LONDON

Directories

The first London directory was Kent's London Directory of 1728.

Foreign Eyes

Harry Fowler

Harry Fowler (1926-2012) was born in Lambeth. He left school having managed largely to avoid being educated. At the age of fifteen he was selling The Star, an evening newspaper, from a stand in Piccadilly Circus when he was interviewed about the Second World War was affecting his life. This led to his being cast as a Cockney urchin in the movie Those Kids From Town (1942). He was paid 5 a day, as a paper boy he had been earn 8s. a week. The role led to other parts. He had his breakthrough in Hue and Cry (1947), the first of the Ealing comedies. His youthful looks meant that he was able to play teenagers while in his thirties. He grew a moustache when he sought to age. During his career he was almost always typecast as a likeable Cockney spiv or wideboy.

Location: Piccadilly Circus, W1J 7BX (purple, brown)

Handrawn London

Website: https://davidgentleman.com www.edgrayart.com www.karenneale.co.uk

Wenceslas Hollar

Wenceslas Hollar's (1607-1677) Long View (1644) was a panorama of London.

The London Encyclopaedia

Ben Weinreb (1912-1999) was an antiquarian bookseller, who collected information about London. With the help of the popular historian Christopher Hibbert (1924-2008) he shaped the material into a reference book about London. The first edition of The London Encyclopaedia was published in 1983.

See Also: REFERENCE WORKS

The London Nobody Knows

The short, James Mason presented documentary film The London Nobody Knows (1967) was based on a book of the same name by the journalist and illustrator Geoffrey Fletcher. It studied some of the seedier aspects of the city. It was directed by Norman Cohen and produced by Greg Smith.¹

¹. Mr Smith's most notable cinematic achievement was producing the Confession of ... series of sex-comedy movies during the mid-1970s. Confessions of A Window Cleaner (1974) was made for 150,000 and became Columbia Pictures most profitable non-American movie. (The films were based on a series of novels by Timothy Lea.)

Maps

The World's Ends

World s End is a kink in Chelsea's The King's Road towards its western end.

On John Rocque and John Pine's Map of London (1738), the metropolis ends a couple of hundred yards east of Stepney Green. The area was also described as World's End.

Location: Ben Jonson Road, E1 3NN

The King s Road, SW3 5UZ (blue, white)

Nicknames

London is commonly known as The Smoke. The writer and activist William Cobbett (d.1835) coined the name The Great Wen.

Photography

In the late 19^thC the London County Council commissioned photographs to be taken of places and buildings that were about to be demolished so that their sites could be redeveloped.

John Stow

John Stow was born in a family of tallow chandlers. He was freeman of the Merchant Taylors Company. While he was not university or Inn-educated, his scholarship as an antiquary was held in high regard by his contemporaries. He spent liberally to buy manuscripts and books. Following the foundation of the Society of Antiquaries in 1586, he was the first person to be admitted to membership of the body who was not a gentleman. His Survey of London (1598) was the first history of London to be based on research that had been carried out using public records.

There is a statue of Stow on his grave in St Andrew Undershaft. Each March or April a memorial service for him is held in the church; the Lord Mayor replaces the quill in Stow's hand with a new one and gives a copy of Survey of London to a child who has been judged to have written the best essay on London that year.

In 1720 a version of the Survey of London that revised by the Rev John Strype published.

Location: St Andrew Undershaft, St Mary Axe, EC3A 8BN (orange, grey)

Website: www.merchants-taylors.co.uk/news/john-stow-merchant-taylor-and-the-history-of-london

Street Names and Place Names

David Backhouse 2024