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Journal of Historical Geography 42 (2013) 62e76

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Journal of Historical Geography

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Mobilities at a standstill: regulating circulation in London c.1863e1870

Carlos Lopez Galviz

Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU, United Kingdom

Abstract

The article explores the relationship between regulating traffic and structuring congestion in mid-nineteenth-century London. It examines plans for theopening of new streets and for the erection of dedicated structures such as subways and pedestrian bridges, aswell as the debates around legislation regulatingeveryday practices, which included the introduction of time intervals and designating pedestrian street crossings. The need for people and vehicles to circulatewas central to all of these aswere the reactions against congestion. The article interrogates the extent towhich the study of whatmight be termed circulation’sinextricable other, namely congestion, sheds a new light on our understanding of the experience of modernity at a particular time in London’s history.� 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Mobilities; London; Traffic; Congestion; Regulation

Blocked streetswere a common sight in nineteenth-century London.By 1860, the growing number of vehicles and people often broughttraffic to a standstill, especially along busy thoroughfares, pedestrianbridges connecting the two riverbanks and in the characteristicallydense layout of winding lanes and alleyways of the City districts.Temporal rhythmse the earlymorning and late eveningfluxof trafficinto and out of the city on most working days e exacerbated theproblem, which, increasingly, was regarded as an inexcusable andcostlynuisanceespeciallyby thosewhothought that timewasmoneyand thus something that should not be squandered on inefficientmovement. Efficient circulationwas hindered by longstanding prac-tices, namely, costermongers setting their barrows by the pavementedge; drivers of cattle and other animals using main streets en routeto markets and slaughterhouses; hackney carriages, omnibuses andcabsfighting theirway throughhordes of pedestrians, goods, animalsand other vehicles. Gustave Doré depicted some of themost definingcharacteristics of street life of this bustlingmid-centurymetropolis inhis remarkable etchings of labour, leisure, destitution andmovement(Fig. 1). His was a visual record of the likely experience of blockedstreets across London and the apparent difficulties of allowing thetraffic of a commercial and imperial capital to flow unimpeded.

But howdid contemporariesunderstand andmake sense of streettraffic and congestion? Inwhich contexts were these two ‘problems’articulatedanddiscussed?Towhatextentwas the sightofpeopleandvehicles brought to a standstill a signifier of London’s modernity?

In this article, I examine a set of ideas, plans, technologies andlegislation produced between c.1863e1870 in the interest of

E-mail addresses: carlos.galvis@sas.ac.uk, psv7@ymail.com

1 M. Ogborn, Pavements, in: S. Pile and N. Thrift (Eds), City AeZ, London and NewM. Ogborn, Spaces of Modernity London’s Geographies 1680e1780, New York, 1998, partic

0305-7488/$ e see front matter � 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2013.04.019

providing solutions to that which impeded movement, namely,congestion. First, I will show how regulating street traffic involvedcreating the conceptual structure in connection to which conges-tionwas framed and understood. Secondly, and more importantly, Iwill characterise the ways in which London’s traffic prompted theregulation and specifying of the metropolitan experience. Trafficand congestion were articulated through official discourses such asParliamentary Bills and select committees, but also through pro-jects that sought to accommodate the circulation of goods, waste,capital and people. Circulation was, arguably, one of the mostdefining forces in the transformation that London would experi-ence during the second half of the nineteenth century. Mycontention in this article is that in order to understand preciselyhow defining circulation as a notion of urban improvement was, weought to also look at its inextricable other, that is, congestion.

Traffic, congestion and urban modernities

With a few important exceptions, traffic and congestion have beentangential to scholarship on urban modernity. Miles Ogborn, forexample, has argued that: ‘Pavements are a signifier of urbanmodernity’, both in their exemplifying the ambiguities of a rationalunderstanding of the spaces of eighteenth-century London and bytheir contributing to the making of the public sphere in the waythat coffee houses, clubs and assembly rooms did.1 Marshall Ber-man has similarly drawn our attention to the significance of at-tempts to balance the needs of pedestrians and road traffic for

York, 2000, 176e77; For a thorough treatment of the question of modernity seeularly Chapter 1.

Fig. 1. ‘A City thoroughfare’. Note Doré’s skillful description of faces and postures in the foreground, including a policeman, which fade gradually and vertically into the homo-geneous mass of heads of the moving crowd. Reproduced in G. Doré, Doré’s London: All 180 Illustrations from London, A Pilgrimage, Mineola, New York, 2004, 9.

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understanding the experience of modernity. Two aspects of Ber-man’s argument are relevant to the analysis proposed here. First,the crowd and its relationship to the experience of the modern city,which Berman discusses most eloquently in relation to Baudelaire’swork in and on mid-nineteenth-century Paris. Secondly, what wemight call the imperative of circulation, a variation of ‘the imper-atives of artistic and intellectual’ production that Berman exploresin direct relation to modernism.

According to Berman, one of the characteristics of Baudelaire’swork is that it uses the traffic of the new Parisian boulevards as ameans of self-discovery. In the poem The Loss of the Halo, forinstance, the artist discovers the benefits of not being recognised assuch and becoming one with the ordinary crowd, traffic playing apivotal part in the denouement of the poem: ‘The new force that theboulevards have brought into being, the force that sweeps the hero’shalo away and drives him into a new state of mind, is moderntraffic.’2 But what are the precise characteristics of this crowd andhow is it constituted? Rather than the emergence of a new state ofmind associated with the problem of traffic in mid-nineteenth-century London, I focus here on how the aggregate of individualsand vehicles crowding the city streets and thoroughfares came to bedefined in the ways it did. There is no privileging of the crowd in theway that Baudelaire demanded from themodern artist. In theworksthat are here discussed, the crowdwas counted, mapped, contained,directed. This is not about merging or becoming one with it, but thedeployment of an objective distance instead: one based on the ne-cessity to circulate. That distancing strategy took several forms: themapping of pedestrian flows and street crossings, identifying thekey inlets and outlets of the City, and designating street crossings tofoster a ‘regular stream of traffic’.

As for the imperative of circulation, and closely related to thewaysinwhich traffic and congestionwere understood, the plans and ideasexamined here by nomeans constitute a concerted project in thewaythat modernism might represent it. Nor is autonomy a definingcharacteristic of their production. Modernisation, in the specific caseof street traffic in mid-nineteenth-century London, involved seeingcirculation as one of the organising principles of the modern city. Inthis context, Berman’s ‘complex of material structures and processes’parallels the different and often conflicting ways in which Londonwas imagined so that people could circulate, a process that wasdiscernible in at least three respects: by adding layers above andbeneath the streets in the form of bridges and subways; by intro-ducing legislation in the interest of discriminating a ‘reasonable time’for the conduct of daily businesses; and by attempting to maintainsafety and order in the characteristically fluid realm of streets.

There is another element, somewhat contrary to self-discovery,which contributed to the specifically modern experience of thecity e that is, self-regulation. As James Winter has deftly shown,circulation in London was a concern common to ‘straighteners,

2 M. Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air. The Experience of Modernity, New York, 198Berman’s work in the context of regulating the use of streets see, for example, P. JacksonN.R. Fyfe (Ed.), Images of the Street: Planning, Identity and Control in Public Space, London

3 J. Winter, London’s Teeming Streets 1830e1914, London and New York, 1993, xi.4 T. Osborne and N. Rose, Governing cities: notes on the spatialisation of virtue, Envir5 Otter is here quoting Michel Foucault, see C. Otter, The Victorian Eye A Political Histo6 P. Joyce, The Rule of Freedom Liberalism and the Modern City, London and New York,7 S. Gunn, From hegemony to governmentality: changing conceptions of power in so8 P.J. Atkins, How the West End was won: the struggle to remove street barriers in V9 P. Merriman, Materiality, subjectification, and government: the geographies of Br

235e250; See also, P.D. Norton, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the Ameri10 M. Ishaque and R. Noland, Making roads safe for pedestrians or keeping them outTransport History 27 (2006) 115e137; C. van Tilburg, Traffic and Congestion in the Roman Ehow circulation and congestion have been understood in history was the subject of thHistorical Research, University of London, 24e25 November 2010, audio podcasts of whand-congestion-history last accessed 20 March 2013.

regulators, cleaners, purifiers, conservationists, and promoters ofthe municipal ideal, liberals most of them’, who struggled at‘reconciling the metaphor of reform and a liberal devotion to indi-vidual self-determination.’3 At the centre of the problem of regu-lating street traffic was therefore the question of whether and howto curb existing practices, even if interventionswere proposed in theinterest of public safety. Therein lies a defining element of therelationship between urban circulation and liberal ideas: ‘to governthrough rather than in spite of individual liberty’,4 or, as Chris Ottersuggests, ‘to structure the possible field of action’ of people so thatthe ‘liberal subject’, in his case that of Victorian Britain, might takeits place.5 In this context Patrick Joyce’s analysis of ‘the rule offreedom’, particularly in the context of street traffic, the ‘free andeasy’ and the bureaucratic apparatus of colonial rule in India,highlights the importance of understanding freedom by consideringwhat Joyce calls ‘freedom’s other’, namely resistance.6 Indeed, asSimon Gunn puts it, ‘Joyce argues that liberal rule inhered in andworked through the very material fabric of the city. For not onlywere pavements, pipes and sewers designed so as to facilitate thefreedom of the liberal subject by removing all impediments tomovement, they were also developed in certain ways as self-regulating systems with their own in-built forms of agency.’7

