UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY
INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH

CENTRE
FOR
METROPOLITAN
HISTORY

Annual Report 1993-4
(31 July 1993-31 December 1994)

1. Director's Report

2. Project Reports

1. DIRECTOR'S REPORT

During 1993-4 the Centre has pursued a varied programme concerned with six main research projects, on which reports appear below, and a range of other activities, including conferences and seminars. It has had a full-time staff of 10, plus a postgraduate student linked with one of the projects, a visiting research fellow, and other associates and advisers. It has settled comfortably into the new accommodation within Senate House, where it is now securely (in several senses) established.

This year the Metropolitan History Seminar focused on the theme, 'Interpreting Metropolitan Space', which was liberally pursued. Papers on the geography of skill in early modern London and on the construction of a social atlas from late seventeenth-century tax returns arose from research at the Centre. Others ranged from Sir John Soane's view of London, which was distinctive and hitherto little known, to reassessments of the ways in which Charles Dickens and Camille Pissarro perceived London and Paris, respectively. A striking contribution, which challenged the historians present, was the interpretation of internal metropolitan networks in terms of access patterns, lines of sight, mental maps, and interaction matrices.

'Networks' thus continued to be a theme of the Centre's activities, both in its relations with other bodies and as a notion which proved helpful in exploring historical processes, especially in connection with the 'Skilled Workforce' project. The project was involved in or organised several conferences during the year, particularly in its role as a component of 'The Achievement Project'. These included a symposium on the luxury trades of London and Paris during the eighteenth century (Oxford, November, 1993); a workshop day on the London goldsmiths' trade (London, November 1993), the proceedings of which are being published as the next volume in the Centre's Working Papers Series; and a conference on 'Cities in their Golden Ages' (Amsterdam, March 1994). The last was an ambitious attempt at comparative history, looking at Amsterdam and London in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and Paris in the Belle Époque, with the aim of identifying those circumstances and characteristics which seem to promote innovation and creativity in many different fields at the same time. A number of striking and unexpected themes and points of comparison emerged, but it proved difficult to integrate discussion of two separate periods, with their distinctive sources and historiographical concerns. London and Paris, of course. have each enjoyed a succession of Golden Ages, beginning with the eleventh century, if-not before. A further attempt at comparison is to be made by examining Antwerp, Amsterdam and London, in terms of the common networks to which they belonged and the transfer of vitality from one city to another.

These are difficult historical exercises which touch on many issues relevant to the economic, cultural and political changes in present day Europe. One hopes, at a time notable for the proliferation of talking shops on 'The Future of London' and 'The Europe of Cities', that both the findings and the doubts of historians will be given serious consideration.

An important new initiative, arising from collaboration between the Centre, the British Institute in Paris, and the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, was a conference in Paris in December 1993 on 'London and Paris from the beginnings to the Year 2000' . Papers by English and French contributors on their respective cities were paired by period to 1800 and by theme thereafter. The first group of papers has been published in Franco-British Studies, 17 (1994). This was a lively occasion, marked by the identification of many common interests as well as by some striking divergences. It is hoped that it will lead to closer collaboration between historians of the two cities. As a first step, an Anglo-French study group on 'London and Paris in the Middle Ages' (or 'Paris et Londres au Môyen Age') met for first time in June 1994 and agreed to develop collaborative or comparative themes at annual meetings.

A final conference (November 1994) was organised with the Museum of London with the aim of demonstrating to the public at large some of the findings and ideas of the 'Skilled Workforce' project, especially concerning the study of artefacts as a way of investigating innovation and skill. It was most encouraging that a large and appreciative audience turned up. In this connection, plans have been finalised for establishing a new seminar at the Institute of Historical Research on 'Artefacts and History'. The aim is to promote dialogue between historians and the many other scholarly groups who are concerned with the study of artefacts, and to create a forum in London which will serve as common ground for the university and the many museums in the metropolis.

Conferences planned for the near future include: 'The bourgeois town house in Georgian London' to be held, in collaboration with the Georgian Group, on 1415 July 1995; and, in collaboration with the Corporation of London, an international conference on 'Archives and the Metropolis'. The latter will consider the types of archives produced by metropolises, from antiquity to the present, the ways in which they have been maintained and made accessible, including present-day issues; their meaning within metropolitan culture and politics; and the ways in which historians have used them.

In December 1994 the 'Skilled Workforce' project came to an end. Activities arising from it still continue, and there is a book to be completed, but the way in which The Renaissance Trust encouraged it to be set up allowed the team to develop a particularly flexible and creative approach which is likely to have a lasting effect on the Centre and on thinking about metropolitan history.

A major event of 1994 was the publication of Heather Creaton's bibliography of London history to 1939, the most substantial bibliography on any city yet produced. The launch was most appropriately held in the Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster Abbey; this also signalled the contribution to the project of Tony Trowles, who is now Librarian at the Abbey. The book is receiving good reviews and is selling well. It has been shortlisted for the Besterman Medal for the most outstanding bibliography of 1994. Heather's continuing appetite for innovative bibliography is revealed in her report below. She will also be participating in forthcoming research projects at the Centre, and, provisionally, making a major contribution to a projected 'Companion to London' being discussed with the Oxford University Press.

