1. See, for example, Baker, J. H., “Solicitors and the Law of Maintenance 1590–1640,” Cambridge Law Journal 32 (1973): 56–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Brooks, C. W., Pettyfoggers and Vipers of the Commonwealth: The ‘Lower Branch’ of the Legal Profession in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986CrossRefGoogle Scholar) passim. The Baker and Brooks bibliographies are very useful.

2. On February 13, 1739, attorneys, solicitors, and proctors from the church courts united to form the Society of Gentlemen Practisers in the Courts of Law and Equity. This society in 1831 became the Law Society, which has continued to the present as the accrediting body for solicitors. Remaining distinctions, such as they were, between attorney and solicitor were finally eliminated by the Judicature Acts of 1873.

3. See Miles, Michael, “‘Eminent Attorneys’: Some Aspects of West Riding Attorneyship c. 1750–1800” (Ph.D. diss., University of Birmingham, 1982), 100Google Scholar. This work also contains an excellent chapter on eighteenth-century “attorney” literature. For an excellent work on the attorney before the eighteenth century and popular perceptions of him, see Brooks, Pettyfoggers and Vipers. Aylett, Philip, “Attorneys and Clients in Eighteenth-Century Cheshire: A Study in Relationships, 1740–1785,” Bulletin of John Rylands Library 69 (1987): 326–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar discusses the attorney-client relationship which surely pertains in other counties. See also Holdsworth, W. S., “The Solicitors” In History of English Law 17 vols. (London, 1956), 6:448–57Google Scholar; E. B. V. Christian, A Short History of Solicitors (1896); idem, Solicitors: An Outline of their History (1925); and Kirk, Henry, Portrait of a Profession: A History of the Solicitor‘s Profession 1100 to the Present Day (London: Oyez Publishing, 1976)Google Scholar.

4. Holmes, G. S., Augustan England: Professions, State and Society, 1680–1730 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983), 13Google Scholar. See idem, “Gregory King and the Social Structure of Pre-Industrial England,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 27 (1977): 41–68.

Several older studies of the attorney for this period are Robson, Robert, The Attorney in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Birks, Michael, Gentlemen of the Law (London: Stevens & Sons, 1960)Google Scholar; Lucas, P., “Blackstone and the Reform of the Legal Profession,” English Historical Review 77 (1962)Google Scholar; and Kerr, Barbara, “Country Professions,” in The Victorian Countryside, ed. Mingay, G. E., 2 vols. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), 1: 288–99Google Scholar. More recently, see Aylett, Philip, “A Profession in the Marketplace: The Distribution of Attorneys in England and Wales 1730–1800,” Law and History Review 5 (1987): 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This article is derived from “The Distribution and Function of Attorneys in the Eighteenth Century with Special Reference to North-West England” (M. Phil, thesis University of Manchester, 1984)Google Scholar.

For other professions, see Noel and Jose Parry, The Rise of the Medical Profession (1976); O‘Day, Rosemary, “The Professions in Early Modern England,” History Today 36 (June, 1986)Google Scholar; idem, The English Clergy: the Emergence and Consolidation of a Profession 1558–1642 (Leicester, 1979); and robinson, Eric, “The Profession of Civil Engineer in the Eighteenth Century: A Portrait of Thomas Yeoman, F.R.S., 1704(?)–1781,” Annals of Science 4 (1962): 195–215CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

For the professions as part of the eighteenth-century consumer revolution, see below, note 95.

5. Michael Miles is skeptical about upward mobility of eighteenth-century attorneys. He believed that most who entered the professions were sons of gentry and “wellendowed” middling people. “‘Eminent Attorneys,’” 374. “Middling” he describes as merchants, tradesmen, retailers, yeomen freeholders and professional men. Ibid., 55. He explores this theme again in “‘A Haven for the Privileged’: Recruitment into the Profession of Attorney in England, 1709–1792,” Social History 2 (1986): 197–210Google Scholar.

6. 2 Geo. II, ch. 23, sees. 1–3, 5 (1728).

7. Miles, “‘Eminent Attorneys,’” 31. Geoffrey Holmes also discusses the harddying assumptions that attorneys could make it without much formal instruction, merely a short clerkship. See Holmes, Augustan England, 154–55.

8. The Benjamin Smiths, father and son, whose careers spanned a century from the 1750s to the 1850s, emerge principally from the Smith of Horbling Papers in the Lincolnshire Archives Office (LAO). After the death in 1959 of Francis G. Smith, Esq., the founder‘s last descendant active in the firm, the bulk of the business records were removed to the LAO, located in what was once the county prison. These two centuries of records required a van to transport and several sturdy prison cells to house them. (LAO Archivist's Report 12 (1961): 38–41Google Scholar; Ibid. 13 (1962): 32–48.)

Papers in the LAO pertaining to the affairs of Attorney Benjamin Smith:

Cash Books. This record of income and disbursements provides insight on personal matters—wife's pin money, losses at cards, livestock sales, clothing, wig and book purchases, and much more—as well as the firm's business. The entries are terse and therefore insufficiently informative were it not for the bill and debt books.

Bill and Debt Books. These, in effect, are business diaries that record in each client's account the details of the service performed, the fee charged, and the date (most often) of payment. Comparing this source with the cash books enables one to determine the details behind those cash receipts and payments associated with the firm's business.

Money Received. These detail the monies received from each client with a brief description of the services rendered and allows the possibility of computing professional income. When used in conjunction with the two above, one can ascertain annual income from legal fees and the nature of the services performed. One volume, entitled Receipts and Payments, itemizes payments as well.

Precedent Books. Prepared by William Worth, Sr., Smith's clerk and eventual partner, these books narrate intriguing legal problems that Smith resolved by obtaining expertise opinion from Lincoln's Inn.

Diverse papers. These relate to Ben Smith's manorial stewardships and lordships, his clerking for the numerous enclosure, turnpike, and fen drainage commissions, charities, and a law and order association and explain this country attorney's regional role outside the strict confines of his profession.

Letters. Of the few letters remaining, most are inconsequential.

Privately owned papers presently in the possession of Harry Bowden, Esquire, of Spalding, Lincolnshire:

The diaries of Benjamin Smith, Jr., 1794–1799; 1817–1854. Although daily entries are generally brief, they often explain matters alluded to in the business papers. The diaries also permit a reconstruction of the work habits as well as personal life of Benjamin Smith during the 1790s, the last decade during which he was professionally active. There is no satisfactory explanation of the gap between 1799 and 1817. One theory is that the second Mrs. Smith (Benjamin Smith, Jr., married Frances Graves in 1821) wished to destroy references to the first (Harriet Martin, who died 1808). H. H. Cooper, managing clerk of the firm for most of the first half of the present century, compiled a chronology of the first Benjamin Smiths. Noting that “the diaries from 1798 to 1811 were destroyed,” he did include references to the years between 1811 and 1817.

