Population
This was Victorian London, the capital city of England and the seat of the largest empire in the world. For most of this period London was still filthy, Cholera and TB were endemic, life expectancy only some 20 years and crime was out of control. Population growth was partly to blame (1million to 7million in the 100 years to 1900) but so was the indifferent attitude of the rich to the poor. This included the Queen (Victoria) and the government. The well off never visited the poor areas. In about 1800 the rich, middle classes and the poor lived within a few minutes walk of each other where the poor could walk to work to serve the rich as carpenters, drapers, shoemakers etc and they would all visit the same church (there were hundreds of little parishes in London). By 1850 or 150 years ago the population had grown to 3 million, the rich and middle classes were moving out of the centre to the "best new streets" "never again" to visit the areas occupied by the poor. It was then considered too dangerous!

Geographical expansion.
A quick look at a map of the time compared to say 1750 and the change would be obvious. Together with a general expansion outwards the big change was the populating of South London for the first time. Southwark had been inhabited since Roman times being directly accessed by the only bridge across the Thames for 1700 years (London Bridge). Much of the land round Southwark was marshy and not suitable for building until properly drained (around 1800.)


Bridges
Six new bridges had been built in the previous century but only two, Blackfriars and Westminster served central London. After 1800 Londoners got four more to service the centre and particularly the newly built up areas south of the river. ( Southwark Bridge 1819, Lambeth Bridge 1862, Vauxhall Bridge 1816 and Tower Bridge 1894.)
Also tunnels at Deptford/Surrey Docks (Rotherhithe) and Greenwich (Blackwall).

Transport
This was the age of the train which conveniently transported the rich into the new developing suburbs. Rich Inner Londoners would travel by Handsome Cab (Horse drawn for up to four persons) and the not so rich would use the horse drawn Omnibuses. Two decker two horse "buses" carrying some 20 to 30 people.
(The idea and the name was pinched from Paris as a means of transport for everybody. Unfortunately still too expensive for the poor. The various competing operators quite soon went bust and were then taken over and successfully run by a French company!)

The first suburban train service(1836) went from the south side of London Bridge to Greenwich and still runs today. The first 4 miles east from London Bridge was elevated on a brick viaduct which still stands! At first the railways were not allowed to enter the centre of London which was to change in 1866 and caused the displacement of 76,000 people. (There was no re housing policy for these poor people which caused the over crowding of the slums to get even worse as friends took them in.) The famous London stations of Liverpool Street, Charing Cross, Paddington and St Pancras date from this time. By 1875 the rich and middle classes could commute by train to the following still well known middle class areas:
Blackheath and Bexley Heath, Bromley and Chislehurst, Sutton and Surbiton, Richmond and Twickenham, Harrow and Pinner, Finchley and Barnet and Chingford and Loughton. And further afield.

Inner London and suburban transport was soon to be augmented by the Tubes, (Metro) initially the "Tuppeny Tube" which is now part of the central line. New Cross, Wimbledon and Clapham in the south and Hounslow and Harrow in the west could all be reached by "tube" by 1900. Inner London and the most of the well known suburbs could also be reached by horse drawn tram (Running on rails in the street) Notably Catford, Dulwich, Tooting, Hampstead, Highgate and Woodgreen.

The two major road developments of the period were: the building of the Holborn Viaduct (1869) designed to speed up the horse drawn traffic east west between the City and the West End as the poor horses struggled up and down the fleet river valley at Ludgate. Plus the Victoria Embankment(1870) which "reclaimed" some 37 acres of land from the Thames from the Houses of Parliament north and west to Blackfriars Bridge by building a new river wall 500 feet out into the Thames. This extra land was mainly used to create a grand new riverside road and underneath, part of the Tube. Below the Strand new gardens were created which are still there for busy Londoners to enjoy.
Other road improvements included; The creation of Trafalgar Square and Nelson's Column, Piccadilly Circus and the North Circular road. Slum clearance allowed the creation of Kingsway and the Aldwich. (No re-housing schemes of course!)

Housing, Health and Sanitation.

Drinking water.
"The Great Stink" of 1858 sums up the situation. All sewers from the old north side of the Thames flowed directly into the river mainly by open surface drains. The inhabitants of the newly populated south were served with drinking water pumped from the Thames, extracted directly adjacent to the outflows of these sewers. Life expectancy was short! Those living in the north were better off, as much of their water was supplied by a new river diverted for the purpose. The problem was eventually relieved by building "intercepting" sewers in the north and pumping the sewerage into the Thames further down stream at Beckton and Crossness (Not in my back Yard!)

Housing for the poor and the rich
The rich and middle classes were able to look after themselves but the poor 1/3 who were all living below the poverty line had nobody to turn to for help. The area of North Kensington (close-by the current Kensington Hilton and Shepherds Bush) was populated by households who made a living out of a few pigs, part time building labouring and other seasonal work. Housing which they built themselves was not much better than hovels from the dark ages and this was Victorian England. Similar areas were Hoxton, Whitechapel, Wapping, Bermondsey and Southwark.
Meanwhile the rich were living in Victorian splendour in Mayfair, Wimpole Street and out in the new suburbs. Clapham was a good example were new posh housing estates were developed with large detached houses in secluded gardens.