Crucially for regulating and self-regulating traffic in London, theworkings of liberal governmentality involved resistance. Privateestates, notably the Bedford estate, were among the enclaves whereeasing metropolitan traffic was contested most effectively. To movefreely was not simply a matter of removing toll bars and gates: itinvolved negotiations that were political.8 As important, andindeed as political, was the need to reconcile the protection of in-dividual liberties and the role, if any, that the police should play inregulating and governing street traffic. Peter Merriman has exam-ined the challenges and difficulties of doing so in a rather differentcontext e that of the enforcement of the Highway Code after theopening of the M1 in Britain.9 Safety was and remains an importantelement of regulation, as illustrated by legislation introduced inLondon, but also in other cities, since at least the beginning of thenineteenth century, an important referent of which takes us back toimperial Roman cities.10

In the context of this article, I use the notion of liberal gov-ernmentality less as the expression of freedom and liberal de-mocracy than as a site of interaction between legislation, plans andprojects whose aim was to facilitate and specify urban circulation.My focus in this paper is on London’s infrastructure, namely thecapacity of its ‘veins’ and ‘arteries’ to cope with a swelling body, aconcern that as the second half of the nineteenth century pro-gressed became more and more acute. The opening in 1863 of thefirst section of the Metropolitan Railway, the above-groundextension of main line suburban railways to Charing Cross andCannon Street, the embankment of the river Thames and the

2, 158; on Baudelaire’s understanding of the crowd, see 144e146; For a reading of, Domesticating the street: the contested spaces of the high street and the mall, in:and New York, 1998, 176e191.

onment and Planning D: Society and Space 17 (1999) 741.ry of Light and Vision in Britain, 1800e1910, Chicago and London, 2008, 18e19.2003, 183e239.cial history, Journal of Social History 39, 3 (2006) 714.ictorian London, Journal of Historical Geography 19 (1993) 265e277.itain’s Motorway Code, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 23 (2005)can City, Cambridge, MA and London, 2008.of the way? An historical perspective on pedestrian policies in Britain, Journal ofmpire, London; New York, 2007. The broad geographical and chronological range ofe conference ‘Blocked Arteries: Circulation and Congestion in History’, Institute ofich are available at: http://historyspot.org.uk/podcasts/blocked-arteries-circulation-

C.L. Galviz / Journal of Historical Geography 42 (2013) 62e76 65

extensive works of the sewerage system, and the extraordinarybuilding boom of the 1860s all illustrated the level and scale of thetransformation that London experienced around this time: in most,if not all of them, ideas about constant circulation played a centralpart.11 But constant did not mean unregulated. Quite the contrary:various efforts by a wide range of actors were required to effect thetransformation of the spaces and times of the city so that vehiclesand people moved. The ideas and projects that are here discussedwere each concerned with a particular scale of the city. Eachencapsulated the conflict of interests behind administrativeboundaries and the extent to which articulating spatial and tem-poral structures for the metropolis as a whole was determined bythe agency and often disruptive forces of transport technologies,notably horse-drawn vehicles and railways.

Layers and maps

Administrative boundaries, largely between the City of London andLondon the ‘metropolis’, were central to understanding traffic andcongestion in the English capital.12 The metropolis gainedincreasingly precise spatial connotations throughout the nine-teenth century, first with the creation of the Metropolitan Police in1829, and especially after the formation in 1855 of theMetropolitanBoard of Works, the first authority with jurisdiction over the entiremetropolitan area and responsible for the execution of works ofimprovement, notably the Thames Embankment and the seweragesystem.13 To be sure, London was known as the English metropolislong before the nineteenth century, although the ideas with whichthe term was associated were often characterised by ‘their impre-cision, allusiveness, evanescence, accidental associations andfrequent incoherence.’14 Evanescence, allusiveness and imprecisionwould be characteristic of the difference between City and metro-politan traffic especially in relation to the political economy of animperial capital where wealth might be lost to blocked streetswhether they were within the City’s ancient boundaries or in theinner and central districts of the growing metropolis. How andwhere to draw a line between the two was an important challengewhen traffic and congestion were discussed. Proposals to improvecirculation in the City will serve to explore some of the difficultiesinherent in the process.

A report, published in January 1863, considered the plan for asubway at the crossing of Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill allowingtraffic to flow uninterrupted between Holborn and BlackfriarsBridge.15 The author of the report was William Haywood, engineerand surveyor of the Commissioners of Sewers of the City of Londonsince 1845 and close collaborator with Joseph Bazalgette, chiefengineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works, particularly for thenorthern outfall sewer scheme at Wick Lane (East London) carried

11 J. Summerson, The London Building World of the Eighteen-Sixties, London, 1973; L. NeHaven, 2000; R. Dennis, Modern London, in: M. Daunton (Ed.), The Cambridge Urban HRepresentations and Productions of Metropolitan Space, 1840e1930, Cambridge, 2008.12 For a concise account of the administrative structure of London during the nineteenth1837e1981, London, 1982.13 See D. Owen, The Government of Victorian London, 1855e1889: The Metropolitan Boar14 For wide-ranging discussion of the use of the term metropolis in several geographica225 (2011) 379e398.15 The plan was proposed by a Mr. Newton ‘for forming a Subway beneath the Junctiongoing from Holborn to Blackfriars Bridge and from Blackfriars Bridge to Holborn, to pass19 January 1863 (p. 3) in Commissioners of Sewers, Reports 1861e1867 (London). This aInstitute of Historical Research by the Guildhall Library. My selection consists of the rep16 R. Thorne, Haywood, William (1821e1894), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,12 August 2012.17 See Haywood’s report from 19 January 1863, Commissioners of Sewers, Reports 18618 For the opening of the Metropolitan Railway see, for example, A. Jackson, London’s19 W. Haywood, Report upon Bridges and Subways Across Carriageways, for the Use o20 Haywood, Report upon Bridges and Subways (note 19), 6.

out between 1858 and 1868.16 Haywood recognised the feasibilityof the subway scheme, but raised questions about the costs, riskand disruption that the works would cause to the Fleet sewer, oneof the most important sections of the metropolitan sewerage sys-tem then under construction by the Board of Works. Haywood’scounterproposal was a circus, drawing the attention of the Citycommittee to the plans of the Ludgate Station and Junction RailwayCompany, which required the removal of houses on the south-endof Ludgate Hill.17 Main line railways were at this stage among themost disruptive forces transforming London’s landscape, prompt-ing the erection of river bridges, viaducts and, somewhat mean-ingfully, the opening e a week before Haywood’s report waspublished of the first section of the Metropolitan Railway betweenBishop’s Road, Paddington and Farringdon Street in the City.Although there is no explicit reference in the report to the suc-cessive disruptions of the Fleet sewer during the construction of theMetropolitan railway, the extensive coverage of the events innewspapers would have been part of Haywood’s considerations toadvise against the subway scheme.18

In a second report, published 2 months later, Haywood exam-ined two further schemes: one for subways and another one forbridges. The proposals were ‘to enable pedestrians to cross withoutdanger or loss of time’, speaking of the importance of the safety andtime economy of London streets.19 As Haywood explained, thetechnical requirements of bridges were met easily, but the littlespace available along busy thoroughfares allowed the erection ofstaircases only, not ramps, which would block the pavement anddisturb the adjacent houses. Alternatively, space could be gained byremoving a few houses, but the price of property in the crossingswhere the bridges would be built added substantially to the esti-mated costs. An extra cost was the policing needed for securing thefunction of the bridge: ‘As sight-seers, and idle people wouldcongregate upon them, each bridge would require two policemento be constantly present to insure circulation and order.’20 Circu-lationwas thus an issue of providing the necessary infrastructure asmuch as it was about deploying the flesh of authority in the interestof directing street practices.

Another aspect to be considered was the aesthetic dimension ofthe bridges, which Haywood felt had long been ignored. Aestheticsplayed an important part in the process of translating concernsabout circulation into the actual layout of streets and crossings:

ad, Victoistory o

centur

d of Wol and his

of Fleetwithoutnd the forts dehttp://0

1e1867,Metropof Pedest

I can scarcely imagine that any bridge across a metropolitanthoroughfare can be otherwise than detrimental to itsappearance, and as these bridges are principally requiredacross the most important, widest, and handsomest streets,there is but little doubt that they would be eminentlydetrimental to them; but there is no reasonwhy such bridges

rian Babylon: People, Streets and Images in Nineteenth-Century London, Newf Britain, Vol. 3, Cambridge, 2001, 95e131; R. Dennis, Cities in Modernity:

y see K. Young and P. Garside, Metropolitan London Politics and Urban Change

rks, the Vestries and the City Corporation, Cambridge and London, 1982.torical contexts see D. Keene, Ideas of the Metropolis, Historical Research 84,

Street and Ludgate Hill with inclines leading thereto, so as to enable traffic,mixing with the traffic going east and west’. See W. Haywood’s report fromollowing reports are contained in a set of bound volumes presented to thealing explicitly with traffic.-www.oxforddnb.com.catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/view/article/12801, accessed

5.litan Railway, Newton Abbot, 1986.rians, 13 March 1863, Commissioners of Sewers (note 17).

