Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vfjqv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T09:39:45.224Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Charitable giving and its distribution to Londoners after the Great Fire, 1666–1676

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2011

JACOB F. FIELD
JACOB F. FIELD*
Affiliation:
Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, University of Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge, CB2 3EN, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Major fires are essential case-studies of how urban society responds to crisis. How a city organizes its relief reflects its place in larger networks and reveals its charitable priorities. This article will use the example of the Great Fire of London (1666) to show how the city recovered from this catastrophe. It will examine the recovery using the records of a nationwide charitable collection taken for Londoners ‘distressed’ by the Fire, which shows both how and where money was collected in England and spent in London. It will show that London was extremely resilient to the Fire, and that there was significant continuity before and after the disaster.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , May 2011 , pp. 3 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Massard-Guilbaud, G., ‘Introduction – the urban catastrophe: challenge to the social, economic, and cultural order of the city’, in Massard-Guilbaud, G., Platt, H. L. and Schott, D. (eds.), Cities and Catastrophes: Coping with Emergency in European History (Frankfurt, 2002), 13, 27Google Scholar.

2 Borsay, P., ‘Fire and the early modern townscape’, in Waller, P. (ed.), The English Urban Landscape (Oxford, 2000), 110–11Google Scholar.

3 Reddaway, T.F., The Rebuilding of London after the Great Fire (London, 1940), 26Google Scholar; Ugawa, K., ‘The Great Fire of Edo (Tokyo) in 1657’, in Körner, M. (eds.) Destruction and Reconstruction of Towns, vol. I: Destruction by Earthquakes, Fire and Water, ed. Körner, M. (Bern, 1999), 213–38Google Scholar; Baer, M.D., ‘The Great Fire of 1660 and the Islamization of Christian and Jewish space in Istanbul’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 36 (2004), 159–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Borsay, P., ‘A county town in transition: the Great Fire of Warwick, 1694’, in Borsay, P. and Proudfoot, L. (eds.), Provincial Towns in Early Modern England and Ireland: Change, Convergence and Divergence (Oxford, 2002), 160Google Scholar; D.R. Davis and D.E. Weinstein, ‘A search for multiple equilibria in urban industrial structure’, NBER Working Paper 10252 (2004), 3–4, 41–2; Bosker, M. et al. ., ‘Looking for multiple equilibria when geography matters: German city growth and the WWII shock’, Journal of Urban Economics, 61 (2007), 167CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Ugawa, ‘Great Fire of Edo; 225; M. Hietala, ‘Fear of fires. Impact of fires on towns in Finland at the beginning of the nineteenth century’, in Massard-Guilbaud, Platt and Schott (eds.), Cities and Catastrophes,156; H. Gamrath, ‘The Great Fire in Copenhagen in 1728’, in Körner (ed.), Destruction and Reconstruction of Towns, 299.

6 Archer, I.W., ‘The charity of early modern Londoners’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 12 (2002), 241CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Schen, C.S., Charity and Lay Piety in Reformation London, 1500–1620 (Aldershot, 2002), 8Google Scholar; Harris, M., ‘“Inky blots and rotten parchment bonds”: London, charity briefs and the Guildhall Library’, Historical Research, 66 (1993), 103CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bewes, W.A., Church Briefs: or, Royal Warrants for Collections for Charitable Objects (London, 1896), 101–254Google Scholar.

7 Lowe, R., The Diary of Roger Lowe of Ashton-in-Makerfield, Lancashire. 1663–1678, ed. Winstanley, I.G. (Wigan, 1994), 55Google Scholar.

8 Harris ‘“Inky blots”’, 100; Sampson, W., The Rector's Book, Clayworth, Notts., ed. Gill, H. and Guilford, E.L. (Nottingham, 1910), 14–140Google Scholar; Walford, C., ‘King's briefs: their purposes and history’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 10 (1882), 61–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Andrew, D.T., ‘“To the charitable and humane”: appeals for assistance in the eighteenth-century London press’, in Cunningham, H. and Innes, J. (eds.), Charity, Philanthropy and Reform from the 1690s to 1850 (Basingstoke, 1998), 96–7Google Scholar.

9 Bewes, Church Briefs, 147, 400–11; Borsay, ‘County town in transition’, 154, 160.

10 M. Mulcahy, ‘Urban catastrophes and imperial relief in the eighteenth-century British Atlantic world: three case studies’, in. Massard-Guilbaud, Platt and Schott (eds.), Cities and Catastrophes, 109; L. Nilsson, ‘The end of a pre-industrial pattern: the great fires of Sundsvall and Umeå in 1888’, in Körner (ed.), Destruction and Reconstruction of Towns, 286.

11 London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), Poor Sufferers by Fire in Lond. 1666, COL/SJ/03/006; LMA, A Posting Book for Ye Collection Money for Releife of Those that Have Had Great Losse by Ye Lamentable Fire within ye Citty of London & Liberties Thereof, COL/SJ/03/007.

