London stretched ten miles along the Thames, and was three miles wide in
the center. On the east of the City was the port and industry. The west
side ended at Hyde Park and Regent's Park and was residential. In 1710
it was still possible to shoot woodcock in Regent Street. In 1750,
Westminster Bridge was opened. In 1760, the City walls were taken down
to ease congestion. The typical London house, usually brick, was on a
rectangular plan and had a basement to utilize all the space possible.
Walls were now more covered with hung damask, brocade, silk, and
wallpaper or plain paint rather than by wood paneling. There were
pictures on the walls. On the first floor was a front hall or parlor and
a back parlor. One of these parlor rooms was the most important room,
where the family entertained or spent leisure time. In it were sofas,
armchairs, and stools of mahogany or white gilded wood. They were
upholstered with damask or needlework. Imported mahogany was replacing
the favorite walnut that had replaced oak. Much wood was inlaid with a
variety of other types of woods. There was also a carved tripod table,
china table, card table, and perhaps bookcases and/or tea-table.
Furniture with original designs made by the cabinet-maker Chippendale
was available. His genius was in combining various motifs into one
harmonious design. Cabinet makers had to keep abreast of his standards
and to imitate them to conform with their customers' orders. Cabriole
legs with claw and ball feet came into fashion with Queen Anne about
1712. Between windows were tall mirrors. From 1760, glass chandeliers
hung from the ceiling to reflect candlelight coming from standing
candlesticks or glazed hanging lanterns with brass frames. The fireplace
had an elaborate mantel. The fire was kept going all day. It was lit by
a tender box, which was unreliable. An iron fireback was behind the
fire. The firewood was placed on andirons. Fire grates were used from
about 1712. At a corner of the building was added a closet. On the
second floor was a dining room, continuation of the closet below, and a
drawing room, dressing room, or bedroom, and perhaps a study or music
room with harpsichord. The dining room had a fireplace; curtains over
the windows looped up at the cornices; one or more mahogany tables; a
set of mahogany chairs with leather or hair- cloth seats fixed with
brass nails, perhaps with some sort of metal springing; two mahogany
sideboards with marble tops; cupboards or shelves or cabinets with
displays of china porcelain; a wine-cooler; a dumb-waiter; and a folding
leather screen. The china, which was displayed, was mostly imported, but
there was some English china. Later, there was famous Wedgwood stoneware
and pottery with bright, unfading glaze, or with dull black and red
surfaces, biscuit ware of pale green, blue or purple, upon which white
designs stood out like cameos. They came from the pottery factory at
Staffordshire founded by potter Josiah Wedgwood in 1769. There were
silver and pewter plates and serving pieces, silver candlesticks, silver
knives, spoons, and two and three pronged forks, glass saltcellars from
1724, and fingerbowls from which one rinsed one's mouth or cleaned one's
fingers after dinner which were made of glass from about 1760. On the
third floor were bedrooms and a nursery. In the bedrooms, there was a
high bed with curtains, canopies, piles of blankets and pillows, and
steps up to it; wardrobe; chairs; a hand wash stand; chests of drawers;
writing bureau; dressing table with a couple drawers and a mirror; swing
standing mirror; tin rush candle canister; and night commode. Children
and servants slept on low wooden bedsteads. Walls were stucco, a form of
cement that could be sculpted, or paneled or hung with silk and printed
paper. Servants, such as the page and footmen, slept in the attic and
perhaps in the kitchen or cellar. There was a wood staircase for the
family and a back staircase for the servants. The floors and stairs were
protected with carpeting. The kitchen was in the basement or in a
covered shed in the back. It had an open fire and a tin oven. The cold
water tap over the stone sink could supply cold water from a cistern in
the basement or hand-pumped to a roof cistern through wooden pipes at
very low pressure at stated hours for a fee. There was a wash shed in
back. Water pumped from the Thames into underground pipes was thus
distributed to householders three times a week. Some water came from a
well or spring, rain, and street water sellers. Water carriers were
still employed at set fees. Water was kept in lead cisterns. The wealthy
had basement cisterns filled by a commercial company. The free public
conduits of water were out of use by 1750. The front door of the house
had two strong bolts on the inside and a heavy chain. The windows could
be shuttered and barred. There were sash windows with cords and brass
pulleys. At the back of the house was a garden and perhaps a coach house
or stables. Landscaping to reproduce an idealized country scene replaced
formal gardens. Foreign trees were imported. The latrine was usually not
in the house, but somewhere in the back garden area. Under it was a
brick drain leading to a public sewer or to a cesspool. Smelly gases
arose from it. Sometimes people gathered such waste up to sell to
farmers returning home in an otherwise empty wagon. In 1760, patented
inside toilets began to be used. Each stood in its own room. A
watchmaker named Alexander Cummings patented in 1775 the water-closet,
which had a stink trap u-bend behind which, after flushing, water
resided and prevented the backflow of noxious sewer gas. Its pans and
overhead cisterns were made of pottery. They were supported by wood
structures. There were better cements for building. Chinese porcelain,
embroidery, and lacquer work were popular. Furniture and landscaped
gardens were often done in a Chinese style.
