1. E.g. Defoe (1726-7) ii, pt ii, 106; Defoe (1719) p. 6; Misson (1719) pp. 69, 92, 314. For a discussion of the vocabulary of social classification in the eighteenth century, see Corfield (1987). See also Wrightson (1986) for a general discussion of the social order of early modern England.

2. Review , 22 January 1709.

3. Review, 22 January 1709.

4. Wagner (1972) pp. 130-3, 371-7; Styles (1953).

5. T. Smith (1583) pp. 39-40, quoted in Coleman (1973) p. 97; Miège (1703) p. 264; Bailey (1730) s.v. 'Gentleman'.

6. Grant (1962) pp. 197-9.

7. Grant loc. cit.

8. Everitt (1966) pp. 67-8; cf. Styles (1953) for a similar analysis of the Warwickshire gentry.

9. S. R. Smith (1973) p. 200; cf. Kahl (1956).

10. Stone (1966) pp. 27-8; and see Hughes (1926) pp. 366-8 for the problems faced by the conservative analyst of English society, Edward Chamberlayne. break

11. Crouzet (1981) p. 71.

12. Stone (1984) pp. 287-8.

13. Miège (1703) p. 266; Steele, Act IV, Scene 2.

14. Schuyler (1931) p. 264, quoted in Andrew (1981) pp. 367-8.

15. See Campbell (1747) for examples of this grading; Richardson (1741), Letter I.

16. Discourse (1678) p. 5; cf. the views of Perkin (1969); Crouzet (1981) p. 68.

17. Defoe (1726-7) i, 138.

18. Watt (1957) p. 41; for literacy, see Cressy (1980); the best way to find out what was being published is to look at the Term Catalogues produced by the Stationers' Company. See Arber (1903-6).

19. Hughes (1926) p. 364.

20. Burnet (1969) vi, 215; Fielding (1751) p. 156. For a general discussion of changing literary attitudes to merchants and business in our period, see McVeagh (1981), whose chapter titles indicate the growing acceptance of the 'capitalist': Ch. 2 'Commerce approved, 1650-1700', Ch. 3 'The merchant as hero, 1700-1750'.

21. Crouzet (1981) p. 71.

22. Shadwell, The Scowrers, Act II, Scene 1; Defoe (1722) p. 52.

23. Tatler No. 25 (7 June 1709); Baxter (1673); Brown (1715) iv, 122.

24. Butler (1896) pp. 296-7.

25. See, for example, 3 W & M c. 6 (1692 Poll Tax) and 6 & 7 W & M c. 6 (1694 'Marriage Duties Tax').

26. The main gap in the coverage is that there are hardly any professional people in the sample, except apothecaries. For more detail on the sample and a list of those included, see Appendix A. The inventories and related documents are in CLRO.

1. Brett-James (1935) pp. 495-513; Finlay & Shearer (1986).

2. Norwich, the second biggest city, had only some 30,000 inhabitants and Bristol, the third, only 20,000. London's population was over twice that of all the other 30 towns with populations over 5000 put together. Corfield (1982) p. 8, Table I, and see in general pp. 6-16. For a recent survey of provincial towns in our period, see Borsay (1987).

3. E.g. Defoe (1726-7) ii, pt ii, 122. For the uniqueness of London, see Wrigley (1967) and Wrigley (1985), where the rapid growth of London is contrasted to the comparative stagnation of other large European cities in the century after 1650.

4. Review, 18 February 1706/7.

5. Beier (1986). Other problems with this study include the problematical definition of production and the complete omission of some non-production occupations, such as domestic service which probably provided work for some 7 to 8 per cent of the entire population and a much higher proportion of the labour force—see pp. 76, 218-19, 357 (note 187). break

6. This percentage, which is only meant to be very approximate, is based on a very wide range of modern specialist studies and contemporary literature, references to which appear in the remaining notes to this chapter.

7. On women in the labour force, see Earle (1989).

8. In general on the silk industry, see Warner (1921), Rothstein (1961); for a discussion of many of the subsidiary textile industries, see Wadsworth & Mann (1931).

9. On silk-throwing, see Wadsworth & Mann (1931) pp. 106-7; Rothstein (1961) pp. 131-2; Stern (1956); for contemporary estimates of numbers employed (ludicrously high), see Macpherson (1805) ii, 497; CJ xiii, 42; xvii, 393b. For inventories of silk-throwers, see PRO PROB 4/3500, /6878, /8075, /13885. The industry probably reached its peak size in the late seventeenth century when masters began to seek out cheaper rural labour.

10. Campbell (1747) pp. 147-50; Case (1743) claims that, in 1743, there were in the parish of St Giles Cripplegate 118 masters who owned '85 sheds for the spinning gilt and silver thread in which were 255 pair of wheels'; for two inventories of gold and silver threadmakers in the sample, see S. 151 & 194; for the chequered early history of the industry, see Stewart (1891).

11. On stockings and framework-knitting, see Thirsk (1973) and Chapman (1972), although both these articles and indeed nearly all the literature on this subject concentrate on the provincial rather than the London industry, which collapsed rapidly in the face of provincial competition after 1730. For numbers of frames, see D. M. Smith (1963) p. 129. For inventories of London framework-knitting workshops, see PRO PROB 4/3306 & /7878,

12. Brief History (1702) pp. 165-6; Case (1712); Wadsworth & Mann (1931) pp. 126-8, 171-3. S. 323 is the inventory of a weaver of silk, silk/wool and worsted fabrics.

13. Corfield (1982) p. 74 estimates 10-12,000 silk-weavers in the 1740s and 1750s; Warner (1921) suggests 15-18,000 looms in the early eighteenth century.

14. E.g. in 1697-8, London paid 66 per cent of the duty on exported cloth ( CJ xiii, 152-4). See also Ramsay (1982) for generalizations about changes over time and discussion of London's function as a cloth-finishing centre. London's percentage of cloth exports was slowly declining over our period.

15. Kerridge (1985) pp. 150, 157.

16. For calico-printing, see Campbell (1747) pp. 116-19; Wadsworth & Mann (1931) pp.130-40; Clayton & Oakes (1954). An Act of 1721 prohibited the use of all printed, stained and dyed calicoes, though this still left linens to be printed and also cotton-linen mixtures, which were exempted from the prohibition. An inquiry at this time showed that there were 31 calico-printers in the country employing 600-800 people, all but one in and around London.

17. There were said to be 7000 journeymen tailors in London and Westminster in 1721 (Galton (1896) p. 1). Over 20 per cent of all employed women in London were engaged in making clothes in the early eighteenth century—see Earle (1989). break

18. Lemire (1984) emphasizes the second half of the eighteenth century as the key period in the development of ready-made clothing. However, Ginsburg (1972) p. 67 traces the industry back to the sixteenth century but thinks that it proliferated in the late seventeenth century because of the development 'of the more easily fitting simply cut suit', a very reasonable hypothesis which is supported by a writer in 1681 who stated that 'many remember when there were no new garments sold in London as now there are, only old garments at second hand'. ( Trade (1681) quoted by Galton (1896) p. xvii.) For stock-lists demonstrating the sale of ready-made clothes, see S. 169, 245, 252, 273.

19. For King's figures, see GLRO JB/Gregory King and see pp. 269-72 for more on the distribution of expenditure between various items.

20. Figures for the rebuilding are given in Reddaway (1940) p. 24 and Bell (1923) p. 224. On the building industry, see Colvin (1954), Chs 1 & 2, and Knoop & Jones (1936). On the expansion of the built-up area, see Summerson (1962).

21. Beier (1986) p. 148, Table 13, suggests that metalworking and leather were rather bigger employers than building, but these were certainly the next three biggest industries. The numbers are little more than an educated guess.

22. For the leather industry, see Clarkson (1960) (1) & (1960) (2); Campbell (1747) pp. 216-23. See also Mayer (1968) on the curriers and Case (n.d.) (1) for some valuable insights into shoemaking, the biggest employer in the leather industry.

23. Birmingham and Sheffield were just beginning to challenge London's dominance in brass and copperware and cutlery, but were still only very small cities, with populations of 7000 and 10,000 respectively in 1700. Hand-gun manufacture began in Birmingham after the Civil War but did not really challenge the London industry, which was concentrated in the area round the Tower, until the eighteenth century. On brass and copper, see Hamilton (1926) and Gentle & Feild (1975), though both books concentrate on Birmingham rather than London; on pewter, see Hatcher & Barker (1974); on clockmakers, see Loomes (1981) and on watchmakers for a rather later period, see Weiss (1982), who suggests that there were some 8000 in this industry in London in 1798; on gunmaking, see Stern (1954) (1). Much information can also be gleaned from the various entries in Campbell (1747).

24. Campbell (1747) pp. 24, 144, 177-80, 250-1.

25. Bailey & Barker (1969); B. M. D. Smith (1967) p. 139.

26. The main exports were cabinets, chairs, chests of drawers, clock cases, desks and looking-glasses—Joy (1965) pp. 3-4. For a list of 115 upholsterers and 55 cabinet makers active between 1660 and 1720, see Heal (1952). There were certainly many more who between them provided work for several thousand in woodworking and ancillary trades, such as sawyers and glue-makers.

27. On coachmaking, see Straus (1912). By the mid-eighteenth century, there were nearly 9000 four-wheel carriages in England, 4000 in London, continue

      and there were also over 2000 two-wheel chaises in the metropolis (PRO T47/2). The industry employed a host of specialists for such things as wheels, door glasses, leather bodies, harness, silk linings and upholstery, metal fittings and locks, gilding, carving and coach-painting.

28. The hat-making industry grew very rapidly as more and more people at home and abroad wore felt and beaver hats, exports rising from 68,000 hats in 1700 to a peak of 700,000 in 1736, mostly made in London. Later in the eighteenth century the metropolis was to lose its pre-eminence to the hatters of Stockport and Manchester. I have relied mainly on an excellent paper by Corner (1985), from which the export figures are drawn.

29. Maitland estimated the number of bakers in 1730 at 1072, who would each employ some 4 or 5 journeymen or women and apprentices (Maitland (1739) p. 531). In general on baking, see Thrupp (1933).

30. Defoe (1724-6) i, 347.

31. On shipbuilding, see Banbury (1971) and Green & Wigram (1881). Twelve of the private yards were big enough to produce fourth-rate and even third-rate men-of-war for the navy during time of war. See Ehrman (1953) pp. 71-5 & App. I (E); Pool (1966); PRO ADM 106/2178 p. 101. On the royal dockyards, see Ehrman (1953) pp. 70-108 and Coleman (1953-4).

32. R. Davis (1962) p. 33. This proportion was to decline fairly continuously through the eighteenth century and was only 29.9 per cent in 1788. The absolute total of London shipping kept rising. By the later eighteenth century only about one-fifth of the city's foreign-going shipping was being built on the Thames. Jarvis (1969) pp. 407-8.

33. For three excellent inventories of ropemakers, all with assets valued from £4000 to £7000, see PRO PROB 4/5453, /14701, /20130.

34. For the brewing industry, see Mathias (1959), figures for the trade in 1700 on p. 6. It seems probable that, including draymen, each common brewer employed an average of somewhere between 5 and 10 men.

35. Mitchell & Deane (1962) pp. 251, 254-5. On the Gin Age in general, see George (1925) pp. 27-42.

36. For some contrasting inventories of distillers, see S.251 (a big malt distiller); S.287 (a big compound distiller); S.46 (a very small compound distiller). In 1703, there were 298 distilleries on the rounds of the London excisemen, a number which is likely to have grown considerably as the Gin Age continued (PRO CUST 48/10 p. 39).

37. For statistics of glassmakers, see Houghton (1727-8) ii, 48 and PRO CUST 48/6 p. 36. There were 90 glass-houses altogether in England, the other main centres being Stourbridge, Bristol and Newcastle, the last specializing in window glass which was carried to London on the colliers. London specialized on the high-quality end of the trade—mirror glass, crystal and the more expensive 'crown' or Normandy window glass—though the metropolis was also a major producer of cheaper window glass and bottles, one London house claiming a stock of 144,000 bottles in 1698. London was to lose most of its glass industry later in the eighteenth century and, by 1833, there were only three glasshouses left. In general on the glass continue

      industry, see Godfrey (1975), Polak (1975) and Buckley (1915), and on looking-glasses, see Wills (1965).

38. There were said to be some 30 soapmakers in London in 1683 (CLRO MCI 413A) and 1107 in England and Wales in 1712 ( CTB xxvi, pt ii, 56, 378; PRO CUST 48/11 pp. 62-3). However, since 28 of the 39 extra excise officers taken on to survey the new soap tax were in London, it is clear that the London works were very large compared to their provincial counterparts and none of the five soapmakers in our sample had a fortune of less than £1000. Londoners also produced nearly all the high-quality 'Castile' soap which was made from imported raw materials such as Baltic potash and olive oil.

      In 1710, the excise officers found 436 wax and tallow candlemakers in London and some 3000 in the provinces. The Londoners were much the biggest operators, producing nearly a third of total national production and nearly all of the more expensive wax candles (PRO CUST 48/10 p. 320; PRO AO1/1078/729A; CTB xxiv, pt ii, 253).

      Between 1660 and 1750, the number of British sugar refineries grew from about 50 to 120, there being 80 in London at the later date (Deerr (1950) ii, 458; CJ xxvi, 703). The refineries were nearly all fairly big businesses and getting bigger over time. The average valuation of utensils and stock in 14 sugar-houses insured by the Sun Fire Office in 1730 was about £3000 and, by the end of the century, refiners rarely insured their stocks for less than £5000 (GHMS 11936; Stern (1954) (2)).

      Between 1668 and 1724, the number of master-printers in London increased from 26, employing an average of 6-7 men, to 75, employing over 10 men (Plant (1974) pp. 64, 85-6; Maxted (1977) p. xxx); for a list of the printers in 1724, see Nichols (1812-15) i, 288-312. Provincial competition was growing but there were still only 28 printing-houses outside London in 1724. There were also 200 or more bookseller/publishers and booksellers in London (Plant (1974) p. 64).

39. On this, see pp. 120-22.

40. There is evidence of 25 pottery sites in London before 1750, most of them on the south bank of the river. See Weatherill & Edwards (1971) and Edwards (1974).

41. On this, for the late sixteenth century, see Rappaport (1983-4).

42. On the problems of credit, see Chapter 4.

43. Hatcher & Barker (1974) p. 246.

44. See, for example, S.112, the inventory of John Skipper of Cornhill, who dealt in every sort of brass, copper and iron product, selling his goods to such prodigious wholesale customers as the Royal African Company or great merchants trading overseas. He produced nothing on his own premises but the £48 he owed 'several men for wages' suggests that some production was under his control.

45. S.116 (Rainer); S.86 (Treherne); for a useful discussion of the functions of the upholsterers, see Thornton (1978) pp. 97-106 and for some inventories of upholsterers, see S. 144, 186, 367.

46. This trend was a major factor encouraging the progressive flight of continue

      London's industries to the provinces, since the big hosiers, ironmongers, etc. did not care where the products they sold were made as long as they were made well and cheaply. On the relationship of the London hosiers to the Midlands stocking knitting industry, see Chapman (1972) and for a description of the 'Hardware-men' in the middle of the eighteenth century, see Collyer (1761) pp. 160-1. By then, they dealt mainly in goods made in Sheffield and Birmingham and some had a turnover of over £50,000 a year.

47. For the development of the building contractor, see Knoop & Jones (1936); for Barbon, see North (1890) iii, 53-60; on the riskiness of building speculation, see Campbell (1747) p. 161 and for some successful builders, see S.49, 115, 152.

48. The knitting-frame was invented in 1589 but not much used till the second half of the seventeenth century, especially from the 1670s when flamboyant fashions which were difficult to knit by machine were replaced by a vogue for silk hose in plain colours (Thirsk (1973), Chapman (1972)). The ribbon or Dutch loom was introduced from Holland in 1616 and was said to do the work of from 4 to 7 hand-weavers. It was banned in England, as in many continental countries, but the English ban proved ineffective, especially after the failure of the weavers' riots of 1675 (Wadsworth & Mann (1931) pp. 99-105; Dunn (1973)). Silk-throwers used multi-spindle mills, which are described in Chambers (1728) s.v. 'Milling, or throwing of silk'. Other examples include wheel-cutting machines in watchmaking, horse-powered saw-mills and cranes, a machine for cutting, grinding and polishing plate glass for mirrors, 'outdoing the operation by the hands, almost a thousand fold' (Salmon (1701) quoted by Wills (1965) p. 146)), and a tobacco-shredding machine (Cary (1695) p. 146 and compare S.179 (1682) with S.309 and 319 of the early eighteenth century, both of which had shredding machines). A different type of innovation can be seen in many metal trades, where casting and foundry work were becoming more important. The moulds required were too expensive for poor craftsmen, who found themselves degraded to mere performers of repetitive tasks using moulds 'furnished' by wealthier men. See Campbell (1747) p. 179 and S.50, a pewterer who had 31 cwt of brass moulds worth £ 146, over 40 per cent of his assets. There were no doubt many other innovations, individually fairly trivial but cumulatively important in increasing labour productivity.

49. Many efforts were made, both by the workers and the guilds, to halt the growth of the big masters. In 1675, there were riots directed at those ribbon-weaving masters with large numbers of ribbon looms on their premises (see Dunn (1973)). In 1710, there were riots aimed at framework knitting masters with large numbers of apprentices (Wells (1935) pp. 39-40). The Company of Silk Throwers passed an unsuccessful ordinance to limit the extent of manufacture by any one master (Stern (1956)). In 1667, counsel considered this ordinance as against the law and liberty of the subject, i.e. a restraint against trade, and this legal principle was to mean that most attempts by guilds or livery companies to prevent the growth of big business would be unsuccessful. On the general collapse of the authority of the livery companies, see pp. 250-3. For the inventory of a wealthy master silk-throwster, see PRO PROB 4/8075, Robert Godard, who left £9000. break

50. A good example is the Quaker Thomas Hall, who died in 1722 worth £16,000 (Corner (1985)).

51. For the huge yard at Blackwall of Sir Henry Johnson, the biggest private shipbuilder in England, see Green & Wigram (1881). For some smaller but still impressive yards, see PRO PROB 4/6037 and 5/2035. Ropewalks also needed plenty of space—see the inventories in note 33 above.

52. The value of fixed capital is difficult to assess, since it was normally valued at scrap or very cheap second-hand prices in inventories and was also probably undervalued in insurance contracts, which in any case do not often distinguish the value of stocks from fixed equipment. As a result of such valuation policies, no one in the sample had as much as £1000 of fixed equipment but a few hundred pounds would be sufficient to keep small men out of these industries, which is the main point here.

53. Mathias (1959).

54. S.115 (Marshall)—see also Colvin (1954) p. 378; S.229; on the Blackwell Hall Factors, see Westerfield (1915) pp. 296-302; Ramsay (1943) Ch. 8; Mann (1971) Ch. 3; D.W. Jones (1972) (2); R. Davis (1967) pp. 107-15; Price (1980) pp. 102-7 and Ramsay (1982) Ch. 5.

