This is a partial image of panorama of London’s West End from Portland Place to Westminster Abbey, through Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. It was printed in sections pasted together and folded concertina style – the whole coming to some 22 feet in length. The panorama shows the frontages of buildings with street numbers and names and uses of commercial premises. The streets leading off are named and shown in perspective.
The mid-to-late Victorian period saw a huge growth in interest in novel maps of the urban environment. In addition to Sandeman’s huge effort here, there was the famous Reynolds’ Shilling Map – updated every year as the endpiece of a general London guidebook – and the London neighbourhood maps of John Tallis, which, like this one, presented buildings and landmarks so that they would be recognisable in real life by any passing tourist.
London Labour and the London Poor is a key work in the development of investigative journalism. Dr Mary L Shannon describes how Henry Mayhew conducted numerous interviews with street-sellers, sweepers and sewer-hunters, in order to share their stories with the reading public.
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