Book review: A Dark History of Sugar, Neil Buttery (Pen & Sword Publishing)

When the Spanish arrived in the Americas they enslaved the local people to dig for gold. African slaves were then imported when the native labourers died from exhaustion or of European infections from which they were not immune. The Portuguese did likewise when they began cultivating sugarcane in Brazil. Yet it was the English who, by the end of the 17^th century, were shipping slaves from Africa to the colonies of the West Indies by the tens of thousands. “The English planters of the West Indies were the first Englishmen to practise slavery on a vast scale, and they took to it like ducks to water, says Neil Buttery in his new book A Dark History of Sugar.

The English colonists who first settled in the West Indies went there hoping to make money by growing tobacco, the successful crop of Virginia. The climate and soil of the Caribbean islands was found to be wrong for tobacco but perfect for sugarcane and it would make their fortunes in the sugar boom of the mid-17^th century. Sugar became the new gold and the English Caribbean islands the most valuable real-estate in the world. Wars were fought between the English, Dutch and French for their control and the right to trade with the islands. As Buttery puts it: “Without sugar, the British Empire probably wouldn’t have existed…and the British couldn’t be exposed as being ruthless, cruel and exploitative to its colonies’ inhabitants”.

Sugar was complicated and expensive to manufacture and required a large investment in land, labour and production facilities, beyond the means of most of the early colonists. Initially indentured servants were employed, their passage across the Atlantic provided in return for land at the end of the term of servitude. Once the sugar boom took hold in the late 1640s a land grab was undertaken by wealthy Englishmen and soon there was no more land available. It became more economically viable to use enslaved labourers for the work. Slave-trading became so important that it was monopolised by the English monarchy. “Above all else [the sugar planters] were reliant on a steady supply of African slaves who were transported and traded by the Royal African Company during England’s peak sugar-producing years”. The RAC was headed by James, Duke of York, brother of Charles II, at Whitehall Palace. Its shareholders were the aristocracy, the upper classes, and London’s overseas merchants.

Although it is not stated within this book, the point to remember for London historians is that London ships dominated the triangular slave trade until the end of the 17^th century and were actively involved until the abolition of the business in 1807. For the most part, it would not have been possible without credit provided by London merchants. Plantation owners “were dependent upon merchants who provided them with credit to buy slaves and brought with them new equipment, clothing, and fancy goods.” Planters had to either arrive wealthy or at least be credit-worthy. A hierarchy quickly evolved: “At the very top were the big planters, then the small planters, tradesmen, then indentured servants and finally the black slaves.” The leading plantation owners became super-rich, while those with only a small landholding could barely feed and clothe themselves.

Slavery, as practiced by the English and other European nations, was an immensely cruel business. Yet, as Buttery states: “An empire was being built on sugar and slavery”. In large part it happened for economic reasons. Plantation owners were making fortunes, only possible using slave labour. Manufacturers and traders in Britain were earning good money by supplying the overseas colonies, and the government was receiving income from duties. The terrible cruelty meted out on the enslaved labourers was either unknown to the vast majority of British people or simply ignored. It was out of sight and out of mind, or as Buttery observes, it was “something that happened elsewhere”.

When Carolina was founded by plantation owners from Barbados in the 1660s they took their slaves with them to cultivate rice and cotton and thus began the large-scale use of enslaved labour of African-heritage people in the English North American colonies and, later, the independent United States. “All the cruelty, violence and genocide that was to follow in North America was based on English sugar-slavery management”.

The wealthy plantation owners of the West Indies moved back to Britain and formed a powerful lobby group, with many of their number sitting as MPs in Parliament. Tax was formulated by Westminster to ensure that only sugar produced in the British West Indies could be consumed in Britain and its colonies. Yet at the same time there was also a growing realisation of the cruelties inflicted on enslaved labourers in the colonies. People began to realise: “Buying sugar meant that you were part of the slave trade,” say Buttery. It took immense effort and much lobbying over many decades by abolitionists, however, to eventually persuade Parliament to end the slave trade, and then another couple of decades to finally abolish slavery in the British Empire in 1834. The plantation owners were rewarded, the former slaves left in poverty.

This new book takes us on a journey from the origins of sugarcane cultivation in New Guinea, its spread through the Islamic world and then to Europe, production by the Portuguese in their Atlantic colonies, and then across the Atlantic to what was, to the Europeans at least, the New World. Buttery provides us chapters on the colonisation of the Caribbean, the lives of the planters and their enslaved labourers, the early production of sugar, and the abolition of slavery. We learn how during the 19^th and 20^th centuries sugar became a major ingredient in many of the manufactured foodstuffs we consume, with negative effects on our health.

I am dubious about the odd claim made in the book. It also gets into a slight muddle regarding the English slave-trading organisations of the 17^th century, largely ignoring their failings. It misses out the Guinea Company, the first of those companies, altogether. The book provides much historical background, however, providing an introduction to how sugar arrived in British and American kitchens, cultivated using enslaved labour, and providing one of the cornerstones of the British Empire.

Buttery is a food historian. He draws upon, and acknowledges, many sources and existing studies, condensing the history of sugar into a reasonably slim and concise volume that is easy to digest – no pun intended. There is not a great amount here that is new for those who have studied the subject, and it covers similar ground to James Walvin’s earlier ‘How Sugar Corrupted the World’. Yet these points do not take away from the overall account. It is well illustrated and provides useful notes on Buttery’s sources of information. It is a welcome publication for those wishing to know about the rise of sugar in our diet, the past involvement in slavery that helped bring that about, and the rise of the ‘Big Sugar’ manufacturing industry.

The Bishop of London is the most senior bishop in the Church of England after the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and is a member of the House of Lords. Fulham Palace, beside the Thames, was the manor house and home of the bishops for almost 1,300 years until 1973.

The earliest record of a Bishop of London was when three bishops, from London, York and Lincoln, attended the Council of Arles, convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 314AD. Christianity was then on an unstable footing in England and the Saxons who arrived in the following centuries were pagan. Pope Gregory sent a group of monks to England in 601 to establish Christian provinces at the former Roman provinces centred on London and York. Archbishop of Canterbury Augustine consecrated Melitus, one of those monks, as Bishop of London. King Ethelbert founded the church of St. Paul in London as the episcopal seat of Melitus. The Bishop set about the work of converting to Christianity the people of the diocese, which covered what later became Essex, Middlesex (including London), and part of Hertfordshire. Since Melitus the line of the Bishops of London has remained unbroken. Bishop Sarah Mullally was ordained as the 133^rd Bishop of London in 2018, the first woman to hold the post. St. Paul’s Cathedral remains the principal church of the Diocese of London, covering 277 square miles north of the Thames.

Throughout much of history the role of the Bishops of London was important in national affairs, often as the holder of the post of Lord Privy Seal, and was occasionally the last step before elevation to the role of Archbishop of Canterbury. Bishops of London also played the role of Bishop of the Colonies, which was reduced to just the West Indies after the American War of Independence. The City of Westminster sits within the Diocese of London and the bishops are usually appointed as Dean of His (or Her) Majesty’s Chapels Royal, which includes the chapels of St. James’s Palace and the Tower of London.

