Dana Arnold, ed.. The Metropolis and Its Image: Constructing Identities for London, c. 1750-1950. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. vi + 176 pp. $26.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-631-21667-4.
Jan Bondeson. The London Monster: A Sanguinary Tale. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. xvi + 237 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8122-3576-0.
Paul Grifths, Mark S R Jenner, eds.. Londinopolis: Essays in the Cultural and Social History of Early Modern London. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. xii + 284 pp. $74.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-7190-5152-4.
Ranald C. Michie. The London Stock Exchange: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. xiii + 672 pp. $110, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-829508-2.
H-Net Reviews
Francis Sheppard. London: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. xviii + 442 pp. $35.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-822922-3.
Reviewed by Joseph P. Ward
Published on H-Albion (June, 2001)
A Turbulent Multiplicity of Simultaneous and account is an emphasis on London's location at Overlapping Narratives the hub of England's commercial, governmental, Observers of British culture and society often and cultural networks. Sheppard demonstrates comment on London's connections to the rest of that the Romans' decision to cross the Thames had the nation. Some insist that the metropolis is the a long-lasting infuence, for in Roman Britain vir‐ heart that distributes prosperity and enlighten‐ tually all roads led to Londinium. Although Lon‐ ment to the extremities, while others maintain don's fortunes declined for a time with those of that London is no more than a parasite engorged the Roman Empire, they revived a few centuries on the nation's resources. For these reasons, no later as the metropolis reestablished itself as a history of Britain could be complete without sub‐ commercial and ecclesiastical center whose loca‐ stantial discussions of London, but it is also the tion proved invaluable to those who would gov‐ case that the most stimulating studies of London's ern the surrounding regions. When Alfred, King past attend to its interaction with the nation and, of Wessex, overthrew the Vikings in 886 and sub‐ for that matter, the wider world. sequently refortifed the city--which he called Lundenburg--he set in motion the developments In this regard, Francis Sheppard's London: A that would secure London's place as the center of History is exemplary. It takes a fair amount of the nation and, for a brief time in the nineteenth courage, not to mention a great deal of learning, century, much of the world. to undertake a comprehensive narrative of Lon‐ don's history, but Sheppard exhibits both in his Sheppard is both historian and champion. He tightly organized and splendidly illustrated book. states that the purpose of his book is "to show that Containing a compendious bibliography and dis‐ London is not a parasite dependant on the cussions of the ancient and medieval periods that labours of the provinces, but has in fact been for are as substantial as those of the Victorian era centuries the mainspring of the cultural, econom‐ and the twentieth century, it would seem well ic, fnancial, and political life of the nation, as well suited to an undergraduate course on London's as for a long period its largest manufacturing cen‐ history. It is more substantial than Roy Porter's el‐ tre" (p. vii). This is largely because London was egant London: A Social History (1995), though for most of its history the main connection be‐ more concise than Stephen Inwood's A History of tween the provinces and the overseas world. London (1999). Running throughout Sheppard's When Sheppard employs the term "London" he
2 H-Net Reviews seems to refer more to an economic abstraction private club. Alongside governmental interfer‐ than to a discrete physical location. He notes that ence, Michie places the conservative--indeed, during the medieval era London-based merchants stubborn--attitudes of its members when listing began to participate actively in international mar‐ the reasons for its difculty in keeping pace with kets, facilitating the movement of goods from its rivals. That the exchange's current chief execu‐ across the southeastern counties to the Continent tive is for the frst time a woman, Clara Furse, in‐ and beyond, and from the eighteenth century on‐ dicates how recently such attitudes have changed. wards fnancial institutions based in London en‐ It was only a generation ago that the exchange's couraged British capital to be employed abroad members elected to admit women to their ranks, and foreign capital to be invested domestically. In and that happened grudgingly in 1973 as a result this way, London became an integral component of an impending merger with several small, pro‐ in Britain's emergence as the frst industrialized vincial markets that already had women mem‐ nation. For those