UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY
INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH
CENTRE
FOR
METROPOLITAN
HISTORY
Annual Report 1995-6
(1 August 1995-30 November 1996)
1. Director's Report
2. Project Reports
1. DIRECTOR'S REPORT
During 1995-6 the Centre was active in four main research
areas concerning the history of London, began to explore possible
new themes for investigation, organised conferences and other
meetings, put on training courses, and supervised graduate
students. The number of research staff employed ranged from nine
to eleven. In addition, four Visiting Fellows of the Institute of
Historical Research, three graduate students, and seven project
advisers were closely associated with the Centre's activities.
The research programme this year spanned a period of some 550
years and addressed broad themes which reflect the fundamental
character of London: markets and trade, innovation, and the
physical penalties of life in a great city. Several of these
themes interconnect, and all of them relate to topics explored at
earlier stages of the Centre's history or exploit information
gathered then. In this way the CMH is accumulating a core
resource of knowledge and expertise which will serve as a solid
foundation for future development.
'Market networks in the London region', dealing with the
period around 1400, arises from earlier studies of London's
influence on agrarian production. It quickly became apparent,
however, that the trade in rural produce, while it was vital for
the city's survival and occupied a substantial share of
commercial effort in southern England, was closely associated
with other aspects of London's inland trade, from which indeed it
cannot always be distinguished in some of the most useful
surviving records. As the project report below indicates, London
both transmitted imported goods to the smaller centres of the
region and at the same time supplied credit and materials to
provincial manufacturing towns within and beyond its immediate
hinterland. The metropolis thus seems in the Middle Ages to have
fulfilled a role resembling that which it had during the
Industrial Revolution. That raises important questions concerning
continuities between the medieval and later periods in London's
role in national life. Consequently, it is now intended, funding
permitting, to explore some of those issues in an assessment of
the internal trading system which focused on London between 1300
and 1600, a period which witnessed great changes in the size and
dominance of the city and in its international standing. An
associated project planned to be based at the Centre will, it is
hoped, complete a gazetteer of markets and fairs in England and
Wales up to the sixteenth century, and thus provide a much needed
tool for assessing commercial development from the twelfth
century onwards, and its relationship with political and legal
structures.
During the year a short additional project on these themes was
undertaken by Hannes Kleineke under the supervision of Jim
Galloway. It was funded by the Aurelius Trust and its aim was to
assemble information from printed sources on the operation of
markets, tolls and trading connections in southern and eastern
England over the period c.1380-1430. The results are in
the form of a machine-readable database, which is especially
informative on Londoners' activities and on bridges and trade
routes.
During 1996 Craig Spence continued work in his own time on the
'Social Atlas of London in the 1690s', which derives from the
massive database (including material donated by James Alexander)
assembled during an earlier CMH project financed by the ESRC. The
maps and draft text of the atlas are now almost complete and
should be submitted for publication over the coming year. The
database, created primarily in order to explore the social
topography of the metropolis, has proved to be of immense value
for the Centre's present research on 'English merchant culture,
1660-1720', described below. The project focuses on the way in
which overseas merchants, the most numerous and powerful group of
whom were Londoners, in that period established their own
political space within the nation at large. The tax assessments
of the 1690s provide a unique census of the London merchants at a
single moment, with some indication of the physical spaces that
they occupied within the city. We are grateful to several
scholars, above all Henry Horwitz, who have donated working notes
on the mercantile theme to the Centre for use in this project.
Findings from the earlier project on 'The Rise of the Skilled
Workforce' during this period have also made a contribution to
the study of London merchants. Writing of the book on 'The
Skilled Workforce' itself is still in progress, but there are
hopes of completion during 1997.
An early CMH project focused on plague in seventeenth-century
London, and Graham Twigg as a visiting research fellow continues
his work on patterns of mortality in London parishes between the
sixteenth and the eighteenth century. Picking up this theme for
the period 1860-1920, the Centre's new project on 'Mortality in
the metropolis' has just completed its first year. This heroic
study, combining extensive statistical analysis with detailed
local studies, seeks to describe and account for the major
changes in the causes and patterns of death which took place in
London during this period, an experience which London, recognised
as a leader in the field of health, appears to have shared with
the major cities of North America rather than with those of
Europe. The available data are almost overwhelming, and it is
particularly gratifying that a robust solution appears to have
been devised for a major methodological problem concerning the
London death statistics for the earlier part of the period. We
await the outcome of this 'correction' and of the subsequent
analysis with eager anticipation.
The 'Mortality' project promises to resolve many substantive
issues, but it is clear that it will also open up at least as
many lines for future enquiry, including comparison with other
great cities. In pursuit of other long-term themes for future
research and debate the Centre has identified 'London and the
Americas, 1600-1900' as potentially a very fruitful subject. For
much of the period London handled the greater part of British
trade with North, Central and South America and was an important
intermediary between the Americas and Continental Europe,
although other European cities had distinctive American
connections worth contrasting with London's. London supplied
people and finance which helped form new territories, industries
and states. Cultural, social and diplomatic connections were
equally strong, so that urban life in the Americas was often
formed on the model of London. Yet as the jocular subtitle for
the programme, 'From Jamestown to Selfridges', indicates, towards
the end of the period the flow of influences was rapidly
reversed. This theme promises both to be an exciting way of
examining the role of cities in relations between Europe and the
New World and to provide a new context within which to assess the
history of London. The idea has only just crystallised and
requires some development and consultation before it can be
expressed in concrete activities. Ideas and suggestions will be
warmly received.
A striking recent development has been the growing ease with
which it has become possible to interrogate databases
geographically and to handle images with relatively small-scale
investment in computing resources. Spatial analysis of the
information on medieval commerce or on Victorian mortality would
not have been so straightforward a few years ago, and this makes
it possible to explore and to demonstrate crucial aspects of
London life with unprecedented clarity, following the lead
established in the 'Metropolitan London in the 1690s' project. At
the same time the Centre has acquired important collections of
information, in both machine-readable and more traditional
hard-copy forms, on London and its region and on individual
Londoners from the twelfth century to the late twentieth. With
due notice, these are available for scholarly use and enquiries
are welcome. Apart from the records generated by the Centre's own
research projects, they include biographical information on
Londoners before 1216, records of property holding in several
areas of the city c.1100-1670, information on
sixteenth-century Londoners and on prices and wages, derived from
the researches of Nancy Adamson, Mark Benbow, and Steve
Rappaport, and several collections concerning London merchants of
the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It is
clearly time to undertake a new survey of such material and to
provide some commonly available tools, such as a geographical
information system for London before 1870, which would facilitate
its future investigation.