Many of the well-to-do now lived in districts without as well as within
the city limits. Many streets east of the City were named after the
governing families whose estates were there. Their mansions had interior
columns, archways, marble halls and fireplaces, carving, gilding, rich
colors, and high ornamented ceilings. They each had a picture gallery, a
library, stables with coachmen, grooms, and stableboys, and a still-room
for concocting liquors and cordials such as cherry brandy, sloe gin, and
elderberry wine. Medicine and scents were also developed in the
still-room. Hands were washed in bowls held up by wooden stands. There
were built-in bathtubs, but they usually lacked hot and cold running
water, so hot water usually had to carried up to them.
In these mansions, there were many private parties and balls. The
standard for politeness here was high and gentlemen were expected to
keep their tempers. This came about because impoliteness could easily
lead to a quarrel and then a duel. The pistol was replacing the sword as
the weapon of choice for duels. Good manners developed for all
occasions, with much less swearing and less rudeness. By gentlemen's
agreements, men did favors for each other without a monetary price, but
with the expectancy of a favor in return. The love of one man for
another was recognized as the highest and noblest of human passions.
People of high social standing left their country estates to spend the
winter season in their townhouses in London with its many recreations
such as receptions, routs ]fashionable gatherings], levies, masquerades,
balls, dinner parties, clubs, pleasure gardens, theaters, shops, shows,
taverns, and chocolate and coffee houses. Coffee houses provided Turkish
coffee, West Indian sugar and cocoa, Chinese tea, Virginia tobacco, and
newspapers. They were frequented by learned scholars and wits, dandies,
politicians, and professional newsmongers. Men of fashion often engaged
in wagers and gambling at their clubs and coffee houses. There were
wagers on such matters as the longevity of friends and prominent people,
fertility of female friends, wartime actions, and political matters.
Gentlemen often had valets. Carriage by sedan-chair was common. In 1776,
Buckingham House was bought as a palace for the royal couple.
Physicians and lawyers lived in two-story brick mansions with attics
and sash windows that could be lifted up and down with the help of a
pulley. They had rectangular wood panes each with a sheet of glass cut
from a circle of blown glass. The old blown glass was not regular, but
had a wrinkled appearance. The center of each pane of glass was thicker
with a knot in the middle left from the blow pipe. In front of the house
were railings which supported two lanterns at the doorway.
People from different parts of London differed in ways of thinking,
conversation, customs, manners, and interests. For instance there were
sections where sailors lived, and where weavers, watchmakers, and cow
keepers each lived and worked. There were many specialized craftsmen who
worked with their own tools in their own shops or houses, for some
superior who had contact with the market and who supervised the final
processes of manufacture. These included the goldsmiths, upholsterers,
coach makers, saddlers, and watchmakers, all of whom had many
dependents. The watchmakers had specialists making wheels, pinions,
springs, hands, dials, chains, keys, caps, and studs in their own
houses. The type of industrial organization most common in London was
that in which work was given out to be done in the homes of the workers:
the putting out system. Some industries, such as watchmaking, silk
weaving, and shoemaking were on both a putting out system and a system
of an apprenticeship to journeymen working on piece work. Shoes were
made to order and ready made. The customer was measured in a shop, the
clicker cut out the upper leathers, which were given to the closer to be
closed, and then to the maker for the sole and heel to be put on.
