- Times: 1702-1776 -
Dress was plainer than before. Gentlemen wore white linen shirts; waistcoats fitted at the waist and covering the trunk at least; long lawn ties wound around the throat and tied in front with the tails tucked in, knee-length coats that were wide in the skirts and in the sleeve cuffs and having large gold, silver, or bronze buttons which didn't reach to the buttonholes on the other side of the coat; knee breeches of cloth, knitted wool, thread, and silk; and silk stockings rolled up at the knee. Some shoes had metal buckles. Gold fobs with watches or seals hung from the breeches pocket. The clothes were made of silk, satin, or velvet and often in colors such as yellow, orange, scarlet, blue, violet, pink, and dull slate, and decorated with gold and silver trimmings. A slender sword was worn on the side. Short wigs, often powdered with heavily scented white or gray wheat flour, with rolls over the ears with hair tied at the back, were worn for formal occasions. Wigs were made of human, horse, goat, or cow hair, or mohair, worsted, silk, or wire. Sometimes feathers and cork were also used. The hat was three-cornered, and usually of beaver or dark felt. There was often a rosette or such to show one's political opinion. There were new colors and cuts of dress for every season. By 1750, wearing a sword was just a symbol of gentility. Gentlemen often had valets to help them dress. Ladies wore fitted full-length dresses held out by hoops with shoulders hidden, sometimes with a laced bodice with stays, and lace at the neck. The waistline fashion fluctuated high and low and in tightness. The dress could be brocade, satin, velvet, silk, etc. Some put jewels in their hair and had high elaborate hats with wide brims tilted forward. Hair was in ringlets at the side or dressed close to the head with a small top knot covered with a laced cap. They also wore wigs when dressing up, decorated with ribbons and artificial flowers. Hooded cloaks were used outdoors and hoods were used for sun or wind. They carried leather purses with gloves at elbow length. Both gentlemen and ladies wore cosmetics and face patches and used tooth powders, breath sweeteners, lip salves, and choice perfume. Some had false teeth of bone or ivory wired into place. They both had accessories such as fans, handkerchiefs, head scratchers, and elaborately designed snuff-boxes, patch boxes, and perfume containers. Both men and women sniffed tobacco snuff but only men smoked. They walked with tall, elegant canes, and women also carried parasols. Hats were made of wool and hair of beaver, rabbit, or camel. Straw hats were worn in the summer. There were ready-made clothes and shoes, especially for children. Night gowns and night caps were worn to bed. About 1714, umbrellas for rain were introduced. They were made of waxed silk or taffeta. All but the poorest wore silk and lace. A prosperous countryman wore riding clothes consisting of breeches and boots, cut-away coat, and low top hat.
The highest class were the peers and peeresses of the House of Lords and their spouses and families. They were the nobility and held the high political offices, the high ranks in the army and navy, and owned large estates, usually scattered over the country. Some were lawyers or merchants. There was much intermarriage among these families. Indeed, many a noble family had salvaged its fortunes by marriage to a London merchant. The richest people in London were international merchants. These high class families lived in mansions with four or five living rooms, two to five acre gardens, and stables.
The next class were the gentry. Their family heads had land and were often Justices of the Peace. They were sometimes members of the House of Commons. The oldest son took over from his father, while the other had to find a living such as in the church, law, medicine, or trade. They usually lived in mansions.
The old yeoman class was disappearing due to their selling their land to larger landowners. Farming on a large scale was more productive.
The next class were the "middling sort". In this class were merchants, lawyers, substantial tenant farmers, smaller freeholders, millers, innkeepers, in town traders, shopkeepers (who now kept their wares inside and lived on the second floor), middlemen, clothiers, ironmongers, goldsmiths, grocers, linen drapers, apothecaries, school masters, clerks and civil servants, and customs and excise men. The town people lived in town houses of two stories plus an attic.
The last class were the manual workers. These were wage earners or independent craftsmen, farriers, rural smiths (who shod horses and made stair rails, window-bars, torch extinguishers, lamp irons, bells, bolts, hinges, locks, and fire-grates), sawyers, carpenters, joiners, wheelwrights, nail makers, brick makers, plumbers (made lead cisterns, kitchen sinks, rain-water heads, drain pipes and lead flats for houses and ornaments), thatchers, spinners (silk, flax, hemp, wool, hair), dyers, wool combers, weavers, shoemakers, hat makers, belt and buckle makers, dressmakers, milliners (hats, caps, bonnets, cloaks, hoods, muffs), feather workers, button makers, lace makers, steel pin makers, brewers, cutlery makers, soap makers, candle makers (made from beeswax, fallow, mutton-fat, or beef-drippings), comb makers, barber/hairdressers (shaved, cut hair, made wigs and braids, and let blood), curriers, leather workers, carpet weavers, paper makers, tin-plate makers, printers, enamel workers, braziers and coppersmiths (made kettles, saucepans, canisters, milk pails, lanterns, candle boxes, candle sticks, and lamp lighters), basket makers, jewelers (made rings, perfumes, match boxes, buckles, and tops of canes), watch and clock makers, type founders, letter cutters, trunk and chest makers, cabinet makers, saddlers, coach body builders, coach carriage makers, shipwrights, rope makers, and sail makers. These workers typically worked in their stone or brick houses in a rural setting, with gardens, a cow, a horse, pigs, and poultry around them on 2-6 acres. They now ate wheaten bread instead of rye bread, much meat and cheese, and drank tea. These people also worked in the harvesting of grain. Some consolidation of work was starting. For instance, the weaver, who had furnished himself with warp and weft, worked it up, and brought it to market himself was being displaced by weavers who worked under supervision for one merchant in a town on looms the merchant had acquired. Many women and children were so employed. It was not unusual for a man to work 13 hours a day for 6 days a week. Real wages were higher than at any time since the mid-1400s. The wage earners were well above the subsistence level as long as trade was good. Working men could now afford leather shoes and white bread. But eventually, as the employer came to realize how dependent the weaver had become on him, wages tended to fall. In 1757 a Gloucester weaver, with his wife to help him, could earn, when work was good, from 13s. to 18s. a week. A few years later, he could only earn about 11s. A woman spinner earned 10-15d. a day in 1764, but 3-5d. in 1780. In the same period, men's wages fell from 17d. to 10d. a day. Only certain workers, whose special occupation needed greater skill, e.g. the wool-combers, whose wool was longer and of better quality than carded wool, and shearers, were better paid. In 1770, wool combers made 13s. a week; their wage was about the same all over the country because they traveled form town to town in search of work and always supported each other. Also in 1770, Newcastle miners earned 15s. a week, Sheffield cutlers 13s.6d. a week, a Rotherham blacksmith 13s. a week, a furnace keeper at Horsehay about 12s. a week, a Staffordshire potter from 8-12s., a Witney blanket weaver or a Wilton carpet weaver 11s. or more a week, a Manchester cotton weaver from 7-10s. a week, and a Leeds cloth weaver about 8s. In this class also were ploughmen, cowmen, dairymaids of the bigger farms. They had cottages of wood, clay, and straw, with clay floors and low ceilings, and a divided ground floor. A few had homes built of stone, covered with slate or thatch.
Wages of industry were higher than those of agriculture. In 1770, a day laborer earned 5-6s. a week in winter and 7-9s. in summer (without board or lodging). In the short harvest time, he could earn 12s. a week.
Lastly were the mass of the population of London: hordes of laborers who depended on casual employment and could be dismissed at will.
About half the population had no resources but their labor, which was usually unskilled and lowly paid. In good times they had just enough to feed themselves.
The gap between rich and poor became greater. Marriage remained a main way to wealth. Also, one trained in the law could aspire to have a successful career in high political office, which also brought wealth. But there was less social mobility than in the previous century and many landed families were consolidating their position. They expected their oldest son to take and preserve the family estate. Industrialists who had made a fortune for example in steel, cotton, coal mining, porcelain, and merchants who wanted to turn themselves into landed gentlemen found it very difficult to buy such estates. Old dissenter families, Quakers in particular, who were highly esteemed as businessmen, as industrialists, and as model employers were excluded from the Anglican landowning society. Rich tradesmen, artists, actors, and writers found it difficult to buy substantial houses in the small market towns and countryside because of an entrenched hierarchical atmosphere there that didn't exist in London. The only gentlemen who were in household service were librarians, tutors, or chaplains. They ate with the family and did not consider themselves servants. Servants were kept more at a distance. By the 1750s the servant class was clearly defined. Their quarters were moved to the basement of the house and they ate together in the kitchen. But some householders still had special occasions when everyone would eat together in the dining room, with the servants at one end of the table. In 1767 about one tenth of the population in London had servants. Even bricklayers and milk sellers had a servant. Most families had just one servant. Most wives employed some other woman or child to help in washing and scouring or in the minding of the children.
London had grown beyond the locations of its walls around the City. London stretched ten miles along the Thames, and was three miles wide in the center. On the east of the City was the port and industry. The west side ended at Hyde Park and Regent's Park and was residential. In 1710 it was still possible to shoot woodcock in Regent Street. In 1750, Westminster Bridge was opened. In 1760, the City walls were taken down to ease congestion. The typical London house, usually brick, was on a rectangular plan and had a basement to utilize all the space possible. There were pictures on the walls which were now more covered with damask, brocade, silk, and wallpaper hung and plain paint than by wood wainscoting. On the first floor was a front hall or parlor and a back parlor. One of these parlor rooms was the most important room, where the family entertained or spent leisure time. In it were sofas, armchairs, and stools of mahogany or white gilded wood. They were upholstered with damask or needlework. Imported mahogany was replacing as a favorite the walnut that was usually used instead of oak. Much wood was inlaid with a variety of woods. There was also a carved tripod table, china table, card table, and perhaps bookcases and/or tea-table. Furniture with original designs made by the cabinet-maker Chippendale was available. His genius was in combining various motifs into one harmonious design. Cabinet makers had to keep abreast of his standards and to imitate them to conform with their customers' orders. Cabriole legs with claw and ball feet came into fashion with Queen Anne about 1712. Between windows were tall mirrors. There were pictures on the walls. From 1760, glass chandeliers hung from the ceiling to reflect candlelight coming from standing candlesticks or glazed hanging lanterns with brass frames. The fireplace had an elaborate mantel. The fire was kept going all day. It was lit by a tender box, which was unreliable. An iron fire-back was behind the fire. The firewood was placed on andirons. Fire grates were used from about 1712. At a corner of the building was added a closet. On the second floor was a dining room, continuation of the closet below, and a drawing room, dressing room, or bedroom, and perhaps a study or music room with harpsichord. The dining room had a fireplace, curtains over the windows looped up at the cornices, one or more mahogany tables, a set of mahogany chairs with leather or hair- cloth seats fixed with brass nails (perhaps with some sort of metal springing), two mahogany sideboards with marble tops, cupboards or shelves or cabinets with displays of china porcelain, a wine-cooler, a dumb-waiter, and a folding leather screen. The china, which was displayed, was mostly imported, but there was some English china. Later, there was famous Wedgwood stoneware and pottery with bright, unfading glaze, or with dull black and red surfaces, biscuit ware of pale green, blue or purple, upon which white designs stood out like cameos. They came from the pottery factory at Staffordshire founded by potter Josiah Wedgwood in 1769. There were silver and pewter plates and serving pieces, silver candlesticks, and silver knives, spoons, and two and three pronged forks, glass salt-cellars from 1724, and fingerbowls from which one rinsed one's mouth or cleaned one's fingers after dinner which were made of glass from about 1760. On the third floor were bedrooms and a nursery. In the bedrooms, there was a high bed with curtains, canopies, piles of blankets and pillows, and stairs; wardrobe; chairs; a wash hand stand; chests of drawers; writing bureau; dressing table with a couple drawers and a mirror; swing standing mirror; tin rush candle canister; and night commode. Children and servants slept on low wooden bedsteads. Walls were stucco, a form of cement that could be sculpted, or paneled or hung with silk and printed paper. Servants, such as the page and footmen, slept in the attic and perhaps in the kitchen or cellar. There was a wood staircase for the family and a back staircase for the servants. The floors and staircases were protected with carpeting. Servants had no right to free time or to holidays. The kitchen was in the basement or in a covered shed in the back. It had an open fire and a tin oven. The cold water tap over the stone sink could supply cold water from a cistern in the basement or hand-pumped to a roof cistern through wooden pipes at very low pressure at stated hours for a fee. There was a wash shed in back. Water pumped from the Thames into underground pipes was thus distributed to householders three times a week. Some water came from a well or spring, rain, and street water sellers. Water carriers were still employed at set fees. Water was kept in lead cisterns. The wealthy had basement cisterns filled by a commercial company. The free public conduits of water were out of use by 1750. The front door of the house had two strong bolts on the inside and a heavy chain. The windows could be shuttered and barred. There were sash windows with cords and brass pulleys. At the back of the house was a garden and perhaps a coach house or stables. The latrine was usually not in the house, but somewhere in the back garden area. Under it was a brick drain leading to a public sewer or to a cesspool. Smelly gases arose from it. Sometimes people gathered such waste up to sell to farmers returning home in an otherwise empty wagon. In 1760, patented inside toilets began to be used. A watch-maker named Alexander Cummings patented in 1775 the water-closet, which had a stink trap u-bend behind which, after flushing, water resided and prevented the back-flow of noxious sewer gas. Its pans and overhead cisterns were made in pottery. They were supported by wood structures. There were better cements for building. Chinese porcelain, embroidery, and lacquer-work were popular. Landscaping to reproduce an idealized country scene replaced formal gardens. Furniture and landscaped gardens were often done in a Chinese style. Foreign trees were imported.
Many of the well-to-do now lived in districts without as well as within the city limits. Many streets east of the City were named after the governing families whose estates were there. Their mansions had interior columns, archways, marble halls and fireplaces, carving, gilding, rich colors, and high ornamented ceilings. They each had a picture gallery, a library, stables with coachmen, grooms, and stableboys, and a still-room for concocting liquors and cordials such as cherry brandy, sloe gin, and elderberry wine. Medicine and scents were also developed in the still-room. Washing was in done wash bowls held by wooden stands wood and in a built-in bathtub. Hot water usually had to carried up to it, but bathtubs with hot and cold running water were known. In these mansions, there were many private parties and balls. The standard for politeness here was high and gentlemen were expected to keep their tempers. This came about because impoliteness could easily lead to a quarrel and then a duel. The pistol was replacing the sword as the weapon of choice for duels. Good manners developed for all occasions, with much less swearing and less rudeness. By gentlemen's agreements, men did favors for each other without a monetary price, but with the expectancy of a favor in return. The love of one man for another was recognized as the highest and noblest of human passions. People of high social standing left their country estates to spend the winter season in their townhouses in London with its many recreations such as receptions, routs, levies, masquerades, balls, dinner parties, clubs, pleasure gardens, theaters, shops, shows, taverns, and chocolate and coffee houses. Coffee houses provided Turkish coffee, West Indian sugar and cocoa, Chinese tea, Virginia tobacco, and newspapers. They were frequented by learned scholars and wits, dandies, politicians, and professional newsmongers. Men of fashion often engaged in wagers and gambling at their clubs and coffee houses. There were wagers on such matters as the longevity of friends and prominent people, fertility of female friends, wartime actions, and political matters. Carriage by sedan-chair was common. Gentlemen often had valets. In 1776, Buckingham House was bought as a palace for the royal couple.
People from different parts of London differed in ways of thinking, conversation, customs, manners, and interests. For instance there were sections where sailors lived, and where weavers, watchmakers, and cow keepers each lived and worked. There were many specialized craftsmen who worked with their own tools in their own shops or houses, for some superior who had contact with the market and who supervised the final processes of manufacture. These included the goldsmiths, upholsterers, coach makers, saddlers, and watchmakers, all of whom had many dependents. The watchmakers had specialists making wheels, pinions, springs, hands, dials, chains, keys, caps, and studs in their own houses. The type of industrial organization most common in London was that in which work was given out to be done in the homes of the workers: the putting out system. Some industries, such as watchmaking, silk weaving, and shoemaking were on both a putting out system and a system of an apprenticeship to journeymen working on piece work. Shoes were made to order and ready made. The customer was measured in a shop, the clicker cut out the upper leathers, which were given to the closer to be closed, and then to the maker for the sole and heel to be put on. Another class of shoemaker worked alone or with an apprentice in a garret, cellar, or stall, using pieces of leather cut out for him by the currier or leather cutter. London industries included bread, beer, spirits, and vinegar; sugar refining; tobacco refining; snuff; spinning and weaving of woolens and worsteds, silk ribbons, tape, and cloth; printed calico, linens, clothes, laces, tassels, fancy embroidery, stays, stocking weaving, hats, shoes, leather goods (boots, shoes hats, gloves, harnesses, saddles), jewelry, glass, candles, tapestry, musical instruments, cutlery, furniture, paint, varnish, tools, paper, printer's ink and glue, printing, publishing, swords, guns, heavy artillery, ships, sails, rope, carriages, and precious and base metalwares such as brass and pewter ware. Surgical instruments made included straight and curved knives and probes, lancets, scissors, spatulas, trepans (for cutting bone), and cupping cases. Optical instruments made included eyeglasses, telescopes, and microscopes. In 1727 eyeglasses were held in place by frames that went over the ears, which replaced unreliable cords over the ears and leather straps tied behind one's head. Also made were nautical instruments, quadrants, sundials, sectors, globes, scales, orrerys [a model solar system], and air pumps.
In London, the old distinction between craftsmen and laborers was blurred by the existence of trades which employed workmen under a skilled foreman instead of journeymen who had served an apprenticeship. These trades were, on a large scale, new. Among the most important of these trades were the distillers and brewers of liquors, the tobacconists and snuff makers, the sugar refiners and soap boilers, the vinegar makers, and makers of varnish, of glue, of printers' ink, and of colors. The latest chemical theories and the chemical explanation of dying brought about the invention of new colors and new processes in dying cloth. Workers in these trades were considered as laborers, but their wages were high and their positions relatively secure. They learned their jobs by doing them. The older trades of a similar character, such as tallow melters and chandlers, wax chandlers, fellmongers, and the tanners, employed journeymen.
