How did the physical geography of London change in the two centuries after the Great Fire?

How did the physical geography of London change in the two centuries after the Great Fire?

The Great Fire of London happened during the reign of Charles I, in the early 1600s. It began in a bakery in Pudding Lane and within three days had levelled 70% of everything north of the River Thames. The great fire of London changed the physical geography of London forever. It proved to be a source of the new dawn of the city. Buildings were reshaped, new structures came into existence. Construction work started all over the city. London at the time was a mess having not ever been planned; evolving from the ancient Roman city through mediaeval times to a slum with houses encroached and narrow streets presenting a significant fire risk. The aftermath of the fire saw the planned building of a new London with broad, well laid out streets pretty much as they are now. In 1666 there was an outbreak of the plague, and the fire killed many of the black rats carrying the disease, so there was never another plague outbreak in England. Well, the old St Paul’s cathedral was a pretty uninspiring heap, whereas Wren’s replacement is one of the most significant buildings in the country, not to mention all his and Hawks moor’s other churches in the city. Although most of the plans to rebuild London on a grid (or in the case of Wren’s proposal, concentric circles) came to nothing because landowners and businessmen were in too much of a hurry to get up and running again, the government managed to retain enough control to ensure that streets were widened and that new buildings were in brick or stone, which all helped to prevent uncontrollable fires until the 1940s. So that was a good thing. I think surprisingly similar given that it was not used to change the street pattern, the move to the West end in the eighteenth century would still have happened along with the nineteenth and 20th-century expansion to subsume surrounding villages and the 21st-century arrival of the glass and steel skyscraper.

The blitz would still have happened and given us smatterings of Concrete in every quarter. The main difference I can think of is no dome of St Paul’s and fewer Wren and Hawksmoor churches. Perhaps in the city, a few old medieval streets would have remained like the Shambles in York. However, I think the wealth that hit London from the eighteenth century would still have resulted in much redevelopment, and its character would be necessarily the same as it is today. It cleared out the old timber frame houses and removed the warren of alleys and backstreets across a massive swathe of the city. Sir Christopher Wren, founder of the Royal Society, polymath, architect and all-round smart-alec rebuilt a lot of the destroyed gothic churches in the neo-classical style including St Paul’s Cathedral itself. It also gave him a chance to re-plan the street layout, though he was only one of many competing plans and in the end, none of them was followed as the owners of the now vacant plots just put up new buildings as fast as they could. You can still even visit Pudding Lane where the fire started, the same street as it was when the fire began, though with somewhat fancier buildings on it.

How did the Londoners change as consumers between 1660 and 1860?

What I understood was that the colonies were doing well with their banking system, and this aroused the ire of the Bank of England. The BoE was missing out on benefiting as their interest charges were 8%. So it petitioned George II to make the BoE the official bank in the colonies. It destroyed the economy and sent it into a recession [I do not know the specifics]. This disrespect also established the start of the movement for independence. So it was not George III who lost the colonies; it was George II. The opening up of international trade routes allowed both colonies and their motherlands to get luxury commodities. This made the merchant-suppliers of those commodities more productive. They wanted more riches, so they created investment scams (South Sea Bubble), credit derivatives (discounted bills of trade), and too big to fail companies (recapitalization of the East India Company).

These scams happened mostly from 1720 to 1772, causing crashes which someone had to pay for. Both then and now, the people ended up paying for them the colonies in India and the US paid for the British scams, creating the Tea Act that validated the Townshend Acts that taxed the Americans, leading to the American Revolution. The modern equivalent of this is Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, which happened after the Financial Crisis and the derivatives scam. Primarily in that colonialism + slavery + sugar + tea generated vast fortunes that had to be invested somewhere, and the brand new factories were the obvious choice. Colonialism also gave Britain a vast captive market for their industrial goods, and since they had the most significant colonial Empire, their industrial growth was supercharged. Of course, the opposite is exact too. The massive growth of Britain’s Empire was fueled by the Industrial Revolution, as Britain sought exclusive access to raw materials and ever more captive markets for its industrial output.

How did the life of the London adverse change between 1700 and 1900?

Building on what has been said, there are a couple of other factors that made the poor of the Empire successful:

1. High Politics – Britain ruled the colonies in the most part on a day to day basis from the back office, and British rule was not so visible. Britain never pushed an English cultural agenda of food (thankfully), way of life, language, religion on any of her colonies, unlike the French.  This made for a much calmer atmosphere in the Empire without people feeling that their way of life was threatened.
2. Britain elevated the status of some locals who were effectively proxies of the Empire but this made day to day relationships easier.   People did not feel that they were subjects of a foreign power in this way.  This was partly because there is no way a country of the size of Britain had enough people to police such an enormous empire but also a clever tactic of holding on to a colony.  This immense experience in controlling a territory without causing local tension was played out in the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2004.  Britain was given control of Basra, Iraq’s second city.  The difference in the way Britain administered Basra, and the US ran Baghdad was stark.  The British setup camp outside the city, patrolled the city on foot, working with local authorities who were placed in the front but trained and controlled by Britain from behind.  This led to the locals not feeling intimidated and therefore less tension on the street.  The US, on the other hand, had a more visible threatening appearance with large Humvees and guns which inevitably causes tension when a foreign power occupies a country. Some colonies did not have suitable local staff to work in the police, army, business or other fields. The gap was filled mostly by people from India who left to live in other colonies, especially in Africa.  Again this deployment of non-British people helped with the local politics
3. When it mattered – Britain gave the illusion of power and a clear signal that nobody can stand up and threaten it. This was played out with the construction of large buildings such as train terminals and Post offices, courts and other administrative buildings.  As well as having a functional role, they were a statement of superiority with their grandeur.  The series of Delhi Darbars was the ultimate statement of saying “we are in charge and hold power”.  The processions were expensive, very grand and designed to intimidate in a very subtle way.  The illusion of power through the Empire that Britain gave was a political masterpiece in keeping the Empire for so long.
4. Britain invested in the colonies (yes a lot of people will say for selfish reasons) and built timeless infrastructure which is still being used to this day, implemented systems of government, a legal system, police, army and other public services which have been shown to be sustainable after independence.

All these factors made for a successful empire which unlike most other empires did not collapse but was dismantled over many decades well before it is selling by date had expired.