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

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Records which provide narratives of short episodes in daily life, such as are found in the trial narratives of the Old Bailey Proceedings and in depositions and examinations kept in the Sessions Papers (PS) and Coroners' Inquests (CI), often describe working practices. This is particularly true when an injury or death related to a workplace accident or dispute. In addition, the Registers of Admissions (RH) of St Thomas's Hospital include the victims of workplace accidents, with very brief descriptions of their injuries. Westminster poll books (1780), London Metropolitan Archives: St Margaret and St John WR/PP/1780/1-3; St Anne WR/PP/1780/4-5; Anon., Copy of the poll for the election of two citizens to serve in the present parliament for the City and Liberty of Westminster (1780). London Metropolitan Archives, St Botolph Aldgate, Pauper Examination Books, 1788-1790, Ms 4215/1, LL ref: GLBAEP103000019. The poll book data represent a complete transcription of extant Westminster Poll Books for the years between 1749 and 1820, omitting date of polling and swearing of oaths, indications 'senior' and 'junior', and house numbers. Many of the externally created datasets included in London Lives also include data on occupations. Those which include a significant number of occupations include:

Poor rate, St Anne Leicester Fields ward west (1802), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/522; Poor rate, St Anne King Square ward east (1802), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/523; Poor rate, St Anne King Square ward west (1802-3), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/525; Poor rate, St Anne Leicester Fields ward east (1802-3), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/526; Poor, highway and scavenger rate, St Margaret Grand ward (1802), City of Westminster Archives Centre, E/566; Poor, highway and scavenger rate, St Margaret Absey ward (1802), City of Westminster Archives Centre, E/567; Poor, highway and scavenger rate, St John (1802), City of Westminster Archives Centre, E/568. Plebeian Lives and the Making of Modern London, 1690 to 1800 (since re-named London Lives), used recent technical advances in the creation and anSt Clement Danes, Examinations Book, 1750-1752, Westminster Archives Centre, Ms. B1174, LL ref: WCCDEP35806, Tagging Level: A

London Metropolitan Archives (was London Metropolitan Archives), St Andrew Undershaft, Vestry Minutes, 1726-1759, Ms. 4118, vol. 2, p. 134. ⇑ With the growth of associational charities in the eighteenth century, several hospitals were founded by philanthropic men who wished to ameliorate the lives of the poor, contribute to the increasing population and prosperity of the nation, and improve their own social position. These hospitals tended to be more selective than the royal hospitals in the range of people and conditions they cared for, and included: 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. Register Date/Company/Reference: An abstracted statement encoding details of the original register, date of the policy, company, and eighteenth-century reference. Poor rate, St Anne King Square ward east (1804), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/550; Poor rate, St Anne King Square ward west (1804), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/551; Poor rate, St Anne Leicester Fields ward east (1804), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/552; Poor rate, St Anne Leicester Fields ward west (1804), City of Westminster Archives Centre, A/553; Poor, highway and scavenger rate, St Margaret Grand ward (1806), City of Westminster Archives Centre, E/578; Poor, highway and scavenger rate, St Margaret Absey ward (1806), City of Westminster Archives Centre, E/579; Poor, highway and scavenger rate, St John (1806), City of Westminster Archives Centre, E/580.Thomas Bowen, Extracts from the Records and Court Books of Bridewell, p. 61. The parliamentary act was the 1792 Vagrancy Act (43 George III c. 61). ⇑ The Database of Rate Books is very similar, but is divided into five fields. Again, details of the date associated with a particular record can be found in the header. Fields which are blank in the original have been suppressed in the version displayed here. Where information is available for each possible field the record will include: Westminster poll books (1820), London Metropolitan Archives: St Margaret and St John WR/PP/1820/1-8; St Anne, St Paul and St Martin-le-Grand WR/PP/1820/9-14; St James WR/PP/1820/15-21; St George WR/PP/1820/22-23, 26-29; St Martin WR/PP/1820/31-33; St Clement and St Mary WR/PP/1820/35-41. St Clement Danes, Examinations Book, 1791-1795, Westminster Archives Centre, Ms. B1190, LL ref: WCCDEP35824, Tagging Level: B The purpose of a house of correction was to punish and correct offenders, not merely hold them in incarceration. Most prisoners were therefore given punishments, which were determined by the governors. These were usually whipping and/or being put to hard labour, typically beating hemp. Whippings were notoriously carried out in front of the governors, and could be observed by others from a public gallery.