Transformation and Specialization in London and its Topography

Abstract

This article puts John Tallis’s London Street Views (1838–40) into conversation with some of the major topographical projects that preceded them. By examining how London was represented in works including Richard Horwood’s PLAN of the Cities of LONDON and WESTMINSTER the Borough of SOUTHWARK, and PARTS adjoining Shewing every HOUSE (1792–9), Richard Phillips’s Modern London (1804) and Rudolph Ackermann’s Microcosm of London (1808–10), it considers the extent to which the form, content, price and organizing principles of the Street Views iterated on prior traditions while drawing out aspects of Tallis’s work that should be read as representing innovative new directions. The Street Views were more specialized and more explicitly focused on business than the relatively genteel works of the earlier nineteenth century, but topography had long been a commercial prospect, often publisher-led rather than author-driven. As the century progressed, changes in the city and in technologies of representation modified the ways in which visions of London were assembled and sold, allowing for significant expansions in their potential audiences. However, there were also considerable continuities in what was depicted, in the reliance on part-publication and in the areas that were seen as being crucial to the experience of the metropolis. This article traces these continuities and discontinuities qualitatively, quantitatively and spatially.

Keywords:

• London
• street views
• topography
• commerce
• print culture
• visual culture
• urban spaces

Notes

1. The Lincoln Gazette’s review is reprinted in Peter Jackson, ed., John Tallis’s London Street Views 1838–1840, revised edition (London: London Topographical Society, 2002), p. 11.

2. King George Ill’s Topographical Collection is now held at the British Library,<http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/kinggeorge/>[accessed 10 May 2017].

3. More information on Crowle and Crace can be found in Anna Maude, ‘The Changing Image of London: A Comparison of the Crace Collection and the Crowle Pennant in the British Museum Print Room’, London Journal, 38.2 (July 2013), 110–24.

4. Bernard Adams, London Illustrated 1604–1851: A Survey and Index of Topographical Books and their Plates (London: Library Association, 1983), p. 224.

5. The Microcosm of London’, Critical Review, third series, 20 (July 1810), 261–67 (p. 267).

6. This has been compiled using Adams’ ‘Chronological numbered list of books’ in Adams, London Illustrated, pp. xxv–xxviii.

7. [Richard Phillips], Modern London (London: Richard Phillips, 1804), p. iii.

8. In asserting this, I am thinking of works like [John Feltham’s] The Picture of London (London: Richard Phillips, 1802 and subsequently), on which Modern London was based; David Hughson’s Walks through London (London: Sherwood, Neely and Jones, 1817); John Thomas Smith’s Antiquities of London (London: J.T. Smith, 1791–1800), which was designed in large part as a supplement to Thomas Pennant’s Of London (London: Robert Fauldner, 1790, and frequently reissued in revised forms); and Priscilla Wakefield’s Perambulations in London and its Environs (London: Darton and Harvey, 1809).

9. Copy text from the wrapper to Street View No. 1 (King William Street, London Bridge), most easily accessed as an insert in Jackson, John Tallis’s London Street Views, pp. 16–17.

10. Adams, London Illustrated, p. xiv.

11. ‘Johnstone’s Edinburgh Magazine: The Cheap and Dear Periodicals’, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 4 (January 1834), 490–500 (p. 492).

12. Jackson, John Tallis’s London Street Views, p. 15.

13. The first page of Horwood’s prospectus is reprinted opposite the title page in Paul Laxton, ed., The A–Z of Regency London (London: London Topographical Society, 1985).

14. Insert in Jackson, John Tallis’s London Street Views.

15. Horwood offers a two-payment option and an instalment plan in his prospectus.

16. A full digital version of Horwood’s Plan is available on the website for my Romantic London project,<http://www.romanticlondon.org>[accessed 10 May 2017].

17. Richard Horwood, PLAN of the Cities of LONDON and WESTMINSTER the Borough of SOUTHWARK, and PARTS adjoining Shewing every HOUSE (London: Richard Horwood, 1792–99).

18. Insert in Jackson, John Tallis’ London Street Views.

19. [Phillips], Modern London, pp. v–vi.

20. Both plate series can be viewed on Romantic London:<http://www.romanticlondon.org/modern-london-1804/>[accessed 10 May 2017].

21. [Phillips], Modern London, p. vi.

22. [Phillips], Modern London, p. vii.

23. Elizabeth Grant, ‘John Tallis’s London Street Views’, London Journal, 37.3 (November 2012), 234–51 (p. 237).

24. Again, the full plate series can be viewed on Romantic London,<http://www.romanticlondon.org/microcosm/>[accessed 10 May 2017].

25. The engravers were John Bluck (who engraved 54 plates), Joseph Constantine Stadler (29), Thomas Sunderland and John Hill (10 each), and Richard Bankes Harraden (one plate). Very little information survives on the considerable body of workers that must have been necessary to hand-colour tens of thousands of aquatint plates.

26. [Rudolph Ackermann], The Microcosm of London, 3 vols (London: Ackermann, 1808–10), III, p. ix.

27. [Ackerman], Microcosm, I, p. ix.

28. An interactive version of Figure 4 can be found on Romantic London,<http://www.romanticlondon.org/tallis-street-views/>[accessed 10 May 2017].

29. [John Feltham], The Picture of London for 1802 (London: R. Phillips, 1802), p. 32.

30. ‘Sight Restored to the Afflicted’, John Bull, 25 November 1838, p. [1]. Grimstone was a regular advertiser in John Bull, and also in other publications including the London Dispatch (see, for example, 19 May 1839, p. 10) and the Era (15 September 1839, p. 12), in which a testimonial from the Old Monthly Magazine (September 1838, p. 336) was cited stating that ‘Literary men and individuals accustomed to sedentary habits or long reading, will find this snuff invaluable in keeping off head-ache, dizziness in the eyes, and a powerful assistant to the organ of hearing.’ See also Grant, ‘John Tallis’s London Street Views’, pp. 249–50.

31. [John Tallis], Street View No. 26. Reprinted in Jackson, John Tallis’s London Street Views, pp. 92–3.