The number of licensed taxis and drivers in London continues to decline, raising serious concerns about the future of the trade. Figures from Transport for London show that more drivers are leaving the industry and fewer new entrants replacing them. A report by the non-profit think tank Centre for London, commissioned by taxi app FreeNow, found a decade ago 22,810 taxis were licensed to operate on London's roads. By the end of last year the number had fallen by 34.5 per cent. Today, there are 14,470 registered black cabs in London, with only 104 licences issued to new drivers in 2024.
If the decline continues black cabs will cease to exist in London within two decades.
We are often accused of being rude, obnoxious, bigoted, argumentative, cyclist haters, extreme right-wing, supporters of Brexit, and denigrators of the London Mayor.
But are we really like this? No, of course we are not, well possibly the last accusation is true; we’re mostly angels, ‘onest guv’nor.
The demonic force we are made out to be is an attractive vision to many living in the capital, and by extension we're slowly becoming obsolete, or are we just the victims of a bad press after a Guardian newspaper reporter failed to get a cab home?
Unfortunately many Londoners now use the 'U' app that, to paraphrase a poem about Oscar Wilde by Lord Alfred Douglas, 'Dare not speak its name'.
Now our greatest supporters are not the indigenous population, but tourists and foreign business people. It is these who can compare the London taxi trade with taxis from other places around the world and a surprising number of them recognise just how good we actually are.
It could be said that there is not much difference between driving a cab in London than driving one in New York – except that we speak the native tongue and have to rely on our brains to get us from one part of the city to another not relying on a numerical grid system.
The licensed black cab trade of London is unique for two reasons, our history and 'The Knowledge'.
London was the first city in the world to have a licensed taxi trade and the licensing can be blamed on a little known English playwright called William Shakespeare. His productions at the Playhouse Theatre in Blackfriars were so popular that all the carriages that arrived to pick up and drop off the theatre-going public would cause a 'stop' – in modern day parlance a traffic jam.
Just to show that red tape is not a modern phenomena, it took the authorities about 40 years after Shakespeare’s death to introduce licensing.
On 24th June 1654 (during Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth) the Court of Alderman of the City of London authorised the use of 200 licenses for hackney coachmen.
Although licensing reduced the number of stops in the City, there were still a few unlicensed coachmen working, although it was the Watermen of the Thames who complained bitterly. Until the arrival of the Hackneys the only way to get from one part of the City to another or to Westminster was by boat which could include the then hazardous act of trying to row under London Bridge (built for wise men to go over and for fools to go under).
The initial licenses were revoked after just three years following accusations that ex-cavaliers were being favoured instead of the Roundheads who had fought for Cromwell. Following the Restoration of the Crown in 1660 licenses were again issued but there were continual disputes and the process was continually suspended, amended and revoked until the time of William of Orange, since which time the licensing has been continuous.
The history of the cab trade is more certain than the cornerstone of the present system – The Knowledge. Nobody knows when it was introduced, though Phillip Warren, cab trade historian, has researched the matter, his book: The History of the London Cab Trade, which is available on Amazon.
The theory is that it was introduced in the 1850’s following the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace and the influx of tourists. London had been expanding rapidly and urbanisation had stretched the boundaries from the docks at Wapping in the east to Kensington in the west. London was the largest and most populous city in the world at the time, and the authorities, which were now the lately formed Metropolitan Police, ensured that anybody plying the streets for hire as a Hackney would at least know where they were going.
Nearly two centuries later we are obliged to go out 'and do The Knowledge'. Jack Rosenthal (another playwright but not as popular as that chap Shakespeare) summed up the Knowledge in his television play of the same name (which recently was staged at the Charing Cross Theatre). As examiner Mr Burgess, brilliantly played by Nigel Hawthorn, told the new entrants, 'All The Knowledge requires is that you commit to memory, every street within a six mile radius of Charing Cross; every street and what’s on every street, every church, synagogue, mosque; theatre, cinema, restaurant. You name it – you’ve got to know it. If you're a genius it might take you a year. On the other hand it might take you two, or even ten. If it looks like it's going to take you longer than that I should chuck it in and take up ballet dancing instead.'
It is said that there are about 17,000 streets within six miles of Charing Cross and countless points (places of interest). The process can take three to five years and will take over your life completely. You get no diploma at the end of it, just a tin badge which is worthless outside London.
Unlike the cabbies of New York we do not pay for a medallion, it is all done on merit – give the badge up and you might get a 'thank you' from the person behind the counter at the licensing office. When I retired I didn't even get an acknowledgement of them receiving my badge and bill (paper license). Years of frustration, out in all weather, being knocked off by car drivers or skidding on ice . . . all because of a few tourists to the Great Exhibition.
I described The Knowledge as the cornerstone of the taxi trade in London, remove it and the whole edifice will come tumbling down around us. There is not a single driver out there who regrets doing The Knowledge, it is what makes us unique, our public can climb into any cab in any one of the 650 square miles of London knowing that the driver will not only know where they are going and how to get there, but will get them there safely.
Rude, obnoxious, bigoted, argumentative, cyclist haters, extreme right-wing, supporters of Brexit, and denigrators of the London Mayor, even a cab driver can have a bad day but if we were all like that we could not have stood the test of time.
Next time you get into a cab in London, spare a thought for 371 years of history, Oliver Cromwell, and a few Victorian tourists who made it all possible.