Monthly Archives: October 2023

Previously Posted

Previously Posted: Order out of chaos

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For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Order out of chaos (17.09.2010)

On CabbieBlog there are currently 180 posts and by far the most read has been a short introduction to London’s maps, so you might say that today’s contribution is back by popular demand.

In any city as large and diverse as London is maps can help you find your way around, and probably the most famous of these is Harry Beck’s tube map, although another use of mapping is perhaps less obvious, but these are often of far more use. These are maps that can be used when order has broken down to show the causality and how that order might be returned.

Morgan Map 1682

On Sunday 2 September 1660, the Great Fire of London began reducing most of the City to ashes, and among the huge losses were many maps of the city itself. The Morgan Map of 1682 was the first to show the whole of the City of London after the fire. Consisting of sixteen separate sheets, each measuring eight feet by five feet, it took six years to complete. The map is based on the first detailed and truly scientific surveys of the City, Westminster and Southwark, which had been underway since immediately after the Great Fire in 1666. For the first time the layout of buildings was shown vertically, and on the basis of mathematical calculation rather than pictorially, as had previously been popular. William Morgan’s beautiful map, on a scale of 300 feet to the inch, completed in 1682, symbolised the hoped-for ideal city.

Snow Map 1854

In the nineteenth century, there were several outbreaks of cholera in London. One could awake hale and hearty, develop diarrhoea, vomiting, agonising cramps and by teatime succumb to delirium and death. In the 1849 outbreak, a large proportion of the victims received their water from two water companies, both of these water companies had as the source of their water the river Thames just downstream from a sewer outlet. Dr. John Snow plotted the distribution of deaths in London on a map. He determined that an unusually high number of deaths were taking place near a water pump on Broad Street. Snow’s findings led him to petition the local authorities to remove the pump’s handle. This was done and the number of cholera deaths was dramatically reduced. The work of John Snow stands out as one of the most famous and earliest cases of geography and maps being utilized to understand the spread of a disease. Today, specially trained medical geographers and medical practitioners routinely use mapping and advanced technology to understand the diffusion and spread of diseases such as AIDS and cancer. A map is not just an effective tool for finding the right place; it can also be a life saver.

Abercrombie Map 1945

The Blitz of September 1940 had a shattering impact on London and its inhabitants. On just the first night of the attacks, 7th September, over 400 civilians lost their lives and 1,600 people were severely injured. Out of this destruction emerged the idea of reconstruction. Straight away innumerable newspaper articles, pamphlets, books, exhibitions and films called for the British Government to begin to prepare for when the conflict would be over. Whilst British forces were fighting throughout Europe, Africa and other parts of the world, exhibitions such as Rebuilding Britain in July 1943 began to set out a new agenda for architects and those concerned with the built environment. At the time, Patrick Abercrombie was one of the most authoritative figures on modern town planning. The best-known study that Abercrombie and his team of researchers completed was for London and after two years of research, he published The County of London Plan in 1943. Significantly, it recommended the establishment of several new towns on the outskirts of London, relieving congestion in the city’s central areas and to stop suburban sprawl. Its bright red indicates the areas of London that contained industry at this point in 1943, as you can see, there is a significant amount of red concentrated around the Thames just east of the Isle of Dogs – before the war there was still much heavy industry concentrated around the East End. The map was regarded as key to the argument for reconstruction.

Puppydog tails

London bloggers

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Ten years ago blogging was in its ascendency, and should I have wanted to make a list, I’d have dozens of excellent musings from which to choose. Today many have fallen by the wayside, but there are still a few notable exceptions worthy of inclusion. For this post written because I can’t be bothered to explore anything more interesting to include on CabbieBlog I’ve only included blogs which write regularly and nearly always post exclusively about London:

A London Inheritance

Once in a while, a truly original idea for a London blog comes along. The author of this blog takes as its starting point his father’s post-war black and white photos, and using an original 1940 London Street Atlas (aka Michael Portillo), along with books, documents and notes collected over the years, and revisits the same locations. We get an essay on just one street, shop or historic plaque.

Diamond Geezer

I’ve copied this from Londonist: Time Machine (more of which later), as it seemed to me the best summation: Mr. Geezer recently celebrated 21 years of blogging. His daily updates mostly concern the minutiae of London (he keeps spreadsheets of everything), often with a historical bent. I’ve read every single instalment since 2005 and I’m pretty confident the site will be compared with Pepys by future historians. It’s that good.

