The Right Honourable, The Lord Mayor of London Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Ian Bowater, D.S.O.. T.D.

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THE AN INCENTIVE INTERVIEW WITH SIR IAN BOWATER, WHOSE THEME OF OFFICE IS ‘COME TO BRITAIN’

LORD M ODEOF LONDON

How does the City of London stand today in relation to the rest of the world? Well, I think it can be claimed to be the centre of the financial and banking world of at least this half of the globe. And as far as Britain itself is concerned a very large proportion of our invisible exports pass through it.

The ‘invisibles’ result directly from the City . . . by that I mean the earnings of the insurance companies, commissions on sales and banking, the overseas earnings of loans floated in the City, the freights earned by shipping com­panies administered in the City and so on.

I think if you went through the financial commitments of the largest companies in this country, you would have difficulty in finding a single one which was not in some way or other connected with the activities of the City.

Britain as a whole is a very rich country indeed, although people sometimes talk as if it were very poor. This is quite untrue. Its overseas investments are greater than any other country in the world with the exception possibly of the United States.

Having said that, if you were to ask me if this country is going forward or backwards, I would say that we are going forward because of its technology and amazing abilities in the field of specialised inventions. One has only to think of Watson Watt’s radar, Fleming’s peni­cillin, Rutherford’s atom research, Whittle’s jet engines, Cockerell’s Hover­craft - and many others besides.

There is nothing to stop this country retaining a lead in world technology and science. The only thing that can prevent it is the frustration of all this being held on the leash; frustrations which emerge from politics and controls and all those things that cut down freedom of action; and particularly by excessive taxation.

If some of these could be swept away the country would surge forward again to wider and greater horizons.

You have asked me about the office of Lord Mayor and what the mayoralty stands for. First we must remember that I am the 642nd holder of the office and as some people held it several times, the office goes back more than 750 years.

The first time the holder was known as the Lord Mayor was after he joined

the barons in signing the Magna Carta at Runnymede. As a result the City of London was granted its Charter by King John with only one reservation. This was that the City had to report the name of the man elected Lord Mayor to the ruling monarch.

That is why, after a Lord Mayor is elected, as I was last September, he goes to the House of Lords to inquire through the Recorder of London of the Lord Chancellor whether his election has met the approval of Her Majesty the Queen. After receiving Royal approval he is then, in fact, Lord Mayor-elect.

A few weeks later he takes office - in my case on 7 November, 1969, at what is a silent ceremony. The emblems of the City - the jewelled sceptre, the purse and the key of the City - are handed by the high officers to the outgoing Lord Mayor who then passes them to the incoming Lord Mayor who touches them and hands them back.

The following day he proceeds in the world-famous golden coach drawn by the six enormous horses supplied by Messrs Whitbread, who are the only owners of horses strong enough to pull it. He proceeds to the Royal Courts of

Sir Ian Bowater was page to his uncle as Lord Mayor of London in 1912; last November, when Sir Ian took office, he was attended by his eight-year-old grandson, John Doughty.

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Justice to be sworn as chief magistrate for the Lord Chief Justice and this is what constitutes the Lord Mayor’s Show or pageant.

The Lord Mayor has other respon­sibilities. He is Admiral of the port of London and has certain constitutional obligations. For instance, in the event of an accession to the Throne he is sum­moned to attend the Accession Privy Council and that is the reason why he is the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor. He must also be informed of a Royal birth.

In the event of a declaration of war he must receive it at once from the Prime Minister and read it to the citizens. In 1914 my uncle. Sir Vansittart Bowater, read the declaration; in 1939 my father performed this duty.

The Lord Mayor must also receive in state the Monarch if she chooses to enter the City. He proceeds, with aider- men and sheriffs to Temple Bar where there was once a Temple Gate and there awaits Her Majesty. He presents to her the Sword of State with point reversed. This is the sign of his allegiance. The Queen then touches the sword and places it back in his hands. This is a sign that she accepts his allegiance and the allegiance of her loyal subjects, the citizens of London.

Thereafter he precedes her. Should the Queen attend St Paul’s, the Lord Mayor, in special ermine robe, precedes 'her,

Mayor ceremonially greets the visitor and hands him a cask of silver containing a scroll of welcome. A state banquet follows at which the Lord Mayor presides.

