It is not my purpose here to narrate the full socio-political context of London Bridge but a few details will give a flavour of the loaded meaning of the structure in the opening decades of the nineteenth century.8 London comprised the cities of London and Westminster on the north side of the Thames and the Borough of Southwark on the south bank of the river. The City of London was a discrete entity within the metropolis. It represented the financial and commercial interests of the capital and the country. The Corporation of London administered the business activities and acted as a kind of local government with the Lord Mayor as its principal official. And the public performance of institutional rituals underpinned the Corporation of London’s local hegemony and the national significance of the City. The ritual and public performance which surrounded the ceremonial laying of a building’s foundation stone were used to ensure that London Bridge remained firmly identified with the City. The foundation stone for the new bridge was laid on 1 June 1825 by the Lord Mayor. The procession for the ceremony began at the Guildhall, the offices of the corporation, and the mayor used a ceremonial trowel bearing the arms of The Bridge House Committee and The Corporation of London. ‘Ownership’ of the project was further expressed as the City’s Sword and Mace were placed crossways on the foundation stone. At the moment when the stone was declared laid the Lord Mayor remarked the bridge ‘would reflect credit upon the inhabitants, prove an ornament to the Metropolis and redound the honour of the Corporation’.
The relationship between central government, based in the City of Westminster, and the City of London was complex. The civic pride and the financial autonomy of the City of London’s institutions, which covered all manner of trades as well as banking, gave it a sense of independent identity. This was perhaps best typified in the office of the Lord Mayor who had no equivalent elsewhere and who enjoyed near regal status within the protocols of London political life. But Westminster had begun to overshadow the City as national government became a more effective and powerful force. However, the parliament at Westminster was made up of only the very upper end of society – the ruling elite. The City, although represented in this body, comprised mainly middle and merchant classes who stood outside of the area of national government because of their social caste. This led to social friction between the cities of London and Westminster in the years directly preceding the 1832 Reform Act which heralded the beginning of the enfranchisement of the middle classes.
The opening of the New London Bridge took place on 1 August 1831 when the tension between the cities of London and Westminster was at its height. Only the previous November fears for royal safety in the City had meant the king did not attend the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, as was the time – honoured custom. The King, William IV and Queen Adelaide did, however, attend the ceremony for the opening of the New London Bridge. But the proceedings and celebratory banquet were confined to the space of the bridge and the procession, led by William IV, to celebrate this important and highly significant entranceway to the metropolis and the City exited rather than entered it. On declaring the bridge open the king gave credit to the Corporation in his remark that ‘it was one of the magnificent improvements for which the City London was renowned’.
My story ended there – the future of London Bridge remained unexamined and unquestioned, despite my privileged position as an historian with the benefit of hindsight on my side. The sets of social and political relationships I invested in the bridge continue to be forceful – the City of London remains an essential element of the economic life of Britain, despite the political predominance of Westminster. The pageantry and tradition also remains a significant part of its identity – the Lord Mayor’s Parade and the Mansion House Speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the economic state of the country are still important ritualized events that predate even my nineteenth-century focus. Alongside this the representational and symbolic function of a piece of road that stretches over water also remains potent. Indeed, the power of ‘London Bridge’ as a symbolic site was such that in the 1960s when the nineteenth-century bridge finally began to collapse under its own weight and that of the ever-increasing London traffic, it was considered a saleable item. Not as granite for recycling, but as a monument or ‘antique’ of cultural value.9