There were buildings for boiling and distilling turpentine, for casting brass or iron, and for making glass for chemical works for sale.
The skilled artisan who works at home and either makes goods for a master or sells to the trade verges into the shop keeping class. On the other hand, the lowest type of shopkeeper, the chandler, the dealer in old iron, the tripe shop, the milk retailer, the keeper of a cook shop or a green cellar belong to the class of unskilled and casual labor. The lowly chimney sweeper, paid 6d. a day, served an apprenticeship as a boy, and then was his own master.
The watermen and lightermen, by virtue of their fellowship and their apprenticeship and often the ownership of a boat, belonged to the class of skilled laborers. Craftsmen in the building trades and paviours had their laborers as smiths had their hammermen to do the heavy work at laborers' pay. The street ragpickers, the ballad sellers, and the match sellers belonged to the class of beggars.
Working women in London in 1750 were employed in domestic service: 25%, nursing and midwifery: 12%, cleaning and laundry: 10%, vitualling: 9%, shopkeeping: 8%, hawking: 6%, and textiles: 5%. Those employed in domestic service were mostly young women who later married. Some women were schoolteachers, innkeepers, or manufacturers, which were middle-class employments. Many women in the realm engaged in a variety of occupations from fanmaking and hairdressing to catering, and, as widows, often carried on their husband's trade, including bookselling, hatmaking, building or ironmongery.
Although shops still had small frontages of about 15 feet and the windows had small panes of bottle glass which partly obscured the view of the goods, there were magnificent shops with large windows displaying fine goods, bookshops, and print shops with prints of political satire with caricatures. The shops were generally open six days a week from 7 am to 8 pm, and over the years later to 10 pm. In 1675 Josiah Wedgwood opened a showroom in London for his high quality pottery from Staffordshire. Consumption was on a mass scale, many people buying what they wanted instead of just what they needed. There were circulating libraries, public concert halls, and professional boxing matches. At coffee houses, chocolate houses, and taverns, people played at dice and cards, gambled, talked politics and read daily newspapers, in which there was advertising, reports of marriages and deaths, grain prices, and book reviews. Different professions and classes and groups, such as the whigs, the tories, classical scholars, scientists, clergymen, intellectuals, actors, writers, and journeymen of particular crafts, had their favorite meeting places. Coffee houses reflected the character of their neighborhoods. They acted as postal centers, lost property offices, business addresses, physicians' consulting rooms, lawyers' and merchants' business transactions, matrimonial agencies, masonic lodges, auction rooms, and gambling dens. Some retained a supply of prostitutes. Many taverns had a rentable private room for the better-off to drink wine, have meals, meet friends, gamble, do business, and hold meetings of societies and clubs, especially political clubs. From this beginning sprang private clubs such as the Blue Stocking Club in 1750 and the Literary Club in 1764; Lloyd's for sale and insurance of ships in 1771; and the stock exchange in 1773. The Blue stocking Club was established by women who organized conversational parties with guests of intellect and wit. There was opera, playhouses, concerts usually with Georg Handel's oratorios such as The Messiah or the foreigners Bach and Haydn, tea-gardens, fire works, balls, masquerades, wax works, beer shops, and bawdy houses, except on Sunday. There were straight plays, comic operas, and melodramas. Three-dimensional sets replaced the two- dimensional backdrop. Plays containing thinly veiled satires on politicians were becoming popular. Some plays had crude and licentious material. Theaters still shared a close association with brothels. Unlicensed theaters were closed down by a statute of 1737, but most came to acquire patronage to get a license. This shaped the development of drama in London for a century.
The Beggar's Opera depicting an immoral society unable to master its bandits was written by John Gay as a powerful attack on a government which most of London hated. With its many ballads it became very popular. One such ballad goes:
"Through all the employments of life
Each neighbor abuses his brother;
Whore and Rogue they call Husband and Wife;
All professions be-rogue one another.
The Priest calls the Lawyer a cheat,
The Lawyer be-knaves the Divine;
And the Statesman, because he's so great,
Thinks his trade as honest as mine."
Another is:
"A Fox may steal your hens, sir,
A Whore your health and pence, sir,
Your daughter rob your chest, sir,
Your wife may steal your rest, sir,
A thief your goods and plate.
But this is all but picking,
With rest, pence, chest and chicken,
It ever was decreed, sir,
If Lawyer's hand is fee'd, sir,
He steals your whole estate."
The Thames was crowded with sailing boats and with a line of boats waiting to unload. Foreign and native ships lined the river banks in rows. Theft of cargo from docked ships was still a problem and pirates were still executed at low tide on gallows. Londoners went to the bridges across the Thames to breathe fresh air. London air was so smoky and polluted by coal-burning in kitchens and factories that it gave a cough to newcomers. The river was so polluted by the sewers by 1760 that all the swans and most of the fish had disappeared. A Mansion House was built for the Mayor in 1753. The king's zoo had ten lions, one panther, two tigers, and four leopards. Deer hunting in Hyde Park was now confined to its northwest corner, which was enclosed for the king, who occasionally hunted here. Elsewhere in the park were laid out walks and fountains. Gardens were now natural instead of formal. The streets were usually crowded with people and traffic. Many people traveled by sedan chair. On the streets were barrows with goods such as lace, threads, fruits, and chickens; beggars, ballad singers, musicians, bands, street dancers, apple women, piemen, muffin men, fruit sellers, nut sellers, pudding sellers, milk maids selling milk from buckets, milk sold directly from the cow, vendors of asses' milk, hawkers, newspaper boys, scavengers with carts, postal collectors, lamplighters on their ladders, wenches, chimney sweeps, rat catchers, pick pockets, swaggering bravados, strolling strumpets, brawling watermen, card sharps, overdressed beaux, dancing dogs, and acrobatic monkeys. Each trade had it own call. Billingsgate open-air market was now exclusively for the sale of fish. Small tradesmen such as dairymen, butchers, bakers, fishmongers, and chandlers delivered to regular customers food bought from distributing centers. Workers by necessity lived near their place of work because there was no cheap transport and walking through the streets after dark was unpleasant and dangerous. Hours of work for most craftsmen was from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., six days a week.
It was common for working class families in London to live in a single room of their house and rent the rest, furnished, to people of different degrees of prosperity and even of different social grades. Servants and apprentices slept in the kitchen, the shop, or the garret. The very poor, such as casual laborers and street sellers, silk winders, charwomen, usually lived in damp cellars subject to floods from excessive rain, or in cold and windy garrets. Tenancy was usually on a weekly basis because of the general uncertainty of life and trade. Conditions were so cramped that cabinet makers made beds which masqueraded in the day time as tables, bureaus, cupboards, or bookcases. The very poor slept in common lodging houses, sleeping uncovered on the floor, twenty to a room. Some poor families slept in small hovels made of mud and straw with their pigs, domestic fowl, dogs, and even asses and horses. Homeless children slept on the streets. All classes lived so much at coffee houses, alehouses or clubs, which they often used as their addresses, that house room was a secondary consideration. There was an alehouse on almost every street in London to provide cheap food and beer, lodging, employment information, credit, newspapers, tobacco, and meeting places for tradesmen. Some alehouses were recognized employment agencies for certain trades, such as the hatters, smiths, carpenters, weavers, boot and shoe makers, metal workers, bakers, tailors, plumbers, painter and glaziers, and bookbinders. They were often run by one of the trade, retired or otherwise. Some alehouses catered to criminals and prostitutes. For cheap and simple eating there were chophouses, cookshops, and beef steak houses.
There were about 10,000 English immigrants a year to London in the 1700s. They were mostly young people. London needed many immigrants because of its high death rate. Over twenty London people a week died from starvation alone; they were mostly women. Only about one-fourth of London's population had been born in London. Especially welcome were sturdy country people for heavy manual labor, the better educated boys from the north for shops and offices, and the honest country people, as contrasted with London's poor, for domestic service. Girls mostly looked for domestic service, but were sometimes made the mistress of the house-keeper or steered into prostitution as soon as they entered the city. Ambitious young men would seek a job as an apprentice, work hard, flatter his master, and try to marry the master's daughter. It was easier to find a place to live in London than in the villages, though there was much overcrowding. Many shopkeepers and workshop owners in London were involved in leasing, purchases, and contracts.
Queen Anne was authorized to build about 50 more churches in London and Westminster and their suburbs, to be paid for by a coal tax on imports into the port of London. Churches in London were to be rebuilt with money paid by funeral rates, rates for tolling the bells, and rates for the use of palls [altar cloths]. Queen Anne also appropriated all her revenues from the first fruits and tenths of ecclesiastical benefices, 16,500 pounds, to the clerical poor in 1704.
There were fewer quarrels among passersby on the London streets; men were less likely to wear their swords. But there were fist fights by common men which gathered crowds and occasioned betting. Most crime was petty theft, but mobs and riots were frequent, as there were no police. Watchmen and constables were often old and physically incapacitated. The watchmen were householders taking their turn. This duty of householders watching the streets had evolved from the ancient obligation of wards to provide men to guard the walls at night. But few wanted these jobs by which they could offend their neighbors. Many citizens paid a rate to be excused from watch and ward duty. Constables were often tavern keepers. Many riots were started when penal laws against the Catholics were repealed. They began with the cries of "no popery", but came to came to target rich men's houses. Mobs sacked and pillaged at will, burned houses, and flung open the prisons to increase their numbers. There were political riots between Tories and Whigs. Working men still used violence to protect their livelihoods, such as destroying the lodgings and public houses of cheap immigrant labor such as the Irish. Another instance was destroying stocking-knitting frames so not too many apprentices could be employed contrary to the regulations of the stocking knitters guild. The use of parish workhouse children also was a cheap supply of labor which forced down the wages of the stocking knitters. In 1720 a statute banned wearing of calico after mobs tore calico garments off women. In 1765, thousands marched on Parliament and persuaded it to ban foreign silk imports. But when a mob destroyed engine-looms, the army was used against the rioters and two of them were hanged. This was the last major mob action. Around the Tower, there were still demagogues standing on upturned carts haranguing passing crowds. The Tower area was a favorite place for demonstrators, and for unemployed and dissatisfied workmen, particularly coal heavers and underpaid seamen protesting their low pay and poor living conditions. There was more crime, especially at night, now with organized bands of men or gangs of children. Bounty hunters made a lot of money catching offenders. In 1736, to deter the frequent robberies, burglaries, and other felonies at night, many glass lamps were set up in places determined by the mayor. They had to burn from sunset to sunrise. In 1736, a lighting rate was imposed by the City to pay for all night lighting all year by hired lamplighters. Anyone breaking or damaging the lights of London would forfeit 40s. for the first offense, 50s. for the second offense, and 3 pounds for the third offense. The aldermen had to contract to pay for lighting, trimming, snuffing, cleaning, supplying, maintaining, and repairing them. To pay for this system, citizens paid according to the amount of rent their holdings were worth. If they didn't pay, they could not vote.
Bad areas of thieves and prostitutes and the slums east of the City were gradually being replaced by warehouses and offices. In 1757, London Bridge was widened and the houses were cleared off it. There were lanes for carriages in the middle and for pedestrians on each side. Its arches were also widened. Lights were put on it to be lit all night. And watchmen were put on it for safety and protection of passengers. (This was paid for by tolls of 1/2 d. per horse, 1d. per carriage, and 2d.-1s. for vessels with goods.) About 1762, a body of enterprising citizens secured private acts of Parliament which allowed them to levy a house tax in return for providing paving and lighting, which then greatly improved, as did sanitation. Sidewalks were raised between the street proper and the buildings, replacing the protective posts which had lined the roads. Flat stones were put in place of the pebbles on the roadway. Signs hanging in from of stores, which had blocked the sunlight, were placed flat in front of the buildings. This also made the streets more airy. The buildings were given numbered addresses and street names were placed on buildings. Loading and unloading could not exceed one hour. Nuisances like empty carts could be removed. Cranes used in warehouses had to be stored in unobtrusive places. One who drove on the foot pavement had to forfeit 10s. for the first offense, 20s. for the second offense, and 40s. for other offenses. Wells were dug and pumps erected for watering the streets. Pavements were to be repaired on complaint. Dust boxes and dust holes were built and had to be used for refuse awaiting pickup by the raker or forfeit 10s. In 1762, the system of having every man responsible for cleaning the street in front of his door, which occasioned piles of rubbish in the central troughs of the streets waiting for the next rain to be washed away, was abandoned. But house occupants were required to keep the sidewalk in front of their house clean or forfeit 2s. If one broke a light, he had to pay damages if it was accidental, and also 20s. if willful. There were special stands for hackney coaches, which were 12d.6d. for a day of twelve hours. Their regulations were extended to Sundays. Wards were to chose substantial inhabitants to be collectors for a year at a time to collect the rates, which were not to exceed 1s.6d. per pound of rents. If one declined to be a collector, he had to forfeit 50 pounds.
In London, the normal system of building was for builders to buy up leases, put up a new building, and sell it before the lease became due. The rules for party walls between buildings were made more stringent: 2 1/2 bricks thick in cellar, 2 bricks thick to the garret floor, and 1 1/2 bricks above the roofs or gutters. They had to be made of brick or stone. In 1772, rain water from roofs had to be carried to the streets in lead or other pipes that were affixed against the side of the building. In 1774, iron, copper, or other pipe or funnel for conveying smoke or steam were not to be near any inside timber, or in front of most any building or next to any public street, square, or court.
In the 1720s firefighters had to fill a tank on a wagon by hand with buckets. On top of the bucket was a hose that could spray water high. London parishes were authorized to place upon the water pipes underground stop-blocks of wood with a plug and firecocks to go into such pipe at various distances so that there would be no loss in time in digging down to the pipes to get water to fight fires. Parishes were required to keep at known places, ladders and a large engine and a hand engine to throw up water to extinguish fires including one leather hose with socket fitting the plug or firecock, so that buckets would not be needed. The Sun Insurance Company was incorporated for fire insurance in 1711. Insurance offices were authorized to employ watermen with poles, hooks, and hatchets to be always ready at a call to extinguish fires.
No more than 12 sacks of meal, 12 quarters of malt, 750 bricks, or 1 chalder of coal per load on wagons or carts with wheels bound with [narrow] iron tire are allowed within ten miles of London or Westminster, or forfeit one horse. This is to prevent decay of the roads.
For every wagon and cart in London, there must be a person on foot to guide it to prevent the maiming, wounding, and killing of people, especially the old and children, when drivers ride on their wagons and carts. Later, it was required that carts must display the name of the owner and be registered. Still later, there was a penalty of 10s. for not having a person on foot to guide any cart. Later still, in 1757, if a new owner of a cart did not put his name thereon, he had to forfeit 40s., and the cart and horse could be seized and sold to pay the forfeiture. Persons willfully obstructing passage on streets with empty carts or barrels or pipes shall forfeit 5-12s. or do hard labor up to one month. The justices of London assessed rates and made regulations for carriage of goods. Certain houses and buildings were bought and pulled down to widen several streets, lanes, and passages.
In 1774, persons driving cattle in London, whose negligence or improper treatment of such cattle cause them to do mischief shall forfeit 5-20s. or else go to a House of Correction for up to one month or be publicly whipped.
The roads around London were neither very attractive nor very safe. Along them was land covered with water from drains and refuse and dung heaps. Hogs were kept in large numbers on the outskirts and fed on the garbage of the town. Smoking brick kilns surrounded a great part of London. In the brickyards vagrants lived and slept, cooking their food at the kilns.
Queen Anne's drinking of tea made it a popular drink, but it was still expensive. This habit improved health because to make tea, the water had to be boiled before drunk. Breakfast included tea and bread and butter, and later toast with melted butter. The rich also had coffee and chocolate. The morning newspaper was often read at breakfast. The chief dinner dishes were roast beef, roast mutton, boiled beef or pork, with puddings and vegetables. Roast meat was still the basic diet of town and country gentlemen. There were also fowls, tripes, rabbits, hares, pigeons, and venison. Many elaborate sauces were made. The national dish was the pudding, a compound of steak, kidney, larks, and oyster. Drinks included ginger beer, lemonade, barley water, coffee, chocolate, tea, and foreign wine. Port from Portugal was introduced about 1703, and rum about 1714. Rum, made from sugar, first became popular as a medicine, well-whisked with butter. Beer was drunk by the poorer and middle classes. The poor could afford very little meat now, unlike 200 years ago. Their standard fare was cheese, bread, and tea, the latter of which was usually from used tea leaves bought from rich houses.
Households were smaller; a peer had a household of about 25-50. The proportion of women grew to one-third to one-half. Dinner guests sat and were served in order of rank, with gentlemen on one side of the table and ladies on the other. Later, a fashion came in to sit alternately by sex. Dinner was in several courses and lasted a few hours. Toasts might be made. It was bad manners to put one's elbows on the table, to sniff the food, to eat too slowly or too quickly, to scratch, spit, or blow one's nose at the table, or to pick one's teeth with a toothpick before the dishes were removed. After dinner, the men drank, smoked, and talked at the table. There was a chamber pot under the sideboard for their use. Politics was a popular subject. The women talked together in the drawing room. Later, the men joined the women for tea and coffee. The evening often finished with card games, reading newspapers, verse-making, fortune-telling, walks in the garden, impromptu dancing, perhaps gambling, and supper.
The nobility and gentry became more mobile and now mixed together at parties. At these afternoon parties, there were a variety of simultaneous activities, instead of everyone participating in the same activities together as a group. Guests could choose to engage in conversation, news, cards, tea-drinking, music, dancing, and even go into supper at different times. Sometimes a man other than her husband escorted a lady to a party. Having lovers outside marriage was socially accepted if discrete.