A charming, and perhaps slightly less formal occasion, is when a great states­man or soldier is presented with the honorary freedom. In the recent past there have been names known throughout the world, including members of the Royal Family, Sir Winston Churchill, General Eisenhower, and many of the Prime Ministers of Commonwealth coun­tries. The Lord Mayor presides on a dais, surrounded by distinguished leaders of the land, and on either side in their scarlet robes are the aldermen. The Chamberlain delivers a speech eulogis­ing the person to be honoured and places in his hand a scroll welcoming him as an honorary freeman of the city. On these occasions the Lord Mayor generally gives a private or semi-private banquet in his own home, the Mansion House, to which two or three hundred disting­uished people are invited.

During the year the Lord Mayor presides over a number of state banquets in the Mansion House, banquets given to the judges, the bishops, the arts, the sciences, the Diplomatic Corps, the bankers . . .

It is the Lord Mayor’s duty to preside over the deliberations of the Court of Common Council, which perhaps few

The Walbrook Street entrance to the Mansion House, which is the door used by the Lord Mayor of London and his visitors.

is not elected on party lines, nor are the aldermen or common councillors. Every man votes according to his own way of thinking.

In addition the Lord Mayor presides over a number of specialised committees which deal with the business of the City and he maintains liaison by virtue of his office with the principal institutions such as the Stock Exchange, the Baltic Exchange, Lloyds, the Bank of England, the Institute of Bankers, Chambers of Commerce, Chamber of Shipping - in fact all those institutions which represent the activities of the City of London.

A statue of the boy Dick Whittington, who was to become four times the Lord Mayor.

Drawn by six dapple-grey shires, the Lord Mayor’s Coach leaves Whitbread’s Brewery in the City of London at the start of the Lord Mayor’s Show on the second Saturday in November.

holding the sword above him up the steps of the Cathedral and lays it on the table in front of the Queen where she is seated.

This is one of the most moving ceremonies which you will witness and is one of the great traditional rights of the City of London.

On state visits it is usual for the visitors to be received by the citizens of London. This generally takes place at Guildhall and again the Lord Mayor appears in his royal robe. This is generally preceded by a state reception. The Lord

people realise is the oldest parliament in the country, going back beyond the time of the Parliament of Westminster. In fact it was from the inspiration of the City Parliament that much of the pre- cedure at Westminster was derived. For instance, no business can take place until the sword and the mace are placed on the table in front of the Lord Mayor, who sits as a kind of Speaker and President rolled into one, flanked on either side by the aldermen with the Common Council on the floor of the House.

There are no parties. The Lord Mayor

The City still owns and administers the markets: Billingsgate fish market, Leadenhall poultry market, Spitalfields fruit and vegetable markets, Smithfield meat market.

The City’s greatest responsibilities are those connected with the administration of justice. The Central Criminal Courts, which are generally known as the Old Bailey, are in fact the largest, probably the oldest and certainly the best-known of all the criminal assize courts in the country and for that matter in the world. Criminal court procedure

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in all the English-speaking and Common­wealth countries is derived from these courts.

At the present time there is unfor­tunately an attempt being mounted to take away the administrative authority of the Lord Mayor and the City Cor­poration and place it in the hands of a High Court Authority. If this comes about the City will no longer have its own Recorder and Common Serjeant, the Lord Mayor will no longer be the Chief Judge Commissioner, the aldermen no longer commissioners. In fact the administrative authority of the City will be removed and the Old Bailey judges who were always considered part and parcel of the City and its works will go, too. They will pack their bags and become circuit judges and for what reason? It is difficult to think of any good reason.

When I, as Lord Mayor, went to the Law Courts on the day I was sworn as Chief Magistrate to the Lord Chief Justice, he observed to me from the bench that change must come to many things and in many places and change is often good but where change is for change’s sake it is no good and can be disastrous.

One can only hope that this will be one of the matters where a suitable and timely compromise will prevent the severing of a connection which has weathered all the adverse conditions time and history has produced to become

what is today generally believed to be the best example of British justice.

