18th-century London

London-based artists and writers included Thomas Gainsborough, William Hogarth, Jonathan Swift, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Samuel Johnson.

In order to transport goods and people, many new turnpikes and canals were constructed, and educational movements aimed at working-class children, such as Sunday schools, were pioneered in this period.

[5] Some black Londoners became well known through their writings, such as Ignatius Sancho, Olaudah Equiano, Ottobah Cugoano, Robert Wedderburn, Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, and Phillis Wheatley.

Other famous black figures of the day include the violinist George Bridgetower, the fencing master Julius Soubise, and the aristocrats Dido Belle and William Ansah Sessarakoo.

[11] Well-known Londoners from other European countries include the painters Godfrey Kneller, and Johan Zoffany; and the sculptors Peter Scheemakers, Michael Rysbrack and Giuseppe Ceracchi.

[14] Some were particularly successful, including Robert Barker, Hans Sloane, James Barry, Charles Macklin, Jonathan Swift, Laurence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

[36] Rural villages surrounding Westminster and the City also grew in population and were gradually incorporated into the metropolis: areas like Bethnal Green and Shadwell to the east, or Paddington and St. Pancras to the northwest.

[43] Another burst of church-building occurred towards the end of the period, with new churches such as St. Mary's Paddington, St. James's Clerkenwell, and St. Patrick's Soho Square (1792),[57] St. John-at-Hackney and St. Martin Outwich (1798).

[41] In 1762, shop signs that hung down were banned in the City and Westminster, and had to be fixed flat to the building instead to prevent them blocking out sunlight and falling on people walking underneath.

One gang, run by a man called Obadiah Lemon, used fishing hoods to steal hats and wigs through open coach windows, or leapt on top and cut through the roof.

[76] There was also large amounts of theft on the river, as ships laden with valuable goods waited with skeleton crews for a berth in the Pool of London.

According to one homophobic pamphlet of the time, men in molly houses took on female personas and performed mock weddings and birth ceremonies.

[81] The 18th century saw a huge backlash against molly houses, with the publication of pamphlets such as The Sodomites' Shame and Doom,[82] and groups such as the Society for the Reformation of Manners attempting to track down queer men and have them prosecuted.

[86] Constables were also responsible for policing low-level criminals such as sex workers and fortune tellers, detecting crime, and raising the "hue and cry".

[90] They took the form of six parish constables who acted as bounty hunters, being paid a regular salary plus bonuses for any criminal they apprehended who was successfully prosecuted.

[95] Pirates were generally hanged at Execution Dock on the foreshore of the Thames near Brewhouse Lane and Wapping High Street, and the bodies would be left there until they had been covered by three tides of the river.

Men who committed treason were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, as was the case for several soldiers who supported the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, who were executed on Kennington Common.

Some crimes were punished by whipping, which could take place either in public, tied to the back of a cart and being marched through the streets; or in the private confines of a prison.

In London, his supporters rioted, burning a portrait of William III, drinking toasts to James II, and attacking those who refused to join them.

[51] In 1745, Stuart made another attempt, leading to a military camp being set up at Finchley in case the Jacobite forces reached London from Scotland.

[103] When Wilkes won an election in 1768, his supporters marched through the streets from Brentford to London, and when they got there, they broke all the windows in the newly built Mansion House.

[34] During the American Revolutionary War, the City of London generally favoured the colonists, arguing that their taxation was too heavy and that the government should not use violence against them.

[60] Popular London portrait artists included Arthur Devis, John Wootton, Allan Ramsay, Johann Zoffany, Thomas Gainsborough, and Joshua Reynolds.

[73] The pianoforte also appeared in London for the first time in this period, with a concert including the instrument being performed in 1767 at the Covent Garden Theatre, now known as the Royal Opera House.

[55] 18th-century Londoners could also visit assembly rooms such as the Pantheon on Oxford Street, where people could enjoy Vauxhall Garden-style activities such as dances and masquerades in all weathers.

[118] Another fashionable entertainment at the end of the period was the panorama, wherein 360-degree drawings of countryside views, cityscapes or battlefields would be exhibited in round rooms, giving the viewer the impression that they were standing on top of a high point in the landscape or on a tall building.

