Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-22T09:00:42.867Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘To be had for a Pesthouse for the use of this parish’: plague pesthouses in early Stuart London, c. 1600–1650

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2022

Aaron Columbus Open the ORCID record for Aaron Columbus [Opens in a new window]
Aaron Columbus*
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar
*
*Corresponding author. Email: aaron.columbus.phd@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The use of the pesthouse in early modern England has received limited attention by scholars, in particular, how it was used in London. The study of the pesthouse tells us about the nature of parochial government in the capital, the early development of public health policies and the relationship between national and civic authorities and the suburban parishes, where plague was a long-term problem and intersected forcefully with poverty. This article explores how suburban parishes used the pesthouse in their repertoire of response to plague between c. 1600 and 1650, which is situated in the context of experiments with the pesthouse in England's provincial towns and cities. The article considers the development of the City of London's pesthouse in St Giles Cripplegate, its limited use by suburban parishes under the City's jurisdiction, and the establishment of a local pesthouse by some suburban parishes beyond the jurisdiction of the City.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , February 2024 , pp. 125 - 145
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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 Jeffreson, J.C. (ed.), Middlesex County Records, vol. II: 1603–25 (London, 1887), 84–94Google Scholar.

2 Crawshaw, J.L.S., Plague Hospitals: Public Health for the City in Early Modern Venice (Burlington, 2012), 4Google Scholar.

3 A.L. Moote and D. Moote, The Great Plague: The Story of London's Most Deadly Year (Baltimore, 2004), 37, 54, 133, 144, 185, 190–2, 122, 124, 211, 254.

4 Crawshaw, Plague Hospitals, 4.

5 Slack, P., The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England (London, 1985), 209Google Scholar.

6 Wilson, F.P., The Plague in Shakespeare's London (Oxford, 1927), 14–71Google Scholar; Slack, Impact of Plague, 207–16; V. Harding, ‘Plague in early modern London’, in L. Englemann, J. Henderson and C. Lynteris (eds.), Plague and the City (Abingdon, 2018), 43.

7 Ibid., 39–67.

8 Cummins, N., Kelly, M. and Gráda, Cormac Ó, ‘Living standards and plague in London 1560–1665’, Economic History Review, 69 (2016), 20–2Google Scholar.

9 Hartle, R., The New Churchyard: From Moorfields Marsh to Bethlem Burial Ground, Brokers Row and Liverpool Street (London, 2017), 149Google Scholar.

10 Slack, P., ‘Perceptions of plague in eighteenth-century Europe’, Economic History Review, 75 (2022), 138–56Google Scholar.

11 Guildhall Library (hereafter GL), Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks, The Number of All Those that Hath Dyed in the Citie of London and the Liberties, 1582 (London, after 1582).

12 Harding, ‘Plague in early modern London’, 41–7.

13 Lambeth Palace Library CM/1–60, CM/VII/61–115 – 1636 survey of parish government shows all 15 suburban parishes included being governed by select vestries; Merritt, J., ‘Contested legitimacy and the ambiguous rise of vestries in early modern London’, Historical Journal, 54 (2011), 25–45Google Scholar.

14 Crawshaw, Plague Hospitals, 2–26.

15 Henderson, J., Florence under Siege (New Haven, 2019), 183–6, 226–8Google Scholar.

16 Moote and Moote, The Great Plague, 13–14.

17 K. Jillings, An Urban History of the Plague: Socio-Economic, Political and Medical Impacts in a Scottish Community, 1500–1650 (Abingdon, 2018), 93–4.

18 Slack, Impact of Plague, 45, 203, 225, 276, 318–19.

19 J. Bruce (ed.), Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1627–28 (London, 1858), 254–70.

20 R.S. France, ‘A history of plague in Lancashire’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire, 90 (1938), 96.

21 J. Bruce (ed.), Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1629–31 (London, 1860), 226–39.

22 K.J. Allison, A History of the County of York East Riding, vol. I (London, 1969), 90–171.

23 France, ‘Plague in Lancashire’, 78–9.

24 Ibid., 61–2.

25 Slack, Impact of Plague, 276–7.

26 Ibid., 223–5; A. Beard (ed.), Documents Relating to the Great Plague of 1665–66 in Bristol (Bristol, 2021), 1–4, 31–64.

