Hans Sloane
His name was used for streets and places such as Hans Place, Hans Crescent and Sloane Square in London, and to Sir Hans Sloane Square in his birthplace, Killyleagh. Sloane was born on 16 April 1660 at Killyleagh in County Down and he was the seventh son of Alexander Sloane, agent for James Hamilton, second Viscount Claneboye and first Earl of Clanbrassil. Sloanes family had migrated from Ayrshire in Scotland, but settled in the north of Ireland under James I and his father died when he was six years old. As a youth, Sloane collected objects of natural history and other curiosities and this led him to the study of medicine, which he went to London, where he studied botany, materia medica and pharmacy. His collecting habits made him useful to John Ray and Robert Boyle, after four years in London he travelled through France, spending some time at Paris and Montpellier, and stayed long enough at the University of Orange-Nassau to take his MD degree there in 1683. He returned to London with a collection of plants and other curiosities, of which the former were sent to Ray.
Sloane was elected to the Royal Society in 1685, at the same time attracted the notice of Thomas Sydenham, who gave him valuable introductions to practice. Jamaica was fast emerging as a source of profit to British merchants based on the cultivation of sugar. He became secretary to the Royal Society in 1693, and edited the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for twenty years, Sloane married Elizabeth Langley Rose, the widow of Fulke Rose of Jamaica, and daughter of alderman John Langley. They had three daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, and one son, Hans, of the four children only Sarah and Elizabeth survived infancy. Sarah married George Stanley of Paultons and Elizabeth married Charles Cadogan, Sloane encountered cacao while he was in Jamaica, where the locals drank it mixed with water, though he is reported to have found it nauseating. Many recipes for mixing chocolate with spice, sugar, after returning from Jamaica, Sloane may have devised his own recipe for mixing chocolate with milk, though if so, he was not the first.
By the 1750s, a Soho grocer named Nicholas Sanders claimed to be selling Sloanes recipe as a medicinal elixir, by the nineteenth century, the Cadbury Brothers sold tins of drinking chocolate whose trade cards invoked Sloanes recipe. His practice as a physician among the classes was large, fashionable. He served three successive sovereigns, Queen Anne, George I and George II, in 1716, Sloane was created a baronet, making him the first medical practitioner to receive a hereditary title. In 1719 he became president of the Royal College of Physicians, in 1722, he was appointed physician-general to the army, and in 1727 first physician to George II. In 1727 he succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as president of the Royal Society and he was a founding governor of Londons Foundling Hospital, the nations first institution to care for abandoned children. Sloanes fame is based on his judicious investments rather than what he contributed to the subject of science or even of his own profession
Edward Burne-Jones
Burne-Joness early paintings show the heavy inspiration of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but by the 1860s Burne-Jones was discovering his own artistic voice. In 1877, he was persuaded to show eight oil paintings at the Grosvenor Gallery and these included The Beguiling of Merlin. The timing was right, and he was taken up as a herald, Edward Coley Burne Jones was born in Birmingham, the son of a Welshman, Edward Richard Jones, a frame-maker at Bennetts Hill, where a blue plaque commemorates the painters childhood. He attended Birminghams King Edward VI grammar school from 1844 and the Birmingham School of Art from 1848 to 1852, before studying theology at Exeter College, at Oxford he became a friend of William Morris as a consequence of a mutual interest in poetry. The members of the Brotherhood read John Ruskin and Tennyson, visited churches, at this time Burne-Jones discovered Thomas Malorys Le Morte dArthur which was to be so influential in his life. In February 1857, Rossetti wrote to William Bell Scott In 1856 Burne-Jones became engaged to Georgiana Georgie MacDonald and she was training to be a painter, and was the sister of Burne-Joness old school friend.
The couple married in 1860, after which she made her own work in woodcuts, Georgiana bore a son, Philip, in 1861. A second son, born in the winter of 1864 while Georgiana was gravely ill with scarlet fever, the family soon moved to 41 Kensington Square, and their daughter Margaret was born there in 1866. In 1867 Burne-Jones and his family settled at the Grange, an 18th-century house set in a garden in North End, Fulham. During these difficult years Georgiana developed a friendship with Morris. Morris and Georgie may have been in love, but if he asked her to leave her husband, in the end, the Burne-Joneses remained together, as did the Morrises, but Morris and Georgiana were close for the rest of their lives. His troubled son Philip, who became a portrait painter. His adored daughter Margaret married John William Mackail, the friend and biographer of Morris and their children were the novelists Angela Thirkell and Denis Mackail. In an edition of the magazine, Chums, an article on Burne-Jones stated that. his pet grandson used to be punished by being sent to stand in a corner with his face to the wall.
