Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE CHARTIST MOVEMENT IN LONDON
The
Chartist movement
, which campaigned for universal male suffrage (among other
things), was much stronger in the industrialized north than in the capital, at least until the
1840s. Support for the movement reached its height in the revolutionary year of 1848. In
March, some ten thousand Chartists occupied Trafalgar Square and held out against the police
for two days. Then, on April 10, the Chartists organized a mass demonstration on Kennington
Common. The government panicked and drafted in eighty thousand “special constables” to
boost the capital's four thousand police o
cers, and troops were garrisoned around all public
buildings. In the end, London was a long way off experiencing a revolution: the demo took
place, but the planned march on Parliament was called off.
Despite being more than twice the size of Paris, London did not experience the
political upheavals of the French capital - the terrorists who planned to wipe out the
cabinet in the
1820 Cato Street Conspiracy
were the exception (see p.86). Mass
demonstrations and the occasional minor fracas preceded the passing of the
1832
Reform Act
, which acknowledged the principle of popular representation (though few
men and no women had the vote), but there was no real threat of revolution. London
doubled its number of MPs in the new parliament, but its own administration
remained dominated by the City oligarchy.
The birth of local government
The first tentative steps towards a cohesive form of metropolitan government were
taken in 1855 with the establishment of the
Metropolitan
Board of Works
(
MBW
). Its
initial remit only covered sewerage, lighting and street maintenance, but it was soon
extended to include gas, fire services, public parks and slum clearance. The
achievements of the MBW - and in particular those of its chief engineer,
Joseph
Bazalgette
- were immense, creating an underground sewer system (much of it still
in use), improving transport routes and wiping out some of the city's more notorious
slums. However, vested interests and resistance to reform from the City hampered the
efforts of the MBW, which was also found to be involved in widespread malpractice.
In 1888 the
London County Council
(
LCC
) was established. It was the first directly
elected London-wide government, though as ever the City held on jealously to its
independence (and in 1899, the municipal boroughs were set up deliberately to
undermine the power of the LCC). The arrival of the LCC coincided with an increase
in working-class militancy within the capital. In 1884, 120,000 gathered in Hyde Park
to support the ultimately unsuccessful London Government Bill, while a
demonstration held in 1886 in Trafalgar Square in protest against unemployment
ended in a riot through St James's. The following year the government banned any
further demos, and the resultant protest brought even larger numbers to Trafalgar
Square. The brutality of the police in breaking up this last demonstration led to its
becoming known as “Bloody Sunday”.
In 1888 the Bryant & May matchgirls won their landmark
strike action
over working
conditions, a victory followed up the next year by further successful strikes by the
gasworkers and dockers. Charles Booth published his seventeen-volume
Life and
1780
1811
1812
1814
1826
Gordon Riots
London's population
exceeds one million
Prime Minister Spencer Perceval
becomes the first (and so far)
last PM to be assassinated
The last Frost Fair
takes place on the
frozen River Thames
London
University
opens
