Jerry White - London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Version 1.0

Epub ISBN 9781407013077

www.randomhouse.co.uk

Published by Vintage 2008

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Copyright Jerry White 2001

Introduction copyright Jerry White 2008

Jerry White has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Viking

Vintage
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA

www.vintage-books.co.uk

Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781845951269

www.vintage-books.co.uk

In memoriam
RAPHAEL SAMUEL

And for
Rosie, Duncan, Thomas,
Jennifer and Catherine

In 1901, London was the greatest city the world had seen in size, wealth and grandeur. Yet is was also a city where poverty and disease were rife. London in 2001 was no longer among the worlds very largest cities, but was still one where vast wealth was displayed alongside beggars sleeping rough. Such paradoxes are among the defining experiences of living in London in this extraordinary century, and in this colourful book Jerry White tells the story not just of London, but of Londoners too. He examines the changes to the worlds of work, transport, popular culture, politics, and government and shows how London affects its inhabitants, shaping their lives and being shaped in turn by them. Beautifully illustrated and with a wealth of detail, this is a definitive and highly readable history of London in the twentieth century.

Jerry White has been writing about London for thirty years. London in the Nineteenth Century: A Human Awful Wonder of God is also published by Vintage. His oral histories, Rothschild Buildings: Life in an East End Tenement Block 1887 1920 (which won the Jewish Chronicle non-fiction book prize for 1980) and Campbell Bunk: the Worst Street in North London Between the Wars, were reprinted by Pimlico in 2003. He is Visiting Professor in London History at Birkbeck and in 2005 was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature by the University of London.

ALSO BY JERRY WHITE

London in the Nineteenth Century: A Human Awful Wonder of God

Rothschild Buildings: Life in an East End Tenement Block 1887 1920

Campbell Bunk: the Worst Street in North London Between the Wars

A Traffic Lock at the Mansion House, c. 1900

Little Italy, Holborn, 1907

Providence Place, Stepney, c. 1909

The Siege of Sidney Street, 3 January 1911

Monkey Parade, Rye Lane, Peckham, 1913

Troops leaving Victoria Station for France in the First World War

Poplarism, 1921

Dock Work, 1930s

Labour Gets Things Done!

Going to the Dogs, 1938

and 12 Boys of Webb Street School, Bermondsey, 1890s and 1930s

Coronation Celebrations at Bangor Street, Notting Dale, May 1937

The Glass Man, Petticoat Lane

Caledonian Market

The Blitz, City, 10 May 1941

Rescue at Bexleyheath, 1940

Bank Station Disaster, 5 February 1941

Alec de Antiquis Shot Dead, Charlotte Street, 29 April 1947

West Indians, Southam Street, 1956

Notting Hill Carnival, c. 1970

Last Flowering of the Port of London, 1958

Swinging London: Carnaby Street, 1968

Before Gentrification: North London, c. 1960

After Gentrification: Chelsea, c. 1975

The Rise of the Council Estate, Poplar, 1953

The Fall of the Council Estate, Hackney, 1998

North London Suburbia, 1982

The Brixton Disorders, 1012 April 1981

IRA Bombing of the Baltic Exchange, May 1992

Full Circle at the Dome

Loadsamoney, c. 1996

No Money at All: Ian, 1996

Guildhall Library, Corporation of London: 1, 16; Hulton Getty: 2, 4, 6, 18, 19; London Metropolitan Archives: 3, 5; Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives: 7; Museum of London, Docklands Collections: 8, 22; Source Unknown. All Rights Reserved: 9,11,12; Bill Brandt/Bill Brandt Archives Ltd; Our Homes, Our Streets, North Kensington Community History Series, No. 2, 1987: 13; Laszlo Moholy-Nagy DACS 2001: 14, 15; Topham Picturepoint: 17; Roger Mayne: 20; Multi-Racial North Kensington, North Kensington Community History Series, No. 2, 1986: 21; Courtesy of the Museum of London: 23; Don McCullin: 24; The Illustrated London News Picture Library: 25; William Whiffin Collection at the Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives: 26; Michael Kirkland: 27; John R. J. Taylor. Photo: courtesy of the Museum of London: 28; PA Photos: 29, 31; The Times: 30, 32; Nick Danziger/Contact Press Images/Colorific

Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders. The publishers will be glad to correct any errors or omissions in future editions.

This is the final volume of a trilogy I never intended to write. Back in 1997, I thought of London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People (2001) as a one-off. But events took over and almost before I knew it, Id committed myself to writing a history of modern London from 1700 to the present day. So this Vintage edition comes twinned with London in the Nineteenth Century: A Human Awful Wonder of God (2007); and London in the Eighteenth Century: This Great and Monstrous Thing should join them some time in 2012.

In all three volumes Ive pursued the thematic approach that I first adopted in this book. Taking a longer span over three centuries has helped me to unpick the knotted strands of metropolitan history. Each strand has a causation and chronology all of its own, and in many ways they are disconnected from each other. On the other hand, just how these strands knot together is what gives London a history at all. It is the combination of forces its giant size on the ground, the massing of strangers from Britain and the world, its unquenchable economic energy, the shifting preoccupations of the Londoner in search of pleasure and solace, the ways in which order is allowed to impose itself on city and people that have made London what it is.

At any point in time it will be the conjuncture of these five forces that defines the experience of life for the Londoner. There will be many continuities, because we are dealing with a place where the weight of history and tradition has pressed especially hard. Yet for each generation of these three centuries under review, the conjuncture was in some way unique.

Ive not been able to spend a volume on each generation. I have, though, tried to give a flavour of how the forces of London life have strained and jostled and manoeuvred across each of the three centuries under review. I have viewed the city pretty much from street level, and so there is a great deal in each volume about the way in which ordinary Londoners have made their way together in time and space. This is the stuff of London. But Ive often had to get above the streets and look down as from an aeronauts balloon a metaphor much favoured by London observers, by the way, since the first ascent there in 1784 to detect shifting patterns on a metropolitan scale. Together, these two have been my vantage points of choice.