History of London (1900–1939)

[5] London was the site of seminal events in the movement, including Black Friday, when a suffragette march from Caxton Hall to the Palace of Westminster dissolved into conflicts with the police, leading to 115 arrests, 2 deaths, and widespread allegations of sexual assault inflicted upon the female protesters.

The Mall was re-envisioned as a grand parade route for state pageantry, which involved the building of Admiralty Arch (1911), the re-facing of Buckingham Palace (1911–1912), and the erection of the Victoria Memorial (1911).

Aldwych, the crescent-shaped road connecting Kingsway with the Strand, was lined with new theatres, hotels and diplomatic commissions like Australia House (built between 1913 and 1918).

[15][16] Fifty of the Edwardian era stations were designed by Leslie Green and are distinctive for their semi-circular windows, glazed tile facades in oxblood red, and green-tiled ticket halls.

[19] This competition between the UERL and its remaining competitors did not prevent them from entering into a joint marketing agreement in 1908 which united the entire network for the first time as the "Underground" in publicity, signage, maps, and through coordinated fares.

[20] Round About a Pound a Week, a report by the Fabian Society of an intervention between 1909 and 1913, describes the lives of the "respectable poor"; one in five children died in their first year, and hunger, illness, and colds were the norm.

A 1909 report of the Poor Law Commission found that one-third of the East End's 900,000 strong population lived in conditions of extreme poverty.

[21] One response to a dire lack of sanitation in London's poorest areas was the provision of communal washhouses for bathing and clothes-washing; an average of 60,000 people each week used the 50 such bathhouses which existed across the city in 1910.

Throughout the first four decades of the twentieth century, the London County Council continued a program of slum clearance and the building of "model dwellings" in the poorest areas like Spitalfields, Whitechapel and Bethnal Green.

Poor Londoners were condemned to live in densely populated, unsanitary and polluted slums while the middle-classes could move to the expanding suburbs for fresh-air and space.

On 31 May 1915 the first aerial bombing raid on London was carried out by a zeppelin, which dropped high explosives over the East End and the docks, killing seven people.

However, by May 1918 British air defences had improved sufficiently to start inflicting heavy German losses, and this persuaded Germany to call the raids off.

The early 20th century, especially during the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s, saw the geographical extent of London's urban area grew faster than at any point before or since.

One result were attempts to compromise by developing new solutions to urban living, focused especially on slum clearance and redevelopment schemes.

[25] As the suburbs expanded exponentially, in Central London much of the 1920s were spent completing major construction works begun before the First World War and delayed by labour and material shortages.

A trend that emerged during the '20s and '30s was the sale and loss of many of London's grandest private homes in the exclusive areas of Mayfair and St. James's.

The British aristocracy, unable to support the costs of maintaining large houses in London because of sharp rises in income and estate taxes, sold their homes to private developers, who built new commercial and residential premises.

[29] The style lent itself particularly well to large industrial structures like Battersea Power Station (1934), the Hoover Building (1932–37), and the Carerras Cigarette Factory.

From 1932, regular flights were established from London to far-flung corners of the British Empire like Singapore, Hong Kong, Khartoum, Kenya and Cape Town.

[36] While London remained fairly prosperous relative to the rest of Britain during the interwar years, their economy still experienced an inevitable decline.

[37] Another major aspect that helped fuel the economy was the Pax Britannica, which brought business through an increase in shipping, imports, and even investments.

[36] And while these economic tactics were ultimately successful for all of Britain, London still had to endure rising unemployment and was forced to adapt its workforce.

[38] A major reason why unemployment didn't get too high during the interwar years was due to the significant increase of women in the workforce.

[39] "At the end of the first world war the combination of pent-up consumer demand, high money income, a large volume of liquid or near-liquid assets and a backlog of investment fuelled a boom in economic activity which lasted roughly one year, from March 1919 to April 1920".

He designed the Metropolitan Green Belt around the suburbs and worked to clear slums, build schools, and reform public assistance.

The Communist Party of Great Britain won a seat in the House of Commons, and the far-right British Union of Fascists received extensive support.