London: history

The White Tower, the oldest part of the Tower of London, on the banks of the Thames River, London. This tower was constructed from 1078, by the followers of William the Conqueror, and the remainder of the fortress was built around it by succeeding monarchs.

London's history is essentially that of two cities: Westminster, the UK's political and administrative centre, seat of the government and royal court; and the City of London, the capital's economic centre, with a separately evolved administration in the corporation of the City of London. London became the administrative capital of the British Empire and the economic nerve centre of Britain's great trading empire.

Location and settlement London was founded on a naturally protected site at the lowest bridging point and highest navigable point for sea shipping on the River Thames, the principal entry into England from mainland Europe. Studies of the early landscape suggest that the river was up to four times its present width, with shallow edges and sandy islands, and that London was located at the limit of the tidal flow. Occupying the firm river gravel on and around the small rises of Cornhill and Ludgate Hill, the site was defended by the Thames to the south, marshland to the east up to and beyond the River Lea, further marshes and woodland to the north and northwest, and the River Fleet to the west. Another tract of gravel on the south bank of the river supported the growth of Southwark, London's first suburb. Evidence of Celtic settlement has been found in several suburbs but not on the site of the City of London. Some fine pieces of Celtic metalwork, notably the Battersea shield, a unique oval bronze shield with 27 settings of red enamel, have been recovered from the Thames.

Roman Londinium Soon after the Roman invasion of AD 43, Londinium was established east of the Walbrook, probably near a pontoon bridging point. Its name may have derived from a local personal or tribal name evolved from the Celtic londinos meaning ‘wild’ or ‘fierce’. Excavations of Roman quays about 100 m/330 ft behind the modern riverfront indicate the earlier width of the Thames. In AD 60 the first settlement was burned by Boudicca, the queen of the native Iceni people, an event recorded by the Roman historian Tacitus in his Annales (115–17), with the comment that Londinium was a considerable trading centre at the time. Rebuilding extended the settlement to Ludgate Hill, and a fort was established in the Cripplegate area. Around AD 80, the first basilica was constructed on the present location of Leadenhall Market, and a permanent bridge was built near the future site of London Bridge. Southwark, at the southern end of the bridge, also developed as part of the port with quays, warehouses, and a substantial villa. In about 120 the early basilica was replaced by a 152-m/500-ft-long hall, the largest basilica north of the Alps, and an amphitheatre for 8,000 spectators was constructed over an older arena near the Guildhall, remaining in use until about 370. A large section of the city was erased by a great fire in the 120s, although the larger stone constructions survived. After 150, the city's population plummeted, possibly because of plague or economic decline.

Between about 190 and 225, a substantial wall was erected around the city, 6 m/20 ft high and 2.5 m/8 ft thick, with ditches to the north and east, and a walkway along the top. Running northwards from the southeast corner of the settlement (later the site of the Tower of London), it curved to the west from the Moorgate marsh to the River Fleet, and finally south to the Thames. In the 3rd century the defences were extended to line the river bank, and in the 4th century they were reinforced with 20 outer D-shaped bastions. The walls remained in use throughout the Middle Ages, but were mostly demolished during the expansion of London in the 18th century. With an enclosed area of 133.5 ha/330 acres, about half the size of the present City of London, Londinium was the fifth largest conurbation in the Western world. It became the hub of Roman Britain's road system and its financial centre, a mint being established between 290 and 326 and again from 383 to 388. Other buildings included a bathhouse complex, a great palace with a 130-m/425-ft-long riverside terrace, and a temple dedicated to Mithras, built around 240–50 in Walbrook. The temple remained in use until the 4th century. The only other surviving remains of London's Roman period are part of a heated building at the site of the former Coal Exchange, vestiges of the changing rooms at the amphitheatre, and numerous pieces of sculpture, mosaic, and pottery now housed in the Museum of London and the British Museum.

