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The British Empire spanned a fifth of the Globe and London was also a chief ports and the world´s largest manufacturing centre. On the one hand London was the city of fine shops, museums and theatres; on the other it was a city of poverty, disease and prostitution.
During the reign of Queen Victoria thousands of acres were covered with housing, roads and railway lines. Today nearly every house in a random of 8 km of central London, is from the Victorian Era. By the end of the 19th century the city population grew over six million. So the Metropolitan Board of Works installed an efficient sewerage system, street lights and better roads.
Queen Victoria I
The Railways
The Victorian expansion of London would not have been possible without an efficient public transport network to bring workers to the new suburbs outside London. The horse-drawn bus appeared on London´s streets in 1829. The opening of the first railway between Greenwich and London in 1836 hailed to the future. In 1863 the first underground line proved an instant success, attracting more than 30,000 people on the first day. The world´s first electric track in a deep tunnel opened in 1890 between the city and Stockwell.
The Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition in 1851 captured the spirit of the age: confidence and pride, discovery and invention. Prince Albert was involved in the organisation of this event, for which the Crystal Palace was erected in Hyde Park. About six million visitors came to the Exhibition. After it , the palace was moved to Sydenham and used as an exhibition centre until it was destroyed by fire in 1936.
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