Another class of shoemaker worked alone or with an apprentice in a
garret, cellar, or stall, using pieces of leather cut out for him by the
currier or leather cutter. London industries included the making of
bread, beer, spirits, and vinegar; sugar refining; tobacco refining and
snuffmaking; spinning and/or weaving of woolens, worsteds, silk ribbons,
tape, and cloth; and making printed calico, clothes, linens, laces,
tassels, fancy embroidery, stays, stockings, hats, shoes, leather goods
such as boots, shoes, hats, gloves, harnesses, and saddles, jewelry,
glass, candles, tapestry, musical instruments, cutlery, furniture,
paint, varnish, paper, tools, swords, guns, heavy artillery, ships,
sails, rope, carriages, precious and base metalwares such as brass and
pewter ware, and printer's ink and glue; printing; and publishing.
Surgical instruments made included straight and curved knives and
probes, lancets, scissors, spatulas, trepans (for cutting bone), and
cupping cases. Optical instruments made included eyeglasses, telescopes,
and microscopes. In 1727 eyeglasses were held in place by frames that
went over the ears, which replaced unreliable cords over the ears and
leather straps tied behind one's head. Also made were nautical
instruments, quadrants, sundials, sectors, globes, scales, model solar
systems, and air pumps.
In London, the old distinction between craftsmen and laborers was
blurred by the existence of trades which employed workmen under a
skilled foreman instead of journeymen who had served an apprenticeship.
These trades were, on a large scale, new. Among the most important of
these trades were the distillers and brewers of liquors, the
tobacconists and snuff makers, the sugar refiners and soap boilers, the
vinegar makers, and makers of varnish, glue, printers' ink, and colors.
The latest chemical theories and the chemical explanation of dying
brought about the invention of new colors and new processes in dying
cloth. Workers in these trades were considered as laborers, but their
wages were high and their positions relatively secure. They learned
their jobs by doing them. The older trades of a similar character, such
as tallow melters and chandlers, wax chandlers, fellmongers [removed
hair or wool from hides in preparation for leather making], and the
tanners, employed journeymen.
The skilled artisan who worked at home and either made goods for a
master or sold to the trade verged into the shopkeeping class. On the
other hand, the lowest type of shopkeeper, the chandler, the dealer in
old iron, the tripe shop, the milk retailer, the keeper of a cook shop
or a green cellar belonged to the class of casual and unskilled labor.
The lowly chimney sweep, paid 6d. a day, served an apprenticeship as a
boy, and then was his own master.
The watermen and lightermen, by virtue of their fellowship and their
apprenticeship and often the ownership of a boat, belonged to the class
of skilled laborers. Craftsmen in the building trades and paviours had
their laborers as smiths had their hammermen to do the heavy work at
laborers' pay. The street ragpickers, the ballad sellers, and the match
sellers belonged to the class of beggars.
There were buildings for boiling and distilling turpentine, for casting
brass or iron, and for making glass for chemical works for sale.
Working women in London in 1750 were employed in domestic service: 25%,
nursing and midwifery: 12%, cleaning and laundry: 10%, vitiating: 9%,
shopkeeping: 8%, hawking: 6%, and textiles: 5%. Those employed in
domestic service were mostly young women who later married. Some women
were schoolteachers, innkeepers, or manufacturers, which were
middle-class employments. Many women in the realm engaged in a variety
of occupations from fanmaking and hairdressing to catering, and, as
widows, often carried on their husband's trade, including bookselling,
hatmaking, building or ironmongery.
