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.