One day on being sent there he was delighted to find the wall prettily decorated with fairies, flowers and his indulgent grandfather had utilised his talent to alleviate the tedium of his favourites period of penance. Burne-Jones once admitted that after leaving Oxford he found himself at five-and-twenty what he ought to have been at fifteen and he had had no regular training as a draughtsman, and lacked the confidence of science. Many are pen-and-ink drawings on vellum, exquisitely finished, of which his Waxen Image is one of the earliest and best examples, although the subject and manner derive from Rossettis inspiration, it is not the hand of a pupil merely, but of a potential master. This was recognized by Rossetti himself, who before long avowed that he had nothing more to teach him
Charles II of England
Charles II was king of England and Ireland. He was king of Scotland from 1649 until his deposition in 1651, Charles IIs father, Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, Cromwell became virtual dictator of England and Ireland, and Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. A political crisis followed the death of Cromwell in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he was received in London to public acclaim, after 1660, all legal documents were dated as if he had succeeded his father as king in 1649. Charless English parliament enacted laws known as the Clarendon Code, designed to shore up the position of the re-established Church of England, Charles acquiesced to the Clarendon Code even though he favoured a policy of religious tolerance. The major foreign policy issue of his reign was the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
In 1670, he entered into the treaty of Dover. Louis agreed to aid him in the Third Anglo-Dutch War and pay him a pension, Charles attempted to introduce religious freedom for Catholics and Protestant dissenters with his 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, but the English Parliament forced him to withdraw it. In 1679, Titus Oatess revelations of a supposed Popish Plot sparked the Exclusion Crisis when it was revealed that Charless brother, the crisis saw the birth of the pro-exclusion Whig and anti-exclusion Tory parties. Charles sided with the Tories, following the discovery of the Rye House Plot to murder Charles and James in 1683, Charles dissolved the English Parliament in 1681, and ruled alone until his death on 6 February 1685. He was received into the Roman Catholic Church on his deathbed, Charless wife, Catherine of Braganza, bore no live children, but Charles acknowledged at least twelve illegitimate children by various mistresses. He was succeeded by his brother James, Charles II was born in St Jamess Palace on 29 May 1630.
His parents were Charles I and Henrietta Maria, Charles was their second son and child. Their first son was born about a year before Charles but died within a day, England and Ireland were respectively predominantly Anglican and Roman Catholic. At birth, Charles automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay, at or around his eighth birthday, he was designated Prince of Wales, though he was never formally invested. During the 1640s, when Charles was still young, his father fought Parliamentary, by spring 1646, his father was losing the war, and Charles left England due to fears for his safety. Charles I surrendered into captivity in May 1646, at The Hague, Charles had a brief affair with Lucy Walter, who falsely claimed that they had secretly married
Department store
A department store or magazine is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different product categories known as departments. In modern major cities, the department store made a appearance in the middle of the 19th century, and permanently reshaped shopping habits. Similar developments were under way in London, in Paris and in New York, customers check out near the front of the store or, alternatively, at sales counters within each department. Some are part of a chain of many stores, while others may be independent retailers. In the 1970s, they came under pressure from discounters. Since 2010, they have come under even heavier pressure from online stores such as Amazon, big-box stores and discount stores are modern equivalent of historical department stores. Before shopping malls, department stores were standalone, the origins of the department store lay in the growth of the conspicuous consumer society at the turn of the 19th century. As the Industrial Revolution accelerated economy expansion, the affluent middle-class grew in size, urbanized social group, sharing a culture of consumption and changing fashion, was the catalyst for the retail revolution.
One of the first department stores may have been Bennetts in Derby and it still stands to this day, trading in the same building. However, the first reliably dated department store to be established, was Harding, Howell & Co and it is fitted up with great taste, and is divided by glazed partitions into four departments, for the various branches of the extensive business, which is there carried on. Immediately at the entrance is the first department, which is appropriated to the sale of furs. The second contains articles of haberdashery of every description, muslins, gloves, &etc. The fourth is set apart for millinery and dresses, so there is no article of female attire or decoration. This venture is described as having all of the characteristics of the department store. This pioneering shop was closed down in 1820 when the partnership was dissolved. Department stores began large scale establishment in the 1840s and 50s, in France, the UK, all the major British cities had flourishing department stores by the mid-or late nineteenth century.