Pre-Conquest London Little is known of London between the withdrawal of Roman government in 410 and the 11th century. In 604 King Ethelbert of Kent founded the church of St Paul's in Saxon Lundenwic. The main area of Saxon settlement lay outside the city walls along the Strand to Westminster, probably leaving the walled area to the church and temporal ruling bodies. The settlement remained a great trading centre, noted by Bede as an international port in 730. London was sacked by the Viking Danes in 842 and 851, and had become their winter quarters by 871, but in 886 Alfred the Great recaptured the city and repaired its walls. By the end of the 10th century London was already the principal trading community of England, with its own portreeve or sheriff (a royal official and tax collector). Its early constitutional and judicial structures had developed far beyond those of any other English town, and a patrician class had emerged. Popular government was administered at the folkmoot, a council which met in an open area at the northeast of St Paul's, and judicial functions were carried out by the husting (from the Danish husthing, ‘house assembly’), presided over by aldermen sitting as lawyers.

Danish attacks were renewed in the late 10th century. The city was captured in 1013, but retaken by Ethelred II the Unready in 1014; his ships attached ropes to the posts of London's bridge and rowed away, sending the structure and its Danish defenders crashing into the river. The Danish king Canute (reigning 1016–40) made London his capital in preference to Winchester, and gathered one-seventh of his revenues from the city. In 1042 Edward the Confessor came to the throne and established his capital at Westminster near the 9th-century Benedictine monastery of St Peter, 3 km/2 mi upriver from the city. He began the construction of Westminster Palace, now the site of the Houses of Parliament, and in 1050 commenced the rebuilding of the Benedictine monastery, which later became Westminster Abbey.

Norman London After the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William (I) the Conqueror marched to secure London, but the citizens put up stout resistance, unintimidated by the burning of Southwark. Evading further direct action from the south, William crossed the Thames at Wallingford and achieved London's submission by threatening the city from the north. On Christmas Day 1066, William became the first king to be crowned in Westminster Abbey. He declared London the joint capital of England with Winchester, and granted a charter confirming the city's existing rights. By 1100 three forts had been erected to dominate and protect the city, including the White Tower of the Tower of London to the east and Baynard's Castle to the west. At first the White Tower was the king's principal London residence and fortress, but as Norman rule became established, William's descendants stayed more frequently in the royal palace at Westminster outside the city walls. The removal of the royal presence left the city more completely in the hands of its merchants, who asserted their freedom from the direct control of the crown; this autonomy remains enshrined in ceremonial tradition, as a sovereign wishing to enter the City of London today must still receive the keys of admission from the mayor at the former gate of Temple Bar.

At the time of the Norman conquest little of London lay beyond the city walls, but by the end of the 11th century small suburbs had grown up at the various gates, chiefly at Ludgate, Cripplegate, and Bishopsgate, and the more important districts were made wards of the city.

Growth of the guilds The first records of the economic guilds, chartered associations controlling a trade or craft, appeared in the early 12th century. The Weavers were in existence in 1130, the Saddlers in 1154, and several others before the end of the century. They became known as the livery companies because of their distinctive formal dress or livery. Apart from securing a monopoly and maintaining standards in their economic sphere, they also carried out social and religious functions, and played an increasing role in the city's government, such as the nomination of civic officials. With the exception of the Goldsmiths, the first guilds were trading or merchant guilds, but these were soon followed by the craft guilds, societies of craftsmen with a hierarchy of masters, journeymen, and apprentices. It is possible that some artisans belonged to both kinds of guilds, but there was nevertheless a clear division and friction often arose over the control of city institutions. Increasing commercial and industrial prosperity was matched by a proliferation of the craft guilds, particularly during the reign of Edward III (1327–77), who issued a charter confirming the liberties of London for conducting trade and made Westminster the regular meeting place for Parliament. Master craftsmen often became wealthy employers, and favourable economic forces gradually led to the domination of the common council by the craft guilds, who attained the height of their power in the late 14th and 15th centuries. Among the most important guilds at this time were the Mercers, Grocers, Drapers, and Goldsmiths. Magnificent guildhalls celebrating their wealth and supremacy were commissioned in the 15th century. The religious guilds, flourishing from the 13th century, also took some part in London's municipal government. Formed as private societies for religious or charitable purposes, they maintained schools and hospitals, roads and bridges, assisted the poor, and paid for the masses for the souls of dead members.