The Director's own research this year has been directed mainly to aspects of the 'Skilled Workforce' project and to the work of the 'Feeding the City' team. With the latter he has in particular contributed to the study of fuel consumption in London between the twelfth and the fourteenth century, and to changes in grain consumption over the fourteenth century, especially the degree to which they are revealed by the detailed evidence for consumption in the sixteenth centuries. These studies are revealing, with a clarity never before possible, the degree to which fuel rather than the grain supply was critical to the growth of the metropolis. Further investigation of the London butchers and their networks has been postponed until the investigation of the production and sale of livestock in the London region has been taken a stage further. He has also worked on contributions to the forthcoming 'Urban History of Britain'.

During the year he has finalised for publication papers on 'Small towns and the metropolis' and 'Continuity and change in the financial district of London, 1300-1871'. He has lectured on aspects of the acquisition and transmission of skill, on 'London A.D. 700-1300', on 'House, home, and household in the heart of the City, 1200-1700', on the 'Anglo-Saxon towns of southern England', on 'Landlords, the property market and urban development in medieval England', on 'Textile terms and occupations in medieval Winchester', and on 'Medieval London and its regions'.

A new research project began in October 1994, supported by the Leverhulme Trust. This was a logical progression from the 'Feeding the City' projects, which were concerned with the production and distribution of agrarian produce in London's hinterland. It focuses on the network of markets and small towns which mediated the relationship between London and its region. The report below indicates that the sources and methods proposed are producing substantive results. A good deal of effort was devoted to planning another project on mortality in Victorian London. We have just heard that the Wellcome Trust will fund the project under its 'History of Medicine Programme'. The research will be based on an analysis of patterns of age- and cause-specific mortality across the entire metropolis between 1860 and 1920, and on the intensive investigation of the social and environmental context in a number of sample districts. The project focuses on several big issues in the history of cities on the eve of the modern world, and it is hoped that the study will promote international comparison. Thanks are due to the many scholars who have contributed ideas to the development of the project, and especially to Bill Luckin who will be the team leader for the study. Work begins in the summer of 1995.

It is also hoped to begin a new study of the goldsmiths' trade in London between 1650 and 1720. This arises from David Mitchell's work within the 'Skilled Workforce' project, and would attempt for the first time an overview of this important élite trade in a period of notable innovation when the business of the 'goldsmith-bankers' separated from that of the manufacturers and retailers. The study would also break new ground by incorporating an intensive investigation of the surviving goldsmiths' products from the period. However, money has yet to be raised for the project.

During the year, with the aid of a generous grant from the Mercers ' Company, the Centre commissioned an assessment of ways in which its research findings, which are aimed primarily at the scholarly world, might also contribute to education in schools in London. The work was ably undertaken by the South East Museums Education Unit, whose report is now available. The Unit found that some of the findings could certainly make a valuable contribution in schools, but that the limited funds available and the rigidity of the curriculum could inhibit dissemination.

The Centre has also been reviewing its role in postgraduate education. It can provide a stimulating environment for postgraduate supervision and it would like to expand that side of its activities. It is also examining the possibility of providing short training courses for postgraduates and other facilities such as those which could be made available through the Virtual Teaching Collection, described in the last report. That project, being developed in Cambridge, has now almost reached the stage when the Centre can begin its contribution as a test site.

The Director served as a member of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, of the International Commission for the History of Towns, of the Fabric Advisory Committee of St Paul's Cathedral, of the advisory committee for the 'Winchester Pipe Rolls' project at the Hampshire Record Office, of the British Historic Towns Atlas Committee, and as managing Trustee of the London Journal.

The Centre welcomed many visitors during the year. They included David Ormrod who as a Visiting Fellow of the Institute worked closely with the 'Skilled Workforce' project; Justin Champion, whose work on the Plague of 1665 nears completion; Iain Black who is continuing the work on the business districts of Victorian London which he began at the Centre; and Bernard Attard who continues to write and publish on the jobbers of the London Stock Exchange whom he interviewed as part of a Centre project. Visitors from outside the British Isles included those from France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Sweden and the USA.

[1988-9 Report] [1989-90 Report] [1990-1 Report] [1991-2 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

This project, the second of two inter-related studies of medieval London's impact upon and interaction with its agricultural hinterland, formally ended on 31 July 1994. The final year was devoted to editing and documenting the databases created during the course of the project, to statistical analysis and mapping, and to the writing of papers arising from the research.

The production and disposal of grain and other crops has been the most comprehensively investigated aspect of London's demand for food and other provisions and its hinterland's capacity to satisfy it. The results of that investigation for the period 1288-1315 were published in 1993 in the monograph A medieval capital and its grain supply: agrarian production and distribution in the London region c. 1300. During the past year the project team has been writing up corresponding results for the period 1375-1400 in the form of an extended paper, which is now in draft.

Fig. l . Cereals in the London region, c.1300 and c.1380
Source: Accounts database Each crop expressed as a percentage of total grain acreage.

This paper argues that the population collapse of the mid-fourteenth century resulted in marked changes in the geography of grain production within the region. While the aggregate demand for grain in town and country may have fallen, increased living standards led to a significant restructuring of that demand, altering both the relative price and economic rent of the principal grains grown within the region. Rye and rye-mixtures, formerly grown on a large scale on demesnes in the lower Thames valley as bread grains cheaper than wheat, ceased to be important; wheat maintained its share of grain acreage although a smaller proportion was sold. As per caput consumption of ale rose and as land was released from the production of bread grains, barley and dredge became more widely cultivated; the total demand for brewing grains may even have risen, so that despite the fall in population the total quantity of grain required may not have declined greatly. Across the region as a whole the area devoted to cultivation of the principal brewing grains (i.e. barley and dredge) rose from 20 per cent to 32 per cent of the total grain acreage (see Fig. 1).

