandson depiction of hanging (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Rowlandson, Revellers at Vauxhall (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Gillray caricature of Sheridan as Punch (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London)

  Cockney flower seller in Covent Garden (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Dore, vagrants huddled on Westminster Bridge

  The Sessions House on Clerkenwell Green (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London)

  The burning of Newgate Prison, 1780, Gordon Riots (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London)

  Title page of Astrologaster of the Figure Caster by John Melton

  Scharf, the building of Carlton House Terrace, c. 1830

  Girgnion engraving of the Fleet River (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London)

  Mayhew, The Sewer Hunter (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Dore, Seven Dials Slum

  Géricault, Pity the Sorrow of a Poor Old Man (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris)

  The Mud-lark (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Scharf, The Original Oyster Shop

  Whistler, Billingsgate (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Hogarth, A Harlot’s Progress

  London Underground poster, 1929

  St. Paul’s Cathedral (Imperial War Museum, London)

  Poster for the Lansbury Council Estate in Poplar (Courtesy of the Museum of London)

  Tribute to Christopher Wren (Guildhall Library, Corporation of London)

  Chronology

  BC<
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  54 Caesar’s first expedition to Britain

  AD

  41 The Roman invasion of Britain

  43 The naming of Londinium

  60 The burning of London by Boudicca

  61–122 The rebuilding of London

  120 The Hadrianic fire of London c.

  c. 190 The building of the great wall

  407 The Roman withdrawal from London

  457 Britons flee London to evade the Saxons

  490 Saxon domination over London

  587 Augustine’s mission to London

  604 Foundation of a bishopric, and St. Paul’s, in London

  672 Reference to “the port of London.” The growth of Lundenwic

  851 London stormed by Vikings

  886 Alfred retakes and rebuilds London

  892 Londoners repel Danish invasion fleet

  959 A great fire in London: St. Paul’s burned

  994 Siege of London by Danish forces

  1013 The second siege of London, by conquering Sweyn

  1016 Third siege of London by Cnut, repulsed

  1035 Harold I elected king by Londoners

  1050 The rebuilding of Westminster Abbey

  1065 Dedication of Westminster Abbey

  1066 The taking of London by William the Conqueror

  1078 The building of the White Tower

  1123 Rahere establishes St. Bartholomew’s