People Of London Research Articles

Contradictions of Saint Paul’s Cathedral

Saint Paul’s Cathedral is a contradiction. Beautiful and majestic, it combines an almost Catholic shape with a Protestant soul. It is one of the most powerful symbols of England, and a reason for pride for any Londoner. This paper wants to explore the architectural variations of Saint Paul’s, especially before and after the Great Fire in 1666, to unveil the peculiar relationship between the cathedral and the people of London. Although St Paul’s has been a constant for the Londoners, its role in their lives has not always been the same. The progressive change in people’s attitude towards the cathedral went at the same pace as the alteration of the architecture of the building, which mirrored the social, political, and religious changes of the country. From being a central point of commerce and medieval social life during its Norman period and its Gothic style, the cathedral evolved into the highest symbol of religion and power and reached its peak with the design provided by Wren. Looking at the different models of Saint Paul’s, from its first consecration in 604 until today, it is evident that the building has been an active player in English history, adapting itself to necessity. It witnessed the Norman Conquest, the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII, and the Great Fire, and it was the symbol of the English strength and resistance in World War II. Therefore, the study of the architectural changes of Saint Paul’s is the study of the city of London, its people, and some of the most significant historical events that shaped England.

Plotting the Modern City: John Dryden's Sir Martin Mar-All on the Dorset Garden Stage

Over the course of four days in September, 1666, a fire sparked in a bakery turned four-fifths of central London to dust. Wandering the streets around his home three days after the Great Fire subsided, the diarist John Evelyn describes a city in ruins—its buildings and landmarks “mealted, & reduc'd to cinders by the vehement heats,” its “bielanes & narrower streetes … quite fill'd up with rubbish, nor could one have possibly known where he was, but by the ruines of some church, or hall, that had some remarkable towre or pinacle remaining.” John Dryden echoes Evelyn's sense of disorientation in Annus Mirabilis, his poem dedicated to the people of London and published in 1667; he describes “the Cracks of Falling houses,” the “Shrieks of Subjects” as the Fire “wades the Streets,” threatens the palace, and lays the city's famed financial centers “to waste.” And he describes, too, the desperate attempts by those left homeless by the Fire to make spaces for themselves in the ruins:Those who have [no home] sit round where once it was,And with full Eyes each wonted Room require:Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place,As murder'd Men walk where they did expire.

Live from London: What's Changed and Why

Gentrification, spiralling rent, economic inequality, traffic chaos – the people of London have come to dread what ‘change’ entails. However, I'm convinced that some things have changed for the better: today's ‘new music scene’ (which I identify as that populated by composers and performers of notated contemporary music, creative improvisers, their concerts, networks and ideas) is radiating a vibrancy that would have been unimaginable 15 years ago. I want to celebrate it.

Thomas Gordon’sLetteron Earthquakes (1750)

Thomas Gordon’s very last piece of writing, A Letter of Consolation and Counsel to the Good People of England, occasioned by the late earthquake (published just a few weeks before his death), was inspired by two minor earthquakes that hit London in 1750. Curiously, they occurred respectively on 8 February and 8 March, arousing the hysterical expectation that a new and devastating quake would hit London on 8 April, which was Palm Sunday. What’s more, the year fell exactly in the middle of the century, something that could not be ignored by millenarianists. On Friday 6 April a veritable exodus began out into the countryside. The following day London appeared to be a ghost city. But nothing happened on Sunday: Providence had been merciful. A Dissertation upon Earthquakes, their Causes and Consequences published in London in 1750 for James Roberts, a copious printer of pamphlets with a fondness for unorthodox ones, ended by warning ‘those who take a pleasure in moralizing’ on such events that ‘fear is a slavish passion that ceases almost as soon as the rod is withdrawn’. An ill-boding prophet published A Letter of Congratulation, and Advice from the Devil to the Inhabitants of London and Westminster on their Conduct before, at and after, the late Earthquakes.1 Above all, it was a letter from the Bishop of London, Thomas Sherlock, that touched a deep chord in many Londoners. Ten thousand copies were sold in the first two days. A 52,000-copy reprint followed in the same year, plus three further editions in London and one in Glasgow. ‘Thy little Letter,’ the Quaker controversialist Joseph Besse noted in 1750 in his Modest Remarks on Sherlock’s Letter, ‘has brought more money to thy bookseller, than all the impressions of prophane books, of any kind, have brought to the whole trade for this twelvemonth past’. In his Letter to the Clergy and People of London and Westminster; on occasion of the late Earthquakes, the Bishop of London did not hesitate to sustain that divine wrath, of which these light tremors was merely an anticipation, had been aroused by various deviant forms of sexual and social behaviour stemming from growing Catholic proselytism; by the unchecked publication of satirical, philosophical, or erotic works; by regular performances of theatre and musical productions on non-religious topics; and by the failure to be guided by religious precepts in educating children. It was this threatening letter by Bishop Sherlock, and the associated retribution theology, that prompted Gordon to write his anonymous consolatory letter: Earthquakes … are produced from natural causes. … Supernatural causes are only sought and urged by visionaries, dealers in judgments, and by sharpers in theology, such as pretend to foretell wrath to come, and to avert it; nay, some of them have threatened to bring it. … No wonder that they treat the most learned and able inquirers into the powers of nature, as little philosophers; as men who would utterly spoil and disgrace the theory of judgments, and sink the solemn character of judgment-mongers.2