The most striking expansion of the brewing grains occurred in the area immediately to the north of the Chilterns, a zone which in 1300 had lain towards the edge of London's principal wheat-supply region (see Figs. 2 and 3). On-the manor malting of barley and dredge increased, adding value at the point of production and increasing the distances over which they could profitably be transported. Emergence of this new spatial specialism is paralleled by the greater prominence within the urban records of specialist dealers in malt. Many of these 'maltmen' operated out of southern Hertfordshire and hence were located between the largest malt-producing zone and the largest urban market. Significantly, corresponding evidence for a distinct group of cornmongers within London is much weaker c.1400 than it had been c.1300.

Fig. 2. Acreage sown with the principal brewing grains as a percentage of the grain acreage on demesnes in the London region, 1288-1315.

Fig. 3. Acreage sown with the principal brewing grains as a percentage of the grain acreage on demesnes in the London region, 1375-1400.

In 1300, the region's most intensive agricultural regimes were to be found in eastern Kent, an area which may have been orientated towards the cities of the Low Countries as much as towards London and as such may have formed part of a wider nexus of economic exchange based upon the southern North Sea basin. By 1400, however, there are signs that this nexus had weakened. During the course of the fourteenth century, as demand contracted and labour inputs diminished, the intensity of production tended to fall, seeding rates were lowered, and land was withdrawn from cultivation. Overall, the grain sector in the later fourteenth-century London region appears to have been characterised by market-responsive specialisation within a context of gentle de-intensification.

At least as vital to pre-industrial cities as a reliable grain supply was an adequate fuel supply. In the Middle Ages London was largely dependent upon wood for fuel. The scale of the demand for wood, the capacity of the hinterland to satisfy it, and the structure of supply are the subject of a paper currently in final draft. Contemporary sources and per caput consumption of coal c.l600 have been used in estimating the capital's fuel requirements in the fourteenth century, when baking and brewing probably accounted for less than half the total quantity of fuel consumed in the city. Meeting that demand probably placed a greater strain upon the productive capacity of the region than the corresponding demand for grain, and showed little sign of abating following the Black Death since per caput consumption of fuel almost certainly rose.

Inquisitions post mortem show that in the London region the area devoted to woodland was unevenly distributed and variations in the value placed on woodland highlights the different ways in which it was managed. Analysis of account roll data relating to production and sale of wood and wood products further demonstrates that woodland was most productive and intensively managed where markets could be exploited. The impact of the metropolitan fuel market is most apparent, but other influences on woodland management such as the profitable continental trade in fuel centred around Winchelsea and the demands of rural and village industries can also be recognised.

Between 4 and 15 miles from London the evidence points to substantial production of faggots and charcoal for metropolitan ovens, and braziers and on manors in parts of Essex, south Hertfordshire, Kent, Middlesex and Surrey wood sales made a significant contribution to manorial income. This confirms the prediction of von Thunen's model, doubted by some commentators, that commercial production of firewood and timber had to take place relatively close to the central market, immediately beyond the extra-mural zone devoted to perishable horticultural crops but before the innermost zone of commercial grain production: it was only there that such a bulky, relatively low-value product could be profitably produced.

This also ties in with what is known of the activities of London woodmongers. An identifiable group of specialised traders in wood, both firewood and timber, had emerged by the later twelfth century. In the period from c. 1275 to c. 1375 ninety such individuals involved in London's wood market have been identified. Their trading activities demonstrate the significance of water transport in linking the producers and consumers of wood. There was a particular concentration of London woodmongers' interests in Surrey, especially on the river, and Kingstonupon-Thames was a notable focus of their interests. Overall, the evidence for their activities agrees closely both with the model of London's supply zone and the pattern of income from wood sales.

Animal husbandry in its various forms was perhaps the most flexible and dynamic branch of agriculture, and it was always the intention of the Feeding the City projects to analyse it in detail, especially as there have been few previous systematic studies of the livestock sector. This analysis is not as advanced as other aspects of the project, but all the necessary data have been collected and classified, and a system of livestock weightings developed allowing comparison to be made between demesnes and estates irrespective of the age, sex, and type of animals stocked. Analysis and writing up of this material, and of material relating to the commercialisation of agriculture within the London region, is being undertaken by the project's co-director Dr Bruce Campbell of the Queen's University. Belfast.

In the course of the project there have been activities within several international networks. Discussions on the topic have been held with the Franco-Belgian groupe de contacte (FNRS) Histoire Rurale, and within the International Commission for the History of Towns. The French members of Anglo-French working group on medieval London and medieval Paris, recently established by the Centre for Metropolitan History, will pursue the food supply of the two cities as a comparative theme. Members of the project team have given papers to groups with interests across a range of disciplines, including economic history, historical geography and archaeology.

Over the coming months the project results will be disseminated in a variety of ways. Databases created during the project will be made available via the ESRC Data Archive and the demesne accounts database will be integrated in Belfast within a large fourteenth century database of national scope. In addition to submitting papers for publication, members of the project team will present papers at conferences in Britain and overseas. Finally, a new project, 'Market networks in the London region: the trade in agrarian produce c. l400', has grown out of the Feeding the City projects and will build upon many of its findings (see separate report).