Relationships between crown and city In general medieval London was left to the control of the guilds, and dealings with the crown remained amicable as long as the city's privileges were observed and its economic interests were protected and promoted; considerable financial aid to the royal treasury encouraged the compliance of the monarchy. A charter granted by Henry I about 1130 allowed London to elect its own justices and collect its own customs, and gave the farm (rents, taxes, and other dues) of Middlesex for an annual payment of £300, the county being placed under the control of a sheriff. During the civil wars of Stephen's reign (1135–54) London was mainly on the side of the king, although it capitulated to a show of strength by his rival Matilda. In 1197 Richard (I) the Lion-Heart gave London control of the Thames, including its lucrative fishing rights. William de Longchamp (died 1197), Richard's minister during his absence on crusade, attempted to seize control of the country from his headquarters in the Tower in 1191, but was deposed by the future King John, who in return for their support granted the citizens of London the right to be governed as a commune. Although in effect London already possessed autonomy from Westminster, its administration in the form of an elected mayor and aldermen of the City of London was instituted from this time.

In the early 13th century the City of London played a considerable part in the agitation leading up to the creation of the Magna Carta, a charter traditionally seen as guaranteeing human rights against excessive use of royal power. On 25 August 1213 the barons assembled at St Paul's Cathedral where Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, appealed to them to maintain the liberties of the realm. Under the provisions of the Magna Carta, granted by King John in 1215, London received all its ancient liberties and free customs, and the mayor of London was appointed as the only commoner among the charter's 25 guardians. In 1261, when Henry III refused to recognize the appointment of a mayor, London retaliated by actively supporting a revolt led by Simon de Montfort in the second of the Barons' Wars. The king was defeated and captured at the Battle of Lewes in 1264, reputedly because Prince Edward (later Edward I) left the field of battle to pursue the London contingent. Anger at a poll tax, imposed on all regardless of means, encouraged the citizens of London to open the gates to Wat Tyler's Kentish rebels during the 1381 Peasants' Revolt. The archbishop and numerous clerics and merchants were killed, but the movement failed when their leader was murdered by the mayor of London at Smithfield during a meeting with Richard II.

However, it was usually in the crown's financial interests to maintain a good relationship with the City of London's wealthy citizens and guilds. Some of the richer merchants, such as William Walworth and Richard Whittington, both mayors of London, lent considerable sums to the crown. Edward IV, reigning 1461–70 and 1471–83, was considered a great patron of London; he generously granted or renewed charters, became a wool trader himself, and paid his debts punctually. He also granted the Hanseatic League (a foreign confederation monopolizing the Baltic trade) almost complete independence within their guild house, the Steelyard, but this became unpopular and their privileges were withdrawn in the 16th century under Elizabeth I.

Medieval economy and society London's population grew from about 20,000 at the end of the 11th century to around 80–100,000 in the 1340s. The guilds, limited to defined areas by craft or trade, were mainly located around Eastcheap or Cheapside, site of the Cheap, a permanent fair and market originating in Anglo-Saxon times. Surviving street names, such as Bread Street, Sea Coal Lane, and Ironmonger Lane, indicate the former centres of particular trades. Other markets included Billingsgate, specializing in fish; Leadenhall (1309), for poultry; and Smithfield, a livestock and meat market and the scene of the annual St Bartholomew's Fair. The city's craftwork and markets offered great variety and achieved standards of excellence highly regarded throughout Europe. In 1327 a charter of the London Goldsmiths instituted the hallmark to prevent fraud. Flemings and Walloons, the most numerous immigrants to London, brought with them their skills in clothmaking, brewing, brickmaking, working leather, and making glass and metal goods. London's port was also vital to the life of the city in this period; foodstuffs, wool, and hides were the main exports and wines, spices, and silks the main imports.