During the Summer of 1996, the Centre's long association with
the Virtual Teaching Collection project (VTC) came to fruition.
Our use of the VTC computer program developed in Cambridge, as
described below, has been an experiment in the deployment of a
database of images and text, incorporating findings from the
'Skilled Workforce' project and from the 'Social and Economic
Study of Medieval London', along with many images supplied by the
Museum of London and others in the exposition of an historical
theme. The product serves simultaneously as a form of publication
for a set of ideas concerning early modern London, and as a
reference and research tool which can be used by students and
teachers to develop their own ideas and interpretations. It is
not clear how the world of multi-media, databases, and
geographical information systems will develop over the next few
years, but whatever the outcome it is certain to influence ways
of thinking about and presenting information and ideas on
metropolitan history.
One innovation in the course of the year was the study days
aimed primarily at graduate students on topics related to
research undertaken at the Centre. The aim is to confront
students with cutting-edge historical interpretations and
methods, and to promote debate. While the students seemed to
require some initial prodding to attend, their interest was
quickly engaged and the two days held in 1996 can be judged a
success. Themes covered were 'Demography, environment, and social
change in Victorian London' and 'Markets, consumers and traders
in medieval London and its region'. At least one further study
day, on the theme of 'Business districts and architecture in the
nineteenth century city', is planned for 1997.
The Seminar in Metropolitan History took as its theme for the
year 'Writing metropolitan history', the core papers being
contributed by the five authors of the chapters on London for the
forthcoming Cambridge Urban History of Britain. Other
speakers tackled Rome, Chicago, English urban history seen from a
German point of view, and the ways in which London artists of the
1980s and 1990s have portrayed their city.
During the year the proceedings of the 1995 meeting of the
Anglo-French working group on Paris and London during the Middle
Ages, which dealt with the provisioning of the two cities, were
published in Franco-British Studies. The theme of the
meeting held in June 1996 was 'Work in progress' and included
contributions from graduate students. Meetings were planned for
the next three years. The first two, to be held successively at
the Guildhall Library and the Archives Nationales, will be
practical sessions at which documents will be displayed and
historians and archivists will discuss their significance and the
ways in which they can be used for research. The third meeting
will focus on the substantial comparative theme 'structures et
modalités du pouvoir'. Attempts are being made to replicate the
London/Paris model with other metropolises. Thus in 1997 a
meeting will be held with the Institute of Urban History in
Stockholm with a view to comparing the long-term development of
Stockholm and London as metropolises and the experiences of the
two cities in terms of health and environment.
The Centre promoted or helped to promote several conferences
during the year. A one-day conference on 'Market networks in the
London region', described below, was intended to develop the
ideas of the research project on that theme. The Centre also
organised contributions to the third meeting of the international
seminar on 'Les étrangers et la ville: les modalités
d'implantation dans l'espace physique urbain' held in Venice in
June 1995, the proceedings of which are now being prepared for
publication. The major conference event of the year was 'Archives
and the Metropolis', held at the Barbican Centre, London, and
organised in conjunction with the three record offices maintained
by the Corporation of London. Papers ranged from ancient Athens
to Moscow in the late twentieth-century, and successfully
addressed such fundamental cultural issues as why cities have
created archives, what form they took, what the records have
meant to their users, who had access to them, and the physical
surroundings (including buildings and furnishings) in which they
have been kept. Important political points also emerged,
concerning, for example, the role of archive policies in the
functioning of urban democracies and the significance of local
records in circumstances when those of the state are defective
(as in the case of SÆo Paulo). Especially interesting was the
contrast between the strong communal tradition of record keeping
in European cities (and to some extent also in Tokyo), and the
much more fragmented and contesting (but often equally effective)
systems which characterise the cities of the United States. It is
intended to publish the proceedings of the conference during
1997.
Apart from his contributions to the Centre's projects, the
Director's own research this year has been concerned with the
urban systems of south eastern England up to 1540, towns and
trade in eleventh- and twelfth-century Europe, and the long-term
development of metropolises particularly with a view to
comparison between England and Japan. He contributed to a number
of BBC programmes on aspects of London and metropolitan history
and also 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 as well as
the visiting fellows. Visitors from outside the British Isles
included those from Austria, Canada, France, Hungary, Italy,
Japan, Russia, and the USA. We look forward to developing and
enlarging these contacts and programmes associated with them in
the future.
[1988-9
[1989-90 Report]
[1990-1 Report]
[1991-2 Report]
[1992-3 Report]
[1993-4 Report]
[1994-5 Report]
[1996-7 Report]
[1997-8 Report]
[10th Anniversary Conference]
[Back to Contents]
2. PROJECT REPORTS
i MARKET NETWORKS IN THE LONDON REGION: THE TRADE IN AGRARIAN
PRODUCE, c.1400
London's pervasive impact was a fundamental characteristic of
medieval England. It was apparent in politics, in culture, and in
the development of agrarian production, but perhaps nowhere more
so than in the formation of networks of trade. This 30-month
project seeks to reconstruct the operation of market networks in
the London region in the period c.1375-1425, with particular
emphasis upon the capital's role as a market for agrarian
produce. In doing so it examines the role of market towns in a
ten-county study region surrounding the capital, both as elements
within London-focused commercial networks and as centres of local
trade serving more restricted rural hinterlands. Consideration is
also given to longer-distance linkages and to London's regional
and national role as a centre for the redistribution of imported
and manufactured goods. In practice it is impossible to identify
the commodities which were the subject of the commercial
transactions recorded in many of the sources, and so an overview
of the entire system is essential, within which to place the
activities of particular trading sectors.
During the second year of funding substantial progress has
been made. Collection of data has been completed, analysis is
well advanced, and a structure for the book which will
encapsulate the results has been drawn up. In the first year of
the project data on debt litigation had been collected from
sample rolls of the Court of Common Pleas (CCP) in the Public
Record Office, and the collection of material from local court
series had begun. A substantial editing exercise on the CCP data
has now been completed, including the addition of grid references
to the 8,000 debt records contained in a dBaseIV database.
Collection of local material was continued and completed during
the year, involving visits to 15 different archives and taking
the number of towns for which data has been collected to 34. Data
was collected by hand, and subsequently entered into a database.
In addition, samples of the voluminous Colchester court rolls
were obtained as microfilm copies.
The towns for which data has been collected range from
important regional and industrial centres, including Colchester
and Canterbury, to small market towns like Tring (Herts) and
Dorking (Surrey). The information available for individual towns
varies widely in quantity and quality, and bears no necessary
relation to the size or importance of the places concerned.
