INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH

CENTRE
FOR
METROPOLITAN
HISTORY

Annual Report 1991-2

Message from the Chairman of the Patrons of the Centre

1. Director's Report

2. Project Reports

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF THE PATRONS OF THE CENTRE

Staff at the Centre have clearly spent a busy and productive year building further upon the solid foundation of expertise developed there over the last few years. It is good to see from this fourth Annual Report that several more publications based on the Centre's work are almost ready to appear, and that others will soon follow to make research results and information available to the wider historical world. However, it is disappointing to learn that other worthwhile research projects, which would be of similar value to that wider world, may have to be shelved for lack of funding. Fundraising for historical research is an uphill and time-consuming task, but an inescapable one these days. My fellow Patrons and I will do all we can to assist with this, and indeed all other aspects of the Centre's activities, in the year to come.

Sir Kit McMahon

[1988-9] [1989-90] [1990-1] [1992-3] [Back to Contents]

1. DIRECTOR'S REPORT

Despite a year in which the prospects for financing fundamental research in the humanities and social sciences from public sources or by more entrepreneurial means have far from improved, the Centre for Metropolitan History has managed to consolidate its programme of work, and at the same time to develop its role as the focus and provider for the study of London and other metropolises. During the year the Centre has had a full-time staff of eleven, one researcher on part-time secondment to the Centre, and one postgraduate student formally attached. In addition, towards the end of the year we welcomed David Ormrod from the University of Kent, who for the year 1992-3 is a research fellow at the Institute and is working in close association with the Skilled Workforce project. From within the resources of that project we were also able to make small awards to four postgraduate students working on topics related to it. These 'bursarians', as they soon came to be called, make a lively contribution to project meetings, and illustrate one of the ways in which the Centre can promote both training and debate.

The future of our accommodation at 34 Tavistock Square remains uncertain, but the departure of the History of Parliament to the newly-named Wedgwood House in Woburn Square has enabled us to expand further, at least for the time being. Each project team now has its own room, and the Director has moved out of the cellar. Special thanks are due to those members of staff who made up a cleaning party on the occasion of the move.

All of us are becoming more confident and more expert in our use of computers. The mapping techniques, using personal computers, developed for the 'Metropolitan London in the 1690s' project have been adapted for use in the 'Feeding the City' project and other aspects of our work. For the complex data used in 'Feeding the City' they offer great advantages of flexibility and speed over the mainframe systems to which the Centre had only limited access. Computers are now widely used at the Centre for writing, editing, and typesetting texts, and for manipulating and transferring data. Increasingly, we use electronic mail for the national and international exchange of information, although within the University of London more traditional mail systems tend to prevail. Tavistock Square is not a site from which it is possible effectively to transmit complex data, or to make elaborate enquiries of datasets held elsewhere, but such activities are possible in other locations and are likely in coming years to transform the ways in which historians do their work, providing them with rapid access to new types of information and with new ways of developing ideas.

This year the Metropolitan History Seminar focused on the themes 'Food' and 'Transport' in the metropolis. Topics covered ranged from 'Beer, Dutch towns and the grain trade, 1400-1600' to 'Sainsbury's', and from London's legal quays in the reign of Charles II' to London's airports before the Second World War'. A full list appears in Appendix VII. Themes for 1992-3 are 'Social Policy' and 'The Art Market'.

A major conference on Anglo-American publishing which had been planned for the year had to be cancelled, in part because of financial problems in the trade. A one-day workshop on 'Epidemic Disease in London' was held which brought together postgraduates and a variety of historians and other specialists who have been studying the epidemiology of the city. Our patron Sir Brian Jenkins, at that time Lord Mayor of London, was able to attend a part of the meeting, and was especially struck by the ways in which his predecessors had responded to catastrophe. A number of the papers given will shortly be published as the first of the Centre's Working Papers series. Some time was also spent on organising two conferences to be held in 1993. One, in July, will be concerned with the aristocratic town house in London and its political, social and cultural role. Some of its sessions will be held at the recently and splendidly restored Spencer House, and others at the Royal Academy in Burlington House, and at the Institute of Historical Research in Senate House, three sharply contrasting architectural settings. The other conference, in September, will examine various aspects of the relationship between London and the English regions, and provides a welcome opportunity for collaboration with other centres for regional studies.

Reports on the Centre's research projects, most of them written by the staff concerned, form the second part of this report. Apart from their value as fundamental contributions to knowledge, it is clear that they are contributing to the definition of themes and conceptual approaches in metropolitan history of great significance for European and wider studies in many different periods. Some of the principal results of the 'Feeding the City' project will appear in a short book on grain production and distribution in the London region c.1300, to be published in Spring 1993. Founded on detailed empirical research, itself of an innovative character, this study draws on classical theories of land use and of market evolution derived from experiences of farming in Mecklenburg and of the growth of the Chicago grain market, and on work by historians of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France. Highlighting the relationship between rural production, urban consumption, and international circuits of exchange, the book makes what is likely to remain a unique contribution to understanding a key aspect of the European economy, and of the role of great cities within it, at an early peak of its development. It also establishes a scale for comparison with other periods and other episodes in metropolitan history. The Director has spent much of his research time during the year investigating the London market in grain, tackling the difficult issue of transport costs in thirteenth-century England. and editing the volume.

Another major publication in the offing is the bibliography of London history to 1939. It is our firm intention to continue with this type of work at the Centre, making information and sources available which will facilitate the pursuit of London history. As will be seen from the report below, however, it is not easy to plan for this or other long term objectives when the resources likely to be available take the form of project grants, the success of applications for which is far from guaranteed. It is a key priority for many areas of London history to make more accessible the wealth of evidence for the city's life and culture to be found in the records of the central courts of law, and we continue to seek funds for projects with that aim.

One of the products of the investigation of 'Metropolitan London in the 1690s' will be a major resource for historians in the form of a directory of London householders with their tax assessments and other information. The other main product will be an analysis of that material, many of the results of which are suitable for publishing in graphic form: this product will have value in itself as the earliest possible comprehensive account of the social geography of the metropolis, and that too will be a resource which will inform writing on other aspects of the history of London in that period.

A major new project, with three researchers, began in January 1992, focusing on 'The Growth of the Skilled Workforce in London, 1500-1750'. Its primary concern is with the reason why Londoners in this period behaved in ways which enabled the city to acquire a stock of human capital, in the form of the skilled workforce, which transformed it from an important but peripheral European city to one whose products and services captured world markets. The possible approaches to this question are numerous and varied, and so for a part of the first year the team has been developing an agenda in a way which is not usually possible for research projects. Not the least stimulating aspect of the enquiry is its location within a network of other projects where historians of science and technology, cognitive psychologists, anthropologists, and others are investigating creativity and innovation in contexts as diverse as nineteenth-century Cambridge and Silicon Valley. To have such people parachute into one's life is itself a creative, if for a medievalist an occasionally bizarre, experience.

During the year it was possible to resume the investigation of the early growth and character of London with the study 'Before the Bank', which had begun as part of the Social and Economic Study of Medieval London, a project based at the Institute of Historical Research before the foundation of the Centre and since taken into it. This work is being continued by Dr Patricia Croot, on part-time secondment from the Victoria County History of Middlesex. The VCH Middlesex has had financial difficulties recently, and we are pleased to have been able to contribute towards providing some breathing space during which a solution might be found. Patricia Croot's experience gained during her recent work on the histories of 'inner Middlesex' parishes such as Stepney also makes a valuable contribution to the Centre.

