Eric Banton’s appeal to the ‘scene of varied and ever-changing life’ at Bank, the ‘kaleidoscopic procession of pedestrians’, echoes this exaltation of shared space. Theorists considered the class distinctions in carriages to be a ‘baleful possibility’, and painted the jumble of passengers on classless trains as a ‘living mosaic of all the fortunes, positions, characters, manners, customs, and modes of dress’. This is echoed in the British press response to the electrified tubes: London was achieving ‘technological equality’ in its advanced transport system open to all.
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Though technological change appears to overshadow social, Haewon Hwang’s characterisation of the Underground as a ‘democratising force’ relates Marxist readings of space to London’s newfound accessibility. Many contemporary reports gloss over the fare in favour of lauding the ‘new, comfortable, lightsome, and up-to-date London’ ushering in the twentieth century. The carriages originally intended for first class passengers had luxurious upholstery, where others had basic rattan and signs urging passengers not to spit. The uninviting ‘sardine box railway’ was a precursor to the CLR, which carried passengers between Bank and Shepherd’s Bush as what is now part of the Central Line. The C&SLR was distinctly modern: it was the first deep-level tube – constructed using a tunnelling ‘shield’ rather than subsurface cut-and-cover – and, perhaps most importantly, powered by electricity. The C&SLR was the first line to adopt classless carriages, eschewing the preceding futile ‘parody of the Victorian class system’.
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The ‘cosmopolitan throng’ of the CLR suggests it was a modernist utopia that transgressed from the norms of social segregation in fact, class consciousness haunted the Underground despite social and technological innovation.
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The Underground served ‘both the bowler hat and the cloth cap brigades’ in catering for the Victorian leisure class and offering early morning workmen’s fares. Wells’ The Time Machine: the Underground was middle-class infrastructure inhabiting a working-class space, creating a ‘threshold space, an underground masquerading as a world above’. The vertical conception of the city mirrors the spatial hierarchy of lower and upper classes, illustrated in H.G. flat fare of the City and South London Railway (C&SLR) in 1890 and Central London Railway (CLR) in 1900. When the Metropolitan Railway opened in 1863, passengers were able to choose a class of ticket in the model of established rail custom, which prevailed until the 2d. The London Underground, by virtue of being subterranean, was a socially ambiguous space in Victorian London. But did it make the tube the ‘great leveller’ it was hoped to be?
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Removed Tts_version 1.The late Victorian era saw carriage classes scrapped on the London Underground. OL9519699W Page_number_confidence 91.81 Pages 234 Ppi 300 Republisher_date 20190208203111 Republisher_operator Republisher_time 3112 Scandate 20190208091141 Scanner Scanningcenter cebu Source Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 08:31:18 Bookplateleaf 0010 Boxid IA1638703 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier