Step back in time: Two free Victorian London exhibitions open in the city

There are two free exhibitions in the City of London at the moment both taking a look back at Victorian London.

The first is outside St Paul’s Cathedral and is a photographic exhibition of London from 1839 onwards. This exhibition delves into the London Archive’s collections to present some of most striking images of the era; from one of the first known photographs of London to the opening of Blackwall Tunnel at the end of the century, taking in the Crystal Palace and the first Tube line and showing Londoners at work and play.

The exhibition will be next to St Paul’s Cathedral daily until 29th August. It then moves to Aldgate Square, where it will remain until the end of September.

The other exhibition looks at the London that has been lost since the Victorians built it.

Ranging from lost streets and lost buildings to lost trades and even lost languages and wars. There’s a lot to see here, and some aspects of London might surprise you – I certainly had no idea that London’s shipbuilders also built submarines.

A lot of lost trades are shown, from the street sweepers to the disinfectors and the many street sellers who are now barely a memory in a Mary Poppins movie.

Zoos, aquariums, entertainment palaces — and the controversy of a woman performing for the public are all here.

It’s mainly an exhibition of prints and photographs from the London Archive, but helpfully, each is also given the archive reference number if you want to see the original or research it further.

A grumble is that the lighting in the archive’s exhibition area isn’t very good, with spotlights behind you so your shadow blocks out the item you’re looking at or casts spots onto the photos so you have to bounce around a bit to see them clearly.

The exhibition Lost Victorian City is at The London Archives until next February and is free to visit. It’s mainly open Monday to Thursday, with a late opening on Wednesdays to 7pm — but also one Saturday a month.

It’s free to visit.

Oh, and a bonus — in the next room, you can see the City of London’s own copy of the Magna Carta. That is candidly on display in the Guildhall Art Gallery fairly regularly, but another document I don’t I’ve ever seen is next to it — King John’s letter authorising the City of London to elect their own mayor.

Considering the wealth and power held by the City, that was quite a considerable political power the King surrendered by giving up his authority to impose a mayor on the City.

It was also likely a chance for the City to prevent the title from becoming hereditary — as the first Lord Mayor was >Henry fitz Ailwin, and the second was the (possibly) related Roger FitzAlan. The third was elected by the Aldermen and Liverymen of the City, and they’ve been doing it almost every year since then.

Those two documents are on display until the end of October.

This article was published on ianVisits

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