27 Slack, Impact of Plague, 223.

28 The Shutting up Infected Houses as It Is Practised in England Soberly Debated by Way of Address from the Poor Souls that Are Visited, to Their Brethren that Are Free (London, 1665).

29 Davenport, R., Satchell, M. and Shaw-Taylor, L., ‘The geography of smallpox in England before vaccination: a conundrum resolved’, Social Science & Medicine, 206 (2018), 77–84Google Scholar.

30 Harding, V., ‘The population of London, 1550–1700: a review of the published evidence’, London Journal, 15 (1990), 111–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Slack, Impact of Plague, 151–64.

32 R. Finlay, Population and Metropolis: The Demography of London 1580–1650 (Cambridge, 1981), 111, 120–1, 158–67.

33 W.H. Overall and H.C. Overall, Analytical Index to the Series of Records Known as the Remembrancia 1579–1664 (London, 1878), vol. I, 497, vol. VI, 57; British Library Lansdowne MS 74/36.

34 Wilson, Plague in Shakespeare's London, 74–80.

35 A. Boyle, C. Boston and A. Witkin, The Archaeological Experience at St Luke's Church Old Street, Islington (Oxford, 2005), 45–7.

36 T. Birch (ed.), Collection of Yearly Bills of Mortality, from 1657 to 1758 Inclusive (London, 1759), 1625, 1636, 1665.

37 Slack, Impact of Plague, 277.

38 Moote and Moote, The Great Plague, 37, 185, 190–2.

39 Overall and Overall, Remembrancia, vol. I, 497, vol. VI, 57, vol. VII, 177.

40 Archer, I., ‘Government in early modern London: the challenge of the suburbs’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 107 (2001), 133–47Google Scholar.

41 Overall and Overall, Remembrancia, vol. VII, 19; The National Archives (hereafter TNA) SP 16/187/60.

42 J. Bruce (ed.), Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Charles I, 1637 (London, 1868), 97–132.

43 London Metropolitan Archives (hereafter LMA) COL/CA/01/01/028, fols. 139v, 175v; COL/CA/01/01/032, fol. 68v.

44 LMA COL/CA/01/01/043, fols. 213, 297v; COL/CA/01/01/054/01, fols. 188v, 199r–v, 286v.

45 Journal of the House of Lords (London, 1767–1830), vol. 4: 1629–42, 390–2, vol. 9: 1646, 333–5.

46 LMA COL/CHD/CT/01/002, fol. 40; COL/CHD/CT/01/004, fol. 39v; COL/CHD/CT/01/006, fol. 264.

47 LMA P69/GIS/A/002/MS06419/002; London and Surrey, England, Marriage Bonds and Allegations 1597–1921 (MS10091/20), fol. 259.

48 TNA E 179/252/32, fol. 84.

49 TNA Records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Series PROB 11; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 321.

50 P. Slack, ‘Hospitals, workhouses, and the relief of the poor in early modern London’, in Health Care and Poor Relief in Protestant Europe (London, 1997), 229–46; Wilson, Plague in Shakespeare's London, 84.

51 LMA COL/CHD/CT/01/002, fol. 43v.

52 Ibid., fol. 54r–v.

53 Ibid., fol. 134.

54 Ibid., fols. 143v, 221.

55 LMA P69/BRI/B/001/MS06554/001, fols. 1–69v; P69/BRI/B/016/MS06552/001, fols. 1–181; P69/SEP/B/123/MS09080/001B – not foliated.

56 LMA P69/BOT2/B/031/MS09237, fols. 45, 55v–57.

57 Harding, ‘Plague in early modern London’, 50.

58 Wilson, Plague in Shakespeare's London, 181–3 – costs for inmates in the City's pesthouse.

59 LMA P69/BOT2/B/031/MS09237, fols. 73, 83.

60 LMA P69/DUN2/B/011/MS02968/001, fols. 482v–483.

61 LMA P69/DUN2/B/011/MS02968/004, fol. 64v.

62 LMA P69/DUN2/B/011/MS02968/001, fols. 529v, 537v; P69/DUN2/B/011/MS02968/002, fols. 293–296 – houses were shut up in this period.

