London Historica

The History of London in Rhyme for Every Season

With 2,000 years of history,

It is a long and powerful story.

The City of London, The City Capital

Stands strong and tall.

Surviving plagues and fires

Civil wars, air raids, and terror-risks,

The City of London stands

Growing stronger and powerful,

Like the ancient city of Istanbul.

The City of London

Grows stronger by the minute

Do you happen to live in it?

THE LONDON LEGENDS

The Mighty Brutus of Troy

Defeated the giants Gog and Magog,

The creatures which rose from the bog.

According to Historia Regum Britanniae

Of Geoffrey of Monmouth

To create the land of London.

The legendary King Lud

The man was wise and he was good,

Renamed the town CaerLudein

After a bowl of sweet pudding.

London the name was thus derived

While the King ate on his royal plate.

The good king was buried at Ludgate.

The City of London

Grows stronger by the minute

Do you happen to live in it?

ROMAN LONDON

After the invasion of AD 43

It was time to build a city.

Londinium was established

Where the locals fished,

As a civilian settlement and town

With the people and the crown,

By the early Romans of the town.

Early Roman London

Was a very small patch,

Being roughly the size of Hyde Park.

Walking across Londinium in the dark,

Would have been a walk in the Park.

The City of London

Grows stronger by the minute

Do you happen to live in it?

ANGLO-SAXON LONDON

Mellitus was the first

Post-Roman Bishop,

Who ascended with peace and hope.

In 604 AD, when Saeberht

Of the East Saxons

Saw the light of Christ

This was the end of his tryst.

Now with peace and serenity

He converted to Christianity.

Lundenwic, the London settlement

Without much toil and cement,

Was built in the 7th century,

A mile to the west of Londinium

The thriving town, with a busy hum.

In 730 AD the new town

Was under Mercian control,

But this was a short-lived role.

However the Mercian Lordship

Was replaced in 825 AD by Wessex,

Which made administration more complex.

The City of London

Grows stronger by the minute

Do you happen to live in it?

NORMAN AND MEDIEVAL LONDON

With the Norman invasion in 1066,

Began the start of the Mediaeval period

With its wars and its gory dead.

The long and fierce Battle of Hastings

Brought everything which a battle brings.

It saw the killing of the English

King Harold of Godwinson,

By William the Duke of Normandy,

Which now changed the course of history.

Westminster Hall was designed

And then masterfully constructed,

In 1097 by William Rufus,

The son of William the Conqueror,

Who was a ruler with more creative power?

William had a Master Plan,

To create a monument in the land.

This Hall was the royal residence

With all its beauty and its elegance,

And was the basis of the Palace of Westminster,

Where even the walls of beauty have to whisper.

The London Bridge came up in 1176,

Built of tar, mortar, and brick

On the site of several old wooden bridges

Which had risen and fallen in time

Over the years, the water and the grime.

This bridge lasted for 600 years,

Witnessing toil, sweat, and tears,

And was the only one at that time,

To span the Thames until 1739.

The City of London

Grows stronger by the minute

Do you happen to live in it?

TUDOR LONDON

Great changes came to London

From 1485 to 1603 with the arrival of

The Great and the Illustrious Tudor three,

Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth I,

Who would change London’s destiny first,

Building the land with passion and thirst

To raise it from a tiny European town

To the level of a powerful state in a burst,

With the power to dominate the world

And to change the course of history.

The weaving industry with its threads,

Wove its magic across the world,

And changed the grand economy.

By Royal Charter of the Queen,

At the heart of this commercial matter,

Russia and the East India Company

Were established in London in serenity.

This was a great period of industry and prosperity,

Mercantilism, commerce, and financial security.

With all this generation of wealth and resource

With the spinning of money, from purse to course,

The immigrant numbers in London swelled and rose

From all parts of England, Wales, and distant shores.

The culture of London and its people

At this time was further enriched,

With Shakespeare writing and performing,

All his plays and cultural bastions storming.

Even with all the opposition

There was a heartfelt rendition

At every performance.

The Theatre still thrived

As natural talent arrived,

Thanks to the Royal patronage

Of Queen Elizabeth who loved plays,

With all their speeches and their lays,

And had them performed privately at her Court,

As the actors drank, sang, danced, and spoke.

The Queen also approved all public performances,

And encouraged the actors with their artistic nuances.

The City of London

Grows stronger by the minute

Do you happen to live in it?

STUART LONDON

In the seventeenth century

London spilled over its boundaries.

The plague of London at this time

Killed thirty-thousand in this unhealthy clime.

The nave of Old St. Paul’s Cathedral

Was the meeting place of Londoners,

And all those inspired artists and adventurers,

And tenacious Merchants during this time,

Making it the renaissance of marketing prime.

Lawyers received Clients

And a floodtide of finance

The unemployed looked for work,

Wherever it did slyly lurk.