Plague and fire often beset the city. In the 12th century, with the exception of a few nobles' mansions, most of London was built of wood and roofed with thatch. In 1136 a great fire swept from St Paul's to London Bridge and Aldgate, causing immense devastation. Regulations passed in 1189 decreed that the ground floors of buildings should be of stone and roofs tiled or slated, but the use of timber persisted. London Bridge was first built of stone between 1176 and 1209. Linking the City with Southwark on the south bank of the Thames, it had a chapel and was lined on both sides with three- to seven-storied houses. By 1222 the City of London had expanded beyond the old city walls to its modern boundaries and between the 10th and 15th centuries reclamation of the shoreline advanced the riverfront into the Thames by about 120 m/400 ft. Fleet Street, running east to the City gate of Temple Bar, led through into the Strand, at the end of which was the village of Charing near Westminster. Southwark, being outside the jurisdiction of the City authorities, became notorious for its gaming pits and brothels or stews, licensed by royal decree in 1161. By the 15th century the bishop of Winchester's estate controlled 22 brothels, whose working residents were known as the ‘Winchester Geese’. Unlicensed prostitutes and troublemakers were thrown into the Clink Prison – ‘clink’ becoming a colloquialism for jail.

London's streets were narrow and generally dirty, and the Walbrook, Fleet, and City ditches were repeatedly recorded as filthy; Houndsditch was so-called because it was a traditional dumping ground for dead animals. Water was obtainable only from the Thames and some pumps until 1236, when clean supplies were piped from the River Tyburn, a tributary of the Thames, to conduits at Cheapside and other centres in the City. Another pipe was laid from Paddington in about 1285. Lack of hygiene and insanitary conditions made the city a breeding ground for disease. In 1348 the Black Death reached England, carried by rats aboard a cargo ship. The first cases of infection in London were reported in November 1348, but the main force of the epidemic was felt in 1349, when the plague killed about half of London's population. Several epidemics recurred in the city over the next three centuries.

The church was a major force uniting the community in the medieval period. In addition to more than a hundred parish churches, there were about a dozen greater foundations in and around London, including Westminster Abbey, the Charterhouse, and the priories at Bermondsey and Southwark. Large estates were owned by London's two military religious orders, the Knights Templars and the Hospitallers (members of the Order of St John). The Templars, founders of the Temple Church, were suppressed by the pope in 1312 and their properties gifted to the Hospitallers. Four schools had existed in the City of London since the Norman period: St Paul's, St Martin-le-Grand, St Mary-le-Bow, and Holy Trinity; and the Inns of Court constituted the legal university of the kingdom. London's early hospital foundations included St Thomas's in Southwark and St Bartholomew's Priory and hospital. Europe's earliest mental hospital was established at Bedlam (an abbreviation of Bethlehem) in the 14th century.

Growth and religious dissension in Tudor London During the Tudor period the power of the crown increased at the expense of the church and the guilds, but industrial progress was maintained from the medieval period, and the merchant classes flourished with the opening of shipping routes to America, Africa, and Asia. About 90% of England's overseas trade was conducted through the port of London. The economy also expanded with the continuing growth of London as a centre of national government and royal administration.

In 1512 the palace of Westminster was largely destroyed by fire, leaving Henry VIII without a London residence until 1530 when he took possession of Whitehall Palace (previously Thomas More's York Place). He began the building of St James's Palace in the same year, on the site of a former leper hospital. During Elizabeth I's reign (1558–1603) the aristocracy shifted residence from the City to mansions in the Strand or Westminster and its neighbourhood, leaving the City a still greater stronghold of the merchant oligarchy. By the end of Elizabeth's reign London and its suburbs had a population of about 200,000, but only about a third lived within the City. (Both Tudor and later Stuart monarchs passed legislation to control the physical spread of London, but these laws were not observed as the economic growth of London demanded ever more space for housing.)