Variations in recording practice and record survival have a
decisive impact on the material available for analysis, and must
be constantly borne in mind when comparisons between towns are
undertaken. The best series of local court rolls - such as those
for Maldon in Essex - provide much detail on patterns of trade
and indebtedness, on commodities changing hands, and on the
nature of the commercial relationship between the parties.
Analysis of the frequency with which commodities were traded and
of their relative value reveals market specialisms, while the
presence of outsiders and details of their commercial activities
in market towns permits comparison of the size and shape of local
trade hinterlands, and may shed light on connections between
market towns and London. Provisional statistics on debt cases
heard in the courts of 5 small and medium-sized towns within the
study region point to some distinctive local specialisms (see
Table 1). Thus, Saffron Walden emerges as an important grain and
malt market, and one where occasional large consignments of wool
were sold, while Writtle has a concentration of trade in malt and
livestock. Kingston and Dorking also appear to have been
important as livestock markets, although the small number of
detailed cases surviving for the former town invites caution in
interpreting the evidence.
Table 1: Breakdown of debt cases by value in five towns
| % of debts by value |
Dorking |
Writtle |
Saffron
Walden |
Kingston |
Dover |
Grain
Malt
Livestock
Leather/Hides
Wool
Textiles/Clothing
Food & Drink
Wood
Cash loan
Rent, farms
Transport
Other |
8.1
2.3
22.7
1.1
0.0
0.8
3.7
5.5
5.7
24.0
0.4
25.7 |
6.5
17.6
21.0
0.3
3.2
3.3
8.1
0.3
0.7
33.8
0.4
4.8 |
17.0
16.8
9.6
2.1
24.3
1.3
1.7
6.7
1.6
0.0
0.5
18.5 |
0.6
6.0
24.7
3.5
0.0
0.0
31.2
5.5
4.6
2.4
0.7
20.8 |
6.3
1.6
13.0
4.4
0.0
18.5
3.8
3.5
5.8
8.5
2.7
31.9 |
Total
No. of detailed cases
Mean size of debt |
100.0
82
£0.67 |
100.0
122
£0.64 |
100.0
76
£0.52 |
100.0
52
£0.50 |
100.0
134
£0.79 |
This type of data will be complementary to the material
collected from the CCP. While local court series are dominated by
small debts and short-distance transactions, the CCP cases relate
to debts with a minimum value of 40s, and are often for very much
larger amounts. In terms of a theoretical model of urban
functions, the local court data relates principally to basic
'central place' functions, performed over relatively restricted
hinterlands (although the tendency to market specialisation
revealed in the table clearly reflects the presence of some cases
involving extra-local trade). Those in the CCP, by contrast, have
a greater tendency to reflect 'higher-order' functions performed
over more extensive territories, and can also illustrate
crosscurrents of extra-local trade in higher-valued goods, and
wholesale transactions. Some of these ideas, which in part derive
from that body of geographical work known as central place
theory, were explored in a workshop on 'Market networks in the
metropolitan region of medieval England', based upon the work of
the project. The workshop, which was held in July, was attended
by over 20 scholars with research interests in medieval and early
modern trade, and proved a valuable forum for the discussion of
methodological and substantive issues.
Analysis and mapping of the CCP material is now well advanced
and, as expected, is shedding much light upon the London-focused
trade networks of later medieval England. Residences and debt
connections of such groups as 'maltmen' - dealers in the malt
required by London brewers - and cattle drovers is in part
confirming and in part adding to our knowledge of the systems of
supply which served the capital. The maltmen were active in
Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and northern Buckinghamshire,
counties which previous work has shown to be specialised
producers of barley. Towns such as Enfield, Barnet and Watford,
located some 15-30km from London, appear to have acted as bases
for dealers in malt, who probably obtained their supplies from
further north. There is evidence that the cattle drovers who
based their activities in London and the surrounding counties had
wider links, stretching into the west midlands and perhaps into
Wales, prefiguring developments of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Much valuable information on the London distributive
trades is also emerging from analysis of the CCP database. Debt
connections of London grocers, mercers, skinners and others point
to widespread commercial linkages, extending throughout England
(and beyond) but with distinctive patterns of regional
specialisation. The grocers, for example, are frequently owed
money by dyers resident in some of the major cloth-making centres
of southern and midland England, such as Salisbury and Coventry
(see Fig. 1). These debts probably relate to the provision of
dyestuffs imported through the capital, a trade in which the
London grocers are known to have been major participants. The
concentration in north-central Essex of defendants answering debt
pleas brought by London grocers may reflect similar linkages with
that region's cloth-making industry.
Fig. 1. The
residence of debtors in CCP pleas brought by London grocers for
Michaelmas terms 1384, 1403 and 1424.
It includes all debts 'laid' within London and the ten counties of the study region (untinted on the map), and therefore is to some degree spatially biased against other regions of England. in practice, however, the great maj
ority of the debts were laid in London, rather than in the county of the debtor's residence, so the bias is probably minimal and the distribution canbe taken as a fairly accurate reflection of the geographical spread of grocers' economic interests. We are
grateful to prof. Marjorie McIntosh of the University of Colorado for allowing use to use her Mapinfo-compatible map of historic county boundaries for England.
In addition to the CCP and local court debt material, data has
been collected from a range of London sources, principally the
published Calendars of Letter Books and Plea and
Memoranda Rolls. These sources provide valuable additional
insights into the economy of the capital and its interaction with
the market towns of its hinterland. Traders bringing foodstuffs
and fuel into the city frequently appear in these sources,
charged with breaches of regulations regarding weights and
measures or prices. Among the groups encountered are the
'colliers', sellers of charcoal, who brought their wares into
London by packhorse from Croydon, Hatfield and similarly-located
market towns. These sources thus provide further evidence of the
existence of a group of small 'satellite' towns around London,
which acted as gathering-points for produce destined for
consumption within the capital.
In December 1995 a meeting was held with the project's
advisers, who also participated in the July workshop. Contacts
have also been maintained via email with the advisers, and with a
group of other scholars researching into medieval trade and
related subjects. In addition to the papers delivered at the
workshop, preliminary results from the project were presented at
the International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Michigan in
May, at the annual meeting of historians working on medieval
London and Paris held in London in June, at the History and
Computing conference held in London in July, and at the annual
meeting of the Economic History Association in San Francisco in
September.
This 30-month project is funded by the Leverhulme Trust.
