1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/London

LONDON (see ), the capital of the British Empire, was still in 1921 the largest city in the world, surpassing its nearest competitor (Greater New York) by at least one and a half million souls. The Metropolitan Police District has a radius of 15 m. from Charing Cross (area about 692 sq. m.)., but it does not include the City of London (area 658 ac.), which has its own police force. The area of the administrative county of London, which coincides with that within the registrar-general's tables of mortality, is about 117 sq. m.; by the Representation of the People Act of 1918 it included the whole of the Metropolitan Parliamentary Divisions, as well as the 28 Metropolitan Boroughs and the City. The London main drainage area is 148.6 sq. m. in extent. Water London has an area of 561.4 sq. m.

The multiplication and electrification of suburban railways and the extraordinary development of the motor-omnibus and the private motor-car have greatly increased the extent of what may be called the practicable area of suburban London. An interesting development is the Hampstead Garden Suburb, at Golders Green, on the N. side of London, in which every house stands in its own garden and the number of houses is limited to eight to the acre. The pre-war rents varied from 3s. 3d. a week to £350 a year. About 2,000 houses have been erected.

The Unemployment (Relief Works) Act of 1920, largely designed for the benefit of ex-service men, enabled entry to be made upon land for new roads at seven days' notice. Under this Act no fewer than nine great arterial roads had been taken in hand in 1921 by highway authorities with the assistance of the Ministry of Transport (which absorbed the old Road Board). These were the Eltham Bye Pass, the Shooters Hill Bye Pass, the South Circular Rd. (through Woolwich, etc.), the North Circular Rd. (through Willesden, Hendon, etc.), the Western Avenue (through Hammersmith), the Eastern Avenue (across the Lea Marshes), the new Cambridge Rd. (starting at Tottenham), the Barking Bye Pass, and the new Chertsey Rd. The Croydon Bye Pass and the Brentford Bye Pass were begun somewhat earlier. There were in 1921 over 2,200 m. of streets in the county of London, maintained and kept in good order at a total cost of at least £3,000,000 per annum. Street improvements of more than local importance are generally carried out by the London County Council.

The only new bridge over the Thames is Southwark bridge, which was opened for traffic on June 6 1921. It has five arches and is 13 ft. wider than the old one.

The Woolwich tunnel, connecting N. and S. Woolwich and consisting of an iron tube 327 yd. long and 11 ft. in diameter, was opened in 1912 at a cost of £85,862. It is intended as a supplement to the free ferry (still used by vehicles), which is subject to interference from fogs. In 1920 the daily average of passengers using this tunnel was about 28,000, not far short of double the number using the Greenwich tunnel. Blackwall tunnel is traversed daily by about 2,000 vehicles. Rotherhithe tunnel was closed from 1915 to 1918, but its daily average in 1919 was about 1,500 vehicles.

Architecture.—During 1910-21 comparatively few additions of importance were made to the architectural glories of London; but it is, perhaps, more strange that the interminable series of

aerial bombardments to which it was subjected during the World War left practically no trace on any buildings of public interest. There was really almost nothing to show that London was besieged from the air for four years. The fine old Flemish windows in the chapel of Lincoln's Inn were indeed shattered by a Zeppelin bomb on Oct. 13 1915; but this loss is, perhaps, counterbalanced by the discovery of an unknown Elizabethan façade near St. Bartholomew's church, brought to light by the concussion of another bomb in the same year.

Such new buildings as call for mention here were mainly erected in connexion with schemes of improvement initiated before the World War. The extensive clearances made in and to the N. of the Strand in 1899-1905, chiefly to provide a new approach to Holborn, opened up the view of St. Mary-le-Strand and St. Clement Danes, and created the handsome crescent of Aldwych and the broad new thoroughfare of Kingsway. Among the edifices already erected in the former are Australia House (1911-18), the imposing London headquarters of the Commonwealth of Australia; the Marconi House, and the Gaiety theatre (elevation by Norman Shaw). The Bush House, close by, designed by Harvey Corbett, architect of the Bush building in New York, illustrates (with some restrictions as to height) the merits of American commercial architecture. The substantial buildings of Kingsway belong mainly to the domain of architectural engineering. Prominent among them are the Kodak building and the large office of the Public Trustee (1916). The Wesleyan Central Hall in Westminster is a huge domed building by Lanchester and Rickard (1911), with a fine staircase. Not far off is the Middlesex Guildhall, a Gothic building by J. S. Gibson (1913). The new Ministries of Education, Health, Trade and Works were designed by J. M. Brydon in an Italian Renaissance style and completed in 1919. Across the river, at the other end of Westminster bridge, stands the new London County Hall, designed by Ralph Knott in a Renaissance style. It is one of the largest buildings of modern times, having nine storeys and a river façade of 750 feet. In the City is the new General Post Office (1910), a reënforced concrete building by Sir Henry Tanner. The Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall was built in 1911 by Mewes & Davis, in a somewhat florid French Renaissance style. Among commercial buildings of importance are the large extension of Selfridge's store by Sir J. Burnet (1921); the extension of Whiteley's in Queen's Rd., Bayswater; the new offices of the Port of London Authority (by T. E. Cooper) and the Metropolitan Water Board (by H. Austen Hall, 1920).

