THE ORIGIN OF LONDON

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6807, 10 January 1929, Page 2

THE ORIGIN OF LONDON

DATED IN HISTORICAL TIMES. Beneath the sombre title of “An Inventory" or Roman remains, the Royal Historical Monuments Commission has issued a volume of matchless interest. It deals with the origin of the City of London, carrying atuhority. that none can gainsay. The earliest chroniclers, zealous for London’s renown, would allow it an tntiquity equal to, if not greater, than that of Rome. It was New Troy; Brute founded the city upon the Thames Bank; and after Brute came shadowy native kings like Lud and Belius and many more. Archaeology has swept all such legends aside, and searching out evidence has brought the date of London intoliistorical times The myth of a primitive lake settlement built upon piles, has vanished into thin air. London is not old as St. Albans and Colchester are old. Both these cities wore tribal capitals. St. Albans was the objective of Caesar’s raid upon Britain in B.C. 54. Prom thero Cunobelin, a British king in the early part of the first century of the Christian era, transfered his seat of Government to Colchester. London’s site ,far inland upon a navigable river, seemed favourable for the entry of Continental trade with both those places, and it was not unnatural that credit should be given to Cunobelin— Shakespeare’s Cymbelinc —as the city’s founder.

The Historical Monuments Commission will have none of this (says the Daily Telegraph). They- visualise London as in origin a landing stage, or bridgehead, but its service was given to Imperial Rome. In brief ,our first glimpse of London is as an entrepot of the new Roman province. The Emperor Claudius sent in his legions in A.D. 43; the struggle with the native Britons at first was fierce, but as early as A .D. 61 London, as pictured by Tacitus, had become “crowdcde with traders and a great centre for commerce. ’’ That was a remarkable transformation in so short a period, and though Rome’s highest honours were long withheld, London, when rebuilt after its pillage and devastation by Doudicca’s hordes, never looked back. It is an origin of which the world’s greatest city to-day may be justly proud. Stable government, security at sea for the passage of trade, ample communication with the hinterland by her marvellous road system, and contact with Continental culture —those were Rome's gifts upon which the city flourished increasingly £or nearly four centuries.