A history of one of London’s most colourful boroughs is one of the best every written, says Peter Gruner

A History of Islington
by Mary Cosh
Historical publications, £18.95

HER favourite period was the 18th and early 19th centuries when Islington was a country village of teahouses, markets and popular water spas.
But historian Mary Cosh also writes vividly about the later 19th century squalor and ugliness of the teeming slums. And she explores the disparity between rich and poor – which has hardly changed today.
It has taken more than 20 years to complete, but Ms Cosh’s brilliant A History of Islington is the most definitive story of the place ever written, and the most authoritative since John Nelson’s study in 1811.
Ms Cosh’s book traces the town’s early Tudor roots, as a small and agreeable settlement for wealthy traders in the 16th century, “away from the smoke and stench of cramped” London, right up to 2004, when pockets of the borough are regarded as among the poorest and most crime ridden in the land.
The book takes us on a fascinating journey featuring characters including milkmaids and their lovers dancing to a fiddle at Clerkenwell Fair in 1720 and men and women “leering ferociously” in filthy and tattered garments, swearing, fighting, or dancing drunkenly in a yard at Angel in 1853.
As well as important historical milestones, it notes interesting human details, such as the recommendation by Sylvia’s Home Journal in 1881 that Islington was a “classic ground” for buying a trousseau, and especially for lingerie. At 352 pages, complete with dozens of illustrations and photographs of bygone eras, it is a superb read that is indexed and which you can pick up and delve into at your leisure.
Today’s home of the “chattering classes” boasted a role call of the famous from Charles Dickens, Charles Lamb, Mary Wollstonecraft, the Methodist Wesley brothers and George Orwell, to Joe Orton, Nick Hornby and Prime Minister Tony Blair. The village became prosperous partly because it lay on the way to Smithfield.
In Islington cattle were rested and fed so as to be in prime condition
as they set off on their last journey to the market. They trundled through
the worn Upper and Lower Streets, from the north and east, and from many places along the Liverpool Road.
“Merry Islington” became renowned for its pleasure grounds, spas, music halls and theatres. In 1683 Thomas Sadler was constructing a music house when he came across a well with medicinal waters and decided to diversify his business interests.
The building of the ‘New Road’ (including today’s Pentonville Road) added a strategic advantage to the village, keeping inns and other businesses profitable. In 1720 there were about 100 inns and beershops selling spirits – especially gin. Many, like Kings Head, were in Upper Street.
Islington was later noted for the rapid extension of housing in the 19th century as one estate after another was developed, often using the system of squares and terraces, which survives today.
Much of London’s history is reflected in that of Islington. Its fine architecture, slum conditions, desertion by the middle-class in the later 19th century and their return in the 1970s, are representative of the troubles, achievements and failures of London as a whole.
Ms Cosh has lived in the borough for 40 years and admits that she does not like all the changes. “It has lost much of its neighbourliness and sense of community,” she says. “People live here because it is convenient for the City, but they don’t want to contribute to local life.
“People think it is all very smart and fashionable but it isn’t – it has a hard core of very poor and not very privileged people and troubled estates. There are a lot of people living here for whom life is not fun at all.” But she still loves Islington. “I used to say that when I was feeling old I’d go and live in Oxford,” she added.” But really, why should I? You’d have to start again, and besides there is too much to do round here.”
Oxford educated Mary Cosh was the co author with the late Ian Lindsay of Inveraray and the Dukes of Argyll, and in 2002 published best seller, Edinburgh: The Golden Age. She is Vice President of the Islington Society and Vice Chairwoman of the Islington Archeologically and History Society.

• A History of Islington by Mary Cosh: £18.95 published by Historical publications Ltd, 32, Ellington Street, N7 8PL. 020 7607 1628.