Walthamstow, United Kingdom

The influential textile designer and craftsman William Morris was born in Walthamstow in 1834. The Georgian mansion where he lived as a teenager houses the William Morris Gallery. By 1870 Walthamstow had grown to the size of a small suburb and a new town hall was built in Orford Road from which affairs of the village were run. A new town hall designed by architect Philip Dalton Hepworth in the Nordic Classical style was built between 1938 and 1942.

Until the late 19th century Walthamstow was largely rural, with a small village centre (now Walthamstow Village) and a number of large estates. The main route through the district was Hoe Street. There were various smaller lanes crossing the town. The road now known as Forest Road was originally called Clay Street. Further south, the High Street was named Marsh Street, and led from the original settlement out to the marshes. Shernhall Street is an ancient route, as is Wood Street, to the east.

With the advent of the railways and the ensuing suburbanisation in the late 19th century, Walthamstow experienced a large growth in population and speculative building.

The Lighthouse Methodist Church which dates from 1893 is situated on Markhouse Road, on the corner of Downsfield Road. There is a lantern at the top of the tower, which also contains a spiral staircase. The church was erected because of the generosity of Captain David King of the shipbuilding firm of Bullard King & Co which also ran the Natal Direct Shipping Line, which ran ships direct from London to Durban without stopping at the Cape.

In 1885, John Kemp Starley, originally from Church Hill in Walthamstow, designed the first modern bicycle, and in 1892, Frederick Bremer built the first British motorcar in a workshop in his garden, at Connaught Road. The vehicle is on display at the Vestry House Museum in Walthamstow.

The LGOC X-type and B-type buses were built at Blackhorse Lane from October 1908 onwards. The B-type is considered one of the first mass-production buses. The manufacturing operation later became AEC, famous as the manufacturer of many of London's buses. On 13 June 1909, A. V. Roe's aircraft took to the air from Walthamstow Marshes. It was the first all-British aircraft and was given the ominous nickname of the "Yellow Terror" but officially carried the name Avro1. Roe later founded the Avro aircraft company, which later built the acclaimed Avro Lancaster.

Walthamstow Corporation had been authorised in 1904 to supply electricity to the borough. The power station in Exeter Street had three brick chimneys and an array of wooden cooling towers. In 1923 the revenue from sales of electricity was £109,909. Upon nationalisation of the electricity industry in 1948 ownership of the station passed to the British Electricity Authority and later to the Central Electricity Generating Board. The CEGB closed the station in 1967 when the thermal efficiency was 9.30 per cent. It was subsequently demolished.

Walthamstow was an ancient parish in the Becontree Hundred of Essex. In 1873 most of the parish was made a local government district, administered by an elected local board. An exclave of the parish known as the "Walthamstow Slip" was included instead in the Leyton district; that exclave was transferred to Leyton parish in 1878.

Such local government districts were reconstituted as urban districts under the Local Government Act 1894. The Walthamstow Urban District was converted into a municipal borough in 1929, becoming the Municipal Borough of Walthamstow. In 1931 the population of the borough, covering an area of 4,342 acres (1,757 hectares), peaked at 132,972. In 1965 the borough was abolished and its former area merged with that of the Municipal Borough of Chingford and the Municipal Borough of Leyton to form the London Borough of Waltham Forest in Greater London. Other places in east London formerly of the county of Essex, such as Ilford and Romford were placed into London boroughs along with Walthamstow. None of the postal district names or codes was changed at this time (e.g. Ilford remained Ilford, Essex IG1-IG6 and Walthamstow remained London E17).

Since the 2012 Summer Olympics, the town has become increasingly popular mostly as a result of gentrification. Local property prices increased at a high rate of 22.3% from 2013 to 2014, compared to London's average of 17.8%. It has turned Walthamstow into a 'trendy' town similar to Shoreditch. The leafy Walthamstow Village in particular has become sought after by buyers.