The English Reformation was fully embraced by London. Events such as Hunne's Case in 1514, when a London merchant died in the bishop of London's prison, had already promoted anticlerical feeling. From 1536 the confiscation of ecclesiastical property was supported wholeheartedly by the citizens, although it effected the entire fabric of the city. The Priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, was the first of London's monasteries to be dissolved. Charterhouse, Smithfield, was the only centre of resistance in the city, the prior and many of his monks being executed before its submission. Land freed by the dissolution of the monasteries was generally sold for development, but some houses became government offices or storehouses. In the face of political and religious enmity from Catholic France and Spain, some of the monasteries' wealth went towards the creation of a full-time professional navy, leading to the foundation of royal dockyards at Woolwich and Deptford. Under Edward VI the religious guilds were suppressed, and the revenues of the craft and merchant guilds devoted to religious purposes reverted to the crown. The limitations imposed on the religious aspect of the guilds began a general decline in their function. The duties of many livery companies are now ceremonial, social, and charitable rather than industrial, although some, such as the Vintners, maintain an active interest in their trade. During the Catholic revival Mary I's reign (1553–58), many of London's Protestants were burned at Smithfield. The Elizabethan age witnessed a great advance in the development of English drama in London, the first playhouse in England being the Theatre, Shoreditch (1576). The Globe Theatre (1599), the Rose, and the Hope, soon followed in Southwark, where the City's strict regulations on entertainment were waived.

From civil war to coffee houses in the 17th century During the English Civil War, the City of London was a centre of nonconformity and gave its backing to Parliament, its support being a large factor in the defeat of Charles I; the City's trainbands (civil militia) also played an active part. Earthworks were erected in case of siege, and in 1642 some 24,000 Londoners gathered at Turnham Green to defend their city against the threat of a royalist attack. In 1649 the king's execution took place in front of the Banqueting House in Whitehall. However, London quickly turned royalist when the Rump Parliament acted against City interests, closed the theatres and other entertainments of Southwark, and enforced the observance of the Sabbath; the City was further swayed by Charles II's promises to renew and extend the privileges of its charter. The king entered London on 29 May 1660.

Soon after the Restoration, two major disasters occurred: in 1665 the Great Plague killed over 80,000, about one-sixth of London's inhabitants; and in 1666 the Fire of London burned for three days, destroying four-fifths of the City. Extensive reconstruction in the aftermath of the fire included the rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral, 51 churches, and other buildings by Christopher Wren, although schemes for replanning London, created by Wren and others, were rejected as they would have interfered with legal land boundaries. Contemporary critics of St Paul's complained of its lack of a steeple. New constructions were mainly brick and mortar, timber being banned. Earlier city planning in the century had included the laying out of several London squares, the first being Covent Garden by Inigo Jones in 1631.

London's economic prosperity soon recovered, being marked in 1670 by the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company, which established a worldwide fur trade centring on London; and in 1694 by the foundation of the Bank of England. In the late 17th century a great wave of French Protestant Huguenots arrived, provoked by Louis XIV's religious persecution. Settling in Spitalfields and Soho, they established a centre of silk production which was operating an estimated 12,000 looms by the end of the 18th century. Their descendants included the actor David Garrick and the textile manufacturer Samuel Courtauld. As well as the French Huguenots, other immigrants came from the Low Countries. Their trades included tapestry making, brewing, and the production of glass, pottery, scientific instruments, and maps.

Over the course of the century the centre of London's social life shifted from the City to the newly developed West End, particularly after the Fire of London. Theatres were reopened in the late 17th century, but the tradition of Elizabethan open-air theatre was superseded by Restoration comedy and other European-style drama performed at indoor playhouses, and women were finally admitted to the stage. In 1652 the first coffee house was opened in Cornhill, beginning a fashionable trend which led to the establishment of hundreds of venues in London by the early 18th century. An alternative to alehouses as a social meeting place, coffee houses were mainly patronized by the professional classes and many of those in the City became associated with a particular sphere of interest. The Lloyd's insurance market derived its name from Edwin Lloyd's coffee house, from about 1688 a regular haunt of London underwriters specializing in marine insurance. Coffee houses maintained their popularity throughout the 18th century, but decline set in with the growing preference for tea.

