London Growth

Slide 1: The Growth of London S.Rackley (FEHS – Apr 2006)

Slide 2: •By 1700, the city was already growing in population and in size. •Settlements around London were also growing rapidly. •In 1801, 22,000 people lived in Bethnal Green to the north east, making it as large as Oxford and Cambridge combined. •But to the south, the River was still acting as a natural barrier until the building of Westminster Bridge (1750) and Blackfriars Bridge (1769)

Slide 3: • The “West India” Docks were built in 1800 giving job opportunities. • All this change plus extensive railway networks meant that the 19th century saw London explode into the modern age, its population rocketing seven-fold to over 6,500,000. By 1901, one in five people in England and Wales lived in London. • London in 1900 would have been a far noisier place than it had been even 50 years earlier.

Slide 4: • The growth of London was at a fantastic rate, even during the World Wars. • Towns were being “swallowed up” by London’s urban sprawl. • To stop London sprawling into too much greenfield sites, the New Towns Act of 1946 was introduced. Harrow Romford Ilford

Slide 5: • The city and the 32 boroughs (some 610 square miles or 1,579 km²) had an estimated 7,429,200 inhabitants as of July 1 2004, making London the second most populous city in Europe behind Moscow (10,415,400). Harrow Romford Ilford