LONDON, JACK (1876-1916), American novelist, was born at San Francisco Jan. 12 1876 and educated at the university of California. He was a born adventurer, going to sea at the age of 17 and serving before the mast as A.B. He went with the first rush to Klondike in 1897 and tramped across the States and Canada, being in gaol more than once as a vagabond. In 1904 he went to Japan as war correspondent and in 1914 to Mexico in the same capacity. In 1906 he started on a voyage round the world in a soft, ketch-rigged yacht and disappeared for two years. His novels, for the most part published first in London, reflect his wild adventurous life, the best known being The Son of the Wolf (1900); The Call of the Wild (1903); Moon Face (1906); Martin Eden (1909); South Sea Tales (1912), and his last, The Little Lady of the Big House (1916). He died at Glen Ellen, Cal., Nov. 22 1916.
See The Book of Jack London (1921), by his wife Charmian London.
LONDON (see 16.938), the capital of the British Empire, was still in 1921 the largest city in the world, surpassing its nearest competitor (Greater New York) by at least one and a half mil- lion souls. The Metropolitan Police District has a radius of 15 m. from Charing Cross (area about 692 sq. m.)., but it does Dot include the City of London (area 658 ac.), which has its own police force. The area of the administrative county of London, Which coincides with that within the registrar-general's tables of mortality, is about 117 sq. m. ; by the Representation of the People Act of 1918 it included the whole of the Metropolitan Parliamentary Divisions, as well as the 28 Metropolitan Bor- oughs and the City. The London main drainage area is 148-6 Sq. m. in extent. Water London has an area of 561-4 sq. m.
- The multiplication and electrification of suburban railways
and the extraordinary development of the motor-omnibus and the private motor-car have greatly increased the extent of what may be called the practicable area of suburban London. An interesting development is the Hampstead Garden Suburb, at Golders Green, on the N. side of London, in which every house stands in its own garden and the number of houses is limited to eight to the acre. The pre-war rents varied from 33. 3d. a week to 350 a year. About 2,000 houses have been erected.
The Unemployment (Relief Works) Act of 1920, largely designed for the benefit of ex-service men, enabled entry to be made upon land for new roads at seven days' notice. Under this Act no fewer than nine great arterial roads had been taken in hand in 1921 by highway authorities with the assistance of the Ministry of Transport (which absorbed the old Road Board). These were the Eltham Bye Pass, the Shooters Hill Bye Pass, the South Circular Rd. (through Woolwich, etc.), the North Circular Rd. (through Willesden, Hendon, etc.), the Western Avenue (through Hammersmith), the Eastern Avenue (across the Lea Marshes), the new Cambridge Rd. (starting at Totten- ham), the Barking Bye Pass, and the new Chertsey Rd. The Croydon Bye Pass and the Brentford Bye Pass were begun somewhat earlier. There were in 1921 over 2,200 m. of streets in the county of London, maintained and kept in good order at a total cost of at least 3,000,000 per annum. Street improve- ments of more than local importance are generally carried out by the London County Council.
The only new bridge over the Thames is Southwark bridge, which was opened for traffic on June 6 1921. It has five arches and is 13 ft. wider than the old one.
The Woolwich tunnel, connecting N. and S. Woolwich and consisting of an iron tube 327 yd. long and n ft. in diameter, was opened in 1912 at a cost of 85,862. It is intended as a supplement to the free ferry (still used by vehicles), which is subject to interference from fogs. In 1920 the daily average of passengers using this tunnel was about 28,000, not far short of double the number using the Greenwich tunnel. Blackwall tunnel is traversed daily by about 2,000 vehicles. Rotherhithe tunnel was closed from 1915 to 1918, but its daily average in 1919 was about 1,500 vehicles.
Architecture. During 1910-21 comparatively few additions of importance were made to the architectural glories of London; but it is, perhaps, more strange that the interminable series of
aerial bombardments to which it was subjected during the World War left practically no trace on any buildings of public interest. There was really almost nothing to show that London was besieged from the air for four years. The fine old Flemish windows in the chapel of Lincoln's Inn were indeed shattered by a Zeppelin bomb on Oct. 13 1915; but this loss is, perhaps, counterbalanced by the discovery of an unknown Elizabethan facade near St. Bartholomew's church, brought to light by the concussion of another bomb in the same year.
Such new buildings as call for mention here weie mainly erected in connexion with schemes of improvement initiated before the World War. The extensive clearances made in and to the N. of the Strand in 1899-1905, chiefly to provide a new approach to Holborn, opened up the view of St. Mary-le-Strand and St. Clement Danes, and created the handsome crescent of Aldwych and the broad new thoroughfare of Kingsway. Among the edifices already erected in the former are Australia House (1911-18), the imposing London headquarters of the Commonwealth of Australia; the Marconi House, and the Gaiety theatre (elevation by Norman Shaw). The Bush House, close by, designed by Harvey Corbett, architect of the Bush building in New York, illustrates (with some restrictions as to height) the merits of American commercial architecture. The substantial buildings of Kingsway belong mainly to the domain of architectural engineering. Prominent among them are the Kodak building and the large office of the Public Trustee (1916). The Wesleyan Central Hall in Westminster is a huge domed building by Lanchester and Rickard (1911), with a fine staircase. Not far off is the Middlesex Guildhall, a Gothic building by J. S. Gibson (1913). The new Ministries of Education, Health, Trade and Works were designed by J. M. Brydon in an Italian Renaissance style and completed in 1919. Across the river, at the other end of Westminster bridge, stands the new London County Hall, designed by Ralph Knott in a Renaissance style. It is one of the largest buildings of modern times, having nine storeys and a river facade of 750 feet. In the City is the new General Post Office (1910), a rcenforced concrete building by Sir Henry Tanner. The Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall was built in 1911 by Mewes & Davis, in a somewhat florid French Renaissance style. Among commercial buildings of importance are the large extension of Selfridge's store by Sir J. Burnet (1921); the extension of Whiteley's in Queen's Rd., Bayswater; the new offices of the Port of London Authority (by T. E. Cooper) and the Metropolitan Water Board (by H. Austen Hall, 1920).
Monuments and Memorials. On Nov. n 1920, the second anniversary of the Armistice after the World War, in the middle of the roadway of Whitehall, was unveiled the Cenotaph, commemorating in dignified simplicity the " Glorious Dead of 1914-18." It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Other war memorials include one to Edith Cavell (by Frampton) near Trafalgar Sq., one to London's soldiers (by Sir Aston Webb) in front of the Royal Exchange, and the Monument of Belgium's Gratitude (by J. Rousseau and Sir R. Blomfield) on the Victoria Embankment. In front of Buckingham Palace is the elaborate National Memorial to Queen Victoria, designed by Sir Aston Webb, the sculptures by Sir Thomas Brock. To provide a suitable background for this monument the facade of the E. wing of Buckingham Palace was rebuilt by Sir Aston Webb, while the Mall was widened to provide a " triumphal avenue " to the massive Admiralty arch. Near Westminster Abbey has been erected a replica of St. Gaudens' famous Chicago statue of Abraham Lincoln; and a replica of Houdon's statue of George Washington has been set up near the National Gallery. On the top of the Green Park arch is a fine group of Peace in her quadriga, by Adrian Jones (1912). On the Horse Guards Parade are statues of Lord Wolseley (by Goscombe John) and Lord Roberts (by H. Bates); and similar monuments to Lord Kitchener and Lord Fisher are to follow. Statues of Florence Nightingale (1913) and Captain Scott, the Arctic navigator (1915), have been erected in Waterloo Place; and here, too, is the monument to Edward VII., by Bertram MacKennal (1921).
