Late Victorian London. 1850-1897

Description

With the discovery that a single steam engine on wheels had the power of 16 horses, the railways began to carve up London, the great expropriations of land began, and suburbia was born. The Thames was still the heart of London; the stench and disease caused by teeming populations were ameliorated by the construction of sewers. By 1900, the outlines of modern London had been fixed; the one-square-mile city of the Romans had grown to 117 square miles, the 50,000 population had in 19 centuries grown to six-and-a-half million, and-if you were not among the huddled poor whose living conditions continued to worsen-you might well agree with Henry James that "London is, on the whole, the most possible form of life. The principal illustrations: Young's Brewery in Wandsworth, The Railway Museum in York, St. Pancras Station, Greenwich Sailing Barge Regatta, Houses of Parliament, Victoria Embankment, The Fleet Sewer, Abbey Mills Pumping Station, Hoxton Music Hall, Old Royal Observatory in Greenwich, St. James' Park.

Runtime

20 min

Series

Subjects

Geography

Genre

Date of Publication

[2008], c1976

Database

Films on Demand

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