55. S.251.

56. S.184.

57. Chamberlayne (4th ed. 1670) p. 470.

58. Roberts (1641) pp. 1-3; Defoe (1697) p. 8.

59. This figure was suggested to me by James Alexander, who is analysing the London poll-tax records of the 1690s. D. W. Jones (1972) (1) p. 350, fn. 30, gives 2000, based on port-book records, but these entries would contain many people who were not full-time merchants and would not have been considered merchants by their contemporaries. For wholesalers and retailers engaging in foreign trade, see S. 17, 23, 31 ,41, 81, 171, 182, 184, 193, 221.

60. S.315.

61. Many merchants, and very often very rich ones, were not Citizens of London and so would not appear in the Orphans' Court records which I have used, so it is possible that these figures underestimate merchant wealth. The records also underestimate the wealth of all groups to a certain extent, since the average age at death was likely to be lower for those leaving orphans than for all middle-class Londoners and survival was a major influence on accumulation (see pp. 141-2). However, this does not affect the relative wealth of different groups in the middle class, which is what I am interested in here. I owe these points to a discussion with Henry Horwitz.

62. Rates of commission varied from 1 1/2 to 2 per cent in Holland or Hamburg to 3 per cent in the Levant and 5 per cent in the West Indies, though most trades offered various types of extra perks for factors on top of these. Much higher rates of accumulation could be earned by the supercargoes or travelling factors in the China trade, where a single voyage might yield several thousand pounds. Westerfield (1915) p. 356 fn. 1; Gill (1961) p. 32; Morse (1921). break

63. For these two companies, see Chaudhuri (1978) and K. G. Davies (1957).

64. Wood (1935); Hinton (1959) and in general, see Scott (1910-12).

65. Price & Clemens (1987) discuss the huge reduction in the numbers of firms importing tobacco, despite an increase in the amount imported, and a similar though lesser reduction in the number of sugar importers. See also R. Davis (1967) p. 61 for the Levant trade.

66. For 'basic' Levant traders, see S. 11 , 224, 285; for 'diversified' businesses, see S.42 (Dawes), 43, 71, 99, 107, 292. On the Levant trade in general, see Wood (1935), R. Davis (1967).

67. S.52 (Ferney); S.19, 107 (clandestine traders—on this subject see Zahedieh (1986)); S.315 (Vansittart), cf. S.107 for a similar business combining very large Danzig and Levantine trades with an impressive trade to North America and the West Indies. The Baltic trade took three main forms: the timber trade from Norway, the trade in pitch, tar and iron from Sweden and the trade in hemp, flax and potash form Danzig and Riga.

68. For data on overseas trade, showing the rapid growth of trade with America, see R. Davis (1954) and R. Davis (1962) (2), both republished in Minchinton (1969). The other main growth areas were the trade with India and the Far East, the slave trade from Africa to America and the trade to Spain and the Mediterranean, the last especially in the later seventeenth century.

69. Defoe (1726-7) i, 102.

70. A good example of both these trades is William Paggen, a tobacco merchant, who owned shares in several slave ships and imported negro boys to sell as servants in Europe, one of whom, 'Black Jack', was to play a prominent part in his funeral procession. He also re-exported tobacco to Holland and Hamburg and had invested in storage space in the Isle of Wight in order to satisfy the requirements of the Navigation Acts that tobacco be landed in England before being shipped to its final market. However, his re-export business was modest compared to that of John Cary, who in 1695 re-exported a million pounds of tobacco, one-third of that year's total, to Holland, Germany and the Baltic. S.212 (Paggen), S.279 (Cary) and see D. W. Jones (1972) (1) pp. 331-2.

71. Campbell (1747) p. 288; for the commission business, see K. G. Davies (1952); Price (1980); Donnan (1931).

72. On shipping shares, see R. Davis (1962) pp. 81-100; Price (1980) pp. 40-2 and Jarvis (1969) pp. 414-61. The average of 114 ships valued in the inventories of the sample was just over £2000 and the median just over £1000, with a range from under £100 for small coasters to over £11,000 for East Indiamen. Only about one ship in ten was owned by an individual and these were mainly small, averaging about £170 in value. The biggest shipowner was Sir Jonathan Dawes (S.42), with shares in 15 ships worth £5532, but this was only 10 per cent of his assets. For an example of suppliers with shipping shares, see the inventories of the three ropemakers in note 33 above, who had shares in 61 ships between them. break

73. For examples of merchants with domestic business interests, see S.65 (copperas manufacturer); S. 167 (property development); S.259 (lead mines); S.292 (dye-works). For a merchant who kept a shop to sell goods acquired in his Mediterranean trade, see S.309.

74. Fire insurance policies give a good idea of the vast numbers of warehouses and of the vaults and cellars with which London was honeycombed, especially the area near the waterside (GHMS 11936 passim). For descriptions of counting-houses, see, for example, S.42, 52, 71.

75. Magalotti (1821) p. 295. See also Roger North on his brother Dudley, who found that he had to move from the West End to the City because 'his business, which was very considerable, made it needful for him to have warehouses and to converse near the Exchange and in a mercantile way, so that he might readily carry persons to see his goods' (North (1890) ii, 173).

76. The two most useful modern books which I have found are Westerfield (1915) and Price (1980) but best of all are the contemporary works, especially those by Defoe, e.g. Defoe (1724-6), (1726-7) and (1730).

77. Review, 18 February 1706/7.

78. The main exception to the general specialization were the so-called 'warehousemen', a sort of super-wholesaler who bought up goods of all kinds to sell to the merchants, especially to those in the American trades (Defoe (1726-7) i, 4; Defoe (1730) p. 22; Price (1980) pp. 101-17).

79. On the Blackwell Hall Factors, see references in note 54 above. The London-based Norwich Factors provided similar services for cloth made in that city.

80. Quoted by R. Davis (1967) p. 115.

81. Rothstein (1961) pp. 13-12; for the inventory of a silkman, see S.136, Samuel Tomlins, who sold mainly to the lacemakers of Buckinghamshire, his native county.

82. See, for example, S. 132. For other inventories of leather-sellers, see S.221 and 348.

83. Westerfield (1915) pp. 314-18; for the linen industry and the rise of the drapers, see Harte (1973). By the early eighteenth century, many of the bigger linen-drapers did their own importing.

84. S.317 is the inventory of the junior partner. See also Jones (1972) (1) p. 332 and Price (1980) p. 98. Other wholesale dealers in imported goods include oilmen, drysalters (dye-stuffs), mercers (silks), timber-merchants and the dealers in tea, coffee, china and other goods imported by the East India Company (for a good example, see the papers of Henry Gambier in PRO C108/132). Wine merchants were unusual in selling direct to the tavern-keepers and gentlemen who were their main customers, but there were also intermediaries in this trade called wine-coopers, whose main function was as tasters and mixers of wine but who also used their expertise to deal in wine themselves.

85. For general discussion of the grain trade, see Defoe (1726-7), ii, ii, 31-46; Westerfield (1915) pp. 130-86; Gras (1915); McGrath (1948); Fisher (1935); Baker (1970); Chartres (1986); Chartres (1977) (1).

86. Defoe (1726-7) ii, ii, 36. break

87. Essay (1718) pp. 17-18.

88. Houghton (1727-8) i, 301, 313-14. His estimate was based on information from 'an ingenious butcher'. The retailers were known as cutting-butchers. On London as a meat market, see Chartres (1977) (1) pp. 19-24; Westerfield (1915) pp. 187-201; McGrath (1948) and P. E. Jones (1976).

89. Maitland (1756) ii, 758. For inventories of rather smaller but still wealthy wholesale cheesemongers, see S.17, 193, 274, 335. About 20 to 25 cheesemongers dominated the wholesale distribution of cheese in the late seventeenth century, while there were some 250 retail and wholesale cheesemongers altogether (Stern (1979) p. 231). In general, see Stern (1973); Stern (1979); Chartres (1977) (1) pp. 28-30; Westerfield (1915) pp. 204-8.

90. Clay (1984) ii, 47. For the London coal trade, see Westerfield (1915) pp. 218-39; R. Smith (1961) and Flinn (1984).

91. The coal-heavers who unloaded the coal in the river and the lightermen who brought it to the shore at Billingsgate controlled a bottleneck in the supply of the fuel and so were able to hold the market to ransom, a power which they used to exact commissions when the coal was sold on the London market. See R. Smith (1961) pp. 34-46, CJ xxi, 369-73, 516-18 and George (1927). For some inventories of coalmongers, see S.48, 31 , 360 and see also the daybook of John Martin for 1734-5, which gives a very good idea of the way the trade within London operated, showing especially the advantage of having enough space and money to buy coal in the summer when it was some 15 per cent cheaper, big customers getting a discount of 12 1/2 per cent on top of this (PRO C108/82).

92. Deering (1751) pp. 91-2. For a description of a provincial shopkeeper buying his stock in London, see Marshall (1974) pp. 89-90. For a wholesale haberdasher with a factor in Manchester, see S.358.

93. Defoe (1724-6) i, 80-1; S.317.

94. Defoe (1726-7) ii, ii, 142; bankruptcy data from PRO B4/1-2. For a more detailed analysis of this material, see Appendix C. For some big wholesale haberdashers, mercers and linen-drapers, see S. 171, 202, 206, 338, 358.

95. Chamberlayne (4th ed. 1670) pp. 469-70; N.H. (1684) pp. 70-1. There is no estimate of the numbers of shopkeepers in our period but by extrapolating from Schwarz's analysis of the tax assessments of the 1790s I would guess that there were some 2000 or 3000 shops not selling food and drink in our period (Schwarz (1979) pp. 256-8; Schwarz (1982) pp. 176-8, 183-5). The best discussion of the development of retailing is D. Davis (1966), esp. Chs 3-9.

96. 'Haberdashers' here includes milliners and yarn-dealers, etc. Drapers, mercers, grocers and salters were usually much better off than haberdashers, who were near the bottom of the retailing fraternity, only chandlers of the main groups coming beneath them. For the general pattern of shopkeeping fortunes, see Table 2.2 on p. 36.

97. S. 141. break

98. For a fine collection of trade cards, see Heal (1925). These cards were used for advertisement and for making out invoices. They became much commoner after the end of our period.

99. Brief History (1702) p. 152; Sun 34864. A rather different sort of shop could be found in the Royal Exchange (built 1568) and the New Exchange in the Strand (1609), both of which had galleries with a large number of small shops or booths mainly selling mercers', haberdashers' and milliners' goods. See D. Davis (1966) pp. 104-7, 122-6 and for inventories of such shops, see S.3 and S.60.

100. OED s.v. 'Haberdasher'; S.146.

101. S.53; cf. John Adam of Fenchurch Street (S.283), who sold 'cizars', razors, 'tobacco, snuff and ink boxes of silver, tortoiseshell, shagreen, brass, ivory and leather', canes, whips, coffee mills, powder horns and '467 brass, ivory, steele and wooden toys'.

102. On the markets, see Defoe (1724-6) i, 343-5; D. Davis (1966) pp. 74-81; Robertson (1958) and Robertson (1961).

103. Campbell (1747) p. 280.

104. S. 271; cf. S.1, 85, 150, 153, 257, 280.

105. E.g. S.138, 157, 214, 230, 334.

106. S.316 (Pott). For a hardware shop specializing in turnery ware, see S.116; for a fishermen's supply shop, see S.139 and S.343, who also dealt in seeds and gardening equipment. S.89 was a specialist garden supply shop. All these shops stocked household goods as well.

107. On the financial revolution, see Dickson (1967).

108. For details, see Vernon (1678) p. 128; on scriveners, see Tawney (1925) pp. 96-101; Coleman (1951-2) and, on Sir Robert Clayton, the greatest scrivener-banker of the late seventeenth century, see Melton (1986). Another group of financial intermediaries were the brokers, whose original function was to introduce potential buyers and sellers on the Exchange. Many began to specialize in the market for bills of exchange, bringing buyers and sellers together and discounting bills themselves (Vernon (1678) p. 109; Scarlett (1682) p. 8).

109. PRO C 107/70-72, 113.

110. See 'The Mystery of the New Fashioned Goldsmiths or Bankers' (1676), reprinted in Martin (1892). For bankers in general, see Richards (1958); Hilton Price (1890-91); Joslin (1954) and Martin (1892).

111. Collection (1677); there is a copy of the list of goldsmith-bankers in Hilton Price (1890-91) pp. 158-9; for 1725, see Joslin (1954). The development of banking suffered a serious check in 1672 by the 'Stop of the Exchequer', when the Crown reneged on money lent by the bankers (see Horsefield (1982)). The bankers' papers that survive suggest that the assets of banks ranged from £50,000 or less up to about £200,000, equivalent to the assets of very wealthy merchants but not huge businesses. They were all completely dwarfed by the Bank of England. For studies of various bankers, see Joslin (1954); Hoare (1932); Shelton (1956); Clay (1984) ii, 275 and, for a banker in our sample, see S.246, Thomas Williams, who had gross assets of £70,000 and net of £55,000. break

112. Judging from inventories, few middling people borrowed from banks, whose main customers were the gentlemen of the West End.

113. Proposals (1706) p. 9; CJ xxv, 45-8. The maximum legal rate of interest was 6 per cent until 1713 and then 5 per cent for the rest of our period.

114. S.45. Cf. S.84, 149, 196.

115. For more on investment, see Ch. 5, pp. 143-57.

116. It is unfortunately impossible to separate wholesalers from retailers in Table 2.2, since inventories do not always provide sufficient information for this purpose. Some give the addresses of debtors of the business, which can indicate a widespread inland trade; some have warehouses but no shop, which suggests a wholesale business; in other cases, a large number of individual trade debts in scores or hundreds of pounds is a fair indication of a wholesale business, since few retail debts ran this high. However, such indications are not really sufficient to place all the people listed in the table as either retailers or wholesalers, especially as many were both. Nevertheless, it is a reasonable assumption that anyone who left over £2000 was either a wholesaler or at least had a large wholesale component in his business, while few wholesalers would have left less than £1000.

117. There were altogether 34 men in the sample (9 per cent) who left more than £10,000—16 merchants, 1 banker and 8 wholesalers, the 4 manufacturers in Table 2.1 (p. 32) and 5 rentiers, most of whom were probably retired merchants.

118. In 1739, Maitland counted nearly 16,000 victualling establishments in London, a figure which was swollen by the rapid increase in dramshops from the 1720s. Somewhere around 10,000 or 12,000 would probably have been more normal for our period. Turning such numbers into employment poses the usual problems but, at a guess, one might suggest an average employment of 10 for an inn, 7 for a tavern, 3 for coffee-houses and alehouses and 1 for dram-shops and brandy-shops. If these multipliers are applied to Maitland's estimates of 207 inns, 447 taverns, 551 coffee-houses, 5975 alehouses and 8659 brandy-shops, one would get 33,000 people, which does not seem too unrealistic, though the true figure might lie anywhere between 20,000 and 40,000 (Maitland (1739) p. 531).

119. Maitland (1739) p. 531 has 207 inns; Chartres (1977) (3) p. 27 states that there were about 150 inns engaged in the transport trades in 1715. Chartres is the best authority on London inns in this period. See also his thesis, Chartres (1973).

120. Chapman (1972) pp. 20-1.

121. Pepys 10 May 1663; Swift (1948) i, 48; Ward (1924) p. 206. See also Pepys vol. x, s.v. 'Taverns'; Simon (1906-9) iii, 192-252 and J. Paul de Castro, 'Dictionary of the principal London taverns', GHMS 3110.

122. This description is based on the 20 taverns in the sample, which had an average of 10 private drinking-rooms each. S.192 is the Crown in Threadneedle Street; see also Pepys x, 420 and Lyons (1944) p. 270.

123. French wines were legally available as prize-goods during the wars between 1689 and 1713, and much was also smuggled. During periods of prohibition, inventories often list large quantities of very highly priced continue

      wines simply described as 'red' or 'white', which one suspects were French wines imported from northern Italian, Spanish or even Irish ports to defraud the customs. For some examples for the period after 1689, see S.238, 248, 325, 350, 352.

124. Quoted by Ellis (1956) p. 52; Macaulay (1850) i, 367; on coffeehouses, see Ellis (1956); Lillywhite (1963) and Pelzer (1982). Most coffeehouses were small businesses, unlike taverns, which would have been unlikely to produce a fortune of much over £100 for their proprietors. For a derogatory description of coffee-house keepers, see Case (1729) pp. 8-9.

125. Ward (1924) p. 11.

126. S.327; Maitland (1739) p. 531; the authority on alehouses is Clark (1983), see, especially, pp. 195-249. Most alehouses operated at an artisan level of fortune, although some were becoming respectable from the late seventeenth century, and this top sector of the trade would have attracted middle-class investment.

127. I have relied heavily on the unpublished dissertation of Hopkin (1980) for this section on cook-shops.

128. Misson (1719) pp. 145-6; Smollett (1748) pp. 102-3.

129. Maitland (1739) p. 531. This incredible figure seems fairly accurate. Cf. the count of 3835 dram-shops in the metropolitan districts of Middlesex in 1736, a much smaller area than Maitland's (Clark (1983) p. 239).

130. Altick (1978) p. 37. This delightful book on the shows of London is highly recommended.

131. Defoe (1725) p. 33; cf. MCI 534, a case relating to the apprentice Edward Day, who was addicted to playing at 'shoffel board', 'rolley polley' and 'playing with dice at wheel barrows in the street'; Account (1722).

132. Chancellor (1925) pp. 151-4; Malcolm (1808) pp. 309, 321; Pepys 21 December 1663. For a good description of a cock-fight, see Uffenbach (1934) pp. 48-9.

133. Pepys 14 August 1666; Evelyn (1955) 16 June 1670; both quoted by Chancellor (1925) in his section on bull and bear baiting, pp. 144-51; Malcolm (1808) pp. 327, 329; for opera prices, see Avery (1960) p. lx.

134. Foreigners (1729) p. 120.

135. Tilmouth (1957-8) pp.15-19; Young (1965) p. 39; see also Harley (1968) on the social history of music.

136. Ward (1699); Malcolm (1810) p. 310; for some insights into the London dancing world, see Ryder (1939), esp. pp. 127-8, 192.

137. On the theatre, see Nicoll (1923); Nicoll (1925); Van Lennep (1965); Hotson (1928); Avery (1960) and Pedicord (1954). After the Licensing Act of 1737, London was again restricted to two theatres, Drury Lane and Covent Garden.

138. Opera stars could earn staggering salaries. The top opera singers for the 1708 season got over £400 while, in the 1720s, the castrato Senesino and the prima donna Francesca Cuzzoni both earned over £2000 for a single season.

