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Sojourners and lodgers in a provincial town: the evidence from eighteenth-century Ludlow

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2009

S. J. Wright
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Extract

Urban historians have recently shown an increasing interest in the development of England's provincial centres and smaller market towns. Although they lacked a strong manufacturing element and did not expand at the same rate as the emerging industrial centres of the north and the midlands, towns like Canterbury, Ipswich, Lutterworth and Ludlow played a fundamental part in eighteenth-century urban history. They acted as distribution points for an increasing range of agricultural goods and manufactured products. They helped to stimulate the expansion and diversification of England's traditional crafts. They fostered the development of urban culture and in doing so they attracted large numbers of immigrants and casual visitors. There were occasions when even the smallest market town opened its doors to a large contingent of outsiders, be it for one day in the week when the market was held or at an annual fair, whilst people attending court or the fashionable season would temporarily ‘swell’ the population of centres like Bath and Bristol or of cathedral and county towns like Gloucester and Canterbury. Some of the people who were drawn ‘townwards’, and these are the people we know most about, eventually became integrated into the community and set up their own homes and businesses. But there were other groups too, groups which tend to get neglected for they feature so rarely in our records. There were the men and women who disappeared without trace after quartering in a town for a night or a couple of weeks and whom we only learn about by chance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History Yearbook , Volume 17 , May 1990 , pp. 14 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

Notes

1 See, for instance, Clark, P. (ed.), Country Towns in Pre-Industrial England (1981)Google Scholar and The Transformation of English Provincial Towns (1984).

2 Everitt, A., ‘Country, county and town; patterns of regional evolution in England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 29 (1978), 79–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Borsay, P., ‘The English Urban Renaissance: the development of provincial urban culture c. 1680–1760’, Social History (1977), 581–603CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barry, J., ‘Popular culture in seventeenth century Bristol’, in Popular Culture in seventeenth century England, ed. Reay, B. (1985), 59–90.Google Scholar

4 Rothwell in Northamptonshire provides a good example of this ‘periodicity’ for the 1841 census coincided with the annual fair and large numbers of outsiders are recorded in the town. Moore, P., ‘Rothwell: town or village 1750–1850? A case study of the changing patterns of urban status in the small town’ (unpublished M.A. thesis, Department of English Local History, Leicester, 1986).Google Scholar

5 In 1676 the Compton census yields a total of 1,376 souls suggesting a population of c. 2,100. Whiteman, A. (ed.), The Compton Census of 1676 (1986), 255.Google Scholar The parish Easter Books reveal that by the eighteenth century there were c. 650 households in Ludlow and over 1,700 adults.

6 Some of the first signs of the importance of the trade are found in the petitions protesting against the introduction of a tax on leather in 1697 in Commons Journals, vol. 11, 758–9, 764Google Scholar; vol. 12, 11, 18, 20.

7 Blome, Richard, Brittania (1673), 194.Google Scholar

8 See Clark, P. and Souden, D. (eds), Migration and Society in Early Modern England (1987).Google Scholar

9 See ibid., 14, 23–8 and P. Borsay ‘The development of provincial urban culture c. 1680–1760’.

10 There is a conventional view that floods of immigrants destroyed the social organization of local neighbourhoods and networks. Clark, and Souden, (eds), Migration, 27, 107, 110.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., 268–71.

12 Laslett, P. and Wall, R. (eds), Household and Family in Past Time, (1972), 134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Even in a detailed study like that carried out by J. Boulton on Southwark it was only possible to study householders rather than the more mobile elements of the population. ‘Neighbourhood migration in early modern London’, in Clark, and Souden, (eds), Migration, 118.Google Scholar

13 See, for instance, a case in Ludlow in 1732. Shropshire Record Office (hereafter given as SRO), Quarter Sessions Presentments Box 238, f140v, 1732. Laslett discusses the problem of definitions in Laslett, and Wall, , Household and Family, 34–9, 86–9Google Scholar, and Wall also deals with this in Family Forms in Pre-Industrial Europe (1983), 425.Google Scholar

14 SRO Ludlow Easter Books 1725–34, 2881/1/78; 1741–52, 3834; 1789–1800, 2881/1/79 and similar ledgers lodged with the Ludlow Historical Research Group dating from 1717–24, 1785–8 and 1808–35.

