At the end of an incredibly quiet Hatton Garden sits a rather beautiful and unassuming building. It is old (the keystone says 1880) and decorative and it looks to the world like an office building that has always been an office building. But, in fact, it is a remnant of London’s long industrial past and a reminder that the City hasn’t always been banking, law and great glass and steel structures. In this article I again explore some of the misconceptions about the City that might help us challenge and re-evaluate our view of its permanence and perhaps its need and ability to change. 

For most of its history, the City was a powerhouse of industry and during the 17th and 18th centuries it was the biggest manufacturing centre in the entire country. The change came, of course, during the Industrial Revolution where the Northern cities such as Leeds and Manchester became the workshops of the world but that’s not to say that the City didn’t retain some of its manufacturing heritage in a surprising manner.

If one goes back far enough, you can see the signs of some industry in the City locale (which, of course, consisted of the vast majority of London). The most surprising is the tanning and leather business which has its marks all over the Square Mile. 

For those that have visited the famous tanning pits in Marrakesh it’s a bit of a stretch to imagine the same near Holborn but that was exactly what was happening the medieval ages. The leather industry formed a crucial part of early modern life and particularly that in the City. It was also a nasty, smelly industry that used dog faeces to soften the skins. So bad was the stink that the tanners were kicked out of the City and moved over the Bermondsey where they took advantage of the fresh (!) supply of water and easy access to the butchers across the river in Smithfield. If those sentences don’t make you accept without question that city living is now infinitely better, I don’t know what will.

Despite their exile, those involved with the leather industry kept their strong links to the City in the form of various livery companies that still exist, the Skinners’ and Leathersellers’ Company being perhaps the most famous. The latter has one of the most remarkable buildings I have ever seen in the City. Tucked away off Bishopsgate and behind a very grand gate indeed, sits an entire street ending in the Leathersellers’ hall. A remarkable remnant of a company set up in 1444 to regulate the sale of leather in the City and now doing some incredible charity work.

From 1463, all this leather was sold exclusively from Leadenhall Market. The building today is one of the most beautiful in London but it only came to be in 1881. Before that it consisted of three yards: one for beef, raw hides and leather, another for meat and the final one for herbs, fruits and vegetables. Slightly oddly, the most famous inhabitant of Leadenhall market was “Old Tom” a goose born in 1797 who, faced with the execution of 34,000 of his fellow birds in two days, made a desperate bid for freedom. He ably avoided capture and was given a reprieve and became the market’s mascot until he died in 1835 (at which point he laid in state at the market). 

Our very brief look at some of the heavy industry takes us back to at least the same century that the building in the introduction was erected. It was in this unassuming building that Hiram Maxim first developed the machine gun after being told by an American:

“Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others’ throats with greater facility”.

The irony of this small building on a quiet street being the invention place of such an instrument of death is difficult to take.

Guns that fired repeated bullets existed before Maxim (the most famous being the Gatling gun) but they were generally used as field pieces in the same way as cannon and all required an operator cranking to spin the barrels of the guns. The genius behind the new design was that it used recoil to both eject the spent cartridge and insert the new bullet, which allowed the firing of 600 shots a minute (something that was unheard of before the design formulated and tested in Hatton Garden).

The weapon became synonymous with European power in colonial battles (largely because of it’s incredible effectiveness against charging enemies). As Hilaire Belloc brutally put it:

“whatever happens, we have got

The Maxim gun, and they have not.”

What goes around often comes around and by Maxim’s death in 1916 all the major European powers had got reworked and improved machine guns which they used with devastating effect.

I do feel some sympathy for Maxim having given the gun his name and it being for what he inevitably is always remembered. He actually had an incredible spree of inventions including the first automated fire sprinkler and a very long and successful obsession with producing the world’s first flying machines. Most bizarrely this resulted in a captive flying machine that spins riders in a circle and swings riders outwards. It still exists at Blackpool pleasure beach virtually unchanged since it opened in 1904 – the oldest operating amusement ride in Europe. Perhaps a more fitting legacy for the man?

So, the remarkable City – home to our financial and legal district. Once centre of one of the grimmest industries humanity has ever produced, centre of weapons development and home to rampaging geese. Every time I sit down to write these articles, I am surprised and invigorated by the breath of human experience within the Square Mile but a reminder again that our view of the City is somewhat blinkered by what we know it to be now.