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.

A Cabbie’s View of London (19.10.12)

As any artist, writer or photographer will tell you, professionally they will observe the world around them in ways that others can take for granted, it is that same attention to detail that’s needed when one undertakes “The Knowledge”, the qualification required to become a London cabbie; every street, club, bar, church, hotel and even blue plaque must be committed to memory.

In pursuit of all these facets of London the Knowledge student discovers that there is more to London than is apparent at first sight. Just like a writer they stop looking at the features of London in isolation and try to put them into some context linking them together and discovering their relation to London’s history and its people.

The Knowledge was introduced in 1851 after complaints by visitors to the Great Exhibition that cabbies didn’t know where they were going, now after 160 years we are regarded as the world’s finest taxi service. But our pedigree goes back even further; London was the first city in the world to have a licensed taxi trade and the licensing can be blamed on a little-known English playwright called William Shakespeare, his productions were so popular that all the carriages that arrived to pick up and drop off the theatre-going public would cause a “stop” – in modern day parlance a traffic jam; and just to show that red tape is not a modern phenomenon, it took the authorities about 40 years after Shakespeare’s death to introduce licensing – on 24th June 1654 the City of London authorised the use of 200 licenses for Hackney coachmen. With such a long history it is hardly surprising that anachronisms abound in the cab trade: the modern cab has a high roof so that gentlemen wearing a top hat may leave them on when travelling to Ascot; while a cabbie is required to carry sufficient hard food for his horse’s midday meal this is now interpreted as having a boot large enough to take a bale of hay; and to show some consideration to the poor old cabbie in a time of need, he may urinate over the rear nearside wheel if a police constable is in attendance to protect his modesty by shielding him with a police cape; but should he wish to stop at a Cabbies’ Green Shelter he may eat and drink tea but political discussion is forbidden by the philanthropists who originally donated the shelters.

While studying the Knowledge a student discovers that some streets in the City: Milk Street, Poultry, Goldsmith Street, and Ironmonger Lane are named after the goods once sold there; or Old Jewry was an area set aside for Jewish money lenders. On the Knowledge when given London Stone to locate in Cannon Street a little research suggests that London’s prosperity for many years was thought to depend on the Stone’s safekeeping and that the Romans could have used this limestone block as the point in which to measure all distances from Londinium.

Above all else the words of Dr. Samuel Johnson should be the mantra for any prospective Knowledge student: “Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists.”

Johnson was right, the city isn’t just a collection of buildings, roads, lanes and courts; its magic is in Londoner’s belief that this complicated friend can fulfil the dreams and aspirations of those residing within its boundaries.

It is this belief that has given London its longevity as the world’s premier city, the result of generations of these resourceful, hard-working individuals coming together to improve their lives and in so doing adding another strata of history, business and culture to this incredible city for future Knowledge students to go out and discover.