Research for this paper was made possible by a grant from the University of Glasgow. I am indebted to Sydney G. Checkland, Anthony Slaven, and Susan Fairlie for their comments.

¹ E.g. Silberling, N. J., “British Prices and Business Cycles, 1779–1850,” Review of Economic Statistics, V (1923), pp. 232–3Google Scholar, E. B. Schumpeter, “English Prices and Public Finance, 1660–1822,” Ibid., XX (Feb. 1938), p. 35, Rousseaux, P., Les Mouvements de Fond de l'Economie Anglaise, 1800–1913 (Louvain, 1938), pp. 260–3Google Scholar, Gayer, A. D., Rostow, W. W., and Schwartz, A. J., The Growth and Fluctuation of the British Economy, 1790–1850, I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953), pp. 468–70Google Scholar.

² Schumpeter, p. 21.

³ Deane, P. & Cole, W. A., British Economic Growth, 1688–1959 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), p. 12Google Scholar.

⁴ P.P., Accts. & P., Return of the Quartern Loaf of Wheaten Bread, X. Feb. 22, 1815, 1814–1915Google Scholar.

⁵ P.P., Accts. & P., Return … XLIX March 4, 1814, 1834Google Scholar.

⁶ “Price of the Quartern Fine Loaf at the following various periods from 1788 to October 1834,” Incorporation of Bakers Records, Glasgow City Archives, T-TH-7.

⁷ London bread prices also appear in Mitchell, B. R. and Deane, P., Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), pp. 497–8Google Scholar, but the precise quality of the loaf used in this series (whether “wheaten” or “household”) is not clarified.

⁸ Prices were for a fine wheaten loaf made from first quality flour, and weighing 4 lb. 5 oz. 8 dr.

⁹ Glasgow Burgh Records, Jan. 29, 1801, in Renwick, R. (ed.), Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow, IX (Glasgow, 1914), p. 214Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Cleland, J., Annals of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1816), p. 510Google Scholar. Although the assize was discontinued, the bakers were required to adhere to the loaf weights formerly fixed by the magistrates.

¹¹ See, for example, Gilboy's cost-of-living and Schumpeter's consumers’ goods indices, in Schumpeter, p. 23, and the index of domestic and imported commodity prices, in Gayer, Rostow, and Schwartz, pp. 484, 510.

¹² A five-year cycle was suggested by figure 1.

¹³ Webb, S. and B., “The Assize of Bread,” Economic Journal, XIV (June 1904), pp. 201, 210Google Scholar; Stern, W. M., “The Bread Crisis in Britain, 1795–6,” Economica, New Ser., XXXI (May 1964), p. 183Google Scholar; Burnett, J., Plenty and Want (London: Nelson, 1966), p. 2Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Even in the 1830's it was stated that Glaswegians, “being long accustomed to oaten bread are just as fond of it as wheaten bread,” Evidence of Hugh Mackenzie, P.P., Select Committee on Hand-Loom Weavers' Petitions, X, 1834, Q. 773Google Scholar. The substitution of potatoes was facilitated by the cheapness of coal, see Bald, R., A General View of the Coal Trade of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1808), p. 3Google Scholar.

¹⁵ These years of acute shortage were the only ones in which London prices exceeded those in Glasgow between 1788 and 1804.

¹⁶ Glasgow's bread was dearer than that of Edinburgh and Perth, for example, because the majority of wheat consumed had either to be imported or was subject to land-carriage from the wheat-growing areas of eastern Scotland, Cleland, p. 512.

¹⁷ The probability that London, unlike Glasgow, turned first to home supplies before 1804, is suggested in figure 1 by the tendency of her prices to move upward earlier than Glasgow prices in years of home scarcity, e.g., in 1789, 1795, and 1799. After 1804, prices were affected by the Corn Law of 1804, and by the freeing of internal trade in grain through the creation of a single corn average for Great Britain and Ireland (Acts of 1805 and 1806), Galpin, W. F., The Grain Supply of England During the Napoleonic Period (New York: Macmillan, 1925), pp. 33–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fay, C. R., The Corn Laws and Social Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932), pp. 63–4Google Scholar; and, Olson, Mancur, The Economics of Wartime Shortage (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1963), pp. 58–9Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Compare, for example, prices in England and Wales, 1820–1834, P.P., Accts. & P., 1842, XL, with Lanarkshire fiars prices (includes Glasgow), Sheriff Court, Lanark, or with Haddington wheat prices, Mossman, R. C., “On the Price of Wheat at Haddington from 1627 to 1897,” Accountants’ Magazine, IV (1900), pp. 108–10Google Scholar.

¹⁹ The poorer classes were unlikely to purchase bread in such quantities, especially in Glasgow, see Cleland, p. 511.

²⁰ Stern, pp. 185–6.

²¹ Burnett, J., “The Baking Industry in the Nineteenth Century,” Business History, V (1962–1963), p. 105Google Scholar.

²² Ibid., p. 100. It was estimated that a third of London's bakers were “undersellers” by 1815.

²³ In 1792–1797, S. and B. Webb, p. 211.