21 Hay22 TheStreet’;23 ForVolume24 SeeReport25 See26 See27 Bet1830e6Traffic i28 Win29 SeeStamps30 Win

C.L. Galviz / Journal of Historical Geography 42 (2013) 62e7666

should be in themselves ugly, or in any respect like thehideous railway bridges now spanning the streets, which aredesigned with great disregard to appearance, and almost indefiance either of architectural rule or of the commonesttaste: they may, indeed, be pronounced in respect ofappearance as a disgrace to the metropolis.21

One such bridge connected to the viaduct and station of theLondon, Chatham and Dover railway is depicted in another ofDoré’s etchings, blocking the view of St Paul’s from Fleet Street.22

Six years later, Haywood would give London his own version of abridge with the Holborn Viaduct, opened in 1869 connecting Hol-born and Newgate Street, and using a design that merged ornamentwith practical engineering. The bridge incorporated four statueseach representing the Fine Arts, Commerce, Agriculture andScience.23

Bridge and subway plans involved erecting dedicated structures.In contrast to bridges, subways were a less conspicuous option butfaced similar difficulties such as the disruption to the sewers; thespace required for staircases (although only the ground floor ofhouses was needed); the ventilation and lighting of tunnels; theavailability of policemen; and controlling access to the subway inthe event of rain.24 As a whole, subway and bridge plans illustrateda sectional rather than a longitudinal understanding of streettraffic. The need of accommodating continuous movementprompted visions that created layers alongwhich pedestrians couldcirculate above or beneath one another. Layers for circulation savedtime and were designed as to avoid crossings also in the interest ofsafety. Another strategy to envision circulation was the mapping oftraffic flows.

In his report, Haywood devised a system of dotted lines, pointsand colours to discriminate visually the busiest from the leastcongested parts in different street crossings across the City (seeFig. 2). At the intersection of Mansion House, the Bank of Englandand the Royal Exchange, for example, Haywood found that morethan 56,000 persons crossed daily at seven different points be-tween eight in the morning and five in the evening. The busiestcrossings were between the Mansion House and the Globe Insur-ance Office (C to D) and across Princes Street (C to I), both colouredred in his plan; each with more than 1200 people crossing perhour.25 Four refuges, including one in themiddle of Lombard Street,helped pedestrians to negotiate the traffic.

The report included six such maps, presenting the City author-ities with an innovative way of depicting both the concentrationand the distribution of people’s flows at street crossings. Despitetheir clarity, however, there remained a discrepancy betweenmapping the movements of people and ruling their flow in theinterest of ordered circulation in the way that subways and bridgesmight have facilitated. Authority, especially as embodied by

wood, Report upon Bridges and Subways (note 19), 8.London Chatham and Dover reached Blackfriars in June 1864, opening its statiosee, for example, G. Doré, Doré’s London: All 180 Illustrations from London, A Pilga contemporary account of the Holborn Valley Improvements, see for example,2 (1878), 496e513. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid¼45118Haywood, Report upon Bridges and Subways (note 19). The insufficiency of the scof the Works Executed by the Hon. The Commissioners of Sewers of the City ofthe table in Haywood, Report upon Bridges and Subways (note 19), 36.the introduction by Peter Razzell in H. Mayhew, The Morning Chronicle Survey oween 1842 and 1859, ‘the number of assaults, obstructions and attempts at rescue0, in: J.H. Johnson, and C.G. Pooley (Eds), The Structure of Nineteenth-Century Citin Victorian and Edwardian London, Cycnos 19, 1 (2002) 89.ter, London’s Teeming Streets (note 3), 59; see also Green, Street trading (note 2, for example, T. Barker, M. Robbins, A History of London Transport. Passenger Trav’ list of omnibuses and short-stages licensed to operate in the London area 1838ter, London’s Teeming Streets (note 3), 41.

policemen, was an important part of whether and how trafficshould be regulated.

Regulation and authority

Policemen were allowed to intervene in public processions, butregulating traffic, even in the interest of public safety, placed offi-cers in conflicting roles. The issue of civil liberties and the degree towhich they could be, and were indeed, negotiated on the streetsmade the introduction of any form of regulation a challengingaffair. Street traders, for example, resented legislation that, duringthe second half of the nineteenth century, forced them to keep tothe edge between the footway and the carriageway and keep holdof their wares without making use of the floor space. Constableswere the visible face of regulation and so it was often against themthat frustrations were voiced. Henry Mayhew would record thestreet traders’ vexation in the letters he wrote to The MorningChronicle between October 1849 and December 1850, the largerpart of which were later incorporated in his London Labour and theLondon Poor.26 The assaults against the police that had forced asignificant amount of resignations in the 1830s and 1840s and hadincreased exponentially by 1859 bore testimony to this trend.27

However, the relationship between the police and street sellerswas more nuanced than episodic demonstrations of discontentmight suggest: the police was also a source of protection and oc-casional support when settling disputes, especially for thosewithout much representation such as costermongers, prostitutesand shoe-blacks.28

Roles were also negotiated in relation to existing practices.Particularly meaningful in the case of vehicles, namely short-stagecoach and omnibus companies, was the issue of licenses. Licenseswere granted without prescription of the actual streets that shouldbe followed within a particular route, although the options for eachroute were limited.29 ‘Self-interest and the war of all against all inthe streets, it could be and was argued, would lead omnibuscompanies to adopt the best possible disciplines and strategies formoving their product through congestion with the least possibledelay, wear on horses, and cost to the consumer.’30 Yet the way inwhich this seemingly self-organising logic unfolded showed thedifficulties of negotiating the limited space of streets and the timeand money that cost to traverse them, a concern not only for thecompanies working specific routes, but also for pedestrians andmerchants awaiting the timely delivery of their goods.

The handling of goods at wholesale houses produced the biggestobstructions as waggons tended to use the pavement for indefiniteperiods that, gradually, would be measured against what wastermed a ‘reasonable time’ for the conducting of their businesses.The receiving houses of railway companies, their ‘leviathan wag-

n at Ludgate Hill a year later. Doré’s engraving is called ‘Ludgate Hill A Block in therimage, Mineola, New York, 2004, 60.Farringdon Street, Holborn Viaduct and St. Andrew’s church, Old and New London:&strquery¼holbornþviaduct, accessed 4 February 2012.hemes was also reported in the annual report of 26 January 1864; see W. Haywood,London, during the year 1863, 22e23.

f Labour and the Poor: The Metropolitan Districts, Vol. 1, Firle, Sussex, 1980, 3.almost doubled’. D.R. Green, Street trading in London: a case study of casual labour,es, London and Canberra, 1982, 145; see also D. Revest, Street Trading versus Street

7), 143e145.el and the Development of the Metropolis, Vol. 1, London, 1963, Appendix 2 ‘Board ofe39, 393e403.

Fig. 2. Haywood’s colour scheme recording the differences of the intensity of traffic at the crossing of the Mansion House and the Royal Exchange. Source: W. Haywood, Report [.]upon Bridges and Subways, London, 1863. Reproduced with permission of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.

C.L. Galviz / Journal of Historical Geography 42 (2013) 62e76 67

gons and vans’ in particular, had been identified as one of the pointswhere the densest traffic concentrated in the 1840s.31 Things weremade worse by the rate at which the number of cabs increased,which was significantly higher than the rate of increase of the

31 ByCharles Pearson, oneof theearly proponents of undergroundrailways; seehis ‘LetterReport of the Commissioners appointed to Investigate the Various Projects for establishing Railw32 F.M.L. Thompson, Victorian England: The Horse-drawn Society, Inaugural Lecture at Be

population: one cab to 1000 people in the late 1830s and one to 350sixty years later.32 The police had enjoyed powers to divert trafficwhenever necessary since the passing of the Metropolitan PoliceAct in 1839, which in section 35 referred to their dealing with

fromCharles Pearson’, appendix 23of theminutes of evidenceof Parliamentary Papers,ay Termini within or in the immediate Vicinity of theMetropolis, London,1846, 282e284.dford College, 22 October 1970, 14.

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‘Every person who shall cause any cart, public carriage, sledge,truck, or barrow, with or without horses, to stand longer than maybe necessary for unloading or for taking up or setting down pas-sengers, except hackney carriages’.33 But things were different inpractice. The definition of the space that was sufficient for vehiclesand people to share and the reasonable time for the handling ofeveryday businesses proved to be a challenge, in Parliament andother circles.

As Thomas Lott, Deputy Chairman of the Police Committee, andseveral other police officers explained during the hearings of theSelect Committee on the London Traffic Regulation Bill in 1863, thechallenges of defining what constituted a reasonable or unrea-sonable time were all too evident. To seek to define a time and aduration for the delivery of goods to City shops was no real solutionas delays by railways and canals were common. Furthermore,trying to determine the length of the loading and unloading ofgoods and the specific time at which this activity should take placeinfringed the common course of action followed by shop owners,drivers and carters and so disputes emerged against the regulationof their trade and activities. What to do in the case of a delayed traincarrying perishable goods for a City merchant was among thequestions that prompted the most fascinating discussions duringthe hearings.34

One of the suggestions for improving the situation at key placessuch as Billingsgate, the City’s fish market, was to organise trafficaccording to incoming and outgoing flows. But, as police officersexplained, their power was limited to facilitating traffic and notdiscriminating lanes, which creates an interesting parallel to the‘motorway situation report’ that police patrols produced daily afterthe opening of the M1 in 1959 and in which ‘police officersdescribed how they were having to educate or caution motorists onissues such as “lane indiscipline” and how “drivers in fog [were] notgoverning their speeds by the amount of vision ahead”.’35

