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, 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. Carriage by sedan-chair
was common. Gentlemen often had valets. In 1776, Buckingham House
was bought as a palace for the royal couple.
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 (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, orrerys
[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, of
glue, of printers' ink, and of 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, and
the tanners, employed journeymen.
There were buildings for boiling and distilling turpentine, for
casting brass or iron, and for making glass for chemical works for
sale.
The skilled artisan who worked at home and either made goods for a
master or sold to the trade verged into the shop keeping 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.
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, 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' business
transactions, 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 across 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 here. 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 in from of stores, which
had blocked the sunlight, were placed flat in 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.
In the 1720s firefighters had to fill a tank on a wagon by hand
with buckets. On top of the tank was a hose that could spray water
high. London parishes were authorized to place upon the water
pipes underground stop-blocks of wood with a plug and firecocks to
go into such pipe at various distances so that there would be no
loss in time in digging down to the pipes to get water to fight
fires. Parishes were required to keep at known places, ladders and
a large engine and a hand engine to throw up water to extinguish
fires including one leather hose with socket fitting the plug or
firecock, so that buckets would not be needed. The Sun Insurance
Company was incorporated for fire insurance in 1711. Insurance
offices were authorized to employ watermen with poles, hooks, and
hatchets to be always ready at a call to extinguish fires.
No more than 12 sacks of meal, 12 quarters of malt, 750 bricks, or
1 chalder of coal per load on wagons or carts with wheels bound
with [narrow] iron tire are allowed within ten miles of London or
Westminster, or else forfeit one horse. This is to prevent decay
of the roads.
For every wagon and cart in London, there must be a person on foot
to guide it to prevent the maiming, wounding, and killing of
people, especially the old and children, when drivers ride on
their wagons and carts. Later, it was required that carts must
display the name of the owner and be registered. Still later,
there was a penalty of 10s. for not having a person on foot to
guide any cart. Later still, in 1757, if a new owner of a cart did
not put his name thereon, he had to forfeit 40s., and the cart and
horse could be seized and sold to pay the forfeiture. Persons
willfully obstructing passage on streets with empty carts or
barrels or pipes shall forfeit 5-12s. or do hard labor up to one
month. The justices of London assessed rates and made regulations
for carriage of goods. Certain houses and buildings were bought
and pulled down to widen several streets, lanes, and passages.
In 1774, persons driving cattle in London, whose negligence or
improper treatment of such cattle cause them to do mischief shall
forfeit 5-20s. or else go to a House of Correction for up to one
month or be publicly whipped.
The roads around London were neither very attractive nor very
safe. Along them was land covered with water from drains and
refuse and dung heaps. Hogs were kept in large numbers on the
outskirts and fed on the garbage of the town. Smoking brick kilns
surrounded a great part of London. In the brickyards vagrants
lived and slept, cooking their food at the kilns.