Fictitious Capital: London and the Financial Imagination

The financial services sector enables capital to expand as it circulates. Accordingly, though it is highly profitable, the sector hardly contributes to the production of capital via the manufacture of commodities. Given that the circulation of capital can only be circuitous, activity undertaken by the financial services sector tends to perform likewise. The circles and spirals that characterize its activities are quite different, then, from the typical shape of the production process—the line. Furthermore, in places where financial services now dominate the local economy, this kind of circularity may also prevail over other areas of activity that are not primarily economic, for example, cultural activity. London is such a location. As a global city (its status confirmed by hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012), London’s dual role is to continue the worldwide circulation of capital and to maintain the circulation of meaning—functions fulfilled by financial services and cultural activity, respectively. But to maintain circulation is also to perform a mediating role. Financial circuits, for example, rely upon a variety of brokers whose ‘financial products’ serve as mediating links between the previous transaction and the next. Just as financial circuits are comprised of these mediating links, so, to the extent that London as a whole has taken on this character, the city itself has acquired a mediating role. Accordingly, the people of London have become mediators, first and foremost, positioned, and repeatedly positioning themselves, between successive moments in a continuous process of circulation. Even when not performing this mediating role in a professional, paid-for capacity, many Londoners are constantly rehearsing for it via cellphones, social media and a remix culture which repackages and re-sends existing cultural artefacts, in much the same way that financial ‘products’ are not originals so much as re-iterations of existing products and value, re-configured into selfexpanding forms. Unlike earlier iterations of this capital city (mercantile London; industrial London; imperial London), twenty-first century London is a matrix of finance and culture in which financial activity lends its characteristic shape to contemporary cultural activity.

Seeing Tyranny in More’s History of King Richard III

As they embark upon a dialectical examination of justice in Plato’s Republic, Socrates admonishes his interlocutors that the pursuit of justice is for those who “see clearly”. Indeed, the dialogue itself is meant to bring about such clear-sightedness as the interlocutors dialectically winnow the various accounts of justice proposed. In like manner, Thomas More’s History of King Richard III helps his readers to see clearly the tyrant and tyranny. In the History, More presents a portrait of a tyrant and the conditions that make his tyranny possible. Crucial to this portrait is what the various characters see as well as when they see within the dramatic context. Why are so many blind to Richard’s machinations? Is their blindness willful? What internal and external factors contribute to their blindness? Who does see and how, if at all, do they respond? In answering these questions, we as readers come to see the nature of the tyrant and tyranny. Along the way, four characters are considered in detail: King Edward, Lord Hastings, Queen Elizabeth, and the people of London.

Vote!

Vote!

Vote!

Vote!

Photography after the Incidents

Photography after the Incidents

The Murder of Theo van Gogh and the Islamic Jihad Division ('Divisie Islamitische Jihad') in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT The attacks on the people of London in 2005 by persons representing Muslim extremism were unprecedented, unexpected and unique in the respect that they were ‘attacks from within’. The loss of life was the highest number of deaths (52) in a violent attack within Britain since the Second Word War. This raised the issue as to how nations protect themselves against such attacks where intelligence is nonexistent and perpetrators are apparently hitherto model citizens. All this must then be coupled with the complexity, in policing and security terms, of responding to the new threat of suicide bombers (as in London in 2005). We examine here the experiences of the police and security services in the Netherlands, and elsewhere, with regard to the activities of Islamic extremists whose actions led to the globally publicised assassination of Theo van Gogh and other threats of terror. In particular, we examine the reasons for the ‘conversion’ of young second or third generation immigrants who appear to be integrated but who turn to radicalism.