Billingsgate market was located east of London Bridge, next to theCustoms House, in what was a particularly congested area largelydue to river traffic. As Charles Scott, officer in charge of traffic in themarket, said, summons were issued ‘for wilful obstruction, not fordisobedience of orders’, which allowed drivers to ignore in-structions even if these were given in the interest of unblocking thecongestion their vehicles created.36 In other places, regulationmight have involved restricting, if only partially, the access ofcertain vehicles to certain routes in order to free up space alongbusy thoroughfares. This was counter to existing practices as theexample cited by one of the committee examiners demonstrated:‘A man leaving the Royal Exchange or the Bank, having an omnibusnow passing the Mansion House, would be obliged to walk down toCannon-street?’ And vice versa, ‘a man coming into the city by oneof those omnibuses through Cannon-street might have to walk tothe Bank?’ As the officer in charge of the Poultry district of the City

33 Quoted in Parliamentary Papers, Report from the Lords’ Select Committee on the LondonBill 1863; see also Winter, London’s Teeming Streets (note 3), 42e43.34 SC on Traffic Regulation Bill (note 33) 1863; see the cross-examination of Thomas Lo35 Merriman, Materiality (note 9), 245e246.36 SC on Traffic Regulation Bill 1863 (note 33), 14.37 SC on Traffic Regulation Bill 1863 (note 33), 17.38 There were three at Mansion House, three in Cheapside, one in Ludgate Hill, one in HCannon Street, one by the statue of William IV (see Fig. 2), one in Eastcheap, one on FThames Street. SC on Traffic Regulation Bill 1863 (note 33), see especially the examinatio39 The statement is by the Common Council of the City of London in 1670; quoted in P. CHistory 3:2 (1957) 111.40 SC on Traffic Regulation Bill 1863 (note 19), 3.41 See the table ‘Accidents in the City’, Haywood, Report upon Bridges and Subways (n42 See the Metropolitan Police Return, Haywood, Report upon Bridges and Subways (n43 Parliamentary Papers, Return of the Number of Accidents, London, 23 March 1866. The1866.

Police explained, it was ‘a very short distance’, but the difficulty layon whether or not existing practices should be changed and thesetting up of fixed stops for omnibus companies to observeconsidered.37

Policemen were deployed to regulate the situation at severalplaces across the City with limited success.38 The only place wheresome form of regulation seemed to work was London Bridge wherethere were six constables and a sergeant. London Bridge had ahistory of ‘traffic controllers’ first introduced in 1722 to alleviate‘the great inconveniences and mischiefs which happen by disor-derly leading and driving of cars, coaches and other carriages’.39 By1863, this precedent and the new structure of the bridge, withoutbuildings, had allowed the previous Police Commissioner, DanielWhittle Harvey, to divide the traffic over the bridge into flowsmoving in the direction of either river bank. Although successful,the experiment had been conducted ‘without any intervention ofthe [police] committee’, which raised the issue of it being a legal orillegal affair, the very question that concerned the select committeeexamining the London Traffic Regulation Bill.40

Following the hearings, the Bill was amended by striking out thewords ‘and the loading of carts, waggons, and other vehicles’. As itbecame clear from the evidence, this was contested territory in theCity and the metropolis and so two new versions would be neededbefore the Bill was passed. In the mean time, the cost of traffic wasalso becoming a moral issue, especially when the wealth of Londonwas viewed against the growing number of injuries and deathscaused by street accidents. Haywood’s and other metropolitan re-ports are informative of what had changed.

According to Haywood, 171 people were injured in accidentsreported in the City between October 1861 and September 1862,five of them resulting in deaths.41 The total number of accidents inthemetropolis, excluding the City, during the same period was 204,sixteen of which the Metropolitan Police Office reported as fatal.The places where the highest number of accidents occurred wereWhitehall (forty one) and Southwark (thirty four).42 By 1865, therewere 140 deaths related to street accidents in twenty differentareas across London. Of these 124 were caused by ‘Horses in Ve-hicles being driven’ and charging against pedestrians or, as theywere often called, foot passengers; the remaining sixteen weredrivers.43 The number of injured persons was 1707; following thesame proportion of fatal accidents, the vast majority (1647) wascaused by moving vehicles. The places with the highest numbers ofreported deaths were Stepney and Hampstead (fourteen caseseach), followed closely by Highgate (twelve cases), Finsbury (tencases), and Camberwell and Paddington (nine cases each). Theareas with the highest numbers of reported injured persons wereSouthwark (142), Lambeth (140), St James’s (138) and, again,Stepney (121). Casualties and injuries in Westminster and White-hall together amounted to nine and 188, respectively. In the City of

(City) Traffic Regulation Bill, London, 14 July 1863, 3, hereafter SC on Traffic Regulation

tt by one the committee’s counsels, Mr Round, especially, 3e5.

olborn Hill, two in Newgate Street, one in the Barbican, one in Warwick Lane, one inenchurch Street, one in Tower Street, two in Billingsgate Market and one in Lowern of Joseph Dodd, inspector of the City Police, 10e11.arson, The building of the first bridge at Westminster 1736e50, Journal of Transport

ote 19), 35.ote 19), 25.return considers the fourteen-month period between 1 January 1865 and 1 March

C.L. Galviz / Journal of Historical Geography 42 (2013) 62e76 69

London, the figures were fourteen deaths and 207 injured. Thefollowing year, between March and December 1866, the number ofdeaths in the whole of the metropolis was 102 and 1,334 injured;the figures decreasing gradually towards the end of the 1860s.44

The fluctuation of the numbers of accidents and deaths was nonew occurrence. Between 1785 and 1789, for example, there was aperceived sharp increase in street accidents, the majority of which(38.2%) was described by the then Daily Universal Register (since1788 The Times) as ‘Pedestrians run over’.45 By contrast, a year-by-year account between 1869 and 1881 of ‘Deaths caused by HorseConveyances in the Streets of London’ showed a sustained increasewith vans and waggons producing generally the highest numbers:eighty two in 1872 (total of 213), ninety two in 1877 (total of 227),and seventy nine in 1881 (total of 252).46 The important thingabout collecting these figures is that establishing the causes andresponsibilities of street accidents was easier said than done. Of thecity’s public spaces the street was the realm of and for all. Accidentscould be blamed on careless pedestrians, greedy drivers and theinherent difficulties in directing ’the behaviour of horse traffic’which, as F. M. L. Thompson has observed, was ‘unpredictable, itscontrol of direction erratic, and its road discipline poor’.47 But thedifficulties of ascertaining who was to account for the conse-quences of the traffic situation did not deter commentators. In1869, the Pall Mall Gazette concluded that road accidents werecaused by the greed of drivers.48 Thirty years later, a passengerwriting to The Morning Post observed how little the situationappeared to have changed, particularly the dangers of the ‘rivalry ofpace and position’ of omnibus drivers.49

Discriminating lanes, specifying routes and restricting the timefor the conducting of daily businesseswere all concernedwith issuesof authority. Moreover, exercising any kind of control, even in theinterest of all, entered the contested domain of civil liberties. To useDickens’words: ‘In England,we are soverymuchafraidof interferingwith the liberty of the subject, that sooner than put coercion uponone ill-conditioned rascal, we permit a hundred good men to beinconvenienced and endangered.’50 But, how to separate the rascalsfrom the good (wo)men, especially when regulating traffic? Whatspecific powers were commensurate with the task at hand and towhich authorities should they, if at all, be conferred? How to recon-cile the liberties of individuals with the interests and liberties of all?

The traffic and congestion of London streets presented a starkpicture of the challenges behind precisely how to govern throughrather than in spite of the liberal subject: ‘the kind of human beingtargeted and presupposed by [.] a minimal state, a being simul-taneously free and self-governing, on the one hand, and subjectedand governed, on the other.’51 The dilemmas that policemenencountered in the fulfilment of their roles illustrate just howdifficult the realisation of that subject was. At the same time,regulating traffic resembled a learning process whereby questionswere raised as to how, where and why people and vehicles should

44 In 1867, the figures were 90 and 1284; in 1868, 83 and 1205; in 1869, 62 and 764.45 A.D. Harvey, Traffic accidents in London in the later 19th century, Transactions of th46 Return Shewing the Number of Deaths caused by Horse Conveyances in the Streets of L47 Thompson, Victorian England (note 32), 12.48 See the brief note ‘London Street Traffic’, The Pall Mall Gazette, 8 January 1869, 2.49 See, ‘London Street Traffic’, The Morning Post, 5 August 1899, 2.50 ‘The Dangers of the Streets’, All The Year Round (1866); quoted in Winter, London’s T51 Otter, Victorian Eye (note 5), 11.52 W. Haywood, Report to the Special Committee upon Improvements of the Honourable ThPublic Ways of the City of London, London, 1866.53 The figures are based on the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Board of Works. See M.42. I thank one of the referees for a detailed discussion of this, including a reference to54 Haywood, Traffic and Improvements (note 52), see tables in 13, 15.55 Haywood, Traffic and Improvements (note 52), 18e19.

move. Legislation over existing practices was an important part ofthat process, particularly when viewed against the deaths that ac-cidents caused. The geography of street traffic and congestion inLondon concerned not only important differences between the Cityand the metropolis, but also between the public behaviour ofpeople and the idea of constant yet regulated flows.