Well, you have asked me what I felt like when I was elected Lord Mayor. I would have been less than human if I had not experienced a sense of pride on being elected the 642nd Lord Mayor, the 41st Haberdasher to be Lord Mayor (my direct ancestor John Bowater was made a freeman of the Haberdashers’ Company in July, 1600) and the fourth member of my family to hold this office.

Having said all that, I experienced other feelings as well. There is a sense of mission: you must not only preserve the right traditions but you must further the office in all its activities. You must do your utmost to see that its impact on the citizens, and on the people beyond the City, is the right one and is never allowed to lessen.

You have asked me, what is the Lord Mayor’s routine? Well, it leaves very little time for anything else. You start the day generally at nine in the morning going through numerous incoming papers which are sometimes controversial. Thereafter you receive people. You may then sit on the bench because the Mansion House is the only private house in Europe where justice is administered in a private court.

Generally there are various luncheons at which you are expected to speak and meet people, followed by appointments. Then you find time to write a speech

to be delivered that evening at a dinner or function. Perhaps after that you visit one of the boroughs twenty or thirty miles away for a reception. With luck you will get in bed about half past twelve.

You do similar things next day, but you may be going to hospitals, schools or to visit a section of the City health department at Gravesend. There are so many things you may be doing; every day is different. The Lord Mayor travels to a certain extent. Not a great deal within the country, but he does preside over the metropolitan boroughs who have their meetings in various places.

The Lord Mayor goes abroad for British Weeks or on good will and trade missions, or for some special reason. The last Lord Mayor went to Tokyo in October and to Monaco, and the Lord Mayor before him went to Stock­holm and America. As Sheriff, I accom­panied Sir Lionel Denny on his visits to Chile and California. But the theme of my year is ‘Come to Britain.’

We receive a large number of overseas visitors to the Mansion House. They range from heads of state, legislators, leaders of various denominations and businessmen. Tomorrow for example, I shall be receiving some Japanese visitors who have come from Tokyo in connection with Expo 70. During my year I shall see many overseas visitors.

All will be welcome - and honoured guests of the City of London •

Entering the City at Temple Bar in 1958, Her Majesty the Queen received the City Sword from the then Lord Mayor, Sir Denis Truscott,incentive/70 3

r i i r T I j! The City of London is the richest square mile in the 1 Í I P j world—rich in history and rich materially as a

SQTjAHE MILE

centre of world trade. The City has not kept its history to itself: trading institutions throughout

the world have been influenced by London —1 the twenty-century, twentieth-century City.

The City is the oldest part of London. Next in antiquity, occupying four times as much ground area, is the neighbouring City of Westminster, wherein are lodged the Crown, Parliament and the executive offices of Government. To appreciate the position of the City today, it is necessary to trace its development over twenty cen­turies - a story as old as Christendom.

Roman London in pre-Christian days at Walbrook, where stood theTemple of Mithras.

History tends to be interpreted in rather the same way that news is presented - jerkily, in terms of war, assassination, famine and revolt. For most people, how­ever, life runs more continuously, and the greatest contribution to that continuity - and prosperity - is made by industry and trade.The City has seen its full share of

Contrast in the City: part of the Roman Wall (foreground) and a modern office building.

violence, and has many scars to prove it, but it stands above all as a living symbol of the permanence of trade, and its chief honours are those of peace rather than battle.

Twenty centuries ago the site on which the City now stands lay in an area of marshes and lagoons. In those days the Thames was joined here by tributaries which have since ceased to exist. The inhabitants were probably Britons, the people ultimately driven into Wales, Scotland and Ireland by the ancestors of the English. They called the place Llyn-din, meaning the Fort on the Lake.

The basic way of life for these Londoners was hunting, though it is believed that London was known to merchants from Gaul and Belgium before the first Romans under Julius Caesar set foot in Britain in 55 bc . The Roman conquest of Britain in 43 ad was chronicled by Tacitus, who referred to Londinium, as the Romans originally called it, as ‘a town of the highest repute and a busy emporium for trade and trading.’At an early stage of the Roman occupa-

tion of Britain, which lasted until 4 1 0 a d , the invaders built a walled citadel on the north bank of the Thames. This settle­ment steadily grew in importance and in the middle of the fourth century the Romans surrounded the whole town with a strong wall just over three miles in length (its outline can be traced on the map on the back cover of this issue). This wall put an end to attacks by tribesmen, the most violent of which was led by the British tribal queen Boadicea in ad 61. With the completion of the wall, London was renamed Augusta in honour of the hereditary title of the Roman Emperor and at this time also the former town became a Christian city.