There have been many occasions when the Bishop of London took part in events of national importance. Bishop Robert de Sigillo was captured and held by Geoffrey de Mandeville in 1141 during the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda. Bishop Simon Sudbury acted as an ambassador for King Edward III, translated to Archbishop of Canterbury in 1375 and elevated to Lord Chancellor of England in 1380. During the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 he was dragged out of the Tower of London by the rioters and beheaded on Tower Hill. Nicholas Ridley was the only person to serve as Bishop of both London and Westminster. He was burned at the stake at Oxford during the reign of Queen Mary for failing to renounce his Protestant beliefs and for supporting Lady Jane Grey to succeed Edward VI.  As a supporter of King Charles I William Laud played a major role in the events that led up to the Civil Wars of the 1640s. He was translated from Bishop of London to Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. His desire to force religious reforms led to his imprisonment in the Tower of London and his beheading on Tower Hill in 1645. Bishop William Juxon often acted as an advisor to Charles I and attended the King’s execution at Whitehall Palace in January 1649 to whom Charles famously spoke his last word: “Remember!”. After the King’s death the role of bishops was abolished and remained so until the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 when Juxon was appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury. Bishop William Howley was translated to Archbishop of Canterbury in 1828 and officiated at the coronations of both William IV and Queen Victoria.

Fulham Manor was purchased by Walhere, the 5^th Bishop of London, from the Bishop of Hereford in around the year 700. It was only one of many held by the Bishops of London, who in 1500 owned 24 manors around the London area. It is thought that the name Fulham is derived from the Saxon Fullenhame, meaning habitation of birds due to the abundance of water fowl. Much of the waterside along the Thames was then swamp that was covered at high tide. The manor included what is now Fulham, Hammersmith, Acton, Ealing and Finchley. A letter written by Waldhere is now the oldest surviving document on parchment in Western Europe. London at that time was on the border of the competing kings of the East Saxons (Essex), West Saxons (Wessex), South Saxons (Sussex), and Kent.

Book Review: Samuel Pepys and the Strange Wrecking of the Gloucester, Nigel Pickford (The History Press)

In the 17^th century England was deeply, and occasionally violently, divided by religion. Indeed, earlier in the century religious differences, in part, led to the Civil War and the beheading of King Charles I, the exile of his sons Charles and James, and the country’s only period as a republic. Eventually Charles II was invited back to take the throne. Yet, despite the Restoration, the religious differences remained between those of the Anglican doctrine and those of the more puritan strains of Christianity that had developed. However, there was one thing both sides could agree on: their hatred of Catholics.

By the early 1680s Charles II had no heir to the throne and his wife, Catherine of Braganza, was already past child-bearing age. The king was not in the best of health and, should he die, the crown would pass to his brother, James, Duke of York. However, there was a problem: James was a Catholic. To make matters worse, he had married the Italian Mary of Modena. She had reluctantly accepted his proposal but only after the Pope had intervened, instructing her to do her duty to help return England to the Catholic faith.

This was extremely worrying for most people. The last thing they wanted was a Catholic king and queen. For his own safety, and to attempt to cool things down, Charles sent James abroad for a while; and then later to Edinburgh, still a safe distance from the hotbed of religious agitation that was London. By March 1682 the king perceived it safe enough for his brother to return to England. Mary was at that time pregnant and stayed in Edinburgh a little longer while James travelled to England.

A month later James returned to Edinburgh to bring Mary down to London. He wanted their return to be a triumphant event, a piece of political showmanship to impress the public “and a celebration of his place at the very heart of the kingdom” writes Nigel Pickford. An impressive fleet of ships would be a reminder of his earlier naval victories over the Dutch and just perhaps help him to regain his coveted position of Lord High Admiral. A suitable fleet was assembled for the homecoming. Four ships sailed up from the naval dockyard at Portsmouth, including the frigate HMS Gloucester, which had been constructed at Limehouse and launched in 1654. They rendezvoused at the mouth of the Thames Estuary with four royal yachts that sailed out from London and there James and his accompanying entourage of notable and wealthy gentlemen transferred to the Gloucester.

The captain of the frigate for this voyage was Sir John Berry, a resident of Stepney (who is buried there at St. Dunstan’s church), and the majority of the crew came from around the Wapping, Stepney, Limehouse, Shadwell and Ratcliffe areas north of the Thames, with some from Deptford, Greenwich and Southwark.

In this book Pickford highlights the difficulties of navigation before accurate equipment and nautical charts. A ship’s pilot relied on the sun and time to know their position, which was not easy before time was standardised in the 19^th century. Sea charts available at the time gave inaccurate positions of sandbanks. Even on a voyage along the English coast a ship’s pilot relied on sight of the coast, which was not possible in fog or at night. During the voyage from the Thames Estuary towards Edinburgh the Gloucester and its accompanying fleet each recorded their positions as different from each other and they became separated during inclement weather.

If the title of the book isn’t enough of a clue, we are told of the ensuing disaster in the first chapter, 30 miles off the Norfolk coast in May 1682. But who was responsible for the sinking of the Gloucester, and why did Samuel Pepys decide to sail on an accompanying vessel instead of accepting the Duke’s invitation to travel with him? Pickford clearly enjoys speculating on 17^th century questions, with this book following on from his previous historical mystery ‘Lady Betty and the Murder of Mr. Thynn’.

A range of people were on board ship at the time of the sinking, from nobility to ordinary seamen, but also including scientists, businessmen, lawyers, musicians, servants and priests. All lost their possessions, including those who escaped alive. From available records Pickford estimates that at least 100 crew and 40 gentlemen and servants were lost. One fascinating aspect that is covered in the second half of the book is the aftermath of the disaster and how it affected the lives of those left behind, including some of the bereaved.

For his part in the disaster, the pilot of the Gloucester was sent to Marshalsea Prison. Pickford uncovers numerous interesting links and coincidences in his research. We learn, for example, that when the pilot arrives at Marshalsea a woman had been incarcerated there for debt. By sad irony, she is able to buy her way out of the gaol from the compensation she receives when her seaman son drowns in the Gloucester sinking.

Nigel Pickford is an expert on shipwrecks, who works as a consultant to salvage companies, and has written several books on the subject. His extensive knowledge of nautical matters clearly shows, and we get descriptions of different classes and size of vessels, their equipment, the fitting out of a ship to go to sea, of coastal sandbanks, and the lives of 17^th century seamen.

We are also provided with many asides about contemporary events, as well as background information that sets the scene. I would have liked more detail of the royal naval dockyards at Deptford, which are only briefly included. I’m also slightly confused by a couple of minor mentions of the London docks, which were only constructed well over a century after the period in question. But these are minor quibbles.

‘Samuel Pepys and the Strange Wrecking of the Gloucester’ is a thoroughly-researched and detailed history book yet has the structure and pace of a novel. “James was bored”, we read, “He was a man who was easily bored… He paced the terrace overlooking the deer park with restless energy.” It makes for an informative, engaging, entertaining and enjoyable read. I look forward to Nigel Pickford’s next mystery.