Single women were discouraged from thinking of their independent status not as advantageous, but as regrettable. Weddings were becoming public in church instead of private. Brides wore a white silk or satin dress with a train. Over one third of brides who were capable of having children were already pregnant when they got married. In 1753 a marriage statute required licenses to marry and the consent of parents or guardians in case of minors, calling of banns [advance announcement so that anyone could point out why the marriage should not take place], and need of four weeks residence in the parish where the license was given by bishop or other authority, because of the kidnapping of heiresses, prostitutes trapping unwary youths after getting them drunk, and priests performing marriages clandestinely and not in church, which required banns. Two witnesses to the marriage were required to sign a certificate of marriage, which was then to be registered in the parish books. Manufactured goods relieved ladies from baking of bread, brewing, and spinning. So they often visited with friends, wrote letters, embroidered, and supervised the servants.
Funerals ceremonies started with socializing at the house with refreshments, then going in a procession to the church for burial, and finally returning to the house for more socializing.
It was possible for a woman-covert to be seized of land in fee simple or in tail general or special to her separate use, free from control or intermeddling of her husband.
Houses were warmed in winter by burning coal. Furniture was still sparse. Moderate homes had tent-beds in use, with which cloth was hung on all four sides of the bed from a light iron framework above the bed. The beds were warmed with a warming pan heated in a fire before use. There were often bed bugs and fleas. Everyone wore nightcaps to bed. Pewter tableware was used, but the poor used tinware instead. Copper, brass, and iron pots and pans were increasingly common.
Most towns had a regular market once or twice a week. In them, street cleaning was still a responsibility of individual householders. Water was still obtained from wells and pumps. There was no municipal government as such. Public works were done by special commissions set up for particular purposes, such as lighting, cleaning and paving the streets, night watchmen, traffic regulation, removing nuisances, and improving local amenities. Large towns had hospitals for the poor. In the larger manufacturing towns, there were literary and philosophical societies for debates and discussions. These put together libraries for use of their members. Also in these large towns, there were booksellers' shops, printing houses, weekly newspapers, playhouses, concerts, and horseracing courses, the latter of which was mostly patronized by gentlemen. Some private citizens of various towns followed the example of London and obtained from Parliament the right to levy a house rate for paving and lighting. Physicians and lawyers lived in two-story brick mansions with attics and sash windows that could be lifted up and down with the help of a pulley. They had rectangular wood panes each with a sheet of glass cut from a circle of blown glass. The old blown glass was not regular, but had a wrinkled appearance. The center of each pane of glass was thicker with a knot in the middle left from the blow pipe. In front of the house were railings which supported two lanterns at the doorway.
Towns tended to be known for certain specialties, such as seaside holiday resorts, spas like Bath, cathedral towns, fashionable shopping for gentry, and towns with certain industries like glass and china manufacture, pin-making, pottery, tanning, manufacture of linen, silk, cotton, and the knitting trade. Certain towns were famous for certain varieties of wool cloth. Before 1750, a town with more than 5,000 inhabitants was considered a large town. Shop keeping was supplanting fairs and markets. Certain industries were done on a large scale and required workers to be at the same site, e.g. brewing and distilling; building ships; printing fustians; making paper, soap (from animal fat) or candles; coal mining, iron production, mining and smelting of tin and copper, refining of salt, and digging of clay. Certain other industries also required some kind of power or team work for their production, e.g. refining sugar; finishing cloth; making bricks; glass-making; manufacture of ropes and sails, and processing of copper and brass into rods and sheets. Often the manufacturer's house was surrounded by the many cottages of his workers. There the wife and children usually were busy carding and spinning. Putting out work and subcontracting were widespread and created many small-scale capitalists. Workers' hours were typically 6am to 8pm.
As wood charcoal was becoming expensive, coal was increasingly used for brewing and for brick, glass, and china manufacturing. Mines for coal became deeper; flooding of them and of tin and copper mines became a problem.
Drovers bought cattle in the countryside, drove them to big towns, and sold them to fattening graziers or fatted them themselves. Then they were driven into town and sold to the wholesale butcher, who sold the carcass to the retail butcher, the hides to the tanner, and the bones to the glue maker. Flocks of geese were also driven into towns, after their feet were given a protective covering of tar. There were also middlemen wholesalers for cheese, butter, cloth, and iron.
There was a rage of distemper among the cattle so serious that the king was authorized to make regulations for prohibiting the removal or sale and for the burial of distempered cattle Later, the king was authorized to prohibit the killing of cow calves. No one may sell any ox, bull, cow, calf, steer, or heifer until he has had possession of such for forty days or forfeit ten pounds, because of distemper. Later, the king was authorized to regulate the movement of cattle from one place to another.
The main industry of the country was still agriculture. In the countryside, about half the arable land was under the open field system, with land cultivated in common. Enclosure of land was still going on. The enclosures were now done by statutory commissions to ensure equitable allotments.
Agricultural improvements came first to enclosed land, which comprised about half of the agricultural land. In the 1733, Jethro Tull published a book about his 1701 invention of the seed-drill to first pulverize the soil for cultivation without manure and then to deposit seed at a uniform depth in regulated quantities and in rows instead of being thrown haphazardly. Also explained was the horse-hoe to stir the soil about the roots of the plants to preserve moisture, promote aeration, admit warmth, and destroy weeds. There were more horses than oxen in use now in the fields. The horse-hoe was first used by large independent farmers on enclosed land. Also invented was a threshing machine with a set of sticks to replace hand threshing with flails. Under-drainage as well as irrigation was practiced. Lord Townshend alternated turnips, grasses, and grain in his fields, and thus provided winter food for his cattle. The old forms of crop rotation with fallow periods were often displaced by legume-rotation field-grass agriculture. Independent farming gave rise to the improvement of breeds of livestock by selective breeding.
Enclosed land produced 26 bushels of grain compared to 18 bushels for common field land. It produced 9 pounds of sheep fleece compared to 3 1/2 pounds for common field land. Overall, soils were improved by being treated with clay, chalk, or lime. Artificial pasture was extended and there was increased use of clover, sainfoin, and rye-grass. Grain productivity was four times that of 1200. A fatted ox was 800 pounds compared to the former 400 pounds which it weighed from the 1300s to the 1600s. The fleece of sheep increased fourfold.
By statute of 1756, persons having rights of common in certain land may, by the major part in number and in value of each's tenement, enclose such land for planting and growth of timber or underwood.
Every village had a smith, carpenter, and miller. The larger villages also had a potter, a turner, a malster, a weaver, a tanner, and perhaps a mercer or grocer middleman. Wheelwrights made ploughs, harrows, carts, and wagons. Ploughs had one, two, or no wheels. Poor farming families took up extra work in the villages such as making gloves, knitting stockings, or spinning yarn. Craftsmen still helped farmers at harvest time.
Much of the rural population was now dispersed over the countryside instead of being concentrated in villages because so many small holders had sold out due to enclosures of farm land, especially of common land and waste land. The rural working class lived in two room cottages, with low ceilings, small windows, and an earth floor. Patience was required for those willing to wait for an existing cottage in a village to be vacated. Most laborers did not marry unless and until they found a cottage. Ancient custom that a person could build a home for himself on waste land if he did it in one night was ceasing to be respected. Farmers usually preferred employing day-laborers than keeping servants. There were many migrant workers, mainly from Ireland, for the busy summer haymaking and harvesting.
The children of laborers and of small farmers had little schooling because they were needed for work. They scared the birds, weeded the fields, picked the stones, tended the poultry, set beans, combed the wool, and collected the rushes and dipped them in the tallow [sheep fat].
Farm people relied on well water or rain water collected in lead cisterns. A farmhouse fireplace had pots hung from iron rods. Saucepans sat on iron stands, which were stored above the mantel when not in use. Spits were rotated by pulleys powered by the upward current of hot air or by a mechanical device. Bacon was smoked in the chimney accessible by a staircase or upper floor.
There still existed customary freeholders, who owned their land subject to certain customary obligations to the lord of a manor.
The people displaced by enclosure became laborers dependent on wages or paupers. Their discontent was expressed in this poem:
"They hang the man and flog the woman
That steals a goose from off the common
But leave the greater criminal loose
That steals the common from the goose."
Eventually there was some relief given to the poor workers. By statute of 1773, wastes, commons, and fields having several owners with different interests may by three-quarters vote in number and in value of the occupiers cultivate such for up to six years. However, cottagers and those with certain sheep walks, or cattle pasture, may not be excluded from their rights of common. By statute of 1776, the Elizabethan statute restricting locations where cottages could be erected and their inhabitants was repealed because the industrious poor were under great difficulties to procure habitations.
Land could be rented out at ten times the original value. Land was typically rented out for 7, 14, or 21 years. Great fortunes were made by large landowners who built grand country estates. The manufacturers and merchants made much money, but agriculture was still the basis of the national wealth. As the population grew, the number of people in the manufacturing classes was almost that of the agriculturalists, but they had at least twice the income of the agriculturalists.
The greatest industry after agriculture was cloth. Most of this activity took places in the homes, but families could earn more if each family member was willing to exchange the informality of domestic work for the long hours and harsh discipline of the factory or workshop. More wool was made into cloth in the country. Dyed and finished wool cloth and less raw wool and unfinished broadcloth, was exported. Bleaching was done by protracted washing and open-air drying in "bleach fields". There were great advances in the technology of making cloth.
Thomas Lombe, the son of a weaver, became a mercer and merchant in London. He went to Italy to discover their secret in manufacturing silk so inexpensively. He not only found his way in to see their silk machines, but made some drawings and sent them to England hidden in pieces of silk. He got a patent in 1718 and he and his brother set up a mill using water power to twist together the silk fibers from the cocoons into thread [thrown silk] in 1719. His factory was five hundred feet long and about five stories high. One water wheel worked the vast number of parts on the machines. The machines inside were very tall, cylindrical in shape, and rotated on vertical axes. Several rows of bobbins, set on the circumference, received the threads, and by a rapid rotary movement gave them the necessary twist. At the top the thrown silk was automatically wound on a winder, all ready to be made into hanks for sale. The workman's chief task was to reknot the threads whenever they broke. Each man was in charge of sixty threads. There were three hundred workmen. Lombe made a fortune of 120,000 pounds and was knighted and made an alderman of London. After his patent expired in 1732, his mill became the prototype for later cotton and wool spinning mills in the later 1700s. There were many woolen manufacture towns. Clothiers might employ up to three thousand workers. At these, the spinning was done by unskilled labor, especially women and children in villages and towns. Weaving, wool combing, and carding were skilled occupations.
In 1733, clockmaker and weaver John Kay invented a flying shuttle for weaving. It was fitted with small wheels and set in a kind of wooden groove. On either side there were two wooden hammers hung on horizontal rods to give the shuttle and to and fro action. The two hammers were bound together by two strings attached to a single handle, so that with one hand the shuttle could be driven either way. With a sharp tap by the weaver, first one and then the other hammer moved on its rod. It hit the shuttle, which slid along its groove. At the end of each rod there was a spring to stop the hammer and replace it in position. It doubled the weavers' output. Now the broadest cloth could be woven by one man instead of two. This shuttle was used in a machine for cotton. But the manufacturers who used the flying shuttle combined together and refused to pay royalties to Kay, who was ruined by legal expenses. Now the price of thread rose because of increased demand for it. The weavers, who had to pay the spinners, then found it hard to make a living. But the process of spinning was soon to catch up.
In 1738, John Wyatt, a ship's carpenter who also invented the harpoon shot from a gun, patented a spinning machine whereby carded wool or cotton was joined together to make a long and narrow mass. One end of this mass was drawn in between a pair of rotating rollers, of which one surface was smooth and the other rough, indented, or covered with leather, cloth, shagg, hair, brushes, or points of metal. From here, the mass went between another set of rollers, which were moving faster than the first pair. This stretched the mass and drew it into any degree of fineness of thread by adjusting the speed of the second pair of rollers. Then the thread went by a flier, which twisted it. After this the thread was wound off onto spindles or bobbins, whose rotation was regulated by the faster pair of rollers. Or the mass could be drawn by rotating spindles directly from one pair of rollers. This machine was worked by two donkeys and was tended by ten female workers. Because of bankruptcy in 1742, the invention was sold to Edward Cave, the editor of "Gentleman's Magazine". He set up a workshop with five machines, each fitted with fifty spindles and worked by water wheels. Carding was done by cylindrical carding machines invented by Lewis Paul. In 1764, the plant was bought by carpenter and weaver James Hargreaves. His work with it resulted in his invention of the very successful spinning jenny, which was patented about 1770. He conceived the idea by watching a spinning wheel that had been knocked over lying on its side and still revolving for a few seconds, while the thread, held between two fingers, seemed to go on spinning itself. The machine consisted of a rectangular frame on four legs. At one end was a row of vertical spindles. Across the frame were two parallel wooden rails, lying close together, which were mounted on a sort of carriage and slid backwards and forwards as desired. The cotton, which had been previously carded, stretched, and twisted passed between the two rails and then was wound on spindles. With one hand the spinner worked the carriage backwards and forwards, and with the other he turned the handle which worked the spindles. In this way, the thread was drawn and twisted at the same time. No longer did it take ten spinners to keep one weaver busy. But manufacturers refused to pay him royalties for his invention. He was offered 3,000 pounds for his rights in the jenny, but refused it. The courts held that the model of his jenny had been used in industry before it was patented and any rights he may have had were declared to have lapsed. Nevertheless, he made over 4,000 pounds. The spinning jenny was used in many homes.
Richard Arkwright, came from a poor family and was taught to read by an uncle. He became a barber and made wigs. Although he was not a craftsman of any sort, he patented in 1769 a spinning frame worked by water power and erected the first practical cotton mill factory. It produced a much stronger thread than could have been made with a spinning wheel. With capital from two rich hosiers, he set up a workshop next to a swift and powerful river running down a narrow gorge. Then he turned his attention to weaving this thread. In 1773, he set up weaving workshops making pure cotton calicoes which were as good as Indian calicoes. But there was a statute of 1721, that no one may wear or use printed, painted, stained or dyed calicoes e.g. in apparel, bed, chair, cushion, window curtain, furniture, except those dyed all in blue, or forfeit 20 pounds by a seller, 5 pounds by a wearer, and 20 pounds by other users. This prohibition was to provide wool working jobs to the poor, who had been increasing excessively because of lack of work. A clarification was made in 1735 that the statute did not include printed or painted cloth made of an all linen warp (for strength) and a cotton weft (for fineness) manufactured in Great Britain because such was a branch of the ancient fustian manufacture. There was also a statute of 1720, that any one who willfully and maliciously assaults a person in the public streets or highways with an intent to tear, spoil, cut, burn, or deface the garments or clothes of such person and carries this out is guilty of felony and may be transported for seven years. This was the way the wool weavers had expressed their opposition to imported printed cottons and calicoes. The prohibition against the manufacture and wearing and using of pure cotton fabrics came to an end in 1774 on arguments of Arkwright made to Parliament that his pure cottons would bleach, print, wash and wear better than fustians. This was the first all cotton cloth made in England.
In 1775, Arkwright added machines to do work prefatory to spinning. Raw cotton was first fed by a sloping hose to a feeder that was perpetually revolving. From here it went a carding machine of three rollers of different diameters covered with bent metal teeth. The first, with teeth bent in the direction of its revolution, caught up the cotton fibers. The second, revolving in the same direction but much faster, carded the fibers into the requisite fineness by contact with the third, whose teeth and motion were in the opposite direction. Next, a crank and comb detached the carded cotton so that it came off as a continuous ribbon. Then the ribbon went into a revolving cone, which twisted it on itself. Eventually Arkwright became rich from his creation of the modern factory, which was widely imitated. He established discipline in his mills and he made his presence felt everywhere there, watching his men and obtaining from them the steadiest and most careful work. He provided housing and services to attract workers.
After cotton, the inventions of the spinning jenny and the water- powered frame were applied to wool. Silk and cotton manufacture led the way in using new machinery because they were recently imported industries so not bound down by tradition and legal restraint. Yarn production so improved that weavers became very prosperous. Cards with metal teeth were challenging the use of wood and horn cards with thistles in carding wool. Merchants who traveled all over the world and saw new selling opportunities and therefore kept encouraging the manufacturers to increase their production and improve their methods. Factory owners united to present suggestions to Parliament.
Manufacturing broke loose from traditional confines in several ways. To avoid the monopolistic confines of chartered towns, many entrepreneurs set up new industries in Birmingham or Manchester, which grew enormously. Manchester had no municipal corporation and was still under the jurisdiction of a manor court. It sent no representative to the House of Commons. All over the country the Justices of the Peace had largely ceased regulating wages, especially in the newer industries such as cotton, where apprenticeship was optional. Apprenticeship lapsed in many industries, excepting the older crafts. Several legal decisions had declared seven years practice of a trade as good as an apprenticeship.
Apprentices still lived in their masters' houses and were still treated as family members. The regulations of the Cutlers' Company remained in force as its masters used their great manual skill to make cutlery in their own homes with the help of their children and apprentices. Trades in some towns which had guild regulations that had the force of law hung on to their customs with difficulty.
Although there were few large factories in the country under effective management of a capitalist, trade unionism was beginning as two distinct classes of men were being formed in factories. The factory owner was so high above his workmen that he found himself on the same level as other capitalists, the banker, who gave him credit, and the merchant, who gave him customers. Journeymen in factories could no longer aspire to become masters of their trade and no longer socialized with their employers. Hard and fast rules replaced the freedom of the small workshops. Each worker had his allotted place and his strictly defined and invariable duty. Everyone had to work, steadily and without stopping, under the vigilant eye of a foreman who secured obedience by means of fines, physical means, or dismissals. Work started, meals were eaten, and work stopped at fixed hours, signaled by the ringing of a bell. Factory hours were typically fourteen hours or more. Organized resistance, as usual, began not with those most ill-treated, but with those men who had some bargaining power through their skills.
