This feature first appeared in June 2024 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.
“London is becoming unliveable.”
”London is becoming intolerant.”
”London is becoming the Jurassic Park of stock exchanges.”
Just three recent headlines that use the same formulation. It’s a cliche newspapers have employed for centuries to highlight an emerging trend in the city. By searching the newspaper archives for that phrase, we can get a telling snapshot of the hopes and fears of different generations of Londoners.
For years now, millions of pages of newsprint, dating back to the 18th century, have been fully searchable on services like the British Newspaper Archive and Newspapers.com. These are immensely powerful resources. Type in the name of your street or your great-great-grandmother and, lo, you’ll find every newspaper clipping that ever mentioned them (if you’re prepared to pay the subscriptions).
So long as we keep in mind the old motto that you ‘shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers’, these resources allow us to tease out the minutiae of history like never before.
One game I like to play is to type in a hooky headline and see how it’s been applied over recent history. A good example is “London is becoming…”. The phrase is often used in headlines today, but has been a mainstay of the copywriter since the mid-Victorian times.
If we type the clause into the newspaper archives, the resulting stories offer an illuminating insight into the trends, hopes and fears of each period…
1864: London is becoming… like a captive bound in fetters of iron and brass: The boom in railways is sparking fears that the city is becoming one great central railway station for all the world, to the detriment of the poor, who are displaced by the rails. (The Standard, 7 Apr)
1890: London is becoming… the New Jerusalem: General Booth of the Salvation Army heralds a rise in prayer, and calls for London to be rebuilt for worship. “We should have Hyde Park roofed in with towers climbing towards the stars as the world’s great grand central temple,” he recommends. Didn’t prove popular. (The Citizen, 31 July)
1901: London is becoming… continental: Englishmen are becoming more gregarious, and it is only a matter of time before we start sitting outside cafes reading the morning paper, or perhaps playing bridge, as do the French. (Queen magazine, reprinted in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 10 Jun)
1903: London is becoming… the home of a silent host: A report on the rise of India rubber soles on shoes, which make ladies taller and gentlemen quieter. “I took a walk in Hyde Park last Sunday,” said a medical man, “There were hundreds of pedestrians but their walking made no sound. They might have been so many phantoms.” (The London Mail, 5 Dec)
1906: London is becoming… more beautiful: Mr John Burns (presumably the same one who described the Thames as “Liquid history”) reckons recent sanitary improvements and other street alterations have made London one of the most beautiful cities in the world. (Reynolds’s Newspaper, 20 May)
1914: London is becoming… too Bohemian: Londoners are increasingly turning their backs on formality, authority and etiquette. People today have an inordinate love of pleasure, and short attention spans. (The Bystander, 25 Feb; given the year, this commentary would date quickly.)
1922: London is becoming… brighter: Street lights are now so bright that experienced photographers can capture excellent night-time shots. (Sunday Illustrated, 19 Feb)
1933: London is becoming… noisier: The police, who do a good deal of standing around in the street, are of the opinion that London’s traffic noise is louder than ever. Meanwhile, noise on the tube has diminished somewhat, but there is still room for improvement. “Experiments are being made to test the effect of coating the tunnels with asbestos”. Oh dear. (Dundee Evening Telegraph, 10 Aug)
1936: London is becoming… a city of flats: The Halifax Building Society reports a record-breaking year for mortgage applications, with a particular rise in those for London flats. (Halifax Evening Courier, 31 Mar)
1937: London is becoming… a city of lidos: Londoners are going crazy for outdoor pools, with new lidos planned for Charlton, Parliament Hill, Battersea Park, Ladywell, and Clissold Park. (Daily Herald, 12 Jul)
1937: London is becoming… the new Jerusalem: An appalling, deeply antisemitic rant in the letters pages, calling for the expulsion of Jews from England. Contrast with the identical headline from 1890. (South London Observer, 13 Aug)
1938: London is becoming… garden-minded: The city has come alive with hanging flower baskets and other floral adornments. Paddington Borough Council is promoting the inflorescence by handing out free earth for window boxes. (Bayswater Chronicle, 20 May)
1953: London is becoming… a blaze of colour: Decorations are going up around town, ahead of the Coronation of Elizabeth II. Blue, yellow and green fabrics decorate Parliament Square. Selfridges sports red and gold draperies. Regent Street is festooned with pink Tudor roses. And Eros has a new gilded cage. (Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 15 May)
1962: London is becoming… a death trap: Not an actual death trap, but a euphemism to suggest that London is sucking all the talent from the rest of the country. Over the past year, a quarter of a million people have left Wales, Scotland and the north of England for the capital. (The Scotsman, 3 Dec)
1971: London is becoming… a nightmare: Millions of ordinary Londoners are living in squalid conditions, barely changed since the Second World War, while central London is now a playground for the rich and the tourists. The second part is a familiar lament today, but this was over half a century ago! (Evening Standard, 6 Sep)
1973: London is becoming… the world’s oil capital: London finds itself conveniently placed as a meeting place for oil bigwigs from America and the Middle East and, as such, many international oil companies make their headquarters here. (The Scotsman, 10 Feb)
1982: London is becoming… a one-party state: Although Britain was under the Tory government of Margaret Thatcher, the Greater London Council was dominated by Labour, led by Ken Livingstone. The Conservative Sir Horace Cutler (former leader of the GLC) warned that Labour’s grip was now too tight, allowing Ken and Co to “spread their brand of hard-line, doctrinaire Socialism”. (Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 11 Mar)
2013: London is becoming… a tale of two cities: Labour MP and future Mayor Sadiq Khan on the widening gap between rich and poor in the capital. (Evening Standard, 13 Dec)
2013: London is becoming… a giant suction machine draining the life out of the rest of the country: According to Business Secretary Vince Cable. They were saying that in 1962, Vince. (BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Dec)
It’s interesting to note that most of the earlier news stories used the phrase in a positive way. London was becoming brighter, more beautiful, more continental. From the second half of the 20th century, almost all of the headlines speak of deterioration. I think we’re overdue a change in mood, and long for the day when London is becoming upbeat again.