Work still continues on some projects for which funding has formally ceased. In particular, a long essay on the impact of the 1665 plague epidemic in London nears completion. It is being prepared by Justin Champion, who is a regular visitor and whom we congratulate on his recent appointment to a lectureship at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College. We look forward to pursuing future metropolitan projects in collaboration with him at his new base. Some progress has been made on the analysis of the material concerning the textile marketing district of the city during the nineteenth century, but a priority for the near future must be the acquisition of further resources for turning the studies already begun into a coherent account of the transformation of the Victorian city of London and the emergence of its specialised business districts.

Two further longer term research objectives have been identified. One concerns health, environment and mortality in nineteenth- and twentieth-century London. To be successfully carried out that will involve creating an infrastructure of research tools which will be capable of being employed in a much wider range of studies of life in the metropolis. The second is the suburbanization of the metropolis, and would be concerned with social, cultural, and political aspects of that phenomenon as well as its economic, planning and architectural side. The way in which some suburbs, often distant ones, appear to be appropriating dynamic aspects of urban life and forms of association once characteristic of the centre has important implications for the future of the metropolis, at least as a readily definable place. Few cities provide a better laboratory than London for investigating the successive stages of this development.

The greater part of the director's other research during the year was associated with the 'Skilled Workforce' project and with the preparation of papers on 'The aristocracy and trade in the early Middle Ages', given at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo (Michigan), and on Fairs and Urbanization: the experience of medieval England'. The visit to Kalamazoo provided an opportunity to get to know two great cities, Chicago and Detroit, at least one of which is certainly a metropolis. The hospitality of the Chicago Historical Society and of the American Urban History Association is warmly acknowledged. Both cities, in contrasting ways, provide food for thought on the nature of the metropolis as a locality with a discernible identity, and material for sober reflection on the future possession and control of cities, both issues of critical importance for modern London.

A general issue which has concerned us this year is that of the dissemination of information. A steady flow of conventional publications is emerging from the research projects, but other ways of providing access to our information are being considered.

Visitors and enquiries are always welcome, and we can often provide facts and guidance not available elsewhere, but to be usable by others over the long term historical databases require more management than it is possible to offer in a context of short term project funding. The answer probably lies within the Institute of Historical Research as a whole, which is seeking ways of enhancing its national and international role as a resource for historians. Another aspect of the same issue is whether the Centre can make some of its findings on the history of London available to schools in the metropolis for use within the history curriculum.

Links with other scholars and organisations have developed over the year. The regular meetings with the Museum of London provide a basis for collaboration which at present is particularly effective in connection with the 'Skilled Workforce' project. Prospects are being explored of collaboration with the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, which has recently been developing some striking ideas and analyses, which have strong historical implications, concerning the operation and efficiency of metropolitan networks. There was a steady stream of visitors to the Centre over the year, including historians from the USA, Canada, Germany, Italy, Poland, Japan, and France. The Associates and Patrons of the Centre continue to give effective support and assistance.

[1988-9 Report] [1989-90 Report] [1990-1 Report] [1992-3 Report] [1993-4 Report] [1994-5 Report] [1995-6 Report] [1996-7 Report] {1997-8 Report] [Back to Contents]

2. PROJECT REPORTS

i FEEDING THE CITY: LONDON'S IMPACT ON THE AGRARIAN ECONOMY OF SOUTHERN ENGLAND c. 1250-1400

The second stage of this continuing project, which examines the influence of medieval London upon the agricultural systems of its region, began on 1st October 1991. While the first phase of work was concerned with the years around 1300 A.D., when London achieved its peak medieval population, emphasis has now switched to the very different world of the later fourteenth century. Devastating outbreaks of plague in 1348-9 and subsequent years had substantially reduced the population of city and countryside alike, promoting profound economic and social changes. Overall levels of demand for foodstuffs declined, but the increased living standards enjoyed by survivors of the plagues meant a significant change in the structure of demand. It is probable that London, though smaller in absolute terms than before the Black Death, contained a greater share of national and regional population than it did before. For some commodities its absolute levels of demand may even have increased. While demand for the cheaper foodstuffs declined, increasing proportions and perhaps even quantities of meat, wheaten bread and better-quality ale were required for consumption in London. The current phase of 'Feeding the City' seeks to examine the ways in which the changing scale and nature of metropolitan demand impacted upon the economy of the London region in the post-plague period.

The Sources: I - Manorial Account Rolls.

A prime objective of the project is the creation of a database from later-fourteenth-century demesne accounts, comparable in scale and scope with that compiled for the period 12881315. In determining the precise years for which accounts data should be collected use was made of lists compiled from the Manorial Documents Register of the National Register of Archives, and a pilot survey of seven major archives was undertaken. The survey revealed that substantial numbers of accounts survive from the later fourteenth century, although their absolute numbers and usefulness tends to decline towards the end of the century as more and more landlords moved from direct management to the leasing of their demesnes (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Number of Manorial accounts for places in the London region located in 7 sample archives

The period chosen for this second detailed 'snap-shot' of the London region is c.1375c.1395. The impact of demographic collapse upon the agricultural economy was not instantaneous, and some of the most profound changes seem to have been delayed until the mid-1370s, when grain prices collapsed and the scales tipped decisively away from arable towards pastoral farming.

The methodology has remained substantially similar to that employed in the earlier phase but the range of information to be taken from the accounts has been refined and extended. In particular, more information is being collected concerning the production and disposal of animal and plant products, such as cheese, hay and firewood, which will enable a more complete picture of the demesne economy to be reconstructed. A system of entering data in the archives from manuscript sources directly into dBASE IV has been devised and the intention is to use 500 or more accounts, selecting up to 4 accounts per manor. Time permitting, case studies will be made of up to 20 manors with more or less continuous runs of accounts. The target for completing accounts collection is 1 April 1993.

The Sources: 2 - Inquisitions Post Mortem (IPMs)

In its first phase the project assembled a major database of land-use information using almost 2,000 IPMs from the period 1270-1339. An early objective of the new project was, therefore, the creation of a complementary database for the late fourteenth century, both to provide background land-use information within which to locate the detailed information on agricultural production and disposal provided by demesne account rolls and to reveal absolute and relative changes over time in landuse and land values. We foresaw that there would be fewer IPMs in the post-Black Death period and that they might change in character. It became clear once archive work had commenced that numbers of inquisitions do indeed drop off in the later fourteenth century and that far fewer inquisitions contain the detailed land-use information necessary for our purposes.

The final quarter of the fourteenth century was targeted and data collected for a limited range of variables. A careful trawl of all IPM files for the 10 counties of the study area yielded information for 95 different lords and 168 different places. Analysis of the data is well advanced and statistics relating to mean values and amounts of arable, meadow, pasture and wood have been produced. Comparison with the mean values for the period 1270-1339 shows a significant decline in value per acre of all land uses (Table 1).

These figures, meaned across the whole study area, although interesting, cannot be pushed too far, given the different composition of the two datasets. However, for 101 places common to both databases we can directly compare land use and values before and after the Black Death. This analysis is under way.