Wool-combers, who worked next to a charcoal stove where they heated the teeth of the comb, were the most skilled of the cloth industry were hard to replace. Since they were nomadic, they quickly organized nation-wide. They agreed that if any employer hired a comber not in their organization, none of them would work for him. They also would beat up and destroy the comb-pot of the outsider. In 1720 and 1749, the Tiverton wool-combers objected to the import of combed wool from Ireland by burning Irish wool in clothiers' stores and attacking several houses. They had strike funds and went on strike in 1749. Their bloody brawls caused the military to intervene. Then many of them left town in a body, harming the local industry. The earnings of wool-combers was high, reaching from 10s. to 12s. a week in 1770, the highest rate of a weaver.
In 1716, the Colchester weavers accused their employers of taking on too many apprentices. When the weavers organized and sought to regulate the weaving trade, a statute was passed in 1725 making their combinations void. Strike offenses such as house-breaking and destruction of goods or personal threats had penalties of transportation for seven years. Still in 1728, the Gloucester weavers protested against men being employed who had not served their apprenticeship.
When the journeymen tailors in and around London organized, a statute made their agreements entering into combinations to advance their wages to unreasonable prices and to lessen their usual hours of work illegal and void, because this has encouraged idleness and increased the number of poor. Tailors' wages are not to exceed 2s. per day and their hours of work are to be 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the next three months, and 1s.8d. per day for the rest of the year. A master tailor paying more shall forfeit 5 pounds. A journeyman receiving more shall be sent to the House of Correction for 2 months. Justices of the Peace may still alter these wages and hours depending on local scarcity or plenty. Despite this statute, the journeymen tailors complained to Parliament of their low wages and lack of work; their masters called them to work only about half the year. There was much seasonal fluctuation in their trade as there was in all trades. The slack period for the tailors was the winter, when the people of fashion retired to their country estates. After their complaint, their wages then rose from 1s.10d. per day in 1720, to 1s.8d.- 2s. in 1721, to 2s.- 2s.6d. in 1751, to 2s.2d.- 2s.6d. in 1763, to up to 2s.71/2 d. in 1767, and to 3s. in 1775. Foremen were excluded from wage control. When they complained of their long hours, which were two hours longer than the 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. of most handicraft trades, their hours were reduced in 1767 by one hour to 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. and their pay was set at 6d. per hour for overtime work at night during periods of general mourning, e.g. court mourning. Their work hours were lowered to from 6 a.m to 6 p.m. in 1768.
The stocking frame-knitters guild, which had been chartered in 1663, went on strike to protest the use of workhouse children as an abuse of apprenticeship which lowered their wages. They broke many of their frames, which belonged to their employers, to limit their number.
In 1749, combinations to advance wages, decrease hours of work, or regulate prices were declared void for journeymen dyers, journeyman hot pressers, all wool workers, brickmakers and tilemakers, journeymen servants, workmen, laborers, felt and hat makers, and silk, linen, cotton, iron, leather, and fur workers in and around London. The penalty was prison or hard labor at a House of Correction for three months without bail. In 1756, Justices of the Peace were to determine the rates of wages of wool workers according to numbers of yards. But this was repealed the next year to prevent combinations of workers. Wage agreements between clothiers and weavers were declared binding. Clothiers not paying wages within two days of delivery of work shall forfeit 40s.
In 1763 the silk weavers in east London drew up a scale of wages, and upon its being rejected, 2000 of them broke their tools, destroyed the materials, and left their workshops. A battalion of guards had to take possession of the area. In 1765, the silk weavers marched on Westminster to stop the import of French silks. In 1768, the weavers rebelled against a 4d. per yard reduction in their wages, filling the streets in riotous crowds and pillaging houses. After the garrison of the Tower came, the workmen resisted with cudgels and cutlasses, resulting in deaths and woundings. The throwsters [those who pulled the silk fibers from the cocoons of the silk worms and twisted them together to make a thread] and the handkerchief weavers also became discontent. A battle between soldiers and silk weavers at their meeting place resulted in several men on both sides being killed. In 1773, wages and prices for the work of journeymen silk weavers in and around London are to be regulated by the Mayor and Justices of the Peace. Foremen were excluded. No silk weaver may have more than two apprentices or forfeit 20 pounds. Journeymen weavers entering into combinations shall forfeit 40s. This statute satisfied the weavers, but they formed a union to ensure that it was carried out.
In 1750, 1761, and 1765, there were strikes which stopped the work of the coal industry and harbor at Newcastle for weeks. In 1763, the keelmen formed a combination to force their employers to use the official measure fixed by statute for the measurement of loads of coals.
The book "Consideration upon the East-India Trade" dating from 1701 advocated free foreign trade. It argued that the import of goods from India not only benefited the consumer but also the nation, because it was a waste of labor to use it in producing goods which could be bought cheap abroad. This labor could be better put to use in new industries, at easily learned plain work. Also the low cost of imported goods would motivate the invention of machines in the nation which would be even more efficient in manufacturing these goods. But English manufacturers were still suspicious of free trade.
Making beer and distilling gin from barley were widespread. The pastimes of gambling and drinking were popular with all classes. In the trades, this was promoted by the uncertainties of life and work and a general sense of instability. Many London tradesmen started their day with a breakfast of beer, bread, and cheese, the traditional breakfast of countrymen. Gambling and dissipation reduced some London men with good businesses to destitution, the work house, or street begging. Drunken gentlemen played pranks such as imitating a woman in distress or throwing a person in a horse trough. Some innkeepers had "straw houses" where customers who were so drunk they were unable to walk home could sleep in fresh straw. A person could get drunk for a few pence. Gambling with cards was a popular pastime after dinner. Cricket matches were played by all classes instead of just by humbler people; there were county cricket matches. Gentlemen often took their coachmen with them to public events such as cricket matches. Tennis was a sport of the wealthy classes. Billiards, chess, and games with cards or dice were played, especially in alehouses. There was horse racing on any open ground to which people brought their horses to race. Jockeys tried to unseat each other. Hunting of rabbits and then foxes replaced deer hunting. Bird and duck hunting was usually with flint lock guns instead of hawks, as the hedges provided cover from hawks. There was fishing with line, hook, and bait. Watching the hanging of felons, about 35 a year in London, was popular, as was going to Bedlam to watch for a fee the insane being flogged. People went to the Tower to try to get a glance at a famous prisoner looking through a window or taking a walk along the battlements. Besides the grand pleasure gardens for gentry, there were lesser pleasure gardens in London for working families, which offered fresh air, tea, beer, swimming, fishing, courting, bowling, and cheap entertainment. Running, vaulting, and leaping were still popular in the countryside. Fairs had amusements such as fire swallowers, ventriloquists, puppet shows, acrobats, jugglers, animal performances, pantomimes, boxing, dwarfs, and albinos, but less trading. In 1769 was the first circus. Circuses included feats of horsemanship and clowns. There was also eating and drinking competitions, foot races, football, archery, some wrestling, and some bowling on greens or alleys. In winter there was ice skating with blades and sliding. The right of public access to St. James Park became entrenched by the 1700s. There was sailing, rowing, swimming, and hopscotch. George III made sea-bathing popular and it was supposed to be good for one's health. There was steeple chasing as of 1752. Horse-racing was given rules. On Sunday, there was no singing, music playing, dancing, or games, but the Bible was read aloud, prayers were said, and hymns were sung. Sabbath-breakers were fined by magistrates. Men often spent Sunday in a tavern.
In general, commodity prices were stable. But when harvests were poor, such as in 1709 when there was famine, and between 1765 and 1775, bread prices rose. The price of wheat in London, which since 1710 had been between 25s. and 45s., rose to 66s. in 1773. Then the poor engaged in food riots. These riots were often accompanied by burning; looting of grain mills, shops, and markets; and mob violence. The English economy was so dependent on foreign trade, which had trebled since the 1710s, that the slightest disturbance in the maritime trade threatened the English with starvation. In many localities the men in need of parochial relief were sent around from one farm to another for employment, part of their wages being paid from the poor rates. The poor often went from parish to parish seeking poor relief. Settled people tended to fear wandering people. Parishes sought to keep down their poor rates by devices such as removing mothers in labor lest the infant be born in the parish. So a statute was passed that a child born to a wandering woman may not have the place of birth as his settlement, but takes the same settlement as his mother. Some farmers hired laborers for only fifty one weeks and some apprentices were bound by means other than indenture so that they could not establish settlement in that parish. Laborers who came to work in industries were refused settlement and sent back to their original parishes whenever they seemed likely to become dependent on the rates. Statutes then provided that a parish must give settlement to apprentices bound for forty days there, not only by indenture, but by deed, writings, or contracts not indented. In 1722, parishes were authorized to purchase houses in which to lodge or employ the poor and to contract with any person for the lodging, keeping, maintaining, and employing of the poor. These persons could take the benefit of the work, labor, and service of these poor, which would be used for the relief of other poor. The poor refusing such lodging could not then get relief. Many of the poor starved to death. The propertied classes turned a blind eye to the predicament of the poor, opining that they were idle or could save more and did not need higher earnings.
Charitable organizations gave to the poor and set up all day Sunday schools to set wayward children on a moral path. The Sunday schools could accommodate children who worked during the week. Punishment of children by parents or others could be by whipping or even sitting in stocks. About half of the people were dependent on poor relief or charities.
Desertion by a man of his family was a common offense. Parishes providing upkeep for the family sent men to find the errant husbands. The parish would ask unmarried mothers who was the father of their child and then force him to marry her or pay for the upkeep of the child. He often made a bargain with the parish to release him of his obligation for a sum of money paid to the parish. But many young parish children died of neglect, and later, parishes were required to list children under four to aid in accounting for them. Divorces were still few and expensive, but increasing in number; there were more 60 in this period. It was easier for a man to get a divorce for one act of adultery by his wife, than for a wife to get one for habitual unfaithfulness.
Vagrants and other offenders could be committed to Houses of Correction as well as to county gaols, because of the expense of the latter.
Crime was exacerbated by orgies of liquor drinking by the common people, especially between 1730 and 1750, the sale of which did not have to be licensed as did ale. In 1736, it was required that retailers of brandy, rum, and other distilled spirituous liquors be licensed and to pay 50 pounds a year for their license, because excessive use had been detrimental to health, rendering persons unfit for useful labor and business, debauching their morals, and inciting them to vices. Only persons keeping public victualling houses, inns, coffee houses, alehouses or brandy shops who exercised no other trade were allowed to obtain a license. This excluded employers who had sold liquors to their journeymen, workmen, servants, and laborers at exorbitant prices. Street vendors who sold liquors had to forfeit 10 pounds. A duty of 20s. per gallon was imposed on the retailers. There were riots in London against this statute and its new duties. There had been a tremendous growth in liquor drinking, which did not stop but went underground after this statute. In 1753, a penalty of 10 pounds or hard labor for two months was made for selling spirituous liquors without a license. Also licenses were restricted to people who were certified by four reputable and substantial householders to be of good fame and sober life and conversation. Sellers had to maintain good order in their premises or forfeit 10 pounds. About 1754 only innkeepers, victuallers, and vendors paying rent of at least 200 shillings could sell gin at retail. The punishment for the second offense was whipping and imprisonment. That for the third offense was transportation. About 1754 only innkeepers, victuallers, and vendors paying rent of at least 200 shillings could sell gin at retail. The punishment for the second offense was whipping and imprisonment. That for the third offense was transportation. In 1751, additional duties were placed on spiritual liquors to discourage immoderate drinking going on by people of the meanest and lowest sort to the detriment of the health and morals of the common people. In 1761, these duties were again raised. In 1768, officers were authorized to seize all horses, cattle, and carriages used to transport foreign spirituous liquors for which duties had been evaded. In 1773, the penalty for selling without a license was raised to 50 pounds, which could not be mitigated below 5 pounds. Half the forfeiture was to go to the suer.
The informer system for enforcing laws had its drawbacks. Informers were not trained and were sometimes retaliated against for informing. Sometimes this meant being tortured to death. Sometimes there were schemes in which a leader of thieves, would take a profit in the stolen goods by posing as a good citizen who tracked down and returned them to the owners for a fee. Also he might inform on his companions to get the reward for informing or to punish a troublesome one. Sometimes the owner of goods was involved in a fake robbery. An effort in 1749 to turn the whole haphazard system of informers, into a specialized organization for the detection and apprehension of criminals had caused a mob to form and make threats; Englishmen associated a police force with French tyranny. Nevertheless, about 1750, Sir John Fielding, a Bow Street magistrate, and his half-brother picked men to police the street under the direct control of the Bow Street magistrates. This first police district made an impact on the increasing violence of the times. In 1753, a proposal before Parliament to have a national census was also defeated by public fear of liberty being curtailed by having to make account of the number and circumstances of one's family and giving out information that could be used by enemies both in the realm and abroad.
Though grammar schools were endowed for the education of local poor boys, they sought fee-paying sons of gentlemen. They now taught arithmetic as well as reading and writing. Translation and reading of Latin is still important, e.g. Aesop's Fables, Cicero's Letters, Caesar's Commentaries, Ovid, Livy, Virgil, Horace, Pliny, Juvenal, and Plautus. The "Eton Grammar" book replaced the "Royal Grammar" as the standard for Latin and English grammar. The boys lived in boarding houses superintended by "dames" or older boys. There were usually two boys to a bed. There was bullying and initiation ceremonies such as tossing small boys up from a held blanket or having younger boys run naked in the snow. There were occasional rebellions by the boys and fights with the townspeople. Flogging with a birch or caning with a rod until blood was drawn from the bare buttocks was the usual punishment. There were some national boys' boarding schools such as Eton, Winchester, and Westminster. In these schools, boys could mix with sons of rich and powerful people, thus establishing important connections for their adult life. But there was more bulling of small boys by large boys at these schools and the smaller boys became menial servants of their seniors. Occasionally there were student riots. However, most grammar schools were not residential. Because the grammar schools were limited to boys, many boarding schools for girls were established. Tradesmen's daughters were often sent to these to learn to act like ladies. Most upper class girls were taught, at home or at school, English, writing, arithmetic, drawing, courtly dancing, needlework, music, and French. Dissenting academies were established for those who did not pass the religious tests of the grammar schools. Pencils were now in use.
Sons of gentlemen usually took "The Grand Tour" of the continent before going to university. These tours lasted for months or years, and always included Paris and a protestant French university. The students went in groups with tutors. The chief purpose was now cultural, instead of practical. On these tours there was often misbehavior such as drinking and fighting. In 1720, Travelers Checks were developed for those on the Grand Tour.
The universities began to teach science. The new professorships at Cambridge University were: chemistry, astronomy, experimental philosophy, anatomy, botany, geology, geometry, and Arabic. Ideas in geology challenged the Bible's description of the creation of the world and there was a controversy over the origin and nature of fossils. In 1715, a large pointed weapon of black flint was found in contact with the bones of an elephant in a gravel bed in London. Oral and written examinations began to replace disputations. Few professors lectured.
Dissenters were excluded from universities as well as from offices and grammar schools. Oxford and Cambridge Universities were open only to members of the Church of England, so other universities were established for dissenters. They taught geography, mathematics, science, physics, astronomy, mechanics, hydrostatics, and anatomy. At Oxford and Cambridge and Harvard Universities, students in science were relegated to different instructors, buildings, and degree ceremonies than students in literature, who often looked down on them as socially and intellectually inferior.
The Inns of Court had ceased to provide residence. The period of education at law school at the Inns of Court was now reduced in 1760 from seven to five years for ordinary students and to three years for graduates of Oxford or Cambridge Universities. The textbooks were: "Doctor and Student" by Christopher Saint-German (1518) and "Institutes of the Laws of England" by Thomas Wood (1720). Most landed families tried to ensure that at least one member of the family in each generation was educated at the Inns of Court after going to Oxford or Cambridge. In 1739, attorneys formed a "Society of Gentlemen Practitioners in the Courts of Law and Equity". In order to earn a living, most attorneys had to attach themselves to some great patron and serve his interests. So it was hard for an ordinary person to find an impartial attorney or to find any attorney willing to contest a powerful family.
The first encyclopedia came into existence in 1728. In 1740 was the first public circulating library in London. Samuel Johnson put together the first dictionary in 1755. It standardized spelling and pronunciation. Then came dictionaries for the arts, sciences, and commerce. There were histories with political biases such as the Earl of Clarendon's "History of the Great Rebellion". Alexander Pope wrote witty satire on human faults of the period such as "Rape of the Lock". Daniel Defoe wrote "Robinson Crusoe", "Moll Flanders", and "The Poor Man's Plea" protesting disparity of judicial treatment of rich and poor, for instance for drunkenness. Henry Fielding wrote one of the first novels: "Tom Jones". Joseph Addison wrote essays on social behavior. Jonathan Swift wrote the satire on the times "Gulliver's Travels". Samuel Richardson wrote some of the first novels, such as "Clarissa"; he wrote on values such as religious faith, moral virtue, and family closeness. Catherine Macaulay started writing her weighty and impressive "History of England". Many schoolmistresses wrote textbooks on a variety of subjects. Poet and essayist Hester Chapone wrote "Letters on the Improvement of the Mind". Elizabeth Carter wrote poetry and translated Greek works; her work was published in "The Gentleman's Magazine". Hannah More wrote the play "The Inflexible Captive". The diaries of Caroline Girle Powys Daniel told of her extensive travels in the nation, and the various life styles of polite society she visited. Defoe's newspaper was the first great political journal. He claimed that the people have a right to control the proceedings of Parliament. Essayists like Richard Steele, who introduced the periodical essay in his newspaper, and Joseph Addison, in his newspaper, wrote in a conversational style about the social life around them and the thoughts and behavior of common men and women in a light and good-humored way. They separated humor from the old-style farce and gave it taste and gentility. And with this came a moderation, reserve, and urbanity in matters of religion, politics, and society. Religious issues even became a matter of indifference. Fairies, witches, astrology, and alchemy were no longer taken seriously by educated men. Tales of fairies, witches, ghosts, and miracles were deemed appropriate for children. Childrens' stories were becoming a distinct literary form. Nursery rhymes included "Hush-a-bye baby on the tree top" and the five little piggies. "Mother Goose's Melody" was published in 1765. There were picture books for children such as Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, and Sleeping Beauty. Craftsmen made small models of their wares, such as dolls' china, dolls' furniture, silver, and flat lead soldiers. Babies had rattles and teething rings.