Increasingly, women became the major shoppers and middle-class households, Kendals in Manchester lays claim to being one of the first department stores and is still known to many of its customers as Kendals, despite its 2005 name change to House of Fraser. The Manchester institution dates back to 1836 but had been trading as Watts Bazaar since 1796, at its zenith the store had buildings on both sides of Deansgate linked by a subterranean passage Kendals Arcade and an art nouveau tiled food hall
Edwardian architecture
Edwardian architecture is an architectural style popular during the reign of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. Architecture from up to the year 1914 may be included in this style, Edwardian architecture is generally less ornate than high or late Victorian architecture, apart from a subset - used for major buildings - known as Edwardian Baroque architecture. The Victorian Society campaigns to preserve Edwardian Architecture, Decorative patterns were less complex, both wallpaper and curtain designs were more plain. Clutter, There was less clutter than in the Victorian era, ornaments were perhaps grouped rather than everywhere. And Victorian Art Nouveau Georgian Arts and Crafts Edwardian era Edwardian Baroque architecture Federation architecture Gray, A. S. Edwardian Architecture, the Edwardian House, the Middle-Class Home in Britain 1880-1914
Sloane Square tube station
Sloane Square is a London Underground station in Sloane Square. It is served by the District and Circle lines, between South Kensington and Victoria stations and is in Travelcard Zone 1, the entrance to the station is on the east side of Sloane Square. It is adjacent to the Royal Court Theatre and is the nearest station for Kings Road shopping, the Peter Jones department store and the Cadogan Hall. The station was opened on 24 December 1868 by the District Railway when the company opened the first section of its line between South Kensington and Westminster stations, the River was carried above the platform in a large iron pipe suspended from girders. On 1 February 1872, the DR opened a branch from its station at Earls Court to connect to the West London Extension Joint Railway to which it connected at Addison Road. From that date the Outer Circle service began running over the DRs tracks, the service was run by the North London Railway from its terminus at Broad Street in the City of London via the North London Line to Willesden Junction, the West London Line to Addison Road.
Due to financial problems, the DR extended only one further east. The service was operated jointly by the H&CR and the DR, on 30 June 1900, the Middle Circle service was withdrawn between Earls Court and Mansion House. On 31 December 1908 the Outer Circle service was withdrawn, in the late 1930s, the station building was rebuilt in the modern style and escalators were installed between the ticket hall and the platforms. The new station building did not last long as it was destroyed during World War II. A German bomb that fell in November 1940 killed 37 and injured 79 passengers on a train in the station and destroyed the hall, escalators. In 1949, the Metropolitan line operated Inner Circle route was given its own identity on the map as the Circle line. By 1951 the station had been rebuilt again in a style to the 1930s building. The arched glass roof was not replaced and the current station does not have the open atmosphere of the original. The office building above the entrance is a addition.
On 5 April 1960, Peter Llewelyn Davies, one of the Llewelyn Davies boys who were the inspiration for the boy characters of J. M, on 26 December 1973, a terrorist bomb exploded in the telephone kiosk in the booking office. The station has ticket halls, escalators, a Wifi service, vending machines and it has canopies over each platform. Sloane Square was going to be a stop on the long proposed Chelsea-Hackney line, however it is planned to be re-introduced in the next safeguarding of the line
Arts and Crafts movement
It stood for traditional craftsmanship using simple forms, and often used medieval, romantic, or folk styles of decoration. It advocated economic and social reform and was essentially anti-industrial and it had a strong influence on the arts in Europe until it was displaced by Modernism in the 1930s, and its influence continued among craft makers and town planners long afterwards. It was inspired by the ideas of architect Augustus Pugin, writer John Ruskin, the movement developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles, and spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and North America. It was largely a reaction against the perceived impoverished state of the arts at the time. The Arts and Crafts style emerged from the attempt to reform design, but it was as much a movement of social reform as design reform and its leading practitioners did not separate the two. The art historian Nikolaus Pevsner has said that exhibits in the Great Exhibition showed ignorance of basic need in creating patterns.
