< Back to London’s Jewish community in the 19th century. Part 1 – Their arrival

There had been a small population of Sephardic Jews in London since the 17^th century but persecution and massacres in Russia and Poland in the 19^th century brought waves of poverty-stricken Ashkenazi Jewish refugees to London. Many toiled long hours in small East End workshops to earn the lowest wage at which life could be sustained. These alien people, who only mixed with their own and spoke in a strange tongue, with strange habits, struck the native English population as furtive and sinister.

Jews are townspeople, not farmers, and rarely lived in the countryside. In whichever towns the settled they clustered together, for self-protection, for reasons of language and culture, and to be within walking-distance of a synagogue. In the late 19^th century and first half of the 20^th century London’s main Jewish Quarter was in the Whitechapel, Spitalfields, and Mile End Old Town districts, and the parish of St. George-in-the-East. They were areas that had previously been settled by earlier Huguenot and German immigrants. The former people had largely assimilated and moved elsewhere but the less affluent German community remained in Whitechapel and St. George’s until the First World War. Towards the end of the 19^th century 90% of the capital’s Jews lived in East London and 40% of the population of the Borough of Stepney were Jewish. The East End took on an exotic character: streets filled with people speaking Yiddish, Lettish (from Latvia) or German; men dressed in black jupizes (long coats) and with side-curls; Germanic names and Hebrew lettering over the shopfronts; kosher butchers; Jewish booksellers; and Jewish music-halls.

The East End area of two square miles was one of the most densely populated in the whole of England. Throughout the second half of the 19^th century railway companies ran lines through East London, razing many homes along the way. Residents simply moved a few streets away, creating increased overcrowding as the number of houses decreased and the population grew with new arrivals. There were some streets of fine houses, albeit run-down, as well as mean slums, small, stinking alleyways and narrow courtyards. As with London’s other rookeries, water supply and sanitary conditions were often poor, which only began to improve when a new water authority was created after 1903. Refuse was often left to rot. Conditions inside many homes were bad, with leaking ceilings, damp walls, and foul water closets. In 1884 The Lancet published a report that galvanised the Jewish Board of Guardians into appointing an inspector of housing. Of those properties initially checked 93% were found to not have flushing toilets. Jews, tended to crowd more people into each dwelling, encouraging landlords, often themselves Jews, to charge higher rents than to Gentiles. The latter were then forced out of properties and whole streets became part of the Jewish ghetto. Many Jewish families took in lodgers, perhaps someone newly-arrived. Overcrowded homes were the norm, often with eight or nine people sharing two small rooms, and many doubled-up as workshops. Hence, much of home life was spent outside on the doorstep or in the street.

From the 1870s London’s slums were gradually cleared to make way for social housing. In 1884 the United Synagogue reported on the state of East End housing. This resulted in two private social housing companies. The Four Per Cent Industrial Dwellings Company, providing a four percent return to investors, was founded and chaired by Nathan Rothschild. (It still exists as the Industrial Dwellings Society). Samuel Barnett of the St. Jude’s church at Whitechapel was the primary instigator of the East End Dwellings Company.

There were two main groups of Jews in London. The Sefardim, who originated on the Iberian Peninsula and spoke a mixture of Hebrew and Spanish, had begun to arrive in the 17^th century after being driven out their homeland. They had assimilated into English life and tended to be wealthy tradespeople and craftsmen. The Ashkenazim, who spoke Yiddish (a mixture of Hebrew and Germanic languages) mostly arrived in the 19^th century penniless after escaping persecution in Russia and Poland.

The main synagogue for the Sefardi community was at Bevis Marks, and the Great Synagogue at Duke’s Place for the Ashkenazim. The poor East Europeans who arrived towards the end of the 19^th century often felt alienated from the grandeur of those established institutions. It became common for many in the community to patronise their local hebra (also known as hevra, or chevrah), which were numerous, acting independently of a synagogue. These were small and simple religious societies of like-minded people, perhaps in a house, old workshop, or an abandoned church. The congregation was usually too small to support a rabbi but instead relied on a shammash or hazan for the oversight of its activity and to direct a service. Some of London’s hebrot were already in existence as early as the mid-18^th century. German Jews set up a hebra at Spital Square in 1870, although many of them later migrated to around Canonbury Road in Islington, close to the North London Synagogue in Lofting Road. The surviving synagogue at Sandys Row, Spitalfields, began as a Dutch hebra in 1860. The former Huguenot La Neuve Église church in Brick Lane was re-used as the Machzike Hadath, or Spitalfields Great Synagogue, by the late 19^th century (and later a Bangladeshi mosque).

The two largest groups of foreign immigrants into London during the second half of the 19^th century were German Lutheran Christians and East European Ashkenazi Jews. The majority arrived without money or possessions and unable to speak English. They needed to urgently seek accommodation, and also work, however low the income. Each group had to live amongst their compatriots due to language and, particularly for Jews, for religious and cultural reasons. It was in the slums around the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of East London that they settled.

A Jewish community existed in London throughout the early Middle Ages but they were banished from England by Edward I in 1290. In 1656 some Sephardi Jews (who spoke Judaeo-Spanish, a mix of Hebrew and Spanish) arrived, declaring themselves as refugees from the Spanish Inquisition. As asylum-seekers from torture by Catholics it was difficult for the Puritan government to refuse them refuge. They settled around Houndsditch and were allowed to set up a synagogue on the upper floor of the house of Moses Athias at Creechurch Lane on the eastern side of the City (replaced in 1701 by the purpose-built synagogue that still functions at Bevis Marks). They arranged a burial ground in a former orchard at Mile End.

By the end of the 17^th century there were around 1,000 Jews in London, with homes in villages north of the City, such as at Hampstead. Samuel Dormido became the first Jew to trade on the Royal Exchange and others followed him. Some became diamond traders and bankers. William III’s Glorious Revolution of 1688 was largely funded by Isaac Pereira, a Dutch Jew, and they were useful as agents to disperse plundered booty brought home by English privateers. Loans from Samson Gideon helped suppress the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion.

In 1701 the synagogue at Creechurch Lane was replaced with a new building at Bevis Marks. It was built by a Quaker architect, probably based on the main synagogue in Amsterdam. The synagogue still functions but its attached schools and Spanish and Portuguese Jews orphanage off Heneage Lane are gone.

Sometime after instigating the Gordon Riots of 1780, the Protestant fanatic Lord Gordon turned to Judaism, changing his name to Israel bar Abraham Gordon. Alfred Yarrow, son of Esther, a Sephardic Jew, founded the Yarrow shipbuilding company, initially on the Isle of Dogs and later moving to the Clyde.

The Sephardim created the seven-man Board of Deputies to pay homage to King George III and to represent them in political matters. By the middle of the 18^th century there was a Sephardic Orphanage, a Sephardic School of Girls, and the Beth Holim hospital for the sick and aged.