In 1710 copyrights for books was given for 14 years, renewable for another 14 years. Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad and Odyssey made him financially independent. He collected advance payments from subscribers who would be listed in the book. A new book industry emerged in London with booksellers as master manufacturers who employed writers, authors, copyers, and subwriters. Booksellers sold books of sermons, histories, political and literary satires, literary criticism, and dictionaries. There was a growing popularity of novels. Books were expensive to buy. Regular magazines on the new and strange were published. There were three daily, six weekly, and ten thrice yearly newspapers. Newspapers increased in number from 8 founded in 1700 to a total of 25 in 1727. By 1753, there were over a million throughout the country. Workmen usually began their day by reading a newspaper at a coffee house.
Authors of books which have been registered at the Stationers Hall shall have the sole liberty of printing and reprinting such book for 14 years. Others who print or sell or publish such shall forfeit the books and pay one penny for each sheet found in their custody, 1/2 to the Queen and 1/2 to the suer. The printer shall give a copy of each book printed to the Company of Stationers, the Royal Library, the libraries of the Oxford and Cambridge universities, and certain other libraries.
In 1775, the two universities in England, the four universities in
Scotland, and the several colleges of Eton, Westminster, and
Winchester were given in perpetuity a copyright in books given or
bequeathed to them.
The British Museum was incorporated to hold the collections of Robert Cotton of manuscripts, books, records, coins, and medals and of Hans Sloane, which contained rare books, coins, precious stones, pictures, plants, and mathematical instruments and had been left to the public.
Italian opera was introduced in 1706 by Georg Handel on his visit to England. His music became the standard music of Georgian England. The Academy of Ancient Music was founded in 1710. It set the standard of selection and performance. In existence were the violin (including ones made by Stadivari), viola, cello, double bass, oboe, trumpet, clarinet, bassoon, trombone, horn, flute, harp, organ, harpsichord, in which the strings were plucked, and piano, in which the strings are struck by little hammers. Orchestras had at least thirty members. Many hymns were written.
Painting by artists developed. Gentlemen had portraits painted of their horses and dogs as well as of family. Joshua Reynolds painted the wealth and beauty of England. Painters such as Gainsborough did landscapes and dramatic history paintings too, but neither of these sold as well as portraits. Scenery was painted for the theater. Places of business had signs painted which portrayed animals. Coaches were painted with mythological creatures and such. Gentlemen collected antique statuary and painting, such as by Rembrandt and Rubens. In 1711 an academy of painting was founded, which included women painters. The first public exhibition of paintings was in 1760. The Society of Artists was formed in 1761 and incorporated by royal charter in 1765. This differentiated them from the Painter-Stainers Company of face painters, coach painters, and house painters. The Royal Academy of London was founded in 1768 to merge all private academies and societies into one official body and to recognize the best artistic work. Joshua Reynolds was its first president. It was at first financed by the king. Under George I, sculptors became distinct from masons. They did monuments and portrait busts of the royal family, nobles, and great men. From Italian influence, Palladian architecture came into vogue. It was typified externally by a panoramic look achieved by horizontal lines, balanced alternatives of plain wall and openings, and portico with a heavy pediment like the front of a Roman temple. Stucco was often used to plaster housefronts, flute columns, and ornament pediments. Architects took students. Designers of engraved, etched, and historical prints were given the sole right to print them for 14 years. Copiers had to forfeit 5s. per print.
Foreigners were now interested in learning about English life, philosophy, and opinion. They learned English to read English literature such as Shakespeare. No longer were France and Italy the only centers of culture and influence on other nations. By 1713, England was the leading sea power by far.
The Royal Society was still the principal focus of scientific activity. Issac Newton was its President for several years and drew in more foreigners. Its members were mathematicians, chemists, botanists, physicians, engineers, authors, poets, and theologians. Papers given there generated much discussion at its meetings. Newton opined that particles attract each other by some force in a similar way that large bodies attracted each other. This force in immediate contact was exceedingly strong, at small distances performed chemical interactions, and at greater distances had no effect. Also there were local associations and societies. There were learned journals such as "Philosophical Transactions". In 1714, the mercury thermometer was invented by Gabriel Fahrenheit of Germany; this was more accurate than the alcohol and water thermometer. The hydrometer, which measures air humidity, was also invented. These made possible weather forecasting. In 1718 the French chemist Etienne Geoffroy published a table of affinities among chemical substances. Carolus Linneaus, a Swedish naturalist and botanist, established the scientific method of naming plants and animals by genus and species. When he showed that there was a sexual system in plants, church authorities were so shocked that they suppressed this knowledge as they did other scientific knowledge. In 1727, Rev. Stephen Hales discovered the ways that water that plants lost by evaporation was restored by the roots up the stems. He found that gas could be obtained from plants by dry distillation and invented a way to collect gases by heating certain substances. He made ventilators for ships, prisons, and granaries, using the method of injecting air with bellows. This saved many lives in the prisons.
Hans Sloane, the son of a receiver-general of taxes, who became a physician, had collected hundreds of species of plants in Jamacia while physician to its governor. He became physician to George II and was a benefactor to many hospitals and devised a botanic garden in London for the Society of Apothecaries.
In 1735, George Hadley, a London lawyer and philosopher, determined that the cause of the trade winds blowing from the west direction was the rotation of the earth. Benjamin Franklin in 1743 observed that a particularly violent storm was in Boston a day after a particularly violent was in Philadelphia, and realized that they were the same storm, even though the storm's surface winds were from the northeast. He determined that Atlantic coastal storms traveled from the southwest to the northeast.
In 1738 Daniel Bernoulli, a Swiss university lecturer in physics, mechanics, medicine, and anatomy, showed that as the velocity of horizontal fluid flow increases, its pressure decreases. This followed from his theorem that the total mechanical energy of a flowing liquid, comprising the energy associated with fluid pressure, the gravitational potential energy of elevation, and kinetic energy of fluid motion remains constant; that is it is conserved. He demonstrated that the impact of molecules on a surface would explain pressure, and that assuming the constant random motion of molecules, pressure and motion will increase with temperature. He explained the behavior of gases with changing pressure and temperature. In 1754, Scotsman physician Joseph Black identified carbon dioxide, the first gas recognized as distinct from everyday breathing air. He did this by using a balance to weigh alkalis before and after exposure to heat. They lost weight by losing carbon dioxide. He then ascertained the effects of carbon dioxide on animals and its production by respiration, fermentation, and burning of charcoal. At this time, all flammable materials were thought to contain "phlogiston", which was given off as they burned and was associated with the transfer of heat. Plants were thought to remove phlogiston from the air and therefore burned when they were dry. In 1774, Joseph Priestly, a nonconformist minister, schoolmaster, and tutor, discovered oxygen by heating red oxide of mercury. He got interested in the study of gases by watching the process of fermentation in a brewery next to his house. His gas collection techniques enabled him to work with gases soluble in water. He showed that the processes of combustion, respiration, and putrefaction caused one-fifth of air exposed over water to disappear, and that plants restored air vitiated by these processes. When he isolated oxygen, he noted that it was better than air in supporting respiration and combustion produced by heating certain metallic nitrates. The differences between acids, bases, and salts and their relationship to one another became understood. There was some theoretical as well as empirical knowledge about metals, e.g. in boiling points, intermetallic compounds, and changes in properties.
Static electricity was being discerned. It had been noticed that shaking a mercury barometer produced a strange glow in its "vacuum". Experiments showed that a glass rubbed in vacuo would shine brightly and that an exhausted glass globe rapidly whirled on a spindle and rubbing against the hand produced a brilliant glow. And further, as Newton wrote: "if at the same time a piece of white paper or white cloth, or the end of ones finger be held at the distance of about a quarter of an inch or half an inch from that part of the glass where it is most in motion, the electric vapor which is excited by the friction of the glass against the hand, will by dashing against the white paper, cloth, or finger, be put into such an agitation as to emit light, and make the white paper, cloth, or finger, appear lucid like a glowworm". In the study of electricity, conductors and insulators were recognized. There were demonstrations of electrical phenomenon such as seeing brandy ignited by a spark shooting from a man's finger and transferring an electrical impulse among a circle of people by their holding hands. Electricity was stored in an early type of capacitor. Benjamin Franklin "caught" lightning with a sharp pointed wire attached on top of a kite which led down to a key. When a thunder cloud electrified the kite, a charge could be seen coming from the key to an approaching finger. This charge was stored and then reproduced to create the same feeling of electrical transference among hand-holders as a rubbed glass globe, thereby illustrating that it was the same phenomenon as electricity. This countered the theological belief that thunder and lightning were signs of divine displeasure or the work of the devil. He invented the lightening rod, which was then used to protect houses. About ten years later, the first lightening rod on an English church was erected. Franklin theorized that there were electric charges everywhere and designated them as positive or negative. He observed that opposite charges attracted each other, but that like charges repelled each other. In 1766, Joseph Priestly did an experiment suggested by Franklin and showed that electrical force follows the same law as gravitational force; that is, that the attraction or repulsion between two electrical charges varies inversely to the square of the distance between them.
Joseph-Louis LaGrange from France developed differential equations. Natural history museums were established. A group split off from the Royal Society to show collections of curiosities.
In 1754, a self-educated mechanic founded the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. It had sections on agriculture, manufactures, mechanics, chemistry, liberal arts, and trade and colonies. It sponsored contests at which prizes were given, such as that in 1761 for the best invention of a machine that would spin six threads of wool, flax, cotton, or silk at onetime with only one person attending it.
Machines still mostly relied on human, animal, and water power.
Abraham Darby was a Quaker and millwright who made large cooking pots of iron, which cost less than bronze. Around 1713, he experimented with various substances to take the place of wood charcoal in iron smelting. Coal was a remote possibility. In forging or working metals coal had more or less the same qualities as wood charcoal, but this was not the case in smelting ores, especially iron ore. Coal contained sulphur compounds which caused the iron ore to deteriorate. So he controlled the burning of coal to burn out these impurities, which produced coke. His son took over after his death and improved the methods of coking, strengthened the bellows, and added ore limestone and other reagents to the mixture. By 1756, his large blast furnace using both pit coal and wood charcoal was very productive. He made iron goods of such quality as those previously imported.
In 1767, Richard Reynolds replaced the wooden rails connecting a blast furnace to mines with cast iron rails. He had apprenticed as a grocer and then became a partner in a large ironworks of Darby, whose daughter he married. After Darby died and before Darby's sons became of age, Reynolds was in charge of the ironworks. He cast cylinders of the early steam engines.
In 1749 John Roebuck, a physician and son of a prosperous manufacturer of Sheffield goods, found a cheaper way to manufacture sulphuric acid. He did this by using leaden chambers instead of glass globes to collect the vapor from burning nitre and sulphur over water. This reduced the cost of sulfuric acid to one-fourth of its previous cost, so that sulfuric acid came to be used to bleach linen instead of sour milk. He also made cast iron into malleable iron by smelting iron using coke from pit-coal instead of charcoal. But flooding in his mines and further ventures resulted in his ruin and bankruptcy.
Thomas Newcomen, a Baptist ironmonger, blacksmith, and locksmith, supplied iron tools to mine workers. He was aware of the problem of flooding of mines and the awkward system of pumps which were used one above the other and were powered by teams of horses. He made a very valuable contribution to power generation by inventing the atmospheric pressure steam engine around 1712. He did this by connecting theory with experiment, through the use of scientific knowledge, especially the Royal Society's investigation into atmospheric pressure. First cold water was poured on a cylinder in which a piston could move up and down. This caused steam inside the cylinder to cool and condense into water. The vacuum created inside the cylinder under the piston caused atmospheric pressure on top of the piston to push the piston down. The piston was attached by a rod to the end of a beam which end then swung down from a point on a vertical stand to which it was attached. When the beam swung, its other end, which was attached to a rod connected to a pump, rose, thus working the pump. Then steam from water heated in a boiler under and communicating with the cylinder was allowed into the cylinder under the piston. This decreased the atmospheric pressure on the piston from above and allowed the piston to rise by a counterweight on the rod over and connecting to the pump. Boys opened and closed the steam valve, which let steam into the cylinder from below, and the water valve, which let cold water pour on the cylinder from above. Then the boys were replaced by the valves being connected to the oscillating beam which caused them to open and close at perfectly regular intervals. A story gives the credit for this improvement to an inventive valve boy who wanted to play with his friends. In 1712, the mining industry used this steam engine to pump water out of mine-shafts which had flooded. These engines were also used to supply water to reservoirs locks at canals, and drinking water facilities in towns. One such engine developed power equivalent to fifty horses working at one sixth the cost. It was the first automatic machine since the clock.
Then James Watt invented the steam engine which used steam as a force acting on the piston. Watt made his living making scientific instruments for Glasgow University. Around 1764, he was fixing one of Newcomen's engines belonging to the university, when he saw its inefficiencies, such as the loss of heat when the cylinder was cooled. He saved this heat energy by having the steam condensed in another vessel distinct but connected to the cylinder. This condenser was kept constantly cool by cold water. So the condensed steam was pumped back into the boiler and it circulated continuously, thus obviating the need for constant resupply of water. In order to avoid the necessity of using water to keep the piston air-tight, and also to prevent the air from cooling the cylinder during the descent of the piston, he used the expansion of the steam to push the piston instead of atmospheric pressure. Then, in order to expand the use of the steam engine beyond that of a pump, he converted the oscillating motion of the beam into rotary motion. He formed a partnership with John Roebuck, who had a two-thirds interest. But when Roebuck needed money, he sold his interest to Matthew Boulton. Boulton wanted better power that that of his watermill for his workshops that made metal buttons, watch chains, shoebuckles of engraved steel, ornamental bronzes, vases, chandeliers, tripods, silver and plated wares, and imitation gold and tortoiseshell work. In dry weather, about eight horses were needed to aid in driving the machinery. A steam pump could pump water from the bottom of the watermill to the top to be used again. He had built up this factory of five buildings and six hundred workers, with 9,000 pounds derived from his marriage to an heiress. By 1774, the partnership had built a model steam engine with rotary power whose design could be sold. The price of the engine was set as the amount of money saved on fuel costs in the first three years of its operation. This machine was a relatively economical user of energy, capable of performing almost any kind of work.
About 1750, John Wilkinson, the son of a farmer who also oversaw an iron furnace, substituted mineral coal for wood charcoal in the smelting and puddling of iron ore. In 1766 he made it possible to transport coal out of mines on rail wagons drawn by horses. As father of the iron industry, he made iron chairs, vats for breweries and distilleries, and iron pipes of all sizes. He provided Watt with metal cylinders of perfectly accurate shape, which were necessary for the smooth working of Watt's steam engine. In 1775 he bought a pumping steam engine from Boulton and Watt's company for his ironworks. It pumped three times as fast as Newcomen's engine.
Watt's steam engine came to be used for power-loom weaving and then for all sorts of manufactures. It would put England ahead of every manufacturing country in the world. Millwrights built, installed, and later designed not only steam engines but the machinery that they drove. These men were essential in setting up the first factories. They were the most imaginative and resourceful craftsmen. They knew how to use a turner's, a carpenter's and a blacksmith's tools and had supervised or done smith work, brick-laying or stone-mason's work in erecting and maintaining windmills with their many gears and bearings. There was a good deal of variety in mills, as well as in the structure and workmanship of them, some being worked by horses, some by wind, and others by water. They had some knowledge of arithmetic and practical mechanics. They could draw out a plan and calculate the speed and power of a wheel. Although technically in a branch of carpentry, the millwrights learned to work with metal as well. Metal was superior to wood not only because of its strength but because wood parts were irregular in motion and wore out rapidly. So iron and brass parts came to replace wood and leather parts.
In 1728, J. Paine got a patent for rolling iron instead of hammering it. The iron bars, being heated in a long hot arch or cavern passed between two large metal rollers, which had certain notches or furrows on their surfaces.
Around 1740, clockmaker and Quaker Benjamin Huntsman was struck with the difficulty of finding finely tempered steel for the springs of his watches and pendulums of his clocks. He experimented for years to find a homogeneous and flawless metal, and finally invented cast steel, which was much harder than ordinary steel. He did this by remelting refined high quality wrought iron bars at very high temperatures in sealed fireclay crucibles, together with small quantities of charcoal and ground glass as reagents. This distributed the carbon evenly in the metal, which hammering could not do. He approached the Sheffield cutlers, who finally agreed to try his cast steel for fear of losing their business to some other manufacturers who were approaching Huntsman. Since Huntsman had no patent, he worked at night and employed only men who would keep his secret. His steel was made at night. His factory became prosperous about 1770 and the excellence of his steel manufacture was never equalled. Steel and wrought iron was scarce and expensive.
Around 1748, iron founder Samuel Walker, discovered Huntsman's secret by appearing at Huntsman's factory disguised as a shivering tramp who asked to warm himself by the furnace fire. He feigned sleep while watching the whole process. When he began to make cast steel, his annual output grew from 900 pounds in 1747 to 11,000 pounds in 1760 and he made a fortune.