Benjamin Smith, Jr.'s, Commonplace Book, 1793. This is an important source for the younger Smith's legal learning.

Douglas Account Book. This most important surviving account of the elder Benjamin Smith shows the volume and nature of work done by Smith for Daniel Douglas and his widow Jane.

Miscellaneous.

Two portraits of Benjamin Smith, Jr., owned by Mr. Bowden.

Public Record Office and Law Society, both in Chancery Lane, London.

Benjamin Smith's will is available at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane. (PRO, Probate 11/1460, Benjamin Smith). His enrollment as an attorney is also documented there as in the records of the Law Society, also in Chancery Lane. (PRO, K.B. 105, Rolls of Attorneys, 1729–1788, at 261 and Law Society, Chancery Rolls, 1729–1791.)

9. Curiously, PRO (Chancery Lane) Affidavits of Due Execution, King's Bench Articles of Clerkship, and PRO (Kew) Stamp Office Registers of Apprentices both list a Benjamin Smith registered as an apprentice to one Thomas Thoresby in Lincoln's Inn, 1756–1761. This Benjamin Smith was, however, from Deale in Kent.

10. The source for this is a memo, dated 1940, by George Smith, Esq., a descendant of Smith and partner in the firm. There is no evidence why Smith so speculated. Flimsy as this evidence is, it possesses plausibility. This memo also stated that Benjamin Smith succeeded Matthias Brown as agent for the Brown estates.

11. Miles believes that such blurring of the lines would have been more typical of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries than of the 1760s. [Letter of July 31, 1986] Smith did serve as deputy steward of the manor of Meres to Edward Brown as early as 1758. The long service to the Browns by the Smiths, father and son, is discussed at greater length below.

12. LAO, Mormon, Births C0072: “Benj Smith born 13 June 1731 to Benj and Eliz of Lincoln, St. Peter East Gate.” Harry Bowden's genealogical notes confirm the validity of this reference. Smith in his will gave “to John Hardill of the parish of Saint Peter in Eastgate in the city of Lincoln gentlemen the sum of thirty pounds” to be held in trust for his niece and also left monies to the poor of that parish. (Cf. PRO, Will of Benj. Smith.)

Harry Bowden's Smith genealogy lists Benjamin Smith's grandfather, also Benjamin, as a weaver who died in 1729. The same genealogy provides no occupational label for the father, who may have lived until 1778. Apprenticeship records at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane generally omit parents’ names after 1752.

13. Miles, “‘Eminent Attorneys’,” 56.

14. LAO, Smith 4, Manorial, Meres.

15. See Miles, “‘Eminent Attorneys’,” 95–97 for a full description of the law clerk's duties. I am indebted to John Baker for the “managing clerk” suggestion.

16. There were unavoidable costs in setting up a law practice: acquisition of chambers, library, furniture, and an adequate supply of parchment, paper, ink, and quills. Most important, capital was required to tide one over until monies started to come in for services rendered. One could expect no such payments until the services were fully performed. See Miles, “‘Eminent Attorneys’,” 72–73.

17. What he did professionally during the 1760s is recorded in two sources, LAO, Smith 11, Firm's business, Bill and Debt Book, 1761–1766 and Ibid., Bills, 1765–1789.

18. References to the above services performed by Smith are in LAO, Smith 11, Firm's Business, Bill and Debt Book 1761–1766, at 1–9. Smith's professionalism is further evidenced in the numerous precedent books (LAO, Smith 11, Firm's Business) drafted by his clerk William Worth. These cases are Smith's own and those of his Lincolnshire clients with the opinions rendered by others, generally from Lincoln's Inn. A letter addressed to Benjamin Smith, Jr., in 1797 illustrates the network of scholarly assistance developed by the elder Smith:

[Queen Square, September 11]

We have seen Mr. Ainge [of Lincoln's Inn] on this business and underneath you receive copies of his answers & remain y[ou]r able s[ervan]t.

Johnson & Gaskell [Smith's London agent]

The assignm[en]t of the term will substantially bar the Dower & the Circumstance of the Seal being broken off will not alter the case not at all—affecting the Legal Est[ate] which remains in the Mort[ga]ge….

The property of each partner is certainly liable to the joint debts which must be [unclear] paid & the residue if any of the seperate [sic] Est[ate] of either party will be applicable to the paym[en]t of his own private debts.

(letter stuck in LAO, Smith 11, Firm's Business, Cases 1797)

19. LAO, Smith 11, Firm's Business, Bill and Debt Book, 1761–66, at 12.

20. See “Kelham” in LAO Archivist's Report 18 (1966–1967): 29–30Google Scholar. Holdsworth believes that Kelham, whom he designates “attorney, antiquarian, and student of Domesday Book,” was responsible for a concordance of abridgements in 1758, “chiefly calculated to facilitate the references to the General Abridgement of law and equity by Charles Viner Esqre.” Holdsworth, , History of English Law 12: 167, 403Google Scholar.

21. For background on attorneys, scriveners, and conveyancing see Birks, Gentlemen of the Law, 68–86, and Coleman, D. C., “London Scriveners and the Estate market in the Later Seventeenth Century,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 4 (1951–1952): 221–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

The best general work on credit is Dickson, P. G. M., The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of Public Credit, 1688–1756 (London, 1967)Google Scholar. See further, Mathias, Peter, “Capital, Credit, and Enterprise in the Industrial Revolution,” Journal of European Economic History 4 (1973)Google Scholar; Price, Jacob M., Capital and Credit in British Overseas Trade: The View from the Chesapeake 1700–1776 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 44–123CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anderson, B. L., “Law, Finance and Economic Growth in England: Some Long-term Influences,” in Britain and Her World, 1750–1914, ed. Ratcliffe, B. M. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975)Google Scholar; and Brewer, John, “Commercialization and Politics: Credit, Clubs, and Independence,” in The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England, ed. McKendrick, Neil, Brewer, John, and Plumb, J. H. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 203–30Google Scholar.