139. Fisher (1948).

140. Gregory King thought that there were 10,000 'persons in the law' in continue

      1688, a figure which Professor Holmes does not consider to be too far over the mark (Holmes (1982) p. 154), and there would certainly have been 10,000 by 1730. It seems a reasonable guess that at least half of these were resident in London. King also thought there were 10,000 clergymen, which Holmes thinks was probably too low (Holmes (1982) pp. 94-5). At least 1000 of these must have lived in London. Holmes estimates 10,000-15,000 teachers of all sorts in England and Wales, and leans towards the higher number (Holmes (1982) p. 52). It seems probable that London would have been unequally represented in the profession, considering the concentration of schools and the wide range of specialist teaching. So, at a guess, there were 2000 or 2500 teachers. Finally, there were about 100 physicians (Roberts (1964) (2) p. 381; Holmes (1982) pp. 170-1), 100-200 surgeons (Roberts (1964) (2) p. 381; A List of the names of surgeons etc., BL 777.1.3/1) and some 400, or possibly up to 1000, apothecaries (Roberts (1964) (2) pp. 277, 381; Holmes (1982) p. 310; Tentamen (1704) p. 49 and see successive lists prepared by the Society of Apothecaries, BL 777.1.3/4, 4 ^* , 7, 9 etc.). Such estimates add up to nearly 10,000, although many people at the bottom of the legal and teaching professions were hardly middle-class—one might hazard a figure of between 5000 and 7000 middle-class professionals in London altogether, compared to some 20,000 to 25,000 householders in the whole of the middle station (see, pp. 80-1).

141. Holmes (1982) p. 124. This book and Prest (1987) (1) have been my main guides for this section on the professions. On lawyers, see Holmes (1982) pp. 115-65; Robson (1959); Duman (1981); Prest (1981) (2); Prest (1987) (2) and Birks (1960).

142. Quoted by Prest (1981) (2) p. 77. The income of the typical member of the commercial middle class with a fortune of about £2000 would have been about £200-300 (see pp. 269-70). The number of barristers reached a peak in the 1660s and was to fall in our period (Prest (1987) (2) p. 76).

143. Compleat (1683) p. 13; John Evelyn, quoted by Holmes (1982) p. 152. The numbers of attorneys and, especially, solicitors continued to grow during our period but at a slower rate than in the half century before the Civil War (Prest (1987) (2) pp. 72-9).

144. Details of the legal bureaucracy are normally included in the guidebooks of the period, e.g. Chamberlayne, Miège, Hatton.

145. Details of fees can be found in legal textbooks, e.g. the various editions of The Compleat Solicitor or Practick (1681). See also the records of the enquiry into legal fees in 1731-2 in House of Commons, Sessions Papers vol. xiii; the Doorkeeper's fees are on p. 309.

146. Chamberlayne (22nd ed. 1707) pp. 193-4; House of Commons, Sessions Papers xiii, 442-3.

147. In general on the Church, see Overton (1885); Sykes (1934); Wickham Legg (1914); Cragg (1951); Holmes (1982) pp. 83-114; O'Day (1987). For biographies of two important Bishops of London, see Sykes (1926) and Carpenter (1956).

148. Burnet (1969 ed.) vi, 190-7, quotation on p. 192; Chamberlayne quoted in Overton (1885) p. 303. break

149. For clerical incomes see Burnet (1969 ed.) v, 121; Overton (1885) pp. 303-5 and for a general discussion see Holmes (1982) pp. 92-107. Incomes were to grow both absolutely and in relation to other incomes in the century following our period (O'Day (1987) pp. 54-6).

150. Spectator, 24 March 1710/11. As early as the 1620s, recruitment throughout the diocese of London was wholly graduate (O'Day (1987) p. 46).

151. There were, however, less churches after the Fire than there had been before, 35 of the 87 which were burned not being rebuilt. Nevertheless, new churches and chapels were being built in the suburbs, their numbers increasing after 1711 when an Act of Parliament provided for the building of 50 new churches, 12 of which were actually built in our period. For surveys of London churches, see Pietas (1714) and Parish Clerks (1732), which describes 111  in the metropolis, and there were also at least 60 chapels.

152. Hatton (1708) vol. i, p. xxxvii. See also Wickham Legg (1914) pp. 88-110.

153. The Contempt of the Clergy Consider'd (1739), quoted by Sykes (1934) p. 221; Burnet (1969 ed.) vi, 215. See also Sykes (1934) p. 227.

154. Parish Clerks (1732).

155. Stackhouse (1722) pp. 83, 86; Sykes (1934) pp. 206-9.

156. Quoted by Overton (1885) p. 298. The vestry minutes of St Katherine Cree provide a good example of clerical competition. In 1691, the Vestry drew up a short-list of eight curates and made arrangements for each to preach, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, over the next four Sundays, after which the Vestry chose the successful candidate (GHMS 1196/1, 20 June & 13 July 1691).

157. Estimates of the numbers of dissenters in London vary but they were probably about 10-15 per cent of the population. See below, note 41 of Ch. 9.

158. Watts (1978) p. 342; Holmes (1982) pp. 111-14.

159. On literacy in London, see Cressy (1980) pp. 73-5, where he analyses the proportion in various parishes who either signed or made a mark on nationally collected loyalty declarations in the early 1640s. The national average was for 70 per cent to leave a mark, while the four London parishes included had figures of 33, 21, 17 and 9 per cent. See also, on the literacy of London women, Earle (1989). On elementary schools in London, see Anglin (1980); Wide & Morris (1969). Much information can also be gleaned from such publications as Hatton (1708); Parish Clerks (1732); Maitland (1739).

160. On the charity schools, see M. G. Jones (1938) and for the estimate of cost per head, see Maitland (1739) p. 639.

161. Castle Street Free School (see Hatton (1708)). The standard work on grammar schools is Vincent (1969). See also Wallis (1952).

162. Quoted by Holmes (1982) p. 47.

163. Dare (1963); Pearce (1982) p. 84.

164. Heal (1931) has biographical information on writing-masters and many details on the schools. On mathematics teachers and schools, see Taylor (1954) and Taylor (1966). break

165. Vincent (1969) pp. 199-202; Hans (1951) pp. 82-7.

166. For Newington Green Academy, see Girdler (1953) and J. W. A. Smith (1954) pp. 56-61. Good dissenting academies attracted Anglicans as well as dissenters.

167. Collection, 27 July 1694; three at Hackney, two at Chelsea, one each at Greenwich, Mile End, Bethnal Green and Kensington. On Westminster and St Paul's, which were well on the way to becoming what we now call public schools, see Sargeaunt (1898) and McDonnell (1909).

168. Sargeaunt (1898) p. 101; Heal (1931) p. 7; Hans (1951) pp. 70-7.

169. Dare (1963) pp. 15, 34; Hatton (1708) provides a good idea of the range of grammar school salaries. The salaries of grammar school teachers could go as low as 5s. a week (Cressy (1987) p. 144). For charity school teachers, see M. G. Jones (1938) pp. 96-109.

170. There were some 40 physicians in London in the 1620s, 136 in 1695 and 78 in 1719, about one doctor for every 10,000 people at the worst and one for every 4000 at the best (Roberts (1964) (2) p. 381; Holmes (1982) pp. 170-1). On the education of physicians, see Allen (1946); Poynter & Bishop (1951), introduction. In general on the medical profession, see Hamilton (1951), Roberts (1964) (1); Roberts (1964) (2); Poynter (1961) (2), Holmes (1982) pp. 166-205 and Cook (1986). It should be noted that, in addition to the representatives of 'official' medicine discussed here, there were large numbers of empirics, quacks, astrologers and women learned in herbal lore, who practised an 'alternative' medicine which was often just as effective (or otherwise) as that provided by the 'professionals'.

171. Hone (1950) p. 34; Wall et al. (1963) p. 125.

172. Sydenham quoted by Holmes (1982) p. 182; Hone (1950) pp. 113-14.

173. On the education of surgeons, see Peachey (1924) Ch. 1. Not much work has been done on the wealth of surgeons but see Holmes (1982) p. 232 and Poynter (1965) (1) pp. 208-9 for some suggestive data. The one surgeon in the sample, Richard Blundell, left nearly £10,000 in 1718 (S.371).

174. Tentamen (1704) pp. 69-70. For more on the training of apothecaries, see Wall et al. (1963) pp. 76-90. On numbers, see note 140 above.

175. S.33; Fair Play (?1708) quoted by Hamilton (1951) p. 161 fn. 2; Pittis (1715) p. 13; Wall et al. (1963) p. 82.

176. Pittis (1715). Holmes (1982) pp. 218-26 has data on physicians' earnings and investments.

177. For change in the civil service, see Holmes (1982) pp. 239-61; Aylmer (1980).

178. Holmes (1982) p. 256 suggests about 3000 permanent posts in London by 1725, to which might be added about 1000 for the royal household and maybe another 1000 for the latter's servants and for part-time employment in the customs service. Hoon (1968) pp. 92-166 suggests a regular customs establishment in London of 1200-1500, which could be doubled in busy times by part-time employment. R.E. (1877) pp. 17-19 suggests 700 in the London excise service by 1750. For the royal household, see Beattie (1967). Holmes (1982) p. 256 states that 'the overwhelming bulk of the continue

      government's office staff and 95 per cent of its local revenue men earned between £40 and £80 a year'.

179. On the growth of the army as a profession, see Holmes (1982) pp. 262-74. See also Scouller (1966), esp. pp. 81-96.

180. On the trade in art, see Haskell (1959). For painters at work in London during this period, see Walpole (1888).

181. Croft-Murray (1962) i, 43-8. Taverns were another lucrative source of demand for decorative art. For pictures in middle-class homes, see p. 295.

182. Lely left an estate in land worth £900 p.a. and a picture collection which was auctioned for £26,000; Kneller left an estate worth nearly £2000 p.a., despite losing £20,000 in South Sea stocks (Walpole (1888) ii, 99, 133, 202-11 ; Whitley (1928) i, 4-5). On Stevenson, see Redgrave (1878) p. 413 and S.131.

183. P. Rogers (1978) pp. 17-18 makes the point that most writers were drawn from those with a learned and usually university background. See also his Grub Street (1972) for the world of the hack.

184. Van Lennep (1965) pp. liii, lxxxii-iii; Avery (1960) p. ci; Collins (1927) p.34.

185. Jacob Tonson, one of the most successful publishers of his day, who left over £40,000 in 1739, was considered a fair dealer with authors but, as his fortune indicates, he was even fairer to himself (Lynch (1971)). For some bad bargains by writers, see Nichols (1812-15) ii, 458.

186. P. Rogers (1978) pp. 53-4; Holmes (1982) p. 33.

187. The only near-contemporary estimate of the number of servants in London which I have found is Hanway (1767) ii, 158, where he reckoned that they were 1 in 13 of the population, i.e. 50,000 of his estimated population of 650,000. This proportion is about the same as that in mid-Victorian London (McBride (1976) p. 36; Mitchell & Deane (1962) p. 19) and there seems no reason why the proportion would have been any less in our period when the population of London was about 500,000, giving a servant population of, say, 35,000 to 40,000. Maitland (1739) pp. 618-21 says that there were 22,000 sailors in London's merchant fleet in 1732; a House of Commons committee report stated that there were 9717 freemen of the Watermen's Company in 1724, while apprenticeship was at the rate of about 450 a year between 1700 and 1730 (Humpherus (1887-89) ii, 122-3, 214). On land, there were some 5000 official porters and coalheavers, 672 carts, each with at least one carter, 800 hackney coaches and unknown numbers of wheelbarrowmen, all engaged in carriage within the city, while there were many hundreds more residents who engaged in inland carriage outside the city (Stern (1960) pp. 50-1, 85; R. Smith (1961) p. 49; Maitland (1739) pp. 625, 800). Adding all these together and a few more for luck, the total numbers engaged in carriage would certainly have been 30,000 at any time in our period and much more by 1730.

188. For more on domestic servants, see pp. 218-19. Little work has been done on the lives of London servants but it is interesting to note that, in Paris, the large numbers of male domestics were generally better off than other wage-earners and were often able to accumulate quite respectable fortunes (Roche (1987)). break

189. On seamen's wages, see R. Davis (1962) p. 84; Ehrman (1953) p. 129. Ships' captains were often the managing agents of shipowning syndicates and indeed it was often the captain who created the ship by organizing its building and selling shares to his suppliers and to members of the mercantile community.

190. GHMS 6308/1A, Thomas Walker & Co. of Whitechapel owned 90 lighters; Chartres (1973) pp. 176-210; GHMS 12833/1; on the carmen, see Bennett (1952).

191. Dowdell (1932) p. 105 & fn. 10.

192. Hatton (1708) pp. 791-8; see also Strype (1720) i, 26-7; Foreigners (1729) pp. 10-12, 50; Maitland (1739) pp. 622-30; Scott (1910-12) iii, 3-33 & 418-22.

193. Falkus (1976). On urban improvement, see also Jones & Falkus (1979).

194. On the development of insurance generally and particularly fire insurance, see the first chapters of Dickson (1960) and Supple (1970). See also Scott (1910-12) iii, 372-88 for details of the companies and Blackstone (1957) on fire-fighting.

195. S.341; cf. S.372. See, in general, Gittings (1984) and Taylor (1983). For more on funerals, see pp. 311-14.

196. Labrousse & Braudel (1970) pp. 601-50; Rudé (1971) pp. 52-63; Schwarz (1979) and Schwarz (1982). I have assumed there were about 100,000 households in London, based on a population of just over 500,000 and a household size of about five persons. See estimates by Gregory King in Thirsk & Cooper (1972) p. 772 and by Jones & Judges (1935) pp. 58-62.

1. Burton (1681) p. 2; in a lawsuit of 1654 a linen-draper claimed that, although an apprentice might be of little value to his master in the first part of his time, 'in the latter parte he could be worth £20 a year or more' and other witnesses put the value at £30 or £40 (MCI 68).

2. Many such apprentices never bothered to take up their freedom, as can be seen by the very great difference between the numbers who became apprentices and the numbers who became freemen. For some data in the middle of the seventeenth century, see S. R. Smith (1973) pp. 197-8.

3. See, for example, Campbell (1747) pp. 127, 195-6, 283.

4. In general on the decline in apprenticeship, see Kellett (1957-8) pp. 388-9, Kahl (1956), Glass (1969) p. 385. The freedom of the Companies was increasingly acquired by redemption (a flat fee) and by patrimony (because one's father had been a freeman). See p. 256, for examples of the Distillers' Company selling the freedom to interlopers who wished to trade in the City.

5. On the need for immigration to maintain the population, let alone increase it, see Wrigley (1967) and Finlay (1981) pp. 8-9.

6. For what follows on the geographical and social origins of apprentices, continue

      see Stone (1966), Glass (1969), Kahl (1956), S. R. Smith (1973), Kitch (1986) and Wareing (1980). The main source for analysis of both social and geographical origins are the records of the Livery Companies, especially the apprentice binding books, which normally give the place of origin and the occupation and/or status of the father of the apprentice. Comments on the geographical origins of the sample are based on 236 out of 375 cases for which this information is available and on social origins on 211 cases.

7. See pp. 7-13.

8. Stone (1984) pp. 233-4.

9. Fletcher (1975) p. 37; GHMS 10823/1 p. 38; North (1890) ii, 2-3.

10. North (1890) i, 21; ii, 46; GHMS 10823/1 p. 35.

11. Apprentices in London were supposed to be 14 before they were bound (see Laws (1765) p. 112). We can calculate the ages at apprenticeship of just over half the sample: 30 per cent were 16 and 81 per cent were between 15 and 18 inclusive. These ages are much lower than those discovered by Rappaport for the middle of the sixteenth century; he found that most men in London did not start their apprenticeship until they were 20 or older (Rappaport (1983) p. 115). These are surprising findings and one wonders what these young men did between leaving school and taking up their apprenticeships.

12. Wadsworth (1712) p. 58, quoted by Morgan (1944) p. 39; Campbell (1747) pp. 2-3.

13. E.g. Burton (1681); Trenchfield (1671).

14. For Purcell, see the apprenticeship bindings of the Drapers' Company and notes attached to them; for Randall, S.93 and Drapers' Company records; Williams, S.114, Meredith, S.270; Stationers' Company records.

15. MCE 1679, Sturges v. Compeere; Collection , 10 February 1693.

16. MCI 385, 57.

17. CLRO Small Ms. Box 40, No. 14. Contract between Richard Robinson and Isaac Terry, ironmonger, 9 August 1682.

18. For those members of the sample for whom information is available, the terms were 113 at 7 years, 74 at 8 years and 5 at 9 years.

19. Clothes were often a point at issue in disputes between masters and apprentices, and many witnesses provide valuations (MCI & MCE passim). See also p. 284.

20. Defoe (1726-7) i, 183; Wood (1935) p. 215; Kirkman (1673) p. 34; Beloff (1942) p. 39; MCI 379, 411 (and several other cases, e.g. 371, 377).

21. These figures are all gleaned from cases in MCI and MCE. For the rise in premiums, see Defoe (1715) pp. 260-1; Defoe (1724) pp. 10-11; Dunlop (1912) pp. 199-204 suggests that premiums were relatively new but see Thrupp (1948) p. 214 for premiums being paid in the fourteenth century.

22. Jordan (1960) pp. 166-72; MCE 1678-9 Maslyn v. Phipps; 1680-1 Parsons v. Royce.

23. Dunton (1705) pp. 34-9; cf. Beloff(1942) p. 39; MCE 1680-1 Gawden v. Harris.

24. Campbell (1747) p. 304; see also Dunlop (1912) p. 54, Miège (1691) iii, 112; Laws (1765) p. 112. It seems clear that some masters failed to enrol continue

      apprentices for reasons of deliberate fraud, using this loophole to get rid of their apprentices after a few years and then take on a new lad with a new premium. See, for instance, MCI 377 (1680). Contracts were broken by sueing in the Common Law side of the Mayor's Court—see the cases in MCE—and attempts to recover premiums were normally made on the Equity side of the same court—see MCI.

25. GHMS 12017 pp. 19-20; MCI 413; MCI 444.

26. MCI 441; MCI 420.

27. Defoe (1724) pp. 12-13.

28. Kirkman (1673) pp. 35-6; MCI 358.

29. MCI 358; on the work done by merchants' apprentices, see Vernon (1678), MCI 358, 391 etc.

30. Campbell (1747) p. 283; cf. pp. 195-6; MCI 377; MCI 379; MCI 373.

31. On the education of surgeons, see Peachey (1924) Ch. 1; on apothecaries, Wall et al (1963) pp. 76-90; on masterpieces, Dunlop (1912) Ch. 13.

32. Mason (1754) pp. 14-19; North (1890) ii, 37; Kirkman (1673) pp. 46-7; MCI 70; MCI 419.

33. Dunlop (1912) pp. 196-7; Nichols (1812-15) i, 307; MCI 427.

34. On service in general, see Kussmaul (1981).

35. MCI 413B.

36. For some complaints about food, see MCI 67, 391, 461. On diet in general, see pp. 279-80; for some violence, see MCE 1680-1 Parsons v. Foyce; MCI 66.

