The waymark coordinates are for a section of the London Wall near the Tower of London, one of several sections of original Roman walls still standing in this ancient city.
London's history spans almost 2000 years, since it was "founded" by the Romans around 50 AD.
London, Ontario was founded in 1826, nearly 1900 years later.
From the Local History of London Ontario website: (
visit link)
"LOCAL HISTORY OF LONDON ONTARIO.
LONDON
OVERVIEW
FROM WIKIPEDIA, THE FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA
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Coordinates: 42.98714° N 81.246268° W
London is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada along the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor with a metropolitan area population of 457,720; the city proper had a population of 352,395 in the 2006 Canadian census.
London is the seat of Middlesex County, at the forks of the non-navigable Thames River, approximately halfway between Toronto, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan. London and the surrounding area (roughly, the territory between Kitchener-Waterloo andWindsor) is collectively known as Southwestern Ontario. The City of London is a single-tier municipality, politically separate from Middlesex County though it remains the official county seat.
London was first settled by Europeans in 1826 and was incorporated as a city on July 1, 1855. Since then, London has grown into the largest Southwestern Ontario municipality and the city has developed a strong focus towards education, health care, tourism, manufacturing, economic leadership and prosperity.
HISTORY
Founding, original siting
Prior to European contact in the 18th century, the present site of London was occupied by several Neutral and Odawa/Ojibwa villages. A native village at the forks of Askunessippi, now called the "Thames River", was called Kotequogong by the latter two groups. Archaeological investigations in the region indicate that aboriginal people have resided in the area for at least the past post-glacial 10,000 years.[2]
The current location of London was selected as the site of the future capital of Upper Canada in 1793 by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe. Simcoe named the settlement after London, England and renamed the river. However, this choice of a capital site in the midst of extensive hardwood forests was initially rejected by Guy Carleton, (Governor Dorchester), with the comment that "access to London would be limited to hot-air balloons".
In 1814, there was a skirmish during the War of 1812 in what is now southwest London at Reservoir Hill, formerly Hungerford Hill.
The village of London was not founded for another third of a century after Simcoe's efforts, in 1826, and not as the capital he envisioned. Rather, it was administrative seat for a great area west of the actual capital, Toronto. More locally, it was part of theTalbot Settlement, named for Colonel Thomas Talbot, the chief coloniser of the area, who oversaw the land surveying and built the first government buildings for the administration of the Western Ontario peninsular region. Together with the rest of Southwestern Ontario that formed the settlement, the village benefited from Talbot's provisions, not only for building and maintaining roads, but also for assignment of access priorities to main routes to productive land, rather than to Crown and clergy reserves, which were receiving preference in the rest of Ontario.
In 1832, the new settlement suffered an outbreak of cholera. London proved a centre of strong Tory support during the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837, notwithstanding a brief rebellion led by Dr. Charles Duncombe, who was forced to flee to the U.S. Consequently, the British government located its Ontario peninsular garrison there in 1838, increasing its population with soldiers and their dependents, and the business support populations they required.
On April 13, 1845, fire destroyed much of London, which was at the time largely constructed of wooden buildings. One of the first casualties was the town's only fire engine. In the 1860s, sulphur hot springs were discovered at the forks of the Thames River while industrialists were drilling for oil. The springs became a popular destination for wealthy Ontarians, until the turn of the 20th century when a textilefactory was built at the site, replacing the spa.
Nineteenth Century development
"Sir John Carling, the noted brewer and Tory MP for London, in an address . . . in 1901, gave three turning-points to explain the rise of London; the location of the district court and administration in London in 1826; the stationing of the Imperial military garrison there in 1838; and the arrival of the railway in 1853. His analysis is quite correct."[3]
In 1875, London's first iron bridge, the Blackfriars Street Bridge, was constructed, replacing a succession of failed wooden structures that had provided the city's only northern road crossing of the river. A rare example of a bowstring truss bridge, it remains open to vehicular traffic.[4] The Blackfriars originally linked London with its western suburb of Petersville, named for the Peters family of Grosvenor Lodge. That community joined with the southern subdivision of Kensington in 1874, and formally incorporated as the municipality of Petersville. Although changing its name in 1880 to the more inclusive "London West", it remained a separate municipality until ratepayers voted for amalgamation with London in 1897. Sour relations between London and London West during the 1880s and 1890s had much to do with serious flooding of the latter, with its lower ground, in 1883, for which some villagers held the city responsible. London's eastern suburb, the aptly named London East, was (and remains) an industrial centre, which also incorporated in 1874. Attaining the status of town in 1881, it continued as a separate municipality until concerns over expensive waterworks and other fiscal problems led to amalgamation in 1885. The southern suburb of London was collectively known as "London South". Never incorporated, it was annexed to the city in 1890. By contrast, the small settlement at Broughdale on the city's north end had clear identity, adjoined the university, and was not annexed until 1961.
While other Protestant cities in Ontario (notably Toronto) remained under the sway of the Orange Order well into the 20th Century, London abandoned sectarianism in the 19th Century. In 1877, Catholic and Protestant Irish in London formed the Irish Benevolent Society, which was open to both Catholics and Protestants and forbade the discussion of Irish politics. The influence of the Orange Order (and of Catholic organizations) quickly waned. The Society survives to this day.
On May 24, 1881, the ferry SS Victoria capsized in the Thames River, drowningapproximately 200 passengers, the worst disaster in London's history. Two years later, on July 12, 1883, the first of the two most devastating floods in London's history killed 17 people. The second major flood occurred on April 26, 1937, which destroyed more than 1000 homes and caused millions of dollars in damages, particularly in West London. After repeated floods the Upper Thames River Conservation Authoritybuilt Fanshawe Dam to control the level of the Thames; it opened in 1952. Financing came from the federal, provincial, and municipal governments. Other natural disastersinclude a 1984 tornado that led to damage on several streets in the White Oaks area of South London.
London's role as a military centre continued into the 20th Century during the twoWorld Wars, serving as the administrative centre for the Western Ontario district. Today there is still an active Garrison Support Unit in the city at Wolseley Barracks.
Twentieth Century development
London annexed many of the surrounding communities in 1961, including Byron and Masonville, adding 60,000 people and more than doubling its area. After this amalgamation, suburban growth accelerated as London grew outward in all directions, creating expansive new subdivisions such as Westmount, Oakridge, Whitehills, Pond Mills and White Oaks.
In 1993, London annexed nearly the entire Town of Westminster, a large, primarily rural municipality directly south of the city, including the town of Lambeth, Middlesex County, Ontario. With this massive annexation, London almost doubled in area again, adding several thousand more residents. London now stretches south to the boundary with Elgin County.
The 1993 annexation made London one of the largest urban municipalities in Ontario. Intense commercial/residential development is presently occurring in the southwest and northwest areas of the city. Opponents of this development cite urban sprawl, destruction of rare Carolinian zone forest and farm lands, replacement of distinctive regions by generic malls, and standard transportation and pollution concerns as major issues facing London. The City of London is currently the tenth-largest city in Canada, Tenth-largest census metropolitan area in Canada, and the fourth-largest city in Ontario."