12 LMA, COL/SJ/03/006; LMA, Fire of London Grants of Money 1667–75, COL/SJ/03/009, 1–204; LMA, Orders upon the Chamberlain, 1666–71, COL/SJ/03/010A, 1–140.

13 Kitching, C.J., ‘Fire disasters and fire relief in sixteenth-century England: the Nantwich fire of 1583’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 54 (1981), 174–5, 184CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J.P. Boulton, ‘Charity universal? Parochial contributions to distressed Protestants in Cromwellian England’, unpublished paper presented to the Institute of Historical Research, 9 Dec. 2005; J.F. Field, ‘Reactions and responses to the Great Fire: London and England in the later seventeenth century’ (Ph.D. thesis, Newcastle University, 2008), 195; Jordan, W.K., Philanthropy in England 1480–1660 (London, 1959), 241Google Scholar; Boulton, J.P., ‘London 1540–1700’, in Clark, P. (ed.), The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. II: 1540–1840 (Cambridge, 2000), 345Google Scholar.

14 Slack, P., ‘Perceptions of the metropolis in seventeenth-century England’, in Burke, P. et al. . (eds.), Civil Histories: Essays Presented to Sir Keith Thomas (Oxford, 2000), 167Google Scholar.

15 Beier, A.L. and Finlay, R.A.P., ‘Introduction: the significance of the metropolis’, in Beier, A.L. and Finlay, R.A.P. (eds.), London 1500–1700: The Making of the Metropolis (London, 1986), 5Google Scholar; Fisher, F.J., ‘The development of London as a centre of conspicuous consumption in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in Corfield, P.J. and Harte, N.B. (eds.), London and the English Economy, 1500–1700 (London, 1990), 106Google Scholar.

16 J.A. Chartres, ‘Food consumption and internal trade’, in Beier and Finlay (eds.), London 1500–1700, 169; W.C. Baer, ‘Housing the poor and mechanick class in seventeenth-century London’, London Journal, 25/2 (2000), 13, 16.

17 Field, ‘Reactions and responses’, 244

18 Jordan, Philanthropy, 159, 249, 253.

19 These returns mostly gave information on the number of households in a parish, so a multiplier of 4.25 was used in these cases to create an estimate of the parochial population. The Compton Census of 1676: A Critical Edition, ed. A. Whiteman (London, 1986); A Collection of the Yearly Bills of Mortality, from 1657 to 1758 Inclusive, ed. T. Birch (London, 1759). Numbers of burials are translated into estimates of population using the death rate of 47 per 1,000, calculated from a comparison of bills of mortality to a 1638 population count. R.A.P. Finlay, Population and Metropolis: The Demography of London 1580–1650 (Cambridge, 1981), 118 n. 7. Technique as done by Boulton, ‘Charity universal?’.

20 A.S. Dasgupta, ‘Poverty, pauperism and parish relief in seventeenth century intramural London’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 2003), 191.

21 Classification of parishes based on J. Adams, Index Villaris: Or, An Alphabetical Table of All the Cities, Market-Towns, Parishes, Villages, and Private Seats, in England And Wales (London, 1680)Google Scholar.

22 England at the time was at most 15% urbanized. Corfield, P.J., ‘Urban development in England and Wales in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in Coleman, D.C. and John, A.H. (eds.), Trade, Government and Economy in Pre-industrial England: Essays Presented to F.J. Fisher (London, 1976), 214–47Google Scholar.

23 Determining which communities had experienced fires was based on Jones, E.L. et al. ., A Gazetteer of English Urban Fire Disasters, 1500–1900 (Norwich, 1984), 16–19Google Scholar.

24 Field, ‘Reactions and responses’, 220.

25 Mann-Whitney U Test, based on normal distribution, two tailed, at 95% level, Z = 0.332, tabulated value Z = 1.96. Null hypothesis of no significant difference is accepted.

26 LMA, COL/SJ/03/006, 23 Dec. 1667.

27 Field, ‘Reactions and responses’, 186.

28 LMA, COL/SJ/03/006, 2 Nov. 1666, 29 Jan. 1667.

29 ‘An act for the discovery of such as have defrauded the poor of London of the moneys given them at the times of the late Plague and Fire’, History and Proceedings of the House of Commons from the Restoration to the Present Time, vol. I: 1660–80 (London, 1742), 162–3.

30 Pepys, S., The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Latham, R. and Matthews, W., 11 vols. (London, 1970–83), vol. VIII, 562Google Scholar.

31 LMA, Journal of the Court of Common Council, 48, fol. 293v.

32 Slack, P., ‘Hospitals, workhouses and the relief of the poor in early modern London’, in Grell, O.P. and Cunningham, A. (eds.), Health Care and Poor Relief in Protestant Europe 1500–1700 (London and New York, 1997), 242Google Scholar; Reddaway, Rebuilding of London, 258–9.