The book trade flourished

In St. Paul’s Churchyard

With freshly printed paper

And binders by the dozen,

And engravers by the score,

Which made readers hunger for more.

While Fleet Street was filled with adornment

Being christened the home of public entertainment.

Charles I in 1625,

Acceded to the Throne,

To make it his own.

While the aristocracy,

With the wealthy set a fashionable trend,

Setting up their homes in the West End.

At this time the country folk

Visited London for their social life,

With the children and the wife,

For a part of the year, they would live in

Thus, beginning the popular London Season.

The City of London

Grows stronger by the minute

Do you happen to live in it?

18TH CENTURY LONDON

During the 18th century,

The British Empire began to soar

The Lion of Industry started to roar,

The Industrial Revolution had begun

The Capital was with Merchants over-run.

The national population increased

The profits of the nation increased.

The Scottish and the English Parliament

United in 1707 by an Act of Union,

Giving rise to the Kingdom of Great Britain.

St. Paul’s Cathedral was built in 1708,

A Masterpiece of architecture,

By that genius Christopher Wren,

With his inspiration from Heaven,

As the clock ticked on its high Clock tower,

Marking the quick progress of the city’s hour.

The City of London

Grows stronger by the minute

Do you happen to live in it?

19TH CENTURY LONDON

With a population of 6.7 million

The city of London was growing fast,

It was now the largest city in the world

The Capital became, as its flag unfurled

Over the extensive British Empire,

From Ancient Castle to towering spire.

However, as the city grew in wealth

London was also the city of poverty and squalor,

With the poor being the forgotten souls

Who were given a voice and a heart

By Charles Dickens in his classic tales,

Which are engraved in literary art.

Prime Minister Robert Peel in 1829

Established the Metropolitan Police,

They were nicknamed “Bobbies” or “Peelers”

After the founder Robert Peel.

All the temptation and the crime

Was now being stopped in time.

The Bobbies now made life more difficult

Under the hand of Bobby Peel,

For people prone to rob and steal.

The tentacles of the railway

Entered the city of London

Bringing progress and an able workforce,

Into this new bustling economic course.

As the poorer moved into the city

To find work and make a life,

The richer classes of British society

Moved to the suburbs, away from the city

Away from the common classes,

Who filled the pubs with beer glasses?

The first railway line in 1836

Was built from London Bridge to Greenwich

This was followed by the great terminal,

Which now linked London to the universal world,

And to every part of Britain as the City now grew.

From 1863 the first lines of the Underground

Were constructed and developed within no time

The network of commerce came into existence,

With the seeds of prosperity and persistence.

The City of London

Grows stronger by the minute

Do you happen to live in it?

20TH AND 21ST CENTURY LONDON

London was now the capital city

For the largest Empire in History.

The LLC Tramways made their rails

For a large tram network of steel and nails.

In the 1900’s the first motorbus

Wound its way down the streets,

As the motor bus service began

And the first automobile ran.

Now everything was getting faster,

Brighter, steelier, and electrified too,

In the complex network of steel,

Of the overground railways,

And the underground railways too.

Those engines of metal and steel

Thundered off into the sunniest day

And rumbled through the darkest night.

Those glistening beauties of shiny steel

Were all bright and electrified,

Serving London night and day

Bringing life and money every day.

700 people lost their fragile lives

In the bombings of the First World War,

As German zeppelins dropped in dives,

Their murderous loads of death and sorrow

People lost their lives, their homes, and their tomorrow.

There were death and destruction everywhere

Nowhere was safe, death was everywhere.

Then it was the celebration of Sports

With the Summer Olympics of 1948,

The Spirit of Britain was indeed great

Swifter, Faster and Stronger, it was true

And for the next decade, the city of London grew.

Swinging London was born in the 1960s

With the music culture of the Beatles

And the Rocking Rolling Stones,

While Carnaby Street was now to become,

The center of the youthful buzz and hum.

In the 1950s the immigrants came

From all the corners of the globe.

They came to work, they came to stay,

The people are part of the fabric of this city,

Enriching it every day in every way.

You meet folks from Japan, Belgium, Russia,

France, Poland, Italy, and Korea.

Unity of humanity can be found here.

You pass people on the street,

From India, Egypt, Portugal, Germany,

Spain, Pakistan, Vietnam, and China,

A busy population lives and thrives here.

Creating a multicultural universe,

Making the great land and city more diverse.

With everyone now being a united part,

Of the ever-growing vibrant London heart,

That wonderful panorama of many hues

In all its splendor of greens and blues.

London lives and breathes free,

And has stepped into the 21st century,

With progress, advancement, and industry.

London and its people always walk tall,

The Pandemic, the hustle and the bustle of life,

The Olympics, the festivals and the celebrations,

It has enjoyed, won, and conquered them all.

The City of London

Grows stronger by the minute

Do you happen to live in it?