After the Romans left their British colony most of their settlements crumbled away and the most tangible legacy of their

The Temple of Mithras, whose head is shown above right, was not discovered until 1956.

occupation was the sys­tem of straight roads converging in the City on the site of London Bridge, of which the most important was Watling Street, leading to the west. Those parts of Roman London which were not des­

troyed were buried; one important relic of the occupation, the temple of Mithras was excavated as recently as 1956. Even the Roman place-names were changed by the Saxons, who, over the course of the next 200 years, drove the Britons out of the City (it’s possible that the surviviors made their escape to the west along Watling Street) and re-named it Lunden- wic. One of the few remaining Roman words is street, a corruption of strata via, meaning a paved way.

After one or two false starts, the Saxons became firmly converted to Christianity, and in the process became less aggressive and more interested in trade. London once more became an attractive port of call to the European merchants. The revived prosperity of the City made it the target of marauding Danes, who gave the Saxons a dose of their own medicine with several generations of pillage and black­mail (Danegeld). Success or failure of resistance to the Danes depended on the strength of monarchs. A strong example was King Alfred, first King of all England who recaptured the City from the Danes in 884, and realising the importance of the

capital of England, as it had now become, gave it fresh security by rebuilding its protective walls and founding the Navy.

A weak king was Ethelred Unrede, who came to the Throne in 979, paid the Danegeld, then unsuccessfully tried to fight them off and was finally put out of the City and off the throne by Canute. This Danish king extracted from London a tribute of £11,000 which was reckoned by one historian to be equivalent to one- seventh of the gross national product of England at that time.

The beginnings of City life outside the original walled fortress date from the reign of the peaceable Edward the Con­fessor, who built the first Westminster Abbey in the eleventh century. Elis successor was the Norman, William the Conqueror, the first Monarch to be

‘Street’ is one of the few words to remind London of the era of Roman occupation.

crowned in Westminster - on Christmas Day, 1066. The power of the City at the time is indicated by the wording of the Charter which the conquering King gave the citizens in return for their submission. The original document is still preserved in the Guild Hall and it reads as follows: ‘William, King, greets William, bishop, and Gosfrith, portreeve, and all the burghers within London, French and English, friendly; and I would have you know that 1 will that ye be all law-worthy that were in King Edward’s day. And I will that every child be his father’s heir after his father’s day; and I will not endure that any man offer any wrong to you. God keep you.’

This short but very significant state­ment implied that the City possessed its own authority, both spiritual and tem­poral (the office of portreeve anticipated the position of mayor; our modern word sheriff is derived from shire-reeve). The citizens were to be freemen and not under the jurisdiction of Norman overlords, and the principle was established that Londoners could hand on property to their children as opposed to the feudal system whereby it would revert to an overlord. The agreement between the King and the City was, of course, a form of compromise.

To secure his own position, William decided to build the Tower of London, a work which was completed by his son William Rufus. The strong point of this fortress was the White Tower of which the architect was Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester. It is easily overlooked nowa­days that churchmen were architects as well as teachers; a later feature of London, the Bridge begun in 976, was also the work of a priest-architect, Peter de Colechurch. The Tower of London, which overlooks the City from the south-east corner on the river side, has been referred to as ‘the padlock on the wall.’ It is actually outside the boundary of the City.

William Rufus not only completed the Tower but he busied himself with the development of the neighbouring City of Westminster. He was killed by an arrow in 1100 and was succeeded by his brother Henry who gave the citizens a fuller Charter than that signed by his father. Among other concessions, they were to be allowed to appoint their own sheriff's.