Table 1. Comparison of mean values per acre for the London region, 1270-1339 and 1375-99

Continuing work on the period c.1300

In tandem with the creation of new account and IPM databases, work has continued on the analysis and writing-up of material relating to the period c.1300. Much of this work has been geared towards the production of a monograph which will give extended consideration to the production, circulation and consumption of grain in the London region.

London generated demand for a range of grain crops, for both human and animal consumption; wheat for high-quality bread, rye and maslin for cheaper breads and pottage, barley and oats for brewing, and oats again as fodder for horses. The different grains had different qualities, which, in a market-orientated economy, would be expected to influence the response of the agricultural sector to concentrated urban demand. Chief amongst these differences were variations in bulk and value. Measured in mean price per unit of volume, wheat was well over twice as expensive as oats in the early fourteenth century, and around 25 per cent and 30 per cent respectively more expensive than rye and barley. Even allowing for variations in weight per unit of volume, these price differences are sufficient to influence significantly the extent to which the different grains could withstand transport costs and remain profitable.

Production of the bulkier, lower value grains should thus be characteristic of areas closest to a central market. If the presence of the London market was the greatest single influence upon grain cultivation in the surrounding counties at this date, then one would expect to find specialized production of oats taking place relatively close to the city, barley and rye production somewhat further away, and wheat predominating at greater distances from the capital. There is evidence to suggest that this was in fact the way that grain production was structured in the counties surrounding the capital c.1300. In Figure 2 relative acreage under oats - the bulkiest and lowest value grain, but one for which there was undoubtedly a substantial metropolitan demand - is plotted. The top category, represented by the largest black squares, comprises demesnes where over 50 per cent of the total grain acreage was devoted to oats; this is a very substantial proportion - the average in the ten counties of our study area was 33 per cent, and nationally the figure was around 36 per cent. The pattern of cultivation seems to conform to the prediction that concentration on oats would be characteristic of areas close to London. In Middlesex and north-central Surrey there was a strong bias towards the crop, with several demesnes devoting over one half of their grain acreage to it. This degree of concentration on the cultivation of oats, in an area with few predisposing environmental factors, is without parallel in lowland England. Across much of the east Midlands, East Anglia and southern England oats' share of the grain acreage was well below the national average. In Middlesex, the demesnes of Ruislip, Edgware and Hampstead had 58 per cent, 60 per cent and 65 per cent, respectively, of their cereal acreage under oats. This marked specialization can almost certainly be attributed to the force of the London market, although it must be conceded that it extended to demesnes which sold relatively little of their grain; the London market should perhaps be seen as moulding the environment within which decisions as to which crop to grow were taken, rather than as acting directly upon each producing unit.

Fig.2. Percentage of sown grain acreage devoted to oats on demesnes in the London region c.1300

Similarly striking specialisms occur in the cultivation of the other grain crops, with a remarkably close agreement between the observed patterns and those predicted by geographical theory. Both barley and rye and the rye-based mixtures (principally maslin and mancorn) were prominent along the line of the Thames valley and estuary. Wheat, by contrast, was relatively insignificant there, generally occupying no more than 10 or 15 per cent of the grain acreage, and totally absent from some demesnes. The higher value crop instead predominated at a greater distance from the city, in such areas as central and southern Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire. Although consistent with economic logic, this state of affairs is quite opposed to N.S.B. Gras's belief that wheat had predominated in the Thames valley from an early date. It strongly suggests that the London of c.1300 generated a significant demand for the cheaper bread and pottage grains, as well as for higher-priced wheat. Rather than promoting the substitution of wheat for rye and maslin, as some have believed, London, at this early peak in its growth, seems to have stimulated a notable specialism in the cultivation of cheaper bread grains in its hinterland.

Distance from London thus seems to have been a key influence upon the cultivation of grain. Of greater significance than simple straight-line or crow-fly distance was transport cost distance - distance as measured by the cost of transferring a quantity of produce between two places. This is particularly evident in the production of grain for the market. It can be shown that, overall, there was a tendency for the proportion of grain sold to decrease as the cost of transporting grain to London rose. It is possible to estimate - from a variety of sources, but principally from documents relating to royal purveyance of grain the cost of transporting a quarter of wheat from each demesne in our sample to London. Cost contours generated by this exercise closely follow the lines of the-Thames and the coast, influenced also by the navigable rivers Lea and Medway, a reflection of the considerable cost advantage of water transport over land haulage. Using estimates of transport costs we can group our manors into 5 bands of cost-distance from the capital, and compare proportions of grain sold from demesnes falling into the different bands (Fig. 3). There is a clear 'distance-decay' effect; demesnes closest to London in transport-cost terms sold, on average, the highest percentage of their grain, while those furthest away sold, on average, the least. This suggests strongly that the London market was a pervasive influence upon the disposal of grain.

Fig. 3. Percentage of grain sold by demesnes in the London region grouped into bands of cost-distance from the capital

The fall-off in sales seems to have become particularly marked when costs of transporting wheat to London exceed 9d or 10d per quarter, reflecting the relative scarcity of market opportunities for demesnes in the more land-locked parts of the London region, including most of Northamptonshire, north Buckinghamshire, and north-western Oxfordshire. We would not expect the fall-off in the proportion of grain sold with distance from London to continue indefinitely; if we had the data available to examine patterns of sale beyond the boundaries of our study area we might expect other peaks to occur in the vicinity of major provincial centres such as Norwich, or of ports such as Lynn which were involved in a coastal and sea-going trade in grain. Within these ten counties, however, the link with the London market seems fairly clear. Moreover, the picture is broadly supported by the evidence of prices. Wheat prices varied significantly within the ten counties, with the lowest prices being found in the land-locked parts of the north-west. In much of the rest of the region prices can be shown to broadly correlate with those prevailing in London, when costs of transportation are taken into account. The evidence suggests that London set - or at the least strongly influenced - wheat prices over a large part of these counties; the areas which sold the highest proportions of their grain seem closest to London in terms of their characteristic price levels.

The documented activities of London's cornmongers or bladarii can be shown to relate closely to the observed patterns of demesne agriculture. It has been possible to identify around 150 cornmongers active between the later thirteenth and mid-fourteenth centuries; using a variety of sources a picture of their regional contacts has been built up, and, by categorising these contacts in terms of their strength and regularity, it is possible to define the extent of the city's grain provisioning zone in normal years. The evidence ranges from the relatively slight - such as locative by-names - to explicit records of cornmongers purchasing grain or owning property in particular places (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. Country contacts of London cornmongers c.1270-1365.

There is a strong concentration of contacts along the line of the Thames, again reflecting the significance of water transport. Two-thirds of the places mapped lay within 75km of London, while the more distant places are in coastal locations accessible by sea from London. Places up to about 30km distant from London might economically have sent grain there by land, but it seems more likely that the rather more distant cluster of places to the north of the city was drawn into its grain supply region because water transport was available on the river Lea.

The strongest and most regular contacts were thus tied to the water-borne transport network, and most fall within the areas closest to London in cost-distance terms. The market town of Henley-on-Thames was by far the most important place of interest to the London cornmongers. Six owned houses in Henley, and four of them owned granaries there. Adam Wade, who died in or before 1310, for example, bequeathed granaries and houses in both London and Henley. Other London merchants who were regular visitors to Henley hired houses and plots of ground there to keep produce they had bought or goods they had to sell. Henley is the only place outside London where London cornmongers are known to have owned granaries: for them it was clearly a major market and collecting point for grain. Its importance derived from its position as the highest point of effective navigation on the Thames after the mid-thirteenth century; vessels could and did proceed beyond Henley, but costs rose significantly above the town; as a result, bulky goods being sent to Oxford were commonly unshipped in order to continue the journey overland, while grain from manors upriver was brought in carts to Henley for bulking and carriage to London by boat. Henley thus formed the prime commercial focus for the wheat-lands of south and central Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire.