The Ashkenazi Jews who settled in Northern and Eastern Europe are a different strand of Judaism from the Sephardim, and they speak Yiddish, which is a mix of Hebrew, Slavic and German languages. When they first arrived in England they were not welcomed by those already settled and ordered not to come to the Sephardic synagogue. In 1692 the Ashkenazi created their own Great Synagogue at Duke’s Place, north of Aldgate, in the precinct of the former Priory of the Holy Trinity. (It was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War). Several years later they established a burial ground just to the north of Mile End Road at what is now Alderney Road. The rabbi of the Great Synagogue became recognized as the principle religious authority by most Jews in London and the Provinces.

Between 1725 and 1892 a splinter group of Ashkenazim from Hamburg held services at the Hambro synagogue near Fenchurch Street. The Ashkenazi New Synagogue also functioned from 1761, with a burial ground at Ducking Pond Lane, Mile End.

The rabbi of the Great Synagogue took the position of England’s Chief Rabbi, although it was only in 1780 that the post was recognized by the Hambro and New synagogues. In 1870, as Jews were beginning to move to the suburbs, the Ashkenazi synagogues came together under one body as the United Synagogue. A Beth Din (House of Judgement) was formed to interpret and rule on religious matters and arbitrate in family issues. In the middle of the 19^th century a group of several West London families, with their own religious views, broke away from the Great Synagogue and Bevis Marks to form the West London Synagogue in Burton Street.

In 1745 Jews were expelled from Prague. Some of them, together with Germans and Poles, made their way across the North Sea via Holland, arriving penniless and unskilled. They were followed in the first half of the 19^th century by those from the Netherlands and Germany via Amsterdam and Hamburg. Often poor, they varied from silversmiths and jewellers to thieves and receivers of stolen goods. On the other hand, some became prosperous businessmen, founding banks and textiles businesses in particular. Nathan Meyer Rothschild arrived from Frankfurt and built a successful banking business, acting as a financier for the government during the Napoleonic wars. Ludwig Mond arrived in 1862. He jointly-founded Bruner Mond, a major British chemical company that became Imperial Chemical Industries under Ludwig’s son, once Britain’s largest company. (More about Brunner Mond here). Louis Samuel arrived from Mecklenburg and became a watchmaker and silversmith. His brother’s son, Samuel Montagu, became a wealthy banker, MP for Whitechapel, and knighted as Baron Swaythling.

In 1772 Russia annexed Poland, home to many Jewish communities. It became the policy of successive Tsars thereafter to destroy their Jewish population through persecution and massacres encouraging hundreds of thousands of refugees to leave the country. It was the United States that offered greater opportunity and where the vast majority of Jewish emigrants headed. Thousands on their way to the New World initially landed at an English port before taking a second ship to America. The sea crossing over the North Sea was so traumatic for many that they decided against the longer journey across the Atlantic and many stayed in England. Some only stayed as long as to earn enough for the onward journey to America but entry became increasing restricted there from 1882.

It was in the decade from 1865 to 1875 when new arrivals changed from predominantly Dutch and German to those from Eastern Europe. From 1881 widespread pogroms – organized massacres of Jews – occurred in Southern Russia following the assassination of Alexander II that year, creating a greater urgency amongst Russian Jews to emigrate. In 1883 half of Jews in London had arrived within the past decade and around 90 percent of the Jewish poor in London at that time originated in the Russian Empire. There were still German Jews arriving, but they were generally a more prosperous group of tradesmen and skilled workers. A further peak of arrivals occurred in 1886 when Bismarck expelled Poles from Prussia. Another wave came when Jews were expelled from Moscow and other Russian cities in 1890.

The majority of those who left Eastern Europe were young, unattached men. They had to first travel to a coast to sail to Britain. The main ports of embarkation were Riga in Latvia, Bremen and Hamburg in Germany, Rotterdam, and, after 1900, Libau in Lithuania. They disembarked at Glasgow, Grimsby, Harwich, and Tilbury, or at Irongate Stairs by the entrance to St. Katharine’s Docks. Those arriving at Grimsby went on to Liverpool to continue their journey to America. Many of the earliest arrivals came from Lithuania and north-east Poland, two regions that were relatively close to Riga. As railways cut deeper into the Russian Empire, allowing travel from greater distances, later emigrants came from further afield.

Friends in England often sent money to pay for the passage to London. It was not easy to leave Russia. It was a long and arduous journey to England from their former home. Passports were not provided to men of conscription age so many had to be smuggled out.  It was not unusual to be held up at a railway station or border for two or three days before having to pay a corrupt official, perhaps in collusion with a villainous ‘agent’.

Travellers often found themselves exploited by unscrupulous agents, many of them Yiddish-speaking Jews. This included stolen baggage and tickets sold for the wrong destination, some paying to travel to America but instead sent to England. Jews are not sailors and this may have been their first time on a ship. The North Sea can be notoriously rough, particularly in winter, and many would have been seasick. The sea journey alone often took two days and two nights, cooped up in uncomfortable and cramped conditions below deck. Shipping agents arranged for a secret section in the hold of passenger ships where those without passports could hide until beyond the reach of officials. Few were ever caught, indicating that officials were bribed, or the Russian government turned a blind eye. The conditions on board ship were extremely poor, with passengers crammed into overcrowded and filthy cabins.

Dangers also awaited on the dockside upon arrival in England. Many arrived with only the clothes they wore for the journey, arriving in a dishevelled and unsanitary state, with an address of a relative, fellow townsman, or a boarding house written on a crumpled piece of paper. Yiddish-speaking fraudsters waited at the dock gates to direct newcomers to a boarding house where they would be cheated of their little money. Police officers would watch but rarely intervened. The writer George R. Sims witnessed a group of arrivals being ferried ashore from a ship moored in mid-stream on the Thames. The boatman demanded six pence from each traveller. He wrote:

Two English policemen, stolid and self-possessed, listen to the complaints poured into their ears in half a dozen languages and say nothing. When I explain to one that a gesticulating Pole wants to give the boatman into custody for refusing to give up his bundle without the sixpence is paid, the policeman grins and says ‘Lor now, does he?’. With their faces woe-begone, their heads bent, [the arrivals] appear more like a gang of convicts marching to the mines than free men and women making their acquaintance with the capital of the British Empire.

If they were lucky, there was a representative from the Poor Jews’ Temporary Shelter on hand to give them a place to stay for the night.

There were Jews living in London for two centuries during the Middle Ages. They were a valuable source of finance for the monarchs, nobles, sheriffs, and merchants and an essential part of the economy. Their money helped build castles, cathedrals, monasteries and abbeys (including Westminster Abbey), and pay for armies, wars and crusades. But they were also resented, often suffering extreme prejudice, oppression and massacre. Finally, they were banished from the country.

There had been a community of Jews in London since the Norman period. William the Conqueror was familiar with the small Jewish community of Rouen in Normandy and knew they had techniques for handling money. He encouraged them to come to England and they formed their own, largely insular, community in London, creating families that survived for two centuries. Jews mingled with English, French, Norse, Danes, Germans and Flemings in what was a very cosmopolitan town. They were worldly, scholarly, cultivated, sophisticated, and numerate compared to the general population, and wealthy. The community must have existed in France for a long period because at the time of their arrival they spoke in a form of medieval French and had French names.

