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Smithfield in the 19th and 20th Century.
Charles Dickens wrote of the Old market in Oliver Twist in 1838: ‘It
was market morning. The ground was covered nearly ankle deep with filth
and mire; and a thick steam perpetually rising from the reeking bodies
of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the
chimney tops, hung heavily above ... Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers,
boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled
together in a dense mass: the whistling of drovers, the barking of dogs,
the bellowing and plunging of beasts, the bleating of sheep, and the grunting
and squealing of pigs; the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, amd quarrelling
on all sides, the ringing of bells, and the roar of voices that issued
from every public house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping
and yelling; the hideous and discordant din that resounded from every
corner of the market; and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures
constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng,
rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene which quite confused the
senses.’
Max Schlesinger describes similar scenes in ‘Saunterings in and
about London’, written in 1853 when the Old live animal Market was
in its final two years at Smithfield. After the 1852 Smithfield Market
Removal Act was passed the live cattle market was relocated to a new site
at Copenhagen Fields in Islington in 1855. The dead meat trade from Newgate
Market was transferred to Smithfield which was subsequently designated
as a meat, poultry and fish market.
‘… to the north there is the provoking, broad, impertinent
extent of old Smithfield, the notorious cattle-market of London, the greatest
cattle-market in the world, the dirtiest of all the dirty spots which
disgrace the fair face of the capital of England.
This immense open place, or more properly speaking, this immense conglomeration
of a great many small open places, with its broad open street market,
is covered all over with wooden compartments and pens, such as are usual
on the sheep-farms of the continent. Each of these pens is large enough
to accommodate a moderate sized statue; each of them must, on Mondays
and Fridays, accommodate an ox and a certain number of cattle, pigs, or
sheep. If by a miracle all these wretched animals were converted into
marble or bronze, surely after thousands of years, the nations of the
earth would journey to Smithfield to study the character of this our time
in that vast field of monuments. But since such a poetical transformation
has not taken place, the appearance of that quarter of the town is curious
but not agreeable.
Surrounded by dirty streets, lanes, courts, and alleys, the haunts
of poverty and crime, Smithfield is infested not only with fierce and
savage cattle, but also with the still fiercer and more savage tribes
of drivers and butchers. On market-days the passengers are in danger of
being run over, trampled down, or tossed up by the drivers or “beasts”;
at night, rapine and murder prowl in the lanes and alleys in the vicinity;
and the police have more trouble with this part of the town than with
the whole of Brompton, Kensington, and Bayswater. The crowding of cattle
in the centre of the town is an inexhaustible source of accidents. Men
are run down, women are tossed, children are trampled to death. But these
men, women, and children, belong to the lower classes. Persons of rank
or wealth do not generally come to Smithfield early in the morning, if
indeed, they ever come there at all.
For years Smithfield has denounced been by the press and in Parliament.
The Tories came in and went out; so did the Whigs. But neither of the
two great political parties could be induced to set their faces against
the nuisance. The autonomy of the city, moreover, deprecated anything
like government intervention, for Smithfield is a rich source of revenue;
the market dues, the public-house rents, and the traffic generally, represent
a heavy sum. In the last year only, the Lords and Commons of England have
pronounced the doom of Smithfield. The cattle market is to be abolished.
But when? That is the question —for its protectors are sure to come
forward with claims of indemnity, and other means of temporisation; and
the choice of a fitting locality, on the outskirts of the town, will most
likely take some years. For we ought not to forget that in England everything
moves slowly, with the exception of machinery and steam. Smithfield and
its history are instances of the many dark sides of self-government. Great
joy there would be in London, if Smithfield, as Sodom of old, were consumed
with fire; but the whole of London would have been urged to resistance
if the government had presumed, on its own responsibility, to interfere
with Smithfield.'
After the Old Market was closed the City of London obtained an Act of
Parliament (The Metropolitan Meat and Poultry Market Act of 1860), allowing
the construction of new buildings on the Smithfield site. Work began in
1866 on the two main sections of the market, the East and West Buildings.
These buildings were built above railway lines which had newly connected
London to every other part of the country, enabling meat to be delivered
directly to the market.
The buildings, designed by City Architect Sir Horace Jones, were commissioned
in 1866 and completed in November 1868 at a cost of £993,816. The
Metropolitan Meat & Poultry Act also authorised the development of
the Poultry Market which opened in 1875. This building was subsequently
destroyed by a major fire in 1958 and was replaced by the current building
in 1962. Further buildings were added to the market in later years, the
General Market in 1883 and the Annexe Market in 1888.
Sir Horace Jones was born in 1819, he is well know for his work as Architect
for the Corporation of the City of London from 1864 to 1887. His works
included the restoration of the Great Hall at the Guildhall in 1866, London
markets, including Smithfield 1866, Billingsgate, 1875 and Leadenhall
in 1881, and Tower Bridge which was completed after his death in 1887.
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