37. MCI 62, 368, 370, 377, 382, 385.

38. Defoe (1726-7) i, 129; MCE 1680-1; GHMS 12017 p. 20; the only figures for pocket money which I have come across are fairly low, £2 p.a. for a linen-draper's apprentice (MCI 382), £4 p.a. for a goldsmith-banker's son (S.246), but it is clear from the evidence in lawsuits that many apprentices had far more than this to spend.

39. MCI 358 (1678).

40. MCI 382, 390; cf. 358, 369, 378, 391 etc.

41. MCI 371, 377, 379, 390 etc.

42. Miège (1691) iii, 112; MCI 42, 48, 66, 368, 371, 386 etc.

43. Glass (1969) p. 1386; S. R. Smith (1973) p. 96; Finay (1981) p. 67, drawing on work by Elliott, estimates that there were 32,000-40,000 apprentices in 1600 and 27,200-32,640 in 1700, a huge relative fall from 13.6-17.0 per cent of total population to 4.0-4.8 per cent; for a study of the apprentices as 'adolescents', see S. R. Smith (1973) (2).

1. This was probably true in Elizabethan London. Rappaport (1984) pp. 115-23 shows that about half of all masters opened their first shops more than 18 months after freedom and that the average delay was three years. His data also indicate that nearly half of all freemen eventually became continue

      masters. Such figures suggest that many masters were financing themselves at least partly by saving wages.

2. Young merchants could built up capital from commissions earned abroad (see p. 35). Some young men also received salaries or commissions as managers or factors in domestic businesses and these earnings were likely to be far higher than those of a book-keeper.

3. Campbell (1747) pp. 337ff; Collyer (1761) passim.

4. Campbell (1747) p. 64.

5. S.113; PRO C 105/5, Herne v. Barber. Letters from John to James Hudson dated 2 February 1732 and 25 February 1733.

6. 90 out of 275 whose age at marriage is known married at these ages and another 33 married under 24. See pp. 180-5 for a general discussion of age at marriage—the median for the whole sample was 27.

7. GLRO DL/C/247 fos 149-50 (Tarry); for examples of apprentices marrying their masters' daughters, see note 31 of Chapter 7 below.

8.Jordan (1960) pp. 68, 172-7; James (1948) pp. 158-9; Johnson (1922) iv, 323, shows that the Drapers' Company lent 42 legacy parcels to young men in 1687-8, a total of £6900 or about £165 per man. Other examples include the Grocers, who had 30 different legacies totalling £3660 lent out to 81 people in 1635-6 (average £45) (GHMS 11732), and the Fishmongers, who had 35 legacies totalling £2755 lent out to 77 men in 1690 (average £36) (GHMS 6248).

9. Defoe (1726-7) i, 258-74; 34 of the sample were in partnerships and 341 were not, as far as one can tell from the inventories. In analysing the bankruptcy data for 1711-15, lower percentages of partners were found, 8.8 per cent of creditors and 5.8 per cent of debtors. The commonest occupations amongst these 110 partnerships were merchants (32), linen-drapers (19), haberdashers (7), warehousemen (6), mercers (5) woollen-drapers (5), silkmen (4). PRO B4/1-2. For the analysis of this data, see Appendix C, p. 409. These figures understate the proportion of partnerships, since on occasion individuals both sued and were sued without reference to their partnerships, so that the 10 per cent derived from the sample is probably fairly accurate.

10. Defoe (1726-7) i, 312-15; Marshall (1974) pp. 89-90; Barbon (1690) pp. 27-8; cf. William Petty, who stated that traders should not rise 'into debt above halfe the stocke they set up with' (quoted by Hoppit (1986) (2) p. 66).

11. North (1890) i, 53. The story relates to the 1660s.

12. Defoe (1726-7) i, 345-6, quoted by Yamey (1949) p. 104.

13. Review vi, 129-32; cf. iii, 21-7, 33-5; v, 519-20; Defoe (1726-7) i, 412-13; Defoe (1729) p. 19.

14. S.25.

15. Brown (1760) iv, 156; PRO C108/30, letter dated 4 November 1763; Knatchbull quoted by Federer (1980) p. 10; GHMS 205/2; PRO C108/353, Greening v. Greening, Thomas Greening to his father, 19 February 1740.

16. GHMS 11892A, Mitford to George Mallabar, 1 February 1704. As an example of slow payment, one might take the group of Board of Works continue

      tradesmen, who in 1719 claimed to be owed about £40,000 for work performed in George I's reign (from 1714), £20,294 from Queen Anne's reign (1702-14) and £54,910 from the reign of William III (1689-1702). Quoted in Federer (1980) p. 8.

17. Defoe (1726-7) i, 433-4; price quotations from GHMS 11892A, 19017/1, PRO C105/5, C104/44; CJ xxv, 46; see also Price (1980) pp. 97, 100, 108-9 for discounts of 6 and 10 per cent per annum granted to merchants in the later eighteenth century who paid in advance of the time for which they had been given credit.

18. The extent of liabilities and the range of their proportion to assets (from 0 to well over 100 per cent), together with fact that virtually all occupations can be found amongst those with both high and low liabilities, suggest that attempts to deduce net wealth from probate inventories, which only very rarely list liabilities, must be very suspect.

19. Most of the sub-groups of assets distinguished in Table 4.6 are simple enough to identify in inventories. The main problem lies in the distinction between 'trade credit' and 'personal loans'. Loans made on real security, such as pawns or mortgages, are easy to identify but those made on personal security can easily be confused with normal trade credit. To get round this problem, an assumption has been made. All debts owing to the deceased in round figures and secured by bond or other formal instrument (or round figures plus interest at the normal rate of 6 per cent) have been identified as loans and all other debts have been treated as trade credit. In most cases, this is realistic enough. Many lists of debts start with figures such as £500, £100, £103, £101 10s., £50, £53 etc., all secured by bonds, and then continue with non-rounded and unsecured figures. But, in some cases, there is ambiguity and one must accept that there is a measure of uncertainty in the distinction between the two types of debt. However, the distinction is worth trying to make, especially for the analysis of investment in the next chapter.

20. S. 126 and S.303. The value of equipment cannot always be distinguished from stock in trade but other largish valuations were two printers with £388 and £400 and a sugar refiner with about £300 (S.37, 66, 355). Valuations of such items do, however, pose a problem since they are likely to be old and may well be valued at 'scrap' prices, while stock-in-trade was normally fairly new and would be valued at wholesale prices.

21. In the 81 inventories which give this information, the median proportion of doubtful and desperate debts to all debts was 31 per cent. These figures are likely to exaggerate bad debts since the really good debts might well have been called in before the inventory was drawn up. The mercers, Alexander and Bostock, had cumulated bad debts equal to 13 per cent of all debts in 1714 and 10 per cent in 1721, figures which may better represent a general pattern (PRO C110/43). Carlton (1974) p. 44 makes the point that, by setting down good debts as doubtful debts, executors were in a position to cheat legatees entitled to a fixed proportion of the estate, especially children.

22. Vanderlint (1734) p. 142. break

23. Some good examples of such letters can be found in the letter-book of a London tailor, PRO C108/30.

24. Vernon (1678) p. 184. On the custom of London relating to 'foreign attachment' see Laws (1765) pp. 113 ff.

25. CJ xlvii, 645. See Innes (1983) pp. 251-61 for a clear summary of the legal process for collecting debts in the late eighteenth century, which was very much the same as in our period. See also Francis (1986), who, in a very detailed study, emphasizes the attractiveness of common law litigation for the creditor. So long as the creditor could prove the debt, he had a very high probability of complete recovery, whilst the convicted debtor had to pay all costs, making debt collection through the courts a very cheap operation. The very predictability of the legal process provided the creditor with the means effectively to threaten the debtor by the issue of a writ and the pre-trial process. He concludes (p. 905) that 'the promotion of strict, objective attitudes towards debtor performance displaced more lenient social attitudes towards debtors', one more instance of the increasingly capitalist world portrayed in this book. See also Francis (1983) for the development of a more 'certain' contract law in the seventeenth century, a development which he sees as a result of a mutual interest between common lawyers seeking maximum income and businessmen seeking maximum certainty in recovering their debts. My thanks to Henry Horwitz for these two references.

26. Numbers would depend on whether there had recently been an Act to clear the gaols of poor prisoners. In 1791, there were 1957 prisoners for debt in English gaols, of whom 1251 were on mesne process (i.e. awaiting trial), 570 in the King's Bench and 260 in the Fleet Prison, the two main debtors' prisons in London. There would probably have been at least as many in our period since, despite the smaller population, the prisons were cleared less frequently and charitable organizations to free poor prisoners were not so prominent. Defoe claimed that there were 5000 prisoners for debt, but this is almost certainly an exaggeration. CJ xlvii, 646; Review iii, 90; v, 579-83; for a summary of Defoe's views on imprisonment for debt, see Owens & Furbank (1986).

27. Parliamentary History viii, 711 , 723.

28. Defoe (1729) pp. 17-21.

29. Vernon (1678) pp. 183-4; CSPD 1675-6, p. 86; CJ xiii, 36b, 92, 126, 414; and for an excellent general discussion of Courts of Conscience, see Winder (1936).

30. Vernon (1678) pp. 173-7.

31. On private compositions, see Vernon (1678) pp. 167-72; Defoe (1726-7) i, 204-24; Philips (1731) pp. 8-9. All lay writers stress the advantages of compositions over formal bankruptcies.

32. Vernon (1678) pp. 185-6; for a clear summary of the laws of bankruptcy, see Duffy (1980). See also Holdsworth (1903-72) viii, 229-45; xi, 445-6; W. R. Jones (1979). The standard contemporary textbook was Goodinge (1713). Only 'traders' could become bankrupt, a rather vague description which covers virtually everyone who is the subject of this book except such professionals as doctors and lawyers and some people in artisan continue

      trades. Gentlemen could not become bankrupts, unless they were also traders, and therefore could only be sued on a first come first served basis for insolvency, though it was of course open to their creditors to agree to a private composition.

33. Essay (1707) p. iv; for a spirited defence of the new laws, see Defoe (1706). The Acts are 4, 5 Anne c.17 and 6 Anne c.22. Further small changes in the law were embodied in a codifying Act of 1732 (5 Geo. II c.30) which fixed the law until the end of the eighteenth century. Quotation from Review vi, 551.

34. Defoe (1726-7) i, 84; Essay (1707) p. 2.

35. Hoppit (1986) (1) pp. 45-7 and W. R. Jones (1979) p. 5 for overall rates of bankruptcy; numbers of cheesemongers (411) and taverns (447) from Maitland (1739) p. 531; for the number of apothecaries, see Ch. 2, note 140, above; numbers of bankrupts from PRO B4/1-2, the tavern-keepers were described as vintners. Other high numbers of bankrupts relative to likely total numbers include merchants (133), mercers (27), linen-drapers (26), brewers (14), dyers (13) and shipwrights (7). Other vulnerable businesses were probably normally too small to merit a commission of bankruptcy. There were, for instance, only 11 distillers, 9 haberdashers and 18 victuallers amongst the bankrupts in these years, while the building industry, often cited as very prone to bankruptcy, hardly shows up at all, just 8 carpenters and 1 bricklayer.

36. See the rough calculation of the numbers of middle station households on p. 80-1. The 20 years is calculated on the basis that most careers started at about 25 and the average age at death of the sample was 45.

37. Barbon (1690) p. 2.

38. For an example of a man who had adopted this strategy, see S.39, Moses Ingram. He had zero liabilities and his capital was invested in 11 loans secured by bonds and some tenements in Leadenhall Street. There are many others in the sample. Older men tended progressively to shift their capital into this sort of investment portfolio.

39. Defoe (1726-7) i, 75-6; PRO C108/284.

40. Marshall (1974) pp. 95-6; GHMS 18760/1, Boughey to Dr Humphrey Babington, 9 March 1675.

41. Matthews (1906) pp. 22-3. The maximum rate was lowered to 5 per cent in 1714. Very secure borrowers like the East India Company could borrow well below the maximum, but most of the bonds held by men in our sample carried interest at the maximum.

42. Ashton (1959) pp. 86-7; CLRO MCI 375; Orchard & May (1933) pp. 35-7; Sybil Campbell (1933); Price (1980) p. 60.

43. Goodinge (1713) p. A3; Defoe (1726-7) i, p. viii.

44. On renting and leasing shops and houses, see pp. 207-9. Price (1980) p. 100 gives an example of a merchant in the 1770s borrowing on bond at 5 per cent to earn discounts of 10 per cent for early payment. This must have been very common. Federer (1980); PRO C108/353, Greening v. Greening.

45. Barbon (1690) p. 19; Defoe (1726-7) ii, 133-4.

46. PRO C 107/140, Ashton v. Harbin. The wharfingers provide another continue

      example. These were the men who ran the 19 'legal quays' between London Bridge and the Tower where all overseas trade had to be unloaded. For much of our period, the wharfingers combined in 'an offensive and illegal monopoly', as their opponents termed it, sharing the profits from the wharves pro rata of their investment (PRO C110/181, Smith v. Ashton; The Case of the Wharfingers (1704)). In general on the wharfingers, see Chartres (1980) and for the copperas industry, see Bettey (1982). On the Virginia merchants, see Olson (1983).

47. Case (1711) (1); Case (n.d.) (1); PRO C108/132, undated but probably 1720s.

48. PRO C 114/56 pt 2 (Palmer); GHMS 15892A (Mitford).

49. For examples of correspondence in wholesale trades, see PRO C108/132 (letters to Henry Gambier, tea and china dealer), C105/15 (letters to James Hudson, mainly a linen trader but also hats, butter and a host of other things). See Margaret Evans (1977) for the wholesale apothecaries Estwick & Coningsby, nearly all of whose provincial correspondents were kin or inlaws of one or other of the partners, a fact which determined the regional concentration of their business. Nearly all James Hudson's English business was with his native north country and his brother was his chief correspondent and all his correspondents were brother Quakers (PRO C 105/15, Herne v. Barber). Inventories which give addresses of debtors also often demonstrate a regional concentration (e.g. S.171, Peter Short, whose wholesale haberdashery business was concentrated in the east Midlands and Yorkshire). A hint of regional concentration can also often be seen in the addresses of the debtors of those London wholesalers who sued more than one provincial bankrupt. The salter Thomas Constable sued three bankrupts in the period 1711-15, one each in Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge and Norwich; the mercers Lane & Harrison sued three mercers in Frome, Wellington (Somerset) and Devizes, while the two mercers sued by Shewell & Allen lived in Staffordshire and Shropshire. One should not exaggerate such concentration, however, since such easy patterns do not emerge in every case. PRO B4/1-2. For the analysis of these docket-books, see Appendix C, p. 409.

50. These examples are all from the correspondence of James Hudson in PRO C 105/15, Herne v. Barber, letters of 10 October 1731, 2 February 1732 & 19 April 1733 from his brotherJohn and a letter of 18 March 1732 from Anthony Wilson. For a book on the influence of seasonability generally, see E. L. Jones (1964).

51. PRO C105/15, Herne v. Barber, John to James Hudson, 2 February 1732.

52. On the history of negotiable instruments, see, in particular, Holden (1951) and Holden (1955). Promissory notes, which had formerly been known as 'writings obligatory' or 'bills of debt', were simply writings in some such form as 'I promise to pay A or order so much at such and such a time for value received'. They had no standing at law in the early seventeenth century but were indorsable and negotiable by the end. The inland or foreign bill was similar to a post-dated cheque. 'Pay A or order so continue

      much at such and such a time and place to my account.' Although principally a method of remitting money, the bill incorporated credit till the due date and, in foreign bills, a speculation in the movement of exchange rates since the sum mentioned would be worth more or less in other currencies by the time the bill was presented. There were normally four names on a bill, the 'drawer', who instructed the 'drawee' to pay the 'payee', and the 'deliverer' who had given value to the 'drawer' in the first place. 'Drawer' and 'drawee' and 'deliverer' and 'payee' were often two sets of business associates. Indorsement simply meant that the 'payee' wrote on the back of the bill or note, 'Pay the contents on the other side to B', thus making it negotiable. The legal problem had been to determine just what rights B had, since his name did not appear on the original bill. Normal practice was for the drawer to advise the drawee by letter that he had drawn the bill. The drawee then 'accepted' it and made payment at the due date. If the drawee refused to pay an accepted bill, he was liable in law. If he refused to accept the bill (perhaps because he had been given no advice or because the drawer had made no prior arrangements), then the payee could sue the drawer for the money.

53. On the butchers and graziers, see M. G. Davies (1971), who discusses the dominant role assumed by Smithfield as a source of cash in London for the country gentry who used their rents to buy claims to funds in London. In the late seventeenth century, simple instructions in the form of a letter were being replaced by bills and non-commercial people had to be carefully instructed in the conventions surrounding the use of bills. For some nice examples, see the correspondence of the merchant Thomas Boughey with Dr Humphrey Babington of Trinity College, Cambridge (GHMS 18760/1, letters of 9 & 16 March 1675). For Compigne and Gambier, see a mass of letters in C 108/132. The quotation is dated Winton, 29 June 1730.

54.Yamey (1969) pp. 109-10.

55. GLRO DL/C/245 fos 79-80, 349-58; /247 fos 149-50.

56. Grassby (1969) pp. 728-9.

57. Grassby (1969) p. 733 and see pp. 728-36 for examples of profits from our period; Barbon (1690) p. 32.

58. PRO C110/185, Unwin v. Unwin; C110/43, Alexander & Bostock; C103/160, Burgess & Taylor; C110/167, Herne v. Humphreys; C110/179, Staunton & Thorne.

59. CJ xxv, 46-7; purchase of food was obviously income inelastic; so was the purchase of more durable domestic goods, as is shown on pp. 120-1, 291.

60. Marshall (1920) p. 228.

61. Grassby (1969) p. 734; see also pp. 728, 732; North (1890) ii, 409-10; for rates of interest on loans in Syria, see the account book kept by Thomas Palmer as a young factor in Aleppo, PRO C114/56 pt 2; on marriage contracts and dowries, see pp. 194-8.

62. For mortality, see pp. 306-9 and see Earle (1986) pp. 55-63 for a development of this argument about the effects of mortality on accumulation. For the growing tendency for sons to follow their fathers into business, see N. Rogers (1979) and Horwitz (1987) (1). break

1. The breakdown was investment assets (35 per cent), business assets and cash (61.7 per cent) and domestic goods, plate and jewellery (3.3 per cent). The percentages for investments are calculated by adding together the two figures for 'personal loans' and 'other investments' in Table 4.6 (p. 121). For the method used to distinguish 'personal loans' from 'trade credits', see note 19 of Chapter 4, above.

2. This investment cycle is not as simple as suggested in Morris (1979). Morris analysed three sets of business papers to demonstrate a regular progression from business to rentier activity as businessmen got older. Our sample supports his general hypothesis, but the data suggest that the timing and degree of rentier activity varied very considerably.

3. For the changing life expectancy of the London middle class, see pp. 306-9.

4. Mortgages formed only 7 per cent of the total of loans and mortgages, confirming the view of D. W. Jones that lending on mortgage was not an important part of the investment activities of the London business community (D. W. Jones (1972) (1) pp. 338, 353). For the view that ruining gentlemen by lending to them on the security of mortgages was one of the main activities of London tradesmen, see Tawney (1925) pp. 35-42.