City traffic and metropolitan improvement

Systematic accounts of trafficwereneeded in order todetermine theright solutions for street congestion, whether these concerned thewidening of streets, the erection of new structures or the intro-duction of legislation. One such account was contained in a newreport byHaywoodpublished inMarch1866with the title Traffic andImprovements in the PublicWays of the City of London. In it, Haywoodpresented a thorough account of the traffic situation in the City andthe metropolis, providing one of the most detailed pictures of citylife in the English capital by the 1860s. In it, Haywood discussedpopulation, public works both underway and planned, as well asproposals that, if focused on specific areas of the City, weremeant toimprove circulation across the metropolis. Foresight and the pro-jectionof traffic in the future characterisedHaywood’s account. Bothwere keyelements of his understanding of the scale and dimensionsof the traffic and congestion problem and, consequently, of the kindof coordination needed for solutions to be of any use. More tellingly,time would prove that several of his estimates were correct.52

According to Haywood, any City improvements required anaccount of the changing situation of London as awhole, particularlyshifts in the movement of vehicles and pedestrians. Contrastingfigures was informative in this respect. Between 1800 and 1860, therates of increase in the population of the City and the metropolisdiffered: while there was a significant increase in the metropolitanarea between 1801 (959,130) and 1871 (3,261,396), the City expe-rienced a sharp decrease after a relatively stable period up to 1851(132,734), dropping in 1861 (108,078) and 1871 (83,421), respec-tively.53 Moreover, Haywood estimated that a doubling of thepopulation in the metropolis would occur within 40 years fromnearly three million in 1861 to six million in 1900.54 The populationof Greater London in 1899 was approximately 6,528,000.

Haywood translated these estimates into a model of gradualconcentric growth emanating from the centre towards the lesspopulated suburbs.55 His model was concerned with the provisionof a transport infrastructure that would remain sufficient in thefuture, including the important question of who should bear thecost: travellers or residents. To Haywood, the important thing wasto plan ahead andmove beyond present difficulties: ‘As economy oftime is of the highest importance in a commercial community, [thedifficulty of an ample provision in means of transport] must beobviated as far as possible, and should be well considered and ar-ranged for at the present day. This is a subject requiring the im-

Parliamentary Papers, Return of Accidents (Metropolis), London, 15 February 1870.e London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 43 (1992), table 5, 206.ondon 1869e1881, reproduced in Harvey, Traffic accidents, 205.

eeming Streets (note 3), 45.

e Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London, on the Traffic and Improvements in the

Ball and D. Sunderland, An Economic History of London, 1800e1914, New York, 2001,www.visionofbritain.org.uk.

C.L. Galviz / Journal of Historical Geography 42 (2013) 62e7670

mediate attention of the rulers of the Metropolis’, he went on toemphasise, an observation that was also a criticism of the some-what limited functions of the Metropolitan Board of Works.56

Moreover, Haywood stressed how important it was to conceive ofhighways and railways as one system in order to alleviate theinsufficiency of the existing provision, in his view ‘greater than inany metropolis or town in Europe’.57

The proportion of public spaces to the total area of the City wasanother variable in the process of accommodating increasing trafficnumbers: twenty three per cent of the total area consisted of publicways including public spaces. On average, the density of occupationwas 8.5 persons per building, which indicated that the pressure onexisting infrastructure came from those travelling into and out of theCity rather than from the residents themselves.58 In 1860, Haywoodidentified fortyeight ‘inlets’ includingpiers, bridges,waterside stairs,roads and a railway station (Fenchurch Street), through which threequarters of the total traffic, all pedestrian, made their way into andout of theCity.59 Threenewrailwayextensions and stationswould bebuilt by 1866, with Cannon Street and Ludgate Hill in particularadding to existing numbers.60 London Bridge was by far the pointwhere the largest numbers of ‘Foot Traffic’ were recorded: 54,128pedestrians on a twenty-four-hour cycle in May 1860, that is, onaverage, thirty sevenpeople crossing at anyone time perminute. Theother major inlets were Aldgate High Street, Aldersgate Street,Bishopsgate Street Without, Blackfriars Bridge, Finsbury Pavement,Fleet Street by Temple Bar and Holborn.61

This kind of figures had become an important part of the way inwhich the scale and location of traffic flows were recorded, oftenincluded as evidence of Parliamentary committees, but also being areflection of the interests of those who produced them: operatingtransport companies, local and metropolitan authorities, or expertswith specific aims in mind. There was no overarching or consoli-datedway of recording and so each attempt represented a newwayof structuring the traffic and congestion situation: a twenty-four-hour or a nine-hour cycle; flows divided into types of vehicles, di-rection, month, season or the time of the day. Important differencesaside, a systematic way of recording traffic flows did start to emergeas Haywood’s reports, among others, demonstrated.62 In June 1863,for example, other accounts showed that nearly 26,000 vehiclescrossed London Bridge daily.63 By contrast, around 11,000 vehiclescrossedWestminster Bridge between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. in July 1865,taking both directions into account, which produced an average offifteen vehicles per minute covering a distance of 252 m.64 Whatcould be established with a degree of certainty, however small, was

56 Haywood, Traffic and Improvements (note 52), 19. Towards the end of his report he alLondon’s wealth and size, 85.57 Haywood, Traffic and Improvements (note 52), 21.58 Haywood, Traffic and Improvements (note 52), 25e27.59 Haywood, Traffic and Improvements (note 52), 30; the daily commuting traffic includ60 The other station was Charing Cross; see, for example, Barker and Robbins, A Histor61 See ‘Table showing the Foot Traffic entering the City at its eight principal inlets in M62 Haywood’s 1860 figures are likely to have formed the basis of the City day-censusprocedures followed by the National Census; see, for example, Report on the City Day-CLondon, London, 1881, vevii; see also Mayhew’s traffic figures in JulyeAugust 1850 discrimbetween 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., H. Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. II, Lon63 P.W. Barlow, The Proposed Tower Bridge. Observations to prove that a new bridge east ofmuch decreased. Second edition with further details and observations, London, 1878, 5.64 Haywood, Traffic and Improvements (note 52), 23.65 Haywood, Traffic and Improvements (note 52), 49.66 Haywood, Traffic and Improvements (note 52), 45e48. Aldersgate and Moorgate seem67 Haywood, Traffic and Improvements (note 52), 63e64.68 For the Whitechapel Improvement, Commercial Road Extension, see P.J. Edwards, His69 Haywood, Traffic and Improvements (note 52), 81e82, 93, 99e102.70 First put forward in 1853 by the Commission des Embellissements de Paris: Rapport à l2000; For an illuminating discussion of the commission, see F. Bourillon, À propos de la CHaussmann. Formes de l’Espace Urbain à Paris 1801e1853, Paris, 2001, 139e151.

that traffic, especially at places such as London Bridge, continued toincrease despite, and possibly because of, the provision of new fa-cilities such as the extension of the London Brighton and SouthCoast railway to Pimlico, the opening of the South Eastern terminusat Charing Cross and the removal of tolls on Southwark Bridge. AsHaywood recognised.

so ment

ed MPsy of Lonay 186

of 1861ensus, 1inating

don, 186London

ed suf

tory of L

’Empereommiss

It is evident that faster than means of transit can be providedfor [traffic across London Bridge] by railways or other facil-ities, the vast growing population to the north-east andsouth-east of the river will generate a business which willsoon restore the traffic to its original quantity, and thenrapidly increase beyond it.65

Twomain axes concentratedmost of the City’s traffic around thistime: one north-south by London Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge andSouthwark Bridge; and the other east-west through Fleet Street,Holborn andNewgate Street.66 Not surprisingly, Haywood proposeda newbridge and a neweast-west thoroughfare.67 The thoroughfarewas planned to run from the western end of Newgate Street, at thecrossing with Giltspur Street, to the intersection of CommercialStreet and Whitechapel High Street, connecting thus Haywood’sown Holborn Viaduct to the Whitechapel Improvement, Commer-cial Road Extension, first considered in 1857 by the MetropolitanBoard of Works and complete in May 1870 (see Fig. 3).68

Haywood’s idea was to turn the new street into a structural partof otherwise disjointed interventions, both planned and underway,most noticeable among them: the extension of the MetropolitanRailway to Finsbury Circus; the conversion of Smithfield into theMetropolitan Meat and Poultry Market; the combined scheme ofthe Thames Embankment, the District Railway and Queen VictoriaStreet (which would follow a different route than what is shown inthe plan); as well as the all too evident railway structures of theLondon Chatham and Dover’s viaduct running parallel to Farring-don Street as well as the termini at Cannon Street and LiverpoolStreet. Other minor improvements included the widening ofstreets, the removal of railings and a circus at Temple Bar for alle-viating traffic along Fleet Street. Legislationwas also involved: ‘linesof improvement’ regulating frontages to which all new buildingswould adhere, somewhat restricting the impact on public spaces of‘chance arrangement and the caprice of individual landowners’.69

Haywood’s proposals differed substantially from the pro-gramme of successive street networks, public improvements andembellishments that were being built in Paris at the time.70 How-ever, his ideas were concerned with the necessity of transforming

ions ‘half measures’ for the metropolis, which to him appeared unworthy of

and Peers as well as wealthy businessmen, 42e43.don Transport (note 29), 141e145.0’; Haywood, Traffic and Improvements (note 52), 40.commissioned by the City of London in response to the ‘unfairness’ of the881. By the Local Government and Taxation Committee of the Corporation oftypes of horse-drawn vehicles across twenty four streets per hourly counts,1, 282e283.Bridge is unnecessary; with statistics shewing the traffic of London Bridge to be

ficient for existing traffic other than at crossings with east-west roads, 59.

ondon Street Improvements 1855e1897, London County Council, 1898, 35e36.

ur Napoléon III Rédigé par le Comte Henri Siméon (1853), P. Cassel (Ed.), Paris,ion des embellissements, in: K. Bowie (textes réunis par), La Modernité avant

Fig. 3. Haywood’s proposal for a New Street in the City. Note the connectivity to the Holborn Viaduct and the new building for a meat market at Smithfield on the western part andto the Whitechapel extension of the Metropolitan Board of Works and the proposed extension of the Metropolitan Railway on the east. Source: W. Haywood, Report [.] on the Trafficand Improvements, London, 1866. Reproduced with permission of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.

