Centenaries, '62: VII. ACCIDENT ON THE UNDERGROUND

THE MAKING of London's underground railway system took many years. Putting railways under the ground in built‐up areas was thought of as soon as there were several railway termini to connect. Parliamentary permission for the first, now called the Inner Circle, was obtained in 1854; work began in 1860 and in June 1862 Paddington and King's Cross had been connected and the line continued to Farringdon Street. Here the excavations met the Old Fleet Ditch, the bricked‐in River Fleet which had for centuries served (and still does serve) as a sewer.