The imposing Alexandra Palace, with its surrounding park, sitting high on a hill in North London, has been a major leisure attraction since Victorian times. It was there that the world’s first regular television broadcasts were made in the 1930s. Unlike its rival, the Crystal Palace, the building is a great survivor, having been gutted by fire on two separate occasions.

Tottenham Wood, between the villages of Muswell Hill, Wood Green and Hornsey on the western edge of the parish of Tottenham, had mostly been cleared during the 18^th century and used as pasture. In 1789 its owner, Lord of the Manor the Earl of Coleraine, put the land up for auction. It was acquired by a tobacconist from London who built a large house, which survived as the clubhouse of the Muswell Hill golf club until 1932. In 1812 the land was acquired by Thomas Rhodes, a great-uncle of the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, and he further cultivated Tottenham Wood Farm. When the Great Northern Railway from King’s Cross was created to the east in 1850 he purchased the section of the adjoining Nightingale Hall estate between the railway and his land, extending the farm to 450 acres.

That part of Middlesex was still largely unpopulated in the mid-19^th century and mainly used for dairy farming and hayfields. Rhodes died in 1856. His heirs possibly had plans to use the land to create a residential estate because they paid the Great Northern £4,000 towards the opening of a new station on the line, which opened in 1859, then called Wood Green.

When the hugely successful Great Exhibition at Hyde Park ended in 1851 its vast glass and metal building, which became known as the ‘Crystal Palace’, was moved to Sydenham Hill in South-East London. There it was rebuilt as the centre-piece of a new commercial pleasure park, described by the company as “refined recreation, calculated to elevate the intellect, [and] instruct the mind”. Fifteen million people visited during the first decade. Its success spurred a plan for a similar venue in North London.

One of the architects working on the Crystal Palace at Hyde Park, and on its subsequent move to Sydenham between 1852-54, was Owen Jones. In December 1858 he exhibited drawings at Vestry Hall, Piccadilly for a ‘Palace of the People, Muswell Hill’, a similar building and concept to Crystal Palace. The proposed building was to sit above a railway station, allowing direct access for passengers. Presumably by then Jones had had negotiations with the Rhodes family. The Great Northern Palace Company was formed but sufficient finance was not forthcoming and the venture failed to proceed. (Owen Jones later made his name as a pioneer in Britain of Islamic designs and abstract patterns and was the author of the influential 1856 book Grammar of Ornament).

Despite its failure to attract finance, Jones’s basic idea for a People’s Palace at Muswell Hill was to continue. In March 1863 Edward, Prince of Wales (son of Queen Victoria, and the future Edward VII) married Alexandra of Denmark. The Alexandra Palace Company was formed, named in honour of the new princess, and it acquired Tottenham Wood Farm. At the same time the adjoining ten-acre Grove estate, once occupied by Topham Beauclerk, great-grandson of Charles II and Nell Gwynne and friend of Dr. Samuel Johnson, was purchased, which provided access to a main road. The company launched the venture with a fete at Tottenham Wood in July 1863.

The Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures & Trade held a major world fair at South Kensington in 1862, on the site now occupied by the Natural History Museum, to showcase advances in technology. The large building erected for the event occupied 21 acres and after its closure the Alexandra Park Company purchased for £100,000 the transportable materials. They were used to create a new building, designed by Alfred Meeson and John Johnson, in a very different style to Jones’s previous ideas. In its centre was a portico entrance and dome that had previously been features of the South Kensington exhibition.

Work on the building commenced in September 1866 and 12,000 men were employed on the project. Difficulties were encountered during the construction, however. The peak of the hill was found to be unstable due to its composition of gravel and clay, and subject to severe icing during the cold months. Confronted with these problems the company went bankrupt and the building remained half-completed for several years. In 1866 the Muswell Hill Estate Company was formed to take over the land. At the same time the Alexandra Palace Company, was created, agreeing a 999-year lease with the MHEC for space to finish the building. The creation of the former was the first formal naming of Alexandra Palace. (In the 1870s the APC purchased the freehold of the entire estate from the MHEC). In 1868 a racecourse of a mile in length, and extensive stabling, was opened at the foot of the hill, providing a useful income. The first horse-race took place in 1868.

European nations primarily used slaves for working on plantations in their colonies in the Americas. The English only created colonies in North America and the West Indies in the 17^th century, long after the Spanish and Portuguese. That did not prevent English privateers of the Elizabethan period becoming interlopers in the African slave trade. Yet, at the same time, Africans began to live freely in London and elsewhere in the country.

Since at least as far back as the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Vikings slavery has provided labour for difficult, dangerous, tedious, or menial tasks. The word ‘slave’ is derived from ‘Slav’, which refers to the Slavonic people of Eastern Europe who were enslaved by Spanish Muslims during the 9^th century. The Anglo-Saxons of medieval England used slaves as rural workers such as ploughmen.

As the manorial system evolved, slavery was replaced by serfdom but English churches continued to hold slaves until the early 12^th century, with Peterborough Abbey using them as oxherds as late as the 1120s. Under the feudal system the class of subjects known as villeins were legally captive and bound to the lord of the manor. In 1485 at least 400 manors in England and Wales had villeins and, although it gradually dwindled, villeinage continued to exist until the 16^th century.

Slavery continued in southern Europe, especially after the Black Death of the 14^th century caused a great shortage of labour. Slaves were taken from Muslim North Africa and further afield, often traded by Italians from Genoa and Venice. It was enshrined in law in Spain as part of the Partidas statutory codes that were created during the reign of King Alfonso X in the 13^th century and that were later to have a great significance in Latin America from the 16^th century.

Slavery was widespread in the Islamic world where it was acceptable to enslave any non-Muslims. As Islam spread further across North Africa, Islamic traders looked further south to sub-Saharan regions and thus it became accepted that black Africans were ideally suited for slavery. Following his conquest of the Songhai Empire in present-day Mali in 1578, an annual tribute of 1,000 slaves was provided to Ahmed al-Mansur (Ahmed the Victorious) of Morocco.

The south coast of England was prey to Barbary pirates from Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. As late as 1625 sixty men, women and children were captured and taken into slavery from St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall.

Pope Eugenius IV had decreed in 1435 that anyone enslaving a person who had been baptised as a Christian would be excommunicated but that did not apply to non-Christian Africans.

Middle Eastern kingdoms controlled overland trade routes to Asia, with merchants bringing spices and other commodities. That was largely brought to an end during the conflicts known to Europeans as the Crusades. Blocked from purchasing Asian products, the Portuguese sought a sea route to the Far East and their exploration took them ever further down the west coast of Africa, where they traded with the Benin Empire.

By 1444 the Portuguese were returning from Africa with slaves, purchased from merchants at coastal ports. Goods were exchanged for slaves brought from deep inside Africa. By the 1460s the Portuguese were buying slaves in places such the Niger Delta and modern-day Angola.

In the late Middle Ages the Mediterranean island of Cyprus began producing sugar on plantations using slaves for the tough manual labour. The Portuguese and Spanish began to settle on islands off the coast of Africa, such as the Canaries, Cape Verde Islands, and Madeira where they also cultivated sugar cane, using African slaves. Europeans soon discovered the delights of sugar, making it a highly-lucrative crop.