15 For a detailed discussion of the systems adopted elsewhere see Wright, S.J., ‘Easter books and parish rate books: a new source for the urban historian’ in Urban History Yearbook (1985), 30–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 See tables 1 and 2. As sojourners were more likely to be single than married and, if married, to be at an early stage in the marital career, the number of children linked with the group would have been relatively insignificant.

17 Although not everyone took communion, Easter Books generally list all those liable to do so and we can therefore obtain a reasonably accurate idea of the size of the population over 16.

18 A detailed analysis of individual lists showed that there was a lot of fluctuation from one year to another in the composition of the sojourning population.

19 Earlier discussions on mobility include Souden, D., ‘Migrants and the population structure of the later seventeenth century provincial cities and market towns’ in Clark, P. (ed.), Transformation, 152–5Google Scholar and Boulton, J., ‘Residential mobility in seventeenth century Southwark’, Urban History Yearbook (1986), 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Wright, S.J., ‘Kith, kine and community: household structure and residential mobility in early modern Salisbury’, in Phythian-Adams, C.V. (ed.) Neighbourhood, Kinship and Locality in Pre-Industrial England, Collected Occasional Papers in English Local History, Leicester (forthcoming).Google Scholar

20 Amongst those who stayed in one household for over five years, a group amounting to no more than one in seven, were the spinster Jane Roe who lived with John Angel and Susan Powell who stayed with Widow Bowen for at least ten years. Meanwhile numerous examples could be cited of people who moved around the community.

21 See tables 4–7. In the study of mobility listings dating from 1723 to 1734 were used and attention was focused on a cohort which included independent sojourners and those who headed separate units, but not their dependants who were rarely named.

22 In sixteenth-century Salisbury, for instance, two-fifths of the servants listed in a similar series of Easter Books were recorded once only whilst terms of five years or more were comparatively rare. Wright, S.J., ‘Family life and society in sixteenth and early seventeenth century Salisbury’ (unpublished University of Leicester Ph.D. thesis, 1982), 180–1.Google Scholar

23 Salisbury Corporation Archives Corporation Ledger C fols, 62, 150v, 214v, 221v. Goose, N., ‘Household size and structure in early Stuart Cambridge’, Social History, 3 (1980), 347–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Carlisle Record Office, Court Leet Records, Ca 3/2/17 and also 20/10; 2/11; 2/3 and 2/6 for presentments concerning inmates. Another town which acted against inmates was Liverpool: see, for example, Twemlow, J.A. (ed.), Liverpool Town Books (1935), 11, 308, 397, 423.Google Scholar It was also common for towns to issue leases on the condition that undertenants should not be admitted without consent. Further examples of the way that immigrants were seen as a threat to law and order and exacerbated local poverty are given in Clark, and Souden, , Migration, 21–2, 277–80.Google Scholar

24 Peter Clark points out that after the Settlement Act it was easier for better-off migrants — single men and couples without children — to stay in towns, a development which must have led to some alteration in the sex balance of the sojourning population. Clark, P. ‘Migrants in the city’, in Clark, and Souden, , Migration, 277–80.Google Scholar

25 Orders in 1693 reiterated earlier legislation stipulating that strangers were not to be entertained without giving notice to the bailiffs and in subsequent court sessions people were periodically fined for harbouring inmates. (SRO 356/6/237, Ludlow Quarter Sessions Presentment Book 1701–1746.) Even in the 1750s the problem still vexed the authorities for it was reported in 1753 that ‘there are a great many inmates as we apprehend are harboured in this town contrary to the law’ (SRO 356/2378, Sessions of the Peace Minute Book 1752–1810).

26 The list in 1741 included four glovers, two shoemakers, two tailors, four labourers, a padmaker, a smith, four joiners and one tiler. A variety of different criteria were used to identify the poor including marginal notes in the Easter Books themselves and references in sources such as the Window taxes of 1726 and 1729 (SRO 356 Box 474), and the Poor Lewn of 1728 (SRO Boxes 513–6). The classification of the elite was based on factors such as the amount paid to the church at Easter, status titles, occupational designations, office holding, appearance in the poor rate and evidence from probate records.