On rural credit and attorneys, see Anderson, B. L., “Provincial Aspects of the Financial Revolution of the Eighteenth Century,” Business History 11 (1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “The Attorney in the Early Capital Market in Lancashire,” in Capital Formation in the Industrial Revolution, ed. Francois Crouzet (London: Methuen, 1972), 223–24; and idem, “Money and the Structure of Credit in the Eighteenth Century,” Business History 12 (1970): 85–101; Mathias, Peter, “The Lawyer as Business Man in Eighteenth-Century England,” in Enterprise and History, ed. Coleman, D. C. and Mathias, Peter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Miles, Michael, “The Money Market in the Early Industrial Revolution: the Evidence from West Riding Attorneys c. 1750–1800,” Business History 23 (1982): 127–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Spring, E., “Landowners, Lawyers and Land Law Reform in Nineteenth-Century England,” American Journal of Legal History 21 (1977): 40–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

See also Pressnell, L. S., “Money, Finance, and Industrialization,” Business History 9 (1969): 128–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pollard, S., “Fixed Capital in the Industrial Revolution in Britain,” Journal of Economic History 24 (1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Holderness, B. A., “Credit in English Rural Society before the Nineteenth Century, with Special Reference to the Period 1650–1720,” Agricultural History Review 24 (1976): 97–109Google Scholar; “Credit in a Rural Community, 1660–1800: Some Neglected Aspects of Probate Inventories,” Midland History, 1975; “Landlord's Capital Formation in East Anglia, 1750–1870” Economic History Review 25 (1972): 434–47Google Scholar; and Holderness's, critique of Anderson in “Elizabeth Parkin and her Investments, 1733–66, Aspects of Sheffield Money Market in the Eighteenth Century,” Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society 10, no. 2 (1973)Google Scholar.

22. In the mid-eighteenth century there were only a dozen country banks throughout England; by 1797 this number had increased to 230; by 1810, to 721. Grigg, David, The Agricultural Revolution in South Lincolnshire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 39–40Google Scholar. In 1800, south Lincolnshire had four in Stamford and one each in Bourne, Sleaford, Grantham, Boston, and Porter, Lincoln. H., “Old Private Banks of Southern Lincolnshire,” Lincolnshire Magazine 3, no. 2 (1935Google Scholar) and idem, “Lincolnshire Private Bankers,” Ibid. 5, no. 3 (1937).

Even where banks existed in the smaller towns they did not seriously inhibit the work of the country attorney and his credit lines. Michael Miles has noted that “The quantity of such business conducted by the attorneys here [West Riding of Yorkshire] was, if anything, increasing at the end of the eighteenth century rather than showing any signs of dwindling. There was so much money-lending business available that the attorneys were unlikely to have their position usurped.” Miles, “The Money Market.” The same conclusions are applicable to Lincolnshire. See also Miles, Michael, “Eminent Practitioners: The New Visage of Country Attorneys c. 1750–1800” in Law, Economy and Society, 1750–1914: Essays in the History of English Law, ed. Rubin, G. R. and Sugarman, David (London: Professional Books, 1984)Google Scholar; Pressnell, L. S., Country Banking in the Industrial Revolution (Oxford, 1956), 41–44, 265Google Scholar, and passim; and Cameron, Rondo, “England, 1750–1844,” in Banking in the Early Stages of Industrialization, ed. Cameron, R. et al. (Oxford, 1967), 15–59Google Scholar.

23. Campbell, R., The London Tradesman, being a compendious view of all the trades, professions, arts, both liberal and mechanical, now practised in the cities of London and Westminster. Calculated for the information of parents, and instruction of youth in their choice of business (London, 1747), 79–80Google Scholar. As cited in Miles, “Eminent Practitioners,” 475.

24. The quotation is from Anderson, B. L., “Provincial Aspects of the Financial Revolution of the Eighteenth Century,” Business History 11 (1969): 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For interest rates, see Pressnell, L. S., “The Rate of Interest in the Eighteenth Century,” in Studies in the Industrial Revolution: Essays to T. S. Ashton (London: University of London, 1960), 178–214Google Scholar; Ashton, T. S., Economic Fluctuations in England, 1700–1800 (Oxford, 1959)Google Scholar; Heim, Carol and Mirowski, Philip, “Interest Rates and Crowding-Out During Britain's Industrial Revolution,” Journal of Economic History 47 (1987): 117–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Habakkuk, H. J., “The Long-term Rate of Interest and the Price of Land in the Seventeenth Century,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 5 (1952–1953): 26–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; C. Clay, “The Price of Freehold Land in the Later Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” Ibid., 2d ser. 27 (1974): 173–89; and, more recently, Robert C. Allen, “The Price of Freehold Land and the Interest Rate in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” Ibid., 2d ser., 41 (1988): 33–50. The last contains a useful bibliography.

25. B. L. Anderson, “Provincial Aspects of the Financial Revolution,” 18. This amalgam of attorneys, land agents, and bankers as it pertained to Lincolnshire is discussed briefly in Olney, R. J., Rural Society and County Government in Nineteenth-Century Lincolnshire (Lincoln: History of Lincolnshire Committee, 1979), 46–51Google Scholar, and Beastall, T. W., The Agricultural Revolution in Lincolnshire (Lincoln: History of Lincolnshire Committee, 1978), 90–91Google Scholar. See also Holderness, B. A., “Rural Society in S. E. Lindsey, Lincolnshire, 1660–1840,” (Ph.D. diss., Nottingham University, 1968)Google Scholar.

26. Julian Hoppit has recently argued the ambiguous consequences of credit:

Crises of public and private credit were, in large part, a function of their novelty, most likely where speculation and dependence on confidence were greatest. Crises of private credit were the product of growth, the increasing use of credit to enable growth, and the nature of credit itself. The fundamental cause of crises of private finance was the increasing use of working capital, more specifically trade credit, associated with growth, while the proximate cause which determined their precise appearance was the occurrence of sudden changes in economic conditions, or the over-expansion of the particular mechanisms being employed.

Hoppit, Julian, “Financial Crises in Eighteenth-Century England,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 39 (1986): 57CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a fuller discussion on credit, creditors, and bankruptcy, see idem, Risk and Failure in English Business 1700–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

27. For widows and investments, see Holderness, B. A., “Widows in Pre-Industrial Society: An Essay Upon their Economic Functions” in Land, Kinship and Life-cycle, ed. Smith, Richard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 423–42Google Scholar, and idem, “Elizabeth Parkin and Her Investments, 1733–66: Some Aspects of the Sheffield Money Market in the mid-Eighteenth Century,” in Ibid.

28. LAO, Daniel Douglas Will, 1793. Because Jane Douglas lived until 1821, her affairs were long attended by Ben Smith, Jr.

29. Bowden, Diary, Benj. Smith, Jr., no. 4 (Jan. 14, 15, 16, 1823). Edward Brown (1748–1841) of Stamford was son of Edward Brown of Walcot and Frances Toller of Billingborough. For reasons unclear, Benjamin Smith, Jr., expressed disappointment that he had received no legacy when Brown died in 1841. Ibid., no. 9 (May 6–13, 1841).