The Norman monk Gilbert Crispin became Abbot of Westminster Abbey in 1085. One of his famous writings concerns a conversation with a learned Jew who came to London at about that time. In Dialogue between a Christian and a Jew Gilbert shows a kindly and humane attitude towards his Jewish friend.

Jews were forbidden to hold land in England and by necessity and tradition they tended to be specialists in various trades except that of agriculture. Over many centuries they had gained experience in dealing in business and finance across long distances as far as China, although by the 11^th century they had been surpassed in long-distance trade.

During the medieval period the Christian Church forbade usury, the lending of money for interest. It was a rule that did not apply to the Jews, who were sophisticated in methods of giving credit, so they became useful to the monarchs, aristocracy and merchants as a source of finance, as did the Knights Templar in the 12^th century. Rates of interest could be as high as one hundred percent and borrowers mortgaged their land to Jewish lenders as security. Although Jews were barred from owning the land, they could arrange where necessary for a third party to acquire it in return for clearing the debt of a borrower. There are surviving records that show transfers of land for that reason.

The position of Jews in Europe was far from secure after the Pope called for the First Crusade in the 1090s. His intended target was Muslims but his initiative encouraged Christians across Europe to attack any non-believer. In England Jews received protection and assistance from the monarchs, but without rights other than that graciously allowed them, and they required a royal permit to set up in trade. That protection was immensely important. They were wards of the monarch, which protected them while they were useful. Harming a Jew was damaging the king’s property, resulting in severe punishment.

William II (who enjoyed shocking intolerant churchmen by giving patronage to ‘infidels’) valued them for financing his army. It was Henry I who fully grasped the value of Jews, however, and the London Jewry seems to date from his reign. The leading member of the Jewry then was Rabbi Josce of Rouen. His sons Isaac and Abraham were businessmen and money-lenders and Isaac kept a house on Cheapside. During the early years of Henry II they were lending money to the King. Loans to the monarch were necessary but not profitable for the lenders and were effectively a form of taxation; the real money to be made came from lending to landowners and merchants.

London’s Jewish Quarter in the 12^th century spread over nine parishes. Its main part was immediately south of the Guildhall down to Catte (Gresham) Street and Westcheap (Cheapside). On the west side it was bordered by Milk Street and Jew’s Street in the east (the modern-day Old Jewry, of which there are records as far back as 1128), with Lawrence Lane in its centre. The name Milk Street may be derived from the Hebrew word ‘melech’, meaning ‘king’. The Christian parish church of St. Lawrence Jewry stood within the Jewish quarter.

It is significant that the Jewry was located in the same area as the Guildhall, London’s seat of local government, as it was in other European towns. Christians and Jews moved about together in the Jewish Quarter during the day but Christians could be fined for being there at night. The Jews built synagogues in the surrounding streets at the modern-day Ironmonger Row, Gresham Street, Basinghall Street, Coleman Street and Threadneedle Street.

Archaeologists discovered a mikveh, a Jewish ritual bath, from the mid-13^th century, under a modern building in Milk Street in 2001. It has been reconstructed at the Jewish Museum in Camden Town. Some of England’s oldest surviving secular Hebrew text is contained within contracts still held in the National Archives regarding the purchase of property in London.

Jews had only one burial ground in England, outside the city wall at Cripplegate, and they had to transport their dead there from other towns. It is now partly covered by the Barbican development. In 1177 Henry II allowed others to be established and there were later cemeteries created at York and Winchester. A tax of three and a half pence was payable on every Jewish burial.

Some Jews went into professions as doctors, goldsmiths, pawnbrokers, rabbis, cheesemongers, fishmongers, and vintners. One Marlibrun of Billingsgate was an artist, and Elijah Menahem a leading translator and Judaic theologian with an impressive library.

Southwark Bridge was the third of three toll-crossings over the Thames opened in quick succession between 1816 and 1819. The engineer John Rennie was associated with all three. All were good examples of engineering art and science, but none proved to be a commercial success. Nevertheless, Southwark Bridge was a remarkable achievement for its time, with the largest cast-iron span attempted thus far.

During the second decade of the 19^th century Britain was fighting the Peninsula War in Spain and, no doubt, the government had greater priorities than bridges across the Thames. Yet many were profiting from the war and needed somewhere to invest their funds. The volume of long-distance road travel increased as roads improved. Several groups of speculators felt the time was right for private toll-bridges across the river in the London and Westminster area, resulting in Vauxhall, Waterloo and Southwark bridges in quick succession.

London Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge, both owned by the City of London and managed by their Bridge House Estates, had become congested. The Southwark Bridge Company was formed by a private Act of Parliament in May 1811, two years after Vauxhall and Waterloo bridges, to create a new crossing on the narrowest part of the river, linking the City with Southwark. It was estimated that traffic would be about a third of Blackfriars Bridge, providing a tidy profit.

There were objections from the City of London Corporation and Thames Conservators that it would hinder river traffic due to the narrow width of the river at that point. The company was therefore forced to make an undertaking to construct the bridge with only three arches, which had never been attempted before on the Thames. John Rennie was commissioned to provide the design. Thomas Telford had created a one-span iron bridge over the narrow River Severn a decade earlier and iron was Rennie’s solution.

At that time Rennie was also involved in a nearby bridge just downriver that would be named Waterloo Bridge, and had previously provided initial, but unused, designs for Vauxhall Bridge.

The approach from the City side was to be made from a junction with Cannon Street, through part of the ancient Three Cranes Wharf. Due to the requirement for just three spans Rennie made the bridge from criss-crossed iron arches. The piers of Bramley Fall and Whitely stone from quarries near Edinburgh and Dundee were bonded both vertically and horizontally ensuring maximum stability, and topped by a balustrade. A bridge over the River Wear at Sunderland, completed in 1796, was considered an engineering triumph with a central span of 236 feet but Rennie’s central span, at 240 feet, became the widest ever attempted. The three arches were relatively flat but the voussoirs – the wedge shapes that keep the arch in place – were made of solid cast-iron, bolted together, to minimize thrust. The two side arches were each of two 210 feet. The ironwork, weighing between five and six thousand tons in total with individual pieces of up to ten tons, was cast by Walkers of Rotherham. Granite was brought from Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and transported as large blocks around the coast on cargo streamers.

Work began in 1814. The foundation stone was laid by Admiral Lord Keith, a distinguished naval commander, at a ceremony in May 1815, with an inscription stating that work commenced at the ‘glorious termination’ of the Napoleonic Wars, despite Napoleon Bonaparte’s escape from captivity the previous month. The Battle of Waterloo took place a month later.

Southwark Bridge opened in March 1819, a year earlier than scheduled due to the teamwork of Rennie and the contractors, Jolliffe & Banks, with whom he had by then formed an efficient working partnership in his various Thames bridges and other projects. A three-span iron bridge the width of the Thames was a significant engineering achievement and much admired. Perhaps not as graceful as his design for Waterloo Bridge, it was nevertheless an engineering miracle of its time. The final cost, however, was £700,000, £200,000 over budget. The company was unable to afford a lavish ceremony, although the bridge was brilliantly illuminated by 30 oil lamps for the opening when the clock of St. Paul’s Cathedral struck midnight.

