of which are numerous offices, including “Lloyd’s,” the centre
of the shipping business and marine insurance, there are many
exchanges for special articles. Among these are the Corn
Exchange in Mark Lane, where the privilege of a fair was originally
granted by Edward I.; the Wool Exchange, Coleman
Street; the Coal Exchange, Lower Thames Street; the Shipping
Exchange, Billiter Street; and the auction mart for landed
property in Tokenhouse Yard. The Hop Exchange is across the
river in Southwark. In Mincing Lane are the commercial sale-rooms.
Besides the Bank of England there are many banking
houses; and the name of Lombard Street, commemorating the
former money dealers of Lombardy, is especially associated
with them. The majority of the banks are members of the
Clearing House, Post Office Court, where a daily exchange of
drafts representing millions of pounds sterling is effected. The
Royal Mint is on Tower Hill. The Stock Exchange is in Capel
Court, and numbers of brokers have their offices in the vicinity
of the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England.
Manufactures and Retail Trade.—No part of London can be pointed out as essentially a manufacturing quarter, and there is a strong tendency for manufacturing firms to establish their factories outside the metropolis. There are, however, several large breweries, among which that of Messrs Barclay & Perkins, on the riverside in Southwark, may be mentioned; engineering works are numerous in East London by the river, where there are also shipbuilding yards; the leather industry centres in Bermondsey, the extensive pottery works of Messrs Doulton are in Lambeth, there are chemical works on the Lea, and paper-mills on the Wandle. Certain industries (not confined to factories) have long been associated with particular localities. Thus, clock-makers and metal-workers are congregated in Finsbury, especially Clerkenwell and in Islington; Hatton Garden, near Holborn Viaduct, is a centre for diamond merchants; cabinet-making is carried on in Bethnal Green, Shoreditch and the vicinity; and large numbers in the East End are employed in the match industry. Silk-weaving is still carried on in the district of Spitalfields (see Stepney). West of the City certain streets are essentially connected with certain trades. The old-established collection of second-hand book-shops in Holywell Street was only abolished by the widening of the Strand, and a large proportion then removed to Charing Cross Road. In the Strand, and more especially in Fleet Street and its offshoots, are found the offices of the majority of the most important daily newspapers and other journals. Carriage and motor-car warehouses congregate in Long Acre. In Tottenham Court Road are the showrooms of several large upholstering and furnishing firms. Of the streets most frequented on account of their fashionable shops Bond Street, Regent Street, Oxford Street, Sloane Street and High Street, Kensington, may be selected. In the East End and other poor quarters a large trade in second-hand clothing, flowers and vegetables, and many other commodities is carried on in the streets on movable stalls by costermongers and hawkers.
Markets.—The City Corporation exercises a control over the majority of the London markets, which dates from the close of the 14th century, when dealers were placed under the governance of the mayor and aldermen. The markets thus controlled are:
Central Markets, Smithfield, for meat, poultry, provisions, fruit, vegetables, flowers and fish. These extend over a great area north of Newgate Street and east of Farringdon Road. Beneath them are extensive underground railway sidings. A market for horses and cattle existed here at least as early as the time of Henry II.
Leadenhall Market, Leadenhall Street, City, for poultry and meat. This market was in existence before 1411 when it came into the possession of the City.
Billingsgate Market, by the Thames immediately above the custom house, for fish. Formerly a point of anchorage for small vessels, it was made a free market in 1699.
Smithfield Hay Market.
Metropolitan Cattle Market, Copenhagen Fields, Islington.
Deptford Cattle Market (foreign cattle).
Spitalfields Market (fruit, vegetables and flowers).
Shadwell Market (fish).
Of other markets, the Whitechapel Hay Market and Borough Market, Southwark, are under the control of trustees; and Woolwich Market is under the council of that borough. Covent Garden, the great mart in the west of London for flowers, fruit and vegetables, is in the hands of private owners. It appears to have been used as a market early in the 17th century. Scenes of remarkable activity may be witnessed here and at Billingsgate in the early hours of the morning when the stock is brought in and the wholesale distributions are carried on.
VII. Government
Administration before 1888.—The middle of the 19th century found the whole local administration of London still of a medieval character. Moreover, as complete reform had always been steadily resisted, homogeneity was entirely wanting. Outside the City itself a system of local government can hardly Vestries. be said to have existed. Greater London (in the sense in which that name might then have been applied) was governed by the inhabitants of each parish in vestry assembled, save that in some instances parishes had elected select vestries under the provisions of the Vestries Act 1831. In neither case had the vestry powers of town management. To meet the needs of particular localities, commissioners or trustees having such powers had been from time to time created by local acts. The resulting chaos was remarkable. In 1855 these local acts numbered 250, administered by not less than 300 bodies, and by a number of persons serving on them computed at 10,448. These persons were either self-elected, or elected for life, or both, and therefore in no degree responsible to the ratepayers. There were two bodies having jurisdiction over the whole metropolis except the City, namely, the officers appointed under the Metropolitan Building Act of 1844, and the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, appointed under the Commissioners of Sewers Act 1848. Neither body was responsible to the ratepayers. To remedy this chaotic state of affairs, the Metropolis Management Act 1855 was passed. Under that act a vestry elected by the ratepayers of the parish was established for each parish in the metropolis outside the City. The vestries so elected for the twenty-two larger parishes were constituted the local authorities. The fifty-six smaller parishes were grouped together in fifteen districts, each under a district board, the members of which were elected by the vestries of the constituent parishes. Metropolitan Board of Works. A central body, styled the Metropolitan Board of Works, having jurisdiction over the whole metropolis (including the City) was also established, the members of which were elected by the Common Council of the City, the vestries and district boards, and the previously established local board of Woolwich (q.v.). Further the area of the metropolis for local government purposes was for the first time defined, being the same as that adopted in the Commissioners of Sewers Act, which had been taken from the area of the weekly bills of mortality. The Metropolitan Board of Works was also given certain powers of supervision over the vestries and district boards, and superseded the commissioners of sewers as authority for main drainage. By an act of the same session it became the central authority for the administration of the Building Acts, and subsequently had many additional powers and duties conferred upon it. The vestries and district boards became the authorities for local drainage, paving, lighting, repairing and maintaining streets, and for the removal of nuisances, &c.
Acts of 1888 and 1899.—An objection to the Metropolitan Board of Works soon became manifest, inasmuch as the system of election was indirect. Moreover, some of its actions were open to such suspicion that a royal commission was appointed to inquire into certain matters connected London County Council. with the working of the board. This commission issued an interim report in 1888 (the final report did not appear until 1891), which disclosed the inefficiency of the board in certain respects, and also indicated the existence of corruption. Reform followed immediately. Already in 1884 Sir William Harcourt had attempted to constitute the metropolis a municipal borough under the government of a single council. But in 1888 the Local Government Act, dealing with the area of the metropolis as a separate county, created the London County Council as the central administrative body, possessing not only the powers of an ordinary county council, but also extensive powers of town management, transferred to it from the abolished Board of Works. Here, then, was the central body, under their direct control, which inhabitants of London had hitherto lacked. The question of subsidiary councils remained to be settled. The wealthier metropolitan parishes became discontented with the form of local government to which they remained subject, and in 1897 Kensington and Westminster petitioned to be created boroughs by the grant of charters under the Municipal Corporation Acts. These, however, were inapplicable to London, and it was realized