5. On this subject see, in particular, Dickson (1967).

6. For an alternative view that it was money diverted from trade by wartime dislocations which provided this finance, see D. W. Jones (1972) (1).

7. For books providing guides to valuations, see Leybourn (1668), Primatt (1667), Phillips (1719). See also Grassby (1969) pp. 739-40.

8. See S.44, 49, 73, 115, 152 for builders as developers; for a scrivener who handled many mortgages, see PRO C107/70-72, 113.

9. On shipowning, see pp. 40, 76 and R. Davis (1962) pp. 81-100. On earnings from capital invested in shipping, see R. Davis (1957).

10. For a full description of the different forms of government debt and an analysis of those who held the debt in sample years, see Dickson (1967).

11. On the government lotteries, see Ewen (1932) pp. 127-63.

12. Ewen (1932) pp. 137-9. PRO E401/2599-2600 has the names of the beneficiaries of the First and Second Classis Lotteries.

13. It should be noted that the men in our sample were virtually all dead by the time of the excitement surrounding the South Sea Bubble in 1720. This no doubt tempted more small men to dabble in the stock market but, as has been recently shown, the Bubble year was not a bad one for commercial bankruptcies and most of those who burned their fingers were either gentlemen with little experience or rather foolish members of the 'mercantile bourgeoisie'. See Hoppit (1986) (1) pp. 47-8 and in general on the Bubble, see Carswell (1960).

14. S.354.

15. Coventry quoted by Stone (1984) p. 18; de Muralt (1726) p. 9; Defoe (1726-7) ii, i, 159-82.

16. Lindsay (1978) p. 194. For a general discussion of the return on landed property, see Clay (1974) and for a recent revisionist approach, see Allen continue

      (1988), who puts the net return on land rather higher than Lord Hervey (p. 34).

17. Three main sources have been used to get information on real estate holdings—unpaid rents in inventories where these are specifically described as rents for freehold or copyhold property or where there is no corresponding leasehold property listed; memoranda in the Common Serjeants' Books, which often mention real property; wills, which nearly always mention real property if there was any. Altogether, 181 wills (48 per cent of the whole sample and 80 per cent of those described as testate) have been found. It seems probable that, using all three sources, not much real property has been missed.

18. S.61, 89, 218; S.157.

19. For descriptions of such property, see Defoe (1724-6) i, 168-9 and ii, 2-3. For an analysis of the Middlesex villa market, see Martindale (1968).

20. S.157, 171, 276; Defoe (1724-6) i, 168-9.

21. Stone (1984).

22. Habakkuk (1940); Habakkuk (1960); Holden (1955).

1. Kenny (1879) p. 13.

2. Defoe (1724) (2) p. 148.

3. Quoted by Stone (1977) p. 331. There is a huge literature on the common law status of married women; for valuable studies, see Kenny (1879) and Holdsworth (1903-72) iii, 520-33. See also the contemporary legal texts, e.g. Baron & Feme (1719) and Treatise (1732). For a general book, see Reiss (1934).

4. Treatise (1732) p. 91.

5. Quoted by Kenny (1879) p. 100. On the doctrine of separate estate and the associated 'equity to a settlement', see Kenny (1879) pp. 98-115; Holdsworth (1903-72) v, 310-14; vi, 644-6, xii, 275-6; Okin (1983).

6. For the custom and legal decisions relating to it, see Holdsworth (1903-72) ii, 387; iii, 323; Bohun (1702) pp. 124-5; Baron & Feme (1719) p. 304; Treatise (1732) pp. 91, 104; Laws (1765) p. 111. For the feme sole in later medieval London, see Lacey (1985) pp. 42-5.

7. Defoe (1726-7) i, 348-68; for an interesting recent article on women in business in this period, see Prior (1985).

8. Defoe loc. cit; Advice (1678), see advertisement in Vernon (1678).

9. Literacy rates show a remarkable rise during our period. See Cressy (1980) p. 144, Table 7.2, which shows a fall in female illiteracy in London and Middlesex from 80-90 per cent of a sample drawn from the period 1580-1640 to under 50 per cent in the early eighteenth century. See also Earle (1989) for the literacy of London women and, in general, on the female labour market in the London of our period.

10. Campbell (1747) p. 189.

11. Clark (1919).

12. Defoe (1726-7) i, 355; Clark (1919) pp. 35-6; Stone (1977) pp. 350-1. break

13. Mandeville (1709) p. 128; Child (1694) pp. 4-5.

14. Defoe (1724) (2) pp. 148-9; social comment on idle women can be found scattered through the pages of the Tatler and Spectator. Some of the most savage invective came from the pen of Swift, e.g. The Progress of Marriage (1722); The Journal of a Modern Lady (1729).

15. MCI.

16. Alice Clark claimed that one indication of a decline in the role of wives in business was a growing reluctance of husbands to appoint them as sole executrixes (Clark (1919) p. 39). She gave no evidence for this assertion but it was tested against our sample. From 164 wills (excluding those of widowers), it was found that 21 per cent of men appointed their widow as sole executrix with no overseers, 57 per cent appointed the widow asjoint-executrix or sole executrix with (normally male) overseers to assist her and 22 per cent did not name the widow as executrix at all. However, when the figures are broken down for those who died before and after 1690, there was an increase in widows as sole executrixes from 12.5 to 36.7 per cent and a decrease in widows not named at all from 25 to 16.6 per cent, the opposite trend to that posited by Alice Clark.

17. Gregory King estimated that there were 98,000 husbands, 10,600 widowers and 37,100 widows in late seventeenth-century London, making widows about a quarter of the combined total (Thirsk & Cooper (1972) p. 773)). In David Glass's analysis of the 1692 Poll Tax, he found that widows were just over 10 per cent of the total of the above three categories (Glass (1969)). Female heads of households should lie somewhere between these two figures, since many of King's widows would be dependants, while many female householders would be too poor to pay the Poll Tax. Many of these widows were probably not heads of households for very long since, contrary to rural English experience, London widows of the middle station were quick to re-marry (Brodsky (1986) pp. 122-34).

18. PRO B4/1-2. See Appendix C for more on these records. Since writing this chapter, I have done much more work on the women's labour market in London. See Earle (1989).

19. Glass (1969) p. 580, Table 5 (52 women and 622 men).

20. This sample was drawn from GHMS 11936/23-29 (1726-29); 281 (89 per cent) of the policies were held by a woman on her own, 16 (5 per cent) by two women and 20 (6 per cent) by a woman together with a man.

21. This assumption does not ignore the possibility that women in the second group also had wages or paper securities and that women in the third group lived off all the various types of income.

22. Sun 39146, 40120.

23. These inventories are in PRO PROB 4/1/1-1300. Since there are about 25,000 inventories in the whole series, this is probably about a 5 per cent sample of all inventories of London widows in this series.

24. PRO PROB 4/1/107 and 171.

25. CLRO Orphans 1049; cf. 331 for another pawnbroker and 414, 473, 492, 516, 639, 664, 699, 706, 788, 933, 940, 960, 1037, 1281, 1428, 1631, 1962, 2041, 2055, 2130, 2746, 2826 for other businesses run by women. break

26. For the later period, see Johnson (1985).

27. CLRO Orphans 1032, 1086, 964. Cf. 347B, 451, 713, 1026, 1151, 1278, 1293, 1351, 1894 for other widows living on rentier investments.

28. The bargain was not all on one side. Vivien Brodsky has recently shown that the literary emphasis on the lusty remarrying widow who very often married a younger man was by no means the fiction that some historians have suggested (Brodsky (1986)).

1. Stone (1977), especially p. 274. Trumbach (1978) has a similar thesis to that of Stone, but confines himself explicitly to the aristocracy. For some critics of Stone, see Wrightson (1982) pp. 66-118, Houlbrooke (1984) and Macfarlane (1986). For a good general introduction to modern historical studies of the family, see Anderson (1980).

2. Treatise (1732) p. 25; example from GLRO DL/C/165 fo. 233v; in general on this subject, see Swinburne (1686) and Helmholz (1974).

3. Salmon (1724) p. 180; see also Swinburne (1686) p.2.

4. R. L. Brown (1981) pp. 117-36. Much the commonest occupations of London-based grooms given in Fleet registers are those of craftsmen, but 'tradesmen and innkeepers' account for 9 per cent of the occupations recorded between 1700 and 1750 (ibid. p. 126). Brown's figures are probably too high since nearly a quarter of entries in Fleet registers are duplicates. The numbers are also swollen in the early eighteenth century by the marriages of soldiers and sailors (information from Amanda Copley via Jeremy Boulton).

5. Quoted by ibid. p. 124.

4. R. L. Brown (1981) pp. 117-36. Much the commonest occupations of London-based grooms given in Fleet registers are those of craftsmen, but 'tradesmen and innkeepers' account for 9 per cent of the occupations recorded between 1700 and 1750 (ibid. p. 126). Brown's figures are probably too high since nearly a quarter of entries in Fleet registers are duplicates. The numbers are also swollen in the early eighteenth century by the marriages of soldiers and sailors (information from Amanda Copley via Jeremy Boulton).

5. Quoted by ibid. p. 124.

6. Misson (1719) p. 183; see also Jeaffreson (1872) p. 134, R. L. Brown (1981) p. 124; Frith (1954), introduction, has a discussion of the licence system.

7. Misson (1719) pp. 351-3.

8. Elliott (1981) p. 82.

9. Hajnal (1965); Macfarlane (1986); Wrigley & Schofield (1983) pp. 157-84.

10. Elliott (1981) pp. 84-6. Her analysis was based on GHMS 10091/1-7. Nothing much seems to have changed by our period, judging from my analysis of a small sample of licence applications for the years 1667, 1696, 1715 and 1730 in GHMS 10091. The early age at marriage for women in London is confirmed by Finlay in his reconstitution study of four parishes, which had average ages for women at first marriage of 23.0, 19.7, 21.5 and 23.0 (Finlay (1979) pp. 31-2). There were far more immigrants than London-born in the metropolis so the average age at marriage in London would be nearer the immigrant average but still considerably younger than elsewhere in the country.

11. Closeness in age between marriage partners is sometimes seen as a prima facie case for assuming that love has played a more important part in the choice of partners than other considerations such as money or dynastic continue

      strategy. Such assumptions are impossible to prove but, if they were true, then our results would throw considerable doubt on Stone's thesis that it was the upper bourgeoisie who pioneered the marriage based on affection and companionship, since it is this group which have the biggest age difference between bride and groom (Stone (1977) pp. 274-81, 294, 362 etc.). It is possible that this pattern of men marrying much younger wives may have been reversed in the common circumstances of the remarriage of widows. From a reconstruction of late sixteenth-century data, Vivien Brodsky found more than half of widows remarrying single men of whom a large proportion were younger than their brides (Brodsky (1986) pp. 122-34, esp. p. 127).

12. For a discussion of age at marriage in terms of such strategies, see Wrigley (1983) and see also Macfarlane (1986), where a basic reason why Westerners got married later than other people was because they saw marriage and children as something economically costly which would be unlikely to bring about the economic benefits assumed in most other parts of the world, where marriage created no new expense in the form of a separate household and children were regarded as an economic asset.

13. Tryon (1691) p. 463; Dunton (1705) p. 70. One should note too that merchants often spent most of their early years in business overseas and so would not be in a position to start their courtships until they were 30 or so.

14. Thirsk & Cooper (1972) p. 773.

15. Defoe (1722) p. 18.

16. Laslett (1965) pp. 81-9 worries that we get the wrong idea about the age at marriage of girls from the creative literature of the past. However, playwrights would be quite realistic to produce drama for an upper- and middle-class London audience in terms of girls thinking it normal to be married by the age of 21 and not all that unusual to be married at 18.

17. Defoe (1722) p. 58.

18. Stone (1977) pp. 274-81 discusses the gradual victory of more liberal views on this subject in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Macfarlane (1986) pp. 120-47 and Wrightson (1982) p. 78 find liberal views at an earlier date, though Macfarlane emphasizes the greater importance of parents' advice in the middling ranks (p. 132). Gillis (1985), on the other hand, emphasizes the continuing importance of family, friends and community, though he does not suggest that such influence prevented individual choice, just that it made it very difficult to fly in the face of contrary advice.

19. Dunton (1703-8) p. 148; for a rather more liberal approach, see Taylor (1650) p. 201; Defoe in Review i, 272 distinguished between those over 21 who should regard their father's advice 'with the utmost deference' and those under age 'who ought not to disobey him, nor ask his reasons'.

20. In the period March 1667 to March 1668, there were 30 London spinsters over 21 whose parental consent was recorded and 49 where it was not; in January to September 1696, the figures are 28 and 47. In both periods, the median age of those with consent was 22 and without was 26 (GHMS 10091/27 & 33). In the early eighteenth century, recorded parental continue

      consent for over age girls declines very considerably, possibly reflecting a change of attitude but quite likely merely a change of recording practice (GHMS 10091/51 & 70 for 1715 and 1730).

21. GHMS 10823/1 pp. 59-64.

22. Laws (1765) p. 68.

23. GHMS 10823/1 pp. 63-4; CLRO, Common Serjeants' Books. These record the division of estates and have memoranda which would surely have mentioned the disinheritance of daughters if this had occurred.

24. S.246 (Williams); cf. S.177 and 303; S.13, 93, 99, 101, 212 (if she married without consent her £500 legacy to his other daughter), 250 (with consent a legacy of £2000, without consent an annuity of £100 p.a.), 319, 337; S.85, S.347 (Sellers), S.279 (Cary).

25. E.g. DL/C/246 fos 129, 132—Greenell v. Tucker (1699).

26. Ryder (1939) pp. 309-10; Dunton (1705) p. 90; GLRO DL/C246 fo. 129; DL/C/247 fo. 92. For discussions of contemporary literature, see Stone (1977) pp. 275-6; Macfarlane (1986) pp. 174-6, who claims that this stress on a companionate marriage was peculiarly English and surprised foreigners, e.g. the French.

27. See Earle (1976) pp. 252-60 for Defoe's views on this subject.

28. Ryder (1939) p. 310.

29. Defoe (1722) (2) p. 6; for an interesting analysis of the stress caused by courtship problems, very often the result of parents, friends or employers forbidding marriage to loved ones, see MacDonald (1981) pp. 72-111.

30. Tryon (1691) p. 452; Baxter (1673) p. 481; Ryder (1939) p. 224.

31. S.27 (Pocock); S.281 (Melmoth); cf. S.146, 203, 228, 253, 265 for others in the sample who married their master's daughter and S.270 for Luke Meredith who married his master's grand-daughter.

32. S.14, 37, 115, 77.

33. Miège (1691) p. 262.

34. Quotations from a defamation case, Fawden v. Wilkins, in GLRO DL/C/245 fo. 215. Large numbers of these cases were brought annually during our period, nearly always by women who had been called whore, harlot etc. in public.

35. Dunton (1705) p. 48; Mason (1754) p. 17.

36. This paragraph is based on the general impression gained from evidence in a number of court cases, mainly in GLRO DL/C/245-8.

37. PRO C5/92/13; C5/594/22; Brown (1760) iii, 54; cf. Defoe on marriage broking in Review ix, 82.

38. PRO C5/631/107; C5/436/151.

39. For estimates of the return on land, see Clay (1974) and Allen (1988). There is a huge literature on upper-class marriage contracts; for a recent contribution with many references, see Outhwaite (1986). A settlement by jointure was made by a minimum of 30 of our sample; there may have been a few more amongst those whose wills have not been found but the total is unlikely to be more than 10 per cent of the sample. References to jointures can be found in wills, in memoranda of the Common Serjeants' Books and occasionally in inventories. S.250 (March); cf. S.304, 329, 354; PRO C5/ continue

      183/76; C5/417/25; the mercer Joshua Monger sold the lands which he had with his wife Rebecca as her portion and which were supposed to secure her jointure, 'by her consent'. He then provided in his will that the sale price of £420 'be taken out of the estate and bestowed and laid out by the executrix on the purchase of lands . . . to be settled on my wife for life' (S.67, PRO PROB 11/344 fo. 48).

40. GHMS 12017 p. 23 (Fryer); S.57 (Ewens); cf. S.8 (marriage covenant £1000, estate £1216), S.346 (£2000, £1053); PRO C5/189/26 (Tandin); S.170 (Skrine).

41. There were 18 men who had pre-contracted by bond in the sample; since the sum appears as a debt in the inventory, it is unlikely that any have been missed. For jointures, see note 39 above; Mandeville (1709) p. 112; Defoe (1722) p. 58. On separate estate, see p. 159. On pin-money, see Kenny (1879) pp. 116-17. It seems to have been quite common amongst the landed classes in our period. For an example of an agreement for the wife to will part of her dowry, see PRO C5/60/6, Berry v. Skinner, where John Berry received £700 portion with Thomasin Skinner 'but prior to marriage Thomasin got his agreement that £200 of her portion be hers to will as she thought fit'. Such agreements were often made by widows to protect the children of previous marriages.

42. For a summary of the debate on this subject, see Outhwaite (1986).

43. GHMS 10823/1 p. 42. For some examples of the effects of the high mortality of husbands and wives in their prime, see Brodsky (1986) pp. 137-40.

44. PRO C5/181/84, Robinson v. Allen (Mackernes), C5/273/44, Tysoe v. Harman (Thomas Robinson).

45. See note 1 above for references.

46. On the legal position, see pp. 158-60; for the double standard, see Thomas 1959); for conduct books, see Powell (1917).

47. Ryder (1939) p. 274.

48. On divorce, see Macfarlane (1986) esp. pp. 227-33 and the references he cites; for examples of deeds of separation, see PRO C107/176, Walker v. Bevis and C110/147, Attorney-General v. Whittington, though both of these relate to gentry marriages. The main court dealing with divorce in London was the Consistory Court, whose records are kept in GLRO. The discussion of alimony is based on eight cases recorded in GLRO DL/C/98, covering the period 1696/97. The weekly payments were 4s., 5s., 6s., 6s.3d., 7s.6d., 10s., 10s., 10s. On alimony and maintenance, see Treatise (1732) pp. 171-2.

49. Treatise (1732) pp. 91-2.

50. GLRO DL/C/245 fo.93; Defoe (1724) pp. 6-7; GLRO DL/C/245 fo. 196.

51. Particular references are not given for all the quotations in the rest of the chapter. They all come from GLRO DL/C/165 and /245-248.

1. E. Jones (1980) p. 126.

2. For studies on the social topography of seventeenth-century London, see continue

      E. Jones (1980); Finlay (1981) pp. 77-81 based on data for the City in the 1630s; Jones & Judges (1935-6); Glass (1966) p.xxiii based on data for the City in the 1690s; Power (1986) based on data for the whole metropolis in the 1660s.