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

[Feeding the City I] [1990-1 Report] [1991-2 Report] [1992-3 Report] [10th Anniversary Conference] [Publications arising from the project] [Back to Contents]

ii MARKET NETWORKS IN THE LONDON REGION: THE TRADE IN AGRARIAN PRODUCE. c.1400

This new project, the short title of which is 'Market Networks and the Metropolis', commenced at the Centre on 1 October 1994. The project will investigate the system of local markets which operated in the London region c.1375-1425, and the ways in which it functioned to channel foodstuffs, fuel and other produce towards the capital.

The role of the market in complex societies is the subject of much contemporary debate. Establishing efficient, competitive market systems in societies from which they were previously absent has proved fraught with difficulty. The introduction of market mechanisms into the provision of public services continues to arouse controversy in countries whose economies have rested on the market for centuries. These concerns have focused attention upon the ways in which markets developed, and how they operated in the past. Particular interest centres on medieval England, where the emergence of a precocious system of efficient markets may underlie the country's distinctive course of long-term economic development.

Views of the economy of medieval England have been greatly revised in recent years. Research has shown that medieval agriculture had a greater capacity to innovate and to improve productivity than was previously thought. Similarly, the extent to which areas differed from each other in the use of land has been found to be considerable. This regional differentiation was profoundly influenced by the presence of market demand for agricultural produce. The requirements of major cities for foodstuffs, fuel and building materials represented the most concentrated form of such demand. The hinterland of London, one of northern Europe's largest cities, was characterised by a range of specialised responses to these requirements, many of which have been studied by the CMH project 'Feeding the City'.

Much less is known of the operation of the market system which underpinned such regional specialisations. Without an efficient distributive system, produce could not have been successfully channelled towards the major centres of consumption, nor could non-agricultural populations in the countryside have been supported. By the fourteenth century, England possessed a dense network of markets located in towns and villages of varying size. After the Black Death the reduced population seems to have required fewer markets, but those that continued to exist may have been used more intensively. Improved living standards promoted increased per caput consumption of meat, ale and manufactured goods. London in 1400, although smaller than it had been a century earlier, almost certainly contained a greater share of national population, and the city's absolute levels of demand for some products may have increased.

A body of documentary source material exists which will permit a detailed reconstruction of the operation of the network of markets and fairs within the London region c.1400. The most important of these are the records of borough and manorial courts and of the national Court of Common Pleas. The principal data to be extracted concern civil actions for debt. Debt pleas frequently provide details of the commercial transactions which gave rise to them, including commodities sold, as well as personal details of the parties concerned. Such data have been successfully used to study the economy and trade areas of individual boroughs and market towns, but have not previously been exploited to investigate patterns of trade across a large region.

Surviving court roll series from 1375 to 1425 for a representative range of boroughs and market towns will be examined. A sampling method will be used to exploit the extensive Court of Common Plea records, as well as the court material from those boroughs where voluminous records survive. The debt data will be used to compile a large computerised database, to which will be added information selectively drawn from other sources bearing upon commerce and the use of specific markets by producers and consumers. Computer-based statistical analysis and mapping will be used as appropriate to summarise the data and develop particular lines of enquiry. These will include the identification of specialisation between markets and the tracing of explicit links and contacts between places, notably connections with London. The operation of the system as a whole will then be inferred from these revealed patterns of specialisation and contact. Initially work will focus on ten counties (Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Surrey), but it is planned subsequently to include important markets in areas adjacent to this region.

A key objective of the project is to define the influence of London upon the regional marketing system. In doing so, the appropriateness of the models developed by geographers to explain the functioning and development of such systems will be assessed. A further objective is to build on the foundations laid by 'Feeding the City', which has demonstrated the existence of specialised agricultural regimes in the hinterland of medieval London, in order to bring out the connections between specialisation in production and specialisation in marketing in the provisioning of a major city. The project, the first systematic study for medieval England of the operation of a system of markets across an extensive geographical area, should thus help to show how a large city interacted with the small towns of its hinterland, and moulded regional economic development, and how specialised agricultural regimes were tied into the wider economy. The project aims to establish a firm basis for comparable studies of other geographical areas and of other periods, and to contribute to a broader understanding of the role of market systems in the processes of economic development.

The principal product of the research will be a monograph describing and analysing the operation of the marketing system in the London region c. 1400, and setting that system within the wider context of regional and national economic development. In addition, a major database will have been created which will offer potential for further exploration beyond the immediate requirements of the project.

This 30-month project is funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

[1994-5 Report] [1995-6 Report] [1996-7 Report] [10th Anniversary Conference] [Publications arising from project] [Metropolitan Market Networks] [Back to Contents]

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

The 'Skilled Workforce Project' entered its final phase in 1993-4 with the aim of providing a synthesis of London's past importance as a centre of manufacturing nearing completion. The final year has been largely devoted to the collation of the project team's research findings for publication. In addition to this the team (Michael Berlin, Rob Iliffe and David Mitchell) have continued to participate in the wide research network provided by the Achievement Project. In effect, the team has spent the year independently pursuing some of the lines of enquiry first identified in the earlier phases of the project, and testing ideas garnered from secondary reading against more detailed research into specific aspects of London's manufacturing history, before attempting to place these achievements in a wider national and European context. A number of specifically London-based innovations have been revealed in the course of research, in areas as diverse as dyeing, shipbuilding and the making of various apparatus associated with 'natural philosophy' . While these do not necessarily conform to a stereotypical account of technological change they have greatly reinforced the image of London as a new centre of innovation.