Southwark Bridge was not a financial success, and did not relieve London’s traffic congestion. It was not located on a through-route, was too close to the toll-free Blackfriars and London bridges, and its approaches were too steep for horse-drawn carriages. Traffic was lower than expected, especially after the opening of the new London Bridge in 1831. As with Waterloo Bridge, it was a poor investment, never making a return. The North Kent Railway offered to purchase it and use it as a railway bridge but the plan was blocked by the City. In 1849 the City of London Corporation’s Bridge House Estates offered to buy it for substantially less than the original cost but an agreement could not be concluded. In 1864 it was agreed that the City could rent the bridge from the company and they abolished the tolls. Pedestrian traffic increased ten-fold. In May 1866 the City purchased the bridge for £218,868, less than a third of what it had cost to build over fifty years earlier.

The 42 feet width of the bridge and the steep approaches were found to be inadequate for the increased traffic created by the abolition of tolls. There were ideas put forward to reduce the steepness, particularly on the northern City side but in 1912 it was decided instead to replace the old bridge. In 1921, just over a hundred years since its opening, Rennie’s original bridge was replaced by a new structure.

Sources include: Peter Matthews ‘London’s Bridges’; John Pudney ‘Crossing London’s Rivers’; John Summerson ‘Georgian London’; James Elmes ‘Metropolitan Improvements’ (1829); Walter Thornbury ‘Old and New London’ (1897).

< back to Bridges and Tunnels

As London expanded eastwards in the early 19^th century, with the opening of new docks on both sides of the Thames, a means of crossing the river was badly needed downriver of London Bridge. A bridge was out of the question because it would need to be of enormous height for ships’ mast to pass under. Various tunnels had been constructed by canal engineers but a tunnel under a river had never been successfully achieved anywhere in the world. It was the engineering genius of two men, father and son, that created the solution.

Throughout the 19^th century there was a growing complex of docks on both the north and south sides of the Thames to the east of London. However, there was no dry crossing downriver of London Bridge by which to travel from one side to the other. It was observed that goods arriving at the new docks being constructed on the north side had to make a lengthy journey westwards through narrow streets, then pay a toll to cross London Bridge, to reach Southwark and Rotherhithe on the south side. The bridge was very congested, with an estimated 4,000 vehicles each day struggling to cross. It was said that it cost more to carry a cargo of skins over the Thames from Wapping than to transport it across the Atlantic from Hudson’s Bay. The river was often congested with ships and not easy to cross by boat. The ideal solution would be a tunnel but machinery and expertise to create an underground thoroughfare did not yet exist.

The idea of a tunnel under the Thames to link one bank with the other was first seriously considered at the end of the 18^th century, even before the creation of the docks. Ralph Dodd is a name that often crops up as a promoter of docks, bridges and canals in various parts of the country at around that time. Some of his proposed schemes came to fruition, such as the Grand Surrey Canal, Vauxhall Bridge, and Waterloo Bridge, although not necessarily with his involvement to their conclusion. Prior to those projects he had embarked on a scheme to build a tunnel under the Thames from Tilbury to Gravesend. In addition to the movement of goods, such a resource was considered advantageous for troop movements at the time when Britain was at war with Napoleonic France and under threat of invasion. A tunnel between the ordnance depot at Tilbury Fort and the busy maritime town of Gravesend therefore seemed ideal. A report in The Times in July 1798 explained that the tunnel would save a land journey of 50 miles between those two points and cost an estimated £15,995. The project gained the approval of senior military men and a series of public meetings were held. Following the first, at Gravesend chaired by local landowner the Earl of Darnley, a committee was formed that included three Members of Parliament. A company was launched at a meeting in the Strand in London in November 1798. Thirty thousand pounds was raised in share sales by February of the following year and Samuel Wyatt was engaged as a consultant. Royal assent was given by King George III in July 1799.

Work began with a tunnel sunk close to a chalk pit near Gravesend, overseen by Colonel Twiss, Wyatt and a miner by the name of Ludlam. Things did not go well from the beginning. A shaft of 10 feet in diameter became so flooded at 42 feet in depth that a steam pump had to be employed to drain it. Each time the pump was turned off the shaft flooded within an hour. By June 1802 the flooding was so bad that a survey was requested from the engineer John Rennie, who made suggestions but declined to give an opinion on the practicality of the scheme. Work was temporarily halted in October when the engine house burnt down. In December the shaft reached 85 feet in depth. At that point, having cost more than £15,200, the project was abandoned.

The idea of a tunnel under the Thames became increasingly important. The West India Docks, London Docks, and East India Docks opened on the north bank of the river during the first decade of the 19^th century. On the opposite bank there were the naval arsenals at Woolwich and Deptford and the growing dock complex at Rotherhithe. Even before Ralph Dodd’s project had been abandoned the Cornish engineer Robert Vazie was proposing a tunnel further upstream between Rotherhithe and Limehouse, which would be ideal to link the dock and naval complexes on each side. He dug shafts on both sides of the river and reported the cost would be lower than first expected, £140,000 was raised, and the Thames Archway Company formed. An Act of Parliament was given royal assent in July 1805.

The tunnel was designed for the use of pedestrians, horses and carriages. A team of Cornish miners was brought to London to carry out the work. The first shaft was sunk near Lavender Lane at Rotherhithe. From there the plan was to drive a miners’ drift passage under the river about five feet high and wide enough for two men to pass. The main tunnel would then be created above it, with the pilot tunnel acting as a drain, a method that had recently been employed in the creation of the Blisworth Tunnel on the Grand Junction Canal. The Rotherhithe shaft quickly filled with water and Vazie ordered a powerful pump. Instead the company directors would only authorize a much less powerful machine. As the miners dug deeper the pump proved inadequate and work came to a halt.

Costs were exceeding budget, work was suspended, and John Rennie’s advice was once again sought, together with William Chapman, another canal engineer. They gave contradictory opinions so the company brought in Davies Giddy, a Cornish Member of Parliament and he recommended bringing his friend Cornish mining engineer and pioneer of steam locomotion Richard Trevithick (who was already working in London), to take charge of the project. Relations between Trevithick and Vazie were not harmonious and in October 1807 the latter was dismissed from the venture. By then the tunnel under the Thames stretched for nearly 400 feet. There was some sympathy for Vazie, who had been working on the project for four and a half years, and Trevithick often found himself at odds with the directors. In January 1808 the tunnel was a thousand feet long. Trevithick was in the far end with one of the workers when quicksand caused water to suddenly flood in. It was soon above their shoulders but they managed to swim to the exit. Shortly after there was another flood and the directors called an emergency meeting at Limehouse. They had lost confidence in Trevithick and offered £500 pounds to anyone who could propose a scheme to finish the work. Despite a large response they decided to throw in the towel and the company was wound up.