3. Nothing much had changed by the 1790s, when L. D. Schwarz found a distribution of rich and poor very similar to that found by Power for the 1660s. He also found the middling people spread 'remarkably evenly across London, forming about a tenth of the population everywhere, irrespective of the wealth or poverty of their parish' (Schwarz (1982) p. 174).

4. Defoe (1724-6) ii, 2. Another 29 men in the sample had a residence in London and a second country residence which was normally not far from the outskirts of the metropolis. Other people used to rent houses or apartments in the country for the summer.

5. Simond (1817) i, 64 quoted by Summerson (1962) p. 67; Chs 4 and 5 of the latter provide a good introduction to the London house of our period.

6. Descriptions of houses in this section rely largely on inventories. These give a good idea of numbers and location of rooms and mention yards, cellars, garrets etc., but give no description of external appearance, measurements etc.

7. Maitland (1739) pp. 294-6; Reddaway (1940) pp. 129-30. In general on the rebuilding, see Reddaway (1940), Bell (1923) and P. E. Jones (1966).

8. At least 138 (37 per cent) of the sample owned a lease of their dwelling-house; others owned leases which are not specifically described as their dwelling-house but which might have been or might just be an investment. In their fullest form, inventories state the number of years to come on a lease, the quit rent, the clear rent if the property is let to a third party, the number of years' purchase and the valuation. Only a minority include all this information. For books on valuation and building costs, see Leybourn (1668), Primatt (1667), Phillips (1719).

9. Average length of lease remaining was 27 years; median 20; range 2 1/2 to 73 years; based on 55 inventories which provide this information. Reddaway (1940) Chs 3 and 4; P. E. Jones (1966) for details of the bargains struck.

10. For examples of valuations with low quit-rents, sec S.23, tobacconist in Walbrook (59-year lease, £2 p.a. quit-rent, valued at £374); S.44, builder in Spitalfields for his house, garden and yard (74, £6 p.a., £180); S.77, soapmaker in Bread Street Hill (50, £15 p.a., £340); S.91, merchant in Bevis Marks (41, £5 p.a., £640).

11. A. Smith (1961) i, 131-2; rents can be calculated if unpaid rent for a specific time is listed in inventories. See S.340 (jeweller in Cheapside, £80); for £60, see S.13 (linen-draper in Leadenhall Street); for £50 to £55, see S.40 (rentier in Adam Court, Broad St), S.52 (merchant in St Dunstan's Hill, S.83 (mercer in Milk St), S.224 (merchant in Aldermanbury). For some lower rents, see S.4 (£20, apothecary of St Andrew Undershaft), S.54 (£12, carter in Thames St), S.161 (£30, working goldsmith in Foster Lane), S. 164 (£20, comb-maker in Rosemary Lane, Whitechapel). A more comprehensive source for rents can be found in the assessments for the continue

      parliamentary aids from 1689 onwards, later known as the Land Tax (Ward (1953) pp. 6-10). For example, the 1694 aid (5 W&M c.1) was assessed in two parts: 4s. in the £ of one year's value of lands, messuages etc. and 24s. for every £100 of personal estate (i.e. 4s. in the £, assuming that the return on such estate was 6 per cent). In the City, the 'real' part of this assessment was made on the actual or computed rack rents paid by occupiers. It is clear from appeals (CLRO Ass. Box 2, No. 1) that this tax very accurately reflects actual rents, which ranged for those in our sample from £200 p.a. for the merchant John Cary to £12 p.a. for the haberdasher George Fryer. The most seriously affected by this tax were tavern-keepers. John Carter (S.248), for instance, was paying one-fifth of £140 (£28) p.a. as tax on a tavern in King Street, near Guildhall, which since he died in 1697 worth only £484 must have been a very serious drain on his income. The second part of the tax, on personal estate, was grossly underestimated and very regressive. To take two examples, the wine merchant John Newton, who died in 1697, was rated at £200 personal estate and was actually worth £14,402 when he died, while the tavern-keeper mentioned above, John Carter, was also rated at £200 but was actually worth only £484 when he died in 1697. Despite the regressive assessment of this tax, it provides a fairly good indication of the rank order of personal wealth—people who died wealthy generally paying the most and people who died relatively poor the least, despite the particular example above.

12. A. Smith loc. cit; Swift (1948) i, 34; Derbyshire Record Office, Gell Papers, 258/68/11 i, j, 1; de Saussure (1902) p. 165; cf. Misson (1719) p. 145. Both the last two foreigners were impressed by the ease with which lodgings could be found.

13. Not all inventories give sufficient detail to determine lay-out. However, many specify that rooms were up one, two or three pair of stairs or in the garret, were at the back, front, middle, east, west etc. The greatest difficulty is with kitchens and dining-rooms, which did not really need any further description since it would be obvious which room was meant. However, position is often clear from the order in which rooms were listed.

14. S.164 (Justice); S.115 (Marshall); see S.259 and 296 for merchants with houses laid out like this.

15. S.94 (Edwards); for examples of 'missing' rooms, see S.95 (only one room on second floor), S.113 (only one room on first and third floors), S.133 (either first or second floor missing).

16. S.272 (Pinder); S.107 (Birkin). Numbers of rooms here and below include bedrooms (inc. garret bedrooms), living rooms and kitchens but do not include such additions to living rooms as closets or to kitchens as washhouses and butteries; nor do they include cellars or rooms used for work such as shops, workshops or warehouses.

17. For a detailed description of the tax, see Glass (1966).

18. Thirsk & Cooper (1972), p. 772; Jones & Judges (1935) pp. 58-62. See also Glass (1969) for analysis of a sample of parishes within the Walls; in Table 1 (p. 375) he presents figures of 6.03 persons per house (inc. 1.38 children and 1.43 servants and apprentices) for his sample of 40 parishes. break

19. London (1966).

20. S.274 (Assessment 4.6); cf. John Hicks (S.309, Ass. 44.31), who left £2370 in 1704; Edward Osborne (S.307, Ass. 9.35), who left £2197 in 1704; Thomas Penford (S.278, Ass. 77.12), who left £1832 in 1701 and Luke Meredith (S.270, Ass. 35.27), who left £1501 in 1700—all non-payers of surtax who seem unlikely to have accumulated this rapidly. Meredith, for example, would have had to make compound clear profits over all his household expenses of 25 per cent p.a. to have turned £500 into £1500 in just five years. On rates of profit, see pp. 137-42.

21. Wigfall (S.259, Ass. 34.2); Levett (S.317, Ass. 59.24); cf. the banker Thomas Williams (wife and 3 children missing), who had a house at Stratford (S.246, Ass. 71.18) and the merchant Francis March (S.250, Ass. 29.17), who had 3 sons missing, all under the age of apprenticeship, as is known from his will; they were probably at boarding school. For other examples, see the source note at the end of Table 8.3, p. 217.

22. A. Smith (1961) i, 132. 'A tradesman in London is obliged to hire a whole house . . . His shop is upon the ground-floor, and he and his family sleep in the garret; and he endeavours to pay a part of his house-rent by letting the two middle stories to lodgers.' Very few members of our sample conform to this specification. The 1695 assessments suggest that there were far more lodgers in poorer quarters of the town and in the houses of poorer people and widows.

23. The two people who have been put down as lodgers, a man and a woman of the same surname but not married, were not specified as either lodgers or servants.

24. One can get a fairly good idea of who did or did not employ servants from the schedules drawn up for the Poll Tax and Marriage Duties Tax in the CLRO. Very few people can be said not to belong to the servant employing class simply on the grounds of their occupation.

25. Defoe (1724) p. 139.

26. Defoe (1725) pp. 4, 8. For general comment, see that book and Defoe (1724), and for a wider sampling of contemporary criticism, see Hecht (1956). Our inventories suggest that Defoe exaggerated a little, but correctly discerned the trend, the wages of maids in the 1670s being about £3-3 1/2 a year and in the 1710s about £5-5 1/2.

27. London Chronicle (1758) iii, 327c; Defoe (1725) pp. 18-19. Job specification seems to have been the normal pattern, as can be seen from the assessment for St Michael Bassishaw (CLRO Marriage Duties No. 73), which has very detailed information on occupations. See also pp. 220-9 for Pepys's household, where the jobs were always specified.

28. All these epithets are from The Compleat Servant-Maid (1677). Wishful thinking did not change much. See The Servant's Calling (1725).

29. For Pepys's household, see Pepys vol. x, 193-7; in the same volume there are brief biographical notes on some of his servants. References to servants can be found in the index, vol. xi and detailed references are not given here, except for full quotations.

30. Pepys's clerk, Will Hewer, also lived in the household till November continue

      1663, when he went into lodgings, and his duties also combined personal service and government work.

31. GLRO DL/C/246, Chambers v. Chambers, fos 61-89. See also Earle (1989), where it is estimated that median time in one place was about one year.

32. De Saussure (1902) p. 157; Houghton (1727-8) i, 349. For an interesting discussion of household tasks, see Davidson (1983).

33. Pepys 4/4/1663 and 29/7/1663.

34. E.g. GLRO DL/C/245, Fell v. Fell, fo. 91.

35. I may have missed some of Pepys's groping but, as far as I can see, the chosen girls were the companions Mary Mercer (after 17 months in Pepys's household) and Deb Willet (after 6 months) and the maids Susan (after nearly 2 years' service), Nell Payne (after one month) and Jane Birch (after Pepys had known her for 10 years).

36. Pepys 3/11/1663, 21/2/1664 and 29/8/1664.

37. Pepys 7/1/1663.

38. Pepys 19/2/1665; GLRO DL/C/245 fo. 215; Pepys 20 and 21/8/1663.

39. Pepys 12/11/1662; 8/10/1666; 8/12/1662; 3/9/1666; 12/3/1663; 10/6/1663; 13/5/1667.

40. Pepys 2/4/1661; 26/8/1661; 9/4/1663; 27/4/1663; 27/3/1664; 27/5/1664; 23/4/1666.

41. GLRO DL/C/246 fos 43, 74-5 and see these depositions generally for servant life.

42. Brodsky (1986) pp. 134-7.

43. Defoe (1727) (2) p. 133; on contraception, see Stone (1977) pp. 261-7; Earle (1976) pp. 266-8; on fertility, see Finlay (1979) pp. 26-38, who suggests that the higher fertility in wealthier parishes might be explained by a greater use of wet-nurses so that mothers did not have the partial protection from conception that breast-feeding provides.

44. See, in particular, Stone (1977) p. 82 and Ch. 9 and Plumb (1975); for a summary and critique of this school of historians, see Pollock (1983) pp. 1-67.

45. Pollock (1983) esp. pp. 144-56. This book contains the most devastating critique of the harsh childhood thesis but see also Wrightson (1982) pp. 104-18 and Macfarlane (1979).

46. Pollock (1983) passim. For her critique of her sources, see pp. 68-95.

47. Pollock (1983) p. 145.

48. Wadsworth (1712) p. 58 quoted in Morgan (1944) p. 39; Ryerson (1961); Stone (1977) pp. 113-16, 267-73; Mechling (1975).

49. Generalizations from depositions in GLRO DL/C/245-248.

50. This paragraph is based on the inventories of the sample. One inventory (S.304) lists a 'Noah's ark' but this seems to have been for the delectation of the father, an inveterate collector, rather than for his children. See Plumb (1975) for the increase in spending on children. Most children's toys, if they had them, would probably have been too cheap and battered to merit valuation, but once again there is the problem of silence.

51. Disinherited—S. 12 (PROB 11/324 fo. 91), Richard Darnelly; S.116 continue

      (PROB 11/357 fo. 68), John Rayner; S.216 (PROB 11/400 fo. 12), William Ambler; see also for obedience, duty etc. to the mother, S.246, 280, 285, 307, 316, 354 etc. Most wills give no clue to feelings on these subjects, one way or the other. For Stone's views, see Stone (1977) Ch. 9.

52. For some examples of 'mixed' families, see Nos 7, 15, 18, 24, 30, 35 and 36 in Table 8.3 (p. 214), all of which were headed by a man living with his second wife and most of which had children from at least two marriages. Recent work has shown that widows did not remarry as often as once thought (see Carlton (1978), Todd (1985)). However, widows in our class would have been financially attractive to suitors and it seems probable that their remarriage rate would have been much higher than the average, as has recently been shown by Brodsky (1986) in her study of late Elizabethan London. For a case involving refusal to let children of a previous marriage into the house, see GLRO DL/C/246, Chambers v. Chambers. For a will expressing fears about the children of a first marriage, see PRO PROB 11/363 fo. 78 (Richard Davis).

53. On the feeding of infants, see Pollock (1983) pp. 212-18. For a contemporary critic of wet-nursing, see Tillotson (1694) pp. 104-11. See also Finlay (1979), esp. pp. 34-5 where he indicates that the practice was a common one.

54. Misson (1719) p. 33.

55. GHMS 10823/1 p. 36; cf. GHMS 12017 pp. 11-14. A rather good idea of the atmosphere in a middle-class household can be obtained from the dialogues in Defoe (1715).

56. Will of Sir John Robinson, PRO PROB 11/362 fo. 28; this was a common formula. On worries about money, see Pollock (1983) p. 115. For a good example, see BL Add. 4454, the commonplace book of Katherine Austin, a propertied London widow who saw her main duty in life to insure that the estate created by her father and by her husband and his father should be handed on intact to her children.

57. Campbell (1747) p. 4; on middle-class schools, see pp. 65-8.

58. The diary and letters of the Quaker hop-merchant Peter Briggins provide a good example of relations between parents and children at boarding school (see Howard (1894) pp. 46, 54, 67, 73).

59. GHMS 10823/1 p. 38; Hedges (No. 35) and Cary (36) in Table 8.3 (p. 214). On ages that children left home, see Wall (1978).

1. Spectator No. 9, i, 29. On London clubs, see Clark (1986).

2. CLRO MCI 370.

3. Thomas (1971) p. 528, quoted by MacDonald (1981) p. 102; Pearl (1979) pp. 25-6 for changes in the ward inquest and see Pearl (1961) pp. 45-68 for a description of the government of the City; good examples of ward inquest records for our period can be found in GHMS 60 (Cheap) and 4069/2 (Cornhill); GLRO DL/C/245 fo. 207 for the coffee-house, but see the depositions from Consistory Court cases generally for masses of this continue

      sort of material; it was also part of the duties of churchwardens and sidesmen to enquire 'into the lives of inordinate livers' (Miège (1691) ii, 257).

4. GLRO DL/C/245 fo. 204 (Gentry v. Gentry) see /246 fo. 90 (Johnson v. Cooper) for a mention of a skimmington ride; see also Misson (1698) p. 70 where he refers to 'charivari' processions in the streets of London which he was told were set up when 'a woman of the neighbourhood has beaten her husband, because he has accused her of making him a cuckold'; in general on 'skimmingtons', 'rough music' etc., see Thompson (1972); Shoemaker (1987) pp. 274-8 found that by 1720 there was something that could be called a riot every other day in the metropolis. Similar situations are often described in the numerous defamation cases in the Consistory Court records in GLRO. Although they were not particularly interested in adultery, mention should also be made of the moral policing of the Societies for Reformation of Manners, which sprang up in the metropolis and elsewhere from the 1690s. Many of these were local societies, inaugurated by Anglicans and dissenters alike, who employed an army of informers to bring convictions for such moral offences as drunkenness, swearing and, particularly, the non-observance of the Sabbath. See Bahlman (1957).

5. S.123. For general discussion of the methods of prosecuting crime in the early modern period, see Sharpe (1984) and Beattie (1986). See also Howson (1970) pp. 24-6 and Tobias (1979) Ch. 2 for discussions of the policing available in the metropolis.

6. For information on the parish life of the sixteenth century, see Pendrill (1937) and Brigden (1984). See also Burke (1977) for a general discussion of popular culture in seventeenth-century London. On ward or precinct dinners and breakfasts organized by the questmen, see Webbs (1908) ii, 597-8. This seems to have been the main function of the inquest. See, for instance, the accounts of Cheap Wardmote Inquest for 1701 (GHMS 60). Their receipts were £132, of which £38.10.0 was contributed by members of the inquest themselves and £84 'of the severall inhabitants of this ward in the house box'. Their disbursements included about £100 in such items as the Steward's Bill (£22), Vintner's Bill (£52), sugar and spice, ale and beer, ' brawne', coffeeman and baker. Cf. Cornhill Ward (GHMS 4069/2) where the main disbursements were also the steward's, butler's and cook's bills.

7. This section on Allhallows is based mainly on the Vestry Minutes (GHMS 5039/1), the Churchwardens' Accounts (GHMS 5038/1-2), Hatton (1708) i, 103-6 and Birch (1896) pp. 101-2. The most important local officials were the churchwardens, who were in charge of policy towards the poor. A wealthy parish like Allhallows attracted a fair number of orphans dumped on its doorsteps. See the parish register GHMS 5031 for their baptisms and a brief description of their discovery. These seem to have been well treated, put out to nurses who were paid 10s. a month, fed, clothed, educated and eventually placed as apprentices. The rather thoughtless paternalism of the day led to virtually all parish orphans being given the surname Allhallows. One suspects that one of the parish nurses, Rebecca Somerset, was herself a former parish child from St Mary Somerset. For this practice, see Pearl (1981) p. 128. break

8. GHMS 5039/1, 1 April 1698; on the separation of the sexes in the church, see Wickham Legg (1914) p. 150 and Wheler (1698) pp. 99-100, who complained about the abuse of a 'promiscuous mixture' creeping in. Pepys's ideal of a good church service was 'a good sermon, a fine church [in this case Greenwich] and a great company of handsome women' (Pepys, 13 January 1661).

9. Seating from GHMS 5039/1 22 July 1701; poor rates for 1701 from GHMS 5038/2. On Buckingham, see de Krey (1985) p. 149 and Woodhead (1965) p. 40. In one year, 1673, the women of the parish were also seated, quite separately, from the men.

10. Seating from list of 1694; occupations from 1692 Poll Tax (CLRO Assessment Box 56. 1) and from the parish register (GHMS 5031); tax ratings from the Poll Tax and the Marriage Duties (CLRO Marriage Duties 2); that the back rows seated newcomers and the peripatetic can be seen from the fact that the clerk quite often did not know the christian names of those seated there and also by an analysis of turnover. If those known from the parish register to have died in the interim are left out, then 58 per cent of those seated in 1694 were also seated in 1701. However, the figures are almost exactly two-thirds of those in the first four rows and one-third of those in the last two rows.

11. The seating places are all in the Vestry Minutes (GHMS 5039/1). For the 1678 Poll Tax, see CLRO Assessment Box 67.2. For Keeling and Buckingham, see Woodhead (1965) pp. 40, 101. One assumes that Bristow had already served the local offices before the records begin.

12. Other parishes had rules for the same purpose, e.g. St Bride Fleet Street where, on 8 April 1697, a committee was chosen 'for ye regulating ye seating of ye people in ye pews in ye church' and produced a set of rules for seating men and women on the basis of seniority, past and present office-holding etc. (GHMS 6554/2).

