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Worth, Status, and the Social Order in Early Modern England is a major new study of the social order in early modern England, as viewed and articulated from the bottom up. Engaging with how people from across the social spectrum placed themselves within the social order, it pieces together the language of self-description deployed by over 13,500 witnesses in English courts when answering questions designed to assess their creditworthiness. Spanning the period between 1550 and 1728, and with a broad geographical coverage, this study explores how men and women accounted for their 'worth' and described what they did for a living at differing points in the life-cycle. A corrective to top-down, male-centric accounts of the social order penned by elite observers, the perspective from below testifies to an intricate hierarchy based on sophisticated forms of social reckoning that were articulated throughout the social scale. A culture of appraisal was central to the competitive processes whereby people judged their own and others' social positions. For the majority it was not land that was the yardstick of status but moveable property-the goods and chattels in people's possession ranging from livestock to linens, tools to trading goods, tables to tubs, clothes to cushions. Such items were repositories of wealth and the security for the credit on which the bulk of early modern exchange depended. Worth, Status, and the Social Order in Early Modern England also sheds new light on women's relationship to property, on gendered divisions of labour, and on early modern understandings of work which were linked as much to having as to getting a living. The view from below was not unchanging, but bears witness to the profound impact of widening social inequality that opened up a chasm between the middle ranks and the labouring poor between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries. As a result, not only was the social hierarchy distorted beyond recognition, from the later-seventeenth century there was also a gradual yet fundamental reworking of the criteria informing the calculus of esteem. --Provided by publisher.'

The \"forgotten majority\" of German merchants in London between the end of the Hanseatic League and the end of the Napoleonic Wars became the largest mercantile Christian immigrant group in the eighteenth century. Using previously neglected and little used evidence, this book assesses the causes of their migration, the establishment of their businesses in the capital, and the global reach of the enterprises. As the acquisition of British nationality was the admission ticket to Britain's commercial empire, it investigates the commercial function of British naturalization policy in the early modern period, while also considering the risks of failure and chance for a new beginning in a foreign environment. As more German merchants integrated into British commercial society, they contributed to London becoming the leading place of exchange between the European continent, Russia, and the New World.

This article offers an examination of the patterns and motivations behind parish apprenticeship in late eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century London. It stresses continuity in outlook from parish officials binding children, which involved placements in both the traditional and industrializing sectors of the economy. Evidence on the ages, employment types, and locations of 3,285 pauper apprentices bound from different parts of London between 1767 and 1833 indicates a variety of local patterns. The analysis reveals a pattern of youthful age at binding, a range of employment experiences, and parish-specific links to particular trades and manufactures.

The purpose of this article is to estimate the workforce involved in spinning from the late sixteenth century until the eve of mechanization. In addition, the potential contribution to family earnings from spinning will be examined. Just about all of the millions of yards of woollen yarn that went into making English cloth had to be spun by women and children, but this activity has not been investigated to the extent that it deserves. Spinning was a skilled occupation where there was a great demand for the best quality product. Sources exist which make it possible to make general estimates of the amount of spinning needed in the economy, and its cost. This evidence shows that employment in spinning increased dramatically from the late seventeenth century, and continued to increase until there were probably over one million women and children employed in spinning by the mid-eighteenth century. In addition earnings increased to the extent whereby earnings from spinning could contribute over 30 per cent of household income for poorer families. This has implications for looking at trends in real wages over time, as well as for the concept of the industrious revolution.

London in the 18th century was the greatest city in the world. It was a magnet that drew men and women from the rest of England in huge numbers. For a few the streets were paved with gold, but for the majority it was a harsh world with little guarantee of money or food. For the poor and destitute, London’s streets offered little more than the barest living. Yet men, women and children found a great variety of ways to eke out their existence, sweeping roads, selling matches, singing ballads and performing all sorts of menial labor. Many of these activities, apart from the direct begging of the disabled, depended on an appeal to charity, but one often mixed with threats and promises. Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London provides a remarkable insight into the lives of Londoners, for all of whom the demands of charity and begging were part of their everyday world.

The evidence of criminal court records suggests that almost all London wives were engaged in gainful occupations in the eighteenth century. The records of the City livery companies and of Christ's Hospital show that the wives of craft masters and professional men worked, as well as those in poorer families where their income was essential. At lower socio-economic levels it was unusual for couples to work in the same trade. At middling levels it was more common, especially in textiles and retail, but no more than half of couples worked together or in related occupations.

This paper explores the identity and social worlds of the ‘urban gentry’ of Chester as they developed from the late seventeenth to the mid eighteenth century. In place of the political and cultural definitions which characterise analyses of this group, it takes the self-defined ‘occupational’ titles of probate records as a starting point for an investigation into the background and activities of those styling themselves ‘gentleman’. Central to their identity were networks of friendship and trust. These reveal the urban gentry to have been closely tied with both the urban middling sorts and the rural gentry: a position which at once reflected and underpinned their particular situation within eighteenth-century society. Cette étude cherche à définir en quoi consistait le milieu identitaire et social de la gentry urbaine à Chester, et comment il a évolué entre la fin du XVIIe et le milieu du XVIIIe siècle. Au lieu de s'appuyer sur des définitions politiques et culturelles classiques concernant ce groupe, nous avons eu recours aux termes qu'employaient les membres de la gentry pour s'auto-caractériser. Les titres et occupations qu'ils évoquent pour eux-mêmes dans les dossiers de succession et testaments offrent un bon point de départ pour explorer les arrière-plans et activités de ceux qui se disent gentleman. Leurs réseaux d'amitié et de relation de confiance jouaient pour eux un rôle identitaire central. Il ressort de ce travail que la gentry urbaine était étroitement liée à la fois au milieu ordinaire de la ville et à la gentry de la campagne: cette position met immédiatement en lumière et sous-tend la particularité de cette élite sociale au cours du XVIIIe siècle. Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Entwicklung der Identität und Lebenswelt der „städtischen Gentry“ in Chester vom späten 17. bis zur Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts. An Stelle der politischen und kulturellen Definitionen, mittels derer diese Gruppe normalerweise charakterisiert wird, geht er dabei von den selbstgewählten „Berufstiteln“ in Nachlassakten aus, um die Herkunft und die Aktivitäten von Leuten zu untersuchen, die sich selbst als „Gentleman“ darstellten. Von zentraler Bedeutung für ihre Identität waren Netzwerke der Freundschaft und des Vertrauens, die deutlich machen, dass die städtische Gentry sowohl mit den städtischen Mittelschichten als auch mit der ländlichen Gentry eng verbunden war – mithin eine Position, die ihre besondere Situation in der Gesellschaft des 18. Jahrhunderts widerspiegelte und zugleich befestigte.

