History of London
Roman London. London began about 43 A.D., when armies of the Roman Empire started
to conquer Britain. The Romans built a bridge across the Thames. They later decided it was
an excellent place to build a seaport. The water was deep enough for ocean going ships but it
was far enough inland to be safe from Germanic raiders. Around 50 A.D. Roman merchants
built a town by the bridge. So London was born ! They probably chose this site because the
river banks east of this point were too marshy for settlement. The Romans called the port
Londinium. The name London comes from this word.
Then in 61 A.D.Boudicca, Queen of a native British tribe, led a rebellion against the
Romans. Her army marched on London and burnt it to the ground.
By the early 200´s , the Romans had built a wall around London, possibly to protect it
from raiders.
In 410, a barbarian invaders attacked Rome. The Roman troops in Britain were called home
to fight the invaders. This date thus marks the end of Roman control over Britain. Little of
Roman London remains, except for parts of the original wall and the ruins of a few buildings.
In the fifth century Britain was invaded by the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes (who came
from Holland, Germany and Denmark). These „Anglo-Saxons“ were farmers and lived
outside big towns. We know very little about what happened to London in this period. By the
beginning of the 7th century the city had become important again and a cathedral (St.Paul´s )
was built. There is still a cathedral (but not the same one !) on the same spot.
Once again we know very little about London for a few hundred years, although during the
9th and 10th centuries there were many attacks by the Vikings. It is thought that the following
popular nursery rhyme probably records an attack against London by the Viking, Olaf, at the
beginning of the 11th century.
„London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
London bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.“
Soon afterwards, the Normans invaded from France and William the Conqueror took
control. He quickly began to build a stronghold to guard London, the Tower of London. The
Tower has been used as a castle, a palace, a zoo, a weapons store, a mint (where coins are
made) and a prison. In 1176 a work began on a new stone bridge to replace the wooden one
which the Romans had built a thousand years before. The new bridge was completed in 1209,
and would be in existence until 1832, remaining the only bridge across the Thames until
1750.
The city became a true capital under Edward III, who placed the royal administrative
center at Westminster in the 14th century. London was the only city in the Middle Ages
which was comparable in size to the great cities of Europe. Between 1500 and 1800 it grew
steadily, though during the Middle Ages its population never reached the levels it had had in
Roman times.
The living conditions were so unhealthy that the death rate in the city, well into the 18th
century, was twice the birth rate. The streets, since medieval times, had always been filthy,
filled with mud, excrement, and offal. The water was polluted, rats were everywhere. The
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Black Death of 1348 killed two thirds of the inhabitants and there were many serious
outbreaks of the plague in the 17th century. The last major outbreak of the bubonic plague
was the Great Plague in 1665. During the summer of that year perhaps 70,000 persons died.
London grew rapidly during the 1500´s and the first half of the 1600´s. . Nobles built
estates to the west, just outside London´s walls. King Henry VIII owned at least six palaces in
the London area, including the Palace of Westminster.
London developed into an important world trading center under Queen Elizabeth I, who
reigned from 1558 to 1603. Also England´s first public theatres opened in London suburbs
during her reign. One of the most popular theatres was the GLOBE, where Shakespeare
began to present his plays about 1599.
By the mid-1600´s , London had about half a millon people. Most Londoners now lived
outside the walls, where slums rapidly came into existence. The area inside the walls
gradually came to be known as the City.
A struggle for power between King Charles I and Parliament resulted in Civil War in
1642. The royalists made one attempt to capture London in 1643 but their army was met six
miles west of St. Paul´s by a much larger Parliamentary army. The royalists withdrew
However, the Puritan government of 1646-1660 was hated by many ordinary people and
when Charles II came to London from France in 1660 an estimated 20,000 people gathered in
the streets to meet him. All the churches in London rang their bells.
The Great Fire of London began on 2 September 1666 in a baker´s house in Pudding
Lane. At first it did not cause undue alarm. The Lord Mayor was awoken and said:“Pish! A
woman might piss it out!“.But the wind caused the flames to spread rapidly. People formed
chains with leather buckets and worked hand operated pumps but the fire went on. The Mayor
was advised to use gunpowder to create fire breaks but he was reluctant, fearing the owners of
destroyed buildings would demand compensation.The fire continued to spread until the King
took charge. He ordered sailors to make fire breaks. At the same time the wind dropped.
About 13,200 houses had been destroyed and 70-80,000 people had been homeless. Most of
the City, built largely of wood, lay in ashes. But the fire caused no known deaths.
Rebuilding the City. Londoners rebuilt the City with brick and stone instead of timber.
The great architect of the new City was Sir Christopher Wren, who rebuilt many structures
lost in the fire, including St. Paul´s Cathedral.