TheexistenceofChartersdidnot mean,of course, that difficulties between monarchs and merchants were settled overnight. The stability promised by those pieces of parchment took some seven centuries to be realised. There were periods of har­mony under the wiser sovereigns, whose interests coincided with those of the City and its people, alternating with periods of tension and violence. Conflicts of interest also arose within the City itself - between the aristocratic merchants, for example, and the tradesmen. The livery companies of today were the original craft guilds,

The Royal Exchange is a permanent monument to the far-sightedness and patriotism of the Elizabethan merchant-adventurer Sir Thomas Gresham, who founded the original Exchange in 1586. Queen Victoria opened this building, the third to occupy the site, in 1844.

the ancestors of all the trade unions in the world, which came into being in the City to protect the interests of the tradesmen.

We first hear of the title of Mayor of London around 1190 in the person of Henry Fitzaylwin who held the office for about a quarter of a century. The first Mayors to identify themselves with the guilds of craftsmen and the common people rather than the merchants and the Crown were Fitzosbert and FitzThomas, who held office in the time of the Plan- tagenet Kings Richard and Henry h i

respectively. These kings tended to squeeze the City for cash; the Mayors resisted strongly, with the result that Fitzosbert was executed and FitzThomas disappeared after being given safe con­duct by Henry. In the long run, however, the City was to prove the stronger of the two factions.

Foreign merchants and financiers were drawn to the City in substantial numbers. Their presence is marked by such place- names as Old Jewry and Lombard Street. The Lombards were Italian merchants who originally came to England to collect

wool taxes for the Pope, but stayed to trade on their own account. For many centuries they controlled London’s money lending business, and Lombard Street is still the centre of banking.

Between the time of the conquest and the year 1290 there was a settlement of Jewish money lenders around the area still known as Old Jewry, but they were subject to frequent persecution, which reached a peak under the reign of Edward i. In 1279 there was a wholesale hanging of 293 Jewish men and women accused of clipping the coinage, and eleven years later the whole colony was ordered to become Christian or leave the country.

One of the most powerful influences to take root in the City was a company of German merchants called the Hanseatic League, who monopolised the German and Baltic trading. Londoners referred to them as Easterlings or men from the East. These merchants tendered their own coinage of fixed weight, which was accepted everywhere as Easterling money, and in time this was abbreviated to Sterling.

Lombards:E.C.3

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The Guildhall, scene of the Great Banquet on Lord Mayor’s Day, was originally built by the merchant-guild about 560 years ago.

The Monument commemorates the Great Fire which razed the City of London in 1666. The seal of William the Conqueror (below), who gave London its first Charter in 1066.

Though very much part of the City scene, Tower Bridge is not within the boundaries. It was designed by Wolfe Barry and built by the City Corporation of London in 1894 for only £800,000.

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Like its counterparts in other countries, London’s Stock Exchange is no longer the leisurely place shown (right) in this Illustrated London News engraving of March 1854.

Another source of trade in the eleventh and twelfth centuries came from the pilgrims of London, who during their journeys to and from Rome or the Holy Land would tell foreigners about the wonders and prosperity of London. On their return they would encourage mer­chants to go abroad by recounting descriptions of the markets they had seen during their pilgrimages.

Edward n was an oppressive king, but it was during his reign that the Craft Guilds were raised in status to livery companies and began to achieve an almost despotic power in the government of the City. No one could vote, for example, unless he was a member of a craft guild.

Under Edward n the livery com­panies came fully into their own. This young king, in exchange forthe cash need­ed for conducting his French campaign, gave charters to many companies, and enrolled himself in one of them—the linen-armourers (now called the Mer­chant Taylors). The companies not now only controlled the elections but set rigid standards for purity and quality of food and workmanship of all kinds.

The power of the companies was not to the liking of the peasants and com­moners, who rebelled during the reign of Richard n in 1381, but the rebel leaders, Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, lost their heads, and the revolt was put down by the Mayor and Sheriffs. This lesson in the power of the City was lost on Richard, who proceeded to put taxes on the City, which responded by appointing Henry rv in his place (Richard was laid out in the City in St Paul’s Cathedral so that the people ‘might believe for certain that he was dead’). The next king was Henry v, the victor of Agincourt in 1415. The Lord Mayor who welcomed the triumphant King on his return was the legendary Richard Whittington, who gave Henry a magnificent banquet in his own private house. It is said that at the height of the banquet Whittington pro­duced the King’s bonds, representing £60,000 lent to him to finance the war,

and patriotically threw them on the fire.The conflict between the Houses of

York and Lancaster which led to the Wars of the Roses, was finally settled by the City of London, who decided that the House of York, and the person of Edward iv, would best suit their com­mercial interests. He was a popular king and his reign produced brisk trade, prosperity and peace.