Sterne, Sebald, and Siege Architecture

Sterne, Sebald, and Siege Architecture Jonathan Lamb (bio) I want to begin with some typical reactions to calamity and ruin. First of all, or at least what is first noticeable to readers of scenes of unparalleled horror and destruction, is the failure of language adequately to express what has happened or what it is like to experience an incomprehensible event. Here for instance is H.F., alleged historian of the Plague Year of 1665: "It is impossible to say any thing that is able to give a true idea of it to those who did not see it, other than this: that it was indeed very, very, very dreadful, and such as no tongue can express."1 The same embarrassment of language in the face of an immeasurable phenomenon occurs frequently in voyage literature and in the utopias that derive from it, often as a sidelong invitation to the reader to engage with the sublime. But in respect of pestilence, war, starvation, and death, the drumbeat never alters and words seem to attest only to their own futility. The anonymous woman, whose memoir of the first eight weeks of the fall and occupation of Berlin was recently republished, pauses in her account of being raped again and again, to say simply, "Poor words, you do not suffice."2 When Robinson Crusoe sees his one chance of human company lost in the wreck of the Spanish ship on the reef near his [End Page 21] island, not even memory can supplement his inarticulate grief: "I cannot explain by any possible energy of words, what a strange longing or hankering of desires I felt in my soul upon this sight."3 Perhaps it is the familiarity of reactions to what is in itself utterly unfamiliar that prompts W.G. Sebald to be wary of eyewitness testimony of ruin as being inexact and trite: "The reality of total destruction, incomprehensible in its extremity, pales when described in such stereotypical phrases as 'a prey to the flames,' 'that fateful night,' 'all hell was let loose,' 'we were staring into the inferno,' and so on and so forth. Their function is to cover up and neutralize experiences beyond our ability to comprehend."4 Sebald makes this point about the language of eyewitnesses in his On the Natural History of Destruction, where he is trying to explain why the reality of the total destruction of German cities by allied bombing never became present to the minds of postwar Germans. He cites Hermann Kasack's The City beyond the River (1947) as an example of what went wrong, a narrative in which bomber squadrons are referred to as "the teeming messengers of death."5 Sebald makes a point that extends well beyond the literature of the Second World War. Nothing is more typical of H.F.'s eyewitness testimony of the plague than a certain formal or automatic extravagance in figuring it. Thus the pestilence came upon the people of London "like an armed man" (120), "Death now began not, as we may say, to hover over every one's head only, but to look into their houses, and chambers, and stare in their faces" (34). To stay in London at this time, declares H.F., was like "charging Death it self on his pale horse" (236). In his memoir of four appalling years in a German regiment on the Western Front in the First World War, In Stahlgewittern (Storm of Steel), Ernst Jünger uses the same language: "Death with his steel club assaulted our trenches," "Death loomed up expectantly between us," "I had felt Death's hand once before ... but this time his grip was more and more determined."6 And so on, and so forth. W.G. Sebald and J.M. Coetzee might be regarded as the most thoughtful writers about devastation and suffering during the last twenty years. They have both agreed that the solution to the problem of clichés uttered in the presence of extreme circumstances is to clear [End Page 22] away trite metaphors and personifications and to cultivate instead an austere language, stripped down and fit to deliver things as they are. After all, as Sebald points out, "facts...

The highs and lows of living in London

As I began writing this editorial, I was preparing to talk about the considerable highs and lows of recent weeks. The joy of winning the Olympic bid for 2012, followed less than 24 hours later by the hideous and unforgiveable atrocities carried out in cold blood by British citizens. While taking my time to decide the right tone and message, London has been rocked by four more attempts to inflict further death, disruption and destruction. At the time of writing it seems that, thankfully, those four attempts have failed in all but causing disruption. The fact that these pathetic attempts to wreak personal vengeance on the people of London have been hidden behind the teachings of Islam, not only unfairly tarnishes the image of the Islamic faith, it also does an immense disservice to the vast majority of peaceful, law-abiding Muslims around the world.