Gustav Milne & The Thames Discovery Programme: ‘The Thames at War – Saving London from the Blitz’ – Review

Pen & Sword History, ISBN 978-1-52676-802-5

The Thames Discovery Programme was formed in 2008 to continue the work of earlier such projects and is part of Museum of London Archaeology. TDP’s small army of volunteers, known as FROGs (Foreshore Recording and Observation Group), are led by the team of Gustav Milne, Nathalie Cohen and Eliott Wragg. Throughout each year the FROGs gather at low tides on the Thames foreshore, searching for, recording, and collecting where appropriate, remains of London’s past. I was aware of the TDP’s discovery and recording of ancient remains on our river, such as Saxon fishtraps and the Tudor pier at Greenwich, but unaware of their ‘Thames at War’ project until the welcome publication of this book.

As the introduction to this volume reminds us, between 1940 and 1945 London suffered 253 night-time raids and 101 daytime raids by the German Luftwaffe, with 80,000 casualties. Even during night-time black-outs the bomber navigators could easily identify their target due to the distinctive shape of the River Thames. Anyone who has the smallest knowledge of London during the Blitz will be aware of the great devastation caused. The Nazis knew of the huge importance of the Port of London to Britain’s economy and therefore London’s docks were a key target. Most of us have seen dramatic photographs of bombed and burning riverside warehouses.

What is almost forgotten, indeed, was almost unknown at the time, was the work of Thames-Flood (the Thames-Flood Prevention Emergency Repairs service), the London County Council’s rapid response unit. London is low-lying, some of it below the level of the Thames at the highest tides. Furthermore, the metropolis has much infrastructure and accommodation below ground, including basements, the Underground system, much of the electricity and telephone network, and drinking water supplies and sewers. The river is held in check by embankments. If they were breached there would have been a catastrophe.

The task of the T-F units was to rapidly attend and inspect any bomb-strikes along the river, provide their report, and make temporary, and eventually permanent, repairs to any breach. They often made their initial inspection as the bombs were still falling. The resource had been put in place prior to the war due to the foresight of the LCC’s Chief Engineer, Thomas Peirson Frank. The necessity for such a coordinated team became abundantly clear from the destruction brought about on the first night of the Blitz in 1940. From then until 1945 the T-F units had to deal with at least 122 breaches, many coming during intense periods of bombing. (For example, twenty of those incidents were logged on just one night of 11-12^th May 1941).

Information about Thames-Flood and the dangers of flooding was suppressed during to war in order to not give the Luftwaffe ideas. It was kept so secret that even residents local to the four T-F bases along the Thames were unaware of their existence, either during or after the war. Peirson Frank was knighted for his work. It is good to know his wartime efforts had not been completely forgotten: in 2014 a memorial was unveiled in Thomas Peirson Frank’s memory on the embankment wall close to the Houses of Parliament. (His name is also included in the inscription on Waterloo Bridge, of which he oversaw the building during the course of the war).

There are many interesting, and sometimes amusing, snippets of information contained within. We learn, for example, that the T-F unit would make emergency repairs of sandbags that sometimes stayed in place for several years. The bags then needed to be continually replaced because they were stolen, or thrown into the river by playful children not understanding that a flood could ensue. Or that when the riverbank at Craven Cottage was destroyed by a bomb, Fulham Football Club were too impoverished to repair it. Or that a house-boat owner was able to stock up with fuel for many years after a bomb destroyed a coal storage at Dolphin Square. Or that a direct hit on a riverside flour-mill left a huge ‘dumpling’. I was fascinated to read that the ‘temporary’ repairs to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel are still in place today.

The second half of the book looks at other aspects of London’s war effort: the river fire service; the building of temporary wartime Thames bridges and damage to each of the permanent bridges; a catalogue of the many vessels sunk in the Thames and Thames Estuary; archaeological information on several small sunken craft discovered in London by the Thames Discovery Programme; the Dunkirk ‘Little Ships’ and Thames sailing barges involved in Operation DYNAMO; and the role of Thames barges and lightermen in Operation OVERLORD.

This book sheds light on what until now has been an almost unknown but important aspect of London’s survival during the Second World War. It explains the vital work of the Thames-Flood unit, adding archaeological evidence to earlier records held at the London Metropolitan Archives. It makes an excellent companion to the earlier The Thames on Fire by Lieutenant Commander L.M. Bates (Terence Dalton Ltd., Lavenham, Suffolk, 1985), which gives a broader account of the war effort on the Thames during the Second World War. As would be expected of Gustav Milne (who has written or contributed to several books on early London history), this is a scholarly yet easily readable account. It contains much detailed information, together with extensive contemporary and modern photographs from many sources that illuminate the text.

The main form of transport in London and elsewhere until the early part of the 20^th century was by horse, or was horse-drawn. Individuals owned horses; more affluent house-holds owned or hired carriages; and goods were delivered by wagon and cart. Hackney carriages were superseded by the faster hansom cabs in the mid-century. From the 1830s horse-drawn omnibuses, and later trams, were able to speedily transport huge numbers of people.

During the Victorian era, many of London’s streets were filled with all manner of horse-drawn wagons and carts, delivering every type of merchandise. Goods arrived from around the country at London’s many rail termini, or at London’s extensive dock system from further afield, and all had to be transported by cart to their final destination. London was then a manufacturing centre, with the need for finished or part-finished products to be moved around. In residential districts milk, bread, and other foodstuffs were delivered to the door. Pet food could be purchased from cat’s-meat men and women, who pushed their barrows around the streets filled with horse remains from the knackers’ yards, crying “meat, meat”.

There were around 120,000 haulage workers in London and Middlesex at the end of the 19^th century, including those working on omnibuses. About 68,000 of them were carmen and carters. Some worked for large businesses such as Pickfords (who owned over four thousand horses at the end of the century), or Carter Paterson’s, or for railway companies. Others were individuals with one or more vans. The hours were long and pay was low.

Before the development of the rail network, some of London’s food produce arrived each day at Covent Garden market from the surrounding countryside on horse-drawn wagons. Until the Victorian era, fish was landed at Billingsgate market by boat. Later, trains allowed it to speedily arrive in London from as far as Hull, Grimsby, Fleetwood, and eventually Penzance and Scotland. Yet, even after the development of the railways, produce still had to be conveyed from London’s rail termini to the wholesale markets by horse-drawn cart.

Meat had for centuries arrived in London from farms on the hoof. In the mid-century around 35,000 animals were herded through London’s streets on each of two days per week and, as London’s population grew, the number of animals slaughtered each year increased. To prevent this herding into town with its noise and mess, the City of London Corporation acquired the large open site of Caledonian Fields in Islington and there created a meat market with abattoirs. In 1862 they opened an enlarged Smithfield Meat Market on the site of the former livestsock market. The meat needed to be transported between the Caledonian Market and Smithfield, and from there to individual butchers, however, which was undertaken on horse-drawn carts. Railway companies also developed special express trains to bring meat from afar to special depots in London, such as Nine Elms, and from there by cart to Smithfield.