Owen Jones, for example, declared that Ornament, fiona MacCarthy says that unlike zealots like Gandhi, William Morris had no practical objections to the use of machinery per se so long as the machines produced the quality he needed. Morriss followers had differing views or changed their minds over time. C. R. Ashbee, for example, a figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement. At the time of his Guild of Handicraft, initiated in 1888, he said, We do not reject the machine, but we would desire to see it mastered. Morris insisted that the artist should be a working by hand and advocated a society of free craftspeople. Because craftsmen took pleasure in their work, he wrote, the Middle Ages was a period of greatness in the art of the common people. The treasures in our museums now are only the common used in households of that age. Medieval art was the model for much Arts and Crafts design and medieval life, before capitalism, the founders of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society did not insist that the designer should be the maker.
Peter Floud, writing in the 1950s, said that The founders of the Society, never executed their own designs, but invariably turned them over to commercial firms. The Arts and Crafts Movement was associated with socialist ideas in the persons of Morris, T. J. Cobden Sanderson, Walter Crane, Ashbee, in the early 1880s Morris was spending more of his time on socialist propaganda than on designing and making. Ashbee established a community of craftsmen, the Guild of Handicraft, in east London and those adherents who were not socialists, for example, Alfred Hoare Powell, advocated a more humane and personal relationship between employer and employee. Lewis Foreman Day, a successful and influential Arts and Crafts designer, was not a socialist either
Charing Cross
Charing Cross denotes the junction of Strand and Cockspur Street, just south of Trafalgar Square in central London. It gives its name to several landmarks, including Charing Cross railway station, Charing Cross is named after the Eleanor cross that stood on the site, in what was once the hamlet of Charing. The site of the cross has been occupied since 1675 by a statue of King Charles I. A loose Victorian replica of the cross, the Queen Eleanor Memorial Cross, was erected a short distance to the east outside the railway station. Until 1931, Charing Cross referred to the part of Whitehall between Great Scotland Yard and Trafalgar Square, at least one property retains a Charing Cross postal address, Drummonds Bank, on the corner of Whitehall and The Mall, which is designated 49 Charing Cross. Since the early 19th century, Charing Cross has often been regarded as the centre of London. Erect a rich and stately carved cross, Whereon her statue shall with glory shine, George Peele The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First The name of the area, Charing, is derived from the Old English word cierring, referring to a bend in the River Thames.
Folk etymology suggests the name derives from chère reine — dear queen in French — and this wooden sculpted cross was the work of the medieval sculptor, Alexander of Abingdon. It was destroyed in 1647 on the orders of Parliament during the Civil War, a 70 ft -high stone sculpture in front of Charing Cross railway station is a copy of the original cross. Erected in 1865, it is situated a few hundred yards to the east of the original cross and it was designed by the architect E. M. Barry and carved by Thomas Earp of Lambeth out of Portland stone, Mansfield stone and Aberdeen granite. It is not a replica, being more ornate than the original. A variation on the name appears to be Charygcrouche, near St Martin in the Fields, since 1675 the site of the cross has been occupied by a statue of King Charles I mounted on a horse. The site is recognised by convention as the centre of London for the purpose of indicating distances by road in favour of other measurement points. Charing Cross is marked on maps as a road junction.
Since 1 January 1931 this section of road has been designated part of the Whitehall thoroughfare, the cross has given its name to a railway station, a tube station, police station, hospital, a hotel, a theatre, and a music hall. Charing Cross Road the main route from the north was named after the railway station, at some time between 1232 and 1236, the Chapel and Hospital of St Mary Rounceval was founded at Charing. It occupied land at the corner of the modern Whitehall and into the centre of Northumberland Avenue and it was an Augustinian house, tied to a mother house at Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees. The house and lands were seized for the king in 1379, protracted legal action returned some rights to the prior, but in 1414, Henry V suppressed the alien houses
Christian Science
Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices belonging to the metaphysical family of new religious movements. It was developed in nineteenth-century New England by Mary Baker Eddy, the book became Christian Sciences central text, along with the Bible, and by 2001 had sold over nine million copies. Christian Science became the fastest growing religion in the United States, with nearly 270,000 members by 1936, Eddy described Christian Science as a return to primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing. There are key differences between Christian Science theology and that of other branches of Christianity, in particular, adherents subscribe to a radical form of philosophical idealism, believing that reality is purely spiritual and the material world an illusion. Between the 1880s and 1990s the avoidance of medical treatment led to the deaths of several adherents and others were prosecuted for, and in a few cases convicted of, manslaughter or neglect. Several periods of Protestant Christian revival nurtured a proliferation of new movements in the United States.