[1993-4 Report]
[1994-5 Report]
[1996-7 Report]
[10th Anniversary Conference]
[Metropolitan Market Networks]
[Publications arising from project]
[Back to Contents]
ii THE SKILLED WORKFORCE IN EARLY MODERN LONDON: AN IMAGE
DATABASE
This project is an experiment in developing and demonstrating
the uses of multi-media databases in university training and
research, and is also intended to encourage the use of museum
artefact collections in exploring historical and archaeological
questions. It does this by using some of the findings of the
Centre's research into 'The rise of the skilled workforce in
London, 1500-1750'. The database thus also serves as an
experimental form of publication of those findings.
The software used by the project was developed by the 'Virtual
Teaching Collection' (VTC) consortium based at the Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, and funded
by the Higher Education Funding Council under its 'Teaching and
Technology in Further Education' programme. Once developed, the
software (CabiNET) was distributed to the members of the
consortium acting as evaluation sites for the system - the Centre
for Advanced Studies in Computer-Aided Art and Design, Middlesex
University; the Whipple Museum, Cambridge; Department of
Archaeology, University of Glasgow; the Museum of the History of
Science, Oxford University; and the Centre for Metropolitan
History - to produce their own databases for use in teaching and
research.
With additional funding from the Renaissance Trust to meet
labour and image collection costs, the 'Skilled Workforce'
database is designed to provide an introduction to the history of
the metropolis during the period c.1500-c.1800,
using the rich resources of London's archives and museums to help
students both to understand the dynamics behind London's growth
as a manufacturing centre, and to help them to pose their own
questions about the nature of the historical evidence available.
CabiNET (based on the Power Macintosh platform) incorporates
an image compression facility which reduces the amount of RAM and
storage required by the computer, enabling hundreds of images to
be stored in a database and thereby increasing the ease and speed
of access to a wealth of information. Both the Museum of London
and the Central Slide Library at Birkbeck College have allowed
the project extensive access to their collections of images.
Images have been digitised from slides on to PhotoCD, or scanned
using a flatbed scanner, and input into CabiNET via Adobe
Photoshop 3.0.
Fig. 2. The 'Skilled Workforce'
image database: The collection can be browsed by paging through these thumbnail images (picons). The full-sized images are viewed by double-clicking on the appropriate picon.
The Skilled Workforce database at present consists of some 450
items relating to the industries and crafts in early modern
London - images of artefacts, illustrations from contemporary
sources of manufacturing processes and workplaces, contemporary
charts, maps and plans, texts of inventories, lists of craftsmen
and inventions over the period, descriptions of particular
occupations, and datasets extracted from the 1666 Hearth Tax, the
1691/2 Poll Tax and other taxation records. (The system has also
been designed to cope with audio and video input, although the
project has yet to make use of this facility.)
Each item is accompanied by information relating to its
source, date, location, industry, name of craftsman, author, or
artist, theme, and short commentary. The database can be searched
or sorted on any of these variables so that, for example, the
user can select examples of ceramics produced at a particular
date, or explore a particular theme such as depictions of work,
communication or architecture. Links between items can also be
made: for example, a diagram of the pile driver designed by
watchmaker James Vanloue and used in the construction of
Westminster Bridge (illustrated in the CMH Annual Report for
1994-5), can be linked with plans and images of Westminster
Bridge and also with items relating to watchmaking or
engineering. When an item is selected, a palette showing
thumbnail images of other items linked with it appears and full
images can be selected at will. Introductory essays on 'the
growth of the skilled workforce', 'metropolitan growth', 'public
science' have also been written as starting points for using the
database - by clicking on highlighted hypertext links the user
can examine the collection using a narrative pathway.
Fig. 3. Three of the images
on engineering contained in the database: Clockwise: pipe-boring (John Evelyn,
Sylva, 1664), a description of an engineer's qualities (James Campbell,
The London Tradesmen), and water pumping (Universal Dictionary of Arts
and Sciences, 1747)
CabiNET is designed to be open-ended. Searches of the database
can be used to create the user's own collection or database for
use, say, as a slide show during a lecture - images can be
magnified and several images can appear on screen at any one time
(see Fig. 3). Using the simple, intuitive authoring tools, users
can also incorporate their own links and write texts, thus
creating their own mini-encyclopedia.
A prototype of the system was recently tested by Dr Vanessa
Harding of the History Department at Birkbeck College, in the
context of an M.A. course in London Studies. The feedback from Dr
Harding and the students on the course has been encouraging and
the comments and suggestions for improvement will be used by the
consortium if plans to develop the software commercially are
successful.
The Skilled Workforce database will be completed shortly and
will contain around 700 items. Although use is currently limited
because of copyright restrictions, the system is available for
demonstration or consultation at the Centre.
This eight-month project is funded by the Renaissance Trust
and the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
[Skilled Workforce project]
[Publications arising from project]
[Back to Contents]
iii ENGLISH MERCHANT CULTURE: THE OVERSEAS TRADER IN STATE AND
SOCIETY 1660-1720
London has always been at root a city of merchants. Beginning
in October 1995, this 36-month project aims to examine the
political and social impact of the overseas trader in a period of
massive expansion for English commerce. Recent research has
accorded increasing importance to the merchants, but there has
yet to be any in-depth analysis of their contribution to a
changing polity. Thus, as a priority the first year of research
has been designed to study the internal workings of mercantile
society, with particular emphasis on London, in order to
establish the distinctive role of the overseas trader within the
state. Much progress has been made towards that end, and
substantial evidence gained of the ways in which merchants could
influence politics and society.
Immediate objectives centred on the compilation of a database
of merchant careers, and an investigation of the institutions and
public spaces frequented by overseas traders. Most of the year
has been consumed with the database, which is based upon the
Centre for Metropolitan History's computerized version of the
London poll tax of 1691/2. This tax return has an especial
advantage for the project since it identifies 856 merchants
within the City, by far the nation's premier commercial forum,
and supplies their addresses, family structure and tax liability.
The project has sought to build upon this information by tracing
the familial, business, religious and political connections which
enabled the mercantile world to function. Most importantly, the
scale of the sample permits effective analysis of the overseas
trader across three generations, and thus will cover fully the
period 1660-1720.
Research so far has been confined within London, in particular
the civic and parish records in the Corporation of London Records
Office and the Guildhall Library. Livery and trading company
archives have proved especially useful for delineating career
paths and assessing the impact of commercial groups, while some
350 wills at the Public Record Office have provided invaluable
information concerning mercantile associations. Together with
inventories, monumental inscriptions, and other personal records,
the London archives have provided a much fuller picture of
mercantile society. To date some 10,000 data entries have been
added to the database, and twenty new fields included, covering
all aspects of merchant life, from background to status at death,
through marriage, trade associations and office-holding.