By 1700 London was the largest city in Western Europe with a population of around 575,000, of which only 200,000 lived in the City of London.

Georgian London During the 18th century, London's suburbs encroached rapidly on the surrounding villages and hamlets. In fashionable west London, enterprising landowners built large leasehold houses around squares; Grosvenor Square was completed in 1737, Berkeley Square in 1745, and Portman Square in 1763. However, the extension of dock facilities and consequent need for cheap labour encouraged the development of slums on the eastern edge of the city. The introduction of low-priced ‘London Gin’ contributed to the misery and squalor of the poorer areas, vividly illustrated in the engravings of London artist William Hogarth. Riots were frequent, usually against high prices and adulterated food. Measures to counter the increasing incidence of crime and disorder included the introduction of London's Bow Street Runners in 1749, a forerunner of the police, and the Gin Acts of 1736 and 1751, which restricted gin retailing and reduced consumption by 75%. In 1780 the Gordon Riots, initially an anti-Catholic demonstration organized by George Gordon, exploded into a five-day binge of looting and destruction with the loss of 850 lives. Medical facilities for the poor were extended with the foundation of the Westminster, Guy's, St George's, London, and Middlesex hospitals.

Communications across the Thames were improved by the building of new bridges to supplement the medieval London Bridge. In 1729 a timber bridge spanned the river between Fulham and Putney, construction began on Westminster Bridge in 1739, Blackfriars Bridge was completed in 1769, and a wooden bridge at Battersea was erected in 1772. London's first canal, the Limehouse Cut, was completed in 1770, linking the River Lea with the Thames. Coaching inns became more numerous with the increase in public stagecoaches.

Regency and Victorian London When the first official census was taken in 1801, the population of London was about 1 million, and over the next 30 years numbers doubled; during the 19th century London was the world's largest city in both population size and area. London's physical expansion was rapid and enormous; thousands of acres were turned over to housing, roads, and railways, and the world's largest enclosed dock system was constructed to the east of the city; London remained Britain's principal port in the 19th century. Migration from Ireland grew dramatically during the famines of the 1840s and 1850s, and in the late 1880s thousands of Jewish immigrants took up residence in the Spitalfields area to escape the Russian pogroms. The shipbuilding area of Limehouse became London's first Chinatown.

Industrialization was accompanied by an expansion of the slums, poverty, overcrowding, disease, and pollution; a side of London recorded vividly in the works of Charles Dickens. Sanitation was centralized under the Metropolitan Board of Sewers, established in 1848 to replace eight local sewer authorities, but water contamination remained a major problem, as the street fonts were supplied with unfiltered water directly from the Thames. Typhoid and cholera were endemic; an outbreak of cholera in 1849 killed over 2,000 people a week. Health reforms under John Simon, the first of the City of London's appointed sanitary inspectors (1848–1856), transformed its amenities. In the 1860s London's sewer system was laid out by Joseph Bazalgette, who also designed the Victoria and Albert Embankment roadway (1864–70) to incorporate sewage pipelines to the Thames downstream of London.

Law and order was provided by the Metropolitan police force, instituted by Robert Peel's government in 1829, and a detective branch, the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), was set up in Scotland Yard in 1878. Another improvement to the safety of the streets was the introduction of gas lighting. In 1807 Pall Mall was the Britain's first public thoroughfare to be lit by gas. By 1820 there were seven gasworks in London and the number of gaslights in London streets increased from 4,000 to 51,000 in just five years.