Monuments and Memorials.—On Nov. 11 1920, the second anniversary of the Armistice after the World War, in the middle of the roadway of Whitehall, was unveiled the Cenotaph, commemorating in dignified simplicity the &ldquo;Glorious Dead of 1914-18.&rdquo; It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Other war memorials include one to Edith Cavell (by Frampton) near Trafalgar Sq., one to London's soldiers (by Sir Aston Webb) in front of the Royal Exchange, and the Monument of Belgium's Gratitude (by J. Rousseau and Sir R. Blomfield) on the Victoria Embankment. In front of Buckingham Palace is the elaborate National Memorial to Queen Victoria, designed by Sir Aston Webb, the sculptures by Sir Thomas Brock. To provide a suitable background for this monument the façade of the E. wing of Buckingham Palace was rebuilt by Sir Aston Webb, while the Mall was widened to provide a &ldquo;triumphal avenue&rdquo; to the massive Admiralty arch. Near Westminster Abbey has been erected a replica of St. Gaudens' famous Chicago statue of Abraham Lincoln; and a replica of Houdon's statue of George Washington has been set up near the National Gallery. On the top of the Green Park arch is a fine group of Peace in her quadriga, by Adrian Jones (1912). On the Horse Guards Parade are statues of Lord Wolseley (by Goscombe John) and Lord Roberts (by H. Bates); and similar monuments to Lord Kitchener and Lord Fisher are to follow. Statues of Florence Nightingale (1913) and Captain Scott, the Arctic navigator (1915), have been erected in Waterloo Place; and here, too, is the monument to Edward VII., by Bertram MacKennal (1921).

Communication.—The terminal railway stations were, of course, a favourite target of the German airmen during the war; considerable damage was done to Liverpool St. station on June 13 1917, and St. Pancras also was injured slightly on Feb. 17 1918. The new Waterloo station, begun before the war, was nearly completed in 1921. The Central London railway had been extended to Liverpool St. and Ealing (in conjunction with the G.W.R.) The Bakerloo tube ran to Queen's Park, where a junction was effected with the L. & N.W.R. for through running to Watford. The Metropolitan District trains reach Hounslow, Uxbridge. East Ham and Barking. No new &ldquo;tubes&rdquo; had been opened, but various schemes of extension were in the air. The Underground group of companies (popularly known as the &ldquo;Traffic Combine&rdquo;), formed by the amalgamation of the Metropolitan District, the London Electric, the City and South London and Central London railways, and the London General Omnibus Co., had greatly improved facilities for through traffic between the associated companies. Its headquarters are at Electric Railway House, Broadway, Westminster. Fares had been standardized and, though necessarily higher than in pre-war days, were (judged by the average fare paid per passenger) cheaper than in New York, Paris or Berlin.

The total mileage of tramways in Greater London in 1921 was 350. Horse traction for trams had disappeared. The annual number of passengers approached 700 millions. There were no tramways in the City or West End.

The great majority of motor omnibuses belong to the London General Omnibus Co., and are included in the above-mentioned &ldquo;Combine&rdquo; and in one system of numbered routes. Improved new vehicles have been introduced, carrying from 46 to 54 passengers (as compared with 34 on the old type). They carried 860 million passengers in all in 1919. During the busiest traffic period at least 300 to 400 omnibuses pass certain points hourly. In summer motor-omnibuses run to points 30 m. from the centre of the metropolis. A notable feature has been the great increase in motor chars-à-bancs running to places of interest within a radius of 50 m. or more from London.

Hansoms are now rarely seen, and the horse-drawn four-wheeler carries on a precarious existence only in the service of railway passengers with bulky luggage. The general service is maintained by motor vehicles (&ldquo;taxicabs&rdquo;), all provided with automatic taximeters. Of the 13,794 hackney carriages licensed to ply for hire in 1919, less than 2,000 were horse-drawn. Probably 75% of the entire traffic of the London streets is now carried on by motor.