The patterns emerging from the research raise significant
issues for our understanding of commercial society in post-1660
England. The database confirms the findings of historians who
have stressed the familial orientation of mercantile life, but
also reveals the importance of the web of connections which
facilitated each individual's trading ventures, and opened up
possibilities for social and political advancement. Although
contemporaries attacked merchants for marshalling themselves into
monolithic 'interests', overseas traders were principally
organized into small cartels, the strength of which can be
measured by indices such as intermarriage, religion and
topographical proximity. However, they could combine to present a
more united front through the agency of certain individuals or
corporate bodies, and the importance of several of these
'brokers' of mercantile activity has yet to be acknowledged, in
particular the livery companies. Thus, research into individual
career paths has helped to re-evaluate the workings of the
institutions which provided structures for both personal and
general mercantile development. Furthermore, concentration on the
100 merchants who undertook civic office has highlighted the true
significance of the elite traders who dominated certain
commercial spheres, or who had extensive interests in several
trades, and thus could act effectively as a representative for
general merchant interests. Even while acknowledging the
importance of such leaders, however, it must be stressed that all
overseas traders were political animals by nature, and initial
analysis of mercantile petitions to Parliament and other
authorities has revealed their active involvement in the affairs
of state.
The database has also highlighted the importance of
foreign-born traders in late-seventeenth century London, with 21
per cent of the sample new to the country and a further 6 per
cent of second- or third-generational status. Ethnic groups were
the most coherent mercantile 'communities' within the capital,
and the international dimensions of their familial-religious
networks underpinned the great success of Jewish, Huguenot and
Dutch settlers in this period. Certain native merchants, such as
the Quakers, emulated these close-knit societies, as well as
their business achievements, and stand as testament to the
distinctive qualities of merchant life within contemporary
society. More generally, research into personal records has
suggested that merchants judged themselves by the standards of
their own urban environment, rather than those of the predominant
gentle ethos of contemporary society.
Such findings concerning the role of the merchant in public
life have been endorsed by an extensive trawl of mercantile
literature, ranging from didactic handbooks, to economic tracts,
to the innovative weekly publications devoted to trade. All
demonstrate an increasing perception of the importance of
overseas trade to national benefit, even if the social and
political consequences of commercial aggrandizement might be
unwelcome in some genteel quarters. Indeed, the period saw the
apotheosis of the merchant as a public-spirited patriot in the
works of Defoe, Steele and Addison, and the next six months of
research will be devoted to analysis of the practical effect of
such attitudes in the political world. Mercantile lobbying and
legislation will reveal much about the socio-political success of
the merchant in Augustan England, and provide further insights
into the structure of mercantile life at that time. Moreover, it
will widen the scope of the research towards the provincial
merchant, who will be the major preoccupation of the succeeding
six months.
This three-year project is funded by the Leverhulme Trust
[1994-5 Report]
[1996-7 Report]
[1997-8 Report]
[10th Anniversary Conference]
[Publications arising from project]
[Back to Contents]
v MORTALITY IN THE METROPOLIS 1860-1920
The 'Mortality in the Metropolis' project has reached an
intriguing stage. With a full complement on board _ Andrea Tanner
joined Graham Mooney and Bill Luckin in January 1996 -_ the
emphasis is now shifting from the descriptive to the explanatory.
Working towards that transition has been an exciting, surprising
and at times anxiety-inducing experience. The major problem
confronting the team has been how best to cope with the
'institutional factor'. Late nineteenth- century London was the
most socially, economically and occupationally complex city in
the world. Thus in terms of residential structure the decennial
Census provides no more than a still-life approximation to
astonishingly high levels of intra-urban mobility. Analogously,
cause-specific death-rates were heavily skewed by significant
levels of 'in-migration' to a wide range of institutions -
hospitals, workhouses and charities - within individual
registration districts. Since mid-century the Registrar-General
had been aware of the extent of the problem, but only in the
period after 1885 did annual and decennial Reports redistribute
those who had ended their days in a hospital or comparable
institution back to their 'normal place of residence'.
The team has undertaken a major survey of hospital, workhouse
and Metropolitan Asylum Board records for these 'hidden years'
between 1860 and 1885. Some of this material proved to be close
to the point of archival extinction: admissions and death
registers for Guy's Hospital at the Greater London Record Office
requiring especially careful handling. At St Bartholomew's, on
the other hand, comparable material proved to be in excellent
condition and readily provided the researcher with a bird's-eye
view of the hospital and its constituency; the social and
occupational characteristics of the area in which it was located;
and changing attitudes towards internal administrative
organisation, disease categorisation and treatment. A cluster of
institutions - notably the Charing Cross, Westminster and St
George's hospitals - proved to be the social-historical
equivalent to astronomical black holes: the closer one moved
towards the core, the less visible it became. Eventually the team
decided that it must work to a clearly defined deadline.
Otherwise the redistribution exercise might continue
indefinitely, diminishing returns set in, and valuable time be
expended on describing rather than explaining patterns of
cause-specific mortality. Different methods of dealing with the
'problem hospitals' situated at the very heart of the city were
evaluated. A number of heroic assumptions were floated,
criticised and modified. Finally, Graham Mooney felt confident
that a reliable and intellectually credible global solution to
the problem had emerged. At the time of writing, he is preparing
to print out corrected death-rates for the 'dark years' between
1860 and 1885. An article describing the tortuous route followed
in order to solve a seemingly intractable problem is currently
being prepared.
Fig.4 From the Registrar-General's Annual Report, 1860
During the Spring of 1996 it was possible to employ Patsy
Tuck, who under Graham Mooney's direction compiled a database
from the detailed returns for London that were made during the
cholera epidemic of 1866. Unlike most sources of statistics
available to the project, these returns provide the normal place
of residence, age, gender, occupation, and perceived causes of
death of those who died during the period, of all causes as well
as cholera. The database will serve as a valuable baseline for
the study.
Meanwhile, further progress has been made with the area
studies of Hackney and Kensington. Working papers have revealed
that the former community was characterised by high levels of
anxiety in relation to perceived threat of 'invasion' by migrants
from the poorest sections of the East End. Vestry members and
public health officials were clearly determined to ensure that a
'once rural community' should maintain its creditable position in
the league-table of metropolitan death rates. Kensington
possessed a more extensive network of charities, and, measured
according to numbers of resident general practitioners, greater
access to medical care. But, as in Hackney, the social and
medico-environmental elites appear to have been constantly aware
of the existence of high levels of poverty both among those who
serviced the needs of the affluent and an increasingly prominent
manufacturing sector to the north of the district. The next step,
in relation to the area studies, will be to explore the local
press and other source materials likely to throw light on the
status and funding of public health intervention.