63 LMA P69/DUN2/B/011/MS02968/003, fol. 391v.

64 LMA P69/DUN2/A/003/MS010344 – not foliated.

65 LMA P69/DUN2/B/011/MS02968/003, fol. 391v.

66 LMA Westminster Session Records 48/1, 1a; P69/DUN2/B/011/MS02968/003, fol. 617v.

67 LMA P69/DUN2/B/011/MS02968/003, fol. 410v.

68 LMA P69/DUN2/A/003/MS010344, fols. 339v, 327v–331.

69 McMurray, W., The Records of Two City Parishes: St. Anne and Agnes, Aldersgate, and St. John Zachary (London, 1925), 336Google Scholar.

70 LMA P69/DUN2/A/003/MS010344 – not foliated.

71 LMA P69/DUN2/B/001/MS03016/001, fol. 179.

72 LMA P69/DUN2/B/011/MS02968/003, fol. 512.

73 LMA P69/DUN2/A/003/MS010344 – not foliated.

74 LMA P69/DUN2/B/011/MS02968/003, fol. 512.

75 LMA P69/DUN2/B/011/MS02968/003, fols. 617v–618.

76 GL, Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks, A Generall Bill for This Present Yeare, Ending 16th December 1641.

77 LMA P69/DUN2/B/011/MS02968/003, fols. 617v–618.

78 Newman, K., ‘Shutt up: bubonic plague and quarantine in early modern England’, Journal of Social History, 45 (2012), 812Google Scholar.

79 G.W. Hill and W.H. Frere, Memorials of Stepney Parish: Vestry Minutes from 1579 to 1662 (Guildford, 1890–91), 197.

80 Moote and Moote, The Great Plague, 191, 224.

81 C. Drew, Lambeth Churchwardens’ Accounts, 1504–1645 and Vestry Book, 1610 (Surrey Record Society and Lambeth Borough Council, 1940–50), 168–9.

82 J. Merritt, The Social World of Early Modern Westminster: Abbey, Court and Community 1525–1640 (Manchester, 2005), 261–2.

83 J. Parton, Some Account of the Hospital and Parish of St Giles in the Fields (London, 1822), 260–1.

84 Ibid., 260–3.

85 Westminster Archives Centre (hereafter WAC) F3, fol. 96.

86 F.H.W. Sheppard, Survey of London: Volumes 31 and 32, St James Westminster, Part 2 (London, 1963), 219–29.

87 J.V. Kitto (ed.), A Register of Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials in the Parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (London, 1898–1936), 248–57.

88 Merritt, Early Modern Westminster, 261–2.

89 WAC F2, fols. 35, 44; F2001, fol. 114v; F2002, fol. 143; F3, fols. 269–271v.

90 Kitto (ed.), Register of Burials, 259–61.

91 WAC F3, fol. 96r–v.

92 WAC F4515 – not foliated.

93 WAC F2002, fol. 89.

94 Ibid., fol. 91.

95 WAC F4514, fol. 1.

96 Ibid., fols. 1–114 – foliation is implied.

97 Ibid.

98 WAC F4516, fols. 13–16v.

99 Newman, ‘Shutt up’, 819.

100 WAC F3356 – not foliated.

101 WAC F4516, fols. 9–12 – the pesthouses contained 66 persons in the week of 12 Feb. 1637, the highest number recorded.

102 WAC F4514, fols. 1–114.

103 Ibid.

104 Newman, ‘Shutt up’, 817–18.

105 Baer, W., ‘Housing for the lesser sort in Stuart London: findings from certificates, and returns of divided houses’, London Journal, 33 (2008), 61–88Google Scholar.

106 TNA SP16/408/139, fols. 139–44.

107 WAC F4516, fol. 16.

108 Ibid., fols. 13–16v.

109 WAC F4514, fol. 1.

110 Ibid., fols. 18, 69, 84, 87, 103.

111 Ibid., fols. 69, 109, 113.

112 WAC F2002, fol. 106.

113 WAC F4514, fols. 99–112.

114 WAC F4516, fol. 16; F2002, fols. 107–108, 120.

115 WAC F2002, fol. 107.

116 Ibid., fol. 108; F3, fol. 292.

117 WAC F3, fol. 110.

118 WAC F2002, fols. 130, 142, 154.