From the 1890s the liberal section of the movement became known as New Thought, the term metaphysical referred to the movements philosophical idealism, a belief in the primacy of the mental world. Adherents believed that phenomena were the result of mental states. The metaphysical groups became known as the movement because of their strong focus on healing. Medical practice was in its infancy, and patients regularly fared better without it and this provided fertile soil for the mind-cure groups, who argued that sickness was an absence of right thinking or failure to connect to Divine Mind. The movement traced its roots in the United States to Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, Mary Baker Eddy had been a patient of his, leading to debate about how much of Christian Science was based on his ideas. New Thought and Christian Science differed in that Eddy saw her views as a unique, Eddys idea of malicious animal magnetism marked another distinction, introducing an element of fear that was absent from the New Thought literature.
Reality for Eddy was purely spiritual, Christian Science leaders place their religion within mainstream Christian teaching, according to J. Gordon Melton, and reject any identification with the New Thought movement. Eddy was strongly influenced by her Congregationalist upbringing, in founding the Church of Christ, Scientist, in April 1879, she wrote that she wanted it to reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing. Later she suggested that Christian Science was a kind of second coming, in 1895, in the Manual of the Mother Church, she ordained the Bible and Science and Health as Pastor over the Mother Church. According to the tenets, adherents accept the inspired Word of the Bible as sufficient guide to eternal Life. Acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God, acknowledge His Son, one Christ, the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter, and man in Gods image and likeness. Christian Science theology differs in several respects from that of traditional Christianity
Henry Holland (architect)
Henry Holland was an architect to the English nobility. He was born in Fulham, where his father and his younger brother was Richard Holland, who changed his surname to Bateman-Robson and became an MP. Although Henry would learn a lot from his father about the practicalities of construction and Holland formed a partnership in 1771 and Henry Holland married Browns daughter Bridget on 11 February 1773 at St Georges, Hanover Square. In 1772 Sir John Soane joined Hollands practice in order to further his education, Holland paid a visit to Paris in 1787 which is thought to have been in connection with his design of the interiors at Carlton House. From this moment on his interior work owed less to the Adam style, Holland was a founder member in 1791 of the Architects Club, which included Thomas Hardwick as a signtory. In the 1790s he translated into English A. M, cointereauxs Traite sur la construction des Manufactures, et des Maisons de Champagne. He had got out of bed shortly before and inquired what the hour was, being told he said is was too early to rise and got into bed again.
He immediately fell into a fit, I was sent for, and a minute after I came to his bedside he breathed his last. He was buried at All Saints Church, Fulham, in a simple tomb, Bridget Holland his wife lived for another 17 years and was the main beneficiary of her husbands will. Of his sons, the elder Henry Jr remained a bachelor, the younger son, Colonel Lancelot, married Charlotte Mary Peters and they had fifteen children. Of Hollands five daughters, two married two brothers, Bridget to Daniel Craufurd and Mary Frances Holland to Major-General Robert Craufurd, commander of the Light Division during the Peninsular War, Bridget remarried to Sir Robert Wilmot of Chaddesden. The remaining daughters, Harriet and Caroline never married, Holland began his practice by designing Claremont House for Robert Clive, with his future father-in-law in 1771 and their partnership lasted until Browns death twelve years later. Claremont is of nine by five bays, of brick with stone dressings. The main feature on the front is the tetrastyle Corinthian pedimented portico.
This leads to the hall with red scagliola columns, these are arranged in an oval with the rectangular room. The drawing room has a plaster ceiling and marble fireplace with two caryatids. In 1771 he took a lease from Charles Cadogan, 2nd Baron Cadogan on his Chelsea estate and began the Hans Town development on 89 acres of open field and marsh. There he laid out parts of Knightsbridge and Chelsea, including Sloane Street and Sloane Square and these developments quickly became some of the most fashionable areas in greater London
The Blitz
By September 1940—two months into the battle—faulty German intelligence suggested that the Royal Air Force was close to defeat at the hands of the Luftwaffe. The German air fleets were ordered to attack London, thereby drawing up the last remnants of RAF Fighter Command into a battle of annihilation, Adolf Hitler and commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, sanctioned the change in emphasis on 6 September 1940. From 7 September 1940, one year into the war, London was systematically bombed by the Luftwaffe for 56 out of the following 57 days, on 15 September 1940, a large daylight attack against London was repulsed with significant German losses. Thereafter, the Luftwaffe gradually decreased daylight operations in favour of nocturnal attacks and industrial centres outside London were attacked. The main Atlantic sea port of Liverpool was bombed, the North Sea port of Hull, a convenient and easily found target or secondary target for bombers unable to locate their primary targets, was subjected to raids in the Hull Blitz during the war.