A new building phenomena developed that of the spec builder i.e. building houses, flats and office blocks before occupants had been identified. In Notting Hill the spec builders caught a cold, building too many posh terraced houses for the upper middle classes. To sell them they had to be subdivided and sold to the lower middle classes.
The idea of flats (apartments) was copied from the French and anybody who lived in a flat was naturally assumed to live like the French and have a mistress! Office blocks for multi ownership were also constructed.

Finally help was at hand for the poor, not from the government but from rich benefactors. Two good examples, the Rothschild family who naturally enough built subsidised flats for poor Jewish families, and an American Mr Peabody, living in London at the time, who did much the same thing. Many flats built by Peabody can still be seen today and are currently being renovated.

Shops
This was the start of the great London department stores. All these names are still in business; Maples and Heals in Tottenham Court Rd were adjacent at the time to the furniture makers in London. Sainsbury, originally a butcher, Marks and Spencer (actually started in the north of England.) W.H. Smith and William Whitely. The latter has just totally renovated its store in Bayswater. Plus of course the most famous and still perhaps the most useful, Harrods in Knightsbridge and Selfridges in Oxford Street. All department stores were originally designed to service women who by 1860 could conveniently visit the London shopping areas by train for a days shopping to furnish their new "mansions" in the suburbs.

Law and order
The rich described the poor as "decadent and set for self destruction". 30% of the population of London were described as below the poverty line. A picture so well painted by the contemporary writer Charles Dickens, many of whose characters he took from real life including his own. The arch crook Fagin lived with the Artful Dodger in the then slums of Saffron Hill (a road still there in the Holborn area running parallel to Hatton Garden on the east side.) The wealthy were too frightened to visit such places as there was no police force. That is until Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, when he was Home Secretary, created the metropolitan police (quickly 1000 blue coated men) out of the earlier Bow Street Runners in 1829. (The Bow street runners were a very small organised vigilante group started 100 years earlier by writer and Justice for the Peace (JP for Westminster) Henry Fielding in 1750). (Unfortunately they were not supported by the archetypal detective Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street as he was only the figment of imagination of another contemporary writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 1887). Baker Street is a wide road running north from Marble Arch area. Bow Street Magistrates Court and Bow Street Police station are in Bow Street opposite the Royal Opera House some 200 yards north of the Strand in the Covent Garden Area. The even more famous Scotland Yard still exists running between Whitehall and Northumberland Avenue just south of Trafalgar Square although the main police station has moved to Victoria Street.

Immigration
London and the rest of England have been largely peacefully invaded by foreign settlers and refuges for hundreds if not thousands of years. Yet the richer the English get the more they seem unwilling to share the guaranteed welfare now afforded to all. 150 years ago there was no such guaranteed income minimum or free health and education. 150 years ago Londoners were already a mixture of Celts, Romans (and their mercenaries) Angles, Saxons, Danes, Norman Vikings and French (and French Jews brought in by William the Conqueror), Huguenots also from France, Flemish cloth makers and Protestant Dutch. 150 years ago London saw a huge influx of starving Irish fleeing the English fuelled Irish potato famine. (In Victorian times the Irish made up 5% of all Londoners, many living in extreme poverty in areas like Whitechapel, St Giles and Southwark). Later in this century there was another influx of Jews, refugees from eastern Europe particularly Russia and Poland. These Jews contributed hugely with their skills in the clothing industry and as financiers.

Integration with the locals varied depending on the new immigrants willingness to marry outside their immediate "clan". This was always difficult for the Jews as for Orthodox Jews their religion forbids it. As a result of this Jewish areas in London can be very obvious as the dress of the Orthodox Jew is very distinctive, as are the names above the shops which sell their special (Kosher) foods. (See Golders Green and Stamford Hill). A significant number of Jews who wanted to integrate fully changed their names to disguise their origins.

London Industry
During this period London was the biggest industrial town in England inspite of having no large factories. Indeed the average business employed about 10 people.
There was however a huge change as the skilled artisan who supplied his customers direct was replaced by machines and large retail stores where there was no direct contact between customer and craftsman. This caused workshops to move out of the centre and become little impersonal factories in the outskirts of places like Southwark and Deptford. There was no help in those days in re-housing the workers and they would swap one slum for another. Transport was available but only the middle classes could afford it.

The London Docks continued their expansion eastwards (down stream where the river was wider and deeper.) The Royal Victoria(1855) and the Royal Albert(1880) docks were developed on the north bank of the Thames opposite Woolwich. Access was by train to Silvertown and by the Woolwich ferry and eventually by Blackwall tunnel in the last decade of the century.

Sport
Rugby, Football(Soccer) and Tennis clubs were founded but these had to compete with Bear bating (Dogs versus Bears), Cock fighting and open air bare fist boxing until they were eventually banned. Londoners had always enjoyed skating most winters, initially at Moorefield's marshes outside Moorgate until they were drained, and on the Thames which iced over most winters to such a degree that ice fairs were popular including the traditional roasting of whole oxen. The Thames no longer iced over when the flow of water was increased under London Bridge by widening the span of each section.

Parks
Thanks mainly to Henry 8th London has magnificent parks created from land he acquired from the church at the time of The Dissolution. Hyde Park, Green Park, St James Park and Regents Park are perhaps the best known. The Victorians continued to create new recreational parks, notably Battersea Park in South London and Victoria Park in the East End. (Homerton)