C.L. Galviz / Journal of Historical Geography 42 (2013) 62e76 71

London in terms of its metropolitan rather than its City scale,articulating an understanding of the city space that was both sys-tematic and comprehensive. To effect that transformation a ‘well-arranged system of suburban highways and railways’ needed to beformed, so that separate projects might be brought together to fulfilone aim. The key was precisely how to finance such a system:

71 Hay72 Bar73 P.W74 TheBarlow,

That looking to the future as well as to present necessities,and having regard to the fact that the cost of present im-provements will probably be in a degree cast upon a futuregeneration, they should be planned and carried out upon thebroadest and most comprehensive scale, that no obstacleshould be allowed to interfere with this principle; and thatsuch a course is true economy.71

Neither new street nor bridgewas built in the end. True economywas a matter of often conflicting interests between the City and themetropolis. Trafficfigures recorded in LondonBridge in 1875 showeda sharpdecrease, obviating thenecessity of new river crossings.72 Butnewproposals to ease and regulate trafficwere put forward: onewasa more elaborate version of the subway that Haywood had reportedon in 1863; the other an experimental semaphore that translated

wood, Traffic and Improvements (note 52), 111.low, The Proposed Tower Bridge, 5e6.. Barlow, On the Relief of London Street Traffic, with a Description of the Tower Subidea of suspension bridgeswasbased onBarlow’sObservations on theNiagara RailwayPeterWilliam (1809e1885), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, http://0-www.o

railway technology into a new means of regulating traffic at streetcrossings. The former reinforced the idea of separating circulation byconstructing dedicated structures and adding layers, beneath thestreets, to London’s urban landscape. The latter focusedon regulatingflows and practices using the experience of railway traffic.

A system of interconnected subways

In a pamphlet published in 1867, a year after Haywood’s report,Peter W. Barlow, an experienced railway civil engineer, proposedthe creation of a ‘subway omnibus system’ that combined thetechnology and operation of railways and omnibuses in order toprovide a new infrastructure for passenger traffic underneathstreets, rivers and crowded places more generally. According toBarlow, the only route left for London traffic was ‘the conveyance ofa portion of the passengers at a level either above or below that ofthe present streets.’73 Back in 1861, Barlow had put forward the ideaof ‘viaducts with large suspension spans to relieve street traffic’,realised in Lambeth Bridge, complete in 1862, featuring steep ap-proaches that deterred horse-drawn vehicles and served thereforemostly pedestrian traffic.74

way now Shortly to be Executed, London, 1867, 4.Suspension Bridge; seeBarlow,On theRelief of Traffic (note 73), 4e5; See also,M. Chrimes,xforddnb.com.catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/view/article/1436, accessed 4 November 2011.

Fig. 4. The Tower Subway, detail of the omnibus carriage viewed from outside. Notethe projected siding including a bench and a step for the driver to stand or sit on whilein movement, illustrating what Barlow called ‘manumotive’. The section also shows atight fitting between carriage and tunnel, which would become a standard practice forthe later Tube lines built using Greathead’s shield tunnelling. Source: The IllustratedLondon News, 9 April 1870, 385. Reproduced with permission of Senate House Library,University of London.

C.L. Galviz / Journal of Historical Geography 42 (2013) 62e7672

The Tower Subway, for which Parliamentary approval wassought the same year of Barlow’s publication (1867), served as anillustration of the key features of the system (see Figs. 4 and 5). Itconsisted of a cast iron tunnel fitted with steel rails for the opera-tion of an omnibus carriage made with ‘steel plates and framing’.Passengers would pay for their tickets as they did in omnibuses.Most noteworthy, the operation was ‘manumotive’, in other words,it was designed to use manpower instead of locomotives. One ortwo men, depending on the frequency of journeys, would push thecar from one end to the other. In Barlow’s calculation, the condi-tions of the tunnel allowed the system to limit friction (especiallydust, moisture, joints and crossings) and maximise the use ofgravity by designing the right gradients and inclines. The powerneeded to cover the total distance of 1320 feet (402 m) with acarriage carrying twelve passengers, in his estimate two tons, was‘nearly [.] of two and a half men, if the journey was made in oneminute’ or ‘one manpower constantly applied’ for journeys lastingapproximately two and a half minutes, as it was proposed.75

Several aspects of Barlow’s subway provided an interestingcontrast with Brunel’s Thames Tunnel, open to the public since1843 and taken over by the East London Railway in 1867.76 Insteadof providing the promenade and shopping arcade that Brunel’sbrick tunnel had become, Barlow proposed ‘to give [paying pas-sengers] a ride, the subway or tunnel being depressed from 10 to12 ft. [3 to 3.6 m] in the centre of the river, to give the requisitevelocity.’ Access to the subwaywas bymeans of hydraulic lifts fittedin the shafts located at both ends, in sharp contrast with Brunel’sspacious and decorated rotundas and marble staircases.77 Therewere also similarities, however. Both used shield tunnelling, withthe difference that Barlow’s incorporated ‘a cylinder which overlap[ed] the tunnel, so that the sides [were] always water-tight’, afeature that would prove especially effective for the smaller scale ofthe works: ‘the diameter required for a full-sized omnibus notbeing more than 8 ft. [2.44 m].’ Finally, the estimated cost of theTower Subway was 16,000lper mile, with an expected return oncapital of twenty per cent, a sum far beyond the expectations thatthe investors of the Thames Tunnel ever had.78

Barlow’s conception of a closed system linked to other forms oftransport was central to the way in which he understood traffic:rapid circulation instead of dawdling promenading was theorganising principle behind it. For Barlow, ‘the attempt to delivereach passenger to his point of destination without a change ofcarriage [was] a waste of capital’, an argument that the excessivecosts that railway companies had met by getting closer to London’scentral and inner districts illustrated. As Barlowwent on to suggest,‘what is practically required is an intermediate light system, bywhich passengers may be conveyed to various points at less costand in less time than by any modification of a locomotive railway’.Never mind the difficulties that the topography of London posed asthe system used ‘three series of subways at different levels, thecarriage as well as the passengers being lifted in passing from one

75 Barlow, On the Relief of Traffic (note 73), 9. Barlow’s calculations were confirmed by athe travelling time might be 93.5 seconds or 65.4 seconds, depending on the inclines, withalf men, respectively.76 Trains of the London Brighton and South Coast railway started running between WapLondon railway see, for example, Jackson, London’s Metropolitan Railway (note 18), 337e77 Barlow, On the Relief of Traffic (note 73), 10e11. For a lively description of the Thamesand Visit to London and the Great Exhibition in the Summer of 1851, Boston, 1852, 242e2478 Barlow, On the Relief of Traffic (note 73), 13, 15. The Thames Tunnel was opened for twterrific collection of photographs showing the features of the tunnel see http://www.fli79 Barlow, On the Relief of Traffic (note 73), 11, 16.80 For a brief account of the Tower Subway see Barker and Robbins, A History of Londo81 Peter W. Barlow, The Relief of Street Traffic. Advantages of the City and Southwark Subwand Castle through the City is Unnecessary and Undesirable. Second Pamphlet, London, 187

level to the other, and in that way, the stations being still on onelevel, and all inclines avoided, except between stations for thepurpose of obtaining velocity’. Any hesitations emerging from thisarrangement were confronted by the reassurance that ‘the actualpower required [was] so small as to be a subject of no practicaldifficulty.’79

Construction of the Tower Subway began in February 1869,opening to passenger traffic in August 1870. It was operated by astationary steam engine using cable traction instead of themanpower that Barlow first proposed. The operating company, theTower Subway Company, went bankrupt in November 1870 whenthe railway and lifts were removed.80 Undeterred, Barlow proposedin a new pamphlet to link the Tower Subway to the new streettramway built by the Greenwich Tramway Company and thus formthe City and Southwark Subway.81 The benefits of his system wereevident when compared to the newly introduced tramways,namely, no disruption to street traffic, lower maintenance costs and

respondent to his pamphlet, Colonel John C. Adagh, see 17e23. According to Adaghh 192 or 275 journeys made in five hours per day, using the power of one or one and

ping and New Cross on 7 December 1869. For a concise and brief account of the East338, note 1.Tunnel in 1851 see, for example, W.A. Drew, Glimpses and Gatherings during a Voyage9.

o days in March 2010, prior to the opening of the Overground East London Line. For ackr.com/groups/thamestunneltour/pool/, accessed 4 November 2011.

n Transport (note 29), 300e303; see also Dennis, Cities in Modernity (note 11).ay, with Reasons why the Proposed Connection of Street Tramways from the Elephant1.

Fig. 5. The Tower Subway, view of the interior of one of the carriages. Note the relative claustrophobic effect of the iron plates which was made comfortable by upholstered bencheson both sides. The artist depicted a diverse composition of passengers including three children, two women and five gentlemenwith top hats. Source: The Illustrated London News, 9April 1870, 385. Reproduced with permission of Senate House Library, University of London.

