It proved impossible, however, to fix London's expansion by decree, and the growth of the city was hardly checked even by the natural disasters, political agitation, and civil wars that marked the succeeding era of the Stuart monarchs.

In 1665, during the Great Plague, nearly 70,000 Londoners died from the disease within a period of a year. The epidemic was followed by the Great Fire of 1666, which destroyed most of the walled section of the city. Because the Rebuilding Act of 1667 constituted that only stone and brick be used, the new buildings that rose from the ruins formed little similarity to the odd wooden dwellings of old London. The walls and gates of the city, among the last rests of the medieval town, were demolished in the 1760s. During the 19th century many suburbs were incorporated into Greater London, all the bridges in the city were rebuilt in stone, and the streets were equipped first with gas, and later with electric, illumination.



Population

The influx of British subjects from the Commonwealth countries in the later half of the 20th century made considerable changes in London population patterns. As immigrants tended to concentrate in certain parts of the city, these districts became characterised by dominant racial or ethnic groups and therefore were potential centres of tension. Clashes between whites and blacks, for example, boke out now and again in the Brixton district, and South Asians in the Southall area sometimes became targets of white racist antagonism. Particularly harmful incidents of this nature occurred in 1981, when tensions provoked by general unemployment and a worsening economic situation caused riots in several British cities. Since 1950 London has also experienced a general decline in population, especially in the inner boroughs. However, the population of Greater London, at 8,346,137 in the 1951 census, fell to 6,696,008 in 1981. Population (1991 estimate) 6,803,100.