Tudor London - Trade and Industry

Trade and Industry

During the Tudor period London was rapidly rising in importance amongst Europe's commercial centres, its many small industries were booming, especially weaving. Trade expanded beyond Western Europe to Russia, the Levant, and the Americas. This was the period of mercantilism and monopoly trading companies such as the Russia Company (1555) and the East India Company (1600) were established in London by Royal Charter. The latter, which ultimately came to rule much of India, was one of the key institutions in London, and in Britain as a whole, for two and a half centuries. In 1572 the Spanish destroyed the great commercial city of Antwerp, giving London first place among the North Sea ports. Immigrants arrived in London not just from all over England and Wales, but from abroad as well, for example Huguenots from France; the population rose from an estimated 50,000 in 1530 to about 225,000 in 1605.

During the same time repeated ordinances, in futile attempts to check urban sprawl, forbade the building of new houses on less than 4 acres (16,000 m2) of ground in 1580, 1583, 1593, and 1605, applying to land as far as Chiswick or Tottenham, the Tudor equivalents of green belt controls and five acre zoning. One result was increased subdividing and shoddy construction within the City, where the usual houses of the middle classes retained their medieval vernacular half-timbered construction, with dormers and gables and upper storeys that projected over the thoroughfares. In 1605 it was estimated that 75,000 lived in the City while 115,000 in the surrounding "Liberties", the inner suburbs where City writ did not run. Lincoln's Inn Fields remained fields, a "small Remaynder of Ayre" according to a Privy Council memorandum in 1617, when it was first proposed to build houses there.

The East End of London developed during this period in the unplanned strip development along existing highways. The topographer and city historian Stow recalled that Petticoat Lane in his youth had run among fields, flanked with hedgerows, but had become "a continual building of garden houses and small cottages" and Wapping "a continual street or filthy straight passage with alleys of small tenements". In the East End, industries could be carried on beyond the supervision of London's guilds, the Livery Companies, still powerful and jealous of their jurisdiction.

It was during this period that the first maps of London were drawn. The great bulk of the population was still enclosed in the City, living at a density which in the 21st century is unknown in the developed world. The old highway from the City to the royal court at Westminster, Strand, was lined with aristocrats’ mansions on its southern side. Their gardens ran down to the river, which remained the principal highway. "A very fine show" the Venetian ambassador reported in 1551, "but disfigured by the ruins of a multitude of churches and monasteries" Though side lanes were beginning to be developed off Strand, the two settlements were otherwise separate: Westminster was a small fraction of the size of the City.

Other districts that are almost as central in 21st century London as are Westminster and the City themselves were still rural in the late 16th century. Covent Garden really was a market garden. Hospitals and convalescent homes were established in Holborn and Bloomsbury to take advantage of the country air. Islington and Hoxton were outlying villages.

In 1561, lightning struck Old St Paul's Cathedral. The roof was repaired, but the 500 ft (150 m) spire was never replaced. No new churches were built in London after the completion of St Giles Cripplegate until the Queen's chapel by Inigo Jones, begun in 1623. There was a need felt for new schools, following the break-up of monastic schools. St Paul's had been founded by John Colet in 1510. Christ's Hospital (1552, on the grounds of Greyfriars), was followed by Charterhouse in 1611. In 1565 Thomas Gresham founded a new mercantile exchange in the City, which was awarded the title the "Royal Exchange" by Queen Elizabeth in 1571. In April 1580 there was some damage to chimneys and walls in the Dover Straits earthquake of 1580.