Although shops still had small frontages of about 15 feet and the
windows had small panes of bottle glass which partly obscured the view
of the goods, there were magnificent shops with large windows displaying
fine goods. There were bookshops, and print shops with prints of
political satire with caricatures. The shops were generally open six
days a week from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and years later to 10 p.m. In 1675
Josiah Wedgwood opened a showroom in London for his high quality pottery
from Staffordshire. Consumption was on a mass scale, many people buying
what they wanted instead of just what they needed. There were
circulating libraries, public concert halls, and professional boxing
matches. At coffee houses, chocolate houses, and taverns, people played
at dice and cards, gambled, talked politics and read daily newspapers,
in which there was advertising, reports of marriages and deaths, grain
prices, and book reviews. Different professions and classes and groups,
such as the whigs, the tories, classical scholars, scientists,
clergymen, intellectuals, actors, writers, and journeymen of particular
crafts, had their favorite meeting places. Coffee houses reflected the
character of their neighborhoods. They acted as postal centers, lost
property offices, business addresses, physicians' consulting rooms,
lawyers' and merchants' businesses, matrimonial agencies, masonic
lodges, auction rooms, and gambling dens. Some retained a supply of
prostitutes. Many taverns had a rentable private room for the better-off
to drink wine, have meals, meet friends, gamble, do business, and hold
meetings of societies and clubs, especially political clubs. From this
beginning sprang private clubs such as the Blue Stocking Club in 1750
and the Literary Club in 1764, Lloyd's for sale and insurance of ships
in 1771, and the stock exchange in 1773. The Blue stocking Club was
established by women who organized conversational parties with guests of
intellect and wit. There was opera, playhouses, concerts usually with
Georg Handel's oratorios such as The Messiah or the foreigners Bach and
Haydn, tea-gardens, fire works, balls, masquerades, wax works, beer
shops, and bawdy houses, except on Sunday. There were straight plays,
comic operas, and melodramas. Three-dimensional sets replaced the two-
dimensional backdrop. Plays containing thinly veiled satires on
politicians were becoming popular. Some plays had crude and licentious
material. Theaters still shared a close association with brothels.
Unlicensed theaters were closed down by a statute of 1737, but most came
to acquire patronage to get a license. This shaped the development of
drama in London for a century.
The Beggar's Opera depicting an immoral society unable to master its
bandits was written by John Gay as a powerful attack on a government
which most of London hated. With its many ballads it became very
popular. One such ballad goes:
"Through all the employments of life Each neighbor abuses his
brother; Whore and Rogue they call Husband and Wife; All
professions be-rogue one another. The Priest calls the Lawyer a
cheat, The Lawyer be-knaves the Divine; And the Statesman,
because he's so great, Thinks his trade as honest as mine."
Another is:
"A Fox may steal your hens, sir, A Whore your health and pence,
sir, Your daughter rob your chest, sir, Your wife may steal your
rest, sir, A thief your goods and plate. But this is all but
picking, With rest, pence, chest and chicken, It ever was decreed,
sir, If Lawyer's hand is fee'd, sir, He steals your whole
estate."
The Thames was crowded with sailing boats and with a line of boats
waiting to unload. Foreign and native ships lined the river banks in
rows. Theft of cargo from docked ships was still a problem and pirates
were still executed at low tide on gallows. Londoners went to the
bridges crossing the Thames to breathe fresh air. London air was so
smoky and polluted by coal-burning in kitchens and factories that it
gave a cough to newcomers. The river was so polluted by the sewers by
1760 that all the swans and most of the fish had disappeared. A Mansion
House was built for the Mayor in 1753. The king's zoo had ten lions, one
panther, two tigers, and four leopards. Deer hunting in Hyde Park was
now confined to its northwest corner, which was enclosed for the king,
who occasionally hunted there. Elsewhere in the park were laid out walks
and fountains. Gardens were now natural instead of formal. The streets
were usually crowded with people and traffic. Many people traveled by
sedan chair. On the streets were barrows with goods such as lace,
threads, fruits, and chickens; beggars, ballad singers, musicians,
bands, street dancers, apple women, piemen, muffin men, fruit sellers,
nut sellers, pudding sellers, milk maids selling milk from buckets, milk
sold directly from the cow, vendors of asses' milk, hawkers, newspaper
boys, scavengers with carts, postal collectors, lamplighters on their
ladders, wenches, chimney sweeps, rat catchers, pick pockets, swaggering
bravados, strolling strumpets, brawling watermen, card sharps,
overdressed beaux, dancing dogs, and acrobatic monkeys. Each trade had
it own call. Billingsgate open-air market was now exclusively for the
sale of fish. Small tradesmen such as dairymen, butchers, bakers,
fishmongers, and chandlers delivered to regular customers food bought
from distributing centers. Workers by necessity lived near their place
of work because there was no cheap transport and walking through the
streets after dark was unpleasant and dangerous. Hours of work for most
craftsmen was from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., six days a week.