In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed west, sponsored by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. It was the starting point of European colonisation of the Americas where the Spanish and Portuguese discovered the fabulous wealth of the Aztecs and Inca empires. In the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 Spain laid claim to most of the New World of South America and the Caribbean, while Portugal held trading rights with Africa and the Far East, and colonisation of Brazil.

Sugar cultivation was attempted in the New World, and gold and silver mines dug. The indigenous peoples were enslaved to carry out the work but were unsuitable for the tough work and the death rate was high from imported diseases. Therefore, from 1502 African slaves were transported across the ocean, using the colonised Atlantic islands as staging posts. Some died on the sea journey, and others from the harsh labour conditions, while a few escaped into the mountains, and thus a continuous slave trade was necessary to resupply the labour force.

Lacking trading posts in mainland Africa, from the early 16^th century the Spanish licensed the supply of slaves for their colonies to Portuguese and other merchants in agreements known as the Asiento de Negros. Thus, the trading of slaves to the Americas became a commercial and licensed proposition.

The slave business evolved into a triangular trade. Ships sailed from Portugal (and later other European countries) with goods that could be exchanged with African merchants for slaves. The human cargo was then transported to the Americas where the slaves were sold in return for sugar, which was sailed back to Europe.

The actions of Charles I had divided political and religious opinion in the country leading to the Civil War that pitted King against Parliament. Charles was eventually defeated and held captive by the Parliamentarians, during which time his followers continued to rise up. After much debate, the King was brought to trial in January 1649.

The Civil War between King Charles I and Parliament lasted from 1642 until 1646 when the Parliamentary side were victorious. In May 1646 the King gave himself up to the Scottish army, hoping to agree a treaty that would eventually bring him back to power. The following January, however, the Scots handed him over to the English Parliament in return for a large ransom. Charles was initially held in Northamptonshire. By then a rift had occurred on the Parliamentary side. With the King held captive, Parliament had considered disbanding their New Model Army with only eight weeks of back-pay, far less than was in arrears. The army had also become highly politicised, with elements supporting views of the Levellers in London. Infuriated by Parliament’s decisions, some soldiers, led by the low-ranking officer Cornet George Joyce seized the King and took him to the army headquarters near Cambridge.

After further moves Charles was kept at Hampton Court Palace but in November 1647 he escaped to the Isle of Wight where the local gentry were staunchly royalist. There he was able to live as the king of the island, with a small court-in-exile, until the following February when the island’s governor complied with Parliamentary orders and moved him to house arrest in Carisbrooke Castle. From there the King attempted to negotiate with different factions in Parliament, as well as with the Scots. During the summer of 1648 there were Royalist uprisings in the south-east of England, known as the Second Civil War, but they were swiftly quashed by the New Model Army.

Despite years of Civil War many in the country still believed it possible to negotiate with the imprisoned Charles and that he could be returned to the throne. However, his escape from Hampton Court and his intended alliance with Scotland led others to doubt his sincerity in any settlement. The professional New Model Army was comprised of many anti-royalist radicals and republicans, led by Oliver Cromwell’s son-in-law Henry Ireton, who were no longer willing to support negotiations. At the suggestion of Cromwell a series of meetings was held between City of London radicals and leaders of the Levellers at the Nag’s Head tavern in London to agree a course of action and ensure unity with the army.

Following agreement at these meetings the army marched on Parliament at the beginning of December 1648 under the command of Thomas Pride. Radical leaders such as Henry Ireton and the preacher Hugh Peter called for them to “root up monarchy” by putting the King on trial, followed by his execution. The army prevented those MPs who believed in reconciliation from attending the House of Commons, the episode becoming known as ‘Pride’s Purge’. The remaining MPs, about 80 in number, were later to be known as the ‘Rump Parliament’ and they were ordered to put Charles on trial for treason. Oliver Cromwell initially argued in favour of continuing negotiations with the King but within a few weeks was persuaded that they would never succeed.

English monarchs had occasionally been deposed but never put on trial so Parliament decided to create an Act that established the High Court of Justice in order for it to take place. The trial took place in Westminster Hall. It was presided over by John Bradshaw, a militant London lawyer who had recently been appointed Chief Justice of Chester. Despite being of relatively minor repute he was appointed because more eminent professionals had refused to take part. Bradshaw was known as a detractor of the King, who had previously compared him with Emperor Nero. The Court was to consist of 150 commissioners including all the members of the House of Commons, six peers, some army officers, and aldermen of the City of London. Some refused to serve and the final number was reduced to 135. The commissioners convened on 8^th January in the Painted Hall at Westminster to appoint officers of the court. Galleries and desks were set up in Westminster Hall for the trial.

The King was brought from Windsor and the trial began the following day on Saturday 20^th January 1649, with 68 commissioners in attendance on the first day. Charles was brought by barge to Westminster Hall, cheered by people in boats who had come to watch.

Proceedings at the trial began with the reading of the Act setting up the court. The name of each commissioner was then called. One of their number was Lord Fairfax, the Parliamentary military commander against the royalist forces during the Civil War. When his name was called his wife shouted from the gallery: “Not here and never will be. He hath too much sense”. Fairfax had been one of those calling for Charles to be tried and punished and had attended the preliminary meetings of the commissioners. It is thought that he changed his mind when he realised the outcome would lead to the execution of the King.

Charles was then led into the hall and sat in an armchair that acted as the dock. Across his breast was the blue ribbon of the Order of the Garter, together with the Great George. In his hand was a cane topped with a silver knob and he wore a hat.

Bradshaw addressed the prisoner, that the Commons of England “being sensible of the evils and calamities that have been brought upon this nation and of the innocent blood that hath been shed in it, which is fixed upon you as the principal author of it…” had resolved to bring him to judgement and had set up the court for this purpose.

John Cook, the Solicitor General, lead the prosecution. But before he could begin Lady Anna de Lille, the Scottish widow of a French captain in the Royalist navy, cried out from the gallery that it was not the people who were putting the King on trial but “rebels and traitors”. She was seized by soldiers. The commissioner Colonel Hewson called for hot irons and branded her on the head and shoulder. Witnessing this act, Charles commiserated with her.

Bradshaw then asked the King to answer to the charge. He replied: “Let me know by what authority I am come hither and you shall hear more of me”. “Of the Commons of England,” stated Badshaw, “in the behalf of the People of England, by which people you are elected”. Charles retorted that for near a thousand years the kingdom had been hereditary and not elective and that he was entrusted with the liberties of the people. Charles refused to acknowledge the authority of the court, which Bradshaw then adjourned until the following Monday, perhaps hoping for a change in the King’s opinion. As Charles left, some onlookers cried “God bless him” and others “Justice! Justice!”.

After a long series of battles, Charles I and his Royalist forces were finally beaten in 1646 and the King held prisoner. Yet at that stage most hoped for negotiations with the monarch in which he would agree to political and religious change and return to the throne as the head of the country. While Charles was held prisoner different political and religious factions of Parliamentary supporters jostled for their opposing views to prevail.