27 Six of the female sojourners in 1723 and ten of those in 1741 were noted as gloveresses. Small numbers were also recorded in each of the other listings.

28 Wright, Thomas, The History and Antiquities of Ludlow (1826), 198Google Scholar, and Felton, W., A Description of the Town of Ludlow (1811), 40.Google Scholar Ludlow's role as a glove-making centre is also emphasized by a number of other nineteenth-century writers including Plymley, Joseph, A General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire (1803), 209.Google Scholar Other sources of employment mentioned in contemporary guide books and directories include tanning, malting, papermaking and the timber trade. Lewis, Samuel, A Topographical Dictionary of England, vol. 3 (1844), 181–2.Google Scholar

29 It is interesting to note that in 1728 Randoll and his wife both lodged in separate houses.

30 Hereford and Worcester County Record Office (hereafter given as HWRO), Bishop's Court Office Books, No. 154, 1717–1730; SRO Quarter Sessions Presentments and Depositions Box 238, f84v, 1727 and Box 136, 1726.

31 Clark, and Souden, , Migration, 35–6Google Scholar and Borsay, ‘The Urban Renaissance’.

32 Defoe, Daniel, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, (1979 edn), 311–2.Google Scholar

33 MrIrvine, , A Handbook to Ludlow (1878), 78–9, 86.Google Scholar

34 Felton, , A Description, 40.Google Scholar

35 By the end of the eighteenth century Ludlow could boast two theatres, a circulating library and a local newspaper. There was also a racecourse in the vicinity and promenades around the castle. Lloyd, D., Country Grammar School: A history of Ludlow Grammar School (1977), 83Google Scholar; another sign of Ludlow's social role was the fact that it acted as a ‘marriage shop’ for the neighbouring area.

36 PRO, Chancery Proceedings, C7/66/68.

37 Clark, and Souden, , Migration, 22.Google Scholar

38 King, Gregory, Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England, 1696, in The Earliest Classics, ed. Laslett, P. (1973), 39.Google Scholar

39 Namely 39 out of 121 examples.

40 At least one in every eight householders observed between 1723 and 1734 who married in Ludlow spent some time as sojourners first, that is seven out of a group of 57. But without information about the many men who married outside the town, precise estimates are impossible. Bowen and Vale were also atypical for they lodged with kinsmen, a fact which again raises several questions. For instance, how often did a sojourner marry a member of the household to which he was attached, and once married how many couples stayed with their parents? Did they stay for long and would they be expected to pay for their board or to live independently?

41 See Wright, S.J., ‘The elderly and the bereaved in eighteenth century Ludlow’, in Life, Death and the Elderly: Social attitudes and responses in the past, eds Pelling, M. and Smith, R., forthcoming.Google Scholar

42 In Castle Ward Hosier's Almshouses offered places for 33 people and their dependents, but vacancies were irregular. In a typical year roughly 29 householders offered houseroom to a mother or mother-in-law and three or four to a father or father-in-law. But this small group amounted to no more than 4 per cent of the total.

43 Just under 2 per cent of the total.

44 It was probably also fairly common for people to take up lodgings for brief periods whilst sick or destitute before resuming household status.

45 See note 26 for details of how the rich and the poor were classified. As table 5 illustrates the householders in the two wealthiest wards, Castle Street and Broad Street, were more likely to take lodgers than average.

46 The innholder would obviously take in many outsiders for very brief periods, but such people rarely appear in our records.

47 In 1728 just over a fifth of the householders classified as belonging to the elite were listed with sojourners, compared with 13 per cent of the poor, a group including labourers and journeymen in addition to actual paupers (see table 6).

48 Taking lodgers was a valued source of income for the members of the community in many towns, see Clark, and Souden, , Migration, 276.Google Scholar

49 The members of the last three occupations formed a significant proportion of the total number of householders in that group, namely 30 per cent, 17 per cent and 25 per cent respectively.