It was common for working class families in London to live in a single
room of their house and rent the rest, furnished, to people of different
degrees of prosperity and even of different social grades. Servants and
apprentices slept in the kitchen, the shop, or the garret. The very
poor, such as casual laborers and street sellers, silk winders,
charwomen, usually lived in damp cellars subject to floods from
excessive rain, or in cold and windy garrets. Tenancy was usually on a
weekly basis because of the general uncertainty of life and trade.
Conditions were so cramped that cabinet makers made beds which
masqueraded in the day time as tables, bureaus, cupboards, or bookcases.
The very poor slept in common lodging houses, sleeping uncovered on the
floor, twenty to a room. Some poor families slept in small hovels made
of mud and straw with their pigs, domestic fowl, dogs, and even asses
and horses. Homeless children slept on the streets. All classes lived so
much at coffee houses, alehouses or clubs, which they often used as
their addresses, that house room was a secondary consideration. There
was an alehouse on almost every street in London to provide cheap food
and beer, lodging, employment information, credit, newspapers, tobacco,
and meeting places for tradesmen. Some alehouses were recognized
employment agencies for certain trades, such as the hatters, smiths,
carpenters, weavers, boot and shoe makers, metal workers, bakers,
tailors, plumbers, painter and glaziers, and bookbinders. They were
often run by one of the trade, retired or otherwise. Some alehouses
catered to criminals and prostitutes. For cheap and simple eating there
were chophouses, cookshops, and beef steak houses.
There were about 10,000 English immigrants a year to London in the
1700s. They were mostly young people. London needed many immigrants
because of its high death rate. Over twenty London people a week died
from starvation alone; they were mostly women. Only about one-fourth of
London's population had been born in London. Especially welcome were
sturdy country people for heavy manual labor, the better educated boys
from the north for shops and offices, and the honest country people, as
contrasted with London's poor, for domestic service. Girls mostly looked
for domestic service, but were sometimes made the mistress of the
housekeeper or steered into prostitution as soon as they entered the
city. An ambitious young man would seek an apprentice job, work hard,
flatter his master, and try to marry his master's daughter. It was
easier to find a place to live in London than in the villages, though
there was much overcrowding. Many shopkeepers and workshop owners in
London were involved in leasing, purchases, and contracts.
Queen Anne was authorized by Parliament to build about 50 more churches
in London and Westminster and their suburbs, to be paid for by a coal
tax on imports into the port of London. Churches in London were to be
rebuilt with money paid by funeral rates, rates for tolling the bells,
and rates for the use of palls [altar cloths]. Queen Anne also
appropriated all her revenues from the first fruits and tenths of
ecclesiastical benefices: 16,500 pounds, to the clerical poor in 1704.
There were fewer quarrels among passersby on the London streets; men
were less likely to wear their swords. But there were fist fights by
common men which gathered crowds and occasioned betting. Most crime was
petty theft, but mobs and riots were frequent, as there were no police.
Watchmen and constables were often old and physically incapacitated. The
watchmen were householders taking their turn. This duty of householders
watching the streets had evolved from the ancient obligation of wards to
provide men to guard the walls at night. But few wanted these jobs by
which they could offend their neighbors. Many citizens paid a rate to be
excused from watch and ward duty. Constables were often tavern keepers.