The army of King Charles was defeated at Stow-in-the-Wold in Gloucestershire in March 1646. In the following months the King attempted to form an axis across the towns of the Midlands, from Oxford to Leicester, and Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, where he had greatest support. Charles then attempted a treaty with the Scots. He therefore travelled in disguise to Newark, which the Scottish army was besieging. They were therefore astonished when the King arrived at their camp at Southwell in May 1646. He was put under house arrest by the commanding officer.

Charles agreed to the surrender of Newark and the Scots marched north with him to Newcastle, which was under their control. The Scots made a number of demands of Charles, including that the Presbyterian Church be recognised in Scotland. That was an issue to which Charles would never agree. Nevertheless, he was aware that the fact he was being held by the Scots was creating a rift between them and their English Parliamentary allies and he therefore delayed his answer to their demands. At the same time he was secretly negotiating with the French for military help, while the Scots were negotiating with the English Parliament, which in January 1647 finally agreed to pay them £400,000 for the King and he was held in Northamptonshire. Charles quipped that the Scots had sold him too cheaply.

Some people in London had more radical opinions than some of the MPs in Parliament and a group headed by John Lilburne, John Bastwick, and William Prynne became known as Levellers, an early version of what would in later centuries be called ‘socialists’ or ‘democrats’. Although there was no single issue that united them they were generally republicans. Their demands were for reform of Parliament and an end to corruption; Parliamentary seats distributed according to the number of inhabitants rather than ownership of property; annual elections; a greater degree of democracy with a broader suffrage for the population; religious tolerance; and for the legal process to be undertaken in plain English. Their belief was that “all degrees of men should be levelled and an equality should be established” and hence the term ‘Leveller’.

There was also strong support for the views of the Levellers within Parliament’s New Model Army, with many in its ranks worried that their leaders were abandoning the rights and liberties for which they had fought so hard. However, as the threat of a Royalist victory in the war receded, and particularly after the King’s defeat at the Battle of Naseby in 1645, the influence of the more radical elements declined. The moderates who came to dominate in London had no interest in additional political change than had already been achieved, although they looked for further Puritan reform of religious institutions. They were generally content with the newly-won parliamentary liberties, as well as the reduction of the power of London’s mayor and aldermen, with the ascendancy of the more representative Common Council, that had been achieved in 1642. In fact, a restored monarchy, in their view, could protect them from the extremists.

Those who had previously been London’s revolutionaries, seeking political change and religious freedom, were by 1646 heading London’s government, but then attempted to establish political order and quash further radicalisation and religious freedom. Many were Presbyterian activists, while other Independent Protestant factions such as Anabaptists and Brownists, were side-lined. The City’s political leadership was gradually purged of the more politically and religious radical individuals. London’s political leaders sought to impose control by suppressing dissent and pressing for negotiation with the King.

In January 1642 King Charles I stormed into the Parliament building at Westminster attempting to arrest six members of Parliament. Not finding them there he sought them at the Guildhall in the City of London. After his failure he feared reprisals, so the royal family fled from Whitehall Palace. Charles went north to raise an army while his royal court settled in Oxford in 1642. Within four months the country was embroiled in a Civil War.

Whitehall Palace was a large complex that was the London home of many nobles, as well as the royal family. After Charles and his family fled it was progressively abandoned, some taking flight so hastily they left behind everything they owned. The palace stood empty, later to be pillaged by mobs. The King’s magnificent art collection was sold by auction.

The coups d’etat that was taking place was unprecedented in English history. Previous removals of English monarchs were undertaken by claimants to the throne but this time it was monarch versus Parliament. A number of activists took sides either for Parliament or for the King but it was not an easily definable division of, say, Puritans against nobles, few having a complete loyalty to Parliament or opposition to the King. In general, Puritans backed Parliament and staunch Anglicans and Catholics backed the King but there were nobles, MPs, and non-Puritans on both sides. The general view was that Charles had been arrogant, reverting to ‘Personal Rule’ and attempting to take the country back to Catholicism, yet few wanted any major constitutional change. At the outset almost no-one was contemplating the overthrow of the monarchy and the creation of a republic. The national mood was to avoid war.

Some of London’s leading citizens remained loyal to the King, particularly many of the aldermen and members of the East India and Levant Companies and Merchant Adventurers. By contrast, there were many radicals within the population of London who over many years had opposed various royal policies and sought change. They were well-connected between them, and well-organised in agitating for change at parish, City and national levels. They ranged in opinion from the moderates who hoped for compromise from the King to those who wished to form a republic; from many who backed the rule of Parliament to some who believed in the rule of the people.

In the early part of 1642 pro-Parliamentarian radicals within the country began organising petitions. In January over 4,000 petitioners from Buckinghamshire marched to Westminster and the following month a well-disciplined procession took place through London by the Lord Lieutenant and gentry of Warwickshire, which converged on the Royal Exchange. A large demonstration took place at Moorfields at the end of January demanding the removal of bishops from the House of Lords. Under that pressure the remaining support for the monarchy in Parliament collapsed. Yet to illustrate how the country was becoming divided, there was also a petition from Kent in March in favour of the bishops and against military preparations, inevitably rejected by Parliament.

Parliament, led by John Pym, continued to sit, having not been dissolved by the King. However, they faced the issue that the normal procedure of the monarch giving royal assent to new laws was no longer possible. Instead they resorted to creating parliamentary ordinances, initially passed in the name of the King.

There was no standing army that could support either King or Parliament, only local militias of reservists known as ‘trained bands’. London had long had four trained bands covering different wards, each named after the four points of the compass. They could be summoned by the Lord Mayor but Sir Richard Gurney was a supporter of the King who had previously welcomed him into the City in November 1641 so it was important for Parliament to take that power away from him. In March they drafted the Militia Ordinance that nominated members of a committee, all London radicals, “to make Colonels and Captains, and other Officers…for the Suppression of all Rebellions, Insurrections, and Invasions that may happen”. They tactfully explained it was “for the Safety of His Majesty’s Person, the Parliament and Kingdom, in this time of imminent Danger”. The ordinance was easily passed by the Commons but the House of Lords was reluctant to dispense with royal assent. However, they were finally persuaded by the petitions to Parliament and large demonstrations in London.

London’s government was structured into the more senior 26-member Court of Aldermen, which supported the monarchy, and the lower 237-member Court of Common Council, which during the previous decades had become more radical and supported Parliament. The Lord Mayor had the power to convene or dissolve meetings of the Common Council, and aldermen had a veto over any decisions made by the Common Council. During the spring and summer of 1642 London’s radicals reformed London’s government, taking away the Mayor’s power over the Common Council and leaving aldermen to vote on equal terms with common councillors.

The Militia Ordinance sent out by Parliament to local leaders around the country in March 1642 created a dilemma in which each locality had to decide whether to comply and back Parliament or take some other action. Charles naturally protested the illegality of the Militia Ordinance and countered by issuing commissions of array, an archaic measure calling nobles to arms in times of war. In general, those in the north of England, Wales, and the West Midlands as far as the South-West supported the King.

Charles made the first move when in April he unsuccessfully attempted to seize a large store of munitions from a garrison at Hull. War was formally declared when Charles raised his standards at Nottingham in August. The first major battle was at Edgehill, just to the north-west of Banbury that October, which ended inconclusively.