The project set out with the intention of trying to answer a very basic question: what are the historical forces and the particular circumstances which induce individuals and groups to undertake new ways of doing things? What has emerged in the course of research is that technological innovation takes place in the context of other forms of innovation: commercial, political, social and intellectual. These other forms of innovation seem to have been instrumental in the expansion of manufacturing firms and enterprises which deployed significant amounts of capital. Another insight gained through the research is that changes in design and marketing practice were as important an aspect of innovation in London as changes in production technique.

In preparing the monograph to conclude the project, the team is faced with the task of correlating the insights from case studies of individual trades and from thematic investigations of such matters as immigration, patronage and education. The challenges presented are considerable for there is marked variation in the process of specification, design, manufacture and marketing from one trade to another. Similarly, the mechanisms for the transfer of skill between generations and between 'stranger' and native craftsmen vary greatly.

An example of a manufacture with an apparently simple structure is sugar refining, which was introduced to London in the mid sixteenth century when two refineries were built. After the outbreak of war with Spain in 1585, privateers brought in large quantities of captured sugar and a further five sugar houses were constructed. Several of these were financed by merchants actively engaged in the privateering ventures. In the seventeenth century, England's expanding colonial empire produced increasing quantities of raw sugar, with a resulting increase in refining capacity in London. Although most of the capital and commercial organisation of these refineries was in the hands of London merchants, all the skilled operatives were immigrants, initially from Antwerp and later from other cities, including Amsterdam, Hamburg and Bremen. As late as the Napoleonic period, London refiners advertised for skilled workers in Germany. It seems that each refinery required only two skilled workmen, the 'chief workman' or technical manager and the 'boiler'. Thus at any one time only 60 to 70 skilled men were active in the trade. The efforts of the Grocers' Company to establish guild control over the industry were unsuccessful, and no organised system of apprenticeship was introduced. This highlights two questions. Firstly, was the simple number of skilled workers engaged in an industry a crucial factor in whether skill is transferred from aliens to native workmen and in the degree to which immigrants were assimilated? Secondly, why did certain new or substantially-transformed industries—such as hatting, wiredrawing, and coachmaking—seek incorporation with their own livery companies, while others—such as glass and ceramic manufacture, some chemical industries, and sugar refining—resist such control?

Traditionally, London goldsmiths exercised diverse functions in the handling of precious metals: the manufacture and sale of plate (principally silver rather than gold) and jewellery, the provision of financial services, the refining of gold and silver, and roles in government finance and the mint. The trade was transformed between 1650 and 1720. During the Commonwealth, goldsmith-bankers emerged who both provided credit accounts and lent ' not their own but other men's money'. Credit accounts, created by deposits of cash or secured loans, were used to settle trade and personal debts, and to purchase shares and other investments. To facilitate their use, a clearing system developed: groups of goldsmiths honoured each others' notes (the precursor to the cheque), and by implication accepted third party debt. Neither the conditions of these agreements, nor all the parties to them are presently known, but at least two distinct groups emerged: one in Lombard Street serving principally the City's tradesmen and overseas merchants, and the other in Fleet Street with a clientele of nobility, gentry, and lawyers. Goldsmith-bankers also sold plate and jewellery, manufactured through an extended network of subcontractors and specialist suppliers. About 1720, however, increasing specialisation led to the demise of the goldsmith-banker, whose functions were split between banks and the specialist retailers and manufacturers of plate.

About 1650, the manufacture and sale of plate and jewellery began to recover from the vicissitudes of the Civil Wars. The Restoration stimulated this recovery by demands for new types and forms of plate, including toilet services, sets of casters, and tea, chocolate and coffee pots. At the 'top of the market', such plate was required in the 'new' or 'French' fashion. The individual responsibilities for commissioning, designing and manufacturing plate, and for the 'orchestration' of the whole process are imperfectly understood, but of special interest for this project. It is clear the market's ability to satisfy these demands was associated with skills supplied by stranger goldsmiths: indifferently called 'Dutch', although some were Swiss or German . In the 1680s a larger group of Huguenot goldsmiths settled in London, and early in the next century several Germans. The particular contributions made by these groups, and the strategies that they adopted in the face of opposition from native silversmiths and the Goldsmiths' Company, have been the subject of past debate and current investigation by the project. The conventional view is that London goldsmiths and the company were violently opposed to stranger goldsmiths, who could only prosper by living in areas such as Westminster and St Martins in the Fields, where there were outside the City's immediate jurisdiction and they enjoyed the patronage and protection of noble and gentry patrons. This view seems to be misleading in two respects. Firstly, the Goldsmiths' Company gave tacit support to petitions emanating from 'the working goldsmiths' (or silversmiths) but rarely took effective action against stranger workmen. Secondly, while the degree to which noblemen directly patronised stranger goldsmiths is unknown, it is clear that native goldsmith-bankers, such as Edward Backwell and Thomas Fowle, commissioned plate from leading strangers working in London and that by this means 'new fashioned' plate reached clients including members of the Royal Family. Mechanisms for the transfer of skills from stranger goldsmiths to their English counterparts may thus have included the process of collaboration in designing and making major pieces organised by leading members of the Goldsmiths' Company.

