DURING the first twenty-five years of the nineteenth century there was rich diversity of concert life in London and the next two chapters take a revisionist view of the achievements of musicians in England during that time, when music was, according to academic tradition, at a famously low ebb. In order to evidence George Smart's extraordinary contribution to concert life it has firstly been necessary to create a survey of the whole of concert activity in London from 1800 to 1825 and this forms the basis of Chapter 2. Table 1 takes a snapshot of London concert life at five-yearly intervals, and attempts to give a picture of the full extent of art music during these years. Amongst other things, it clearly shows that from about 1820 there began to be a gradual decline in the number and length of public concert series and it is significant that by 1830 Smart's focus had shifted away from London, with over half of his public engagements taking place outside the capital. By 1825 there was a burgeoning of individual benefit concerts (which often engaged Smart as the conductor of choice) and these could be either public or private, according to the venue chosen. Private concerts did not normally appear in the press and Smart's own records are often our only source. Wherever possible, I have tried to contextualise basic factual information by reference to other important events and initiatives with which Smart was intimately involved, and that he himself recorded in detail. Also included in the discussion are contemporary accounts that appeared in journals and newspapers. Most significantly, attention is drawn to the attempts that began to be made during the first quarter of the century to bring about the professionalisation of musical activity in London. A recent book by Ian Taylor has explored the supposed lack of orchestral activity between the departure of Haydn in 1795 and the founding of the Philharmonic Society in 1813. In countering this ‘myth’ he has established that there was a ‘continued and developing orchestral tradition’ from 1795 and that the founding of the Philharmonic Society in 1813 represented a ‘culmination’ rather than a ‘radical departure’.