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Residential mobility in seventeenth-century Southwark

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2009

Extract

It is nearly two decades since Tony Wrigley first discussed the possible effects that the experience of London life may have had on changing the society of seventeenth-century England. Despite some excellent work on certain aspects of London's social history, however, his qualification still stands: ‘too little is known of the sociological differences between life in London and life in provincial England to afford a clear perception of the impact of London's growth upon the country as a whole’. Among the obstacles to this latter goal are that metropolitan and provincial society are often seen as qualitatively different and, perhaps in consequence, comparisons between the two have not been seriously attempted. What is needed is a model which might serve to embrace the experiences of both urban and rural inhabitants within a common framework.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

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22 The known positions of large buildings, such as inns and breweries, also helped to establish the relative positions of households. For this ‘standard procedure’, see Carter, H., ‘The map in urban history’, Urban History Yearbook (1979), 1920.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For methodological problems encountered in studies of nineteenth-century cities, see Lawton, R., ‘Mobility in nineteenth-century British cities’, Geographical J., CXLV (1979), 213–14.Google Scholar

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29 In addition to manuscript material already cited the following Boroughside token books were used: GLRO P92/SAV/198(1608), 199(1609), 200(1610), 201(1612), 203(1614), 205(1616), 207(1618), 208(1619), 211(1622), 213(1624), 215(1626), 217(1628), 221(1632), 223(1633), 224(1634), 227(1635), 229(1637), 233(1640), 234(1643).

30 Pooley, op. cit., 265. If widows remaining in the same dwelling are also counted as persistent, then after ten years 28 per cent of the 1608 sample of householders would still have been occupying the same dwelling.

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35 The persistence of householders by wealth between 1618 and 1608 was as follows: after ten years 41 out of 228 (18 per cent) of those not taxed in 1617 were still resident in the same dwelling compared to 34 out of 85 (40 per cent) of those who contributed. Nineteenth-century studies trace households forwards in time, Pooley, op. cit., 260.

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43 Ward, op cit., 157; Pooley, op. cit., 274; Lawton, op. cit., 220; Anderson, M., Family Structure in Nineteenth-Century Lancashire (1971), 41–2Google Scholar; Dennes and Daniels, op. cit., 9–13.

44 See Laslett, P., ‘Clayworth and Cogenhoe’, in Family Life and Illicit Love in Earlier Generations, ed. Laslett, P. (1977), 50101Google Scholar; Prest, W. R., ‘Stability and change in Old and New England, Clayworth and Dedham’, J. Interdisciplinary History, VI, 3 (1976), 359–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wrightson and Levine, op. cit., 80–1.

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48 Memoranda in 1636 token book, GLRO P92/SAV/228.

49 GLRO P92/SAV/1423, 211. See Raine, H., ‘Christopher Fawcett against the inmates’, Surrey Archaeological Collections, VI (1969), 7985.Google Scholar

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58 For a modest beginning see Boulton, , ‘Seventeenth-century Southwark’, 271361.Google Scholar Residential mobility of the sort described here has also been identified by Derek Keene from his detailed reconstruction of property in Cheapside; see Keene, D., ‘A new study of London before the Great Fire’, Urban History Yearbook (1984), 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar