People in Place; families, households and housing in early modern
London
Achievements to date (October 2005)
extracted from the end-of-year report to AHRC
The project is examining the role of family and household in the social and economic
transformations that took place in early modern London by identifying and tracking over time
the changing characteristics of families and households in three sample areas (Cheapside,
Aldgate, Clerkenwell) between c. 1540 and 1710, and using these data as the basis for more
qualitative enquiries.
In year 1, the project team successfully designed, tested, and began to implement a database
structure to hold the varied source material for the investigation. By the end of that year they
had entered data from three printed parish registers for Cheapside, and most of the detailed
returns to the 1692 Poll Tax and 1695 Marriage Duty tax. Preliminary experiments with record
linkage and family reconstitution had been made.
In year 2, the 'master database' for the Cheapside parishes has been virtually completed. The
merged database now contains BMB information from all five parishes (two of which had only
MS registers) together with additional data from a MS register kept at Mercers' Hall,
comprising data on 18,532 events and 41,442 individuals. The database now also contains
data from the 1690s taxes and accounts; assessment lists for the Hearth Tax and other taxes;
local rate lists and information from other parish records. Information on Cheapside property
histories to 1670 has been incorporated. A new methodology for extending the property
histories to 1710 and importing the data into the database has been developed, and data
entry is under way. Substantial digital datacapture has been underaken, with some 2,000
images currently held.
Methodologies for family reconstitution developed in year 1 (name standardisation, record
linkage, etc.) have now been implemented for the major reconstitution of the population of
Clerkenwell. A very large amount of data has been entered from the printed parish registers
and other materials collected by the late Amanda Copley, and reconstitution is in progress. It
currently stands at 6 linked databases containing 280+ tables and 180+ queries; more
linkages of baptisms with burials and of successive marriages are about to be undertaken.
The family reconstitution for the Cheapside parishes (a separate process from the
development of the 'master database', requiring name standardisation) was delayed owing to
the limited opportunities for access to the archive at Mercers' Hall, but the material is now
ready for reconstitution, which will begin shortly.
After discussion and experimentation, the team established a set of definitions for
categorising family and household composition, which is being used to analyse and compare
the 1690s data for Cheapside and Aldgate (currently being entered); work on classifying
occupational groupings in the same source is also under way.
London Research Officers Mark Merry and Phil Baker gave joint papers on households and
families in late 17th-century London to the Pre-Modern Towns Group Annual Meeting and the
London Metropolitan History Seminar, one of which is now being revised for publication in the
London Journal. Cambridge Data Editor Gill Newton gave a paper on the Cheapside family
reconstitution to the Cambridge Graduate Seminar, and one on marriage in Clerkenwell to a
day conference on the Middlesex suburbs in the early modern period. These papers are
being prepared for publication, with probable submission to Local Population Studies or
Continuity & Change. Project Co-director Vanessa Harding gave papers on aspects of the
family and household in medieval/early modern London to the 2004 meeting of the North
American Conference on British Studies in Philadelphia, PA; to a conference on Medieval
Domesticity: Home, Housing and Household at Fordham University, NY; to a conference on
Houses, Households and Families in the Medieval and Early Modern World at UWA, Perth,
Australia; and to research seminars in London and Southampton. The Fordham and Perth
papers are being revised for publication.
The team's proposal to organise a session on family and household at the European Urban
History Association's biennial conference in Stockholm in August 2006 has been accepted. A
proposal for a session at the Economic History Society's annual conference in March 2006
has been submitted.
Additional achievements (beyond the original aims and objectives for this year)
Cambridge Data Editor Gill Newton completed a Computer Science MSc, and was awarded
a Pass with Distinction. Her thesis topic was the creation of a customisable name-matching
algorithm for historical computing by refactoring, arising from her work on the present
research project.
Collaboration with the Australian Research Council-funded research project 'Beyond the
family: fragmented relationships and household strategies in England, 1400-1830', based at
UWA, Perth, Australia continued. Members of that project team participated our bi-annual
Advisory Panel Meeting in April 2005, and will do so again in March 2006. Their ARC
'Linkage International' appliction was successful and helped to fund Vanessa Harding's visit to
Perth in August 2005, to attend a conference and meetings of the research team.