While no other place can equal Henley in the extent and scale of its grain-marketing contacts with London, Faversham on the Thames estuary, and a much busier market than Henley, was an important focus for the grain trade of northern and eastern Kent. Transport costs were almost identical to those from Henley, and Londoners regarded the town as an important source of supplies. Other important local markets for grain in which Londoners were active included Ware and St. Albans in Hertfordshire, Rochester and Maidstone in Kent, and Kingston in Surrey. Overall, the cornmongers' interests reveal that they operated through a network of local markets of which perhaps six or seven were significant for the routine supply of grain to London, and of which Henley was clearly the most important. All the most significant interests of the London cornmongers seem to have lain within the counties of the study area; further-flung coastal contacts almost all relate to years of above average prices, when the city's supply network widened. When normal supplies proved insufficient Londoners sought to supplement them from coastal East Anglia or Lincolnshire, rather than penetrating further into the land-locked area north and west of Oxford. In doing so London was drawing on an international market in grain, in which ports such as Faversham seem to have been regular participants.

The picture that emerges, then, is of a relatively restricted zone of intensive contact, within which the practice of arable husbandry was significantly moulded by the presence of the London market. Within the region regularly frequented by London cornmongers the response of the agricultural sector can be seen in the choice of which crops to grow, and in the extent to which grain production was geared to the market. In this sense, it can be argued, the London of c.1300 promoted the commercialization of agriculture in its region. The extent to which the city stimulated intensification and innovation in agricultural technique is harder to assess. Areas of both high and low-yielding grain production were involved in supplying the capital, and the city's most important role may have been in promoting the emergence of regional specialisms. This role was one which was to continue, although the precise impact of the capital changed with developments in living standards and tastes; the system described here was to undergo significant changes in the mid fourteenth century as demographic collapse altered both the balance between supply and demand and the structure of demand for agricultural produce.

During the past year the researchers have presented a number of conference and seminar papers arising from these findings. They are listed in Appendix V.

The first three years of this project was funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The second three-year phase of the project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (Ref. No. R000233157).

[Feeding the City I] [1990-1 Report] [1992-3 Report] [1993-4 Report] [10th Anniversary Conference] [Publications arising from project] [Back to Contents]

ii BEFORE THE BANK

With the foundation of the Centre for Metropolitan History in 1987-8, intensive work on the Social and Economic Study of Medieval London had to be put aside for the time being. At that time the Study was engaged on a project entitled 'Before the Bank' which, with the aid of funds provided by the Bank of England and neighbouring financial institutions, was investigating the early development of the Bank of England district of the City of London. The method was to reconstruct the history, between c.1050 and 1500, of each house and other property in the area of the three parishes (St. Bartholomew by the Exchange, St. Christopher le Stocks, and St. Margaret Lothbury) now occupied by and surrounding the Bank. This approach, using the unrivalled wealth of sources for the history of propertyholding in early London, had been successfully employed on previous studies of Cheapside and other districts of the city. It had led to important breakthroughs in understanding the social, occupational, and physical environment of the city and the long-term fluctuations in its development.

In April 1992 it was possible to resume the investigation, employing Dr Patricia Croot on part-time secondment from the Victoria County History of Middlesex. Patricia Croot has completed the collection of source material, and is now well advanced in writing up a detailed account of the neighbourhood, on the lines of D. Keene and V. Harding, Historical Gazetteer of London before the Great Fire, 1, Cheapside (Cambridge, 1987). The project will be completed during 1993, and its results will include papers covering several new findings of general relevance to London history.

Fig. 5. The Bank of England area: the soke of the Kings of Scotland, eleventh to thirteenth century, with modern street names

'Before the Bank' is extending our knowledge of the heart of the city during the medieval and early modern periods from the highly-commercialised districts of Cheapside and Walbrook investigated in earlier projects, along Cornhill and Broad Street to the margins of the waterlogged area around the upper Walbrook stream. The medieval predecessors of the financiers who now occupy the neighbourhood were manufacturers and craftsmen, and included distinctive clusters of specialised metalworkers and leatherworkers, especially towards the marshy ground on the north. Along Cornhill and Broad Street (now Threadneedle Street) there was a lively market in second-hand clothes, which by 1400 had been succeeded by a trade in woollen cloth. Since the land was less intensively developed than in Cheapside, the sources, which survive best from about 1270 onwards, enable us to reconstruct some of the houses and property units of the earlier Middle Ages with particular success. A notable outcome has been a new understanding of the early private jurisdictions or estates in the city which were known as sokes. One of them, which for a part of the twelfth century was the London base of the king of Scotland, extended over a part of the Bank site and the whole of that of the Stock Exchange (see Fig. 5). Around 1100 it appears to have served as the marketing outlet of an extensive cattle-raising enterprise which at least in part was directed to the needs of the metropolis, a conclusion which throws light on the very early history of topics relevant to the 'Feeding the City' project.

In the late Middle Ages, several distinctive alleys of small houses can be identified in the neighbourhood. Such alleys were a notable feature of the city in later centuries, riot least in the financial district where they served as essential channels for the flow of market information. The study thus promises to throw light on an important aspect of the evolution of the setting in which the city's financial business later came to be conducted This could prove to be a valuable link with the Centre's earlier investigation of the financial district itself during the nineteenth century.

The project is funded by contributions from the Bank of England, Banque Paribas, Cazenove & Co., The International Stock Exchange, Midland Bank plc, Morgan Guaranty Trust, National Australia Bank Ltd, National Westminster Bank plc, and Siam Commercial Bank Ltd

[Social and Economic Study of Medieval London] [1992-3 Report] {Publications arising from the project] [Back to Contents]

iii THE GROWTH OF A SKILLED WORKFORCE IN LONDON, c.1500-c.1750.

Between the reign of the first Tudor and the time of the Hanoverians, London was radically transformed from a relatively small city of around 50,000 people on the periphery of the main networks of European trade, into the largest metropolis in Western Europe. At the beginning of the period it depended heavily on imports for many of the highest-quality goods. At the end it had a world-wide reputation for a wide array of manufactured articles. London was progressively becoming the centre of an extra-European empire and an urban site of world-historical proportions. This transformation into a global entrepot is often seen, quite rightly, in terms of commercial and political developments, with London emerging as a great centre for banking, insurance, finance and government as well as trade. What is less widely acknowledged is that this change also entailed the growth of London into a great manufacturing centre, perhaps the greatest in Europe, and a city where a startling cluster of scientific and technical innovations took place.

This project, which began in January 1992, is part of a wider consortium of research projects in progress under the aegis of the Achievement Project (Director: Dr Penelope Gouk), funded by the Renaissance Trust. The aim of these related projects is to examine the comparative bases of cultural and technological innovation in several different historical settings. The three other projects, based at the Modern History Faculty, Oxford, the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge and the Department of the History of Science, Johns Hopkins University deal respectively with applied research in France and Italy between 1860 and 1940, technological innovation and science in Britain and Germany between 1870 and 1920 and higher education and regional technological development in America between 1945 and 1965. Behind all these diverse projects lies a basic question: what are the historical forces and the particular circumstances that induce individuals and groups to innovate?