In the first half of the century there were various fairs and markets in and around London at which horses were bought and sold, such as at Greenwich, Catford, Camberwell, Ealing and Croydon. Fridays were given over to the sale of horses at the Smithfield livestock market, which was notorious for attracting thieves. Few horse markets lasted beyond the mid-century, although the horse fair at Barnet, where gypsies gathered, lasted into the 20^th century. Many visitors to these markets took pleasure in the cruelty that was inflicted there on the animals and that was perhaps a reason for their gradual suppression.

Wagonettes, usually drawn by two or three horses, took Londoners on trips out to the countryside. Ten or more people could sit on either side. Sunday school children from poorer districts were taken for their annual treat to Epping Forest and elsewhere. Similarly, workers enjoyed their works’ outings. Pleasure vans, similar to delivery carts but with seats, could carry large numbers of children.

Grey horses were preferred for wedding carriages. Funeral cortège carriages, pulled by Flemish black horses, could be quite ostentatious. The carriages varied according to the budget available but many working people paid weekly into an insurance fund or burial club, allowing for a relatively expensive carriage. Some of the largest funerals were for a publican or his wife.

In the early part of the 19^th century many of the middle classes owned a horse to make private or business journeys. Wealthier homes or professional people kept a horse and carriage. It was estimated that in the mid-century there were about 25,000 individual horses being ridden in London on most days, and probably more in earlier decades. The situation gradually changed during the century as various forms of public transport – omnibuses, trams and trains – became widespread. By the latter part of the 19^th century there were few individual horse-riders on London’s streets except for the police and army but many types of horse-drawn vehicles proliferated.

In the suburbs many detached or semi-detached houses had a stable. Where that was not the case a stable could be rented from a neighbour, and perhaps a coach-house if required. ‘Livery & Bait’ stables were common, where an owner could pay to have their horse stabled and fed, or horses could be hired. Many inns, particularly coaching inns and those associated with hunting, kept stables at the rear of the premises. Some stables were less scrupulous, however, and owners had to be careful that their animals were receiving all the food for which they had paid. Many of the horses pulling commercial wagons and vans on London’s streets were hired from stables rather than owned by the operator.

The introduction of steamboat services on the River Thames in the early 19^th century made it possible to commute to London from as far as Gravesend. They also gave ordinary Londoners their first opportunity to take day or weekend trips to Estuary and coastal resorts such as Southend, Margate, and Ramsgate.

The earliest steam-powered boats were developed in France during the 18^th century, then later in Scotland and New York. The engine on these early steamboats powered paddle-wheels on each side of the vessel. By 1819 steamship design had advanced enough that vessels were capable of crossing the Atlantic. The first sea-crossing by an iron-hulled steamship was in 1822.

Such was the poor state of England’s roads in the early 19^th century that it was far easier to make the journey from the north-east of England to London by sailing vessel, typically taking about nine days. By the 1840s coastal steamships had cut the longer journey from Edinburgh to London to just three days.

For a 30-year period, between 1830 and 1860, the Thames was busy with paddle-wheeled steamboats of various sizes, zig-zagging between the many piers on either side of the river, smoke belching from their tall, jagged-edged funnels. Rings around their funnels indicated their destination. On weekdays they were used by business commuters, and for pleasure trips at weekends. It was estimated that 200 steamers were working on the river by 1844. The weekly Steamboat Excursion Guide was being published in London by 1841.

The earliest of the steamboats were built along the lines of sailboats but with the addition of a steam engine, a funnel, and paddle wheels. The hulls were of very similar design. Below deck, larger vessels were built with a fore-cabin forward and a saloon cabin aft of the engine room. Both were entered by means of a steep flight of stairs. Many steamboats were designed double-ended to allow them to swiftly zig-zag across the river from pier to pier. One of the leading companies building paddle-steamers was Yarrow’s on the east side of the Isle of Dogs.

There were numerous piers along the river through London from which to catch a boat, especially prior to the construction of the Victoria Embankment. In 1837 there were steamboat services operating between Kew, Richmond, Chelsea, Westminster Bridge, Hungerford Market, London Bridge, Blackwall, Woolwich, and Gravesend. ‘Short-ferries’ operated to and from London and Greenwich and Woolwich. Prices on short journeys were very low due to cut-throat competition, with London Bridge to Westminster costing 1d (one penny) and London Bridge to Chelsea just 2d (two pence). During the early 1840s as many as 17 scheduled steamer ‘long-ferry’ departures left daily in each direction from London to Gravesend. In 1846 there was a steamer leaving London Bridge for Westminster by rival companies every four minutes for the 15-minute journey.

For passengers alighting from Blackwall Railway trains there were also steamers from Brunswick Pier at Blackwall to Gravesend, a journey of about one hour. Most passengers arriving at Gravesend disembarked at Town Pier but those vessels belonging to the Blackwall Railway Company berthed at Terrace Pier. Steamboats moored at Gravesend departed by 7am and thus provided a means for residents of the town to commute into their place of work in the City.

Steamboat services gave many working-class families their first opportunity to take an excursion out of London by water to Kew, Richmond and Hampton Court. It was a means of escape from the overcrowded and smoky streets of the capital to the green countryside of Surrey, Kent and Essex or to former fishing villages that had been transformed into pleasure resorts.

In summer months services took passengers on day or weekend trips along the Thames Estuary to Sheerness, Herne Bay, Southend, Margate, and as far as Ramsgate on the Kent coast. In 1932 the three Margate Steam-Boat Company’s steamers carried 100,000 passengers from St. Katharine’s Dock. The General Steam Navigation Company were already operating from London to Margate, Ramsgate, and Yarmouth prior to 1837 and continued well into the 20^th century with only a break for the First World War. Such trips were a leisurely and pleasant affair, with a three-piece band on board, including a harpist, and starting the day with breakfast for one shilling. In some weeks steamers left London for Herne Bay and Margate on alternate days, returning the following day. In the height of the season they sailed daily, returning the same day. Ramsgate was reached by the powerful vessels of the Commercial Company, leaving London Bridge Wharf and calling at South Woolwich. In 1845 the fastest steamer on the Thames was the Herne, which could travel from Blackwall to Herne Bay in three hours and forty-nine minutes. Larger, long-distance boats could carry over a thousand passengers on the river but their licences only permitted half those numbers on the Estuary and open sea beyond Sheerness. Some middle-class families spent entire summers at one of the resorts. The husbands continued working in the City, taking the first steamer – the ‘husbands’ boat’ – out of London on Saturday morning to join the wife and children.

A popular weekend destination for Londoners was Rosherville pleasure gardens, which opened at Northfleet in 1837, reaching a peak twenty years later when 20,000 people visited in one week. The gardens were laid out over seventeen acres in disused chalk pits. Two brass bands greeted visitors, who were able to visit a zoo, a Gothic dining room, and a theatre, and be entertained by famous performers.

Southend-on-Sea in Essex is not actually on the sea but is located where the Thames Estuary opens out enough that the Kent coast on the far side is only just visible. The transformation from a few fishing huts into a major resort at the south end of the original village of Prittlewell began in the late 18^th century, with the Grand Hotel opening in 1794. The water is very shallow and the sea recedes a long distance at low tide, making it difficult for boats to reach the shore. In 1829 the Lord Mayor of London, Sir William Heygate, was a resident of the town and he resolved to have a pier built out into the Estuary that would allow passengers to board and disembark from boats, even a low tide. A 600 feet-long wooden pier was opened the following year, complete with a horse-drawn railway. Thereafter excursion steamers could bring holiday-makers from London during the summer months.