Silver was plated over copper from 1751. White metal from tin and antimony was used from about 1770.
The brass industry was beginning to produce brass from copper and zinc that was as good as foreign brass. The secret of plate-glass manufacture came to England in the 1770s.
In 1773, a corporation was set up for the manufacture of plate glass. It could raise joint-stock because of the great risk and large expense of the undertaking.
In 1775, chemist William Cookworthy was given a fourteen year patent for the discovery of certain clay and stone in England from which he made England's first true porcelain, i.e. that which could sustain the most extreme degree of fire without melting, and also had grain as smooth and lustrous, and the transparency and beauty of color, equal in degree to the best Chinese or Dresden porcelain.
The import duties on diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds and other precious stones and jewels was dropped to increase the business of cutting and polishing them.
The world's first chocolate factory was set up in England in 1728.
The Fanmakers were incorporated in 1709.
A linen company to sell cambricks [a fine white linen] and lawns [a thin and fine linen] was incorporated in 1763.
A free market for fish was established in Westminster to supplement the free fish market in London to prevent forestalling and monopolizing of the fish industry and to increase the number of fishermen. Duties for its maintenance were paid by the fishermen. Certain men were given the right to incorporate fisheries of white herring for twenty one years to improve the fisheries and give employment to the poor. They were authorized to sell subscriptions and to build ships provided the fishery employ 100,000 in such fishery. There were restrictions on taking fish from rivers during their breeding season. Herring fishermen were allowed to land and dry their nets and erect tents and pickle, cure, and reload fish on uncultivated land up to 100 yards beyond the high water mark all any shore, forelands, harbors, and ports, without paying the landholder. Later, a bounty of 30s. per ton was authorized to be given for vessels that were fitted out and used for white herring fishery.
Anyone wishing to be admitted to the Levant (Turkey) trading company was to be made free of such on paying 20 pounds, so that this trade may be increased.
In the 1760s the first cooking school was established by Mrs.
Elizabeth Raffald, a servant.
As for health, there were many occupational hazards. These included paralysis by mercury of refiners of silver and gold, paralysis by mercurial fumes of molten lead by plumbers, palsy of glaziers working with melted lead and of watch gilders, lead poisoning of painters, blinding by sawdust of sawyers, and the affects of fumes on pewterers and letter founders. Particles of copper were breathed in by copper workers, whose hair and beards then turned green. Braziers became deaf. Hairdressers, bakers, masons, bricklayers' laborers, coal heavers, chimney sweeps, flax and feather dressers, and workers in leather warehouses suffered pulmonary diseases. Chimney sweeps also had warty skin cancer from their bodies being habitually covered with soot and the lethal cancer of the scrotum. Working with charcoal fires affected confectioners, chocolate makers, and sail-cloth makers. Tanners, catgut makers, and tallow-candle makers became nauseous. Heavy work weakened many bodies and caused hernias. Bending over work for long hours caused stooped posture and hump backs.
The association between dirt and disease was just beginning to be made. The principles of infection and hygiene were not well understood. Bathing every couple of months was not unusual. There was some theological feeling that cleanliness betokened pride and filthiness humility. Most houses had a bathtub that could be placed beside the fire in a bedroom. About 80% of the population had been getting smallpox, which blinded, maimed or disfigured many. Deaths from smallpox were only occasional in the country, but constant in London, where about 13% of every generation died from it. Making death commonplace, especially in the winter months when thick, dirty clothes were worn day and night, were typhus, which was carried by lice; typhoid, which was spread by flies from horse dung; tuberculosis; and influenza. Dysentery and diarrhea made death commonplace especially in the summer when flies transmitted bacteria from filth to food and the water was its most foul. There was great meaning in the prayer "Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep; if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." Thyphus spread easily in hospitals and gaols where vermin could live in the beds made of wood. Colds and toothache were also common. Venereal disease was not uncommon among the well-to-do in London. Condoms were used to deter disease, but were still crude, coarse, uncomfortable, and unreliable. London had almost double the mortality rate of the nation. The number of baptisms in London were about 80% of its burials. About 40% of the deaths in London were among children under two, due to infantile diseases fostered by malnutrition, maternal ignorance such as giving babies adult food, ill-health, bad water, dirty food, poor hygiene, and overcrowding. Many children died from diptheria, measles, scarlet fever, and smallpox. Ten or twelve children with three or four surviving was a common family pattern. Many well-to-do in London kept their children in the country for their better health. No matter what the ailment, physicians regularly bled patients and often gave them enemas with wooden funnels. Sometimes a blister or irritant was applied to the skin to draw out the evil humors. Cupping was used to provide suction to remove pressure from various parts of the body. Also used were poultices, ointments, and herbal treatments, notably quinine. Opium was given to deaden pain. There were about 70 drugs in use. Charms, spells, astrology, and folk remedies still played a major role in medicine. A physician attended surgeries to give advice. Physicians could visit apothecary shops once a year and throw away any drugs falling below an arbitrary standard of excellence. In 1703 the House of Lords decided a jurisdictional contest between the College of Physicians and the Society of Apothecaries. It permitted the apothecaries to direct the remedies as well as to prepare them, although they could only charge for the drugs they provided. The poor sought advice from apothecaries.
There was progress in health. Scurvy virtually disappeared as a cause of death due to the eating of more vegetables. And people were cleaner when wearing cotton, which had to be washed. In 1721, free inoculations for smallpox began in England, pioneered by Lady Mary Wortley Montague, also a poet and letter writer. She led the way by having herself and her son inoculated. Theologicians denounced this practice as a diabolical interference with disease sent by Providence for the punishment of sin. In 1727 surgeon William Cheselden, whose master was specially licensed to perform the operation of removing stones in the hospital, reduced the death rate for removing stones due to hemorrhage, shock, and infection down to 17% by his invention of a lateral operation. He also published an anatomy book and treated certain kinds of blindness by forming an opening in the eye to serve as an artificial pupil. Sarah Wallen Mapp was a famous bone-setter. Nutritional deficiency diseases were beginning to be understood. In 1753, James Lind, a surgeon in the navy who noted that more men died of scurvy than in battle, published his work on his controlled experiment on seamen showing that oranges, lemons, limes, green food, and onions cured scurvy. He published his methods of prevention and cure of malarial fevers and his method of disinfecting ships with the smoke of wood and gunpowder. In 1761, he discovered that steam from salt water was fresh, and proposed a method of distillation to supply ships with fresh water. In 1761 Giovanni Morgagni from Italy opined that disease resulted from a breakdown of organs and tissues that was viewable on autopsy. He wrote an extensive book showing the anatomy of diseases, e.g. affections of pericardium and aorta, (e.g. aneurysm), valve diseases, ulceration, rupture, dilation, and hypertrophy. He associated clinical observation with anatomy of disease, e.g. attacks on upper part of chest on left side and difficulty breathing and numbness of left arm all ceasing with exertion with dilation of aorta and hardening of arteries, causing delay of blood in the aorta, in the heart, and in the lung vessels. Bernoulli showed that the living human body constantly changes so that all its particles are renewed in a certain number of years. Frenchman Dr. Pierre Fauchard, the father of dentistry, recommended rubbing one's teeth and gums with a piece of sponge. His book of 1728 described methods and instruments.
Since three out of four babies died shortly after birth, beds in hospitals for pregnant women were established starting in 1739. The next year physicians began to replace midwives. A hospital was established for abandoned foundling children in 1739 so they wouldn't die, as they usually did, in the care of parishes or workhouses or be exposed in the streets or left on door steps of the wealthy. It was besieged by women with babies in their arms. In 1762 a statute made the principles of the foundling hospital obligatory for all London parish children under six; they were to be sent to nurses outside London who were to be paid at least 2s. a week by the parish. In 1766, this was extended to all parishes, and nurses who cared for a child well for a year was given a reward of at least 10s. Also, parish children were not allowed to be apprenticed for more than seven years or until age 21 and an apprentice fee of at least 4 pounds, 2s. was to be paid to the master or mistress by the parish.
After 1740, there was a steady growth of population due to improved midwifery. William Smellie taught scientific midwifery in London from 1741 and wrote a "Treatise on Midwifery" in 1752, which had a clear explanation of the mechanism of labor. At this time there were several maternity hospitals. Forceps existed for difficult deliveries. In 1750, Dr. Cadogan wrote his book: "An Essay on the Nursing and Management of Children, which made a great improvement in the care of young children. For instance, it recommended loose clothing, no tight swaddling clothes, and a simple diet. Swaddling clothes were used to retain a baby's evacuations but produced discomfort and serious skin conditions. A hospital was founded for venereal diseases in 1746, another as an asylum for the penitent and orphaned girls who might otherwise be inclined to prostitution, and yet another for prostitutes in 1758. Coitus interruptus was widely used for birth control. There were also clandestine abortions and intentional neglect of newborns.
Melancholy was widespread. Suicides were frequent and drugs were sold for this purpose. In 1725, the mentally ill were classified as curable or incurable. There were many private lunatic asylums. A lunatic who was furiously mad and dangerous was required to be safely locked up or chained in his place of settlement. There were frequent and dangerous abuses in madhouses, so in 1774, no one may keep or confine more than one lunatic without a license granted by the Royal College of Physicians or forfeit 500 pounds. A Justice of the Peace and a physician inspected all madhouses to observe conditions and care of patients there. If refused admittance, the license was forfeited.
In 1712 was the last time a monarch touched a person to cure him of a malady such as scrofula.
In 1743 surgery students began to dissect corpses with their own hands to better learn anatomy. In 1744 the Company of Surgeons was separated out of the Company of Barber-Surgeons. The barbers were proscribed from performing surgery and had to have a separate corporation from the surgeons because of the ignorance and unskillfulness of barbers healing wounds, blows, and hurts e.g. by blood letting and drawing of teeth. There was a Surgeon's Hall, officers chosen by the surgeons, and bylaws. The surgeons were required to examine candidates for the position of surgeon in the king's army and navy. They were exempted from parish, ward, and leet offices, and juries. In 1752, a statute provided that the corpses of murderers were to be sent to the Surgeon's Hall to be anatomized, for the purpose of deterring murders. The penalty for rescuing the corpse of a murderer was to suffer death.
The first dispensary for the poor was established in 1769 to give free medicine and treatment to the infant poor, and then to the infants of the industrious poor.
The progress of science was seen to threaten the authority of the church. There was a general belief in God, but not much attention to Jesus. Feared to come were free thought, rationalism, and atheism. There was still a big gap between local parsons and bishops, who were educated, well-off, and related to the aristocracy. On the whole, preachers talked about morality and Christian belief. They stressed good works and benevolence. But many Protestant clergy were more concerned with their own livings than with their parishioners. They were indolent and did not set a good example of moral living.
From 1715, Freemasonry spread and swiftly provided a spiritual haven for those who believed in God and desired ritual and mysticism.
About 1744, John Wesley became the leader of the Methodist religious movement for the mining and industrial laborers. He lead an aesthetic life, eating bread and sleeping on boards. The movement was called Methodist because of its methodical regularity of living. It was characterized by an evangelical revival and a promise of individual salvation. The person to be saved from the horrors of eternal damnation in hell was to discipline himself to regular prayer, self-criticism, and hard work and to forsake worldly pleasures such as drinking, overeating, and even frivolous talk. Wesley believed in witchcraft and in magic. He opined that bodily diseases and insanity could be caused by devils and some dreams are caused by occult powers of evil. With the Methodist movement, there was a concomitant growth of philanthropic activities by the Methodists. They gave to the poor, and visited the sick and the imprisoned. Wesley preached in the open air where all who wanted to attend could and also could wear whatever clothes they had. Though large crowds of poor people were feared because of their mob potential, their meetings were stormed as has been Quaker meetings, with the shouts of "the church in danger". The Methodists' homes were invaded and their belongings destroyed or taken or their persons beaten with tacit permission of authorities. Some Justices of the Peace drafted preachers into the army or navy as vagabonds. Eventually, however, the Methodist revival imbued energy and piety into the lethargic clergy of the established church. A new moral enthusiasm and philanthropic energy grabbed the nation. Prisons were reformed, penal laws made more wise, slave trade abolished, and popular education given momentum. In the established church, charity gained precedence over theology and comfort over self-examination and guilt. Evangelist George Whitfield preached Calvinism and it split off from Methodism. Calvinism went into full decline. Presbyterianism collapsed into unitarianism and there was a general tendency towards deism.
Church sanctuary was abolished for those accused of civil offenses.
There was much travel by scheduled coaches, which usually carried several passengers and were drawn by four horses. Regular service of public vehicles to and from London went four miles an hour; it took two days to go from London to Oxford. It was not unusual for a coach to bog down or overturn. Sometimes it had to detour around an impassable stretch of road or borrow a couple of oxen from a nearby farm to get out of a quagmire. Men and horses drowned in some of the potholes. Robbery was endemic and some of the roads were so unsafe from highwaymen that bands of armed horsemen were hired to accompany the coaches. It was not unusual to come across gibbets for hanging at crossroads. At coach headquarters in inns in London, there were casual workers who associated with gangs of thieves specialized in passengers' goods. Traveling merchants preferred packhorses to carts because they could cross overland or through watercourses more easily. These pack horses traveled in regular caravans in single file. The leader had a bell around his neck to warn, from a distance, riders or carts coming in the opposite direction. Carts traveled about two miles an hour. In 1711 the trustee system superseded administration by the Justices of the Peace of the turnpike system, including tolls and toll booths. The toll booths were frequently attacked by riotous mobs. So anyone pulling down or destroying turnpike gates at which tolls are to be paid shall go to prison or put to hard labor in a House of Correction for three months without bail. He shall also be whipped in the market place between 11:00 and 2:00. If he offends a second time, he shall be transported for seven years. Later the penalty of prison up to three years was added as an alternative. The hundred was to pay the damages up to 20 pounds. The penalty for threatening the toll collector or forcibly passing through was 5 pounds for the first offense, and 10 pounds for the second offense with imprisonment for one year for those who couldn't pay.
By 1750, about 60 miles could be made in a day. The turnpike trusts took over most of London's major highways during the 1700s. There was no travel on Sundays until 1750.
In 1745, shocked by the difficulty caused by bad roads in concentrating the royal army to stop the Scottish invasion, the king began systematically to improve all the roads. There was much road and highway widening and repair, and also river bank and pier repair, going on all over the country. Marsh lands were drained. Harbors were deepened. There were numerous statutes trying to adjust the needs of travel with the condition of the roads. For instance, there must be a pole between the wheel horses or double shafts. Carriages, wagons, or carts drawn by more horses, oxen, or animals or with wheels bound iron tires, or with very heavy loads were observed to cause more damage, so they were restricted or had to pay higher tolls. Then broad and smooth iron tires were observed to not cause the amount of damage as did narrow or irregular iron tires and their use was encouraged. From 1741, weighing machines were kept at toll gates. By 1766, turnpike roads had to be at least 30 feet wide; hedges and fences thereon had to be taken down by their owners. Cartways to markets had to be at least 20 feet wide, and horseways 3 (later 8) feet wide. There were ditches, drains, and gutters to carry off water. Names and abodes of owners were to be put on carriages, wagons, and carts or forfeit 2-5 pounds, except for carriages or coaches of a nobleman or gentleman for his private use or those drawn by only one horse or two oxen, or those with wide wheels and a light load. There were town name signs, direction posts, and milestones. In 1773, the Surveyors and the Commissioners of Turnpikes were given authority to requisition local men, carts and draught animals for compulsory labor, or money instead, in maintaining the roads and making new ditches and drains. They could take any local sand, gravel, chalk, or stone from waste or common land or, if not needed by and satisfaction is made to the owner, from enclosed land. The surveyor was to be chosen locally for a year and could be given an allowance. New roads required the consent of the landowners and a negotiated price.
A driver of a carriage, wagon, or cart on the public highway who by negligence or misbehavior causes any hurt or damage to a person or any other carriage or hinders free passage of any other carriage shall forfeit up to 20s. Anyone leaving an empty cart or other obstruction on a public highway shall forfeit up to 20s. Any cart, wagon, or carriage driven without a person on foot or on horseback leading it shall forfeit up to 20s. Any driver of an empty cart, wagon, or carriage who refuses or neglects to make way for any coach or loaded cart, wagon, or carriage shall forfeit up to 20. Any offender may be apprehended by anyone seeing his offense without warrant, who shall then deliver him to a constable or other peace officer.
By 1719, the mail service was well-regulated. Letter rates within 80 miles of London were 3d. per piece of paper, then 12d. per ounce. Within 60 miles of New York City in America there were 4d. per piece of paper, then 1s.4d. per ounce. Letters were still carried by post horses. From London to New York, they were 1s. per piece of paper for the first three pieces, then 4s. per ounce. In 1765, this rate was extended to all colonial ports.
In 1754, canals began to be constructed linking the main rivers. Horses or men hauled the barges from the land. Now goods of many inland towns cheapened and reached a national instead of just a local market. In 1761 an almost illiterate man called James Brindley cut the first real canal at Worsley for the Duke of Bridgewater, who owned the coal deposits there. He kept the line of the canal at one level to avoid having to make locks. It crossed one river as a forty foot high aqueduct. He refused to use the beds of small rivers, whose sluggish flow gave no adequate security against silting. Coal at the destination point of Manchester fell to half its former price. After Wedgwood headed a campaign to persuade Parliament to construct a certain canal, he bought adjacent land on which he built a great factory.
In 1713, the maximum interest rate that could be charged was reduced to 5% for the advancement of trade and improvement of lands because that rate was the norm in foreign lands. Thus the maximum interest rate fell from 10 to 8 to 6 and then to 5%. When Issac Newton was Master of the Mint, he noted that too restricted a currency caused a high interest rate to prevail, which was bad for commerce and the plans to set the poor to work, but that too large a quantity of money in circulation caused interest rates to fall, which encouraged luxury imports and the export of bullion.