During the 19th century the local government of London was reorganized and improved. In 1855 about 300 local bodies were abolished, the larger parishes being replaced by locally elected vestries, and groups of smaller parishes by district boards. Overall control was provided by the Metropolitan Board of Works, appointed by the vestries and boards. In 1888 the Local Government Act abolished the Board of Works and created the County of London (303 sq km/116 sq mi) and the London County Council. This was followed in 1899 by the regrouping of parishes and districts into 28 metropolitan boroughs, excluding the City of London.

Communications were greatly enhanced by the extension of canal links and the development of the railways. The Surrey Canal (1803–07) connected the Surrey Docks with Peckham and Camberwell, while the junction of the Regent Canal (1812–20) with the Grand Union Canal provided an uninterrupted waterway to the industrial Midlands. London's first railway, between London Bridge and Deptford, was officially opened in 1836, although passengers had been carried over part of the course in the previous year. The London–Birmingham railway (1838), London's first main line, originally terminated at Chalk Farm but was later extended to Euston. London's modern transport system began to emerge with the introduction of the first horse-drawn omnibus between Paddington Green and the Bank in 1829; trams, also horse-drawn, appeared in 1861. Traffic congestion above ground led to the development of the world's first underground steam railway in 1863, which ran in a deep roofed-over trench between Paddington and Farringdon Street. The world's first tube steam railway, the Tower Subway, was opened in 1870, and the first electric tube line, the City and South London, appeared in 1890. Four bridges were built between 1811 and 1827, the rebuilding of London Bridge was completed in 1834, and Tower Bridge was opened in 1894. The Thames Tunnel, connecting Wapping to Rotherhithe, was completed in 1843, the idea having first been proposed in 1799. The world's first traffic signal was erected in Parliament Square in 1868, but it exploded and killed the police officer in charge.

Early 20th century By 1901 the population of greater London had reached over 6.5 million. Transport was modernized with the introduction of electric trams in 1901 and the boom in private and commercial motorized vehicles; motorbuses, introduced in 1904, had completely replaced horse-drawn buses by 1911.

London suffered very little damage in World War I, although German aircraft and Zeppelin airships bombed the city 31 times between December 1917 and November 1918, killing 870 and injuring 1,880 people. After the war a number of memorials were erected to the war-dead, including the Cenotaph in Whitehall and the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey.

Between the wars, the Town and Country Planning Act (1932) gave increased powers to local authorities, and the County of London Development Plan put forward the first coordinated attempts to relate planning to traffic needs. The resulting scheme envisaged a series of ring roads round London, connected to the centre by radial routes. In 1930 traffic was eased by the introduction of controlling automatic lights at the principal road crossings. Various transport-operating companies were taken over by the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933, which would be replaced by the London Transport Executive in 1948. Unlike the rest of industrial Britain, London's economy continued to flourish during the ‘depression years’ of the 1930s. Jobs increased in factories producing new consumer goods (such as vehicles, electrical equipment, processed food) and in offices and shops. Greater London's population continued to expand, reaching 8.6 million by 1939, but there was a marked shift towards the suburbs.

The 1920s and 1930s also saw the development of London as a broadcasting centre. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began daily radio programming from Savoy Hill in 1922, and television transmissions were made from Alexandra Palace in 1936.

Nationalist movements in the build-up to World War II never gained mass support in Britain. In 1936 an anti-Jewish march by Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) through the predominantly Jewish East End was stopped in Cable Street by 5,000 local people.

World War II By the outbreak of war in 1939, thousands of London's children had been evacuated to the countryside or abroad, and factories had been turned over to the manufacture of armaments; Walthamstow's furniture industries began producing Mosquito aircraft. In August 1940 the first incendiary bombs fell on the West End causing little damage, but on 7 September hundreds of German bombers dropped high explosives on east London and the docklands, signalling the start of the Blitz. Bombing caused immense devastation, some areas such as the City of London and Poplar losing a third of their buildings. Many of London's great architectural features were severely damaged or destroyed, including the Commons debating area of the Houses of Parliament, the Guildhall, and numerous city churches. Specially built communal shelters and the Underground stations provided a nightly refuge, but about 30,000 people were killed in the Greater London area. In 1944 and 1945 V1s (‘doodlebugs’) and V2s, Germany's flying bombs, landed indiscriminately over London, mainly to the south. The British government's wartime headquarters were in the subterranean Cabinet War Rooms near Whitehall.

