It is not only a well-understood fact, that the Great Metropolis is a
sore puzzle to strangers, but even the dwellers therein are wont to
give up, in despair, any attempt to define or limit it. What _is_
London? There are two causes, or rather two sets of causes, which
throw great doubt on the proper answer to this question. The one is
the varying acreage or area comprised under this name, and the other
is the natural increase of population over every part of the area. Let
us shortly glance at both these groups of disturbing causes.
The original London was the nucleus of that which now constitutes the
_City_ of London. The London of the Britons before the Romans landed,
is supposed to have been little other than 'a collection of huts set
down on a dry spot in the midst of the marshes;' a forest nearly
bounded this spot, at no great distance from the Thames; and a lake or
fen existed, _outside_ London, at or near the site now occupied by
Finsbury Square. The area of London, at this early period, is supposed
to have been bounded by--to use their modern designation--Tower Hill
on the east, Dowgate Hill on the west, Lombard and Fenchurch Streets
on the north, and of course the river on the south--a limited area,
certainly, not much exceeding half a mile in length by a quarter in
breadth. There are indications that brooks bounded this area on the
north and west, and a marsh on the east; but there is no reason to
believe that the city had walls. The terrible devastation in the time
of Boadicea must have nearly destroyed London, destined to be replaced
by one of Roman construction.
The Roman London was evidently of larger size. The ancient city-wall
is known to have been of Roman substructure, although surmounted by
work of later date. It had many turrets or towers, and seven
double-gates, supposed to have been Ludgate, Newgate, Aldersgate,
Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, Aldgate, and the Tower Postern-gate; and the
streets now named from those gates will serve to mark out the included
area. Roman London may be said to lie about sixteen feet below _our_
London, over all this area; about two feet being the _débris_ of the
Roman buildings, and the rest being subsequent accumulations of
rubbish, at the rate, say, of a foot in a century. In the later Saxon
and Norman times, the western portion of the wall was extended so as
to include a somewhat larger area, the utmost limit of 'London within
the walls' being 370 acres.
But London refused to stay within its walls; it walked forth into the
country; and even so far back as 1662, London, beyond these limits,
was four times as large as that 'within the walls.' Of this exterior
portion, 230 acres constituted the 'city without the walls,' subjected
to civic jurisdiction by successive grants; it formed a belt nearly
around the portion 'within' the walls. These 600 acres, less than a
square mile, have ever since constituted the 'city of London,' divided
into two portions--'without' and 'within' the walls. There are
ninety-eight parishes in the inner portion, and eleven in the outer;
but the London which lay beyond the corporate rule had no social or
political bounds placed to its extension. There were the ancient city
of Westminster and the village of Charing, on the west; and London
marched along the Strand to meet them: there were Kensington and
Bayswater in the remoter west, and Piccadilly and Oxford Street became
links to join them to London: there were Killurn and Hampstead and
Highgate, Newington and Hornsey and Hackney, on the north; and London
has travelled along half-a-dozen great roads northward to fraternise
with them. So, likewise, on the east; and so, likewise, crossing the
river to the south, do we find this same process to have been active:
villages and hamlets have become absorbed into London, by London going
to meet them.
If we now ask, Where does London end? it will be found that this
ramification perplexes the subject greatly. Who shall say that such or
such a hamlet is _not_ in London? Who is to draw the line, and where?
It was said ten years ago, that the metropolis is a _hundred and forty
times_ as large as the _city_ of London 'within the walls;' but even
this is vague, unless we know where the limit is placed. One mode of
grouping, adopted before the appointment of the Registrar-General of
births, &c., depended on the 'London bills of mortality,' or the
record of deaths preserved by the parish-clerks. London, in this
sense, included the city within the walls, the city without the walls,
Westminster, and about forty out-parishes. Southwark was not included
in these bills originally, but became a component part afterwards. The
Registrar-General, under the improved modern system, gives an immense
range to London; it includes the City, Westminster, Southwark, all the
out-parishes of the former system, and the villages or hamlets of Bow,
Bromley, Brompton, Camberwell, Chelsea, Deptford, Fulham, Greenwich,
Hammersmith, Hatcham, Kensington, Brompton, Marylebone, Paddington,
Pancras, Highgate, Stoke-Newington, and Woolwich. It is true, he calls
all this the 'metropolis;' but the metropolis is in common parlance
identical with 'London.'
The population returns are not even a correct test in this matter, for
they include different districts at different times. In 1821, of the
eighteen villages or hamlets named above, only five were included in
the 'metropolis;' and in 1831, there were two additional. The
metropolitan population in 1841, in comparison with that of 1831,
differs by no less than 200,000 on this mere question of nomenclature
alone, independent of real increase on other grounds. The poor-law
grouping differs again from that of the Registrar-General; the
metropolis, or the 'London division,' does not include so many of the
marginal parishes as the Registrar's system. Again, the Post-office
arrangement is independent of all the others; for it is based upon
taking St Paul's as a centre, and drawing circles around this at a
definite number of miles' radius; and the metropolis is thus made
expansible on geometrical principles. Then the parliamentary limit is
_sui generis_; for the metropolis here comprises the City of London,
the city of Westminster, the borough of Southwark, and the five modern
boroughs of Marylebone, Finsbury, Tower Hamlets, Greenwich, and
Lambeth--a very capricious limit, truly; for while it includes the far
east at Woolwich, it excludes Pimlico, Brompton, and a vast adjoining
area. Lastly, to give one more mesh to this net, we find the police
metropolis to be the most grasping of all: by the original act of
1829, the metropolis is made to fill a circle twenty-four miles in
diameter, having Charing Cross in its centre; while in 1840, this
circle was coolly stretched to a diameter of thirty miles.