[46] London played host to many important writers of the 18th century such as Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Henry Fielding, Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith,[119] Fanny Burney, and Daniel Defoe.

[57] London's main lunatic asylum, the Bethlehem Royal Hospital (better known as Bedlam) long predates this period, but in 1770 it banned the longstanding practice of allowing tourists to pay to view its inmates.

[139] Throughout the century, silk weavers continued to protest and riot against the intrusion of cheaper fabrics into their market, and against poor treatment by weaving masters.

[145] The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge was founded just before the beginning of this period in 1699, and ran charity schools throughout the century to provide education to London's poorest children.

A black and white engraving of a woman kneeling on the ground with a cloak over her shoulders. A dog is jumping up to lick her face, and she is smoking a pipe. Another dog and a cup sit in front of her.
An 1820s portrait of the traveller woman Margaret Finch from Norwood
A large, grand white house, three storeys high and seven windows wide, with columns and statues.
Spencer House, built in the 1750s and 1760s for John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer
A white church with columns and an elaborate steeple
The church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, designed by James Gibbs and built in the 1720s
A rowdy tavern scene. On the right sits a man with his waistcoat unbuttoned and his stockings round his ankles. A woman caresses him while another steals his watch. Other women are disrobing, drinking, and spitting at each other.
A Rake's Progress, plate 3 , by William Hogarth , 1735, depicting a brothel full of sex workers
A black and white engraving of a court scene. John Fielding sits at his raised desk, with a blindfold over his eyes. To the right of him, a man holds up two pistols and a clerk is writing at a desk. In the background sits a crowd and waiting witnesses. To the far right, two prisoners are standing with leg chains on.
A satirical cartoon of John Fielding examining evidence at Bow Street Magistrates' Court, 1779
A pencil sketch of a man with short hair sitting in a stone room with chains on his wrists
A sketch of the famous thief and prison escapee, Jack Sheppard, possibly made by James Thornhill in 1724, shortly before Sheppard's execution
Daniel Defoe stands in a pillory on a high platform. Around him is a thick crowd of people, some of whom are waving their hats and trying to give him flowers. Soldiers around the platform attempt to hold them back.
An engraving of the writer Daniel Defoe being pilloried for seditious libel in 1703. He was so popular that instead of stoning him, the crowd threw flowers, which can be seen on the ground.
A man stands on a stage with a skeleton, an anatomical model, and a man stripped to the waist. A crowd of seated men are watching.
An anatomy class given for members of the Royal Academy by Dr William Hunter, painted by Johan Zoffany
A poster showing four pairs of men in various boxing poses, above text detailing boxing rules
Jack Broughton's boxing rules, published in 1743
A large crowd stand in a park. A three-storey bandstand contains an orchestra and a singer.
A concert at Vauxhall Gardens, depicted by Thomas Rowlandson in 1785
A long thin cityscape, with large white buildings on the far left, a bridge crossing the Thames with a view to St Paul's Cathedral in the middle, and chimney pots on the right
Robert Barker's 1792 panorama of London, drawn from the roof of a flour mill at the south end of Blackfriars Bridge
A group of characters stands in a stone room. Two women kneel before two men pleadingly. A man in a red coat stands on watching them, wearing chains on his legs. The whole scene is surrounded by a theatrical curtain.
A scene from The Beggar's Opera by William Hogarth , c. 1728
A woman sitting, looking to the left, wearing a golden dress and a floppy hat
Mary Wortley Montagu ( Godfrey Kneller , 1715–1720), who pioneered smallpox inoculation in 1720s London
A view into a courtyard surrounded by a grand red brick building on three sides. Elaborate black railings cordon off the square on the fourth side, and patients are dotted about using crutches and being carried on stretchers.
The courtyard of Guy's Hospital, by J. Pass, 1799
A watercolour of a large, two-storey white building with a sign saying "Bagnigge Wells"
The spa at Bagnigge Wells, by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm
A door with white columns and a pediment. A painted figure sits on either side of the pediment, and the name "Twinings" is spelled out in gold over the door.
Entrance to the Twinings tea shop, which has operated on the Strand since the early 18th century