Looking at this comparatively narrow area, consider the enormous growth of fifty years. What was Bow? A little village. What was Stratford, now a town of 70,000 people? There was no Stratford. Bromley was a waste; Dalston, Clapham, Hackney, Tottenham, Canonbury, Barnsbury—these were mere villages; now they are great and populous towns. But perhaps the change is more remarkable still when one considers the West End. All that great cantlet lying between Marylebone Road and Oxford Street was then much in the same state as now, though with some difference in detail; thus, one is surprised to find that the south of Blandford Square was occupied by a great nursery. But west of Edgware Road there was next to nothing. Connaught Square was already built, and the ground between the Grand Junction Road and the Bayswater Road was just laid out for building; but the great burying-ground of St. George’s, now hidden from view and built round, was in fields. The whole length of the Bayswater Road ran along market-gardens; a few houses stood in St. Petersburg Place; Westbourne Green had hardly a cottage on it; Westbourne Park was a green enclosure; there were no houses on Notting Hill; Campden Hill had only one or two great houses, and a field-path led pleasantly from Westbourne Green to the Kensington Gravel Pits.
FIREMAN
On the west and south-west the Neat Houses, with their gardens, occupied the ground west of Vauxhall Bridge. Earl’s Court, with its great gardens and mound, stood in the centre of the now crowded and dreary suburb; south of the Park stood many great houses, such as Rutland House, now destroyed and replaced by terraces and squares. But though London was then so small compared with its present extent, it was already a most creditable city. Those who want more figures will be pleased to read that at the census of 1831 London contained 14,000 acres, or nearly twenty-two square miles. This area was divided into 153 parishes, containing 10,000 streets and courts and 250,000 houses. Its population was 1,646,288. Fifty years before it was half that number, fifty years later it was double that number. We may take the population of the year 1837 as two millions.
HACKNEY COACHMAN
(From a Drawing by George Cruikshank in ‘London Characters’)
More figures. There were 90,000 passengers across London Bridge every day, there were 1,200 cabriolets, 600 hackney coaches, and 400 omnibuses; there were 30,000 deaths annually. The visitors every year were estimated at 12,000. Among the residents were 130,000 Scotchmen, 200,000 Irish, and 30,000 French. These figures convey to my own mind very little meaning, but they look big, and so I have put them down. Speaking roughly, London fifty years ago was twice as big as Paris is now, or the present New York.
THE FIRST LONDON EXCHANGE