Recently, Wellcome Library released 100,000 high-resolution images into the public domain. The scans include 'manuscripts, paintings, etchings, early photography and advertisements', and collectively serve as a vast visual resource for the history of health and medicine. The collection is available under a Creative Commons licence that allows you to download and reuse any image for personal or commercial purposes, without charge.
Among the archive are plenty of images of general London interest. We've included some of our favourite discoveries in the gallery below.
Monster Soup - a parody of the state of Thames water - by William Heath, 1828.A panorama of London seen from the south. Wood engraving by F. J. Smyth, 1845.London and the River Thames seen from the south. Note the vast railway viaduct in the foreground, which still exists, and the absence of buildings on the Isle of Dogs and Greenwich Peninsula. 1845Sketch of the London locations where Edward Lovett discovered amulet necklaces, which were thought to protect the wearer from illness. 1914A section of Charles Booth's famous poverty map, colour-coded for levels of wealth. It can be downloaded at high resolution from Wellcome Library. 1892 - 1897
![L0006579 Engraving: 'Monster Soup..." by William Heath
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
images@wellcome.ac.uk
http://wellcomeimages.org
'Monster Soup, commonly
called Thames Water',
Coloured engraving
1828 By: William HeathPublished: [1828?]
Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/page/Prices.html](https://assets.londonist.com/uploads/2014/01/i875/thameswater1.jpg)
