Editing Westminster (section)

==History==
{{For|a list of street name etymologies for Westminster|Street names of Westminster}}

===Royal seat===
[[File:Bird Eye Pictures of London Westminster in 1909.jpg|alt= B&W photo of Westminster from the air|upright=1.9|thumb|Bird's-eye view of Westminster and the [[River Thames]] in 1909]]
The former [[Thorney Island (Westminster)|Thorney Island]], the site of [[Westminster Abbey]], formed the historic core of Westminster. The abbey became the traditional venue of the [[coronation]]s of the [[List of English monarchs|kings and queens of England]] from that of [[Harold Godwinson]] (1066) onwards.

From about 1200 the [[Palace of Westminster]], near the abbey, became the principal royal residence, a transition marked by the transfer of royal treasury and financial records to Westminster from [[Winchester]]. Later the palace housed the developing [[Parliament of England|Parliament]] and [[Courts of England and Wales|England's law courts]]. Thus, London developed two focal points: the [[City of London]] (financial/economic) and Westminster (political and cultural).

The [[British monarchy|monarchs]] moved their principal residence to the [[Palace of Whitehall]] (1530–1698), then to [[St James's Palace]] in 1698, and eventually to [[Buckingham Palace]] and other palaces after 1762. The main law courts moved to the [[Royal Courts of Justice]] in the late-19th century.

===Medieval and Tudor===
The settlement grew up around the palace and abbey, as a service area for them. The parish church, [[St Margaret's, Westminster|St Margaret's Westminster]] served the wider community of the parish; the servants of the palace and abbey as well as the rural population and those associated with the high status homes developing on the road from the city. The area became larger and in the [[Georgian era|Georgian]] period became connected through urban [[ribbon development]] with the City along the Strand.

[[Henry VIII]]'s [[Reformation]] in the early 16th century abolished the abbey and established a cathedral – thus the parish ranked as a "City", although it was only a fraction of the size of the City of London and the Borough of [[Southwark]] at that time.

Indeed, the cathedral and diocesan status of the church lasted only from 1539 to 1556, but the "city" status remained for a mere parish within Middlesex. As such it is first known to have had two Members of Parliament in 1545 as a new [[Parliamentary Borough]], centuries after the City of London and Southwark were enfranchised.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/constituencies/westminster|title=Westminster &#124; History of Parliament Online|website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}}</ref>
[[File:Emanuel Hospital, Westminster, 1890 by Philip Norman.jpg|thumb|Emanuel Hospital, Westminster, 1890 by [[Philip Norman (artist)|Philip Norman]]]]
The growing Elizabethan city had a High Constable, Bailiff, Town Clerk, and a keeper of the ponds.<ref>M.R.P. (1981). "Constituencies:Westminster-Borough"
''The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603'', ed. P.W. Hasler, London: Boydell and Brewer. [http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/research/constituencies History of Parliament website] Retrieved 12 July 2023.</ref>

===Victorian divide===
[[File:Booth map of Westminster.jpg|255px|thumb|right|Part of [[Charles Booth (philanthropist)|Charles Booth]]'s [[poverty map]] showing Westminster in 1889. The colours of the streets represent the economic class of the residents: Yellow ("Upper-middle and Upper classes, Wealthy"), red ("Lower middle class – Well-to-do middle class"), pink ("Fairly comfortable good ordinary earnings"), blue ("Intermittent or casual earnings"), and black ("lowest class occasional labourers, street sellers, loafers, criminals and semi-criminals"). Booth coloured Victoria Street, with its new shops and flats, yellow. The model dwellings built by the [[Peabody Trust]] on the side streets off Victoria Street appear as pink and grey, signalling modest respectability, while the black and blue streets represent the remaining slum areas housing the poorest.<ref>{{cite book | last= Richard | first= Dennis | year= 2008 | title= Cities in Modernity: Representations and Productions of Metropolitan Space | publisher= Cambridge University Press | pages= 140 | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Gq9_uNNkmKUC&q=Old+Pye+Street | isbn= 978-0-521-46841-1}}</ref>]]

[[Charles Booth (philanthropist)|Charles Booth]]'s [[poverty map]] showing Westminster in 1889 recorded the full range of income- and capital-brackets living in adjacent streets within the area; its central western area had become (by 1850) (the) Devil's Acre in the southern flood-channel ravine of the [[River Tyburn]], yet Victoria Street and other small streets and squares had the highest colouring of social class in London: yellow/gold. Westminster has shed the abject poverty with the clearance of this [[slum]] and with drainage improvement, but there is a typical [[Central London]] property distinction within the area which is very acute, epitomised by grandiose 21st-century developments, architectural high-point [[listed building]]s<ref>
{{Cite web|title=OS Map with Listed Buildings|url=http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/mapsearch.aspx|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110410235311/http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/mapsearch.aspx|archive-date=10 April 2011|website=English Heritage}}
</ref> and nearby [[social housing]] (mostly non-[[council housing]]) buildings of the [[Peabody Trust]] founded by philanthropist [[George Peabody]].