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).