C.L. Galviz / Journal of Historical Geography 42 (2013) 62e76 73

the seemingly substantial increase on weekly pedestrian figuresusing the subway early in 1871: 15,155 on 6 January and 25,205 on 3February.82

The Tower Subway remained open until 1894, when the openingof Tower Bridge rendered the crossing redundant, reporting amillion foot passengers per year despite the timber staircases andthe erratic gas lighting.83 No subway system was formed at thispoint, whether in its own right or in combination with the tram-ways. The plans for the City and Southwark Subway, however,provided the basis for the first electric ‘tube’ line, which opened in1890 prompting the gradual emergence of the intermediate lightsystem that Barlow advocated. Much in the same vein as the sub-ways and bridges that Haywood reported on and himself proposed,the Tower Subway contributed to a body of works that representeda sectional understanding of the city space according to whichflows could be separated out and transposed to structures designedand built for people to circulate. Its construction encapsulates thepressure that traffic flows exercised on London’s landscape,particularly in terms of direct connections to the City. Moreover, thegeography of ‘tube’ circulation extended beyond the English capi-tal: early in 1874, reports of a subway operated by atmosphericpressure in New York showed the similarities if not nearly exactresemblance to Barlow’s system.84 The imperative of circulationdeveloped into subways in cities where time was money.

A system of time intervals and regulated crossings

The idea of a system did not only concern building structures thatwith time might become obsolete or change use. Systems were also

82 The first figure that Barlow provides is from the week ending 30 December, after the20, 27 January and 3 February, see Weekly Passenger Figures on the Tower Subway, Bar83 Barker and Robbins, A History of London Transport (note 29), 303.84 See, for example, the brief note ‘Chemin de fer atmosphérique de New York’, La Natreproduction. The image illustrating the note shows a tunnel section almost identical to85 Parliamentary Papers, Report from the Lords’ Select Committee on the London (City) T86 SC Traffic Regulation Bill 1866 (note 85), 43e44.

based on concepts regulating time and discriminating practices:their structure pertaining to legislation rather than subways andsteel plate omnibuses. A new step in this direction was theappointment in 1866 of a new select committee to examine the Billthat had sought ‘to give powers to the magistrates of London toregulate the course which [vehicles] should take, with the consentof the Secretary of State’. Two points were central to their report:first, the powers that should be bestowed upon which authoritiesboth in the City and themetropolis, and being specifically related tostreet traffic; second, the recognition that to be effective any Act orlegislation should consider the metropolitan rather than the Citytraffic.85 Two new versions of the Bill would be needed before itwas approved a year later, in 1867. But I want to focus briefly on oneaspect of the discussion that took place in 1866, namely, the pro-posal for a street semaphore that was to introduce time intervals atstreet crossings, a feature that was common practice not on streetsbut on railways.

Among the witnesses examined was John Peake Knight, at thetime traffic superintendent of the South Eastern railway, and who,following the suggestion of Richard Mayne, Commissioner of theMetropolitan Police, presented to the committee his ideas about anexperimental street semaphore. Based on his experience managingrailways, Knight observed that people were generally againstfootbridges as reactions along sections of the South Eastern line inKent demonstrated.86 Rather than creating new layers for contin-uous traffic, such as the increasingly convoluted network of un-derground and overground railways, the solution lay on directingflows at street intersections. Knight used the example of the Pari-sian sergeants de ville as an illustration of the relative success of

railway was removed. Figures are for ‘paying pedestrians’, which he listed for 6, 13,low, Advantages of the City and Southwark Subway (note 8), 6.

ure (1874) 1 Vol. 28. Unfortunately, the copy I consulted is in a state too fragile forBarlow’s Tower Subway.

raffic Regulation Bill, London, 14 July 1866, 2.

C.L. Galviz / Journal of Historical Geography 42 (2013) 62e7674

introducing stricter rules and their positive effect on the behaviourof foot passengers and drivers. Interestingly, the Parisian police wasfollowing the model of the metropolitan police in London aroundthis time.87 Discrepancies about the police models in the twocapitals aside, the idea of erecting semaphore signals that ‘shouldgovern or control’ the traffic of street crossings at key placesinvolved three interrelated elements that are worth noting: thetransfer of railway practices and technologies to street traffic; theintroduction of time intervals at crossings; and the use of the policein the operation of an artefact giving flesh to impersonal authority.

An important element of Knight’s ideas was the introduction oftime intervals in order to regulate the pace and speed of pedes-trians and vehicles converging at street crossings: ‘30 seconds inevery 5minutes, whichwould give an allowance to the crossing, sayof six minutes, distributed at regular intervals through every hour’.The interval was to allow pedestrians to cross busy roads safely atpoints designated for that end. This was likely to help reduce therisk of accidents as well as reinforce a more cost-effective operationfor omnibus companies whose services required ‘a constantchecking of their horses and vehicles, and [pursuing] a zigzaginstead of a straight course’.88 The time interval was a commonpractice in railway operation that had informed, for instance, thedesign and widespread use of timetables since the 1830s. It con-sisted in signals given to train drivers arriving at stations, whereby acaution or a danger signal indicated the need to stop or proceedwith caution, allowing ten minutes on average between incomingand outgoing trains.89 This practice would give way to railwaysignal boxes and semaphores as the difficulties of coordinatingincoming and outgoing trains at railway termini and junctionsincreased, prompting new arrangements, most noticeable in Lon-don. The first railway semaphore was erected in 1841 at New Crossby the London and Croydon Railway, followed by a similar deviceerected in 1843 at Bricklayers Arms, the terminus of the SouthEastern.90 By the 1860s, railway signal boxes had become one of themost conspicuous structures of the city’s landscape.91 Howeverremote Knight’s involvement in the operation of these structuresmight have been, his observations did explain the potential use ofrailway practices for regulating street traffic, making evident thedifferent ways in which traffic and congestion were understood.

‘The crossings’, Knight explained, ‘should be regularly appointedand authorized street-crossings for foot passengers at or nearwhere such crossings now exist’. The actual disposition of thesemaphore at each crossing was to resemble the position thatconstables adopted while on duty, namely, one on either side of thestreet. ‘The space between the opposite position of each semaphorewould be, say, about 15 feet [4.6 m], which would be sufficient for,and would define the foot crossing space.’92 Their design incorpo-rated street lamps to economise the use of space on the footpavement. In terms of their operation, Knight explained that thesemaphores ‘could be worked by the policeman in charge of the

87 Q. Deluermoz, Le sergent de ville parisien face au policeman londonien: un “modèle”Echanges, Représentations, Comparaisons, Paris, 2006, 491.88 This and subsequent references to the semaphore are taken from Knight’s examina89 G. Kichenside and A. Williams, Two Centuries of Railway Signalling, Hersham, Surrey90 Kichenside and Williams, Two Centuries (note 89), 18, 22; see the useful diagramNews, 21, 22.91 For a detailed account of the signal box at Cannon Street Station, ‘the most elabora92 Knight produced two sketches that would give us a more precise idea of the arrangemTraffic Regulation Bill 1866 (note 85), 44.93 Drivers and conductors were required to wear their licenses which looked like a ‘meliable to a fine of up to 20s’. Barker and Robbins, A History of London Transport (note 2994 Cattle included bulls, ox, cows, heifers, calves, sheep, goats, swine, horses, mules(Metropolis). A Bill intituled an act for regulating the traffic in the metropolis, and for makinpurposes, London, 1867, 2e3.95 See the note ‘The London Street Traffic’, The Standard, 24 October 1867.

crossing, and (as on railways) he could work the signal-postopposite to him by a wire laid under the street pavement, so thatone leverage or action on his part would work both signals on eachside of the street.’ As the committee examiners commented, havingone constable instead of two raised the question of what to dowhen vehicles ignored the instructions given by the signals. Apartfrom licensed hackney carriages and omnibuses, no vehicles carriedplates that would allow policemen or indeed the public to identifythem, and so the problem was also one of practical enforcement.93

Although the semaphore’s key functionwas to alert pedestrians,carters and horse drivers of the designated crossings, the overallconcern was how to ensure a ‘regular stream of traffic’. In Knight’svision, regularity was a function of vehicle rather than pedestriantraffic made possible, first, through the idea of creating a time in-terval reflecting the precedence that certain flows might have overothers; and, second, by breaking down existing flows into smallerunits precisely at the crossings where these flows concentrated andwhere they could be controlledmomentarily in order to be releasedagain according to specified frequencies. The first introduces aroute hierarchy; the second considers traffic in terms of the rela-tionship between the parts and the whole.