same reasons, as the nation's in‐ bers. dustrial base has eroded over the past century so, London's development as a hub for national too, has London's prominent position in interna‐ and international commerce fueled its physical tional fnancial markets. expansion, but such growth hardly guaranteed Ranald Michie's history of the London Stock prosperity for all residents of the metropolis. Exchange largely echoes Sheppard's view of Lon‐ Sheppard notes throughout his survey London's don's evolving relationship with the national and dominant position in the national urban hierar‐ international economies. Michie's survey begins chy, a dominance that seems only to have grown with three chapters tracing the exchange's early more pronounced with time. He also frequently development from a marketplace for government refects upon both the social distress that accom‐ securities in the late seventeenth and early eigh‐ panied metropolitan expansion and the continual teenth centuries through its emergence in the inability of government to manage London efec‐ nineteenth century as a major source for capital tively. Sheppard spends considerable time chart‐ investment in the companies that would drive ing the various eforts to reform metropolitan Britain's industrialization. He devotes three government that began in the early modern peri‐ fourths of his book to very detailed analyses of od, reached a promising point in the nineteenth the twists and turns of the Exchange's fortunes century with the creation of such institutions as during the last century. The upheavals associated the Metropolitan Police and the Greater London with the world wars transformed the exchange Council, and then sufered a major setback with into something akin to a government ofce, which Mrs. Thatcher's attack on the GLC, the fallout of put it at a decided disadvantage when competing which is still being felt today. Indeed, at the end of against rivals like New York. Not until 1979, with his book he emphasizes the extent to which Lon‐ the abolition of exchange controls, and the series don has lost its luster by remarking that "it is hard of reforms of 1986, known as "Big Bang," was the to imagine the Hôtel de Ville in Paris or City Hall London Stock Exchange freed sufciently from in New York being treated like London's County governmental regulation to compete fully in inter‐ Hall and summarily sold of to a foreign property national markets once again. Only time will tell if company" (p. 361). these measures will enable the exchange to deter‐ If there remains anyone who romanticizes mine its own fate in a global marketplace for se‐ the period preceding the great wave of nine‐ curities that no longer relies on the personal rela‐ teenth-century metropolitan reform, they would tionships among traders that had long made the be well advised to peruse Jan Bondeson's The Lon‐ London exchange's culture rather like that of a
3 H-Net Reviews don Monster. Much of this book is given to de‐ popular culture, and gender relations in late eigh‐ scriptions of a series of more than ffty attacks teenth-century London. upon women walking the streets of the city from Although it continues to inspire monographs March 1788 through June 1790, and of the two tri‐ on topics as obvious as the Stock Exchange and as als that convicted Rhynwick Williams, a twenty- obscure as the Monster, the dynamism of Lon‐ three year old artifcial fower maker from Wales, don's historiography may best be found in collec‐ of being the so-called London Monster responsi‐ tions of essays, for it is simply impossible for any ble for the crimes. The fnal chapters are devoted single narrative, even one as carefully organized to a wide-ranging discussion of outbreaks of mass as Sheppard's, to convey fully the intricacies of hysteria in other places and time periods, most of London's past. By contrast, collections like Londi‐ which occurred well after 1790, culminating in nopolis and The Metropolis and its Image eschew Bondeson's quite plausible assertion that Williams generalization and embrace complexity. The was wrongfully convicted of being the Monster. eleven essays in Londinopolis (whose title is bor‐ The ability for the attacker--or, more probably, at‐ rowed from a work by James Howell published in tackers--to avoid apprehension was greatly en‐ 1657) are spread across four sections: "Polis and hanced by the inadequacies of the forces lined up Police"; "Gender and Sexuality"; "Senses of Space against him or them, for "in 1790 the police force and Place"; and "Material Culture and Consump‐ patrolling the streets of London was little difer‐ tion." They are all well-researched, crisply writ‐ ent, in terms of organization and efciency, from ten, and worthy of the interest of specialists, but that of 1690" (p. 12). The eventual arrest of they share little else, which lends considerable Williams resulted in large part from the initiative credibility to the editors' remark that together of John Julius Angerstein, a Lloyd's insurance bro‐ they