When steamers originally began arriving at Herne Bay it was necessary for passengers to reach the shore by means of a hoy, that is a small sailing boat. As the number of visitors increased, George Burge, who had been contracted by Thomas Telford to construct the St. Katharine Docks, led a group of investors in constructing a pier, specifically for steamers. It was designed and built by Telford’s assistant, Thomas Rhodes, while Telford himself was constructing nearby Whitstable Harbour. The 3,000 feet-long pier opened in 1832, at the same time as the Pier Hotel. The steamer service was discontinued in 1862, under competition from the railway, and the original pier dismantled in 1870.

Margate was a simple fishing village until sailing vessels began bringing holiday-makers in the 18^th century, lured by the town’s fine sand beaches. Others came for the healthy sea air. In 1815 the engineer John Rennie completed the harbour, allowing steamships to bring large numbers of Londoners to the town. One of those who arrived by steamer in 1829 was the artist J.M.W Turner, and thereafter he often stayed at Margate, fascinated by its sunsets.

At the beginning of the 19^th century the most common way to travel around London was on foot, or by wherry or ferry on the Thames for those who could afford it. It was only the wealthy few who could afford to own a horse and carriage. Therefore, most people worked close to their home, no further than walking distance. During the following hundred years new forms of public transport were created in London. That allowed people to work a lengthy distance from their home, or travel to other districts for entertainment and other purposes. The metropolis then began to expand, with Londoners able to live in newly created suburbs.

In the early 19^th century the lack of fast transport prevented rapid movement of people over any distance. The London conurbation remained relatively small, confined to little more than the cities of London and Westminster and their fringes. It was still possible to walk from one side of the capital to the other. Those urban districts were very densely populated and overcrowded yet only a short distance from open fields, market gardens, country estates, brick-fields, gravel pits, fish ponds and marshes. Places that are now part of the metropolis, such as Chelsea, Chiswick, Brixton and Hackney, were then outlying hamlets, separated from the city by countryside. Without the ability to speedily travel around, there was little incentive for London to grow before the mid-century. Thereafter, the introduction of various forms of public transport allowed the city to expand rapidly in the second half of the 19^th century.

For those who could afford them, four-wheeled hackney carriages drawn by two horses – the earliest form of taxi – had been around in London since the early 17th century. The government of Oliver Cromwell ordained in 1654 that hackney coachmen and carriages within and around London and Westminster should be regulated by the Court of Aldermen of the City of London.

In 1815 the number of hackney carriages permitted in London was fixed at 1,300, a restriction that was removed in 1831. The Hackney Carriage Act was passed in that year, bringing together various earlier regulations. Fares were from then based on the distance from Charing Cross (the modern-day Trafalgar Square), at that time considered the centre of London. Within five miles from there a driver was obliged to accept a passenger unless otherwise engaged. He could charge extra if required to wait at the end of a journey, should give way to private carriages, and must hold a check string in his hand that the passenger could pull to attract his attention. Fares were to be exhibited within the carriage. The law was further amended in 1843 to deal with various loopholes. The latter Act allowed for a greater number of cab-stands, at which a ‘waterman’ was in attendance to provide a drink for the horses.

Some cabs belonged to the driver and purchased under hire-purchase agreements. The majority were owned by proprietors who operated numerous cabs. In some cases, over a hundred were in the same ownership. It was not inexpensive to operate a cab. The annual licence alone cost between £17 and £19 per year until it was reduced to two guineas (two pounds and two shillings) in 1870, as well as the stabling of the horses. Cabs often worked around the clock, with one driver during the day and another through the night. A horse walked about 18 miles each period. Until the 1850s drivers were normally paid 3s 6d (three shillings and six pence) per day or night but later hired the cab from the owner. Cab-yards, the stables where ostlers took care of the horses and cab-washers cleaned the vehicles, were generally located in working class districts of London.

During the First World War TNT was being purified at a factory in East London, close to the Royal Victoria Dock, to use in munitions for combat use. The disaster that occurred there in January 1917 holds the record of being the largest single explosion in London.

Silvertown and North Woolwich is an area three miles from east to west. The districts became virtually an island on the north bank of the River Thames after the creation of the Victoria and Albert Docks in the 19^th century that separated them from the rest of East London.

At the start of the 20^th century Silvertown was an industrial part of London. Together with neighbouring Canning Town and West Ham it formed the largest manufacturing area in the south of England, its residents employed in the local factories. It was said that every household in the country owned at least one item manufactured in Silvertown. The district was named after the S.W. Silver & Co. India rubber factory established there in the 19^th century. Other businesses included soap-makers, flour mills, oil storage, dye works and timber yards. The sugar-refiner Tate & Lyle was, and remains, at Silvertown.

Brunner Mond & Co. opened a chemical factory at Crescent Wharf in 1893, producing soda crystals. A separate section of the plant manufactured caustic soda but that was discontinued in 1912 and two years later, at the start of the First World War, the building lay idle. There was a great need for high explosive shells but new factories for their production were in short supply at the beginning of the war. The disused part of the Brunner Mond works was ideal for that purpose. The company were reluctant for such a use, however, because it was surrounded by other businesses containing highly combustible materials such as oil, creosote, flour, and wood, and only 200 yards from dense rows of workers’ houses. Yet, such was the shortage of other suitable sites that they eventually consented to the request from the Department of Munitions.

Production of TNT began at Brunner Mond in September 1915, with 63 workers in three shifts of 21 to ensure continuous round-the-clock production. Seventy tons of TNT were purified each week. After crude TNT arrived it was unpacked by hand and loaded into a large melting pot. At the end of the process ‘flake TNT’ was collected in cotton bags ready for dispatch.

On the evening of Friday 19^th January 1917 ten men and ten women were working in the TNT factory at Brunner Mond, as well as two coopers. Outside the building railway wagons were filled with TNT waiting to be transported. Shortly after 6.45 pm a fire began in the melt-pot room, or perhaps the room above it. It was noticed by two workers who ran from the building shouting “fire” and several other workers quickly followed. A police constable on guard outside the building did what he could to evacuate the factory.

People in the street watched as events unfolded, not realising the danger they faced. The local fire-station was located across the street. The seven officers on duty were alerted to the danger by a boy in the street. The fire-fighters rushed over to tackle the blaze but by then the building was burning fiercely. There was then a mighty explosion, completely destroying the factory. Large pieces of machinery, some weighing many tons, flew through the air, crushing nearby factories and workers’ cottages. A huge mass of iron, weighing 15 tons, which had been the factory’s boiler, landed in the roadway. Bodies lay in the streets. Children were separated from their parents and mothers were frantically looking for their offspring, some of whom were buried in rubble.