In March 1642 Parliament’s Committee of Safety instructed Lord Mayor Gurney to call a meeting of the Common Council but he declined to do so. In June, after the first action of the Civil War, Gurney proclaimed for the King. For that, and failing to suppress riots, he was impeached by the House of Commons, a charge that was upheld by the House of Lords. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London and fined £1,000. When he refused to pay, his house was confiscated and sold. He died in the Tower in 1647.

The City of London was vitally important to Parliament. Its wealthy merchants and livery companies could supply much-needed finance through taxes and loans, the Royal Mint created currency, and the Tower of London provided a secure prison and armoury. Furthermore, the influence of London spread throughout the country: those in the towns and shires watched to see which side the capital was backing.

Gurney was replaced as Lord Mayor with the MP for the City of London, Isaac Pennington, a loyal Parliamentarian. He later served as the Lieutenant of the Tower of London and was one of the commissioners during the trial of the King. Pennington’s successor as mayor in 1643, the more moderate John Wollaston, was responsible for Parliament passing an ordinance that only those loyal to the new regime were eligible to stand or vote in elections for the post of Mayor of London.

It was the belief of King James I that the monarch ruled the country and that Parliament was merely a court for passing occasional laws. That led to conflict whenever Parliament obstructed his plans or would not approve his requests for funding. On occasions, when he failed to achieve his aims, and out of frustration, James dismissed Parliament and governed the country by personal rule. Another issue during his reign was the growth of non-conformist forms of religion, with an increasing portion of the population in England and Scotland turning their back on the established Church in England and Scotland. These issues increased in severity during the reign of his son, Charles I. It led the country into Civil War that lasted for over nine years, and Britain’s only period as a republic.

During the Middle Ages England was ruled by kings who raised finance through various forms of taxation to pay for the cost of the royal court and for an army and navy during times of conflict. However, from the 14^th century Parliament took an increasing role in the setting and collection of revenue. Finance became a matter of negotiation between monarch and Parliament, with the latter demanding ever greater powers in return for funding. Queen Elizabeth, at the very end of her reign, circumvented Parliament by imposing taxes on goods being imported by London’s trading companies for which the Crown provided monopoly privileges.

The Scottish Parliament, which was independent of the English Parliament in Westminster until 1707, was more subservient to the Scottish monarchs. When King James VI of Scotland succeeded Queen Elizabeth, becoming James I of England, it was what he expected from the English Parliament. In that he was to be disappointed.

For several reasons, in contrast to his predecessor, James favoured an alliance with Spain, a country that was staunchly Catholic and opposed to Dutch Presbyterianism. The King’s policy initiated an early coalescence of Calvinist opposition forces that was to grow in the following decades and into the reign of his successor. That caused a reaction from James to suppress the Calvinists, with a resulting polarization between religious extremes. In 1621 the Commons passed a resolution demanding James go to war with Spain to protect the Protestants of the war-torn Palatinate, in what is now south-west Germany, but the King dissolved Parliament to avoid the issue.

King James died at Theobalds in Hertfordshire in 1625 and the succession of his son Charles was seen as a new beginning. Charles had absorbed much from his father, and inherited his views and tastes in politics, religion and the arts. However, the personality of Charles I contrasted with both his father and, later, his son in significant aspects. He suffered from a stutter and lacked communication skills, leaving many of his decisions unexplained and open to interpretation and misunderstanding. He was also stubborn, deficient in political sensibility, diplomacy and flexibility, often taking extreme positions without compromise. He presided over a very private and insular royal court that became increasingly detached from the realities of government and politics. In his youth he had learnt about Parliamentary business in the genteel House of Lords rather than the more cut-and-thrust House of Commons. The support for the anti-Calvinist Arminian view by Charles and his advisor, the Duke of Buckingham, and a botched military offensive against Spain, turned Parliament against Buckingham by the time it met in 1626. Parliament impeached Buckingham in 1626 and in response Charles dissolved Parliament.

The House of Commons of Parliament had become dominated by the land-owning class and monarchs found it troublesome to raise finance to pay for Crown activities through taxes on land. Charles could only legally raise new taxes with Parliament’s agreement and in 1626 it had unusually voted him rights on imports and exports for just one year. Therefore, when Charles dissolved Parliament he avoided an annual negotiation that would inevitably require concessions from him. Yet he then had to find new ways to raise finance and demanded loans from England’s wealthiest, many of whom were Calvinists so they refused to pay.

Following a disastrous assault against the French at Île de Ré in 1627 Charles was forced to recall Parliament for more funds. Yet there were great suspicions about his new French wife, Henrietta Maria, who had a private Catholic chapel at St. James’s Palace. The new staunchly-Protestant Parliament of 1628 would only agree to a continuation of taxes in return for anti-Catholic laws. The monarchy had long been receiving income by levying a duty on imports known as tonnage and poundage but MPs began protesting against any form of taxation not authorised by Parliament. Some of London’s merchants then refused to pay the duty. Again, in 1629 Charles dissolved Parliament. He had nine MPs arrested, including the prominent politician Sir John Eliot who died, and was buried, in the Tower of London. Parliament wasn’t recalled again for eleven years.

Religious opinion was becoming increasingly Puritanical, with a growing number having Calvinist views and wishing reform of the established Churches in England and Scotland. The overwhelming majority of religious activists in London – although not necessarily forming an overall majority of the people – were Puritans, what are referred to as Dissenters or non-conformists, of Presbyterian or Independent theology. Charles, on the other hand, believed in the High Anglican form of worship that was very ritualistic, which was not dissimilar to Catholic. With so much opposition from the Calvinists he increasingly turned to the Arminian clerics and Catholics for support. To the great dismay of Londoners, in 1628 he installed the clergyman William Laud as Bishop of London, a strong believer in the rule of bishops and ritualistic worship. In 1633 Charles elevated Laud to Archbishop of Canterbury, uniting the majority of Protestants against him. Charles and Laud planned religious reforms that seemed Catholic in all but name. Laud was succeeded as Bishop of London by William Juxon, who also became a close confident of the King.

Laud imposed a new policy on all parishes in November 1633. The communion table was to be moved from its normal position in the nave to the east end of each church such as it was in cathedrals, which angered even non-Puritans. This apparently small point was a visible sign to all congregations of the theological differences that separated most people from the Arminians and was one step too many in the direction of Catholic worship. The imposition of such uniformity, known as ‘Thorough’, created a great anger in the country, making Laud extremely unpopular, but he was able to carry out such measures because he had the backing of Charles. Thus, the King himself lost much support in the country.

In 1637 Laud had the ears of three men cut off for distributing leaflets attacking his policies, and Dissenters who failed to attend Anglican church services were fined. Lambert Osbaldeston, headmaster of Westminster School, fell foul of Laud, who ordered his dismissal and a punishment of being nailed to a pillory by his ears. Osbaldeston went into hiding before the punishment could be carried out, emerging three years later when it was safe to do so. During the following decade thousands of people sailed from London to the North American colonies, many to seek religious freedom.

Charles circumvented the tax problem in 1634 by broadening ‘Ship Money’ – the obligation for each coastal town to provide the Crown with either ships or money during times of war – to all towns in England and on a permanent basis. Charles used every lever available to him to extort funds from London’s merchants. The City magistrates tasked with collecting ship money found increasing resistance to making payment. Constant demands on the merchants of London to equip ships created much ill-will towards Charles, as did the forfeiture of lands in Ireland that the City’s livery companies had been forced to take by James I and on which they had spent large sums of money.

The relationship with the City was further tested when in 1636 Charles issued reforms of the complex rights and boundaries of London, against the wishes of the Lord Mayor and aldermen. It was a point that dated back to the beginning of the century but came to the fore again in the 1630s following several outbreaks of plague.

In 1951 the Festival of Britain was held to give the country a boost in a period of hardship following the Second World War. Although conceived as a national event, its main focus was a site beside the Thames at Lambeth, what has subsequently become known as the ‘South Bank’.

London has a history of holding major festivals at key periods for the country. During the mid-19^th century the British Empire was at its greatest and the United Kingdom was the world’s leading industrial nation. Thus, in 1851 the Great Exhibition was held in Hyde Park. Following the Great War, the empire was beginning to fracture, and other powers were threatening Britain’s position as the world leader. It was against that background that the British Empire Exhibition of 1924 took place at Wembley, leaving the original stadium as its legacy. In the 1940s the country was almost brought to its knees and the idea for a new exhibition to revive the spirit of the earlier events was born.

Both the exhibitions of 1924 and 1951 were held six years after terrible wars, and in the case of the former also following the Spanish influenza pandemic in which around a quarter of a million Britons had perished. They were thus, in part at least, held to invigorate the war-weary survivors following the shocks of those events. The aim of the British Empire Exhibition was also to strengthen the bonds of the empire.

The mid-1940s, with a serious threat of invasion and the country’s major cities reeling from enemy bombing, were one of the bleakest periods for Britain. Yet there were some who looked forward to a time when conflict would end. The origin of the Festival of Britain was a proposal from the Royal Society of Arts in 1943, during the height of the Second World War. Two years later, Gerald Barry, editor of the News Chronicle, followed up the idea with an open letter to Sir Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade, proposing “a great Trade and Cultural Exhibition, to be held in London during the centenary year of the Great Exhibition.” At that time the thought was of an international exhibition, as the Great Exhibition had been.

Yet the country was at a low ebb, a period of austerity, with rations more severe than during the war, a lack of manpower, power shortages, and labour strikes. The jubilations following the end of the war had long passed and the country was in a time of national gloom. People were suffering from rationing and endless queues. Britain’s economy was in poor shape. In 1947 Cripps felt that London, still bearing the deep scars of the war, could not cope with such a large-scale event. Britain’s position as a leading world power had also been permanently eclipsed by the war. It was clear that the colonies sought independence from the Mother Country. The fresh memories of nations in violent conflict against each other, continuing suspicion of European countries, Britain’s entry to the Korean War in 1950, and concerns about another world war, further underlined that an international occasion would have been impossible.

An alternative idea for a national event to celebrate British art, science, and industrial design, and to mark the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park, gained some momentum but there was also much reluctance. Resources were scarce, with a lack of construction labour and materials, and there was much war damage to repair or replace. The idea had been championed by the News Chronicle so the rival Beaverbrook newspapers, the Daily Express and Evening Standard, were unsupportive. Winston Churchill and leading Conservatives, even many Labour politicians and other prominent figures such as Sir Thomas Beecham and Noël Coward, felt that it would be a waste of money, materials and manpower under such circumstances. The boroughs of Chelsea and Kensington announced they would not take part. Criticism continued until the Festival opened and was clearly a success.

Herbert Morrison, Deputy Prime Minister and former leader of the London County Council, was given the task of organizing the event and was dubbed by the press as ‘Lord Festival’. A budget of £12,000,000 was agreed, although as the country’s economic situation worsened, in 1949 the funds were reduced by £1,500,000.

Morrison set up an organizing committee of leading figures including R.A. Butler, Sir Kenneth Clark, John Gielgud, Sir Malcolm Sargent and A.P. Herbert. General Hastings Ismay, Churchill’s wartime military assistant and the future Secretary General of Nato, was appointed as Festival Chairman, which averted further criticism from Churchill, and the journalist Gerald Barry as Director General. The Festival Office was created to plan and manage activity. Most of the organizers were architects, designers and engineers rather than professional administrators. That most of those involved had served in the wartime military services, including some from the former Ministry of Information, ensured strong organizational abilities.

Under Morrison’s guidance the ideas for the event changed yet again, with much of the vision coming from Barry. The Festival was to achieve pride in national identity. The themes of the Festival of Britain were of a bright and modern future for the home nations. Barry considered it must have serious and educational motives to be acceptable to civil servants, the critics, and others who provided the backing but that it should also provide the ordinary person with an entertainment. He coined the description of ‘A tonic to the nation’.

To anyone in 18^th century Britain the name ‘Vauxhall’ meant the fashionable public garden. This was due to the vision of one man, working in partnership with some of the most talented musicians, artists, and designers of his generation. It played an important part in the flowering of the arts of Georgian London.

18^th century London was a bustling, disorderly, and sometimes violent place, where most people worked hard to survive. The average home was unsuitable for entertaining, and the streets too inhospitable to linger. There were few entertainments within the city itself other than the theatres but the conurbation was still relatively small so the more pleasant countryside was within walking distance, or carriage ride. In the later decades of the 17^th century pleasure gardens began to be established around the edge of the capital, where Londoners could spend the day or an evening socializing, eating, drinking, and being entertained in safety in a rural setting. One of the earliest, and most popular, was New Spring Gardens at Vauxhall. Under new management in the 18^th century it was transformed into a venue that had a profound effect on London culture, providing patronage for London’s artists, designers, and musicians.

The New Spring Gardens opened in about 1661, shortly after the restoration of the monarchy. It was most easily reached by boat upriver along the Thames, about a 30-minute journey from the City. In its first 65 or more years it consisted of gravelled walks lined with bushes and trees and numerous ‘arbours’, or alcoves, in which couples or groups of visitors could hold private gatherings. These arbours were also popular for amorous encounters and over time the gardens became notorious for prostitution, thus acquiring a poor reputation.

We cannot be sure who first established the New Spring Gardens but by 1729 the proprietor was Elizabeth Masters on land leased from the Duchy of Cornwall. In that year Elizabeth sublet the gardens to the 27-year old Jonathan Tyers of Bermondsey. At the same time Tyers took a lease on the nearby original Spring Gardens to expand the size of the enterprise, together with its substantial house, which had been built in 1717.

The family business of Jonathan Tyers was in the leather trade and he accumulated some wealth while still young, probably selling some property to raise the finance to lease the two pleasure gardens.

They were situated a short distance from the river and reached by a lane. The front of Spring Gardens House faced westwards towards the river and its east-facing rear onto the gardens.  The building was therefore adapted to become the entrance, ticket booth, and offices, and known as the Proprietor’s House. Tyers changed the gardens to an evening-only venue and most visitors arrived at around sunset.