'The Little Mourner' by Frederick Sandys (English Sacred Poetry, 1862)
A start has been made on research into a 'middle tier' of
districts - Greenwich, St George in the East and St George
Hanover Square - that are intermediate between the capital as a
whole and the districts selected for area study investigation.
These localities are being probed with an eye to sources that may
later be needed in relation to the explanatory models to be
applied to the central dataset. A working paper on Greenwich has
recently been completed.
The team has disseminated its results in a wide range of fora.
Bill Luckin and Graham Mooney have written a methodological
article to published shortly in Urban History and Graham
Mooney has papers forthcoming in Medical History and
Social History of Medicine. Bill Luckin has three articles on
issues closely connected to the main concerns of the project
either forthcoming or in the press. A collective presentation
will be given at the Metropolitan History Seminar in February and
to the annual conference of the Society for the Social History of
Medicine in Liverpool in September 1997. A workshop will be held
at the Centre early in 1997 with Professor Robert Millward and Ms
Frances Bell of the Department of History, University of
Manchester. They are working on the relationship between
municipal expenditure and the late nineteenth-century mortality
decline.
This 33-month project is funded by the Wellcome Trust.
[1994-5 Report]
[1996-7 Report]
[1997-8 Report]
[10th Anniversary Conference]
[Publications arising from project]
[Back to Contents]
vi BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND INFORMATION SERVICES
Heather Creaton, the Centre's Deputy Director, is responsible
for this aspect of its activities. Her annotated bibliography London
(World Bibliographical Series, vol.189) was published by Clio
Press in September 1996. It deals with many sides of London life
including economic, geographic, touristic, architectural,
literary and social aspects as well as historical ones.
a) BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRINTED WORKS ON LONDON HISTORY TO 1939
The supplement to the volume published in 1994, listing books
and articles that have appeared since 1990, is being maintained
and now contains over 3,000 references. The editor will be glad
to search the database on behalf of enquirers looking for recent
publications. Preparation of this ten-year supplement is greatly
assisted by the generous co-operation of Guildhall Library and
Bishopsgate Institute Library, whose staff supply details of
their relevant new acquisitions to the editor.
[1988-9 Report]
[1989-90 Report]
[1990-1 Report]
[1991-2 Report]
[1992-3 Report]
[1993-4 Report]
[1994-5 Report]
[1996-7 Report]
[10th Anniversary Conference]
[Publications arising from project]
[Back to Contents]
b) BIBLIOGRAPHY AND GUIDE TO SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY OF LONDON
IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR
This project is now at the writing-up stage and publication is
scheduled for mid-1997. Among the talks the editor has given
about her work was one to Museum of London staff in April 1996.
The compilation has two parts:
1. The bibliography, now including nearly 750
items concerning greater London during the war years. The
fluctuating appeal of the topic is revealed by the pattern of
publication dates added to the database so far. As might be
expected, the greatest bulk of material was published during the
war itself and in the years immediately after it (31%). Interest
began to wane in the 1950s (7.5%) and reached a nadir in the
1960s (6.2%), rising through the 1970s (10%) to 23% in the 1980s.
The score for the 1990s stands at 19% at present. New titles are
still appearing but seem to have peaked with the anniversary of
VE Day (1995), since when the pace has slackened somewhat. It is
clear, however, that the subject still attracts wide interest at
all levels of historical study, from serious analysis of air raid
shelter policy and its critics, or the art market in wartime
London, to nostalgic reminiscences and books of archive
photographs.
Public pressure finally forced the Home Secretary to allow the use of deep shelters in air raids (1940)
2. The guide to sources. In a busy and interesting year's
research some record repositories have been revisited for more
details, and some fresh ones explored. The Jewish Museum in
Finchley, and the London Transport archives proved particularly
rewarding. The quantity and quality of surviving material
continues to impress, and it is hoped that the resulting guide
will encourage other historians to look again at the research
possibilities offered by these rich sources. Crime, leisure and
public health are among the fields where there is ample scope for
further investigation. Another potentially fruitful theme would
be the 'cosmopolitanisation' of London during the war years as a
result of the arrival of more refugees, several governments-in
exile and large numbers of foreign and colonial troops on leave.
London was used to foreign visitors in peace time of course, but
this sudden influx of free-spending visitors intrigued the locals
for a while, until they became used to it. Attitudes varied
widely. West End restaurants, clubs, pubs and hotels did well out
of the new arrivals, and encouraged their trade. Not everyone
approved. "Restaurants crowded; one is jostled by polyglot
strangers, starved, poisoned and cheated by the management"
grumbled Evelyn Waugh. The colourful variety of uniforms
attracted much attention and was often the subject of comment
from diarists and letter writers. It appealed to the spotter's or
collector's instinct, too - the Museum of London's ephemera
collection contains a children's cut out and fit costume book
entitled We're all in it: Mummy/Daddy puts on uniform. The
introduction begins promisingly: "Hallo children! Isn't it
exciting, nowadays, to go out and see all the different uniforms?
Some of them, worn by the men and women of our Allies, are very
strange..." However, it was the exotic allure of these
passing strangers (not unconnected with their spending power) for
the female population that caused some anxiety to the authorities
and to absent husbands. Mass Observation's reporters encountered
a 22 year old blonde in a pub. Her husband was an Army private.
She and a girlfriend now spent their weekends up from Tottenham,
having a good time in the West End picking up Americans and
Canadians who would give them presents. "She would be
horrified and angry if she were suspected of accepting money from
them, but she laughs about the presents of American sweets,
biscuits and silk stockings that they can procure for her".
But there was professional competition, some of it from more
foreigners. The Public Morality Council's inspector commented in
1941 on "the many Frenchwomen who are plying their calling
in Bond Street, Piccadilly, ... and the many streets in that
neighbourhood". And, inevitably, some international
relationships ended in tragedy. Metropolitan Police files report
the sad case of a young Polish lieutenant who shot himself and
his English lover, a married woman, in Hyde Park, in 1942. They
both left notes. His, for the police, made it clear that they had
run out of money and were at the end of their tether. Hers, for
her mother, said "...he says he cannot live without me in
the awful place where his Regiment is. He threatens all the time
to kill himself and me. I love him, but don't want to
die..." Fortunately, this was not typical. As a group,
refugees sometimes met a mixed reception, though plenty of
suburban communities, like the parishioners of St Barnabas,
Dulwich (whose parish magazine survives at the Greater London
Record Office) tried to make them welcome with tea parties,
English classes and a social club. In general, the whole wartime
influx began to break down some of the ingrained insularity among
Londoners and the British as a whole. There are ample sources for
a detailed study of this, as of so many other subjects and the
guide will draw attention to them.