The Bank of England provided a safer deposit and lower interest than goldsmiths or scriveners. It also issued notes for 10 and 15 (since 1759), and 20 pounds. Outside retail trade and wages payments, business was conducted on a credit basis with a paper promise to pay at some future date. Check use was still formal and rare. Tradesmen typically authorized their apprentices to "write off or draw" from their accounts, bringing their bank books. Depositors authorized other people such as certain servants, relatives, cashiers, or company secretaries to make use of their accounts. After 1721, the Bank dividend was about 6% a year.
Promissory notes are assignable and endorsable and the holder may recover against the signer or any endorser as is the case with bills of exchange. In 1775, no more promissory or other notes, bills of exchange, draughts, or undertakings in writing and being negotiable or transferable may be made for under 20s., because it was hard for the poorer sort of manufacturer, artificer, laborer and others to comply with them otherwise than by being subject to great extortion and abuse. (Cash was to be used instead.)
By 1711, government finances had become so chaotic that the Chancellor of the Exchequer sought to re-establish public credit by means of a chartered commercial company, the shares of which were offered in substitution for government stock. This South Sea Company was established in 1711 with a monopoly to trade in South America. The prospects of hugh profits sent the share prices soaring. There was also an increase in the money supply. These factors led to a speculation bubble in 1720 in this stock. Also, many stock-jobbers promoted companies of every description, such as one to extract gold from sea-water. There was an insurance boom with about seventy insurance companies in existence, many virtually gambling in life contingencies. There was speculation in insurance for all types of occurrences, such as house-breaking, highway robbery, death by gin-drinking, and horses becoming disabled. The total capital invested in all these enterprises rose to over five times the cash resources of all Europe. When the bubble burst, 100 pound South Sea stock had gone up to 1050 pounds and back down again to 120. Since the government had in effect bought this stock at a low price and paid off its debt with this stock at a high price, this bubble relieved the government of much of its massive debt. It also redistributed wealth. After the bubble burst, investors took refuge in investing in 3-4% government fixed-interest securities. A result of this bubble burst was the chartering of two corporations for marine insurance and prohibition of such by any partnership or firm. Private persons could continue to write policies, and they chose Lloyd's Coffeehouse as their headquarters; it came to dominate the world of marine insurance after the two chartered companies came to concentrate on fire and life insurance. Lloyd's list became the foundation for a new newspaper. There were speciality boxes at Lloyd's such as on America or the Baltic. Many ships were reported captured by enemies or pirates, but underwriting insurance was a lucrative business for many.
In 1717 the gold guinea was assigned a value of 21s. In 1774, the gold standard was introduced. In 1774, clipped and deficient gold coin was called in to be exchanged for new coin.
Local taxes were collected for the church, the poor, county courts of justice, borough administration, and highways. National taxes included the income, customs, and excise taxes. When the government tried to levy excise taxes on wine, tobacco, and then on cider, there was a public protest with mobs demonstrating against the power given to excise inspectors to search in people's homes. These excise taxes were no longer levied.
Duties were placed on items for encouraging industries within the country and to pay the expenses of government. There were more and higher duties to pay for war. At various times there were duties on hides, skins, seal skins, gilt and silver wire, malt, mum (strong beer made from malted wheat), cider, perry, spices, coffee, tea, cocoa nuts, chocolate, cocoa paste, snuff, chinaware, drugs, calicoes, herrings, apples, oysters, raw Italian and Chinese silk, gum arabic, gum senega, tallow, hogs-lard, grease, beaver skins and wool, imported brandy, raisins, coals and coal dust, coaches for one's own use or for hire (except licensed hackney coaches); silver plate owned by persons, corporations, and bodies politic; leases, bonds, and other deeds; licenses for retailing wine, beer, and ale; 5% of salaries, fees, and perquisites from office and employments including royal pensions and gratuities over 100 pounds. When the price of wheat was high, as in 1765, when it was 6s. per bushel, wheat products could not be exported. (At other times, they could not be imported.) Duties on imported wheat, barley, rye, oats, beans, rice, Indian corn were also dropped. The prohibition of importing salted beef, pork, bacon, and butter was dropped. In 1770, no live cattle, pigs, mutton, pork, beef, either fresh or salted could be exported or forfeit 50 pounds for every such animal or 5s. per pound of such meat. In 1773, peas, beans, bacon, hams, and cheese could be imported duty free, and in 1775 Labrador codfish. In 1775, raw goat skins could be imported duty-free to improve the domestic manufacture of red, green, and blue leather.
In 1773, there were given costs above which various commodities could not be exported: wheat at 44s. per quarter, rye, peas, or beans at 28s., barley and beer at 22s., oats at 14s. or forfeit the goods, 20s. per bushel and the ship or boat in which laden. (There are 8 bushes in a quarter.)
A window tax replaced the hearth tax. These duties were 2s. on dwelling houses, increased by 6d. per window for houses with 10-14 windows, and increased by 9d. per window for houses with 15-19 windows, and increased by 1s. per window for houses with 20 or more windows, per year to be paid by the occupant. These were increased three more times, until the dwelling house duty was 3s. and the duty for 25 or more windows was 2s. Another duty for war was that on imported starch, certain imported clothes, cards, dice, soap, vellum, parchment, and paper made in the realm (4d. - 1s.6d. per ream depending on quality) or imported (1s. - 16s. per ream). For pamphlets and newspapers made in the realm there was a duty of 2d. per sheet and 12d. for every advertisement. When the duty was paid, the paper was stamped. The penalty for nonpayment was 10 pounds for sellers and 5 pounds for those writing or printing on the paper. Later, there was a penalty for sellers or hawkers of pamphlets or newspapers of imprisonment in a House of Correction up to three months, and the apprehender got a reward of 20s. A parson marrying a couple without publishing banns or license could forfeit 100 pounds.
Not paying duties was punishable by various forfeitures of money. Officers for duties could search warehouses on suspicion of concealment of coffee, tea, chocolate, or cocoa nuts with an intent to avoid duties upon oath before a duty commissioner or Justice of the Peace setting forth the grounds of such suspicion. A special warrant could be issued authorizing the officer to seize such goods.
Wars were funded not only by some duties, but by lotteries and short-term funding purchased at 5% yearly interest from the Bank of England and by long-term funding by the sale of annuities.
County militias could be raised and called out to march together in order to be better prepared to suppress insurrections or invasions. Their horsemen were to be provided with broad sword, a case of pistols with 12 inch barrels, a carabine with belt and bucket, a saddle, and a bit and bridle. The foot soldiers were to be provided with a bayonet, a cartouch-box, and a sword. In the militia act of 1757, there were quotas for each parish, to be chosen by lot from lists of men 18-50 years old. After militia service for three years, one could not be called again until by rotation, and, if married, was allowed to practice any trade in which he was able in any town or place. While he was in the militia, his parish had to pay an allowance to his family, if distressed, the usual price of an agricultural laborer, according to the number and ages of the children. Quakers could provide a substitute or pay money to defray expenses of a substitute for three years. Exempt were peers, commissioned officers in royal army or royal castle, other military personnel, members of either university, clergymen, teachers of any separate congregation, constables and peace officers, and watermen of the Thames River.
This militia act was due to an invasion scare in 1756 because Great Britain then had no allies on the continent. The old strategy of maintaining a small army of 17,000 men and relying on volunteers had really depended on England's allies to tie down France's land forces. The militia act of 1757 was designed to reassure squires they would not be used as adjuncts to the army. Only those with much property would be officers. Enlistees could still carry on their trades and jobs. Costs were to be from general taxation rather than by locality. But it was almost impossible to get officers and there were many riots when parish authorities tried to draw up lists of those liable to serve. In 1759 the navy prevented French invasion.
Able-bodied men without a calling, employment, or visible means of maintenance or livelihood may be searched for and conscripted into the army. Volunteers who enlist shall be paid 40s. and may not be taken out of her majesty's service by any process other than for some criminal matter. King George II was the last king to lead his troops into battle. Later, parishes were given 20s. for every soldier they summoned. Also, persons who had a vote for member of Parliament were exempted.
Whipping was the usual punishment for offenses. A soldier who deserted or joined in any mutiny or sedition in the royal army within the realm was to suffer death or any other punishment determined by court martial. In 1760, a soldier (later, or a marine) who slept at his post, left his post before being relieved, communicated with any rebel or enemy, struck or disobeyed any superior officer could suffer death, including those soldiers in America.
During war, chief officers of towns quartered and billeted royal army officers and soldiers in inns, livery stables, alehouses, and victualling houses for 4d. a day, but not in any private house without consent of the owner. From 1714 to 1739, the army regiments were split up and scattered among the ale-houses of small towns for maintenance; this was to disperse the army and also to keep a check on its numbers, which might be surreptitiously increased if they were in barracks. The towns protested and town magistrates imposed severe penalties for small offenses by soldiers. Their drunkenness and violence were not tolerated as it was for ordinary people. Their officers not being with them, the soldiers retaliated with troublesomeness. As of 1763 English troops could be quartered in unoccupied houses or barns and supplied with necessities such as bedding, firewood, candles, vinegar, salt, cooking utensils, and beer or cider. The Royal Hospital gave pensions to maimed and worn out soldiers treated there.
Sailors had more status than soldiers because they had regular work as seamen in times of peace and they did not remind the people of the idea of a standing army, which they had hated especially since Cromwell.
Justices of the Peace, mayors, and other officers could bind boys as apprentices to sea service if they were at least ten and their parents were chargeable to the parish or begged for alms. This indenture to the masters or owners of ships lasted until the boy reached 21. The parish paid 50s. for clothing and bedding for such sea service. No such apprentice could be impressed into royal sea service until 18 years of age. Master and owners of ships that carry 30 - 50 tuns had to take one such apprentice and one more boy for the next 50 tuns, and one more boy for every 100 tuns over 100 tuns, or forfeit 10 pounds to the parish. Boys voluntarily binding themselves to such sea service were exempt from impress for the next three years. This was to increase the number of able and experience mariners and seamen for the royal navy and for the trade and commerce of the nation.
No masters or commanders of merchant ships may proceed on a voyage beyond the seas without first agreeing in writing on wages with the seamen, except for apprentices. Such agreement must be signed by the seamen. Offenders must forfeit 5 pounds per seaman, which will go the use of Greenwich Hospital. Any seaman leaving the ship before being discharged in writing will forfeit one month's pay because too many have left the ship before it was unladen.
There were some ships of 2000 tons. The steering wheel had been introduced because a sudden heavy sea could wrest a tiller from the hands of the helmsman. Triangular head-sails with jib boom and stay-sails on stays between masts were in use so that ships could sail closer into the wind. The length of ships was still determined by the same length of trees that could be grown. Sailing ships were still vulnerable to a lee shore. Latitude was easy to determine using an octant and later a sextant with mirrors and a small telescope to measure the angle between a celestial body such as the sun or north star and the horizon. But longitude could not be determined with any degree of accuracy. One method relied on accurate predictions of the future position of the moon as observed from a fixed reference point, such as Greenwich. By precisely observing the local time of the moon's occultation of a known star at a particular place, and looking up in a table the predicted time of the event at Greenwich, one could approximate the time difference of the place from Greenwich. There were so many shipwrecks on this account that the government offered a reward to anyone who found a way to measure longitude accurately. In 1763 carpenter and clockmaker John Harrison made the chronometer to do this with an accuracy of 21/2 seconds per month, and received 5,000 pounds. He was promised 10,000 pounds to explain the principle of his timekeeper and build three more. The chronometer kept time with extreme accuracy and was mounted to remove the effect of the ship's motion. To find a ship's position, a navigator noted the time and measured the positions of certain stars. He compared these positions with tables that showed the stars' positions at Greenwich mean time, and then calculated the ship's position. There was a toll on ships entering the port of London to pay for repairs to its walls.
Officer positions were no longer bought, but were subject to examination for a minimum of knowledge, especially in navigation. In 1729 the Naval Academy was established. Boys entered at age 13 to 16 and spent two or three years there.
Only about 15% of the crew of navy ships were volunteers. Many were gaolbirds, having chosen the Navy over more gaol time for debt. Press gangs seized men in the port towns and from ships coming into harbor. From 10% to 20% of the crew were foreigners, many of these pressed men. About 1756, the Marine Society was founded for training and placing poor boys in work in naval and merchant ships. This not only supplied men and boys for the Navy, but saved boys from a life of vagrancy and crime. These boys usually became reliable and obedient sailors.
The life of a sailor was a hard one, requiring much strength. Sailors did not know how to swim, so falling overboard usually meant death. Flogging was the usual punishment in the Navy, even for small offenses. The amount of flogging due for each offense rose over time. If flogging were fatal, there would be an inquiry and occasionally punishment. A sailor's meals were usually hard bread invested with weevils and maggots, dried or salted meat or fish, and small quantities of oatmeal, butter, and cheese. Many sailors had scurvy or other deficiency diseases. Experiments with lime and lemon juice as remedies for scurvy were made around 1764, but were not used in the Navy until about 1800. Many more sailors died from these diseases than from battle. Rum and water was a daily ration introduced in 1745. The ordinary sailor was paid about one pound a month, a rate established in 1650s and now out of date. This was not in cash, but in a ticket which entitled him to payment in full if he presented it at the pay office in London, but was subject to swinging deductions if he tried to cash it in another port.
Prize money from conquered ships was substantial. To encourage seamen to enter the navy, Parliament provided that it be divided among flag officers, commanders, other officers, seamen, marines, and soldiers on board every ship of war, including private ships commissioned by the Admiral, as directed by the king, or as agreed with the owner of a private ship. It included an enemy's ships, and goods and arms on the ships or in fortresses on the land. There was also bounty money for enemy ships taken or destroyed. For retaking or salvaging English goods taken by the enemy, 1/8th their value was to be paid. Privateers taking merchant ships by collusion were to forfeit their ships, with 1/3rd going to the person who makes the discovery and prosecutes.
Later, any able seaman volunteering for the navy is to receive 5 pounds bounty. Any seaman volunteering for the navy shall receive a bounty of 3 pounds. If a navy seaman is killed or drowned, his widow is to receive a year's pay as bounty. No seaman in a merchant ship is to receive more than 35s. per month because of the present war.
Still later, anyone who has run goods or avoided customs was indemnified if he enlisted in the navy as a common sailor for three years.
Those under 18 or over 55 were made exempt from impressment into the king's service. The time of service was limited to five years if the serviceman so demanded. Worn out and decrepit seamen no longer being treated at the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich are to receive a pension as determined by the hospital.
In war, the Navy used blockading tactics and attack by fireships grew obsolete. In peace, when not used in convoys to remote lands, many ships of war were used as cruisers to guard the coast and trade and to accompany merchant ships going out and returning home. About 1755, marine forces of the navy were raised and quartered on shore.
No war ship may carry goods except gold, silver, and jewels and except the goods of a ship in danger of shipwreck or already shipwrecked.
The king was authorized to prohibit the export of gunpowder, saltpeter, ammunition, and arms.
When a ship had been forced on shore or stranded on the coast, it had been the practice for people to plunder it and to demand high payment for salvaging its goods. So a statute required that salvage only be done by sheriff, mayors, and other officials. A person who defacing the marks on goods or hindering the saving of the ship had to pay double satisfaction to the person aggrieved and spend 12 months at hard labor in a House of Correction. If a person unduly carried off goods, he forfeited treble damages. If he made a hole in the ship or stole the pump from the ship, he was guilty of felony without benefit of clergy.
The owner of the island of Skerries was allowed to erect a lighthouse and charge passing ships other than Navy ships 1d. per tun.
Only pilots examined and admitted into the society of pilots and, if no such pilot is readily available, a ship's own owner, master, or mate may pilot ships up the Thames River, or forfeit 10 pounds for the first offense, 20 pounds for the second, and 40 pounds thereafter. Any pilot losing a ship may no longer be a pilot. There must be at least 120 qualified pilots. The prices of piloting are 3 pounds 10s. for ships drawing 7 feet of water, and 10s. more for each additional foot drawn up to 8 pounds 10s. for ships drawing 17 feet of water.
To preserve navigation, ships may not throw any ballast, rubbish, gravel, earth, stone, or filth into rivers or ports where the tide or water flows or runs or forfeit 50s.- 5 pounds. Ships on the Thames River may take as ballast to stabilize a ship without cargo: dung, compost, earth, or soil from laystalls in London.
Many persons insuring ships for large premiums became bankrupt, thus ruining or impoverishing many merchants and traders. So the king was authorized to grant charters to two distinct corporations for the insurance of ships, goods, and merchandise or going to sea or for lending money upon bottomry (money to be repaid upon return of ship). Each corporation had to pay 300,000 pounds to the Exchequer and to have sufficient ready money to pay for losses insured by them. They were to raise capital stock and could make calls of money from their members in proportion to their stocks for any further money required.
Any owner, master, or mariner who casts away, burns, or otherwise destroys to the prejudice of underwriters of policies of insurance or of any merchants whose goods have been loaded on the ship shall suffer death.
The owners of ships are not liable for losses by reason of theft without their knowledge by the master or mariners of goods beyond the value of the ship. This is to prevent the discouragement of owning ships.
The insurance of merchant ships must give salvage rights to the insurer. A lender on bottomry shall have benefit of salvage. No insurance may be for a greater amount than the value of one's interest in the ship or in the goods on board.