30. Ibid., no. 1 (1794–99), and Bowden, Douglas Accounts.

31. Bowden, Douglas Accounts.

32. Porter, Roy, English Society in the Eighteenth Century (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1982), 16Google Scholar. The best survey of agrarian England for this period, with extensive bibliography, is Mingay, G. E., ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), vol. 6Google Scholar.

33. See Grigg, The Agricultural Revolution, 66. See also idem “The 1801 Crop Returns for South Lincolnshire,” East Midland Geographer, no. 16 (Nottingham, 1961).

34. The best survey of the English countryside, slightly after Benjamin Smith's time, is Mingay, The Victorian Countryside.

35. Pollock, Frederick, The Land Laws, 2d ed. (London, 1887), 114–15Google Scholar. Habakkuk's, H. J. thesis is stated in “English Landownership, 1680–1740,” Economic History Review, 1st ser., 10 (1940): 2–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a fuller discussion of his thesis, including bibliographies, see Bonfield, Lloyd, Marriage Settlements, 1601–1740: The Adoption of the Strict Family Settlement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983CrossRefGoogle Scholar) and English, Barbara and Saville, John, Strict Settlement: A Guide for Historians (Hull: The University of Hull, 1983)Google Scholar. The debate has continued since the English and Saville publication. See, for example, Bonfield's review of Slater, Miriam, Family Life in the Seventeenth Century: The Verneys of Claydon House (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984Google Scholar) in Continuity and Change: A Journal of Social Structure, Law and Demography in Past Societies 1, pt. i (1986): 131–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The most recent piece on this theme is Eileen Spring, “The Strict Settlement: Its Role in Family History,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 41 (1988): 454–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. Lionel, Eric, “Landownership and Economic Growth in England in the Eighteenth Century,” in Agrarian Change and Economic Development, ed. Jones, E. L. and Woolf, S. J. (London: Methuen, 1969), 51Google Scholar.

37. Holderness, B. A., “The English Land Market in the Eighteenth Century: The Case of Lincolnshire,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 27 (1974): 558CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38. Landed property did not necessarily contain a manor, but correlation certainly existed between Ben Smith's stewardships and lordships and lands which he owned. For example, he bequeathed to his son Francis his tenement of Monk's Hall consisting of 153 acres and to Benjamin, Jr., he devised the remainder of the manor of Monk's Hall not given to Francis. PRO, Probate 11/1460, Benjamin Smith's will.

The court's business consisted of escheats, admissions and surrenders, matters of dower, lord and tenant right pertaining to the common fields and wastes, minor appointments, and suits—all recorded on the court rolls. Originally the homage or jury contained freeholders as well as copyholders, but with the decline of the court baron, copyhold tenants prevailed. For a variation of the above, see Hoyle, R. W., “An Ancient and Laudable Custom: The Definition and Development of Tenant Right in North-Western England in the Sixteenth Century, Past and Present 116 (August 1987): 24–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39. Edward Coke, The Compleat Copy-Holder, Wherein is contained a Learned Discourse of the Antiquity and nature of mannors and Copy-holds; Being a Guide and Direction for Surrenders, Presentments, Admittances, Forfeitures, Customes &c., in its various early seventeenth-century editions, was both indicative of, and in part responsible for, the decline of seignorial jurisdiction. The increasing involvement of attorneys and the imposing of order and authority by the central judiciary meant, except in form, a retreat from feudal antecedents.

40. LAO, Smith contains manuals on holding copyhold court and background works on the court leet and baron (see booklets “Court Keeping,” two copies describing the courts with oaths and sample documents and “Charge to Jurors” in Smith 11, Firm's Business). Cf, among others, Smith 4, Manorial for a foreman's oath (Wikes, Draft Min. Bk. 1760–1773); court rolls (Monks Hall, 1734–1779; Folkingham) and draft court rolls (Wikes, 1773–1830; Thurlby, 1791–1806; Langtoft), draft court minutes (Wikes, Draft Min. Bk. 1774–1799; Threckingham, 1784–1850; Baston; Monks Hall), Admissions and Surrenders (i.e., Wikes, Misc. Papers Conditional Surrenders 1733–1835 and 1750–1888; Langtoft; Baston, Admissions 1706–1878; Monks Hall Verdicts, 1751–1804; Monks Hall Register of Conditional Surrenders, 1718–1813; Wikes Absolute Surrenders 1723–1769 and 1793–1821), particulars of copyhold rents (Wikes, Monks Hall, Threckingham Accounts, 1818–1841; Baston), accounts of the fees taken for admissions and surrenders (Wikes, Msc. Papers, Condit. Surrenders 1733–1835; Langtoft, Admissions, 1729–1823), and fees charged by Benjamin Smith for both Langtoft and Baston admissions and surrenders), an account of the copyhold estates held, for example, of the manor of Monks Hall in Quadring and Gosberton. Where Smith was steward, these documents were sometimes in his hand or, at the very least, “examined by Ben Smith.”

41. Dibben, A. A., Title Deeds Thirteenth to Nineteenth Centuries (London: The Historical Association, 1971), 23–24Google Scholar. In the eighteenth century, changes in ownership, if undertaken outside the manor court, had to be reported, that is “presented,” at the next session of the court. Change could simply be accomplished in the court and entered on the court rolls. The new owner was “admitted” by the manorial lord after the former owner had “surrendered” his title. A new owner, whose title was entered on the court rolls, was given a certified copy of the entry. Thus, he became a copyholder, possessed of copyhold land.

42. As quoted in Birks, Gentlemen of the Law, 116. North further noted that a battle of wits often ensued between steward and tenant: “They seldom came forward without some formed strategem to be too hard for Mr. Steward. Some would insist to know their fine, which he could not tell till they were admitted; and then he insisted for his fees: no, they would know the fine and some cunning fellow would jog and advise them to pay the fees and not dispute that.”

43. See LAO, Smith 4, Manorial, Meres (on microfilm), passim. The Meres Manorial papers have been withdrawn from the LAO.

44. The Brown genealogy is found in Maddison, A. R., Lincolnshire Pedigrees, 4 vols. (Harleian Soc., 1902–1904)Google Scholar.

45. The following, compiled from LAO, Smith 4, Manorial is a chronological listing of Ben Smith's manorial acquisitions:

1761: Steward of Newton, succeeding Thomas Brown.

1769: Steward of Monks Hall, Gosberton, succeeding Adlard Squire Stukeley. John Calcraft, lord until 1797.

1769: Listed as deputy steward of Baston Manor to Thomas White, steward, and Sir Gilbert Heathcote, lord.