The themes of continuing tourism and the spy scare are neatly combined (1941)
[1993-4 Report]
[1994-5 Report]
[1996-7 Report]
[10th Anniversary Conference]
[Publications arising from project]
[Back to Contents]
c) RESEARCH IN PROGRESS ON THE HISTORY OF
LONDON
The Centre continues to record information about current work
on London history, and a list of research in progress will appear
in the London Journal Vol. XXII no.1 (1997). It is difficult to
be comprehensive and the information in such lists becomes
outdated very quickly; so corrections and additions for future
supplements would be most welcome.
[Research in Progress database]
[Back to Contents]
APPENDICES
I
PATRONS
Chairman
SIR KIT MCMAHON
MR WILLIAM DAVIS
SIR 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.)
B. BRODT, M.A., Ph.D, Research Fellow, German Historical
Institute, London (from 1 August 1996)
M.J. DAUNTON, B.A., Ph.D., Astor Professor of British
History, University College London
S.R. EPSTEIN, M.A., Ph.D., Lecturer in Economic History,
London School of Economics
E. GREEN, B.A., Archivist, Midland Bank plc
J. HANSON, B.A., Ph.D., Bartlett School of Architecture
(from 1 August 1996)
V.A. HARDING, M.A., Ph.D., Lecturer in London History,
Birkbeck College
A. HARDY, M.A., D.Phil., Lecturer, Wellcome Institute for
the History of Medicine, London
L.V. MARKS, B.A., D.Phil., Lecturer in the History of
Medicine, Imperial College, London
N. MERRIMAN, M.A., Ph.D., Curator, Early Department,
Museum of London (to 31 July 1996)
R. ORESKO, Ph.D. Research Fellow, Institute of Historical
Research (to 31 July 1996)
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
C. ROSS, B.A., Ph.D., Curator, Later Department, Museum of
London (from 1 August 1996)
A.L. SAUNDERS, Ph.D, FSA, London Topographical Society
H. SOUTHALL, B.A., Ph.D., Lecturer in Geography, Queen
Mary and Westfield College (to 31 July 1996)
J.M. WINTER, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Fellow, Pembroke College,
Cambridge
[Back to Contents]
III
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.
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)
Borough Market Privileges in Southern England, c.1370-1430
(from 8 July to 8 October 1996)
Research Assistant: HANNES KLEINEKE, M.A. (London)
The Skilled Workforce in Early Modern London: an Image
Database (from 15 March to 15 November 1996)
Researcher: MICHAEL BERLIN, B.A. (Kent)
English Merchant Culture: the Overseas Trader in State
and Society 1660-1720 (from 1 October 1995)
Researcher: PEREGRINE GAUCI, B.A., M.Phil., D.Phil.
(Oxford)
Mortality in the Metropolis, 1860-1920
Team Leader: WILLIAM E. LUCKIN, B.A. (Oxford),
M.Sc. (London)
Researchers: GRAHAM P. MOONEY, B.A., Ph.D.
(Liverpool); ANDREA I. TANNER, B.A. (Strathclyde), M.A.
(Warwick), Ph.D. (London) (from 1 January 1996)
Research Assistant: PATSY PINEDO TUCK, B.A.
(Surrey) (from 10 June to 9 August 1996)
MICHAEL BERLIN's main research interest is in the public
rituals of early modern towns. He also teaches at Birkbeck
College's Centre for Extra-mural Studies and at Middlesex
University. HEATHER CREATON runs a regular introductory course
for new postgraduate students as well as doing her
bibliographical and information work. She is Vice-Chairman of the
British Records Association, and Hon. Secretary of the London
Record Society. JIM GALLOWAY's main research interests lie within
medieval historical geography and economic history, including
migration, urban development and trade. His Ph.D. thesis examined
the Colchester region 1310-1560. From 1988 to 1994 he was a
researcher on the CMH 'Feeding the City' projects. PERRY GAUCI's
current research interests are centred on the political
development of the localities of early modern England. He also
teaches at Wadham College, Oxford. 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 and is a member of the International
Commission for the History of Towns and of the Fabric Committee
of St Paul's Cathedral. He is also a trustee of the London
Journal. 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. GRAHAM MOONEY is interested in the
demographic history of London, but in particular the effects of
public health intervention on mortality and illness. Following
her work on the Feeding the City project, MARGARET MURPHY is
engaged in research on urban provisioning and regional trade. She
is also maintaining her interests in medieval Irish history
through recent conference papers and teaching. 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. ANDREA
TANNER is a part-time tutor at Birkbeck College Extra-Mural
Department, a member of the Advisory Council on Public Records,
and is Vice-president of the Friends of the Public Record Office.
[Back to Contents]
IV
VISITING RESEARCH FELLOWS
BERNARD P. ATTARD, B.A., M.A., D.Phil. (Lecturer,
University of New England, Australia) 'The jobbing system of
the London Stock Exchange'
IAIN S. BLACK, B.A., Ph.D. (Lecturer, Cheltenham and
Gloucester College of Higher Education) 'Financial
headquarters/Textile marketing district'
WILLIAM E. LUCKIN, B.A., M.Sc. (Professor, Bolton
Institute) 'Mortality in the Metropolis'
GRAHAM I. TWIGG, B.Sc., Ph.D. 'Epidemics and the plague in
London'
[Back to Contents]
V
POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS
LIEN BICH LUU, B.A. (Sussex), 'Skills and innovations: a
study of the stranger working community in London, 1550-1600'
(Ph.D.)
PAULA MARBER, B.A. (Middlesex), 'The impact of office
development in late Victorian London on the growing band of
office workers' (M.Phil.)
STEPHEN G. PRIESTLEY, B.A. (Cambridge), 'Piety and charity
in early medieval London: a study of the foundation and
endowment of religious houses and hospitals in London and its
environs c. 1100-1230' (M.Phil./Ph.D.)
[Back to Contents]
VI
CONFERENCE AND SEMINAR PAPERS
Michael Berlin:
'Civic ceremony in Renaissance London', at 'La ville à la
Renaissance - Espaces-Representations-Pouvoirs', Colloque
International d'Etudes Humanistes, Centre d'Etudes
Superieures de la Renaissance, Université François
Rabelais, Tours, France, July 1996.