London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis

In 1900 London was the greatest city on earth. This book examines its power and influence at the turn of the century and investigates its relationship with Britain's far-flung empire. Schneer concludes that it is the people of London who made their city and continually remade and reshaped it - as they continue to do today.

The New Survey of London Life and Labour

THIS continuation of Charles Booth's Survey of London, of forty years ago, has everything to commend it. The new editor-in-chief, Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith, quotes very aptly from Charles Booth on his title page: “Comparisons with the past are absolutely necessary to the comprehension of all that exists to-day; without them we cannot penetrate to the heart of things”. The original Survey, which began to appear in 1889, was the work of one rich, enlightened, and benevolent man. It has now been taken up again by a combination of public bodies, centring in the London School of Economics, and under the direction of the sometime Permanent Secretary of the Board of Trade. The change is significant of the vast advance in organisation and socialisation which has taken place in the interval. This introductory volume testifies to many other changes in the life of the people of London; and the pleasantest thought, after reading it, is that, on the whole and in almost every measurable aspect, the people of London are better off than when Charles Booth first surveyed them. The New Survey of London Life and Labour. Vol. 1: Forty Years of Change. Pp. xv + 438. (London: P. S. King and Son, Ltd., 1930.) 17s. 6d.

British Food Journal Volume 11 Issue 9 1909

British Food Journal Volume 11 Issue 9 1909

Epping Forest

THE public generally, and especially the people of London, and those who take some interest in natural history, are to be congratulated on the acquisition of so charmingly complete a little itinerary of Epping Forest as that now issued in a cheaper form by one of the Committee of Conservators, who is a resident on the borders, and an enthusiast as to the attractions of the Forest. It is, as the author observes in his preface, “hardly a desirable state of things” that so small a percentage of the summer visitors to the Forest “ever venture far from the point at which they are set down by train or vehicle;” and, with the choice of a score of beautiful walks, described in Mr. Buxton's book, and the guidance of his six carefully prepared maps, five of which are on the scale of three inches to the mile, there is no longer any reason for their not venturing into those depths of the Forest in which its chief beauties are to be seen. The chapter on the history of the Forest which the author has wisely prefixed to the itinerary, that visitors may be reminded of the events which secured this magnificent playground for their enjoyment, is most complete, though it is to be regretted that the late City Solicitor, Sir Thomas Nelson, is not mentioned by name on p. 22. The practical character of the book may be gauged from the inclusion of railway time-tables, the fact that the distinctive letters of each route have been cut on trees at some points, and from such suggestions as that an east wind is, in Epping Forest, the best for views, because not smoke laden. Personal experience has convinced the present writer of the skill with which the routes have been selected; the “objects of interest within and around the Forest,” and their historical asso ciations, are fully described and illustrated by some excellent drawings, the latter by Mr. Heywood Sunnier; but what must render the work peculiarly gratifying to all lovers of nature, is the ample space—more than half the volume—devoted to the fauna and flora of the Forest. The mammals, reptiles, birds; the chief moths and butterflies; the trees, flowering plants, ferns, fungi, and mosses, are all enumerated, with general, i.e. not too specific, localities; and the notes on the mammals and birds will be of interest to naturalists in other districts. Such lists can, fortunately, never be complete; insects marked as “rare” are notoriously liable at any time to prove common: even since the publication of this work evidence has been produced suggesting the addition of Sparganium neglectum to the list of flowers, and each year's cryptogamic meeting of the Essex Field Club has as yet added several species to the catalogues of the lower plants. There may yet be room for a more pre tentious monograph of Epping Forest, and, of course, from the naturalist's stand-point, so rich a collecting-ground affords material for a library of expository literature—the freshwater algae, for example, call for recognition;—but, for its purpose, the present work could hardly have been executed in a manner more creditable both to author and publisher. Epping Forest. By Edward North Buxton, Verderer. (London: Stanford, 1885.)

Some considerations on the causes of earthquakes

As the late Earthquakes in London , and some other Parts of England , have roused the Attention of Mankind, to confider the Causes of them, both in a religious and natural View: And as in a religious View they have been considered by the Bishop of London , in his excellent Letter to the Clergy and People of London , which has been received with general Approbation: So I shall here give a short Account of what seems to me to be a probable natural Cause of them.