1774: Steward of the courts of Wikes Manor.

1779: Deputy Steward to Thomas White of Langtoft Manor.

1784: Steward of Threckingham West Hall to Richard Wynne and then Sir Gilbert Heathcote, lords.

1786: Steward of Langtoft Manors (by 1798 Benj. Smith Jr. was deputy steward to him) and Baston (by 1799 Benj. Smith, Jr., succeeded him as steward), and of Threckingham.

1787: Lord of Monks Hall.

1791: Steward of Thurlby Manor. Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Lord. (Benj. Smith, Jr., steward in 1799).

1796: Lord of Wikes Manor. “One of the lords of the said manor and steward to the other lords there.” As a result of this affiliation with Wikes, Smith became a clerk of the Cowley Charity. The lordship was owned half by Cowley and half by the lord. Ben Smith, as first steward and then lord of the manor, became clerk to the Charity. (Benj. Smith, Jr., was a deputy steward in 1798 and steward in 1799.)

46. Quoted from Mingay, G. E., “The Eighteenth-Century Land Steward,” in Land, Labour and Population in the Industrial Revolution, ed. Jones, E. L. and Mingay, G. E. (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1967), 3–4Google Scholar. See also Hughes, Edward, “The Eighteenth-Century Estate Agent,” in Essays in British and Irish History in Honour of James Eadie Todd, ed. Cronne, H. A., Moody, T. W., and Quinn, D. B. (London: Frederick Muller, 1949)Google Scholar; Eric richards, “The Land Agent,” in Mingay, , The Victorian Countryside 2:439–56Google Scholar; Thompson, F. M. L., English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century, 2 vols. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), 151–83, especially pp. 161–62Google Scholar; Beastall, Agricultural Revolution, 94–99; and Olney, Rural Society, 46–51. Local surveyors often concentrated on estate management. See Skelton, R. A., “The Land Surveyor in English History,” an address before the Conference on British Studies, New York University, October 27, 1962Google Scholar.

47. Olney, Rural Society, 46.

48. Bowden, Diary, Benjamin Smith, Jr., no. 1, (November 1794).

49. Cf. LAO, Smith 11, Firm's Business, Articles of Clerkship, William Worth, 1793. Some idea of the legal education of Benjamin Smith, Jr., can be gleaned from his Diary no. 1, which covers his admission to the rolls as solicitor. See also Bowden, Commonplace Book, Benjamin Smith, Jr., for more on the same.

50. Benjamin Smith, Jr., held court during the autumn of 1798 at Bosom Hall [?] (Oct. 1), Falkingham and Threckingham (Oct. 5), Langtoft and Baston (Oct. 9), Wikes (Oct. 11), Monk's Hall (Oct. 12), Thurlby (Oct. 16), Aslacksby (Oct. 23), Conisby (Oct. 25), Bicker (Oct. 26) and Falkingham (Oct. 31). It is not known when the Smiths acquired courtholding rights for some of these manors.

51. “An enclosure act may be thought of as a detailed book of rules for enclosing the parish; rules which must be kept by the Commissioners themselves and which must be enforced by them whilst enclosure is in progress.” As quoted from Eleanor, and Russell, Rex C., Making New Landscapes in Lincolnshire: The Enclosures of Thirty-four Parishes (London: Robert Hale, 1983), 5Google Scholar. The procedure for enclosure, as noted in the text, is from the Russells's book as well.

The Russells have written extensively on Lincolnshire enclosures. See also Beastall, Agricultural Revolution, 22–60; Lloyd, Michael, Portrait of Lincolnshire (Lincoln: History of Lincolnshire Committee, 1983)Google Scholar, passim; and Wright, Neil R., Lincolnshire Towns and Industry 1700–1914 (Lincoln: History of Lincolnshire Committee, 1982)Google Scholar, passim.

52. For Smith's work on enclosures see LAO, Smith 5, Enclosures, passim. His work in the Bicker enclosure is recorded in detail in LAO, Smith 11, Firm's Business, Bills, 1765–1789, at 5–11, 77–78.

53. LAO, Smith 11, Firm's Business, Bills, 1789–1804, Pointon Enclosure (pp. 1–6) and Smith 5, Enclosures, Pointon, for essentially the same details to substantiate the charges. Both are in Smith's hand. He noted in a letter to a Mr. Clementson, dated January 23, 1790, that “I set off last Thursday Morning to wait of you at Melton to ask your consent to the Bill for dividing & inclosing the Cow Pasture & Fen at Pointon. But after going 2 or 3 miles, the Frost was so hard & the Roads being so deep & full of Ice, I could not go forward & was obliged to return.” LAO, Smith 5, Enclosures, Pointon, no. 22.

A similar narrative of Smith's industrious pursuit of enclosures, Bicker in this instance, is cited above, LAO, Smith 11, Firm's Business, 1765–1789, Bills, 1765–1789, at 5–11, 77–78.

54. See Hosford's, W. H. detailed study of the Pointon and Horbling enclosures, “Some Lincolnshire Enclosure Documents,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 2 (1949–1950): 78–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55. Ibid., 78. J. D. Chambers appears to dissent from this view. While admitting that “cottage labourers with customary usage of the common” lost out because they had no proprietary rights, “it does not seem that this was necessarily true even of the smallest owner of copyholder who could substantiate a legal claim to the satisfaction of the enclosure commissioners; and in the light of recent research it would seem that the commissioners were not too difficult to satisfy…. Whatever may be said of the method of enclosure by act of parliament, it represents a milestone in the recognition of the legal rights of humble men.” Chambers, J. D., “Enclosure and Labour Supply in the Industrial Revolution,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 5 (1953): 319–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Hosford supports this view when he states that the Commissioners accepted verbal claims although written ones were required. T. H. Swales, “Parliamentary Enclosures in Lindsey” Lincolnshire Archeological Society Reports and Papers (1936) and Arthur Young, General View of Lincolnshire (1799), 85 also cite advantages gained by small landholders over the larger in the allotments. For an appraisal of commissioners of enclosures, see Beresford, M. W., “Commissioners of Enclosures,” Economic History Review 16 (1946): 130–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56. Smith to Willoughby, 16 June 1773, LAO, Smith 5, Enclosures, Helpringham.

57. For a general discussion of the administration of local affairs—including turnpikes, health, the poor, law and order—see Chester, Norman, The English Administrative System 1780–1870 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 52–57, 322–61, 371–73Google Scholar. Reordering England's transportation system between 1780 and 1860 posed an unprecedented problem in capital formation. Whereas buildings could be financed on a smaller scale and even by individuals, transport relied on, to use development economics parlance, “social overhead capital.”

