The Victorian Era

How Did London's Population Grow

Article · Cities & Entertainment · The Victorian Era, 1837–1901

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The population of London grew from about 950,000 in 1800 to over 6.5 million in 1900, an unprecedented increase that made London the largest city in the world by far. The growth was driven by the migration from the countryside, by the immigration from Ireland, by the immigration from the continent of Europe, and by the natural increase of the existing population. The size of the city at the end of the period is set out in How big was Victorian London?, and the East End in What was Jack the Ripper’s London like?.

The Migration from the Countryside

The migration from the countryside was the principal cause of London’s growth, and it was driven by the transformation of British agriculture, by the rise of urban industry, and by the new railways that made movement to the city easy. Agricultural depression, enclosure, and the mechanisation of farm work pushed labourers off the land, while the higher wages and the greater variety of the city drew them in. Millions of country people moved to the great cities of the period, particularly to London, to What was Victorian Manchester like?, to How did Birmingham grow in the Victorian era?, and to the great industrial towns of Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Midlands, the North East, South Wales, and the central belt of Scotland.

London’s case was distinctive among these destinations: the capital offered not factory work but an enormous market for domestic servants, builders, dockers, clerks, shop assistants, and tradesmen of every kind, and it drew migrants from every county of England.

The Immigration from Ireland

The immigration from Ireland was the second principal cause of London’s growth, driven by the great Irish famine of 1845–1852, by poverty and unemployment in Ireland, and by the evictions that followed the famine years. The famine, brought on by the repeated failure of the potato crop after 1845, was the most devastating in modern European history, and it drove well over a million Irish people to emigrate, principally to the United States and Canada, but also in great numbers to British cities — to London, to Manchester, to Liverpool, to Birmingham, to Edinburgh and Glasgow, and to the industrial and port towns of Lancashire and the west of Scotland.

The Irish immigrants in London settled predominantly in the East End and the riverside districts — in Whitechapel, St George in the East, Stepney, Bethnal Green, Bow, and Poplar, and south of the river in Southwark and Bermondsey — where casual work could be found in the docks, the markets, and the building trades.

The Immigration from the Continent

The immigration from the continent of Europe was the third principal cause of London’s growth, driven by poverty, by political upheaval, and above all by religious persecution in Eastern Europe. The European immigrants came chiefly from Germany, Poland, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, with smaller communities from France, Italy, and the Netherlands. They settled predominantly in the East End, above all in Whitechapel and Spitalfields, where the Jewish communities fleeing the Russian pogroms of the 1880s established themselves in the tailoring, cabinet-making, and boot-making trades.

Natural Increase

The natural increase of the population — the excess of births over deaths — was the fourth cause of the growth, and a particularly important one in the second half of the century. The improvement in infant mortality, the decline of the urban death rate as the sanitary reforms took effect, and the high birth rate of the working-class districts all contributed. By the 1880s, despite the migration and immigration, the majority of the population of London was born in the city.

The Census Figures

The decennial census, taken from 1801 onwards, recorded the growth in detail. The population of the London metropolitan area rose from about 1.0 million in 1801 to about 1.9 million in 1831, to about 2.4 million in 1851, to about 3.9 million in 1871, to about 5.6 million in 1891, and to about 6.5 million in 1901. The wider economic context of the migration is examined in Victorian Economy and Industrialization.