13. Webbs (1906) pp. 62-3; for St Giles, see Account (1725) pp. 21-2 for the situation in 1724 before the workhouse was built; for Allhallows Bread Street, see references in note 7 above; for a general discussion of poor relief in late seventeenth-century City parishes, see S. Macfarlane (1986) pp. 254-7.

14. Webbs (1908) pp. 626-7. In two places, G. S. De Krey ((1983) p. 607, Table 1 and (1985) p. 198, Table 5.1) has also suggested that a fair number of common councilmen, particularly Tories, 'were of unpretentious social status' on the basis of what he calls their 'real wealth'. His analysis is based on 151 new common councilmen in the years 1695-1703 whom he has traced in the second quarter assessments of the 1694 parliamentary aid in CLRO. (On this tax, see note 11 of Chapter 8.) De Krey has used the tax on rent as an indication of 'real wealth' and has divided his common councilmen into three groups, 'over £80 p.a.', '£41-£80 p.a.' and '£40 p.a. or less', the implication being that those in the last group are quite poor, though in fact rentals are not a very good proxy for wealth.

15. The occupations of the 46 common councillors were as follows: 16 merchants, 3 wholesale haberdashers (the poorest worth just under £4000), continue

      3 apothecaries (ave. wealth £3874), 2 wholesale and 1 retail grocers, 2 woollen-drapers (worth £12,000 and £4000), 2 linen-drapers (1 insolvent, 1 worth £10,000), 2 builders (worth £5000 & £13,000), 2 wholesale tobacconists, a very rich rentier, a cloth finisher, a printer, a publisher/bookseller, a leather-seller, a silkman, a coal merchant, a wholesale distiller (worth £12,000), a druggist, a dyer, a hop merchant, a carman and a dealer in turnery ware. By a freak of the sample, all nine aldermen were merchants, which was certainly the commonest but by no means the only occupation of this City élite; 6 of the 9 paid fines to escape the office, either immediately or after a year or two's service.

16. There is a very large body of literature on the history of individual livery companies, most of it of little more than antiquarian interest, though there are honourable exceptions. The standard work on the problems of the companies in our period is Kellett (1957-8).

17. Kellett (1957-8) p. 385; for successful prosecutions of the Pewterers' Company for trespass, see Hatcher & Barker (1974) pp. 205-6; for worries about the cost and legality of searches in the Tallow-Chandlers' Company, see Monier-Williams (1977) pp. 185-6. A prosecution brought in 1709 by a Piccadilly candle-maker for damage done to his property by a company search cost the company £200 in legal fees and costs, and made them even more reluctant to attempt to enforce their former powers (p. 196).

18. Kellett (1957-8) p. 384 re the decision in the case of J. Tolley, quoting Bohun (1702) p. 115; for the diversity of trades amongst members of the Drapers' Company, see Johnson (1922) iv, 98-102, 161-2, 368-71.

19. See Kellett (1957-8) pp. 388-9 for numbers of new freedoms.

20. GHMS 11589/1 (Grocers' committee meeting of 18 March 1691).

21. For example, the average length of time between the date of freedom and the date of becoming assistant for 71 members of the court of the Fishmongers between 1641 and 1700 was just under 28 years, suggesting that the average age of new assistants was in their early fifties (calculated from the initial letters A-M in GHMS 5587/1). For 14 members of the sample on whom this information is available, the average age was exactly 50. Since assistants normally served for life, the average age of the court would of course be much older.

22. This section on the Apothecaries is based on GHMS 8202/2 (Warden's accounts, 1668-1692), 8200/4 (Court minutes, 1694-1716), 8202/2 (Quarterage Book) and Wall et al (1963).

23. GHMS 6208/4, 21 February 1694. This section is based on this volume of Court minutes, 6207/1 (Court minutes, 1714-30) and 6203/1 (Renter warden's account book, 1671-1735).

24. On the Vintners' Company in general, see Crawford (1977). The section which follows is based on GHMS 15201/6 (Court minutes, 1703-21) and 15333/6 (Accounts, 1687-1712).

25. Unwin (1938) pp. 37-8. The section that follows is based on GHMS 557 1/2 (Court minutes, 1683-1708), 556 1/3 (Prime warden's accounts, 1682-1706), 5563/6 (Renter warden's accounts, 1690-1700).

26. Rees (1923) pp. 169-76. break

27. Ravenhill (1689) introduction n.p.; this book has a good summary of the financial position of the Grocers. Otherwise, this section is based on GHMS 11588/6 (Court minutes, 1692-1738), 11571/18 (Warden's accounts, 1692-1701) and 11589/1 (Committee book, 1683-1719).

28. Quoted by Fisher (1968) p. 77.

29. Dunn (1973); Rothstein (1964).

30. De Krey (1985) p. 247; cf. ibid., pp. 57-8 when the descent of Spitalfields weavers on parliament in August 1689 confused an already confused situation.

31. On 1641-2, see Pearl (1961) and Manning (1976). On the other riots, see Beloff (1938), Sachse (1964), Holmes (1976) and N. Rogers (1978).

32. Furley (1959), quote from p. 17; N. Rogers (1978).

33. Quoted by Allen (1976) p. 570.

34. For a general discussion of the electorate and voting in the constituencies during this period, see Speck (1970) and for an analysis of the proportion of the City electorate who voted in elections from 1690 to 1715, see de Krey (1985) p. 249. The proportion ranged from a low of 62 per cent in 1695 to a high of 92 per cent in 1713.

35. Quoted by Speck (1970) p. 95. See also pp. 76-7, 95, where he emphasizes the importance nationally of the London elections, and App. E on pp. 128-30, where he estimates the numbers of electors. The members for the City of London were elected by the liverymen, whose numbers had been swollen by the companies' thirst for livery fines to 7500-8000 by the early eighteenth century; 3200 freeholders voted in Middlesex, 5900 householders in Westminster and 3500 in Southwark, a total of over 20,000 voters for the metropolis or about 1 in 5 of the householders. The national electorate rose from about 200,000 in the 1690s to over 250,000 in 1715, which probably represented about the same proportion of householders.

36. The following section draws on all the writers mentioned in notes 30 to 35 above, together with Horwitz (1987) (2), Plumb (1967), Holmes (1967), Brenner (1973), J. R. Jones (1961), de Krey (1983), N. Rogers (1977), Colley (1981) and Sutherland (1956).

37. Fisher (1968) pp. 80-1; cf. Brenner (1973) p. 92; de Krey (1985) pp. 167-76; N. Rogers (1977) p. 3; Colley (1981).

38. For the details of the change in politics from the mid-1690s, see de Krey (1985). Prior to the Revolution of 1688, it was the Whigs who were the radical party but by the late 1690s the Tories had taken over this role, while the rich Whigs abandoned populism and concentrated on making money as the City élite.

39. N. Rogers (1978) pp. 84-6.

40. De Krey (1985).

41. Estimates of the numbers of dissenters and whether they were increasing or decreasing vary considerably between different historians. Watts (1978) suggests that there were 338,000 dissenters in England in 1715-18, of whom 33,220 were in London (pp. 270, 509) and he also argues that the numbers had been falling since the late seventeenth century. Holmes (1976) argues that they had been increasing and that there were continue

      about 500,000 in England and 100,000 in London in the reign of Queen Anne (p. 63), and he is followed by de Krey (1985) p. 75 and, in general, pp. 74-120, though he seems to have a very elastic view of what constitutes a dissenter. It is not clear whether Watts' figure, which relates to 'hearers', includes children but in any case it certainly does seem rather low, while those of Holmes and de Krey are probably too high, and one might plump for somewhere in the middle, say 10-15 per cent of the population of London, a very sizeable number.

42. Defoe (1726-7) i, 47; Defoe (1724-6) i, 72.

1. Thirsk & Cooper (1972) pp. 780-1; for an excellent criticism of King's figures, see Holmes (1977), who suggests that King seriously underestimated the incomes of many groups in his table. Massie (1761); for a discussion of Massie's work, see Mathias (1957).

2. Massie (1760).

3. For the profits of merchants, see p. 139. Grassby (1969) p. 733 suggests a rate of 6 to 12 per cent.

4. Some confirmation that such estimates are approximately right can be obtained from partnership agreements, which usually stated what individual partners could draw for their 'housekeeping, dyett and other particular expenses'. Not many such agreements survive, but those which have been seen have average annual drawings of £200 and a range from £78 to £312 (PRO C110/43, Alexander v. Alexander; C110/85, Unwin v. Unwin; C110/179, Price v. Stanton; C110/167, Herne v. Humphreys; C103/160, Burgess v. Taylor).

5. I am grateful to Negley Harte and Nicholas Rogers for these two references. Vanderlint's other expenditure was household maintenance (soap, sewing and haberdashery materials, repairs of household goods, scouring and cleaning equipment)—£32 6s.8d; coal and candles—£9 15s; shaving and shoe-cleaning—£2; schooling (at 10s. per quarter per child) £8; lying-in expenses (£10 once every two years)—£5; maid's wages-£4 10s.; pocket-money (4s. a week for the master, 2s. for the wife and children together 'to buy fruit and toys')—£15 12s.; entertainments—£4; medical expenses—£6; holidays ('a country lodging sometimes for the health and recreation of the family')—£8.

6. On a weekly basis, King's estimate works out at 3s. to 6s. per head and Vanderlint's at just over 4s., figures which fit in well with other data that has been found, e.g. 4s. a week for apprentices and maids and 5s. a week for a man and his wife in a 1619 master baker's household (Thrupp (1933) p. 17) and figures of 3s. 10d., 4s., 5s, 5s.4d. and 5s.6d. from accounts attached to inventories (S. 135, 139, 254 and 312). See also Brief History pp. 83-4, where the author suggests an expenditure per head from 4s. to 6s. or 7s. a week.

7. Boswell (1950) p. 34. In 1734, Vanderlint estimated that his middling family would spend a penny a head a day on tea and sugar, about one continue

      seventh of total expenditure on food and drink. The habit had not yet penetrated much below the middle classes, as tea continued to be very expensive. Tea was normally drunk sweet without milk and was an important factor in the huge increase in sugar consumption. A recent estimate of English per capita sugar consumption suggests a fourfold increase from a low base between 1660 and 1700 and a further doubling between 1700 and 1725 (Galenson (1986) p. 6).

8. On mealtimes, see Rees & Fenby (1931).

9. Quoted by Ashton (1897) p. 141.

10. For a case involving the supply of meat to a middling household, see CLRO MCI 49; see also Table 10.5 (p. 281) for the difference in meat consumption between middling and labouring families.

11. E.g. Drummond & Wilbraham (1939) pp. 133-4.

12. Thick (1985) p. 507 and, in general, pp. 503-32 provides an excellent survey of the growth of market-gardening in our period. Much of these vegetables would have been eaten by the poor since they were very cheap once the season was under way.

13. Misson (1719) p. 314. Cf. de Muralt (1726) p. 11 : 'they eat much flesh and little bread, which is another bad custom.' On tomatoes, see Wilson (1973) p. 346.

14. Swift (1948) i, 328; Ryder (1939) pp. 49, 190. In Compleat (1729) there are 100 recipes for preserving and 50 for pickles, while fruit would also have found its way into many of the 'made wines' and cordials. For estimates of the quantities of imported fruit, see McGrath (1948) pp. 208-9.

15. Misson (1719) p. 315; Wilson (1973) p. 182.

16. E.S. (1729) end-cover; Pepys 26 January 1660, cf. 26 March 1662, 13 January 1663, 4 April 1663 for some other impressive meals. For food in Pepys, see the essay in the Companion, vol. x, s. v. 'Food' and the Index, vol. xi.

17. On the mackerel fishermen of Folkestone see Defoe (1724-6) i, 123; Pepys 31 August 1664; Ashton (1897) p. 145.

18. MCI 391, evidence of Jeremiah Hamond, a schoolmaster lodging in the house of William Coles. For other complaints, see MCI 49, 318, 429, 461, 502, 508 and 535, usually complaining of insufficient or unwholesome food, but these are a small number relative to the total of apprentice cases. MCI 461 makes the same complaint as Hamond about the bread and cheese being locked up.

19. Pepys 7 July 1665; some of the men in the sample had as many as 20 dozen glass bottles (e.g. S.259) but in only a few cases were their contents, if any, valued—e.g. S.80, the apothecary Richard Tomlinson, who had a parcel of bottles, some filled with cider and some with claret valued at £8.

20. De Muralt (1726) p. 10.

21. The following section on dress draws mainly on Arnold (1970), Brooke (1958), Buck (1971), Buck (1979), Cumming (1984), Cunnington (1951), Cunnington (1955), Ewing (1984), Ribeiro (1983), Ribeiro (1984).

22. For many delightful definitions of articles of dress, see Holme (1688). See, for example, iii, 15—a band, 'an ornament for the neck which is of the continue

      finest white linnen cloth . . . made by the art of the seamster, and washed and starched, slickened and smoothed by the care of the laundress', and iii, 17—'a cravatt is another kind of adornment for the neck, being nothing else but a long towel put around the collar and so tyed with a bow knott'.

23. Buck (1971) p. 12; Riberio (1984) p. 118; Cunnington (1955) p. 163.

24. Mandeville quoted by Ribeiro (1984) p. 116; see also Ch. 5 of her book for many other examples of social criticism of dress.

25. Buck (1971) p. 5 & passim; inventory of Anne Deacon, Orphans 1049.

26. MCI 48 and 385. Cf. 49, 54, 55, 57, 66, 67, 370 etc. The range of value in the cases I have looked at was from £6 to £50, but most apprentices had at least the basic outfit of three suits and accessories.

27. PRO C107/172 (Kersteman); for inventories from the sample which list men's clothing in more or less detail, see S.4, 10, 33, 66, 82, 168, 254, 318, 319. On the nightgown, see Ashton (1897) pp. 122-3.

28. S. 1 and Orphans 1151. Women's clothes were normally worth more than those of men because of the greater proportion of silk and lace and the high yardages needed to make gowns and petticoats. Neither men's nor women's clothing are realistically valued in post-mortem inventories, but one can see what they were worth to their wearers from insurance valuations. The clothes of middle-class women, insured separately by the Sun in the late 1720s, were valued from £20 to £200, with £40 or £50 being typical. GHMS 11936/23-29.

29. Ribeiro (1984) pp. 48-9 gives a range of silk prices later in the eighteenth century from 70s. or more a yard for a rich flowered silk brocaded in gold through 20s. for a figured silk to a plain taffeta at about 8s. Her textiles are for the upper classes and cheap silks went lower than this. See also Arnold (1970) p. 27 for prices of ready-made silk nightgowns from the Spectator of 1711, 'from rich brocades of 6 guineas a gown to thread sattins of 37s. . . . the cheapest to be had in Town'. S.282 (1701) has silk nightgowns at a wholesale price of £4 and stuff ones at 22s., while S. 15 (1667) has 'small and greate India gowns' at 21s.

30. This is a very rough and ready estimate based on a cloak or campaign coat at 30s., hat 10s., peruke 20s., coat 20s., waistcoat 15s., breeches 10s., shirt 10s., stockings 5s., shoes 5s. and drawers 2s.6d. (dimity and kersey drawers for men were valued in 1672 at 2s.3d. a pair in CLRO Orphans 699).

31. Pepys 30 October 1664, 1 June 1665. For comment on Pepys's extravagance, see Ashton (1985) p. 78. For some really expensive clothes, see PRO C 113/31 pt 2, which has tailors' bills for the Duke of Monmouth, among others. He paid £108 for one outfit.

32. PRO C114/182. Unnamed tailor's day-book. Cf. C113/31 for the accounts of William Watts, tailor in the 1660s, and C108/30 for the much fuller papers of Mark Sayers in the early 1760s. Monteage in GHMS 205/1.

33. GLRO JB/Gregory King fo. 203.

34. Vanderlint (1734) pp. 141-2; cf. p. 75 where the London labourer and his wife are estimated to spend £2 10s. each on their clothes and £1 for each of the four children; BL Add. 26057; PRO C114/182. break

35. Thornton (1978) p. 10 and passim.

36. The general point of inelasticity can be illustrated further by looking at linen and pewter, two items which were in every household. The average value of linen only ranges from £9 to £26 and the average weight of pewter from 135 to 264lb for the wealth groups in Table 10.8, despite the fact that the richest group were at least ten times as rich as the poorest.

37. Further indication that the poorer members of the sample were upgrading their houses can be seen by a decline in the number of rooms with relatively low valuations. For example, 48 per cent and 35 per cent of best bedrooms were valued at less than £15 before and after 1700, 64 per cent and 39 per cent of dining-rooms were valued at less than £10, and 30 per cent and 15 per cent of kitchens were valued at less than £10 in the same two sub-periods.

38. S. 42, 43, 65, 71, 224 and 279 for men with a room valued at over £100. The number of cases where the contents of the dining-room were worth more than those in the best bedroom doubles after 1700 from 12 to 24 per cent of the sample.

39. For background on the history of furniture and interior design I have relied mainly on Edwards (1964), Fowler & Cornworth (1974), Gloag (1964), Thornton (1978), Thornton & Tomlin (1980) and Wills (1971). There is of course a huge literature on these subjects, but addressed mainly to art historians, collectors and restorers rather than to social historians.

40. Thornton (1978) pp. 9-10; Miège (1691) ii, 31-2; on looking-glasses, see Wills (1965).

41. In the period 1665-79, the main textiles used for best bed hangings in the 78 inventories which provide this information were old draperies (13), serge and perpetuana (48), camlets, mohairs, stuffs and other mixtures (13), silks (2) and others (2). In 1700-20, there are also 78 inventories and the breakdown is old draperies (5), serge and perpetuana (5), camlets (23), mohairs (17), damasks (8), cheneys (7), stuffs (3), pure silks (4) and others (6). Silk and cotton were also the main lining materials.

42. Gloag (1964) p. 82. Only four inventories have an easy chair before 1700.

43. Turkeywork was an imitation of Turkish rug design made mainly in Norwich and Bradford and used in panels for upholstering the backs of chairs. Gloag (1964) pp. 77-8; Thornton (1978) p. 202; see CJ x, 282, 313 for petitions in the late 1680s from Bradford in favour of the unsuccessful bill to ban cane chairs and Walton (1973) p. 48 for a similar petitioning campaign by the London Upholders' Company. In the 1660s, 7 inventories mention turkeywork chairs and none mentions cane chairs; the figures for succeeding decades are: 1670s (59/6), 1680s (32/31) 1690s (13/53), 1700s (14/53) and 1710s (1/22).

44. Williams (S.246); Barkstead (S.236). The Indian competition aroused much resentment from, among others, the London Joiners' Company, which claimed in 1700 that in the previous four years there had been imported from India 6582 tea-tables, 4120 dressing, comb and powder boxes, 818 lacquered boards, 597 sconces, 589 looking-glass frames, 428 continue

      chests, 244 cabinets, 70 trunks and 52 screens. The Indians made these 'after the English fashion, by our models' and all these articles can be found in our inventories. ( Case (1700), in BL 816.m. 13(2), ibid (1) is a similar petition from the japanners); see also CJ xiii, 553. The petitioning was successful and, in 1701, parliament imposed added duties on East Indian goods (Joy (1965) p. 2).

