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London

Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News correspondents capture the mood of World War One's European capitals. Emma Jane Kirby discusses 1914 London, aided by Macdonald Gill's new Wonderground Tube map.

Stepping back in time, Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News correspondents present a personal perspective on principal cities of the major European powers that fought the First World War. In this Essay, Emma Jane Kirby considers the capital of the largest contemporary modern maritime empire: London.

To today's listeners some of Londoners' concerns a century ago will seem extraordinarily familiar. Complaints about the Tube were as frequent and heartfelt then as they are today. To try and divert travellers from their misery, Macdonald Gill - the brother of sculptor and designer Eric Gill - was commissioned to produce a "Wonderground" map. It was intended to amuse them as they waited for their trains which were infrequent, often dirty and overcrowded.

The map's whimsical illustrations - together with Cockney asides put in the mouths of some of the invented characters - captured the city's above-ground, pre-war character. It evoked the zeitgeist which George Bernard Shaw simultaneously reflected on stage in "Pygmalion" - and led to a subsequent commission to design a theatreland map during the First World War.

Emma Jane Kirby considers the idea of Britain which London was presenting to both the wider world and Britons themselves, and she assesses how far these attitudes still resonate today.

Producer Simon Coates.

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15 minutes

Last on

Fri 4 Sep 2015 22:45

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  • Fri 10 Jan 2014 22:45
  • Fri 4 Sep 2015 22:45

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