Many riots were started when penal laws against the Catholics were
repealed. They began with the cries of "no popery", but then targeted
rich men's houses. Mobs sacked and pillaged at will, burned houses, and
flung open the prisons to increase their numbers. There were political
riots between Tories and Whigs. Working men still used violence to
protect their livelihoods, such as destroying the lodgings and public
houses of cheap immigrant labor such as the Irish. The stocking-knitters
destroyed stocking-knitting frames so that the number of apprentices who
could be employed would not reach the limit specified by its guild's
regulations. Parish workhouse children also provided a cheap supply of
labor which forced down the wages of the stocking knitters. In 1720 a
statute banned wearing of calico after mobs tore calico garments off
women. In 1765, thousands marched on Parliament and persuaded it to ban
foreign silk imports. But when a mob destroyed engine-looms, the army
was used against the rioters and two of them were hanged. This was the
last major mob action. Around the Tower, there were still demagogues
standing on upturned carts haranguing passing crowds. The Tower area was
a favorite place for demonstrators, and for unemployed and dissatisfied
workmen, particularly coal heavers and underpaid seamen protesting their
low pay and poor living conditions. There was more crime, especially at
night, now with organized bands of men or gangs of children. Bounty
hunters made a lot of money catching offenders. In 1736, to deter the
frequent robberies, burglaries, and other felonies at night, many glass
lamps were set up in places determined by the mayor. They had to burn
from sunset to sunrise. In 1736, a lighting rate was imposed by the City
to pay for all night lighting all year by hired lamplighters. Anyone
breaking or damaging the lights of London would forfeit 40s. for the
first offense, 50s. for the second offense, and 3 pounds for the third
offense. The aldermen had to contract to pay for lighting, trimming,
snuffing, cleaning, supplying, maintaining, and repairing them. To pay
for this system, citizens paid according to the amount of rent their
holdings were worth. If they didn't pay, they could not vote.
Bad areas of thieves and prostitutes and the slums east of the City
were gradually being replaced by warehouses and offices. In 1757, London
Bridge was widened and the houses were cleared off it. There were lanes
for carriages in the middle and for pedestrians on each side. Its arches
were also widened to make the passage of vessels underneath easier.
Lights were put on it to be lit all night. And watchmen were put on it
for protection and safety of passengers. This was paid for by tolls of
1/2 d. per horse, 1d. per carriage, and 2d.-1s. for vessels with goods
passing underneath. About 1762, a body of enterprising citizens secured
private acts of Parliament which allowed them to levy a house tax in
return for providing paving and lighting, which then greatly improved,
as did sanitation. Sidewalks were raised between the street proper and
the buildings, replacing the protective posts which had lined the roads.
Flat stones were put in place of the pebbles on the roadway. Signs
hanging out from stores, which had blocked the sunlight, were placed
flat on the front of the buildings. This also made the streets more
airy. The buildings were given numbered addresses and street names were
placed on buildings. Loading and unloading could not exceed one hour.
Nuisances like empty carts could be removed. Cranes used in warehouses
had to be stored in unobtrusive places. One who drove on the foot
pavement had to forfeit 10s. for the first offense, 20s. for the second
offense, and 40s. for other offenses. Wells were dug and pumps erected
for watering the streets. Pavements were to be repaired on complaint.
Dust boxes and dust holes were built and had to be used for refuse
awaiting pickup by the raker or else forfeit 10s. In 1762, the system of
having every man responsible for cleaning the street in front of his
door, which occasioned piles of rubbish in the central troughs of the
streets waiting for the next rain to be washed away, was abandoned. But
house occupants were required to keep the sidewalk in front of their
house clean or else forfeit 2s. If one broke a light, he had to pay
damages if it was accidental, and also 20s. if willful. Wards were to
choose substantial inhabitants to be collectors for a year at a time to
collect the rates, which were not to exceed 1s.6d. per pound of rents.
If one declined to be a collector, he had to forfeit 50 pounds. There
were special stands for hackney coaches, which were 12s.6d. for a day of
twelve hours. Their regulations were extended to Sundays.
In London, the normal system of building was for builders to buy up
leases, put up a new building, and sell it before the lease became due.
The rules for party walls between buildings were made more stringent: 2
1/2 bricks thick in cellar, 2 bricks thick to the garret floor, and 1
1/2 bricks above the roofs or gutters. They had to be made of brick or
stone. In 1772, rain water from roofs had to be carried to the streets
in lead or other pipes that were affixed against the side of the
building. In 1774, iron, copper, or other pipe or funnel for conveying
smoke or steam were not to be near any inside timber, or in front of
most any building or next to any public street, square, or court.