Preserving London: Urban Conservation and the London County Council (2012)

Undergraduate: Kelly Teagle

Faculty Advisor: Susan Pennybacker
Department: History

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The London County Council (LCC) played an important role in the early conservation movement of London in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The role of the government in preserving London reflected a shift in English society. The people of England increasingly viewed old relics of London as national possessions, and the traditional prioritization of private property rights slowly gave way to support for state intervention in conservation matters. By selectively choosing what was and was not worthy of preservation, the LCC shaped the public’s perception of London’s history and deliberately created a heritage for the city. However, this heritage was complicated by London’s dual role as the national capital of the United Kingdom and the imperial capital of the British Empire. There were fundamental disagreements about who could lay claim to London’s heritage. Some conservationists wished to preserve a specifically English heritage for the people of Great Britain, while others sought to preserve London for the benefit of people all around the world. Significantly, however, many conservationists of this time period did not think of London as part of the shared heritage of non-white colonials from South Africa or India but instead imagined it as the heritage of all white, English-speaking peoples of the world including Americans. The creation of London’s heritage was tied to issues of English identity and reflected anxiety about the changing nature of the British Empire.