The Tudor era, which began with Henry vii, made an unpromising start. Henry vii was an extortionist and Henry vm carried out wholesale destruction of Catholic monasteries, churches and many famous monuments. The reaction, under Queen Mary, was a violent and cruel persecution of Protestants.

In dignity, if not in actual height, the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral still dominates the City.

The potential greatness of London was realised when Queen Elizabeth i came to the Throne. She was a strong ruler, which was always popular in the City and she did away with extortion. The City was pleased to lend money to such a sovereign, and when Elizabeth asked for fifteen ships and 5,000 men to fight the Spanish Armada the City gave her double this force. Even in those relatively prosperous and stable times we find evidence of behaviour remarkably parallel to the present phenomenon of student protest. The apprentices, or

prentices as they were called, would band together and behave in disorderly fashion, picking fights, especially with foreigners and strangers. Elizabeth ordered that any lad found guilty before a Justice of the Peace of such behaviour should be hanged forthwith.

The Elizabethan age saw London take its place as the first seaport of the world. The man who did most to put the City in its predominant position was Sir Thomas Gresham. As the King’s Mer­chant, he had the duty of negotiating loans for the sovereign from the rich Flemish merchants. His first achievement was to get the rate of interest reduced from 14 to 10 per cent. He later advised Elizabeth to borrow from the merchants of London rather than from Antwerp. He decided in Antwerp, which had 5,000 merchants compared with London’s 500, that the reason for its prosperity was the simple fact that Antwerp had a central meeting place, or exchange, for the merchants known as the Bourse.

Gresham, who had lost his only son, devoted his own great wealth to giving the merchants of London a similar meeting place. His Royal Exchange was opened by Elizabeth in 1571. Fortunately for London, Antwerp was sacked by the Spaniards four years later, and thanks to Gresham’s foresight London stepped in to take her place as the prime trading centre of the world. This happened during the period that the sailors of London and Devon were opening up English routes to America and the East. Other significant developments of this time were the deprival of the Hanseatic merchants of their export monopolies, and the arrival in England of persecuted Flemish wool- weavers, with the result that within a century London’s chief export was cloth rather than wool.

Gresham’s commercial policy brought about the foundation of the great British trading companies, which not only brought prosperity to London but led to the establishment of a great part of the British Empire. The Eastland Company traded in the Baltic; the Russian Com­pany brought the silks, tea and spices of Asia from beyond the Caspian. The Turkey Company and the East India Company lasted into the 19th century. The Hudson’s Bay Company thrives today—and is this year celebrating the 300th anniversary of its foundation.

The most powerful demonstration of the City’s authority came during the Stuart era, which was inaugurated by James I. When he was refused a loan the Scottish king became angry and threatened to remove his court from London altogether. The Lord Mayor humbly accepted that his sovereign could do as he wished, but asked that when he departed he should leave the River Thames behind him. Charles i, also ignoring history, made an enemy of the City by demanding

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an extortionate loan; this led directly to his defeat and execution at the hands of the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. The reaction to Cromwell was the restoration of the Monarchy in the person of Charles II, with the City’s blessing, in 1660. With gay disregard for the past, Charles decided that the best policy for the king was for him to takeaway the Charter of the City of London, govern it himself and obtain personal access to its exchequer. He was succeeded by his brother James n who determined not only to keep the City ‘in commission’ but to restore the Catholic religion.

The reaction of the City of London was to invite William of Orange to take over

At the City's heart is the Bank of England, the ‘Old Lady of Threadneedle Street,’ which has been state-owned since 1946.

the Throne, and James departed quietly. From this point, 1688, there was no violent confrontation between the Crown and the City, and this was the last oc­casion on which the City exercised its ancient right to appoint a Monarch.

The major event of William’s reign was the founding of the Bank of England by the Scotsman William Patterson in 1694. Though originally a private concern the Bank of England later acquired the ex­clusive right to note issue in England and Wales and it was nationalised in 1946.

