The Lost World of London: A Gritty Look at the Trafalgar Square in the Early 1900s

Trafalgar Square in the early 1900s was nothing like the tourist-polished landmark visitors know today. Coal smoke from millions of household chimneys hung in the air and coated the stone monuments in a layer of dark soot. The smell was a mix of horse manure, damp wool, and engine exhaust. Nelson’s Column punched through the haze above it all, while the four bronze lions at its base sat watch over a scene of constant, noisy motion.

The streets around the square were a battlefield of competing traffic. Heavy horse-drawn omnibuses rattled over cobblestones alongside early motorbuses and sputtering private automobiles. The engines backfired without warning, startling horses mid-stride. There were no traffic lights — pedestrians simply took their chances, weaving between hooves and spinning wheels to get across.

With no traffic signals to impose order, the job of keeping vehicles moving fell to the police. Constables from Cannon Row stood at key points and directed the chaotic mix of cabs, omnibuses, and early motorcars by hand. It was a job that required nerves of steel.

Social class was on full display across the square’s pavements. Wealthy Londoners walked toward the National Gallery in tailored suits and wide-brimmed hats. Working-class men in flat caps swept the streets or hauled deliveries. Flower girls sat near the monuments with baskets of violets and roses, calling out prices in voices roughened by cold weather. Bootblacks knelt close by, buffing the leather shoes of businessmen until they gleamed against the surrounding grime.

Nelson’s Column itself was overdue for attention. By spring 1905, the column had not been cleaned since it was first erected in 1843 — over sixty years of London grime clung to its surface. The steeplejack firm of W. Larkins Co Ltd. took on the job, sending workers up the towering structure to scrub it down for the first time.

The square’s fountains were a focal point in warmer months. Children sailed toy boats in the wide basins on clearer days. In the summer of 1912, the fountains drew a more daring crowd — young women waded in despite a shortage of proper swimming costumes, though they kept their modesty intact.

The square was also a stage for politics and protest. On 29th April 1910, a suffragette stood outside Morley’s Hotel selling the newspaper *Votes for Women*, with the newly built Admiralty Arch visible behind her. The edition referenced comments by the Solicitor General — a pointed choice in a time when women’s right to vote was being actively fought for in the streets.

When war came, Trafalgar Square transformed completely. Army recruiting teams set up in the square during the early days of World War One, appealing to the crowds that gathered daily. The square became a place where the war effort was sold directly to Londoners.

By 1917, the square was being used to recruit women into the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, which had been formed on 7th July that year. WAAC recruiters set up tables in the open air, and by October 1917 a temporary building was erected on the square specifically to sign women up for the war effort.

On 26th November 1917, a military tank rolled into the square as part of a National War Bonds drive. The so-called “Tank Bank” drew massive crowds, with Londoners encouraged to invest in the war directly. It was a calculated piece of public persuasion — the physical presence of a weapon of war in the middle of the city made the front feel uncomfortably close.

In 1918, the square was turned into a replica of a French or Belgian frontline village. The fountains were drained and filled with mud. Twice a day, soldiers re-enacted an attack on enemy lines for the gathered crowds, and at the end of each performance, an appeal was made to buy War Bonds. The square had become a live propaganda stage.

Traffic management in the square eventually reached a breaking point. On 26th April 1926, a gyratory road system was officially introduced, forcing all vehicles to travel in one direction around the square. In the months beforehand, the pedestrian area had been repaved with stone blocks — work that was still visibly underway when the new system launched.

The bus stops that had lined the south side of the square for years were removed as part of those changes, reshaping the way ordinary Londoners moved through the space.

That same year, 1926, the lamp plinth at the south-east corner of the square — next to Morley’s Hotel — was converted into a police box, giving officers a fixed point of contact in a square that never stopped generating incidents.

By 1929, bus travel itself had become old enough to celebrate. On Saturday 6th July that year, a centenary event marked 100 years of bus travel in the capital — and Trafalgar Square, as ever, was the natural setting for the occasion.

The late 1920s brought its own portrait of the square. A photograph taken from the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields looking south captures a crowd where every single person — man, woman, and child — is wearing a hat. It was simply what people did.

Into the 1930s, the square continued to fill with an ever-more-varied mix of vehicles. A Cannon Row constable directing traffic in the early part of the decade faced a colourful assortment that included a charabanc — a large open-topped coach used for group outings. South Africa House, completed in 1933, gave the square’s south-east face a new anchor.

When the Second World War arrived, the square changed again — this time with the physical marks of conflict. On the night of 12th October 1941, several bombs struck the area. The National Gallery was hit, and a bomb tore open the roadway above Trafalgar Square Underground Station.

The bomb craters left behind were stark and visible, and bomb shelters had already been erected across the square for the public’s use during raids.

During the blackout, the road furniture around the square — kerb edges, bollards, and other street fixtures — was painted in black and white stripes to help pedestrians and drivers navigate in near-total darkness. It turned familiar streets into something almost unrecognisable.

After the war, the hardship was far from over. The winter of 1946–1947 was the worst in living memory. Photographs from one rush hour show Trafalgar Square locked in freezing chaos, a city still under rationing — bread prices were still rising two years after the peace — struggling through bitter cold.