Linking Londoners : data, decisions and early modern London sources Mark Merry , Institute of Historical Research

1. Linking Londoners: data, decisions and early modern London sources Mark Merry, Institute of Historical Research Gill Newton, Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure

2. Sample areas

3. Aims • To examine the effects of large-scale immigration, urbanisation and • commercialisation on the population of London c.1520-1710 • Families and households – changes in structural characteristics. Did modernisation cause a ‘crisis’ in the metropolitan family? • Property and environment – interaction of physical environment with family life • Links between demographic and topographical change in the city centre and the suburbs

4. Sources • The projects bring together three types of information from a • wide range of manuscript and secondary sources: • Demographic information about individuals • Property records of ownership, management and transfer • Intersection of these: • householders • household and family structures • neighbourhoods

5. Sources - examples Parish registers Inhabitants listings Property histories (gazetteer) An undated pre-Fire plan (see Fig. 15) shows the property as a range of 4 houses (35A-D) fronting Cheapside, separated by a gate or alleyway in St. Lawrence Lane from a further 3 (E-G) fronting that lane. The alleyway led into a yard in which 3 smaller tenements (H) stood; no doorway is shown in the party wall with 11/12 but the yard extended to that wall, and also to a point on the N. wall or boundary. There was also an alley or entry between 35B and 35C on the Cheapside frontage, leading into the yard: it appears to have been partly built or bridged over. The date of the plan is not certain, and may be later than 1638, but the occupants listed in the tithe assessment of that year seem to have occupied the same number of units: 7 with street frontages and one in the yard, possibly occupied as 3 units. This also corresponds with the 8 tenants listed in 1539 and 1584. In 1638 there appear to have been 4 tenements on Cheapside, occupied (probably E. to W., and therefore corresponding to D, C, B and A) by Mr. Gardner (£30 p.a.), Mr. Antony (£30 p.a.), and Mr. Wright (£60 p.a., probably 2 tenements). Mr. Walden had a shop valued at £10. 10s. p.a., listed after Mr. Wright: this was probably part of H in the yard. In St. Lawrence Lane there were 3 tenements occupied (probably N. to S., corresponding to G, F, and E) by Mr. Scott (£16 p.a.), Mr. Sheafe (£20 p.a.), and Mr. Yaile (£20 p.a.). After Mr. Yaile are named Mrs. Powell (£8 p.a.) and Mr. Nicolls (£6 p.a.): these 2 probably held parts of H, in the yard. William Martyn, draper, of Bull Head Yard in Bow parish, who died in 1638, had probably occupied part of H. Parish Clerk’s Memoranda Books

6. Methodological background • Since October 2003, three projects: • People in Place: families, households and housing in early modern London, AHRC Core database and record linkage methodologies

7. Methodological background • Since October 2003, three projects: • People in Place: families, households and housing in early modern London, AHRC Core database and record linkage methodologies • Housing environments and health in early modern London 1550-1750, Wellcome Trust GIS thematic maps

8. Methodological background • Since October 2003, three projects: • People in Place: families, households and housing in early modern London, AHRC Core database and record linkage methodologies • Housing environments and health in early modern London 1550-1750, Wellcome Trust GIS thematic maps • Life in the Suburbs: health, domesticity and status in early modern London, ESRC XML tagging of a rich prose source

9. Event Subject Person Condition Related Person RP Condition The parish register database: structure • Events input directly into database • Structure based on generalised parish register model • Created in parallel with master db

10. The parish register database: inputting interface Subject/ related person Condition Event Subject person Related person

11. The master database: structure Property Events People

12. The master database: inspection interface

13. Record linkage: conceptual representation of family reconstitution

14. Mlines Clines Hlines Wlines The parish register database: changing structure • End result of db structure after many changes during family reconstitution process • Unique Person and Event IDs never changed and omnipresent • Final reconstituted family structure contains calculated values for ease of analysis

15. Parish register database: Family Reconstitution form Calculated values stored in underlying tables Clickable links to event forms

16. Source linkage: conceptual model Record linkage based on: • names • dates • other information as and when available

17. Source linkage: example

18. Record linkage: creating a name dictionary • Aim of manual intervention is to prevent undergrouping • Overgrouping is partly resolved by name combinations • Less likely matches ruled out using Levenshtein Edit Distance

19. Record linkage: names Dealing with multipart names

20. GIS: Digitisation • based on multiple printed maps • polygons for streets • polygons for precincts (not shown) • polygons for landmark buildings • polygons for houses (Cheapside only)

21. GIS: Precinct (zone) level analysis St Botolph Aldgate infant mortality rate 1690-1709

22. GIS: Street level analysis Distribution of Tower Hill precinct population by street in 1695 20 to 25 10 to 20 5 to 10 1 to 5

23. GIS : House level analysis Plague deaths in Cheapside houses

24. GIS: Building plans of Cheapside properties

25. Text mark up: PCMs as transcribed

26. PCMs and Parish Registers • Logistics of record linkage given different time estimates for completion PCMs Parish registers

27. Text mark up of PCMs in Nvivo

28. Project data and contact information • Information about and data from the projects can be found at: • http://www.history.ac.uk/cmh/projects.html • http://www.history.ac.uk/cmh/pip/resources.html#archive • http://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/lits/ Mark Merry: mark.merry@sas.ac.uk Gill Newton: gill.newton@geog.cam.ac.uk