33 LMA, COL/SJ/03/006, 3 May 1667, 29 Jun. 1667, 10 Jul. 1667, 9 Oct. 1666.

34 Pearson's Product Moment Coefficient is 0.824. Testing using Student's T-test at 95%; t = 8.726 and the tabulated value is 2.02. Null hypothesis of no correlation between population and amount granted in 1666 must be rejected.

35 Acreage: Pearson's Product Moment Coefficient is 0.802. Testing using Student's T-test at 95%; t = 10.047 and the tabulated value is 2.02. Null hypothesis of no correlation between population and amount granted in 1666 must be rejected. Number of households: Pearson's Product Moment Coefficient is 0.764. Testing using Student's T-test at 95%; t = 9.291 and the tabulated value is 2.02. Null hypothesis of no correlation between population and amount granted in 1666 must be rejected. Figures from Finlay, Population and Metropolis, 168–72.

36 Field, ‘Reactions and responses’, 71–3; R.A.P. Finlay and B. Shearer, ‘Population growth and suburban expansion’, in Beier and Finlay (eds.), London 1500–1700, 44–6; M.J. Power, ‘The social topography of Restoration London’, in Beier and Finlay (eds.) London 1500–1700, 203–5.

37 LMA, COL/SJ/03/009, 21.

38 LMA, COL/SJ/03/010A, 19, 24 Dec. 1666.

39 Ibid., 25 Dec. 1666.

40 Ibid., 23, 29 Dec. 1667.

41 LMA, Repertory of the Court of Aldermen, 74, fols. 8v–9r.

42 Archer, ‘Charity of early modern Londoners’, 244.

43 Boulton, J.P., ‘Wage labour in seventeenth-century London’, Economic History Review, 49 (1996), 268–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dasgupta, ‘Poverty, pauperism and parish relief’, 265.

44 LMA, COL/SJ/03/006, 15 Jan. 1668, 29 Jul. 1679; The National Archives (TNA), petition of Clara Bolton to the king, 1667, SP 29/229, 117. Although Bolton paid to have foundations staked out for a new house in Gracechurch Street on 9 Jul. 1668, her problems continued. In 1669, she petitioned Baron Arlington, the secretary of state, for £500 as she had mortgaged her City lands for £700 and needed to rebuild on them before the ground was seized. P. Mills and J. Oliver, The Survey of the Building Sites in the City of London after the Great Fire of 1666, ed. P.E. Jones, 5 vols. (London, 1962–7), vol. I, 40; TNA, petition of Clara Bolton to Arlington, SP 29/262, 150.

45 Slack, P., The English Poor Law 1531–1782 (Basingstoke, 1990), 27–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Mann-Whitney U Test, based on normal distribution, one tailed, at 95% level, Z = 3.332, tabulated value Z = 1.75. Null hypothesis of no significant difference is rejected.

47 Archer, I.W., ‘The charity of London widows in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries’, in Jones, N.L. and Woolf, D. (eds.) Local Identities in Late Medieval and Early Modern England (Basingstoke, 2007), 181Google Scholar; Slack, English Poor Law, 27–8.

48 Brodsky, V.E., ‘Widows in late Elizabethan London: remarriage, economic opportunity and family orientations’, in Bonfield, L., Smith, R.M. and Wrightson, K. (eds.), The World We Have Gained: Histories of Population and Social Structure (Oxford, 1986), 123–4Google Scholar.

49 LMA, COL/SJ/03/009, 6.

50 LMA, COL/SJ/03/006, 14 Feb. 1667, 23 Feb. 1667; LMA, COL/SJ/03/009, 3.

51 LMA, COL/SJ/03/006, 3 Jun. 1668, 21 Apr. 1668.

52 Ibid., 13 Jan. 1669.

53 Mann-Whitney U Test, based on normal distribution, one tailed, at 95% level, Z = 4.390, tabulated value Z = 1.75. Null hypothesis of no significant difference is rejected.

54 LMA, COL/SJ/03/009, 42.

55 Cressy, D., Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge, 1980), 73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Ibid., 119–21.

57 Slack, P., Poverty and Policy in Tudor and Stuart England (London and New York, 1988), 39–40, 188–9Google Scholar.

58 Bewes, Church Briefs, 101–254; Borsay, ‘Fire and the early modern townscape’, 110–11; Wrigley, E.A., ‘A simple model of London's importance in changing English society and economy, 1650–1750’, Past and Present, 37 (1967), 44–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 Archer, ‘Charity of early modern Londoners’, 242.

60 Evelyn, J., The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. De Beer, E.S., 6 vols. (Oxford, 1955), vol. III, 462Google Scholar.

61 Boulton, ‘London 1540–1700’, 320–4; Earle, P., ‘The economy of London, 1660–1730’, in O'Brien, P.K. et al. . (eds.), Urban Achievement in Early Modern Europe: Golden Ages in Antwerp, Amsterdam and London (Cambridge, 2001), 85–7Google Scholar; Spence, C., London in the 1690s: A Social Atlas (London, 2000), 25Google Scholar.