What is London Becoming?
According to old newspaper editorials.
Welcome to your Friday newsletter for paying subscribers, with a generous teaser for everyone else.
“London is becoming unliveable.”
”London is becoming intolerant.”
”London is becoming the Jurassic Park of stock exchanges.”
Just three recent headlines that use the same formulation. It’s a cliche newspapers have employed for centuries to highlight an emerging trend in the city. By searching the newspaper archives for that phrase, we can get a telling snapshot of the hopes and fears of different generations of Londoners.
That’s for the main section. First, a quick announcement and the History Radar.
📣📣 Who wants to visit the Cinema Museum in Kennington? Built into an old workhouse building, it houses hundreds of items from movie history. We’ve got a booking for the afternoon of Saturday 29 June. If you’d like to come (paying subscribers only), then email matt@londonist.com for more details. It’s £10, payable on the day.
History Radar
Upcoming events for London history fans.
☕️🍷 COFFEE AND WINE: Short notice, but my near-namesake and good friend Dr Matt Green is running his popular coffeehouse tour tomorrow (Sat 15 Jun). It’s an immersive whirlwind tour of the City’s maze of streets and alleys in search of the original coffee houses that changed London forever. In the afternoon, he returns to do a medieval wine tour that looks at the history of the grape in London, involves actors, “includes a lot of medieval and modern wine”, and will “get you a little drunk”. Here’s our review.
👊 🚁LONDON'S BAWDY BOROUGH: On Monday 17 June, Historic London Tours offer the latest in their series of Zoom tours, raising money for London's Air Ambulance Charity. Today's hour-long event focuses on the areas of Borough and Bankside, delving into why this space just beyond the City of London's jurisdiction became known for seedy goings-on.
🏠⚱️SOANE'S CABINET OF CURIOSITIES: On Tuesday 18 June, art historian -- and the museum's former curator -- Bruce Boucher is at the Sir John Soane's Museum to talk about his new book, John Soane's Cabinet of Curiosities. It's an in-depth study of the famous architect's collection of antiquities, and his motivation for collecting. The event includes a chance to look around the museum, and a drinks reception.
🏫🗝️ WANDSWORTH PRISON HISTORY: On Wednesday 19 June, curator and author Stewart McLaughlin is at London Metropolitan Archives to give a free talk about the history of Wandsworth Prison. It was built in 1849 as Surrey House of Correction and was intended to hold 750 prisoners serving short sentences -- and it's still in use today.
👸🏻🫅🏼🤴🏻👸🏻🫅🏼🤴🏻 SIX LIVES: From 20 June, the National Portrait Gallery opens a new exhibition focusing on Henry VIII's queens. Six Lives features Tudor paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger and contemporary photography by Hiroshi Sugimoto, chronicling the representation of Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr throughout history and popular culture in the centuries since they lived. Ends 8 September
🪴⛲️ GARDEN OPEN EVENING: If you'll be in the Clerkenwell on the evening of Thursday 20 June, swing by the historic Charterhouse for the first of its Open Garden Evenings this summer. Enjoy live music from the Sol Grimshaw Trio as you explore the courtyard garden, with food trucks and a bar on hand for refreshments. 5.30pm-8.30pm
💦🧱 ST PANCRAS TOWER: You'll need to book ahead for 22 June’s rare chance to visit George Gilbert Scott’s St Pancras Waterpoint Tower, with one-hour tours available, giving you the chance to learn more about the pretty-yet-practical structure, and get inside the building, including up to the viewing platform at the top if you fancy it.
What is London Becoming?
For years now, millions of pages of newsprint, dating back to the 18th century, have been fully searchable on services like the British Newspaper Archive and Newspapers.com. These are immensely powerful resources. Type in the name of your street or your great-great-grandmother and, lo, you’ll find every newspaper clipping that ever mentioned them (if you’re prepared to pay the subscriptions).
So long as we keep in mind the old motto that you ‘shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers’, these resources allow us to tease out the minutiae of history like never before.
One game I like to play is to type in a hooky headline and see how it’s been applied over recent history. A good example is “London is becoming…”. The phrase is often used in headlines today, but has been a mainstay of the copywriter since the mid-Victorian times.
If we type the clause into the newspaper archives, the resulting stories offer an illuminating insight into the trends, hopes and fears of each period…
1864: London is becoming… like a captive bound in fetters of iron and brass: The boom in railways is sparking fears that the city is becoming one great central railway station for all the world, to the detriment of the poor, who are displaced by the rails. (The Standard, 7 Apr)
1890: London is becoming… the New Jerusalem: General Booth of the Salvation Army heralds a rise in prayer, and calls for London to be rebuilt for worship. “We should have Hyde Park roofed in with towers climbing towards the stars as the world’s great grand central temple,” he recommends. Didn’t prove popular. (The Citizen, 31 July)
1901: London is becoming… continental: Englishmen are becoming more gregarious, and it is only a matter of time before we start sitting outside cafes reading the morning paper, or perhaps playing bridge, as do the French. (Queen magazine, reprinted in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 10 Jun)
1903: London is becoming… the home of a silent host: A report on the rise of India rubber soles on shoes, which make ladies taller and gentlemen quieter. “I took a walk in Hyde Park last Sunday,” said a medical man, “There were hundreds of pedestrians but their walking made no sound. They might have been so many phantoms.” (The London Mail, 5 Dec)
1906: London is becoming… more beautiful: Mr John Burns (presumably the same one who described the Thames as “Liquid history”) reckons recent sanitary improvements and other street alterations have made London one of the most beautiful cities in the world. (Reynolds’s Newspaper, 20 May)
1914: London is becoming… too Bohemian: Londoners are increasingly turning their backs on formality, authority and etiquette. People today have an inordinate love of pleasure, and short attention spans. (The Bystander, 25 Feb; given the year, this commentary would date quickly.)
1922: London is becoming… brighter: Street lights are now so bright that experienced photographers can capture excellent night-time shots. (Sunday Illustrated, 19 Feb)
1933: London is becoming… noisier: The police, who do a good deal of standing around in the street, are of the opinion that London’s traffic noise is louder than ever. Meanwhile, noise on the tube has diminished somewhat, but there is still room for improvement. “Experiments are being made to test the effect of coating the tunnels with asbestos”. Oh dear. (Dundee Evening Telegraph, 10 Aug)
1936: London is becoming… a city of flats: The Halifax Building Society reports a record-breaking year for mortgage applications, with a particular rise in those for London flats. (Halifax Evening Courier, 31 Mar)
1937: London is becoming… a city of lidos: Londoners are going crazy for outdoor pools, with new lidos planned for Charlton, Parliament Hill, Battersea Park, Ladywell, and Clissold Park. (Daily Herald, 12 Jul)