The actual legislation that concerned the 1866 committeebecame the background against which Knight’s ideas would betested. The Bill, also known as theMunicipal Streets Act, was passedin 1867, introducing the legal framework that regulated time andpractices in the City and the metropolis. After 1 January 1868, theAct stated, ‘no Person shall, between the Hours of Ten in theMorning and Seven in the Evening, except in such Streets as may beapproved by the Commissioner of Police, remove any Ashes, Dust,or Refuse from any House.’ The driving of cattle was regulated ac-cording to the same hours in a separate clause.94 Clause 8, in turn,stipulated that: ‘Within the General Limits of this Act the Driver of aMetropolitan Stage Carriage shall not stop such Carriage for thePurpose of taking up or setting down Passengers at any Part of aStreet, except as near as may be to the Left or Near Side of theRoadway.’ This was welcomed by The Standard which commentedthat: ‘It may be hoped, therefore, that omnibus drivers will in futuremonopolise less of the middle of the road than has hitherto beentheir habit, thus allowing a better chance for cabs to pass ahead ofthem.’95

In agreement with the Secretary of State and from time to time,the police might also regulate the routes that vehicles shouldfollow, separate incoming and outgoing traffic flows at key placesand encourage the observance of lanes. Clause 15 also stipulatedthat:

insoute

tion in S, 2008, 1and dr

te probaents h

tal ticke), 34e35and assg provisi

Between the Hours of Ten o’Clock in the Morning and Sixo’Clock in the Evening no Coal shall be loaded or unloaded onor across any Footway within the scheduled Streets, andbetween the same Hours and in the same Streets no Casks,

nable?; S. Aprile and F. Bensimon (Eds), La France et l’Angleterre au XIXe siècle

C Traffic Regulation Bill 1866 (note 85), 44e45.5.awing showing the tall semaphore as depicted in the Illustrated London

bly in the kingdom’, see The Times, 2 July 1866, 6.e envisioned, but they are missing from the evidence of the report I used. SC

t’. ‘If found guilty of obstruction or other road offence, they were originally; see also Harvey, Traffic accidents, 202.es ‘when led in a string or loose.’ Parliamentary Papers, Traffic Regulationon for the greater security of persons passing through the streets; and for other

96 Traf97 IncrRooney5e30.98 The99 The

100 See

C.L. Galviz / Journal of Historical Geography 42 (2013) 62e76 75

whether empty or full, shall be lowered or drawn up bymeans of Ropes, Chains, or other Machinery passing acrossthe Footway or any Part thereof.

Fig. 6. Section and Elevation of the Street Semaphore proposed by J. P. Knight. Note theornamental character throughout, made somewhat less evident by this black andwhite reproduction. Reproduced in One Man’s Vision, commemorative leaflet, City ofWestminster, 1998.

The same restrictions were imposed on the transport of bulkyloads.96

The daily trade of London streets was thus regulated: theunloading and loading of domestic and commercial goods segre-gated to a specified time; labour rhythms concentrated and con-tained. The time interval that Knight proposed with his semaphorehad a correspondence in the newly conceived temporal structurefor the metropolis, although important differences in the mea-surement of time remained in place.97 Furthermore, the timespecification of the Act and Knight’s time interval operatedwithin asimilar conceptual structure: the Act specified and segregatedcertain activities according to the rhythms of the day, introducingan hourly time arrangement; the semaphore regulated theconvergence of traffic flows at street crossings, introducing aduration. The extent to which the Act and Knight’s ideas wererelated would be tested by the erection of a prototype of the streetsemaphore; its location, outside the City’s jurisdiction, giving asense of the metropolitan dimension of the traffic problem as hadbeen recognised by the several revisions and eventual sanctioningof the Act (Fig. 6).

On 12 December 1868, The Illustrated Police News reported thatthe first parts of a composite of ‘semaphore signals and colouredlights [.] to regulate the street traffic’ had been erected at theintersection of Bridge Street and Parliament Street opposite thenewly rebuilt Houses of Parliament in Westminster. As the noteexplained: ‘A pillar has been erected close to the entrance to Palace-yard. It is of an ornamental character [.] about 22 feet high abovethe flagstone at its base.’ The pillar displayed ‘three semaphorearms’ facing Bridge Street, Great George Street and ParliamentStreet, respectively.98 The semaphore was operated by a constable:‘If he desires to stop the passage of vehicles or horses he pulls out ahorizontal bar conveniently adjusted near the base of the pillar, andthis acting upon themechanismwithin the pillar brings the arms tothe horizontal position, and turns on the red light by the same pull’.Determining when to activate the stop or caution signal was thusthe constable’s discretion. ‘The lights [were] gas jets, with bur-nished reflectors behind them, and in front a magnifying lense ofsix inches diameter, with green and red glasses [.] The pillar [was]coloured bright green, relieved with gilding; and the semaphorearms [.] curved on the edges, and narrower at the inner than outerends, [we]re coloured bright red with a gold border.’ As the noteconcluded: ‘If the experimental signal-station prove successful, it islikely that the system may be applied extensively and advanta-geously.’99 Extensively meant London, the metropolis, includingWestminster and the City.

The experiment was successful if short-lived. A series of gasexplosions early in January 1869, caused by a leak in one of thepipes beneath the pavement, injured a policeman, which raiseddoubts about the mechanism’s safety. The gas fittings of the pillarwere found in good condition, but a strong smell emanating fromthe pavement dominated the area around it ‘as if it were soakedwith gas’.100 The experiment of the signal station was abandonedand, with it, the attempt to regulate street traffic by means of an

fic Regulation Bill 1867 (note 94), 6e7.easing coordination between Greenwich time and the time across London wouldand J. Nye, Greenwich Observatory Time for the public benefit: standard time in V

Perils of the Streets. A Novelty in Signals, The Illustrated Police News 12 DecembPerils of the Streets (note 98); see also Winter, London’s Teeming Streets (note 3‘Westminster Street Semaphore Signals’, The Times, 6 January 1869, 10.

artefact combining the flesh of authority and the impersonal in-structions devised originally for railways.

To regulate the traffic of London streets had proved to be aquestion reaching far beyond the successful operation of a sema-phore. It concerned the contested and interconnected domains ofinterfering with individual liberties, transforming the city spaces bybuilding dedicated structures such as subways and legislating overthe use of streets according to a pre-conceived time structure. The

be one of the key challenges of the Standard Time Company created in 1874. See D.ictorian networks of regulation, British Journal for the History of Science 42, 1 (2009)

er 1868.), 35.

C.L. Galviz / Journal of Historical Geography 42 (2013) 62e7676

semaphore constituted in this sense a distinct part of the repeatedattempts to regulate the spaces, times and practices that werenegotiated daily on London streets. In contrast to contemporaryschemes supporting the idea of continuous movement such aspedestrian subways and bridges, and, indeed, the operation of theMetropolitan and Metropolitan District Railways, the semaphoreencapsulated the difficulties of transposing a technology, railwaysignalling, to an environment that was qualitatively different andcharacteristically fluid. Conversely, and in much the same vein asHaywood and Barlow, Knight was concerned with ordering theflow of vehicles and people. Haywood’s reports, their maps, sta-tistics and plans, provided a blueprint of how City andmetropolitaninterests might be joined. Barlow concentrated on devising a sub-way omnibus system through which people could circulate inde-pendently of the traffic above. Knight’s advocacy of the streetsemaphore as well as its trial after the passing of the MunicipalStreets Act were, above all, about regulation. Time was central tothis: by allocating specified hours for the conduct of daily busi-nesses and creating time intervals so that pedestrians could crossbusy roads timely and safely. Whatever the results of the sema-phore experiment, the regulation of individual actions in the in-terest of traffic proved to be an important stage in clarifying howthe liberal subject might take place. As Ogborn suggests, trafficlights can be seen as a reflection of the relative success of the statein persuading citizens of the benefits of subjecting themselves torules like observing red, amber and green lights at street cross-ings.101 The perils and fortunes of Knight’s semaphore give us aninsight into what that process of persuasion has involved from oneof its origins.

Coda

In 1867 a note in The Daily News observed, not without irony andexaggeration, that: ‘We have accumulated in this metropolis thelargest and richest population that has been brought together inthe history of the world. The money daily spent here in cabs wouldsupport some European Sovereign States; yet it is much less thanwould be spent if the public could get fair accommodation in returnfor its expenditure.’102 To an important degree, economy of timewas economy of movement: circulation the imperative that bestexemplified the wealth of an imperial capital. But, as Haywood’s

101 M. Ogborn, Traffic lights, in: Pile and Thrift, City AeZ (note 1), 262e264.102 The Daily News, 9 February 1867, 4.

reports and plans, Barlow’s subway omnibus system, Knight’ssemaphore and the Municipal Streets Act demonstrated, a signifi-cant part of ensuring circulation meant regulating it. Three ways ofdoing so were identifiable in the process. First, by containing spe-cific traffic flows through the building of dedicated structures suchas subways and bridges, which emphasised a sectional, that is,layered understanding of the city space. Second, by new ways ofrecording the flows of vehicles and people, including maps andstatistics, which became increasingly important as the body ofevidence against which the effective means of regulating streetscould be implemented. And thirdly, by precisely specifying timeand space: time, in the sense of allocating hours and durations toeveryday practices such as the loading and unloading of goodsalong busy thoroughfares and the convergence of traffic flows atdesignated street crossings; space, in the sense of promoting cir-culation not sociability as one of the main characteristics of thecrowd that used the London streets.

As a composite of ideas about urban circulation, the plans,infrastructure, experiments and legislation that were debated inLondon between c. 1863 and 1870 illustrated the difficulties of ac-commodating the kind of movement that was both constant andregulated, however compelling was the notion of a ‘regular streamof traffic’. On the other hand, dictating lanes, routes and directionswas not only an issue of devising the appropriate spaces, times andtechnologies. It was also a question of how to govern or at bestdirect the public in the interest of safe and uninterrupted flows. Theliberal subject might have been self-regulated, but only in relationto a crowd that was mapped, counted and directed. His or herexperience of London’s modernity was mediated by the imperativeto circulate as much as by the right to remain at a standstill.

Acknowledgements

I have presented and discussed different versions of this article atthe Locality and Region seminar, Institute of Historical Research,University of London, the Mobile Urbanisms conference of theUrban Geography Research Group, King’s College London and theUrban History Group conference, University of York. My thanks tothe organisers and the very useful questions from the audience. Iwould like to thank especially the journal editors and three anon-ymous referees for their generous comments and suggestions.