ABSTRACT
Demographic and economic factors combined to make the nineteenth century a period of rapid change. The population of London in 1801, when the first national census was taken, was 958,863 – about a tenth of the population of England and Wales. The growth in population and the resultant requirement for accommodation saw a spread of urban development from the confines of the eighteenth-century city into large areas north and south of the Thames and westward along the river valley, encouraged by an improving transport system. The huge concentration made London, at the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851, by far the largest industrial city in the world. At the beginning of the century, regular choral programmes in London were provided by the concerts of Ancient Music. With the growth of musical activity in London there was an increasing demand for concert-hall space.