See Hawke, G. R. and Higgins, J. P., “Transport and Social Overhead Capital,” in The Economic History of Britain since 1700, ed. Floud, Roderick and McCloskey, Donald, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 1:227–30Google Scholar. See also Crouzet, Francois, “Capital Formation in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution,” in Capital Formation in the Industrial Revolution (London: Methuen, 1972), 162–222Google Scholar; Phyllis Deane, “Capital Formation in Britain before the Railway Age,” Ibid., 94–118; and Feinstein, Charles H. and Pollard, Sidney, eds., Studies in Capital Formation in the United Kingdom 1750–1920 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988)Google Scholar. See also J. R. Ward, The Finance of Canal Building in Eighteenth-Century England (1974).

58. See Albert, William, The Turnpike Road System in England 1663–1840 (Cambridge, 1972)Google Scholar; E. Pawson, Transport and Economy: The Turnpike Roads of Eighteenth-Century Britain (1977); and Buchanan, B. J., “The Evolution of the English Turnpike Trusts: Lessons from a Case Study,” The Economic History Review, 2d ser., 34, no. 2 (1986): 165–243Google Scholar.

59. Before 1750, the turnpike traversed only fifty miles of south Lincolnshire. In the decade after 1755, the passage of Parliamentary Acts assured another 180 miles. After 1765 the focus was mainly on the fens where road-building proved exceptionally difficult. Grigg, Agricultural Revolution, 41–43. See also Beastall, Agricultural Revolution, 99–105.

60. See LAO, Smith 6, Turnpike, 4.1, Indenture of Shares.

61. Daniel Douglas of Folkingham, Thomas Brown of Horbling, and Edward Brown of Walcott were initially involved in executing an act of Parliament entitled “An Act for repairing & widening the Roads leading from the East Side of Lincoln Heath to the City of Peterborough & from the East End of Marham Lane to the Town of Walton in the County of Northampton & from the East end of a Lane called Hale Drove to & through the Town of Old Sleaford to the End of Long Hedge in the Parish of Quarrington in the County of Lincoln.” LAO, Smith 6, Turnpike, 4.3, Turnpike Assignments.

62. This was part of the Grantham-Bridge End Turnpike, which eventually extended to Boston.

63. LAO, Smith 6, Turnpike, 1.3, Southeast District Minute Book of the Road from Donington High Bridge to Hacconby Cross Post, 6 February 1784. Smith collected his stipend from Daniel Douglas whose accounts he managed. Cf. Bowden, Douglas Account, July 28, 1789, £5 13s.; Feb. 27, 1790, £5 15s. 8d; Feb. 26, 1791, £5 13s. 6d.

64. LAO, Smith 6, Turnpike, 2.9, Treasurer's Account Book 1757–1815; Accounts for the Bridge End Turnpike Road. Daniel Douglas was treasurer until May 30, 1793; Benjamin Smith was treasurer of the Bridge End Turnpike by May 23, 1794. His designation as treasurer of the Southeast District (by May 29, 1794) may have pertained only to that trust for the Donington-Hacconby Road. Even after these elections as treasurer, Smith continued as clerk, drawing a stipend of £6 6s. 6d. for 1794 and £5 7s. for each of the next two years. Although Benjamin Smith, Jr., appears to have succeeded him as clerk by May 30, 1799 and was treasurer by May 28, 1801, Benjamin Smith continued to sign as a trustee as late as May 30, 1804.

65. Southeast District Minute Book Donington to Hacconby. See also Diary, Benjamin Smith, Jr., no. 1, passim. Benjamin Smith, Jr., succeeded his father as clerk by September 30, 1800. LAO, Smith 6, Turnpike 1.4.

66. Southeast District Minute Book, Donington to Hacconby.

67. From John James, The History and Topography of Bradford (1841), 155, as quoted in Albert, William, “Popular Opposition to Turnpike Trusts in Early Eighteenth-Century England,” The Journal of Transportation History, n.s., 5 (1979): 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68. Ibid., 13.

69. See Thirsk, Joan, English Peasant Farming: The Agrarian History of Lincolnshire from Tudor to Recent Times (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957)Google Scholar. Chapters 1, 5, and 10 deal, respectively, with “Fenland Farming in the Sixteenth Century,” “The Fenland, 1600–1870,” and “The Fenland, 1740–1870.” See also Wheeler, W. H., History of the Fens of South Lincolnshire (Boston [Lincolnshire], 1896Google Scholar), an enlarged edition of that published in 1868.

70. This undertaking, achieved by allowing the passage of waters through the South Forty-foot Drain into the Witham River at the Black Sluice, was overseen by the Black Sluice District Commission of 1765. Flooding had long been a way of life for the villagers of Holland Fen, inundations of which frequently made the Boston-Swineshead turnpike and other roads impassable and forced country people to bring their produce to Boston by boat.

71. The present narrative is based on Wheeler, History of the Fens, 244–89.

72. The Act for draining and improving certain low marsh and fen lands lying between Boston Haven and Bourn, in parts of Kesteven and Holland, in the county of Lincoln.

73. His stipends from Douglas, as listed in the Douglas Accounts, are detailed below. After Douglas's death in 1793, Smith was no longer paid from the above account.

74. LAO, 2 BNL, 7.3, Forsyth to Lord Brownlow, September 18, 1793; Ibid., 7.4, September 21, 1793.

75. Unquestionably, the younger Benjamin Smith's service excelled that of his father. A glass window in Horbling parish church was paid for by monies “raised by subscriptions among Black Sluice Commissioners and other friends of Benjamin Smith esq…. as a testimonial to that gentleman in acknowledgement of the assiduity and fidelity with which he discharged his duties as clerk… and as a token of their esteem for his public and private character.”

76. Report of the Commissioners Appointed in Pursuance of an Act of Parliament 5 and 6 William IV. c. 71. intitled “An Act for Appointing Commissioners to Continue the Inquiries Concerning Charities in England and Wales, until the First Day of March One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-seven”, June 10, 1837 (London: W. Clowes & Sons, 1839), 23–29Google Scholar, hereafter cited as Report of Charity Commissioners. The general information about Lincolnshire charities is from this source.

77. The Smith papers in the LAO shed very little light on the Barnes Charity, and what they contain about the Cowley largely pertains to the role played by Benjamin Smith, Jr. The fact is that most of the papers relating to the charities are still in Harry Bowden's office in Horbling and are properly part of the Barnes and Cowley papers rather than those of Benjamin Smith and Company. Christopher Mew, Esq., a present partner in the Smith firm, is presently clerk to the Anthony Barnes Charity; Harry Bowden, Esq., has been clerk to the Cowley Charity for many years.