A further case study of dyeing and cloth finishing has also provided insights into these questions, particularly concerning the introduction of new products and techniques by immigrants, and the increasing specialisation in both manufacture and commerce. Dyeing seems to have exhibited both characteristics. There was an influx of dyers in the late sixteenth century with particular skill in dyeing silks and mixed fabrics. In Restoration London, the process of specialisation was further advanced, many dyers concentrating on dyeing 'in the piece' or 'in the thread', and sometimes even specialising in a limited range of shades of one colour. By contrast, cloth finishing seems to have been little influenced by 'strangers', and there were few signs of increasing specialisation. Much of the dressing, pressing and packing of cloth was performed, not by specialist subcontractors, but 'in-house' by substantial cloth merchants who were closely linked with merchants engaged in overseas trade. This probably resulted from the need for tight control, both in the quality of finish and presentation, and in meeting delivery schedules for distant overseas markets, especially in the Levant.

Fig. 4. A large dyeing vat with a piece of woollen broadcloth being raised and lowered on the winch.
(Diderot and D'Alembert, L'Encyclopédie (Paris, 1751 onwards)

Many changes in the textile trades have often resulted from product innovation which, with the introduction of new or improved fabrics, was a feature of this period. In tandem with these changes went the ongoing desire for livelier, more brilliant colours. One response to this was the development of Bow dyes by Drebbel and the Kufflers to provide a more fiery scarlet. Unfortunately, the competitive advantage to London was not long-lived, as the Kuffler family soon introduced them to Leiden and subsequently to Paris. The demand for good quality broadcloth, in bright, clear colours with a smooth lustrous finish, stimulated innovation both in the weaving of Spanish cloth in the west country and in the finishing trades of the capital, notably wet shearing using shears with the 'crook' attachment. The growing production of broad silks and mixed fabrics in London increased the need for hot presses and calenders which probably led to the development of distinctive machines with an international reputation, such as the so-called 'English calender'.

The textile trades provide a number of striking examples of the relationship between commerce, manufactures, and the innovation in both products and processes.

This three-year project, which is part of the Oxford-based Achievement Project, is funded by the Renaissance Trust.

Closely associated with the Skilled Workforce project is doctoral student Lien Luu's study of the stranger working community in London 1550-1600. The strangers constituted a significant proportion of London's population in the 1570s, numbering approximately 10,000 people. Their role in the economic transformation of London during the sixteenth century is widely recognised, and the central aim of this research is to place this in some historical context, and to define more precisely what that role was. In assessing their impact on London manufactures, it appears indispensable to focus on the following main issues: what skills were introduced in London by the immigrants? In what ways could these skills be regarded as new? Where did these skills come from? And how were they diffused within London? To elucidate these general questions, the research uses case studies of silk-weaving, goldsmithing, coopering, beer brewing, and tailoring, all reputedly alien-dominated sectors.

Having compiled two databases from the Return of Aliens of 1571 and 1593, the research proceeded in the course of 1993-4 to examine the City Livery Companies' records. The records of the goldsmiths, brewers and coopers confirm the significant presence of aliens. In these trades the employment of alien journeymen by English masters, rather than the apprenticeship of English servants with alien masters, may have been the main medium whereby imported skills were diffused. The case of silk workers, who constituted the largest occupational group, is less straightforward. It is puzzling that although many originated from Walloon Flanders (particularly Valenciennes) and Brabant (particularly Antwerp), yet an examination of the occupational structure of Valenciennes suggests that there was no established silk industry there. To investigate the possibility that some immigrants may have changed their occupation upon arrival in London, and that the experience of being an immigrant itself may account for the innovativeness and creativeness among the strangers, research was undertaken in Low Countries archives. Many stranger goldsmiths from Antwerp found in London sources could be traced in the accounts book of the gild of Goud- en Zilversmeden, deposited at the Antwerp town archive: these migrants preserved their skills intact. The documents of the Council of Troubles, a tribunal set up in Brussels to deal with those suspected of participating in the troubles of the 1560s, however, shows that some migrants learned or developed new skills in exile. Many strangers from Valenciennes who practised in London as silkweavers had been prominent back home as 'marchand' or 'bourgeois', and had lost a considerable amount of goods and property in the move to London. Perhaps the poverty resulting from material loss, the experience of being an immigrant, and the enormous opportunities offered by London may explain the occupational changes of some strangers. Moreover, Valenciennes was notable for its production of light woollen and linen textiles, involving skills which could readily be transferred to the manufacture of silks, for which there was evidently a demand in London.

Archival research was completed at the end of 1994, and it is hoped that the Ph.D. thesis entitled 'Skills and innovations: a study of the stranger working community in London, 1550-1600', under the supervision of Dr Derek Keene will be completed in 1995.

[1991-2 Report] [1992-3 Report] [1994-5 Report] [Image database] [10th Anniversary Conference] [Publications arising from project] [Back to Contents]

iv METROPOLITAN LONDON IN THE 1690s

This study is an investigation of the social and economic geography of London, at a time when the metropolis emerged as the largest city of Christian Europe. It is based on an analysis of tax assessments which survive for London north of the Thames, and makes extensive use of computer mapping techniques. The primary database contains over 60,000 entries from the assessments for the 'Four-shilling Aid' of 1693-4, recording names, locations, house-values and a range of other information. An overview of the material will be published as a social atlas of London in the 1690s, and once that has appeared the database itself will be made more widely available.

Funding for this project came to an end early in 1994. Craig Spence has been able to continue working on the production of the atlas in his spare time, but inevitably progress has been slower than before. It is now anticipated that the atlas will be completed during the first half of 1995. The way in which the databases have been structured allows a wide range of questions to be addressed concerning the physical character and social topography of the metropolis. Last year's report indicated some of the findings from investigations of the transport infrastructure, building density, and land values. This report illustrates ways in which the material can be used to investigate social structure and topography.