Post-war period Damage to the city during World War II resulted in the first concerted efforts to provide overall planning for the metropolitan region. Patrick Abercrombie's County of London plan was published in 1944 and a London County Council plan of 1951 made provision for open spaces, the construction of houses in suburban communities, the decentralization of population and industry, and the requirements of traffic; the elimination of trams, completed in 1952, helped to ease congestion. London's office and hotel space was greatly extended and large residential schemes were planned, such as the Barbican, an arts centre also designed to house 6,500 people, and estates at Pimlico and Thamesmead. With the growth of container traffic, port activities became concentrated at Tilbury, 40 km/25 mi downstream from Tower Bridge. By 1982 all the docks between the Tower and Barking Creek were closed, opening the way for extensive river development.

In the 1960s ‘swinging London’ was widely regarded as the fashion and music capital of the world; boutiques appeared on the King's Road, Chelsea, and Carnaby Street, and live music venues and recording studios flourished; a free concert in Hyde Park given by the Rolling Stones rock band drew an audience of around 500,000 people. The 1960s also saw the development of the Notting Hill Carnival, a celebration of London's Caribbean culture. Labour shortage after World War II had encouraged an influx of immigration, particularly from the West Indies and the Indian subcontinent.

Sweeping administrative changes were inaugurated by the London Government Act of 1963, which created Greater London (from 1 April 1965). The new region included the City of London, the 28 metropolitan boroughs of the former County of London, the whole of the county of Middlesex, and a large number of surrounding boroughs and urban district councils. The City remained a separate administrative unit governed by the corporation of the City of London, but the rest of Greater London was reorganized into 32 boroughs under the central control of the Greater London Council (GLC). The boroughs were given responsibility over local roads, housing, sewerage, recreational facilities, health and welfare services, and local amenities such as cemeteries. Education in the 12 inner boroughs was administered by the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). In 1986 the GLC was abolished and administration was deferred to the individual boroughs, central government, and non-elected bodies. The ILEA was abolished in 1990 and boroughs became responsible for their state schools.

Redevelopment of Docklands Several schemes were launched in the 1970s for the redevelopment of London's Docklands, but the economic climate was not encouraging. In 1979 the government established the London Docklands Development Corporation and designated a special enterprise zone, with tax privileges for new businesses, on the Isle of Dogs. Access from the City was improved by new roads, a light railway, and an extension to the underground system; great efforts were made to attract investors. In 1991 the 224-m/735-ft-tall office tower at Canary Wharf was opened for business. Early in 1996 a terrorist bomb caused extensive damage to new office blocks south of Canary Wharf. The damage has been repaired, but security remains tight. Surrounded by the basins of the Royal Docks, London City Airport handles flights to cities in northwest Europe. Offices, new housing, shopping facilities, nonpolluting industries (including newspaper editing and printing relocated from Fleet Street) and the new Billingsgate fish market have moved to Docklands, whose landscape has been transformed. Thousands of office jobs have been brought to this area with strong traditions of manual labour in docks and factories.

Developments in the City Dramatic changes have also occurred in and around the City. A great complex of modern offices has been developed at London Bridge City on the south bank of the Thames, and revisions to the City of London Plan in the mid-1980s enabled old office blocks to be demolished and replaced, and new offices to be built on decks across roads and railway lines. The most impressive example is the Broadgate office complex, comprising 14 enormous buildings on a 12-ha/30-acre site that was formerly Broad Street station. Vast new office buildings have been constructed in many other parts of the City to enhance the status of London as a world-class focus of financial activity.