Until the 17th century London had been a dirty city for most of its history. The great turning point towards clean­liness came after 1665, when one in five of the population of half a million died in the greatest of the many plagues which had afflicted London over the centuries. In 1666 the Great Fire destroyed the City along with the lingering traces of the plague. Some 200,000 people were home­less, yet astonishingly there is no record of a single death.

Plans were made to rebuild the City on classical lines and to do away with the winding alleyways but the citizens were so quick to rebuild on their own sites that the City’s street plan remains broadly as it was before the Fire. The rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral under Sir Christopher Wren, who was also the architect of more than 50 churches within the City, took 37

years. It was completed in the reign of Queen Anne, in 1708. A commercially notable event of the times took place two years later when Britain’s first General Post Office was established in the City.

The last clash of wills between the Monarch and the City Corporation of London occurred in the reign of George in in 1773. It ended inconclusively. The City wished to present a petition against the American war, on the grounds that it ‘interfered with business and that it was a war of brother against brother, and that it was scandalously conducted.’ The King and the then Lord Mayor of London, John Wilkes, were unable to reach agreement as to where the petition should be presented, and there the matter ended.

The City today has a working popula­tion of half a million people, though only 5,000 actually reside within its bound­aries. Inevitably, the density of activity actually taking place in the square mile, coupled with the devastation caused by German bombing in the last war, has resulted in re-development of the City with a strong emphasis on multi-storey buildings. The character of the old City survives in the street plan, in the preser­vation of the ancient buildings which survived the war—and in the institutions and offices of the City itself. One of the most welcome of the post-war develop­ments has been the cleaning of some of the City’s most precious buildings, including St Paul’s Cathedral, which until recently had not been washed down since 1710; in places the dirt was a foot thick. The City Corporation of London was the first local authority in Britain to introduce clean air legislation, so that a good chance exists that the London monuments which have been cleaned will remain clean.

Development of the City of London is continuous, and it is planned that by 1980 all but seventy of its total area of 677 will have been completely rebuilt.

Possibly the most basic of the City's financial institutions is the Stock Ex­change, which is being rehoused for the third time in its 200 years of existence. Originally the stockbrokers used to meet in the coffee houses around Change Alley; for this reason the attendants in the Stock Exchange today are still referred to as waiters. Over the next two years the Stock Exchange will be gradually moving into a new 26-storey block, which has cost £10m. It will be the most modern Stock Exchange building in the world as well as one of the oldest institutions of its kind and (with Wall Street and Tokyo) one of the largest. The Stock Exchange welcomes visitors, who average 500 a day.

Another international institution which had coffee house origins is the Baltic Exchange, whose functions include charter, sale and purchase of ships throughout the world. The motto ‘Our

Visitors to the Stock Exchange, averaging 500 daily, add to the bustle of Throgmorton St.

Word, Our Bond’ expresses the fact that all negotiations are by word of mouth.

Nowhere in the history of London is the centre of international trade more strik­ingly demonstrated than in the system of commodity exchange, totalling nineteen in all, which deals largely with overseas products and is concerned with future as well as present business. The City’s commodity exchange covers such varied products as furs, wool, coffee, rubber, tin, tea, grain, sugar, diamonds, zinc, copper, copra, cocoa and lead.

The London Commodity Exchange, a merger of the former Commercial Sale Rooms and the Rubber Exchange, is in Mincing Lane. Trades represented in its Plantation House headquarters include

A typical City pub in Leadenhall market.

cocoa, copra, oil seeds, essential oils, pepper and spices, ivory, jute, hemp, rubber and shellac. The Rubber Market meets in the Main Exchange, and adjoin­ing this are separate rooms for the Sugar and Corn Markets. The Vegetable Oil Terminal Market, the Fishmeat Terminal Market and the Apple Terminal Market hold their ‘calls’ in sections of the Main Exchange. The Corn Exchange, in Mark Lane, is the most important cereal market in the United Kingdom, with a member­ship of about 650 firms and with about 165 having stands on the floor. Although

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Collection Number: A1132 Collection Name: Patrick LEWIS Papers, 1949-1987

PUBLISHER: Publisher: Historical Papers Research Archive, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Location: Johannesburg ©2016

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