In order to construct a research schema which would attempt to answer this question the research team (consisting of Michael Berlin, Rob Iliffe and David Mitchell and postgraduate student Lien Bich Luu in collaboration with Derek Keene and Penelope Gouk) decided at an early stage to pursue several different but related lines of enquiry. One was to look at the development of particular industries and crafts in a series of case studies. These would take in those particular industries in London where it was known there was a high skill content and a great deal of technological or other innovation, as well as crafts which did not undergo significant transformation in this period. To this end a preliminary list of important industrial sectors was produced and it was decided that developments in coach building, clock- and watchmaking, ceramics, firearms, gold and silver working, glass making, scientific instrument making, shipbuilding, silk weaving, and sugar-refining would be looked into, as well as innovations in commercial and workshop practice. In all these areas a common set of approaches was to be employed. These approaches were to assess the importance of institutions, individuals and groups (the livery companies, the crown, aristocratic patrons, mechanical philosophers, immigrants) in stimulating or hindering technological change. In addition, a related series of topics covering contemporary economic, jural and political structures and processes such as patents, monopolies and the apprenticeship system were to be addressed when looking at each craft sector.

To date, David Mitchell has undertaken investigations of sugar-refining and gold and silver working (using the records of the Goldsmiths' Company). His research has revealed the impact of imported techniques and personnel on the overall level of technological innovation but has also raised questions concerning the identification of some surviving pieces as imports or London-made products. Michael Berlin has begun a study of the use of plans, models and mathematical formulae and their impact on the organisation of the shipbuilding industry. Rob Iliffe has expanded his long-standing research interest in the relationship between natural philosophers and scientific instrument makers. In addition Penelope Gouk will be looking at innovation and technology transfer in the London musical instrument making trade. This last trade has much in common with scientific instrument makers and was an obvious case for a parallel study. The extent of each of these case studies will be determined by the amount of information that can be gathered in the limited length of the project's life, the aim being to achieve an overall survey rather than very detailed studies of individual crafts. In addition Lien Bich Luu's research into the impact on manufactures in London of immigrants from the Low Countries and elsewhere during the late sixteenth century will enhance the team's knowledge of immigration as a factor in the great expansion of the stock of skill in the metropolis.

Another line of enquiry, determined early on, involves the examination of a diverse set of themes relating to the nature of work organisation, time discipline, the social meanings o f Skill, and contemporary attitudes towards innovation. An array of research topics emerged from the team's discussions. These centred on the need for the project not to take terms such as 'skill' at face value, and to attempt to come to understand contemporary perceptions of ideas such as work, skill and innovation. Thus the project was to be as much about the history of changing mentalités as it was to be about conventional economic history. This was decided upon in order to take account of the project's wider remit to attempt to gain insights from other disciplines. To this end Rob Iliffe undertook a preliminary enquiry into the social meanings attached to notions such as work and skill which fruitfully drew upon insights from the extensive area of the sociology of work. Similarly Michael Berlin and Rob Iliffe have together been looking at the phenomenon of 'the search', territorial processions by the officers of the livery companies which inspected standards of workmanship. Another strand of the project has been to examine the various spatial settings in which innovative working practices took place, an approach that derives from location theory in industrial geography but also takes into account the social meaning of certain types of locality within and around the metropolis. This continuing work has revealed much about contemporary attitudes to skill and innovation. Apart from considering some of the key characteristics of innovative manufacturing economies today, Derek Keene has begun an assessment of London's standing as a centre for craft skills and production at the beginning of the period.

The Project team has also been involved in the extensive programme of conferences and seminars which have been taking place as part of the Achievement Project. Michael Berlin presented a paper on the significance of industrial location as a determinant of innovative production to The Achievement Project network meeting at Oxford in June. In early December Rob Iliffe gave a paper on work and the Protestant body to the Achievement project's annual symposium. Both events gave an extensive opportunity for members of the project team to liaise with members of the related Achievement Project teams as well as an opportunity to explore the insights offered by various comparative interdisciplinary approaches. As the project proceeds the degree of collaboration between the various associated project teams should continue to expand and deepen. An especially promising collaborative venture for 1993 is to be a series of specialist seminars, arranged with the Museum of London, at which questions relevant to the project will be discussed with specific reference to artefacts from museum and other collections.

This three-year project is funded by the Renaissance Trust.

[1992-3 Report] [1993-4 Report] [1994-5 Report] [10th Anniversary Conference] {Publications arising from the project] [Back to Contents]

iv METROPOLITAN LONDON IN THE 1690s

During 1992, the second year of the project, considerable progress has been made. The aim is to provide a basis for a critical examination of the social and economic structure of metropolitan London in the 1690s. London in the late seventeenth century was the largest city in Christian Europe, with a population of around half a million, and was well on the way to becoming a world centre of both trade and finance.

The primary source material for the project has been the Four Shilling in the Pound Aid, a tax raised in 1693-4 to fund European war. Collection of the tax assessment data was completed in August 1992. The computer-held database of this information is 61,588 records in length. The data have been subsequently restructured and edited to allow greater ease of interrogation. A further database of some 4,397 property specific references has also been established. It has been possible to connect some of the information collected with a previously-assembled database of the 1692 poll tax assessments for the City of London.

The assessments for the aid provide lists of named tax-payers in the London parishes, together with the value of their real and personal property. The tax was assessed within parishes or wards in the case of the city, which were sub-divided into taxation districts. The assessments also frequently include street names and other topographical indicators, and so can be used as a basis for detailed mapped analyses.

The data indicate that there were around 57,000 householders contributing to the Four Shillings Aid in the metropolitan area north of the Thames, including the city of London. Unfortunately, no assessments survive for Southwark and Lambeth. It was hoped to link occupational attributes to the named tax payers from a number of suitable parish registers. This, however, has not been possible since the majority of the parish records within the study area provide little or no occupational data. Further, restrictions in project resources make the time-consuming process of extensive record linkage impossible.

In response to this setback we have resolved to refocus our activities on two objectives. The first is to produce a background picture of summary social and economic data, which will be presented in both tabular and mapped form. The second is to concentrate detailed study on a selected series of representative neighbourhoods. It is intended that social, economic and occupational information will be combined with property-based data, concerning the value and location of houses, in order that detailed descriptions of these various areas can be achieved.

To this end we have begun to build profiles for 128 primary analytical sub-divisions which have been defined, each containing 400-500 households. Data sets such as rental values, values of stock in trade, numbers of rental payments, the status and gender characteristics of householders, household densities, and a range of other topographical data, are all being prepared.

An example of some of the more immediate project results is shown in Figure 6. Here the household density values for the study areas have been calculated, taking account of variations in the amount of land used for residential purposes. The pattern clearly identifies areas of overcrowding, for example St Katherines by the Tower (185 households/per built-up hectare) and Saffron Hill (114 households/ha). Both these were districts characterized by poverty, but other areas of great household density cannot be so readily explained. These include, for example, some areas to the west of the city of London, within the walls, and in the north of the Westminster parish of St James. Resolving such questions, in part by correlating different variables, and in part by means of the detailed neighbourhood studies, will be the focus of our work over the coming year.