45. Sherwood (S.295), cf. S.304, 313, both of which have over 100 pieces of china. Only one inventory listed equipment specifically for making or serving hot drinks before 1690 but, in the 1690s, 12 per cent did and 48 per cent did between 1700 and 1709. The preference for tea at home is shown by the fact that tea equipment outnumbered coffee equipment by over two to one in the inventories, while the chocolate pot came a very poor third.

46. S.239, 304, 338. De Saussure (1902) p. 69 noted the lack of hangings in London houses at the end of our period, which he attributed to the coal smoke.

47. Thompson (1967); Vanderpost (S.66); Walford (S.332); most clocks were simply described as a clock, a small clock or a clock and case, except in the earlier part of the period when 'pendulum clock', 'clock with weights' etc. is more common. In the early eighteenth century, one finds a few 'month' clocks (e.g. S.326, 343) but, when such things are mentioned, 7 and 8-day clocks are much commoner. There were also repeating and alarm clocks (e.g. S.279, 304, 314).

48. S.304.

49. Pepys 2 September 1666. Our material may understate the true position since the inventories list 14 virginals, 11 harpsichords, 3 spinets, 2 organs, 7 viols, 3 violins and a lute and not a single woodwind instrument. It seems possible that, like other small personal possessions, such instruments as recorders might well have been overlooked by the assessors.

50. Cf. Priestley & Corfield (1982) p. 107 for similar developments in Norwich kitchens during the same period.

51. For the description of articles in the kitchen I have relied mainly on the OED and on Lindsay (1927). I would recommend anyone interested in the history of kitchen equipment to look at some of these inventories, which contain a huge amount of detail that means little to me as a non-specialist. On the jacksmith, see Campbell (1747) pp. 179-80. Most houses had plenty of brass and copper implements in other rooms as well as the kitchen, fire furniture for instance, while a dozen or so brass candle-sticks and at least one warming-pan were normally listed in kitchen inventories. Further demand for metal goods came from the large number of weapons kept in many houses. (See above, p. 243.)

52. S. 274. Incidentally, my sources do not support the estimates of late seventeenth-century pewter stocks in Hatcher & Barker (1974) pp. 129-30. They estimate that those with incomes of £200-500 would have 350-550 lb, £100-200 would have 200-350 lb and £50-100 would have 100-150 lb. I do not have income figures but by wealth groups the figures are as follows, average pewter weights in pounds in brackets: over £5000 (265), £2000-5000 (183), £1000-2000 (168), £500-1000 (153) and under £500 (135)—in other words they seem to exaggerate the stocks of the wealthy. break

53. Stock (S.252); for a good listing of plate, see S.374, John Goodlad, whose dressing-table set alone was worth nearly £60.

54. The average valuation of linen was nearly £16 and of the contents of kitchens, including pewter and brass but not of course linen, just over £13. A sub-sample of 1 in 5 of the 375 inventories was used for listing the details of domestic life and of these 75 inventories, 50 listed linen in sufficient detail to provide these averages. For an insight into the types and uses of cottons and linens, see J.F. (1696).

55. Thornton (1978) pp. 315-21.

56. Pepys vol. x, 103 and see 30 May 1663, 20 June 1666 etc. for washing feet. Monteage in GHMS 205, e.g. 1 in 1733 when his feet were washed on 14 January, 4 February, 11 March etc. Bugs and lice were a major problem; for an entertaining article on the subject, see Boynton (1965) and for contemporary advice on how to deal with them, see Southall (1730). London had many public bathhouses, also Turkish baths or hummums, there being at least 10 by the reign of Queen Anne. See the list in Lillywhite (1963) p. 95.

57. Things which one finds in inventories at the end of the period but not at the beginning include chimney cranes, trivets, toasting-irons or toasters, plate warmers, extinguishers (for candles rather than fires I think), brass savealls (contrivances to hold candle-ends so that they burn to the end), voyders (trays to sweep crumbs into after a meal) and clothes horses.

58. The median fortune of the first ten people with bed hangings of camlet, mohair, damask or silk was over £5000. Similar figures were found for the first people with cane chairs and over £10,000 for the first ten people with tea-making equipment. Most of those less wealthy were tradesmen with an almost exclusively West End clientèle.

59. S.373.

60. This cannot be proved since inventories rarely put a value on individual objects but value rooms or parts of rooms in a lump. In any case, it is difficult to compare the value of pieces of furniture over time since it is almost impossible to be sure that one is comparing like with like.

61. Pepys 30 November 1668.

62. In 1727/28, there was one person keeping a coach for every 42 houses in the City and one for every 15 houses in wealthy and more spacious Westminster, where houses were often built with stables or mews attached, as in St George's Hanover Square, which had one coach for every 4.3 houses (Maitland (1739) pp. 354ff.).

63. Both Swift (1948) and Pepys demonstrate that they were energetic walkers, but the most enthusiastic of all that I have come across was the accountant Stephen Monteage (GHMS 208).

1. PRO C108/132. Sarah Smyter to her brother Henry Gambier, 15 May 1717 and 12 April 1716.

2. The time that elapsed between the date of signing a will and the date of continue

      proving it was less than a year in 78 per cent of 167 cases and less than three months in 59 per cent; Harvey (1678), introduction, A2; Gregory King thought that, on average, each person had four serious illnesses, the last one being mortal. In the same paper, he has an interesting analysis of expenditure on 'physick and chirurgery'. He thought that the nation as a whole spent just under £1/4m a year, of which 61 per cent was spent on apothecaries, 17 per cent on doctors and quacks, 13 per cent on 'kitchen physick' (i.e. self-treatment) and 9 per cent on surgeons. GLRO JB/Gregory King fo. 206.

3. Archer (1673).

4. Most of these books seem to have concentrated on the need for 'a steddy and regular course of living'. See, for example, Maynwaring (1683) p. 16 where he emphasized the virtue of the golden mean, not too much and not too little of sleep, meat, drink, exercise etc. Cf. Tryon (1691).

5. Archer (1673); he was not alone in his belief in the curative virtues of tobacco; cf. Dr Everard, Panacea, or a Universal Medicine, being a discovery of the wonderful virtues of tobacco (1659); Ryder (1939) p. 196.

6. Matthews (1978) pp. 164, 170; Brockbank (1964) pp. 2, 8; Wootton (1910) ii, 117, 143-4, 172-3, 179-82; Culpeper (1953) p. 30; all these works have a mass of fascinating material on the pharmacy of the period. For a collection of recipes designed to assist those who wished to undercut the apothecaries, see Harvey (1678). See also PRO C114/59, a daybook kept by Anthony Daffy between 1675 and 1680 which records the sales of thousands of 1/2-pint and pint bottles of the elixir to customers all over the country and as far afield as the coast of Coromandel. On the drug trade, see Roberts (1965).

7. Brockbank (1964).

8. Clarkson (1975) pp. 103-5; Webster quoted in Hunter & Macalpine (1963) pp. 209-10. He was actually referring to his own practice in Clitheroe, Lancashire, 'where ignorance, popery, and superstition doth much abound', but there seems little doubt that such attitudes could be found amongst middling Londoners as well, despite their veneer of sophistication.

9. See Blauner (1966) for an interesting discussion of the problems of a society in which people often 'die with unfinished business'.

10. A few earlier parish registers give age at death. See Figure 3 in Forbes (1976) p. 403 which shows a similar picture to the one in our figure. Finlay (1981) Ch. 5 was unable to calculate adult mortality rates by the methods of family reconstitution, since few people stayed in the same parish for long enough to provide him with data, and he was forced to match his observed infant and child mortality rates to modern life tables, a hazardous exercise as he himself admits.

11. These are parishes which had high proportions of their householders assessed for personal estate valued over £600 in the Marriage Duties assessments of 1695, as analysed by Jones & Judges (1935) pp. 45-63. The parishes in the London Bridge group were St Andrew Hubbard, St Benet Gracechurch, St Botolph Billingsgate, St Dionis Backchurch, St Dunstan in continue

      East, St Gabriel Fenchurch, St George Botolph Lane, St Leonard Eastcheap, St Magnus, St Margaret Pattens, St Mary at Hill; and in the Guildhall group were Allhallows Bread Street, Allhallows Honey Lane, St John Evangelist, St Lawrence Jewry, St Martin Ironmonger Lane, St Mary le Bow, St Mary Magdalen Milk Street, St Matthew Friday Street, St Michael Bassishaw. Populations are taken as those provided by the assessments of 1695 for the period 1676 to 1704 and then are assumed to have changed evenly decade by decade until they reached the figures given in the 1801 census. The deaths are from the Bills of Mortality. The method used here is crude, but one is given confidence by the fact that the experience of both groups of parishes moves very much in tandem and that the larger individual parishes within the groups consistently mirror the experience of the group as a whole. One would be reluctant to put much reliance on the exact figures of deaths per thousand but can be reasonably confident that the trend is accurate.

12. The method used was simply to collect from the Boyd data all those cases (2744) where it was possible to find a date of birth or baptism and a date of death, burial, probate or post-mortem inventory, the assumption being that any bias in Boyd's data was consistent throughout the period. It should be noted that no one should be able to enter the Boyd data unless they were already 24, the minimum age of citizenship, though in fact there are a few people in their earlier twenties.

13. Creighton (1891) ii, 22-25, 61. The high mortality of the third quarter of the seventeenth century shows up throughout the country. Creighton thought it was due to smallpox, typhus and a particularly virulent form of influenza.

14. Based on 43 merchants, 34 haberdashers and 16 apothecaries. See also Earle (1986) p. 55, Table 3.12. Across the whole period of the Boyd data used in Figure 11.3, the average percentage of citizens dying under 50 was 38.7 per cent but for members of 'artisan' livery companies it was 45.6 per cent and for Clothworkers and Mercers, the two companies with the wealthiest members, it was 34.4 per cent.

15. For a development of this argument, see Earle (1986).

16. GHMS 11892A, Michael Mitford to John Lowther, 21 December 1703, with reference to the latter's brother's funeral; Pepys, 18 March 1664, his brother Tom's funeral. On the rise of the undertaking profession, see p. 79 and Gittings (1984).

17. S.56, 216, 239, 371. A few people were very specific about the costs of their funeral; Sir John Smith (S.65) willed that £600 be spent and John Dubois (S. 191) £400, the actual cost being just over £398.

18. S.107; cf. S.65, Alderman Sir John Smith and S.97, Edward Darling, landlord of the Three Tuns at Charing Cross, obviously an officer in the Trained Bands who wished 'to be interred with part of my company marching before my corps'. However, very few wills do spell such things out, though some make it clear that they did not wish their funeral to be a public spectacle, e.g. Sir Nicholas Butler (S.269) who wanted 'none to be at my funeral but my owne family'. For some idea of numbers at funerals, see continue

      Pepys x, 152-3. Two city halls were needed to hold the gathering for the funeral of the goldsmith-banker Sir Thomas Vyner; 400 or 500 people attended the funeral of Anthony Joyce and 100 to 200 coaches carried Sir William Batten's mourners from London to his burial at Walthamstow.

19. Quotations from Misson (1719) p. 90, a good description of a middling funeral, and Ryder (1939) p. 91, his grandmother's funeral. Not many people left instructions in their wills, normally restricting themselves to willing that they be buried at the discretion of the executor or 'in a decent manner'. Some specify the church and the preacher and a few are more detailed, willing that they be buried near their former wife, father, children etc. or in a particular vault. By our period, some of the City churches were getting very full. See Pepys, 18 March 1664, where he arranges for the burial of his brother Tom in the middle aisle of St Bride's Fleet Street. The gravemaker told him that it was very full but for sixpence and his father's sake he would 'justle them together' to make room for him.

20. PRO C105/15, Hatfield v. Holmes, bill dated 13 May 1731.

21. Ryder (1939) p. 340; S.236; S.212; PRO PROB 11/368/147 fo. 45v, will of William Sawyer; cf. S.91, 269.

22. Misson (1719) p. 91 wrote that everyone drank two or three cups; only six bottles of wine were provided at the funeral of John Hatfield in 1731 (PRO C105/15). Pepys 18 March 1664; S.232; S.289, Mackley made a rather odd request in the codicil to his will: 'I pray let the stone that was taken out of my body be layd upon my corps while it stands in the room to show the Lord's goodness to me in sparing my life.' Readers of Pepys's diary will be familiar with his gratitude at having survived the operation for cutting for a stone.

23. On the Custom, see Laws (1765) pp. 80-3, 99-100, 105-9 etc; Carlton (1974) pp. 45-50; for a case where it was claimed that the Custom overrode a will, see MCE 1680-1, Stockdale v. Butler; Laws (1765) p. 99 says that where an estate exceeded £2000, the widow's chamber should be £50 but this does not seem to have happened in practice. There is also confusion between the chamber and the 'widow's paraphernalia', which normally meant her jewellery.

24. Since the sample is drawn specifically from people whose estates were divided by the Court of Orphans there is clearly a bias towards those who accepted the Custom and were quite happy to die intestate and allow its rules to govern the division of their estate. The Court of Orphans had a chequered history in our period, which caused fewer and fewer people to use its services, and a random sample of middling people would certainly have a much lower proportion of intestates. On the Court, see Carlton (1974), esp. Ch. 6. Horwitz (1984) has analysed a sample of wills made by wealthy Londoners between 1660 and 1754 and found that a high proportion did not follow the Custom of London, though this did not mean that they necessarily treated their children inequitably. Those who were least likely to follow the Custom were the elderly and/or those with relatively few surviving children, i.e. just the sort of people who were least likely to appear in our sample. break

25. For details, see Carlton (1974) pp. 48-50. Orphanage portions were due to be paid at 21 or marriage and could be retained by widows or guardians if recognizances and sureties were found, could be lent out to third parties on the same conditions or deposited in the Chamber of London. Interest, called 'finding money', was paid to the guardian for the maintenance and education of the children. The City government regularly borrowed money from the orphans' fund in the Chamber and, when the City went bankrupt in 1682, the orphans were the main losers, a scandal which naturally made the whole system very much less attractive to executors and testators. The orphans' rights were eventually secured by new taxes on coal and, although the numbers of people using the Court declined quite rapidly from the 1680s, there were still sufficient to maintain our sample up to 1720. After this date, there are very few and the Custom of London itself was abolished in 1725. See Carlton (1974) Ch. 6 and Kellett (1963).

26. About 25 per cent received nothing from the dead man's share, often because they were given a life interest in real property.

27. Wills are very complicated to analyse. A coding system was devised for personal estate as follows: a) equal division between all children—64 per cent; b) eldest son more than the rest—13 per cent; c) son(s) more than daughter(s)—9 per cent; d) eldest of either sex more than younger—9 per cent; e) daughter(s) more than son(s)—4 per cent; f) younger children more than older—1 per cent. For real estate the raw figures were: a) to sons but only had sons—4; b) to eldest son only—21; c) to eldest sons only—7; d) to sons, nothing to daughters—13; e) to sons and daughters—13; f) to daughters but only had daughters—5; g) not left to children—7; h) sold and added to personal estate—6.

28. Of those who died testate and left a widow, 21.3 per cent appointed her sole executrix with no overseers, 56.7 per cent appointed her joint-executrix or sole executrix with one or more overseers and 22 per cent did not name her at all.

29. Two-thirds of wills mention legacies apart from what was left to widows and children: 73 testators (40.3 per cent) named 1-5 legatees; 32 (17.7 per cent) named 6-10; 13 (7.2 per cent) named 11-20 and 3 (1.7 per cent) named over 20, the greatest number being the 72 named by John Hobby (S.91 and see p. 318). Mourning bequests are also mentioned in 57 per cent of wills, the recipients showing similar patterns to those in Table 11.3 but most wills only name a small proportion of those who received cloth, gloves, rings etc. and that much of the distribution was left to the discretion of executors.

30. See Jordan (1960).

31. S.56 (0.2 per cent of his net estate). Altogether, 50 testators left 97 separate bequests to the poor worth a total capital value of £5242, 10 left 11 bequests for religious purposes worth £484, 4 left 6 bequests for education worth £273, 3 left 4 bequests to help with apprenticeship premiums or give loans to young beginners worth £1318 and 3 left 1 bequest each for poor prisoners worth a total of £1055. Miscellaneous bequests worth £400 were also left to the Artillery Company, Bedlam Hospital, the Salters' Company and 'charity'. break

32. S.42, S.91.

33. For a general work on charity after 1660, see Owen (1964) pp. 11-88.

34. S. 191 (Dubois); S.289 (Mackley); cf. S.12, Richard Darnelly, who willed that 'four ministers of God's word' should be at his funeral; S. 13, Richard Bridges, who willed that the 8th and 9th verses of Psalm 16 should be the text at his funeral sermon, and several others with such hints of piety or the nature of their belief, e.g. S.96 who left £2 to 'a poor pious nonconforming minister' to be chosen after consultation with the minister of his own congregation.

35. S.340 (Ragdale); S.193 (Waldron).

36. S.136; S.246; S.12; S.86.

37. S.4; S.354; S.49, cf. S.91—£2 to all those servants 'who shall live a year after with my wife'.

38. Reduction or voiding of widows' legacies on remarriage in S.14, 31, 67, 152, 365; new arrangements for children in S.5, 30, 187, 208, 231 etc.

39. S. 12, cf. 116 and 216 and see p. 235; S.285; S.82; S.303; S.307; for some comments in wills relating to daughters' marriages, see pp. 187-8.

40. S.4.

41. S.71; for an insight into just how much religious belief could affect behaviour and lifestyle, see Seaver (1985).

1. Archenholtz (1794) p. 122, quoted by Rudé (1971) pp. 55-6.

2. E.g. Dickson (1967) pp. 279, 302; Rudé (1971) p. 52. The confusion is made worse by the fact that many writers treat this 'upper middle class' group as the whole of the middle class and do not really acknowledge the existence of the bulk of the people discussed in this book.

3. For wages, see Gilboy (1934) and Tucker (1936). Some idea of incomes is given in King's table, see Thirsk & Cooper (1972) pp. 780-1.

4. Review vi, 142.

5. Rouquet (1755) quoted by Wagner (1972) p. 96.

6. Schuyler (1931) p. 264 quoted by Andrew (1981) pp. 367-8.

7. Campbell (1747) passim.

8. See p. 292.

9. Hexter (1961).

10. Hexter (1961) pp. 75, 112-16.

11. Thrupp (1948).

12. Thrupp (1948) pp. 139, 143, 148; see the comment of Robert Dodsley on Defoe quoted in Earle (1976) p. 174.

13. Macfarlane (1978).

14. Thrupp (1948) p. 312.

15. Wrigley (1985) Table 7.2. For an estimate of the size of the middle class in London, see p. 80-1.

16.Thomas (1983) p. 159 and see this book generally for changing attitudes to the natural world. For a discussion of changing attitudes towards women in literature, see Utter & Needham (1937).

17. Quoted by Wadsworth & Mann (1931) p. 103. break