Page:EB1911 - Volume 16.djvu/978

Rh metropolitan police district in 1908–1909, £226,739, and in the county of London (excluding the City) £161,806. A complete re-valuation of properties in the county of London is made every five years, valuation lists being prepared in duplicate by the borough councils acting as overseers of the parishes in their respective boroughs. They are revised by statutory assessment committees, who hear any objections by ratepayers against their valuation. These lists when revised are sent to the clerk of the County Council, who publishes the totals. By the Metropolitan Poor Act 1867, the metropolitan common poor fund, to which each union in London contributes in proportion to its rateable value, was established. Out of this fund certain expenses of guardians in connexion with the maintenance of indoor paupers and lunatics, the salaries of officers, the maintenance of children in poor-law schools, valuation, vaccination, registration, &c., are paid. The payments amounted in 1906–1907 to £1,662,942. Under the Local Government Act 1888, the London County Council makes grants to boards of guardians, sanitary authorities and overseers in London in respect of certain services. This grant is in lieu of the grants formerly made out of the exchequer grant in aid of local rates, and amounted in 1906–1907 to £619,489. Finally, in 1894, the fund called the Equalization Fund was established. This fund is raised by the rate of 6d. in the pound on the assessable value of the county of London, and redistributed among the boroughs in proportion to their population. It amounted in 1906–1907 to £1,094,946. But, in spite of attempts at equalization, rates remain very unequal in London, and varied in 1908 from 6s. 2d. in St Anne’s, Westminster, to 11s. 6d. in Poplar. The London County Council levied in 1909–1910 to meet its estimated expenditure for the year a total rate of 36.75d.; 14.50d. of this was for general county purposes, 19.75d. for education purposes and 2.50d. for special county purposes. The preceding tables show the estimated income and expenditure of the London County Council for 1909–1910.

Besides the annual expenditure of the various authorities large sums have been borrowed to defray the cost of works of a permanent nature. The debt of London, like that of other municipalities, has considerably increased and shows a tendency to go on increasing, although certain safeguards against too ready borrowing have been imposed. Every local authority has to obtain the sanction of some higher authority before raising a loan, and there are in addition certain statutory limits of borrowing. Metropolitan borough councils have to obtain the sanction of the Local Government Board to loans for baths, washhouses, public libraries, sanitary conveniences and certain other purposes under the Public Health Acts; for cemeteries the sanction of the Treasury is required, and for all other purposes that of the London County Council; poor law authorities, the metropolitan asylums board, the metropolitan water board and the central (unemployed) body require the sanction of the Local Government Board; the receiver for the metropolitan police district that of the Home Office, and the London County Council that of parliament and the Treasury. The following table gives the net loans outstanding of the several classes of local authorities in London at the 31st of March 1908:

—Full details and figures relating to the finance of London will be found in the parliamentary papers Local Taxation Returns (England and Wales), part iv. published annually; Returns relating to the London County Council, published annually; the annual report and accounts of the Metropolitan Water Board, and the metropolitan police accounts. The publications of the London County Council, especially the tramways accounts, the annual estimates, London Statistics, and the Financial Abstract (10 years ended 31st March 1908) have much valuable information.

IX.

1. British and Roman to A.D. 449.—There is practically no record of British London, and considerable difference of opinion exists among antiquaries as to its very existence. Bishop Stillingfleet held that London was of Roman foundation and not older than the time of Claudius (Origines Brit., 1685, p. 43); and Dr Guest affirmed that the notion of a British town having “preceded the Roman camp has no foundation to rest upon” (Archaeological Journal, xxiii. 180). J. R. Green expressed the same opinion in The Making of England (p. 101). On the other side Kemble held that it was difficult to believe that Cair Lunden was an unimportant place even in Caesar’s day (Saxons in England, ii. 266); and Thomas Lewin believed that London had attained prosperity before the Romans came, and held that it was probably the capital of Cassivellaunus, which was taken and sacked by Julius Caesar (Archaeologia, xl. 59). The origin of London will probably always remain a subject of dispute for want of decisive facts.

The strongest reason for believing in a British London is to be found in the name, which is undoubtedly Celtic, adopted with little alteration by the Romans. It is also difficult to believe that Londinium had come to be the important commercial centre described by Tacitus ( A.D. 61) if it had only been founded a few years before the conquest of Claudius.

The discovery by General Pitt Rivers in 1867 of the remains of pile dwellings both on the north and on the south of the Thames gives ground for an argument of some force in favour of the date of the foundation of London having been before the Roman occupation of Britain. Of Roman London we possess so many remains that its appearance can be conjectured with little difficulty.

During the centuries when Britain was occupied by the Romans ( A.D. 43–409) there was ample time for cities to grow up from small beginnings, to overflow their borders and to be more than once rebuilt. The earliest Roman London must have been a comparatively small place, but it probably contained a military fort of some kind intended to cover the passage of the river.

The Roman general Paulinus Suetonius, after marching rapidly from Wales to put down a serious insurrection, found Londinium unfitted for a base of military operations, and therefore left the place to the mercy of Boadicea,

who entirely destroyed it, and killed the inhabitants. After this the need of fortifying Londinium must have been apparent, and a walled city of small dimensions arose soon after the defeat of the British queen. The earliest Roman city probably extended as far as Tower Hill on the east, and there is reason to believe that it did not include any ground to the west of Leadenhall. The excavations at the latter place in 1881 threw great light upon the early history of London. The foundation walls of a basilica were discovered, and from the time when that was built until the present day the ground has always been devoted to public uses. How far north the first wall was placed it is difficult to guess. One help towards a settlement of the question may be found in the discovery of burial places. As it was illegal in Roman times to bury within the walls, we are forced to the conclusion that the places where these sepulchral remains have been found were at one time extramural. Now no such remains have been found between Gracechurch Street and the Tower. The northern wall was placed by Roach Smith somewhere along the course of Cornhill and Leadenhall Street. The second extension of the city westwards was probably to Wallbrook.

In the latest or third Roman enclosure the line of the wall ran straight from the Tower to Aldgate, where it bent round somewhat to Bishopsgate. On the east it was bordered by the district subsequently called the Minories and Houndsditch. The line from Bishopsgate ran eastward to St Giles’s churchyard (Cripplegate), where it turned to the south as far as Falcon square; again westerly by Aldersgate round the site of the Greyfriars (afterwards Christ’s Hospital) towards Giltspur Street, then south by the Old Bailey to Ludgate, and then down to the Thames, where Dr Edwin Freshfield suggests that a Roman fortress stood on the site of Baynard’s Castle. This is most probable, because the Romans naturally required a special protection on the river at the west as well as at the east. So in later times when William the Conqueror planned the Tower he gave the site at the western extremity to his follower Ralph Baynard, where was erected the stronghold known as Baynard’s Castle. Roach Smith pointed out that the enclosure indicated above gives dimensions far greater than those of any other town in Britain. There can be no doubt that within the