London was in 1921 in regular communication with the continent of Europe by air. There were four daily services to Paris, one to Brussels, and one to Amsterdam, all starting from the Croydon aerodrome. About 400 passengers were dealt with weekly, and the number was steadily increasing. These services connect with air-services to various other points in Europe and even (via Spain) to Africa (Casablanca).

Post Office.—The buildings of the General Post Office were greatly extended, and an underground tube railway was constructed for the conveyance of postal packets of all kinds, extending W. to Paddington and E. to Whitechapel. The eight postal districts were subdivided into delivery office areas, each with its distinctive number, so that postal addresses are now completed with such formulae as W.C.1, N.W.3, S.E.25, and so on. In addition to the General Post Office and the head district offices there were 105 local delivery offices.

Telephones.—In accordance with the agreement of 1905 the State took over the whole business of the National Telephone Co. on Jan. 1 1912. Telephone call offices for public use are now found at nearly all post-offices and railway stations, and at many shops, public libraries and the like. The London telephone area is 640 sq. m. in extent, containing 83 exchanges with an average of about 1,000,000 daily calls. Its headquarters are at I44A, Queen Victoria Street. From certain offices trunk calls may be made to any part of the country; and London is also in telephonic communication with various Continental towns.

Population and Public Health.—The pop. of Greater London

in 1911 was 7,251,338 and in 1921 7,476,168; that of the county was 4,521,685 in 1911 and 4,483,249 in 1921; of the Outer Ring 2,729,673 in 1911 and 2,992,929 in 1921; of the City 19,657 in 1911 and 13,706 in 1921. Greater London increased by 10.2% between 1901 and 1911 and by 3.1% between 1911 and 1921, but the county of London had decreased by 0.3% and 0.9%.

The statistics for the metropolitan boroughs are as follows:&mdash;

The proposed new &ldquo;London health area&rdquo; would contain more than 9,000,000 souls.

The birth-rate sank from 24.3 per 1,000 in 1914 to 17.9 in 1917, but it had climbed again (according to the estimates of the registrar-general) to 26.5 in 1920. The death-rate curve for the same period was 13, 18, 12.4. Both birth and death rates are below the figures for 1910-4 (28.5 and 16.5 respectively). The comparative death-rates for the different boroughs were about the same, and London maintained its relatively favourable position in comparison with other large towns.

Government.—The Representation of the People Act of 1918 somewhat altered the boundaries of the London parliamentary boroughs. Since the passing of the Act, the London County Council has consisted of 124 councillors and 20 aldermen. The number of electors in London on the first registers compiled under the Act of 1918 was as follows:&mdash;

At the election of 1919 (postponed during the World War) there were returned 68 Municipal Reform (or &ldquo;Moderates&rdquo;), 40 Progressive, one Independent, and 15 Labour members.

The Representation of the People Act, 1918, rearranged the boundaries of all the London parliamentary boroughs, except the City of London. It provided that the Administrative County of London should be divided into 61 parliamentary constituencies, the City of London returning two members, the others one each (see ). The boundaries of the county electoral divisions are coterminous with those of the parliamentary constituencies.

History.—The history of London after 1909 was largely the chronicle of an interruption or arrest of its normal growth in population, extent, wealth and progress generally. According to the estimates of the registrar-general the increase in population from 1911-20 was relatively small. Between 1911 and 1920 the assessable value increased only by about 2½%, as compared with an increase of 12½% in 1901-11, and of 20% in 1891-1901. The tonnage of shipping entering and clearing the port had not yet regained in 1920 its pre-war figure, though the inflation of values showed an increase in terms of money. With the exception of relatively unimportant extensions no new tubes or tramways had been constructed; new schemes of improvement and extensions in streets, housing, water-supply and the like had been suspended, or only just resumed. The death-rate, which had decreased steadily down to 1912, jumped from 13.6 per 1,000 in that year to 19.2 in 1918, and the birth-rate decreased in a similar proportion. This &ldquo;arrest,&rdquo; however, had by no means been due to stagnation, because probably no similar period had taken London's citizens more emphatically out of the category of the happy people who have no history and into the realm of excitement and adventure. On May 31 1915, London