The blast could be heard across London and as far as Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. People in the capital noticed a momentary failure of the electric lights. Windows a great distance away were broken by the violent displacement of air. The organist at the Finsbury Park Empire, many miles away, was said to have been blown across his seat. Buildings in the immediate area were demolished, including the fire-station, several streets of small houses, and the local church. The fire-engine was found a quarter of a mile away and damaged beyond recognition. Two nearby oil tanks caught fire and a gas-holder on the other side of the Thames was destroyed. Flying hot metal set alight two major flour mills, one of which was gutted. Thirty-two local schools had varying degrees of damage. Between 60,000 and 70,000 properties were affected. There was extensive damage to the nearby Royal Victoria Docks and it would take two years for the Port of London Authority to clear debris and re-erect or repair buildings.

Fire-engines from all parts of London converged on Silvertown. Millions of tiny, burning grains of wheat from the flour mills fell from the air. Fires continued for several days but rescue workers were still finding burning embers weeks later.

While fire-fighters fought the blaze a large army of volunteers helped to search for the dead and injured. The 1^st Battalion Volunteer Regiment soon arrived, under the command of their captain. Members of the St. John Ambulance Brigade arrived within 15 minutes. St. Barnabas church became a dressing station for the injured. The police reported that between 500 and 600 people who received cuts and bruises were treated in the street or by private practitioners. Most of the volunteers worked through the night, and then from midday until midnight the following day. The district was sealed off to prevent looting by a military guard and the police. Soldiers called in to help included some from other parts of the Empire and it was the first time some local residents had seen men wearing turbans. One hundred injured were taken to Queen Mary’s Hospital for the East End and a mortuary was set up in a school.

The mighty St. Paul’s Cathedral, the mother church of London and the seat of the Bishop of London, was severely damaged in the Great Fire of London of 1666. Lacking in funds and man-power to rebuild the cathedral, services continued in the ruins and some repairs took place. In the spring of 1668 part of the nave collapsed and it became clear that a more permanent solution was required.

The building had already been in a poor state of repair prior to the fire. A week before the conflagration King Charles II had commissioned three surveyors, including the scientist Dr. Christopher Wren, to consider ways to patch up the medieval building. Wren produced a radical and controversial solution that involved replacing the square tower with a large dome. In 1669 Wren succeeded John Denham as the Surveyor of St. Paul’s.

By 1670 it was clear that St. Paul’s Cathedral would need to be completely rebuilt but how could it be funded? To rebuild roads and public buildings that had been destroyed in the Great Fire a tax of one shilling per chaldron on coal entering London for the following ten years had been instigated in 1667. The tax was extended in 1670 to all ports and harbours along the Thames Estuary, increased to three shillings, and lengthened by a further three years, with three sixteenths of the income allocated to St. Paul’s. By 1685 St. Paul’s and the City churches were far from complete and the collection of the coal tax was again extended by Parliament until 1700, with 60 per cent going to the cathedral.

Aware of the lack of funds, Wren’s initial plan, known as the ‘First Model’, involved building on the original foundations and was only around one third of the size of the final building. It was rejected as too modest by the Dean and Chapter. His next ideas of 1670-1672, known as the ‘Greek Cross’ design, which evolved into the ‘Great Model’ design because the King ordered that a large model of it be built were in the classical style, with the central section of the building below a large dome. A domed building was rejected by the churchmen as too radical – or perhaps too Catholic or foreign – and they pushed for one in the traditional cross-shape of a medieval cathedral.

There was less income from the coal tax than anticipated and it was only in November 1673 that a royal warrant for the complete rebuilding of St. Paul’s was issued, with Wren as the architect, to be overseen by the Lord Mayor of London, the Dean of St. Paul’s, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Dukes of Buckingham, Albermarle, Lauderdale, and Ormonde amongst others.

Demolition work on the remains of the former building was a major undertaking. More workmen died during the demolition than reported deaths during the Great Fire. After the men refused to climb the great tower Wren, working with an engineer from the Tower of London, experimented with a new technique involving dynamite. The first explosion successfully brought down much of the cathedral’s main tower, with the subsequent falling of masonry making the ground shake as it would from an earthquake. Having commitments elsewhere, Wren delegated the work of further dynamiting to his colleague Robert Hooke. He overestimated the amount of gunpowder required for a second explosion, resulting in debris flying through a nearby house and narrowly missing some women who were working there. Following complaints, Wren thereafter reverted to a battering ram.

The final formal proposal – the ‘Warrant’ design of 1674-1675 – was of a more traditional plan and spire but in the classical Baroque style popular at the time. This version was approved by King Charles who added the proviso that Wren was able to make “variations, rather ornamental than essential” and building work finally began, nine years after the Fire.

From 1668 Wren was assisted in the project by Edward Woodroffe until Woodroffe’s death in 1675. The building contractor for the work was the master builder Thomas Strong who worked together with Wren on the project for 35 years. In later years John James, who had been working for Wren on the building of Greenwich Hospital, was appointed senior site manager.

Wren personally supervised the building work, visiting the site every Saturday. The 14^th century octagonal chapter house on the south of the cathedral was used as his site office, surviving in part until 1714. Despite a shortage of construction labour during the rebuilding of London after the Fire he hired only the finest artists and craftsmen.

As the building work progressed behind scaffolding, and unseen by the clergy, Wren was able to use the King’s proviso to make a large number of changes to the design. The final building bears very little resemblance to the plan, most notably reverting to the large dome of the previous Greek Cross design and adding the grand west main entrance and towers. In fact, Wren had clearly intended to change the design from the beginning, laying eight central pillars with foundations and diameter far greater than required to support the modest structure approved by Charles II.

Construction took 33 years and spanned the reigns of five monarchs. In part it was held up by difficulties in obtaining supplies of Portland stone. In 1690 naval action by the French in the English Channel prevented supplies coming by ship from the south coast, and then in 1696 heavy rains caused a cliff to collapse at Portland, destroying cranes and the loading platform. Parliament suspended half of Wren’s salary of £200, believing work was progressing too slowly. Indeed, an employer of the time could chide an employee as being “as slow as a St. Paul’s workman”. Wren received the arrears on completion in 1710. The first service in the unfinished building was a thanksgiving for the Treaty of Ryswick in December 1697 held in the quire, at which time the dome was still to be erected.

The most distinctive point about the post-Fire St. Paul’s is Wren’s great dome. However, at the outset it was probably not clear even to Wren how his intended great cupola could be achieved as there was at that time nothing he had witnessed with which to compare his vision. He later explained that his model was the Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul. The Frenchman Guillaume-Joseph Grelot had visited there, where he was allowed to take measurements, and he published his account in 1680, translated into English in 1683 as A Late Voyage to Constantinople. Grelot’s patron, John Chardin, had also travelled to the east, taking with him two artists to record the places he visited, and in 1680 came to London where he was invited by Wren and John Evelyn to give a lecture at the Royal Society on his observations. Shortly afterwards Chardin settled in London, and Wren and Evelyn visited him at his home. Plans were subsequently made of the Hagia Sophia, possibly drawn up by Nicholas Hawksmoor and based on conversations with Chardin.