The Children's Book of London

The Natural History Museum at South Kensington is a large building, and it is newer than the British Museum and not so gloomy. It is built of different sorts of yellow brick, an...

There are two great cathedrals in London called Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's. Westminster is much the older of the two, for, as you have heard, St. Paul's was burnt down in...

If you go to the Zoological Gardens you ought to be a good walker and not easily tired. The animals are in cages, but they are not all close together; there are long stretches o...

Has it ever occurred to you that money must be made somewhere? We do not find it ready made in the earth or growing on trees; and if you think a little, that could not be, for e...

The story of Charles I. is one of the most dreadful in English history. It seems impossible to believe that so many of the English people could stand calmly round and watch thei...

Sir Thomas More belongs entirely to London, because he was born there, he lived there, and he died there, so that his story cannot be missed out. But it is a story that is in so...

Of all the awful calamities that have befallen London, there is none more awful than the Great Plague, which happened when Charles II., son of King Charles I., was on the throne...

If anyone were staying in London for the first time, what do you suppose he or she would want to see most? It would depend on the character and age of that person. If it were a...

When I asked a little girl who was visiting London for the first time if it was like what she had expected, she said, 'No,' and when I asked how it differed from the idea she ha...

There once lived a girl who was called Queen of England for twenty days, but who was never crowned; who lived a good and innocent life, yet was beheaded when she was only sixtee...

I think I heard someone ask for stories, and there are many stories connected with London, though they are generally rather sad ones. There was once a boy who became Edward V.,...

We are now not far from the monkey house, where there are great cages the height of a room, with bars filled in by wire to prevent the monkeys from getting their little hands th...

There are seven millions of people in London. That does not give any idea of the real number, but if you were to begin now and count hard for three days and nights, you would no...

Now, we have seen something of the children who live in London, and it is time to try to think a little of what London itself is like. As I have said, the boys and girls who liv...

Nearly all the people condemned to be beheaded at the Tower were executed on Tower Hill, which lies outside the walls; only a few who were of royal birth or especially favoured...

To begin with, the streets of London are not paved with gold; but I need not have said that, for nowadays the very youngest child knows it. It was Dick Whittington who first ima...

In the last chapter I said something about the King's palace. One of the first things that foreigners ask when they come to London is, 'Where does the King live?' and when they...

This is to be a chapter about all sorts of odd things that cannot be fitted in anywhere else. For instance, have any of you heard about the Messenger Boys? If not, I think that...

Of course all London children must go to school or be taught at home, just as all country children are. And there is nothing very interesting in the ordinary schools in London,...

We have seen children rich and children poor, children at work and children at play, but we have not yet seen any of the poor little children who cannot run about as others do,...

In the last chapter I spoke about the young nobles who played with the little princes, and of their sports. In this chapter I will try to explain how very different the lives of...

Have you ever heard of the Dogs' Home? It is for all the poor lost dogs that the policemen find in the streets of London. Once upon a time there was a very naughty little dog ca...

London is so large that it takes a long time to get from one end to the other, and the men who go down to the City for their work and come back every day want means of getting a...

took great care of him, and presently he began to get better. I must tell you that on the very place where the Sanctuary used to stand is now a large hospital called the Westmin...

There is no need to tell anyone who lives in the country what happens on the fifth of November, for they are sure to know well. The beautiful fireworks, with their streams of co...

The British Museum is a very wonderful place, so wonderful that few people understand what they see there. They wander along the corridors looking vaguely at the cases of precio...

We have now seen a good deal of London, and know something about it; but there are a few facts that do not come very well into any of the preceding chapters, and so to end up I...