London: The Biography

892 Londoners repel Danish invasion fleet 959 A great fire in London: St. Paul’s burned 994 Siege of London by Danish forces 1013 The second siege of London, by conquering Sweyn 1016 Third siege of London by Cnut, repulsed 1035 Harold I elected king by Londoners 1050 The rebuilding of Westminster Abbey 1065 Dedication of Westminster Abbey

1066 The taking of London by William the Conqueror 1078 The building of the White Tower

1123 Rahere establishes St. Bartholomew’s 1176 The building of a stone bridge

1191 The establishment of a London commune 1193-1212 The first mayor of London, Henry Fitz-Ailwin 1220 Rebuilding of Westminster Abbey

1290 Expulsion of the Jews; Eleanor Crosses set up at Chepe and Charing Cross 1326 The London revolution: deposition of Edward II 1348 The Black Death kills one-third of London’s population 1371 Charterhouse founded

1373 Chaucer living above Aldgate

1381 Wat Tyler’s revolt

1397 Richard Whittington first elected mayor 1406 Plague in London

1414 The Lollard revolt

1442 The Strand is paved

1450 Jack Cade’s revolt

1476 The establishment of Caxton’s printing press 1484 The sweating sickness in London

1485 Henry VII enters London in triumph after the Battle of Bosworth 1509 Henry VIII ascends the throne

1535 Execution of Thomas More on Tower Hill 1535-9 The spoilation of London’s monasteries and churches 1544 Wyngaerde’s great panorama of London 1576 The building of the Theatre in Shoreditch 1598 Publication of Stow’s Survey of London

1608-13 The construction of the New River 1619-22 The building of Inigo Jones’s Banqueting House 1642-3 The construction of earthen walls, and forts, against the king’s army 1649 Execution of Charles I

1652 The emergence of the coffee house 1663 The building of a theatre in Drury Lane 1665 The Great Plague

1666 The Great Fire

1694 The foundation of the Bank of England 1733 The covering of the Fleet River

1750 The building of Westminster Bridge 1756 The construction of the New Road

1769 The building of Blackfriars Bridge 1769-70 Wilkite agitation in London

1774 The London Building Act

1780 The Gordon Riots

1799 The establishment of the West India Dock Company 1800 The foundation of the Royal College of Surgeons 1801 London’s population reaches one million 1809 Gas-lighting instituted in Pall Mall 1816 Radicals meet at Spa Fields: riots in Spitalfields 1824 National Gallery founded

1825 Nash rebuilds Buckingham Palace

1829 London Metropolitan Police Force founded 1834 Houses of Parliament destroyed by fire 1836 University of London established

1851 The Great Exhibition opened in Hyde Park 1858 The “great stink” leads to Bazalgette’s sanitary engineering 1863 The opening of the world’s first underground railway 1878 The advent of electric lighting

1882 The emergence of the electric tram-car 1887 “Bloody Sunday” demonstrations in Trafalgar Square 1888 The appearance of Jack the Ripper in Whitechapel 1889 The establishment of the London County Council 1892 The beginning of the Blackwall Tunnel under the Thames 1897 The emergence of the motor-omnibus 1901 Population of London reaches 6.6 million 1905 Epidemic of typhus. Aldwych and Kingsway opened to traffic 1906 Suffragettes demonstrate in Parliament Square 1909 The opening of Selfridge’s department store 1911 The siege of Sidney Street

1913 The inauguration of the Chelsea Flower Show 1915 The first bombs fall on London 1926 The General Strike

1932 The building of Broadcasting House in Portland Place for the BBC

1935 The inauguration of the Green Belt 1936 The battle of Cable Street

1940 The beginning of the London Blitz

1951 The Festival of Britain on the South Bank 1952 The great smog

1955 The opening of Heathrow Airport

1965 The abolition of the London County Council; creation of the Greater London Council 1967 The closure of the East India Dock; the building of Centre Point 1981 The Brixton riots; the establishment of the London Docklands Development Corporation 1985 Broadwater Farm riots

1986 Completion of M25 ringway; abolition of GLC; the “big bang” in the Stock Exchange 1987 The building of Canary Wharf

2000 Mayoral elections

Acknowledgements

The author and publisher are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce illustrative material which appears in the text pages: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 587; British Library, 43; Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., 81; Guildhall, 383, 455, 471, 529, 751; Imperial War Museum, 721; Magdalene College, Cambridge, 191; Museum of London, 5, 89, 121, 135, 219, 237, 297, 403, 551, 613, 661, 735.