was startled by the first hostile attack it had experienced for nine centuries; and from then till May 1918 it was the persistent target of German airmen (see ). In all it was reached 25 times by hostile air-ships (seven raids) and aeroplanes (eighteen raids). No fewer than 922 bombs were dropped within the county of London, of which 355 were incendiary and 567 explosive; 524 persons were killed and 1,264 injured. The material damage has been estimated at over £2,000,000, or about one-fifth of that occasioned by the great fire of 1666. East London suffered most severely. Practically no buildings of historic or artistic value were seriously injured. London's defence, which was increasingly successful, consisted partly of barrage fire from anti-aircraft guns and partly of British &ldquo;counter-planes.&rdquo; An &ldquo;apron barrage&rdquo; of wire trailed from balloons was also tried. Tube stations, church crypts and so on were used as refuges between the &ldquo;warning&rdquo; and &ldquo;all clear&rdquo; signals. On June 13 1917, a bomb fell on a County Council school at Poplar, killing and injuring a number of children. On March 7 1918, a single bomb destroyed four four-storey houses in Paddington, wrecked two, and seriously damaged twelve others. The greatest financial damage was done by the raid of Sept. 7 1915, when City property to the value of over £500,000 was destroyed by fire. (For particulars of damage done elsewhere than in Poplar by the air raid of June 13 1917, see .)

The war-time restrictions included the great diminution of the lighting of the streets after nightfall; an airship patrol to see that the shading of all lights was properly carried out; the patrolling of voluntary &ldquo;special constables,&rdquo; taking over many of the duties of the regular police; the multiplication of &ldquo;flag-days,&rdquo; when little flags were sold in the streets for benevolent purposes usually directly associated with the war; the occupation of the public parks and other open spaces by hutments for one kind or another of Government service, or by allotments cultivated by private citizens for the increase of the national food-supply; the limitation in the transport services, including the closing of several suburban stations; the restriction of private motoring; the queues outside the provision shops; the commandeering by Government of many of the leading hotels and of numerous large private houses, the latter chiefly as hospitals and convalescent homes; the closing of a certain proportion of places of entertainment, and the temporary abandonment or transference elsewhere of some of the chief annual fixtures in the sphere of sport; the closing (total or partial) of the British Museum, National Gallery, and other public collections; the protection of historic buildings by sand-bags, the temporary removal of their treasures, and the substitution of wood for stained glass; the arrangements for the accommodation and support of many thousands of Belgian refugees; the setting apart of the Alexandra Palace and other large institutions as internment camps; the appearance of women as omnibus and tramway conductors (an outward and visible sign of the enormous part played by women during the war in providing substitutes for male labour). Aliens, of course, had to submit in London to the general restrictions, but London never became a &ldquo;prohibited area.&rdquo;

During the war London and its neighbourhood became the seat of a very extensive production of munitions of all kinds, employing great numbers of women as well as men. One of the unhappy incidents of their activity was the explosion of a munition factory at Silvertown on Jan. 19 1917, followed by a disastrous fire and the loss of 69 lives (400 casualties in all).

Among other London incidents directly connected with the war may be mentioned the anti-German riots of 1914; the execution of Sir Roger Casement at Pentonville on Aug. 13 1916; the execution in the Tower of Carl Lodz (1914), Müller (1915), and other spies and traitors; the march of American troops through London on Aug. 15 1917; the burial of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey (Nov. 11 1920), the great memorial services in St; Paul's Cathedral in honour of Nurse Cavell (1915); to celebrate America's coming into the war (1917); to render thanks for the restoration of peace (July 6 1919); and the remarkable scenes of rejoicing in the London streets on the proclamation of the Armistice on Nov. 11 1918.

Among events not due to the war were the death of Edward VII. at Buckingham Palace in 1910, the coronation of George V. at Westminster Abbey in the following year; the &ldquo;Suffragette&rdquo; violence of 1914, amply atoned for later in public estimation by the admirable war services of the women suffragists; the first aerial Derby round London on June 6 1914; the more or less abortive police strike of Aug. 1919 (for recognition of their union); the railway strike of Sept. in the same year, when 20,000 motor-cars were assembled in Hyde Park to maintain the supply of milk; the coal-miners' strike of 1921, when the authorities had again to have recourse to emergency measures for public protection; the great advance in the use of oil fuel, largely consequent on the shortage of coal caused by the strike.

Recent excavations in London have brought to light an arch of old London bridge (near St. Magnus' church), fragments of the Roman wall in Moorfields, and a number of 15th century boots and shoes in such good condition that the leather was used by the modern workmen to mend their own footwear; a water conduit of doubtful use and date under Bond St. (possibly of the 17th century, and used as a reservoir for the water of Tyburn); and Roman coins and charred remains of clay and wood in King William St., referred by some authorities to Boadicea's destruction of London in 61 A.D.


 * (J. F. M.)