American historians have long been fascinated by the peopling of North America in the seventeenth century. Who were the immigrants, and how and why did they make their way across the ocean? Most of the attention, however, has been devoted to British immigrants who came as free people or as indentured servants (primarily to New England and the Chesapeake) and to Africans who were forced to come as slaves. Trade in Strangers focuses on the eighteenth century, when new immigrants began to flood the colonies at an unprecedented rate. Most of these immigrants were German and Irish, and they were coming primarily to the middle colonies via an increasingly sophisticated form of transport. Wokeck shows how first the German system of immigration, and then the Irish system, evolved from earlier, haphazard forms into modern mass transoceanic migration. At the center of this development were merchants on both sides of the Atlantic who organized a business that enabled them to make profitable use of underutilized cargo space on ships bound from Europe to the British North American colonies. This trade offered German and Irish immigrants transatlantic passage on terms that allowed even people of little and modest means to pursue opportunities that beckoned in the New World. Trade in Strangers fills an important gap in our knowledge of America's immigration history. The eighteenth-century changes established a model for the better-known mass migrations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which drew wave after wave of Europeans to the New World in the hope of making a better life than the one they left behind—a story that is familiar to most modern Americans.

We document the transition from goldsmith to banker in the case of Richard Hoare and his successors and examine the operation of the London loan market during the early eighteenth century. Analysis of the financial revolution in England has focused on changes in public debt management and the interest rates paid by the state. Much less is known about the evolution of the financial system providing credit to individual borrowers. We show how this progress took time because operating a deposit bank was new and different from being a goldsmith. Learning how to use the relatively new technology of deposit banking was crucial for the bank's success and survival. Nous documentons la transition d'orfèvre à banquier dans le cas de Richard Hoare et de ses successeurs, et nous examinons l'opération du marché des emprunts de Londres au commencement du dix-huitième siècle. L'analyse de la révolution financière en Angleterre s'est concentrée sur les changements dans la gestion de la dette publique et dans les taux d'intérêts payés par l'Etat. On en sait beaucoup moins sur l'évolution du système financier qui fournit le crédit aux emprunteurs individuels. Nous montrons que ce progrès a pris du temps en raison de la différence entre le travail d'une banque de dépôt et celui d'un orfèvre. Apprendre à utiliser une technologie relativement nouvelle, le dépôt bancaire, était crucial pour le succès de la banque et pour sa survie. Wir dokumentieren den Übergang vom Goldschmied zum Bankier am Beispiel von Richard Hoare und seinen Nachfolgern und untersuchen die Tätigkeit des Londoner Kreditgeschäftmarktes im frühen achtzehnten Jahrhundert. Analysen der englischen Finanzrevolution haben sich vorwiegend auf die Änderungen im Bereich öffentliche Schuldenverwaltung und die vom Staat gezahlten Zinsen konzentriert. Viel weniger ist jedoch über die Evolution des Finanzsystems bekannt, das einzelnen Kreditnehmern Kredite gewährt hat. Wir zeigen, dass diese progressive Entwicklung ihre Zeit brauchte, da der Betrieb einer Depositenbank neu war und sich von der Tätigkeit eines Goldschmieds unterschied. Das Erlernen der relativ neuen Technologie des Depositenbankwesens war von maßgeblicher Bedeutung für den Erfolg und das Überleben der Bank. Documentamos la transición de orfebre a banquero en el caso de Richard Hoare y sus sucesores y examinamos la operación del mercado londinense de préstamos a principios del siglo dieciocho. El análisis de la revolución financiera en Inglaterra se ha centrado en los cambios en la gestión de la deuda pública y las tasas de interés pagadas por el estado. Se conoce mucho menos respecto a la evolución del sistema financiero que facilitaba crédito a quien pedía préstamos personales. Mostramos cómo este proceso llevó tiempo debido a que operar un banco de depósitos era una tarea nueva y diferente de la orfebrería. Aprender a usar la relativamente nueva tecnología de la banca de depósitos fue crucial para el éxito y la supervivencia del banco.

Taxation of domestic servants' labour was inaugurated under Act of Parliament in 1777. A pragmatic measure, designed to increase revenue to fund a war economy, it established right of appeal to the higher courts, and local commissioners and employers to seek the opinion of the judges as to whether or not a man or woman was truly a domestic servant and a master or mistress liable to the tax. These records are used here to discuss the kind of work performed by domestic servants, and the place of domestic service in a developing labour theory of value, throughout the eighteenth century and beyond. The largest occupational category in later eighteenth-century society may thus be inserted into a history of working-class formation in England and the interaction of two bodies of law (Poor Law and taxation law) in the making of a modern class society discussed.