50 Many women were simply following the example of their spouse in taking lodgers. The extension of the household was not, therefore, simply an expedient to which they turned in order to make ends meet (see table 7). In 1728 48 per cent of the female householders with lodgers housed a family group, 35 per cent a solitary sojourner and 17 per cent a group of independent lodgers. For male householders the respective proportions were 28 per cent, 70 per cent and 2 per cent. By 1763 women were far less likely to house whole families. The proportions for this sample year were 13 per cent, 73 per cent and 13 per cent for women and virtually the same as in 1728 for men. Very few men housed female sojourners only, but this applied to 13 per cent of their female counterparts in 1728 and 7 per cent in 1763.

51 In 1728, for instance, a quarter of Ludlow's male householders and a third of the female can be considered as belonging to the urban elite. In 1741 the proportions were slightly lower, namely just over a fifth and just over a quarter. But given the problems of defining social status this cannot be viewed as significant.

52 One should also bear in mind the suggestion that by the later eighteenth century it was harder for the less ‘respectable’ elements of society to stay long in a town before being moved on and there was a trend for apprentices to lodge outside their master's household which would alter the composition of the lodging population, Clark, and Souden, , Migration, 270, 279.Google Scholar

53 HWRO Box 164, 6/5/28; SRO Box 136, Quarter Sessions Depositions 1726. Limited work has been done to link the Easter Books with Ludlow's valuable collection of deeds and other property records, but this would be a rewarding area for future research.

54 The Fabian survey of the poor in early twentieth-century Lambeth illustrates how tensions could easily arise when two families needed to share a copper or when the lodger could only approach his rooms by walking through the bedrooms of his landlord. Reeves, Pemberton, Round About a Pound a Week (1979), 29–33.Google Scholar

55 Ludlow Poll Taxes, 1689, 1692. Copies lodged with the Ludlow Historical Research Group.

56 Laslett also noted this feature in some of the listings which he analysed. Laslett, and Wall, , Household and Family, 35.Google Scholar

57 In this context Phythian-Adams' comments on the different life-styles of wage-earners and master craftsmen are interesting. Phythian-Adams, , Desolation of a City: Coventry and the urban crisis of the late middle ages (1979), 95–6.Google Scholar

58 HWRO Box 165, 1728 and Box 168, 1730.

59 PRO, Chancery Proceedings, C8/301/28.

60 Testators sometimes referred to the person who had nursed them in their last hours. See, for instance, the will of Thomas Hattam, 1742, Ludlow Miscellaneous Deeds, 137 Corve Street.

61 Occasionally, and this is yet another example of the interchangeability of terms, servants were described as sojourners. Thus, in the nearby village of Leintwardine, John Iddines and his wife resided as ‘sodjorners and servants’ with John Moreland, the latter's father. SRO Box 174, Quarter Sessions Presentments 1677.

62 As already noted, it was common for glovers to take in women who earned a living by making gloves.

63 King, G., Natural and Political Observations, 39.Google Scholar David Souden discusses the 1690s returns in ‘Migrants and the population structure in English provincial towns’, in Transformation, ed. Clark, P., 149–57.Google Scholar

64 Lodgers amounted to roughly 4 per cent of the total population and perhaps 7 per cent of the adult population in Gloucester.

65 According to the Marriage Duty Act Returns in Shrewsbury roughly a quarter of all households contained an outsider, a level which is notably higher than that for Ludlow. Were conditions the same in the eighteenth century and were lodgers also prominent in other Shropshire towns?

66 See N. Goose for a discussion of the motivation behind the census. He calculated that lodgers, albeit individuals or family groups, comprised 7 per cent of the population, whilst sojourners formed just under 1 per cent, Goose, , ‘Household size’, 349, 363, 379, 380.Google Scholar

67 P., and Clark, J., ‘The social economy of the Canterbury suburbs’ in Studies in Kentish History, ed. Yates, N. (1983), 70–2.Google Scholar Another listing which included sojourners was compiled in the parish of St James, Bristol in 1638. The list is interesting, for in this instance the word ‘stranger’ was used to denote a casual visitor and ‘sojourner’ to denote more permanent residents. The latter amounted to 2.6 per cent of the adult population, 1033 in all, whilst six strangers were listed (Bristol City Library, 4531m S165–9).

68 Clark, and Souden, , Migration, 284–5.Google Scholar