The rental value of the house, or part of a house, occupied is the most widespread and readily-analysed indicator of the status of householders. In the more central districts covered it is possible, on the whole, to distinguish residential houses from other types of property assessed. In some of the more outlying areas, however, it seems that assessments for householders sometimes also covered extensive tracts of valuable agricultural land, hence the high mean valuations for those neighbourhoods, where the assessment may not have the same significance as an indicator of status as in more densely built-up districts (Fig. 5). In the more central areas a coherent pattern emerges. Houses of high value were characteristic of the heart of the City, especially close to the main commercial streets, and of a separate, but in some ways similar, district along the western part of the Strand and focusing on Charing Cross. The commercial value of the site emerges as the key variable in determining the value of individual residential properties, although some of the most valuable houses were aristocratic residences in the 'West End' especially to the south of Piccadilly. Burlington House, for example, valued at £320 a year, had the highest value of any residential property in the metropolis. Around each of the two commercial foci there was a concentric fall-off in house values. Comparison between this pattern and those for land values per hectare and density of house units, provides a vivid insight into the social and physical make-up of neighbourhoods, and the reasons for them.

Fig. 5. Mean household rent value per annum.
Source: 1693-4 Aid Database.

Mean values conceal much that is distinctive about particular areas, and so a method has been devised of comparing the composition of districts in terms of how their house values fall into the interdecile groups for the entire metropolis (Fig.6). There is a sharp contrast between the profiles for the city and the riverside parishes to the east, while there were distinctive differences between the city and the west end. Other areas had more mixed profiles. This type of investigation could be extended to each of the 128 topographical units which form the backbone of the spatial analysis.

Social status is indicated in the assessments by use of a variety of terms, which are not consistently deployed. The gender of the heads of household assessed can usually be determined, however, and this provides a powerful demonstration of the overall position of female heads of household within the metropolis. Such women were clearly a marginal group and were associated with low-value houses in peripheral areas (Fig. 7). Some aristocratic women headed households in a few high-value areas, but women were notably infrequent as heads of household near the main centres of commercial activity. Some of these women were described as widows: in the West End aristocratic titles concealed widowhood, but it is clear that in the poorer districts many of the female heads of household were widows (Fig.8). In the busier and more expensive parts of the city within the walls, it seems that those few females who could persist as heads of household were the widows of the more prosperous merchants and shopkeepers (Figs. 7 and 8). These patterns hint at the forces which propelled many widows into early remarriage or migration to the periphery.

Fig. 7. Percentage of households headed by women
Source: 1693-4 Aid Database

Fig. 8. Percentage of female householders who were widows.
Source: 1693-4 Aid Database.

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

[1990-1 Report] [1991-2 Report] [1992-3 Report] [Publications arising from project] [Back to Contents]

v NETWORKS FOR THE OPTICAL TRADE IN LONDON, 1500-1800

This project is a successor to the six-month project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, entitled 'Craft to industry: London's scientific instrument makers' workshops, 1780-1820' . A full report on that study, which was undertaken during 1993, appeared in the CMH Annual Report 1992-3 .

'Eyeglasses' figure in a London haberdasher's inventory of 1378 and with the introduction of printed books their use undoubtedly became more widespread. These early glasses were imported; it is uncertain when manufacture began in this country but the Spectacle Makers' Company Minutes of the 1660s show that haberdashers were still selling both imported and London-made reading glasses. Whilst common glass, tinged with colour and marked with veins and bubbles, sufficed for such lenses, it was useless for making the perspectives, telescopes and microscopes devised in the Low Countries around 1608. Only crystal glass first prepared in Venice for vessels and mirrors for the luxury market, sufficed for optical lenses. When the demand for luxury goods drew Venetian glassworkers into western Europe and Britain, this crystal became available in London. Grinding and polishing glass was hard tedious work, and various forms of lathe and turn-bench were devised and different abrasives tried, to ease this labour. In order to shape the lenses, it was essential to know how glass bends the rays of light passing through it—the science known as dioptrics. It seems to have been around 1640 before these three elements of a successful lens—glass, tools and knowledge of dioptrics—were understood and acted upon by London's working opticians.

The project aims to uncover the networks extending across Europe which carried these elements to London. The networks may be created by people moving around —the technique of crystal glass manufacture was principally carried by the Venetian workmen who settled abroad and supervised glass houses for the new product—and political turmoil in mid seventeenth-century Britain drove many learned men to seek refuge on the continent where they met like-minded scholars. Knowledge was transmitted by gifts or sale of blocks of glass, lenses, or entire optical instruments, or the tools for making them. Telescopes were sent out from the Low Countries within a very short time of their invention. Thomas Harriot in England and Galileo (who having heard of the invention set out to make his own telescope) were observing sunspots at much the same time. A cross-European trade soon developed, with customers eager to buy their telescopes or microscopes from whichever maker currently enjoyed the highest reputation. Correspondence forms the most extensive network, with a few major figures—Hartlib, Oldenburg, Mersenne, Peiresc, Hevelius, and later Euler— circulating news to one another, supplemented by information from their own local correspondents. By the 1640s the London opticians were striving to perfect their skills, urged on by the wealthy patrons who could afford these new aids to vision. The cost of a telescope or microscope was high, partly because the quality of glass was variable and unpredictable and many lenses broke during the shaping process. The situation improved as the century wore on; demand rose for all types of optical goods, and many more workmen came into the optical business.