London´s businesses soon recovered from losses suffered in the Great Fire. Britain was a
very powerful nation in the 18th century and London, with its trading capabilities, was the
centre of its power. Goods were brought into London from all over the world. During this
century, London also became an important financial centre. Much of the business was done in
coffee houses in the Square Mile. Lloyd´s insurance company started in the coffee house of
Edward Lloyd in the 1680´s. The London Stock Exchange began in the 1700´s in a coffee
house called Jonathan´s.
The world´s largest city. Queen Victoria was crowned in 1837 and died in 1901. During her
reign London expanded enormously as industry came to Britain and railways were built
linking much of Britain to the capital. London was the centre of world trade.
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Many of the buildings in London today were built in Victorian times. The most famous is
probably the Houses of Parliament, built in 1834 after a fire destroyed the original buildings.
Many people live in houses built during Queen Victoria´s reign.
By 1800 London had about a million people, more than any other city in the world. During
the Industrial Revolution London developed markets for factory-produced goods. The City´s
merchants and bankers made enormous fortunes. But many workers were desperately
poor.They lived in crowded and smelly slums. There were outbreaks of cholera in 1831,1848
and finally in 1866. In 1859 work began on building a system of sewers for the whole city but
it was not complete till 1875. After that deaths from diseases fell drastically.
In 1807 gas light was used for the first time at Pall Mall and by the 1840´s was being used
all over London. Electric light was first used in Holborn in 1883. By the 1840´s there were
horse drawn buses and from the 1870´s horse drawn trams. The first underground
railway opened in 1863. At first carriages were pulled by steam trains. The system was
electrified in 1890-1905.
London continued to be a great port. In the 18th century the river became overcrowded so
docks were built.
London was also a great manufacturing centre. In the early 20th century the old
industries (brewing, sugar refining, flour milling, engineering) continued by new industries
grew in the suburbs as aircraft building, vehicle manufacturing and making electrical goods.
Shopping had always been good in London, but big department stores were built in the
early part of 20th entury (Harrods and Selfridges). These were the first of their kind.
In the summer of 1940, Germany began an all-out air attack on Britain. London became
the chief target of the attack. Night after night, German planes dropped bombs on the built-up
area. The Blitz, as the attack was known, lasted from September 1940 to May 1941. During
the Blitz, many people took shelter in the underground railway stations. In 1944 Germany
began firing missiles (V-1, V-2) at London By the end of the war 30,000 Londoner civilians
had been killed, that is almost half of the total number of civilians killed in the UK. Only 1 in
10 building were undamaged, in the City one-third of the buildings no longer existed. More
than 12,000 tons of high explosives had been dropped (the most for any other city was 2,000!)
In 1944 a plan for post-war London was published. The authorities felt he city was
overcrowded and they planned to create a ring of satellite towns 20-30 miles from London.
The plan also called for the rebuilding of heavily bombed areas and the development of the
South Bank.
In the 1950´s London boomed. Car factories were very busy. So were the aircraft
factories in north London. The docks were also busy, employing 30,000 men. But in the
1960´s the docks began to suffer from the break up of the British Empire. The newly
independent countries began to trade with other countries than Britain and London docks
suffered as a result. The decline of the old docklands was also caused ba the fact that the river
is no longer deep enough for modern ships.
In the 1960´s , skyscrapers began to appear in central London, changing the skyline
dramatically.
London was long noted for its smogs, caused mainly by smoke from houses and
industries. A terrible smog in 1952 killed about 4,000 Londoners. Parliament passed a Clean
Air Act in 1956, which limited the use of smoke-producing fuels in London. By the 1970´s,
London was noted for its clean air.
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In the 1950´s West Indian immigrants started to arrive in London and by 1955 20,000
were arriving each year. They met with prejudice and hostility which culminated in the race
riots at Notting Hill in 1958. In the early 1960´s Asians arrived as well. Many of them took
over corner shops. Both Chinese and Indians opened restaurants
Motor traffic remains one of London´s worst problems. The government has proposed
building more motorways in central London. But many people oppose the plan bacause it
requires moving hundreds of families from their homes. To relieve some of the traffic
problems, the government built a motorway, called the M25, which completely circles
London. It opened in 1988.
In 1981, the government set up the London Dockland Development Corporation to
develop derelict land around the docks area of east London. The Corporation task was to
attract new businesses and residents to the area. In 1987, the Docklands Light Railway opened
to help public transport to the region.
Despite immigration the population of London fell after 1945. However, in the last years
of the 20th century the polupation began to grow rapidly again. Today the population of
London is 7.2 million.
London was, of course, also Britain´s artistic and literary capital. For centuries, with its
publishers, newspapers, journals and weeklies, Coffee-Houses, taverns, and literary salons,
the city played an important role in the life, development, and work of every English literary
figure. London lies in the center of the lives of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Swift,
Carlyle, Dickens and Kipling.
London is a unique city with its combination of history, industry and culture.
It is well worth a visit. No wonder, the famous Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) once wrote:
„When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can
afford.“
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