Fig. 6. Density of tax-paying households per built-up hectare

Property values, which concern both land and buildings, provide a more immediately coherent mapped picture (see Fig. 7). Here a concentric pattern can be perceived, with foci for high values on the two main commercial areas of the metropolis. One centred on the main east-west axis of Cheapside in the city, with an extension to the bridge head and further downstream. A slightly more disjointed grouping of high property values can be identified along the line of the Strand in Westminster. This map also shows the primary road network of the metropolis, the form of which helps to explain these patterns.

Fig. 7. Property values (rack rent) in pounds per hectare

A final-example relates to property-based information, and shows the amount of empty or vacant property as a percentage of all households. Here, apart from outlying areas, empty property can be seen to lie predominantly in the areas without the walls of the City of London, and in the built-up part of the parish of St Margaret Westminster (Fig. 8). Detailed exploration of this pattern has yet to be undertaken: however, the transient nature of the population in these peripheral areas of the metropolis may provide an explanation, as also may the numbers of houses then being built in some of the areas.

Fig. 8. Empty properties as a percentage of all households

The project's objectives for the coming final year's work include the production of a number of articles and the compilation of an atlas illustrating key features of the social and economic structure of metropolitan London in the 1690s. To this end one paper, describing the computer mapping techniques, has already been presented to the 1992 International Congress for History and Computing in Bologna, Italy.

This 32-month project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (Ref. No. R000232527).

[1990-1 Report] [1992-3 Report] [1993-4 Report] {Publications arising from project] [Back to Contents]

v BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND INFORMATION SERVICES

a) LISTS OF LONDONERS

Some years ago the Centre distributed questionnaires requesting information about unpublished indexes and lists of Londoners of the past, with a view to producing a guide to these sources. We are very grateful to all those who sent us information for this purpose. In the summer the project at last came to fruition with the publication, in collaboration with the Federation of Family History Societies, of Lists of Londoners by Heather Creaton and Jeremy Gibson.

The indexes included were compiled by library and record office staff, and by individual researchers in the course of their work. Their size and scope vary considerably, ranging from a list of all identifiable Londoners up to the year 1216, for example, to a Marylebone funeral firm's burials to 1952.

Along the way may also be found piano manufacturers 1835-1930, members of the Mayor's household before 1600, and people mentioned in probate records, 1363-1700. The guide also contains many references to indexes to parish records and census returns.

Lists of Londoners is selling well, and we are very pleased that it is proving useful. We would be glad to hear of any additions or corrections suitable for inclusion in a second edition in due course.

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b) BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRINTED WORKS ON LONDON HISTORY TO 1939

Another year's work on this ever-expanding database has brought its long planned publication into much closer focus, and the end really is in sight at last. The bibliography now contains 24,370 references to books and articles on the history of Greater London ~_~ and the City from the Dark Ages to 1939. All the references have been allocated a definite section number within the classification plan, most of the remaining queries have been resolved, and Heather Creaton is currently editing each section in turn and settling the final order for the published volume, prior to numbering the whole sequence for indexing purposes. A contract has been signed with Library Association Publishing Ltd. (LAPL) who plan to publish the work early in 1994. We are working to produce camera ready copy by the end of 1993. The bibliography will appear as one large volume with a lengthy index. LAPL have expressed an interest in producing future supplements. Although we are doing our best to maintain a file of material published since the end of 1990 (our cut-off date) we are receiving no funding for it, and staff time is very short. Any supplementary volume would therefore need serious extra commitment of staff and money.

During the year we have received the usual stream of enquiries about items in the bibliography and requests for printouts from it. A copy of the 'raw' database is now available in our office on a public access machine, so visitors can search it for their own requirements and produce their own booklists. It is helpful if intending enquirers make an appointment in advance, as the facility is quite popular now and we only have one terminal available for this purpose.

As usual we have supplied lists of recent periodical articles on London to appear in the London Journal and the London Archive Users' Forum Newsletter. We have also talked to various groups of visitors at the Centre about the bibliography project, and demonstrated its use. These groups have included archivists, local history librarians, new Ph.D. students and a party of M.A. students working on computer applications for history.

Among the enquiries we received recently were requests for material on speculative building in Kingston-upon-Thames; voting behaviour in London elections; the effects of the 1870 Education Act, and mantua-makers. We also supplied a printout of items on Russians in London - especially Peter the Great - to the Russian National Library in St Petersburg.

Funding for our researcher, Tony Trowles, expired at the end of July 1992 with the termination of the project's second grant from the Economic and Social Research Council. His contribution to the bibliography has been of immense value, and his help and knowledge will be greatly missed. Tony's Oxford D.Phil (on The Musical Ode in Britain, 1680-1800) was awarded this autumn. We hope that he will be rejoining us for further work on our Exchequer Records project, where his expertise will be of great benefit; at present he is carrying out a pilot study of eighteenth century Chancery records on behalf of the Transport History Trust.

This continuing project has been assisted by grants from the Economic and Social Research Council (Ref. Nos. R000231020 and R000232425), the Corporation of London, English Heritage and the Society of Antiquaries.

[1988-9 Report] [1989-90 Report] [1990-1 Report] [1992-3 Report] [1993-4 Report] [1994-5 Report] [1995-6 Report] [1996-7 Report] {1997-8 Report] [Back to Contents]

c) LONDON CASES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY COURT OF EXCHEQUER

The Bibliographical and Information Services section of the Centre has for some time planned to undertake a thorough investigation of Exchequer Court (Equity side) cases for London and Middlesex in the eighteenth century. These records are at present difficult to use unless the names of the plaintiffs are known; they lack a systematic subject approach. Yet they contain a wealth of largely untapped detail about business activity in London at that period, a time when it was of key importance in the development of the eighteenth century economy.

Initial approaches to the ESRC and the Leverhulme Trust for funding for a full-scale study of these records were unfortunately not successful, though we received a great deal of positive encouragement for the project from all our referees. We shall try again. Meanwhile, we were able to undertake a short preliminary study of the source in the autumn term.

Our researcher, Tony Trowles, examined a small sample of cases from PRO class E112 supplemented by depositions and exhibits, and found cases relating to a wide range of subjects. They included shipping insurance (with details of policies, sums of money and brokers recorded in considerable depth); glass manufacturing; sugar-refining (with much on partnership arrangements); apprenticeship agreements; bankruptcies; management of London newspapers (including the proprietors' evasion of Stamp Duty); copyright agreements for music publishing (shedding much light on the pirating of London operas); and disputes over the sale of wine, coaches and whale oil. Attached to some of the documents are very informative 'schedules' which provide, for example, complete lists of cargoes, copies of letters and legal agreements, and personal or business accounts.

Testamentary disputes were a common cause for actions in the Exchequer (frequently complicated by matters relating to debt), as were suits relating to property. The latter provide information about building and land management, with details of leases and ownership. And among suits of a more personal nature were several relating to gambling debts and sexual misdemeanours. The records contain a wealth of detail about London social and economic life.

Our preliminary study confirmed our belief that a listing of these records would be of immense value to historians of London, and we hope that further applications for funding will meet with success. We are extremely grateful to those (listed below) who contributed to this initial examination. Tony Trowles has been asked to contribute a chapter on the use of these records to a forthcoming book edited by Professor David Sugarman of Lancaster University, Doing Legal History.