From the start, Tyers was determined to change the reputation of the gardens by introducing cultural aspects, both for entertainment and education. In his own words, he wished to create “Diversion that may polish; without corrupting the Minds”. To improve the perception of the establishment he hired the poet and lyricist John Lockman to manage publicity and change the public image. Lockman often used the phrase “elegant Innocence” to describe the gardens. The continuous publicity he generated ensured that nobody in London, and very few around the country, would have not heard of, and did not want to visit, Vauxhall. Many plays and novels of the Georgian period included a scene or chapter set in the gardens.

In the next few years the gardens gradually began to be referred to as Vauxhall Gardens rather than the older name of New Spring Gardens. They were open three times a week between April or May and late August.

Prostitutes and pimps were henceforth refused entry, as were any who “in no way qualify’d to intermix with Persons of better Fashion”. Otherwise, all visitors who could afford the admission price, whatever their rank, were treated equally and charged the same entrance fee. To prevent distinction between different classes, servants were equally as welcome as their employers so long as they were not wearing uniform. Some criticised Tyers for allowing the indiscriminate mixing of classes, with footmen and parlour maids mixing with countesses and clergymen. On the other hand, Horace Walpole later wrote: “Admirable it was in a country of so much freedom…to see Princes & Peeresses mixed with tradesmen & their wives, w^th apprentices & women of pleasure…”.

Despite Tyers’s apparent drive for respectability, a blind eye was largely turned towards less respectable behaviour, which took place in the unlit Druid’s Walk, also known as the Lover’s Walk, and the Dark Walks. Unsurprisingly, these featured in the journals of Giacomo Casanova when he visited London in 1763.

Tyers was highly successful in bringing a more respectable tone to the establishment but the crossing of boundaries between ranks, flirtation in the darker groves, and the party atmosphere on a summer’s night al fresco, were part of the charm that brought Londoners out to Vauxhall. That and the fun of arriving by boat and entering gardens, illuminated by 1,000 whale-oil lamps glimmering in the trees. A visitor in 1741 wrote that the lamp lighters “perform with so astonishing a rapidity, that in less than two minutes the whole garden appears as light as at noon day”.

The orchestra played from seven until nine, followed by a cold supper of chicken, beef, and notoriously thinly-sliced ham, cheesecakes and tarts, strawberries, sweet custard, washed down with port or sherry. One visitor marvelled at how “five hundred separate suppers are served in an instant”. Tyers himself kept a low profile, usually working behind the bar, and few visitors would have recognised him.

During the 19^th century the districts to the east of the City of London, on both sides of the river, became highly industrialized and densely populated, yet there was no dry crossing that linked each side of the Thames. Plans evolved in the 1880s for a road tunnel to carry traffic between each side of the river.

Until the early 19^th century London’s metropolis had barely spread eastwards of the City of London. A vast network of docks and wharves was thereafter created along both sides of the river, as well as many factories and processing facilities. By the latter part of the century the urban area to the east of the City had a population of a million inhabitants, a third of that of the whole of London and larger than most British cities. There were many road crossings over the river but none east of London Bridge. To carry goods from docks or factories on one side of the Thames to a location on the other involved a long and torturous journey through narrow streets and over the congested London Bridge. It was said that to carry a cargo of skins from Wapping to the other side of the river cost more than bringing them across the Atlantic from Hudson Bay.

An obstacle to overcome in creating a crossing downriver of the bridge was that ships had to pass along the river. A crossing would have needed to be extremely high for them to pass underneath. Furthermore, the river widens east of London, making any bridge longer and more expensive to construct.

An unsuccessful attempt had been made by the entrepreneur Ralph Dodd to create a tunnel at the very beginning of the 19^th century. The Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick made another unsuccessful attempt using Cornish miners as labourers.

In 1818 the engineer Marc Brunel took out a patent for a boring machine that could dig a tunnel, based on observations he had made while he was working at Chatham Dockyard of insects eating through timber. He formed a company and raised funds to construct the Thames Tunnel from Rotherhithe to Wapping. Work began in 1825 but there were many difficulties and it was finally completed by his son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, in 1843. It was, however, only a pedestrian crossing and remained so for the next 20 years. By that time the company had run short of funds and the venture was sold to the East London Railway Company who converted it for use by steam trains as part of their network. (It still exists as part of the London Underground network, between Wapping and Rotherhithe stations).

Another tunnel opened under the river in 1870. The Tower Subway passed from Tower Hill to Tooley Street near London Bridge station. Up to fourteen passengers were carried through the tunnel on a carriage travelling on a narrow-gauge railway. The tunnel’s ‘omnibus’ was initially pulled by ropes and then under its own velocity down an incline and up the far side. The journey-time was 70 seconds, or three minutes including the descent and ascent by lifts at each end. There were several accidents, however, and the service was withdrawn in 1894, the same year it anyway became redundant with the opening of Tower Bridge.

The impetus or the creation of the Blackwall Tunnel came from the Metropolitan Board of Works. Much of the governance of London outside of the City of London was undertaken by the many vestries and other local bodies until the mid-19^th century. The capital was expanding rapidly, both in population and size but there were few bodies to oversee issues that affected the entire metropolis. In 1855 the government therefore formed the Metropolitan Board of Works to coordinate local infrastructure. Its committee of 45 was formed from representatives of vestries and the City of London. Its most important responsibilities were sewers, streets and bridges, the fire service, and parks and open spaces. Amongst other major initiatives, London’s sewer system was massively upgraded under the management of the MBW’s chief engineer Joseph Bazalgette. Between 1864 and 1874 that involved creating the Victoria Embankment, Albert Embankment, and Chelsea Embankment, as well as pumping stations at Abbey Mills and Crossness.

Most of the bridges that had been built across the river in the 18^th and 19^th centuries were by private companies who charged tolls. The only exceptions were London and Blackfriars Bridges, both of which were owned by the City of London Corporation, and Westminster Bridge that was under the control of the government’s Office of Works. The tolls on the private bridges were highly unpopular, and many people went out of their way to avoid them, causing congestion on the three toll-free bridges. In 1877 an Act of Parliament was passed enabling the MBW to purchase the privately-owned London bridges. Between 1878 and 1880 eleven bridges were thus made public and the tolls abolished. On Queen Victoria’s birthday in May 1879 the Prince and Princess of Wales (later to become King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra) spent an afternoon driving across Lambeth, Vauxhall, Chelsea, Albert, and Battersea Bridges to celebrate. A number of the bridges were then rebuilt or refurbished by the MBW.

The MBW was funded from rates payable by Londoners and the inhabitants of East London had therefore helped fund the purchase of the bridges of the City and West London. They were then agitating for their own crossings and Bazalgette studied the issue. There was a plan for a high-level bridge near the Tower of London and a tunnel three quarters of a mile downriver of London Bridge. Neither scheme initially progressed, although the former idea was taken up by the City of London, resulting in Tower Bridge, which opened in 1894. The MBW, however, were authorized to proceed with a toll-free ferry across the river between Woolwich and North Woolwich. Two new sites were also considered for a tunnel, at Shadwell and Blackwall. Bazalgette prepared plans and in 1887 the Blackwall Tunnel Bill was passed with almost no opposition, at a cost of one and a half million pounds. Bazalgette’s scheme was for three separate parallel tunnels, two for vehicles and one for pedestrians, between Blackwall and Greenwich.