London opticians were thriving in the 1730s when an obscure lawyer named Chester Moor Hall, allegedly interested in the optics of the eye, achieved what Newton had declared to be impossible: the construction of an achromatic lens, which eliminated the rings of colour which had until then troubled astronomers. This was a compound lens, consisting of a disc of ordinary crown glass backed with one of the dense lead crystal devised by Ravenscroft in the 1690s. Hall made nothing of his invention, but it became known in the London trade. With such lenses, the refracting telescope entered on a new lease of life, its reputation spread abroad, boosting trade for the London opticians, while continental scientists sought to discover the difference between their glass products and those of London which alone seemed suitable for these lenses. The discovery and development of the achromatic lens stimulated a new more northerly network connecting the mathematicians Euler and Klingenstierna with the London optician John Dollond. As before, there was a secondary network of exports, this time of achromatic telescopes from the Dollond workshop. In Europe attempts were made to improve the manufacture of glass so that local opticians, particularly those in Paris. could hold their markets against competition from London.

This six-month project, spread over the year 1994, is funded by the Renaissance Trust.

[1994-5 Report] [Publications arising from project] [Scientific Instrument Makers] [Back to Contents]

vi BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND INFORMATION SERVICES

10th Anniversary Conference

a) BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRINTED WORKS ON LONDON HISTORY TO l939

The final results of eight years of hard work were published in April 1994 in the form of a fat volume from Library Association Publishing, priced at £80. A most enjoyable launch party was held at Westminster Abbey, where Tony Trowles, formerly research assistant on the project, is now Librarian. He arranged for us to use the Jerusalem Chamber, a suitably historic setting for a bibliography of history. The book has been well-received and several reviews have now appeared.

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

We aim to produce a ten-year supplement to the bibliography, taking publications up to the year 2000. Titles have continued to be collected for this, with the active help of Guildhall Library, the Greater London History Library and the Bishopsgate Institute.

[1988-9 Report] [1989-90 Report] [1990-1 Report] [1991-2 Report] [1992-3 Report] [1994-5 Report] [1995-6 Report] [1996-7 Report] [1997-8 Report] [Publications arising from project] [Back to Contents]

b) BIBLIOGRAPHY AND GUIDE TO SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY OF LONDON IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

This new project aims to collect and publish a classified list of references to books, articles and theses dealing with all aspects of life in London between 1939 and 1945. The database now contains nearly 400 titles, including contemporary as well as retrospective material, and theses. The references are found through a wide variety of library catalogues both printed and on-line, and by searching other bibliographies. Accompanying the bibliography will be a substantial article drawing attention to the wide variety of original sources available to the historian of London at this period. Such sources are to be found in many different repositories, some perhaps unexpected, or overlooked in this context. Not all are in written form—film, sound recordings, photographs, maps, paintings and artefacts are all relevant to this topic, and will be discussed. Several collections have been visited this year and a cross section of likely material examined. They include the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre at the Wellcome Institute, the National Westminster Bank, the Imperial War Museum and the University of London Library.

[1994-5 Report] [1995-6 Report] [1996-7 Report] [1997-8 Report] [Publications arising from project] [Back to Contents]

c) RESEARCH IN PROGRESS ON THE HISTORY OF LONDON

This database has been maintained with a view to producing a further supplement to listings in the London Journal. It has continued to prove useful to researchers enquiring about subject coverage of current work, and to those selecting speakers for lectllre.s or conferences.

[1992-3 Report] [1994-5 Report] [1995-6 Report] [1996-7 Report] [1997-8 Report] [Link to database] [Back to Contents]

APPENDICES

I

PATRONS

Chairman
SIR KIT MCMAHON

MR WILLIAM DAVIS

MR ROGER G. GIBBS

SIR BRIAN JENKINS, F.C.A.

MR STUART LIPTON

MR GERRY MARTIN

THE LORD PALUMBO

MR MICHAEL ROBBINS, C.B.E.

MR TED ROWLANDS, M.P.

THE RT. REV. J.L. THOMPSON

[Back to Contents]

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., Professorof Politics and Contemporary History, Royal Holloway, University of London (to 31 July 1994)

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

R.J. DENNIS, B.A., Ph.D., Lecturer in Geography, University College London (to 31 July 1994)

P. EARLE, B.Sc. (Econ.), Ph.D. (to 31 July 1994)

E. GREEN, B.A., Archivist, Midland Bank plc

V.A. HARDING, M.A., Ph.D., Lecturer in London History, Birkbeck College

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

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

Nt MERRIMAN, M.A., Ph.D., Curator, Early Department, Museum of London

R. ORESKO, Ph.D. Research Fellow, Institute of Historical Research

S.R. PALMER, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Queen Mary and Westfield College

H.G. ROSEVEARE, M.A., Ph.D., Professor of History, King's College London (from I August 1994)

A.L. SAUNDERS, Ph.D, FSA, London Topographical Society (from 1 August 1994)

H. SOUTHALL, B.A., Ph.D., Lecturer in Geography, Queen Mary and Westfield College

J.M. WINTER, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Fellow, Pembroke College, Cambridge (from I August 1994)

[Back to Contents]

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., 'Metropolitan London in the 1690s'

[Back to Contents]

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- 1350 and Market Networks in the London Region: The Trade in Agrarian Produce, c.1400:
Researchers: JAMES A. GALLOWAY, M.A., Ph.D. (Edinburgh); MARGARET MURPHY. B.A. Ph.D. (Trinity College, Dublin)