The preliminary survey was funded by contributions from The Pilgrim Trust; The Worshipful Company of Scriveners; The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn; Clifford Chance: and Linklaters & Paines.

[1992-3 Report] [Publications arising from the project] [Back to Contents]

APPENDICES

I

PATRONS

Chairman
SIR KIT MCMAHON, Director of Taylor Woodrow International Ltd (formerly Chairman, Midland Bank plc)

MR WILLIAM DAVIS, Chairman, English Tourist Board

MR ROGER GIBBS, Chairman, The Wellcome Trust

SIR BRIAN JENKINS, F.C.A., The Rt. Hon. the Lord Mayor of London

MR STUART LIPTON, Stanhope Properties plc

MR GERRY MARTIN, The Renaissance Trust

THE LORD PALUMBO, Chairman of the Arts Council

MR MICHAEL ROBBINS, C.B.E., forrnerly Chairman of the Board of Governors, Museum of London

MR TED ROWLANDS, M.P.

THE RT. REV. J.L. THOMPSON, Bishop of Bath & Wells

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II

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Chairman
THE DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE (Professor P.K. O'Brien, B.Sc. (Econ.), M.A., D.Phil.)

G. ALDERMAN, M.A., D.Phil., Professor of Politics and Contemporary History, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College

T.C. BARKER, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Economic History

M.J. DAUNTON, B.A., Ph.D., Professor of Modern History, University College London

R.J. DENNIS, B.A., Ph.D., Lecturer in Geography, University College London

P. EARLE, B.Sc. (Econ.), Ph.D.

N.B. HARTE, B.Sc. (Econ.), Senior Lecturer in Economic History, University College London

M.M. HEBDITCH, M.A., F.S.A., F.M.A., Director, Museum of London (to 31 July 1992)

J.M. LANDERS, B.A., Ph.D., Fellow, All Souls' College, Oxford

N. MERRIMAN, M.A., Ph.D., Curator, Early Department, Museum of London (from 1 August 1992)

R. ORESKO, Ph.D. Research Fellow, Institute of Historical Research (from 1 June 1992)

M.H. PORT, M.A., B.Litt., F.S.A.

H. SOUTHALL, B.A., Ph.D., Lecturer in Geography, Queen Mary and Westfield College (from 1 January 1992)

E.A. WRIGLEY, M.A., Ph.D., F.B.A., Fellow, All Souls' College, Oxford

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III

ASSOCIATE SUPERVISORS OF RESEARCH PROJECTS

BRUCE M.S. CAMPBELL, B.A., Ph.D. (The Queen's University of Belfast), 'Feeding the City'

PETER EARLE, B.Sc. (Econ.), Ph.D. (London School of Economics), 'Metropolitan London in the 1690s'

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IV

STAFF OF THE CENTRE

Director: DEREK KEENE, M.A., D.Phil. (Oxford)

Deputy Director (and Editor of Bibliography): HEATHER CREATON, B.A., M.Phil. (London), A.L.A.

Administrative and Research Assistant: OLWEN R. MYHILL, B.A. (Birmingham), Dip. R.S.A.

Feeding the City: London's Impact on the Agrarian Economy of Southern England. c.1250-1400:
Researchers: JAMES A. GALLOWAY, M.A., Ph.D. (Edinburgh); MARGARET MURPHY, B.A., Ph.D. (Trinity College, Dublin)

Before the Bank:
Researcher: PATRICIA E.C. CROOT, B.A., Ph.D. (Leeds)

The Growth of a Skilled Workforce in London. c.1500-c.1750:
Researchers: MICHAEL BERLIN, B.A. (Kent); ROBERT ILIFFE, B.Sc.(Leeds), M.A., Ph.D. (Cambridge); DAVID MITCHELL, B.Sc. (Oxford)
Postgraduate Student: LEN BICH LUU, B.A. (Sussex)
(The following are associated with the project: Dr David Ormrod, Research Fellow, Institute of Historical Research, -1992-3; Billy Dann, postgraduate sudent, University College London; Patricia Fara, postgraduate student, Imperial College; Tim Meldrum, postgraduate student, London School of Economics; Martha Morris, postgraduate student, London School of Economics.)

Metropolitan London in the 1690s:
Researchers: JANET BARNES, B.Sc. (Soc.), B.Sc., M.A. (London); CRAIG G. SPENCE, B.Sc. (Surrey), M.A. (London), M.I.F.A.

Bibliography of Printed Works on London History to 1939:
Researcher: TONY TROWLES, B.A. (C.N.A.A.), D.Phil (Oxford)

JANET BARNES' interest is in medieval medicine; her M.A. dissertation was on 'Signs of subversion in the Rornan de la Rose'. MICHAEL BERLIN's main research interest is in the public rituals of early modern towns. After varied experience as a reference librarian, HEATHER CREATON edited Writings on British History for many years; in addition to her bibliographical work she runs a regular introductory course for new postgraduate students. PATRICIA CROOT's doctoral research concerned various aspects of agrarian economy and society in the Somerset Levels in the early modern period, which she is currently developing further. She has recently ended a three-year stint as Hon. Editor of The London Journal, and has wide interests in the history of the Greater London area, particularly in early medieval landholding in the hinterland of the City. JIM GALLOWAY's Ph.D. research examined industry, wealth and mobility in Colchester and its region, 1310-1560; he has broad interests in medieval and early modern historical geography, including the issues of urban development, and industrial and agrarian change. ROB ILIFFE's current areas of interest are: anti-Catholicism and natural philosophy, 1550-1700; the history of the body in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and its relation to the power of the 'state'; and seventeenth and eighteenth century theories of vision and colour in art and natural philosophy. DEREK KEENE has written extensively on the society, economy, topography and archaeology of medieval and early modern towns, and especially on Winchester and London; he is a Royal Commissioner on the Historical Monuments of England. LIEN LUU's research interests lie within the history of migration. She is currently researching on the contribution of strangers from Europe to the economy of London in the sixteenth century; the research focuses in particular on stranger skills and skill transfer. DAVID MITCHELL's current research interests include the developments in the trade of the goldsmith in the seventeenth century together with a continuing concern with the provision and use of table linen in England from 1450. MARGARET MURPHY's main research interests lie within the field of ecclesiastical history; her Ph.D. thesis and publications examine the archbishopric of Dublin in the middle ages, covering such themes as piety, administration, and church and society. Apart from grappling with the Centre's computers and administration, OLWEN MYHILL's main historical interest is the impact of religious nonconformity on rural society in the nineteenth century. CRAIG SPENCE was formerly an archaeologist at the Museum of London, where he directed a number of excavations. He is currently undertaking an M.Phil. researching sudden death in the early modern city and is a part-time lecturer in Early Modern History at the London Centre of Syracuse University. TONY TROWLES has research interests in the cultural history of London, especially during the eighteenth century. His D.Phil on the role of the ode in English musical life, 1660-1800 was awarded in October 1992.