When a reader, therefore, is told of the vast increase of population
in London, let him sober down his astonishment until he knows which
(among half-a-dozen different Londons) is the one alluded to. As 'our
own country' may be taken to mean England only, or England and Wales,
or Great Britain, or the United Kingdom, or the British Empire, in
five different degrees of largeness, so may 'our metropolis' have at
least as many significations. Tables of metropolitan population have
been issued in the following form:--1750, 676,250; 1801, 900,000;
1811, 1,050,000; 1821, 1,274,800; 1831, 1,471,941; 1841, 1,873,676;
1851, about 2,250,000. But this table is subject to the correction
above hinted at. Nearly a century ago, Maitland said: 'This ancient
city has engulfed one city, one borough, and forty-three villages.' A
formidable addition has since been made to this 'engulfed' family. So
enigmatical is this metropolis of ours, that it would be equally true
to state that 'London is rapidly increasing in population,' and that
'London is slowly decreasing in population.' The metropolis, as a
whole, yearly increases its numbers; but the _City_, the original
London, is less populous now than a century ago, on account of the
streets having been widened, and many small dwelling-houses removed,
to make way for large commercial establishments, the managers and
clerks of which almost all sleep out of London.
If we glance over a map of London, or, still better, take a resolute
series of omnibus-rides or foot-rambles, we shall find ourselves as
little able as before to settle the question, 'Where does London end?'
That huge mass of small streets and poor houses, comprising the
borough of the Tower Hamlets, allows us no rest till we get three
miles eastward of St Paul's. Beyond this point, there are a few
patches of Bow Common yet left; but Poplar and Blackwall, Bromley and
Bow, tell us to go yet further eastward to the river Lea; and even
West Ham and Stratford, though on the Essex side of the Lea, seem to
claim a metropolitan position. Again, passing over Victoria Park--that
pleasant oasis in a desert of houses--and bending round towards the
north, we may ask where are the fields; and may wait until 'echo
answers, Where.' Hackney and Homerton, Clapton and Dalston,
Shacklewell and Newington, not only have the houses ranged themselves
closely along the main roads to these villages, but have filled up
nearly all the vacant ground between those roads. Is Tottenham to be
included in our London; and if, not, why not? And at Highgate and
Hampstead, as the rows of houses have ascended these hills, and
climbed over the hills, why stop there? why not send London still
further out of town? Look at the new town springing up around the
Camden Station; at the Portland Town westward of Regent's Park; at the
Westbourne Town far beyond the Paddington terminus; at the new town
west of Kensington; at the vast mass of buildings between Kensington
and the Thames--all these are the mere filling up of the districts
which had before been marked out by the great roads; and the great
roads themselves are carrying out their rows of houses still further
into what we may, in courtesy, designate 'the fields.'
So it is on the south side of the river. Of the 13,000 vehicles which
cross London Bridge in twelve hours on an average summer day, an
immense number is employed in conveying 'City men' to and from their
homes on the south of the Thames. Walworth, Camberwell, Kennington,
and Brixton were once on the border region between town and country;
nay, the city really _did_ reach the country there; but now, all these
belong to London. A bit of green at Kennington is, by good-luck, to be
kept green as a people's park; but nearly all else has become brick
and mortar; the City man has to go further to get a pleasant house and
a good garden, and _we_ have to go further to ascertain--where does
London end?
Among many curious proofs of the wide grasp of the all-absorbing
metropolis, we may adduce the horror of the Pentonvillians at the
proposed new cattle-market. How many years ago is it since Copenhagen
Fields were almost beyond the regions of civilisation, known only as a
prairie lying between London and the Copenhagen Tea-gardens? Let any
one, whose knowledge of the district goes back fifteen or twenty
years, answer this question. But now, Copenhagen House itself is
brought within the limits of London, by rows of goodly houses belting
it in on the north; and the gentilities of the new town are shocked at
the threatened advent of bullocks and sheep.
If we look into the stupendous _London Directory_, it does not remove
our troubles; it gives us the names of nearly 7000 streets, places,
roads, squares, circuses, crescents, quadrants, rows, hills, lanes,
yards, buildings, courts, alleys, gardens, greens, mews, terraces, and
walks, but it does not tell us how far the suburbs are included, nor
what are the principles which determine the inclusion or exclusion.
In short, we began by asking a question, and must end by leaving it
unanswered. Although tolerably familiar with London, we cannot
tell--'Where does London end?'