Ian Visits

There are plenty of blogs which list ‘things to…’, Ian goes way beyond a list, with comprehensive data on upcoming anniversaries, informative posts about transport and historic buildings, and did I mention alleyways? He finds a lot about alleyways.

Look Up London

Katie Wignall’s blog states: ‘You just have to take a moment to raise your eyes above your phone and see what you can spot’. Here this award-winning blue badge guide teases out lesser-known London gems.

London Shoes

Born and bred Londoner Geoff Clements wrote a song titled London Shoes in the 80s about a Londoner who had an immense passion for the metropolis and its history, and used to spend his time travelling all over London visiting every nook and cranny, learning about its history, its characteristics, its customs and its people – whilst safe in the knowledge that his ‘London Shoes’ would always bring him safely back home. Upon retirement, it seemed a good premise to start a blog.

Londonist: Time Machine

Blog or Newsletter? Matt Brown is Editor-at-Large of Londonist, and while Londonist has turned into a listing site, not dissimilar to the London ‘influencer’ sites, this relatively new regular newsletter has, among other items, a weekly in-depth examination of the capital’s history. It also offers a paid option.

 

Thinking allowed

Ulez takes a fall

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In my corner of London, there are fields as far as you can see. So having Ulez cameras purporting to improve air quality isn’t supported by many, in fact, I haven’t spoken to any. This camera first had whitewash applied to the lens, this was swiftly removed by TfL. Someone then decided to use a more permanent method

Puppydog tails

Johnson’s London Dictionary: Constitution Hill

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CONSTITUTION HILL (n.) King’s thoroughfare which is neither rising nor associated with parliamentary matters has been the location of three royal assignation attempts.

Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon

A window on My World

Postscript: London Mapping

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Occasionally we’re going to have a rummage around previous CabbieBlog posts and attempt to grab a group to view them from a different angle.

In the 1930s London really was put on the map for between 1933 and 1936 four novel cartographic representations reached the public’s attention.

In 1933 Harry Beck’s tube map famously ditched the need for geographical accuracy. He alone realised that all passengers needed to know was how best to get between stations, not their precise locations, or how you arrived there. Apart from being groundbreaking, and later much copied, the map was much more elegant than its predecessors, with all lines running either horizontally, vertically, or at 45 degrees to the layout.

On 3rd October 1934, the day which London Transport renumbered many routes from the former Metropolitan Police ‘Bassom System’ of numbering, into its own sequence, following the acquisition of most of the London independent operators, a map showing all of London’s central bus, tram, trolleybus routes which had started in south-west London a few years earlier and Green Line coach services, which were lettered, was published. Unlike Beck’s map, this needed the geographical locations and therefore was much larger.

In 1936 the first A-Z became available. It was the inspiration of Phyllis Pearsall, who reputedly walked every street in London to compile her maps, a feat I find hard to believe. Apparently, in the early days, she had to personally fulfil orders by running around town with a wheelbarrow – kind of putting the cart back into cartography.

When Waddington’s bought the rights to Monopoly in 1935 the positions on the English version of the iconic board had to be assigned. London was the choice of location and so somebody was tasked to seek out the appropriate ‘Properties’. The onerous job of travelling by cab – surely the reason the Old Kent Road was the only property Sarf of the River – to seek out the board’s positions fell to Waddington’s managing director, Victor Hugo Watson and his secretary Marjorie Phillips. It would be a stretch to call the game a ‘map’, but its idiosyncratic arrangement of streets and stations is certainly one of the most famous representations of London.

Just why was it felt necessary to produce, in the space of four years, these visual aids in London? One factor could be a population explosion during this decade from 6.5 million at the turn of the century to 8.5 million by the mid-30s. With so many people in the capital, and with the building of Metroland ever more were commuting to and from work, there was a pressing need for better cartography.

I can’t think of any other representations of London that have endured, the Tube map can just still be recognised with its modern additions, the A-Z is the go-to reference for aspiring cabbies, and we still have an integrated bus network requiring a visual aid to get around. As for Monopoly, since the game was created in 1936, more than one billion people have played it; making it the most played, and argued about, board game in the world…and did they have to include on the board among the roads and utilities where they stopped off for tea at The Angel Corner House Tea Rooms?

Here are the previous posts links:
Harry Beck’s tube map
Phyllis Pearsall’s A-Z
Monopoly