The Ninth of November, 1888

The painting shows the Lord Mayor's procession of 1888 when Sir James Whitehead was elected. The new Lord Mayor is leaving the Mansion House, not shown in the painting. The Bank of England is on the left side while The Royal Exchange is at the background. Logsdail began by painting the policemen in position early in the morning. Later he positioned himself in the middle of the traffic to draw the background architecture. He painted the Lord Mayor’s coach with the horses at their stables in Fore Street, and the coachmen and footmen afterwards at his Primrose Hill studio. Logsdail also used some of his friends for the figures in the crowd at the left, including the painter J W Waterhouse in a brown bowler hat.

The stray dog in Logsdail’s picture is not a bloodhound but may tangentially allude to the question of police incompetence. On the day of the parade, a fifth victim of Jack the Ripper had been found in her home in Spitalfields in the early hours. The long-term frustration against Charles Warren, the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, with the lack of progress in the police investigation to catch the murderer bubbled over. Mary Kelly, the victim, had said that she hoped the weather would be good the following day because she aimed to go to the Lord Mayor’s parade.