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V

CONFERENCE AND SEMINAR PAPERS GIVEN BY MEMBERS OF STAFF

'Skill and the division of labour in the London trades'. at Birkbeck College Day School on Art and society in eighteenth-century London, Royal College of Art, June 1992.
'The places of skill in early modern London' at Geographies of Innovation Conference, Oxford. June 1992

Jim Galloway and Margaret Murphy:

'Surrey and the provisioning of London c.1300' at Annual Conference of Surrey Local History Council, Guildford, November 1991.
Provisioning a medieval metropolis: London and its grain supply, c.1300' Metropolitan History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, March 1992.
'Towns and Trade: commercialised agriculture in London's hinterland c.1300' at the International Congress of Medieval Studies, University of Western Michigan, - Kalamazoo, May 1992.
'London and the commercialisation of agriculture c.1300', at the Conference of the Pre-Modern Towns Group, November 1992.
'Supplying the medieval capital with food and drink', at the Conference of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, November 1992.

Rob Iliffe:

'Vice and juggling tricks: English views of foreign natural philosophy in the late seventeenth century', UCLA, August 1991.
'Mapping Newton's brain: self-experimentation and the place of the soul in early modern England', Western America History of Science Society, September 1991
'Natural philosophy at court in early modern Europe', Florence, 1992
'Protestantism and the productive body in England, 1540-1700', Oxford, December 1992

Derek Keene:

The making of a metropolis: London 700-1700', seminar, University College Dublin, February 1992
'Reconstructing medieval London', seminar, University College Dublin, February 1992
'The impact of London on its agrarian hinterland, c.1300', at the Histoire Rurale colloquium, University of Ghent, March 1992.
'Magnates in the market: the aristocracy and trade in the early Middle Ages' at the International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 1992.
'Approaches and methods in metropolitan History' at the Chicago Historical Society, May 1992
'Fairs and urbanization: the experience of medieval England', at a meeting of the International Commission for the History of Towns, Delft, September 1992.

David Mitchell:

"'Pinching Napkins"; the office of the Ewry in the Royal Household 1660-1760', King's Table Symposium, Victoria & Albert Museum, September 1991
"'Sore worn and full of holes": the importation and consumption of table linen in England 1565-1760', RCA/Victoria & Albert Museum, November 1991.

Craig Spence:

'Mapping London in the 1690s' at the Seventh International Congress of the Association of History and Computing, University of Bologna, September 1992

Tony Trowles:

"'An exalted species of song": the musical ode in 18th century Britain'. Studies in 18th century English Music seminar, Oxford, May 1992.

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VI

PUBLICATIONS

Michael BERLIN, 'John Stow's London', Early Modern History, I, no 2 (1992), pp. 6-7.

Heather CREATON, 'Probate inventories', Early Modern History, I, no. 2 (1992), pp. 1415

Heather CREATON, 'Early newspapers', Early Modern History, I, no. 3 (1992), pp. 1213.

Heather CREATON, 'Register of Research in Progress on the History of London: A Supplement', The London Journal, 17, no. 1 (1992), pp. 93-7.

Heather CREATON, Lists of Londoners (Federation of Family History Societies, with the Centre for Metropolitan History, 1992) 39 pp. In collaboration with Jeremy Gibson. [A guide to unpublished indexes of London inhabitants.]

James A. GALLOWAY and Margaret MURPHY (with Bruce M.S. Campbell), 'Rural Land-use in the Metropolitan Hinterland, 1270-1339: the Evidence of Inquisitiones Post Mortem', Agricultural History Review, vol. 40, pt 1, (1992), pp. 1-22.

Rob ILIFFE, "'In the Warehouse": privacy, property and priority in the early Royal Society', History of Science, 30, (1992), pp. 29-62.

Rob ILIFFE, "'Rhetorical Vices": outlines of a Feyerabendian History of Science', History of Science, 30, (1992), pp. 199-219.

Rob ILIFFE, "'Author-mongering": the "Editor" between producer and consumer in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries', in A. Bermingham and J. Brewer (eds.), Consumption and Culture in the Eighteenth Century, University of California Press, 1992.

Rob ILIFFE, "'Making a Shew": apocalyptic hermeneutics and anti-idolatry in the work of Isaac Newton and Henry More', in R. Popkin and J. Force (eds.), The Scriptural Interpretaiion of Newton and Spinoza: New Studies, Dordrecht, 1992.

Rob ILIFFE, "'Is He Like Other Men?" The meaning of the Principia and the author as idol', in G. Maclean (ed.), Literature, Culture and Society in the Stuart Restoration, Cambridge, 1992.

Rob ILIFFE , 'Max Weber and the Japanese work ethic', Achievement Project Newsletter, 2, No. 1 (1992), 2-7.

Rob ILIFFE, 'Robert Boyle, Henry Oldenburg, and Adam Boreel's Proof of Christianity', in R. Popkin, S. Berti, and F. Charles-Daubert (eds.), The Three Impostors Thesis in Its International Context, Kluwer, Leiden, 1992.

Derek KEENE, 'The Design and Setting of St. Paul's: a Continuing Debate', The London Journal, 16, no. 2 (1991), pp. 99-100.

Margaret MURPHY and James A. GALLOWAY, 'Marketing Animals and Animal Products in London's Hinterland circa 1300', Anthropozoologica (1992), no. 16, PP. 93-99.

Margaret MURPHY (with E. Dowse), 'Rotulus clausus de anno 48 Edward III - a reconstruction', Analecta Hibernica, 35 (1992), pp. 89-154.

Craig SPENCE, 'Recording the archaeology of London: the development and implementation of the DUA recording system', in E. Harris (ed.), Practices of Archaeological Stratigraphy (Academic Press, 1992).

Tony TROWLES, 'List of Periodical Articles on London History, 1990', The London Journal, 16, no. 2 (1991), pp. 180-191.

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VII

SEMINAR ON METROPOLITAN HISTORY

October 1991-March 1992
(Wednesdays, fortnightly, 5.30 pm, at the Institute of Historical Research)
'Food' and 'Transport' in the Metropolis

'Beer, Dutch Towns, and the Grain Trade, 1400-1600', Professor R.W. Unger (University of British Colombia)

Wiggin's Quay revisited: London's Legal Quays in the reign of Charles II', Professor Henry Roseveare (King's College London)

The London Carrying Trade in the 17th to 19th centuries', Mr Dorian Gerhold (London)

'Markets and Market-Places in 17th-century London', Dr Vanessa Harding (Birkbeck College)

'J. Lyons & Co. Ltd.: The History of a Family Business', Dr David Richardson (Colfe's School)

'The evolution of London's Airports, 1919-1939', Mr John King (London)

'Sainsbury's', Mr Alan Jacobs (London)

'Provisioning a Medieval Metropolis: London and its Grain Supply, c.1300', Drs Jim Galloway and Margaret Murphy (Centre for Metropolitan Historv)

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VIII

SOURCES OF FUNDING

a) Projects:

Bank of England
Banque Paribas
Cazenove & Co
Clifford Chance
Corporation of London
Economic and Social Research Council
English Heritage
Honourable Society of Gray's Inn
International Stock Exchange
Linklaters & Paines
Midland Bank plc
Morgan Guaranty Trust
National Australia Bank Ltd
National Westminster Bank plc
Pilgrim Trust
The Renaissance Trust
Siam Commercial Bank
Society of Antiquaries
Worshipful Company of Scriveners
 

b) General:

Marc Fitch Fund
Museum of London
 

The CMH Accounts for 1991-2 are published as part of the Accounts of the Institute of Historical Research in the Institute's Annual Report.

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