London Lives: Poverty, Crime and the Making of a Modern City, 1690–1800

Product Information

Names in the parish registers should be found in the other parish records which survive for this period, including the Churchwarden's Accounts (AC), Apprenticeship Indentures (IA), and Vestry Minutes (MV). Kevin Siena, Venereal Diseas, Hospitals and the Urban Poor: London's "Foul Wards," 1600-1800 (Rochester, New York, 2004), pp. 135-80. ⇑ St Clement Danes, Examinations Book, 1799-1804, Westminster Archives Centre, Ms. B1193, LL ref: WCCDEP35823, Tagging Level: B St Botolph Aldgate, Pauper Examination Book, 1777-79, London Metropolitan Archives, Ms. 2676/12, LL ref: GLBAEP10318, Tagging Level: A Subject Person ID: Unique identifier for the individual recorded in this entry as the subject of a baptism, marriage, or burial.

Early modern householders were required to serve by rotation or appointment on the night watch, patrolling specified streets between 9 or 10 pm and sunrise. They were expected to examine all suspicious characters and to apprehend offenders and bring them to the watchhouse. In the City, they were appointed by the common council of each ward. In Westminster, watchmen fell under the joint control of the Court of Burgesses and the parish vestry, while in Middlesex they were appointed by the parish. The nightly work of watchmen was supervised by constables. Poor rate, St Anne King Square ward east (1789), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/394; Poor rate, St Anne King Square ward west (1789), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/395; Poor rate, St Anne Leicester Fields ward east (1789), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/396; Poor rate, St Anne Leicester Fields ward west (1789), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/397; Poor, highway and scavenger rate, St Margaret Grand ward (1789), City of Westminster Archives Centre, E/527; Poor, highway and scavenger rate, St Margaret Absey ward (1789), City of Westminster Archives Centre, E/328; Poor, highway and scavenger rate, St John (1789), City of Westminster Archives Centre, E/329. Each sex has a workroom and a night-room. They lie in boxes, with a little straw, on the floor . . . . There are many excellent regulations in this establishment. The prisoners have a liberal allowance, suitable employment, and some proper instruction; but the visitor laments that they are not more separated . . . no other prison in London has any straw or bedding . . . . There are, very properly, solitary cells for the Bridewell boys, in which one was confined and employed in beating hemp. 3 In the late seventeenth century, there were around 100 apprentices in the hospital, but reflecting the overall decline in apprenticeship in the eighteenth century, the numbers decreased over time: 132 in 1705, 74 in 1750, 26 in 1791. The concentration of such a large number of adolescents unsurprisingly led to numerous disciplinary problems, which were recorded in a separate Register (IA). There were also complaints that the masters were negligent and dissolute.St Clement Danes, Examinations Book, 1747-1749, Westminster Archives Centre, Ms. B1172, LL ref: WCCDEP35804, Tagging Level: B Boulton, Jeremy. The Poor Among the Rich: Paupers and the Parish, in the West End, 1600-1724. In Griffiths, Paul and Jenner, Mark S. R. (ed.), Londinopolis: Essays in the Cultural and Social History of Early Modern London. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2000, pp. 197-225.

St Clement Danes, Examinations Book, 1786-1791, Westminster Archives Centre, Ms. B1188, LL ref: WCCDEP35801, Tagging Level: Aa Watch rate, St Anne King Square ward (1774), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/1526; Watch rate, St Anne Leicester Fields ward (1774), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/1527; Poor, highway and scavenger rate, St Margaret Grand ward (1774), City of Westminster Archives Centre, E/471; Poor, highway and scavenger rate, St Margaret Absey ward (1774), City of Westminster Archives Centre, E/472; Poor, highway and scavenger rate, St John (1774), City of Westminster Archives Centre, E/473. Bastardy Examinations formed an important variant on the settlement examination. These were taken before two Justices and enquired into the circumstances under which a woman about to give birth to a bastard child had fallen pregnant. Legally a woman who knew herself to be likely to bear a bastard child was obliged to present herself for examination, but in practice this only occasionally happened, and many examinations occurred after the birth. The size and specialised facilities available through these houses grew over the course of the century, and by the beginning of the next century took the form of a relatively few very large houses, including James Robertson's establishment at Hoxton, which by 1815 was thought to house up to 300 paupers from forty different City parishes; Thomas Tipple's pauper farm at 12 Queen's Street, Hoxton, which had 230 places and was used by seventeen City parishes; and Edward Deacon's two houses at Mile End and Bow, which between them housed 520 paupers, and served over forty City parishes. 16

Look Inside

Four Shillings in the Pound Aid 1693/4 for the City of London, City of Westminster and Metropolitan Middlesex (FSP) The metaphone matching on forenames has been implemented in a different way. Tables of forename equivalents have been developed, grouping names such as Liz, Betty, and Eliza, with a full version of the relevant name. In this case Elizabeth. Searching for Elizabeth or any of its many variants should return all relevant results. In addition a metaphone search of forenames also implements a search for names that sound like the search term. As with metaphone surname searches, the initial letter and final s have been excluded. St Botolph Aldgate, Pauper Examination Book, 1783-84, London Metropolitan Archives, Ms. 2676/14, LL ref: GLBAEP10320, Tagging Level: A St Botolph Aldgate, Pauper Examination Book, 1776-76, London Metropolitan Archives, Ms. 2676/10, LL ref: GLBAEP10316, Tagging Level: A St Clement Danes, Examinations Book, 1763-1766, Westminster Archives Centre, Ms. B1180, LL ref: WCCDEP35820, Tagging Level: B