See Archivist Joan Varley's description of the Smith of Horbling deposit in the LAO and in particular her comments on the Barnes and Cowley Charities. She has provided a good account of the younger Benjamin Smith's role as secretary. LAO Archivist's Report 13 (1961–1962): 39–42Google Scholar.

78. LAO, Smith 8, Barnes Charity, 1, Will of Anthony Barnes, 1727.

79. Report of the Charity Commissioners, 198–203.

80. Benjamin Smith, Jr., is listed as managing the Buckberry and Gould charities. Ibid., 199.

81. See Joan Varley's narrative in LAO Archivist's Report, 40-41.

82. The reader is referred especially to Hay, Douglas et al. , eds. Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975Google Scholar) and the responses that it has evoked, most notably Langbein, John, “Albion's Fatal Flaw,” Past and Present 98 (1976): 96–120CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The most recent survey is Emsley, Clive, Crime and Society in England 1750-1900 (London and N.Y.: Longman, 1987)Google Scholar. See also Charlesworth, Andrew, ed., An Atlas of Rural Protest in Britain 1548-1900 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1983Google Scholar) with its excellent bibliography; Wells, Roger, Insurrection: The British Experience 1795-1803 (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1986)Google Scholar; Rude, George, The Crowd in History, 1730-1848 (New York: John Wiley, 1964)Google Scholar; and Brewer, John and Styles, John, eds., An Ungovernable People: The English and their Law in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers, 1983)Google Scholar.

Benjamin Smith, Jr., frequently mentioned his exercising with the Heathcote troop in Folkingham. Presumably, this troop existed quite as much to quell local disturbances as to repel foreign invasion. See Diary, Benjamin Smith, Jr., no. 1 (1794-1799), passim.

83. “Once property had been officially deified, it became the measure of all things. Even human life was weighed in the scales of wealth and status.” Douglas Hay, “Property, Authority, and the Criminal,” in Hay et al., Albion's Fatal Tree, 19.

84. LAO, Smith 11, Firm's Business, Falkingham Association for Prosecuting Felons. Benjamin Smith, Jr., succeeded his father as treasurer and clerk of the association on March 28, 1799. A printed booklet of the Rules and Articles of the Association, as revised in 1850 and 1884, but undated, lists still another Ben Smith of Horbling as clerk and treasurer. Thus, this solicitor's firm remained a fixture for administering this group for at least a century. For a recent study of such associations, see Phillips, David, “Good Men to Associate, Bad Men to Conspire: Associations for the Prosecutions of Felons in England, 1760-1860,” in Policing and Prosecution in Britain, 1750-1850, ed. Hay, Douglas and Snyder, Francis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 113–70Google Scholar.

85. LAO, Smith 11, Firm's Business, Falkingham Association, February 6, 1788.

86. See Harding, Alan, A Social History of English Law (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1973), 351Google Scholar and Miles, “‘Eminent Attorneys,’ ” 116 ff.

Speck, W. A., Stability and Strife: England, 1714-1760 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977Google Scholar) compares the substance of Gregory King's “Scheme of the income and expense of the several families of England… for 1688” to Joseph Massie's “Estimate of the social structure and income, 1759-60.” King figured the average lawyer's salary to be £154; Massie put it at £100. Speck distinguishes between attorneys and the more affluent barristers, noting, however, that some London attorneys earned £1,000 per year and employed several clerks. Speck, Stability and Strife, 31-61, 297-98. See also Holmes, G., “Gregory King and the Social Structure of Pre-Industrial England,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 27 (1977CrossRefGoogle Scholar), and Mathias, P., “The Social Structure in the Eighteenth Century: A Calculation by Joseph Massie,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 10 (1957-1958)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

The most recent general study, which includes lawyers, is James, John A., “Personal Wealth distribution in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 41, no. 4 (1988): 543–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with extensive bibliography.

87. LAO, Smith 11, Firm's Business, An Account of Money Received by B. Smith, 1771-1794; Ibid., Bill and Debt Book 1761-1766. This is an account book, which depicts charges for services rendered but may be of limited value in assessing annual income. A tally for 1762, early in Ben Smith's professional career, shows that he collected £67 7s. 3d. principally for conveyancing work. That other years covered in this bill book produced significantly less income suggests that it does not include all accounts or receipts. Income for specific legal services may be ascertained by comparing Smith's billing with his cash receipts recorded in Smith's cash books. Because these cash books include personal as well as business receipts and payments, they require meticulous analysis, which this author has not as yet undertaken.

88. Ibid., Receipts/Payments 1807-1819. The division of annual profits in the decade or so following the elder Benjamin Smith's death were recorded at the conclusion of each year's business as follows:

1809: Of £1,110.0.10, Smith £832.10; Worth £277.10.

1810: Of £2,652.15.1, Smith £1,989.11.3; Worth £663.3.9.

1811: Of £1,922.1.11, Smith £1,441.11.53/4; Worth £480.10.53/4

1812: Of £1,836.6.0, Smith £1,377.4.6; Worth £459.1.6.

1813: Of £2,475.5.6, Smith £1,856.9.41/2; Worth £618.16.41/2.

1815: Of £2,196.14.8, Smith £1,647.11.0; Worth £549.3.8.

1816: Of £1,973.7.4, Smith £1,480.0.6; Worth £493.6.10.

1817: Of £2,440.7.91/2, Smith £1,830.5.93/4; Worth £610.1.111/4.

1818: Of £2,306.19.0, Smith £1,730.4.3; Worth £576.14.9.

89. These clerkship stipends are in the Daniel Douglas Account Book. Recorded in Smith's hand, these accounts show Smith as banker for Douglas. They are hardly a tribute to Smith's accounting finesse, for Douglas's personal funds are fused with Black Sluice and turnpike monies.

90. Marmaduke Langdale and Edward Brown of Stamford were both charged with certain tasks in the administration of Ben Smith's will. PRO, Probate 11/1460, Benjamin Smith.

91. In 1795, Ben took his son to London to see the sights and introduce him to his London business associates. See Diary, Benjamin Smith, Jr. (June, 1795). In late 1796, young Ben returned to London, where he remained until May, 1797, when he was admitted to the Court of King's Bench and solicitor in Chancery. See Ibid., May 3 and 30, 1797. Young Ben's diary reveals that during these months in London he frequently followed up on his father's contacts.

92. By his will Ben Smith bequeathed to his son Francis a portion of the Monk's Hall tenement and some 150 acres in Gosberton and Quadring, north of the turnpike road leading from Spalding to Donington. Elizabeth received properties in Folkingham, forthcoming after her mother's death. The largest share of the holdings went to Benjamin, Jr., who took what appears to have been the larger part of the Monk's Hall lands, holdings in Gosberton, Quadring, and Donington, the Donington manor of Meres, and properties in Folkingham not designated to sister Elizabeth. With these properties, young Ben procured rights to the profits from their manorial courts as well as the rents. The same was true with lands and tenements inherited in Morton and Bourne.

The elder Ben Smith's will is less than definite about these properties, but it does appear that manorial courts did include land holdings.

93. Olney, Rural Society, 43.

94. Smith stated in his will that four certificates of government life annuities in 1789 were for each of his children. The values of these are not indicated. He also left in trust for his niece Audrey Wood in St. Peter's Eastgate, Lincoln, the sum of £30 and the same amount for another niece, Sarah Webb. Besides these amounts he left £5 each for the poor of Folkingham, Horbling, and St. Peter's Eastgate. Son Benjamin received all his chattel property and personal effects.

95. The matter of consumption by an affluent middle class, a theme that bears significantly on the legal profession, has generated considerable interest among historians at this time. See Weatherill, Lorna, “Consumer Behaviour and Social Status in England, 1660-1750,” Continuity and Change 1 (1986): 191–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain, 1660-1760 (London: Routledge, 1988); Breen, T. H., “‘Baubles of Britain’: The American and Consumer Revolutions of the Eighteenth Century,” Past and Present 119 (May, 1988): 73–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Borsay, Peter, “The English Urban Renaissance: The Development of Provincial Urban Culture c. 1680-c. 1760,” Social History 5 (1977): 581–603CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Town 1660-170 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); McInnes, Angus, “The Emergence of a Leisure Town: Shrewsbury 1660-1760,” Past and Present 120 (August 1988): 53–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the pioneering works of A. Everitt and others cited in these works. The Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Clark Library of University of California Los Angeles have developed a three year (1988-1991) program on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century consumerism.

96. Smith's origins are mentioned above. His brother Daniel predeceased him and a sister Elizabeth apparently survived him. Daniel appears in the Smith accounts. Cf. LAO, Smith 11, Firm's Business, Bills, 1765-1789, 1767-1780, at 99; Elizabeth appears in Ben junior's diary and Ben senior's will. Elizabeth married a Henry Waters. Two nieces, Audrey Wood and Sarah Webb, were mentioned in his will.

97. LAO, Marriage Bonds, 1760-68, September 26, 1767, at 29.

98. Elizabeth was born October 24, 1769, married Bloomfield in 1821, and died with no issue in 1854.

99. He married Harriet Martin January 20, 1806; she died August 15, 1808. He subsequently married Frances Graves January 3, 1821; she died March 21, 1859. Benjamin Smith, Jr., died January 6, 1858.

100. Francis Smith of Monk's Hall was born February 23, 1778, married Ann (?), fathered eight children, and died in 1844.

101. Edward was born January 18, 1788, and died February 17, 1813.

102. Ben directed his son to Forsyth, Kelham, Gatskill, and Johnson, and others. When in London, Smith usually took lodgings at Will's Coffee House. So it was in early June, 1795, when father and son stayed there and sister Elizabeth at a guest house on Serle Street. It was on this occasion that the father took the son to Westminster Hall where they “saw all the judges sitting in the sev[era]l differ[en]t C[our]ts & the Chan[cery]” Benjamin Smith, Jr., Diary, June 15, 1795. The next day they spent four hours at the House of Commons.

103. This journey to Buxton by way of Nottingham, Matlock, and Dove Dale was undertaken at virtually the same time each year, August 13 or 14 in the years 1795, 1796, 1797, and 1798. Only Mrs. Smith appears not to have joined the rest of the family on these trips. See Benjamin Smith, Jr., Diary.

104. In his diary Benjamin Smith, Jr., noted that on October 2, 1798, “Fa[the]r and Ned went to Falk[ingha]m to new house to stay—rem[nan]t Goods go tomorrow.” The next day's entry read: “A load of goods went Falk[ingha]m & Sister went to stay.”

105. A tablet on the wall in the rear of the church reads: This marble is erected as a token of filial respect to perpetuate the memory of Benjamin Smith Esq[uir]e who died 27th January 1807, Aged 75. Also sacred to the Memory of Elizabeth Relict of the above who was released from suffering (bourne with exemplary patience) the 6th of May 1820, Aged 78 years. [As copied by the author] this inscription is to be found also in Monson's Church Notes, (Lincoln Record Society), 31:128. There exists in the Folkingham parish church still another tablet to a Smith, to Edward, the youngest son. “A Tribute to the memory of the Revd. Edward Smith, who died the 17th of February 1813, Aged 33.”

106. The offices in Donington and Horbling are still very much in use. The original office building remains, although Red Hall disappeared in the 1960s. The author inspected the former, noting its fully plastered walls, tiled floors, and cast iron bins, which might well have served for the storage of legal documents. That this building was, indeed, the law office of both Benjamin Smiths is ultimately based on circumstantial rather than verifiable evidence. At present, the firm of Benjamin Smith and Company has additional offices in Spalding and Bourne.

107. Cf. Diary, Benjamin Smith, Jr., (October 5 and 7, 1817).

108. Benjamin Smith, Jr., died January 6,1858. A hand-written agreement, presently in the possession of Harry Bowden Esq., stated that “Benjamin Smith having relinquished business in favor of Geo. Wiles from first January last… for which Geo. Wiles agrees to pay £1200 in three installments of £400 each Benj Smith places £3000 in the hands of Geo Wiles for the purpose of meeting any claims of clients or deficient securities.” Smith's will merely stated that the business had passed to Wiles. The same year that Benjamin Smith died, Wiles accepted William Emerson Chapman into the partnership, and the firm became Wiles and Chapman. When Charles Smyth Wiles, a nephew of George, became the third partner, the firm name changed to Wiles, Chapman, and Wiles. Both Chapman and the elder Wiles died in 1879, and the younger Wiles invited Benjamin Smith III, a son of Francis and nephew of Benjamin Smith, Jr., into the partnership.

When in 1883 Charles Wiles retired, Benjamin Smith III took his brother George into the partnership, and the firm reverted to “Benjamin Smith and Company,” which it remains to this day. Benjamin Smith III died in 1914; however, George lived until 1945; George's son, Francis Gould Smith, became a partner in 1925. When he died in 1959 the firm once again was without a Smith. The firm's principal link with the past is Harry Bowden, who joined the firm in 1939, managed the firm's business alone after Francis’ death in 1959, and since retiring as senior partner in 1979 continues as consultant.