Jim Galloway:
'The market system in London's hinterland c.1400', at the
third meeting of the Anglo-French Study Group on Medieval
London and Medieval Paris, London, June 1996;
'Mapping a medieval economy: producers, consumers and
markets in the London region c.1400', at the UK Association
for History and Computing Conference, Queen Mary College,
London, July 1996;
'Markets, and systems of markets' and 'Markets and
specialisation', both at the Market Systems in the
Metropolitan Region of Medieval England workshop, London,
July 1996;
'Market networks in the London region', at the Economic
History Association conference, Berkeley, USA, September 1996
Jim Galloway and Margaret Murphy (delivered by R. Britnell):
'Market networks in the London region c.1400', at
the International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, Michigan,
USA, May 1996
Derek Keene:
'Metal working in medieval London: an historian's view',
Historical Metal-working Conference British Museum, January
1996
'Archives and the metropolis: a cultural issue', Archives
and the Metropolis conference, Barbican Centre, London, July
1996
'Fire in London: destruction and reconstruction 982-1676',
International Commission for the History of Towns, University
of Bern, September 1996
Bill Luckin:
'The Doom of a Great City: London's Fog Problem
1870-1914', Society for the History of Technology, London,
August, 1996
'The Social Construction of a London Fog Problem
1800-1870', European Conference on Urban History, Budapest,
September, 1996
'Mortality in the Metropolis 1860-1920: a progress
report', Bolton Institute, Humanities Research Seminar,
November, 1996
Graham Mooney:
'Childhood smallpox mortality, vaccination and the
administrative centralisation of Victorian London' at
'Childhood health, sickness and mortality: past and present',
British Society for Population Studies, January 1996
'Public health versus private practice: compulsory
infectious disease notification in England in the nineteenth
century', Graduate Programme in Population Studies,
University of Liverpool, March 1996
'Mortality in the Metropolis in the 19th and early 20th
centuries', Association for History and Computing Annual
Conference, Queen Mary College, London, July 1996
'The development of compulsory infectious disease
notification in England in the nineteenth century', 21st
Annual Conference of the Social Science History Association,
New Orleans, USA, October 1996
Margaret Murphy:
'London and its market area(s) c.1400 - a
"metropolitan system?"', at the Market Systems in
the Metropolitan Region of Medieval England workshop, London,
July 1996
Stephen Priestley:
'Charity, piety and patronage in twelfth-century London',
at the third meeting of the Anglo-French Study Group on
Medieval London and Medieval Paris, London, June 1996
[Back to Contents]
VII
PUBLICATIONS
Iain S. BLACK, 'Symbolic Capital: the London and
Westminster Bank headquarters, 1836-38', Landscape
Research, 21 (1996), pp.55-72.
Michael BERLIN, A Short History of the Company of
Distillers (Chichester: Phillimore, 1996), 98pp.
Michael BERLIN, 'History Workshop: history beyond the
academy', European Review of History, July 1996,
pp.131-36.
Heather CREATON, London (World Bibliographical
Series, Vol. 189; Oxford: Clio Press, 1996), xxxi, 168pp.
James A. GALLOWAY, 'London's grain supply: changes in
production, distribution and consumption during the
fourteenth century', Franco-British Studies, 20
(1996), pp.23-34.
James A. GALLOWAY (with Ian Murray), 'Scottish migration
to England, 1400-1560', Scottish Geographical Magazine,
112 No.1 (1996), pp.29-38.
James A. GALLOWAY, Derek KEENE and Margaret MURPHY,
'Fuelling the city: production and distribution of firewood
and fuel in London's region, 1290-1400', Economic History
Review, 49 (1996), pp.447-472.
Perry GAUCI, Politics and Society in Great Yarmouth
1660-1722 (Oxford Historical Monographs; Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1996), 299pp.
Derek KEENE, 'Textile terms and occupations in medieval
Winchester', Ler História, 20 (1996), pp.135-147.
Derek KEENE, 'The financial district of the city of
London: continuity and change, 1300-1871', in H.A. Diederiks
and D. Reeder (eds), Cities of Finance (Amsterdam:
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1996),
pp.279-302.
Lien LUU, 'Migration and change: religious refugees and
the London economy, 1550-1600', Critical Survey, 8
(1996), pp.93-102.
David MITCHELL, '"Good hot pressing is the life of
all cloth": dyeing, clothfinishing, and related textile
trades in London, 1650-1700', in H. Diederiks and M.
Balkestein (eds), Occupational titles and their
classification: the case of the textile trade in past times
(Göttingen, 1995), pp.153-175.
David MITCHELL, '"It will be easy to make
money", Merchant Strangers in London, 1580-1680', in C.
Lesger and L. Noordegraaf (eds), Entrepreneurs and
Entrepreneurship in Early Modern Times. Merchants and
Industrialists within the Orbit of the Dutch Staple Market.
Hollandse Historische Reeks 24 (The Hague, 1995), pp.
119-145.
David MITCHELL, 'Linen Damask', J. Turner (ed), The
Dictionary of Art (London, 1996), vol. 19, pp.415-419.
Graham MOONEY, 'The prevention and control of infectious
childhood diseases in late nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century London: the case of diphtheria and
measles', in M.L. Gentileschi and R. King (eds) Questioni
di Popolazione in Europa: una Prospettiva Geografica
(Associazione dei Geografi Italiani and Institute of British
Geographers; Bologna: Patron Editore, 1996), pp.255-271.
Margaret MURPHY, 'The fuel supply of medieval London,
1300-1400', Franco-British Studies, 20 (1996),
pp.85-96.
[Back to Contents]
VIII
SEMINAR ON METROPOLITAN HISTORY
October 1995-March 1996
(Wednesdays, fortnightly, 5.30 pm, at the
Institute of Historical Research)
'Writing Metropolitan History' and 'Views of
Metropolitan History'
'From lost city to capital, 600-1300', Derek Keene (CMH)
'A social and political capital, 1300-1540', Caroline
Barron (Royal Holloway, London)
'An emergent metropolis, 1540-1700', Jeremy Boulton
(University of Newcastle upon Tyne)
'London and the industrial world, 1700-1840', Leonard
Schwarz (University of Birmingham)
'World city and after', Richard Dennis (University College
London)
'Portrait of the contemporary city: palimpsest and
modernism', Mireille Galinou (Museum of London)
'English urban history: a German urban historian's view',
Bärbel Brodt (German Historical Institute)
'Pasteur's brew: energy, biotechnology, and the
industrialisation of beer in Chicago, 1850-1920', Harold
Platt (Loyola University, Chicago and University of
Manchester)
'Historians and geographers: their views of modern Rome',
John Agnew (Syracuse University and University College
London)
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IX
SOURCES OF FUNDING
Projects:
The Aurelius Trust
The Leverhulme Trust
The Renaissance Trust
The Wellcome Trust
The CMH Accounts for the year 1 August 1995-31 July 1996 are
published as part of the Accounts of the Institute of Historical
Research in the Institute's Annual Report.
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