More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, by May 1941, the threat of an invasion of Britain had ended, and Hitlers attention turned to Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The bombing failed to demoralise the British into surrender or significantly damage the war economy, the eight months of bombing never seriously hampered British production and the war industries continued to operate and expand. The German offensives greatest effect was forcing the dispersal of aircraft production, British wartime studies concluded that cities generally took 10 to 15 days to recover when hit severely but exceptions like Birmingham took three months. The German air offensive failed for several reasons, discussions in OKL revolved around tactics rather than strategy. Poor intelligence on British industry and economic efficiency was a factor, in the 1920s and 1930s, air power theorists Giulio Douhet and Billy Mitchell espoused the idea that air forces could win wars, without a need for land and sea fighting.
It was thought there was no defence against air attack, particularly at night, enemy industry, seats of government and communications could be destroyed, taking away their means to resist. It was thought the bombing of residential centres would cause a collapse of civilian will, where the populace was allowed to show overt disapproval of the state, were thought particularly vulnerable. This thinking was prevalent in both the RAF and the United States Army Air Corps, the policy of RAF Bomber Command became an attempt to achieve victory through the destruction of civilian will and industry. In the Luftwaffe, there was a view of strategic bombing. OKL did not believe that air power alone could be decisive, contrary to popular belief, evidence suggests that the Luftwaffe did not adopt an official bombing policy in which civilians became the primary target until 1942. The vital industries and transport centres that would be targeted for shutdown were valid military targets and it could be claimed civilians were not to be targeted directly, but the breakdown of production would affect their morale and will to fight.
German legal scholars of the 1930s carefully worked out guidelines for what type of bombing was permissible under international law. Wever outlined five points of air strategy, To destroy the air force by bombing its bases and aircraft factories
Victoria Embankment
Victoria Embankment is part of the Thames Embankment, a road and river-walk along the north bank of the River Thames in London. It runs from the Palace of Westminster to Blackfriars Bridge in the City of London, the Victoria Embankments construction started in 1865 and was completed in 1870 under the direction of Joseph Bazalgette. It was a project of the Metropolitan Board of Works, the contractor for the work was Thomas Brassey. The original impetus was the need to provide London with a sewerage system. Another major consideration was the relief of congestion on the Strand, the project involved building out on to the foreshore of the River Thames, narrowing the river. The construction work required the purchase and demolition of much expensive riverside property, the cut-and-cover tunnel for the District Railway was built within the Embankment and roofed over to take the roadway. At ground level, in addition to the new roads, two gardens were laid out. One of these backs onto the government buildings of Whitehall, the gardens contain many statues, including a monument to Bazalgette.
The Victoria section was the most complex of the three sections and it was much larger, more complex and more significant to the metropolis than the other two and officially opened on 13 July 1870 by the Prince of Wales and Princess Louise. When people refer to the Embankment they are referring to that portion of it. The total cost of the construction of the Victoria Embankment is estimated to be £1,260,000, the total cost includes the cost of materials used in the construction of the embankment. Construction of the Victoria Embankment proved to be difficult because of the grandness of it, parliament was assured that three years would be ample time to complete the project, which did not hold to be true. They had a labour force along with issues of the architect and property appraiser securing all the wharves and other property needed for access. There was difficulty in acquiring contract requirement to access to steamboat landings at Westminster. In addition and money was lost in experimenting with a new type of cofferdam, in December 1878 Victoria Embankment became the first street in Britain to be permanently lit by electricity.
The light was provided by 20 Yablochkov candles powered by a Gramme DC generator,16 March 1879 the system was extended to 40 lamps and 10 October to 55 lamps. Previously the street had been lit by gas, and in June 1884, shell Mex House, the Savoy Hotel and Savoy Place are located between the Embankment and the Strand. London Underground stations along Victoria Embankment are Westminster, Charing Cross, the former Aldwych station was located nearby