constitute "a turbulent multiplicity of simul‐ ker, to raise a subscription for a reward to be giv‐ taneous and overlapping narratives" (p. 8). Sever‐ en for the apprehension of "that INHUMAN MON‐ al chapters ofer microhistories of topics such as STER, whoever he may be, who has of late so fre‐ food consumption (Sara Pennell), the evolution of quently wounded several young women" (p. 29). parochial rituals (Michael Berlin), the changing Bondeson has clearly immersed himself in mate‐ character of water distribution (Mark Jenner), rial related to the Monster and Williams, but and thief-taking (Tim Wales) that seldom fnd many of this book's features--such as the three- their way into surveys like Sheppard's. Others of‐ page list of "The Cast" at the outset, its speculation fer new takes on subjects with which historians of that "Had a third trial of Rhynwick Williams taken London are increasingly familiar, such as popular place today, the outcome might well have been a politics (Ian Archer), women in public places diferent one" (p. 198), and its apparent ignorance (Laura Gowing) and in court cases (Margaret of Elaine Reynolds, Before the Bobbies: The Night Hunt), and the urban context of disease (Margaret Watch and Police Reform in Metropolitan Lon‐ Pelling). Picking up chronologically where Londi‐ don, 1720-1830 (1998)--will lead specialists to nopolis leaves of, The Metropolis and its Image think twice before relying too heavily upon his ofers an engaging and relatively coherent analy‐ conclusions. To be fair, aside from its publication sis of the various, and sometimes contradictory, by a university press, much about this book sug‐ identities of London that emerge in a number of gests that it is intended to be a work of popular, contexts and media during the period of London's rather than academic, historiography. If nothing greatest infuence in the nation and the world. else, Bondeson's book testifes to the tremendous Taken together, the chapters constitute a loose opportunities for further research into crime, narrative, beginning with discussions of the rep‐ resentations of London in the eighteenth century
4 H-Net Reviews in essays by Lucy Peltz and Elizabeth McKellar, a map but rather upon everyone who has come proceeding to a series of nineteenth-century top‐ under its considerable sway. ics including the controversies swirling around the treatment of animals in the metropolis (Diana Donald) and the place of London Bridge in civic and national iconography (Dana Arnold), and cul‐ minating in examinations of the twentieth-centu‐ ry metropolis as a capital city (M.H. Port), the re‐ building of bank headquarters (Iain Black), and the ways in which only the French theoretician Jacques Lacan--or, in his absence, the character of Mrs. Wilberforce in the Ealing Comedy The La‐ dykillers--can help us with our need for a com‐ pelling fgure for London (Adrian Rifkin). After reading the works under review here, one cannot help but notice repeatedly that for many historians the term "London" has come to signify not a place but rather a series of relation‐ ships that extend across time and space. In her in‐ troduction to The Metropolis and its Image, Dana Arnold posits, quite justifably, that "the city is a means of giving coherence to diversity" (p. 1). Per‐ haps that may explain the current vitality of the historiography of London, for several of the au‐ thors considered here seem drawn to studying the metropolis in order to illuminate far more than a locality, albeit a very big one. After all, from some perspectives London--in the form of its social, eco‐ nomic, political, and cultural infuences--may be found nearly everywhere. This is in large degree the result of the movement of so many people to and from the metropolis during the course of their lives. When Margaret Pelling suggests in her striking contribution to Londinopolis that in early modern England there came into being "a mode of metropolitan living which was mobile, the ef‐ fect of constant movement in and out of the city on a periodic, even daily basis" (p. 154), she is get‐ ting at much the same thing as Sheppard when he remarks that during the nineteenth century "[c]easeless mobility, made possible by new means of transport, became one of the hallmarks of modern urban civilization" (p. 264). London was, and is, to be found inscribed not so much on
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Citation: Joseph P. Ward. Review of Arnold, Dana, ed. The Metropolis and Its Image: Constructing Identities for London, c. 1750-1950. ; Bondeson, Jan. The London Monster: A Sanguinary Tale. ; Grifths, Paul; Jenner, Mark S R, eds. Londinopolis: Essays in the Cultural and Social History of Early Modern London. ; Michie, Ranald C. The London Stock Exchange: A History. ; Sheppard, Francis. London: A History. H-Albion, H-Net Reviews. June, 2001.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=5238
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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