No waterman carrying passengers or goods for hire e.g. by wherryboat, tiltboat, or rowbarge, on the Thames River may take an apprentice unless he is a housekeeper or has some known place of abode where he may keep such apprentice or forfeit ten pounds, and if he can't pay, do hard labor at the House of Correction for 14- 30 days. Also he may not keep the apprentice bound to him. No apprentice may be entrusted with a vessel until he is 16 if a waterman's son and 17 if is he the son of a landman, and he has had at least two years' experience. None but freemen (i.e. one having served an apprenticeship of seven years) may row or work any vessel for hire or be subject to the same punishment. This is to avoid the mischiefs which happen by entrusting apprentices too weak, unable, and unskillful in the work, with the care of goods and lives of passengers. Later amendment required that apprentices be age 14 to 20 and that there be no more than 40 passengers, with the penalty of transportation if there were over 40 and one drowned.
No boat on the Thames River may be used for selling liquors, tobacco, fruit, or gingerbread to seamen and laborers because such has led to theft of ropes, cables, goods, and stores from the ships. Excepted are boats registered at the guilds of Trinity and of St. Clement, but they must show their owner's name and can only operate in daylight hours. The penalty is forfeiture of the boat.
All ships coming from places infected with the plague shall be quarantined and any person leaving a quarantined ship shall return and later forfeit 20 pounds, of which 1/3 may go to the informer, the rest to the poor. This was later raised to 200 pounds and six months in prison, and if the person escaped, he was to suffer death. Also later, a master of a ship coming from infected places or having infected people on board was guilty of felony and to forfeit 200 pounds. If he did not take his vessel to the quarantine area on notice, he was to forfeit a further 200 pounds (later 500 pounds) and the ship, which could then be burned. The king was authorized to prohibit commerce for one year with any country infected by the plague and to forbid any persons of the realm from going to an infected place.
By 1714, there was a clear distinction between a king's private income and the Crown's public revenue. From 1714, the king's Treasurer as a matter of routine submitted annual budgets to Parliament. He was usually also the leader of the House of Commons and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Proclamations by the Crown were more restricted to colonial and foreign affairs, to executive orders, and to instructions to officials. The high offices included the Chancellor, Keeper, President of the Council, Privy Seal, Treasurer, and two Secretaries of State, who were in charge of all foreign and domestic matters other than taxation, one for the north and one for the south. (Wolsey had been the last chancellor to rule England; thereafter the Chancellor had become more of a judge and less of a statesman.) Other offices were: Paymaster General, Secretary of War, and Treasurer of the Navy. Starting with the monarch, government positions were given by patronage to friends and relatives, or if none, to the highest bidder. These offices were usually milked for fees and employed deputies, clerks, and scribes who worked for long hours at very modest wages. Most people believed that the offices of power and influence in the realm belonged to the nobility and gentry as indubitably as the throne belonged to the king. Assaulting, wounding, striking, or trying to kill a member of the Privy Council engaged in his duties was punishable by death without benefit of clergy. Civil and military commissions, patents, grants of any office or employment, including Justice of Assize, Justice of the Peace, court writs, court proceedings continued in force for six months after a king's death, unless superceded in the meantime.
The king's ministers were those members of his Privy Council who carried out the work of government. By distributing patronage, the ministers acquired the influence to become leading members of the House of Commons or the House of Lords. They made policy, secured the king's consent, and then put through the necessary legislation. The king was to act only through his ministers and all public business was to be formally done in Privy Council with all its decisions signed by its members. The king gradually lost power. The last royal veto of a Parliamentary bill was in 1708. By 1714, the Privy Council ceased making decisions of policy. Instead a cabinet not identified with any particular party was chosen by the Queen, who presided over their meetings, which were held every Sunday. It dealt with Parliament. In 1720, the number of peers in the House of Lords was fixed, so that the Crown could create no more. About 1720, Robert Walpole, son of a country squire, who came to be first minister of the Crown and the leader of the Whigs, organized the cabinet so that it was of one view. He led it for twenty years and thus became the first prime minister. He was brilliant at finance and lessened taxation. He restored trust in the government after the South Sea bubble scandal. He was successful in preserving the peace with other nations and providing stability in England that led to prosperity. The Whigs opposed a standing army and over-reaching influence of the Crown. They espoused the liberty of individual subjects. Their slogan was "liberty and property". They generally favored foreign wars.
Members of the Parliament felt responsible for the good of the whole country instead of accounting to their electors, but self- interest also played a part. Leading commercial magnates of the realm sought to be members of Parliament or governors of the Bank of England to be able to take up government loans at advantageous rates, snap up contracts to supply government departments at exorbitant prices, and play an important part in deciding what duties should be charged on what goods. About 5% of the population could vote. Voting was open, rather than by secret ballot. Seats in Parliament could normally be bought either by coming to an arrangement with some landowner who had the right to nominate to a closed seat or by buying enough votes in constituencies where the electorate was larger and the contest more open. Factory owners and leading landowners sat together on committees drawing up plans for public works such as canal building, obtained the necessary permits from public authorities and organized the whole enterprise. In 1714, Parliament was allowed to last for seven years unless sooner dissolved by the king because of the expense and tumult of elections, which frequently occasioned riots, and sometimes battles in which men were killed and prisoners taken on both sides. Politics had become a career. Members of Parliament could not be arrested while Parliament was in session.
As of 1710, electees to the Commons had to have 600 pounds annual income for knights or 300 pounds annually for burgesses. This did not include the eldest son or heir apparent of any peer or lord of Parliament or any person with the above qualifications. The universities were exempted.
As of 1729, persons electing a member of the Commons must swear or affirm that he has not received any money, office, employment, or reward or promise of such for his vote. If he swears falsely, it is perjury and he must forfeit 500 pounds and may never vote again. Later, voters for member of Parliament had to have residence for a year. Still later, voters were required to have been freemen of the city or town for one year or forfeit 100 pounds, except if entitled to freedom by birth, marriage, or servitude according to the custom of such city or town. Voters still were required to have a freehold of land of 40s. a year income, but holders of estates by copy of court roll were specifically precluded or forfeit 50 pounds.
In 1724, since unauthorized persons have intruded into assemblies of citizens of London and presumed to vote therein, the presiding officer shall appoint clerks to take the poll and oath required for elections for Parliament, mayor, sheriffs, chamberlains, bridgemasters, and auditors of chamberlains. The oath is that one is a freeman of London, a liveryman of a certain named company, has been so for 12 months, and names his place of abode. The oath for alderman or common council elections is that the voter is a freeman of London and a householder in a named ward paying scot of at least a total of 30s. and bearing lot. A list of the voters and of persons disallowed is to be given to candidates by the presiding officer.
Soldiers may not be quartered within 20 miles of a place of election so that the election is kept free.
Voters in public corporations must have held their stock for six months before voting them to discourage splitting stock and making temporary conveyances thereof to give certain people more of a vote, e.g. in declaring dividends and choosing directors.
Ambassadors were made immune from arrest, prosecution and imprisonment to preserve their rights and privileges and protection by the Queen and the law of nations.
The Supporters of the Bill of Rights Society was founded and paid agents to give speeches throughout the country and used the press for its goals.
James Burgh demanded universal suffrage in his 1773 book:
"Political Disquisitions".
In 1707 there was union with Scotland, in which their Parliaments were combined into one. The country was known as Great Britain. The last Scottish rebellion resulted in attainder of its leaders for levying war against the king. In 1746, they were given the chance to surrender by a certain date, and receive a pardon on condition of transportation. In 1747, anyone impeached by the Commons of high treason whereby there may be corruption of the blood or for misprison of such treason may make his defense by up to two counsel learned in the law, who shall be assigned for that purpose on the application of the person impeached. In 1748, counsel may interrogate witnesses in such cases where testimony of witnesses are not reduced to writing.
There was a steady flow of emigrants to the American colonies, including transported convicts and indentured servants. Delaware became a colony in 1703. In 1729, the king bought Carolina from its seven proprietors for 2,500 pounds apiece. Person having estates, rights, titles, or interest there, except officers, were allowed by Parliament to sue the king with the court establishing the value to be paid, but no more than at a rate of 2,500 pounds per 1/8 of property. Georgia was chartered in 1733 on request of James Oglethorpe, who became its first governor, as a refuge for debtors and the poor and needy. It established the Episcopal Church by law. In 1730 Carolina and 1735 Georgia were allowed to sell rice directly to certain lands instead of to England only. Later, sugar was allowed to be carried directly from America to European ports in English ships without first touching some English port. Foreigners who had lived in the American colonies for seven years, and later foreigners who served two years in the royal army in America as a soldier or as an engineer, were allowed to become citizens of Great Britain on taking oaths of loyalty and Protestantism. This included Quakers and Jews. The Jews could omit the phrase "upon the true faith of a Christian."
In 1756, indentured servants in America were allowed to volunteer as soldiers in the British army serving in America. If his proprietor objected, the servant was to be restored to him or reasonable compensation given in proportion to the original purchase price of his service and the time of his service remaining.
There was much competition among countries for colonies. Quebec and then Montreal in 1760 in Canada were captured from the French. About 1768 James Cook discovered New Zealand and Australia; his maps greatly helped future voyages. The English East India Company took over India as its Mogul Empire broke up.
Manufacturing in the American colonies that would compete with British industry was suppressed by Great Britain. There were increasing duties on goods imported into the colonies and restrictions on exports. In 1763, Parliament imposed duties on foreign imports going to America via Britain: to wit, sugar, indigo, coffee, certain wines, wrought silks, calicoes, and cambrick linen. Foreign vessels at anchor or hovering on colonial coasts and not departing within 48 hours were made liable to be forfeited with their goods. Uncustomed goods into or prohibited goods into or out of the colonies seized by customs officials on the ship or on land and any boats and cattle used to transport them occasioned a forfeiture of treble value, of which 1/3 went to the king, 1/3 went to the colonial governor, and 1/3 went to the suer. Any officer making a collusive seizure or other fraud was to forfeit 500 pounds and his office. In 1765, there was imposed a duty on papers in the colonies to defray expenses of their defense. It was thought to be a fair tax because it fell on colonies in proportion to their wealth. The items taxed were to carry a stamp showing that the duty on them had been paid. The duty on every skin, piece of vellum or parchment, and sheet of paper used in any law court was 3d.- 2 pounds. There were also duties on counselor or solicitor appointments of 10 pounds per sheet. Duties extended to licenses for retailing spirituous liquors and wines, bonds for payment of money, warrants for surveying or setting out of any lands, grants and deeds of land, appointments to certain civil public offices, indentures, leases, conveyances, bills of sale, grants and certificates under public seal, insurance policies, mortgages, passports, pamphlets, newspapers (about 1s. per sheet), advertisements in papers (2s. each), cards, and dice. The colonists saw this as a departure from past duties because it was an "internal tax". All of the original thirteen American colonies had adopted Magna Carta principles directly or indirectly into their law. The stamp duties seemed to the colonists to violate these principles of liberty. Patrick Henry asserted that only Virginia could impose taxes in Virginia. Schoolmaster and lawyer John Adams in Massachusetts asserted that no freeman should be subject to any tax to which he had not assented. In theory, colonists had the same rights as Englishmen per their charters, but in fact, they were not represented in Parliament and Englishmen in Parliament made the laws which affected the colonists. They could not be members of the House of Lords because they did not have property in England. There were demonstrations and intimidation of stamp agents by the Sons of Liberty. Merchants agreed to buy no more goods from England. The stamp duty was repealed the same year it had been enacted because it had been "attended with many inconveniences and may be productive of consequences greatly detrimental to the commercial interests of these kingdoms".
To counter the wide-scale running of goods to avoid the customs tax, the customs office was reorganized in 1766 to have commissions resident in the colonies and courts of admiralty established there to expedite cases of smuggling. This angered the colonists, especially Boston. Boston smuggling had become a common and respectable business. It was the port of entry for molasses from the West Indies from which New England rum was made and exported. The entire molasses trade that was essential to the New England economy had been built upon massive customs evasions; royal customs officials had participated in this by taking token customs for the sake of appearance on London and thereby had become rich.
In 1766 Parliament imposed a duty of 3d. per pound weight on tea and duties on reams of paper, glass, and lead into the colonies. These import duties were presented as external rather than internal taxes to counter the rationale the colonies gave against the stamp tax. But these items were of common use and their duties raised the cost of living. The king's customs officials were authorized to enter any house, warehouse, shop, or cellar to search for and seize prohibited or uncustomed goods by a general writ of assistance.
These writs of assistance had been authorized before and had angered Bostonians because they had been issued without probable cause. In Paxton's case of 1761, the Massachusetts Superior Court had declared legal the issuance of general writs of assistance to customs officers to search any house for specific goods for which customs had not been paid. The authority for this was based on the Parliamentary statutes of 1660 and 1662 authorizing warrants to be given to any person to enter, with the assistance of a public official any house where contraband goods were suspected to be concealed, to search for and seize those goods, using force if necessary. They were called "writs of assistance" because the bearer could command the assistance of a local public official in making entry and seizure. A "general" writ of assistance differed from a "special" writ of assistance in that the latter was issued on a one-time basis. The general writ of assistance in Boston was good for six months after the death of the issuing sovereign. Authority relied on for such writs was a 1696 statute giving customs officers in the colonies the same powers as those in England, a 1699 act by the Massachusetts Provincial Legislature giving the Superior Court of Massachusetts the same such power as that of the Exchequer, and the Massachusetts' Governor's direction about 1757 to the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature to perform the function of issuing such warrants. The Massachusetts court issued them in the nature of the writs of assistance issued from the Exchequer court in England, but had issued them routinely instead of requiring the showing of probable cause based on sworn information that the Exchequer court required. Few judges in the other American colonies granted the writ.
Seditious libel trials in England and the colonies were followed closely and their defendants broadly supported. John Wilkes, a member of the House of Commons, published a criticism of a new minister in 1763. He called King George's speech on a treaty "the most abandoned instance of ministerial effrontery ever attempted to be imposed on mankind". After being found guilty of seditious libel, he again ran for the House of Commons, and was repeatedly elected and expelled. He was subsequently elected alderman, sheriff, and mayor of London. In 1770, Alexander MacDougall was voted guilty of seditious libel by the New York Colonial Assembly for authoring a handbill which denounced a collusive agreement by which the assembly voted to furnish supplies for the British troops in New York in exchange for the royal governor's signature to a paper-money bill. When he was arrested, the Sons of Liberty rallied to his support, demanding freedom of the press. Benjamin Franklin's brother had been imprisoned for a month by the Massachusetts assembly for printing in his newspaper criticisms of the assembly. He was forbidden to print the paper. Benjamin supported him by publishing extracts from other papers, such as "Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech
Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech; a thing terrible to public traitors."
By statute of 1766, the New York house of representatives was prohibited from meeting or voting until they provisioned the King's troops as required by law.
In 1769, Harvard College seated its students in class in alphabetical order instead of by social rank according to birth.
By 1769, the colonies' boycott of British goods in protest of the new duties cause these imports to decline so much that British merchants protested. So the duties were dropped, except for that on tea, which was retained as a matter of principle to assert the power of the crown to tax the colonies. Then in 1773 the East India Company was allowed to sell tea directly to the colonies to help it avoid bankruptcy. The effect of this was to lower the cost of tea in the colonies because the English middleman, and the American middleman, but also to give the East India Company a monopoly. The colonies felt threatened by this power of Britain to give monopolies to traders. When the tea ships arrived in Boston in late 1773, Bostonians held a town meeting and decided not to let the tea be landed. They threw this cargo of tea, worth about 18,000 pounds, overboard. This Boston Tea Party was a direct challenge to British authority. In response, Parliament closed the port of Boston until compensation was made to the East India Company. By statute of 1774, no one may enter or exit the port of Boston or forfeit goods, arms, stores, and boats carrying goods to ships. Every involved wharf keeper shall forfeit treble the value of the goods and any boats, horses, cattle, or carriages used. Ships hovering nearby must depart within six hours of an order by a navy ship or customs officer or be forfeited with all goods aboard, except for ships carrying fuel or victuals brought coastwise for necessary use and sustenance of inhabitants after search by customs officers, and with a customs official and armed men for his defense on board. This statute is passed because of dangerous commotions and insurrections in Boston to the subversion of the king's government and destruction of the public peace in which valuable cargoes of tea were destroyed. Later, the Governor was given the right to send colonists or magistrates charged with murder or other capital offenses, such as might be alleged to occur in the suppression of riots or enforcement of the revenue laws, to England or another colony for trial when he opined that an indifferent trial could not be had in Massachusetts Bay. A later statute that year altered the charter of Massachusetts Bay province so that the choice of its council was transferred from the people to the Crown to serve at his pleasure, and the appointment and removal of judges and appointment of sheriffs was transferred to the Governor to be made without the consent of the council. This was due to the open resistance to the execution of the laws in Boston. Further, no meeting of freeholders or inhabitants of townships may be held without consent of the Governor after expressing the special business of such meeting because there had been too many meetings passing dangerous and unwarranted resolutions. Also, jurors were to be selected by sheriffs rather than elected by freeholders and inhabitants.
The commander of the British troops in North America was made Governor. King George thought that the colonists must be reduced to absolute obedience, even if ruthless force was necessary. The people of Massachusetts were incensed. They were all familiar with the rights of Magna Carta since mandatory education taught them all to read and write. (Every township of fifty households had to appoint one to teach all children to read and write. Every one hundred families had to set up a grammar school.) The example in Massachusetts showed other colonies what England was prepared to do to them. Also disliked was the policy of restricting settlement west of the Allegheny mountains; the take over of Indian affairs by royal appointees; the maintenance of a standing army of about 6,000 men which was to be quartered, supplied, and transported by the colonists; and expanded restrictions on colonial paper currencies.
The Virginia House of Burgesses set aside the effective date of the port bill as a day of prayer and fasting, and for this was dissolved by its governor. Whereupon its members called a convention of delegates from the colonies to consider the "united interests of America". This congress met and decided to actively resist British policy. As opposition to British rule spread in the colonies, a statute was passed that because of the combinations and disorders in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, and Rhode Island to the destruction of commerce and violation of laws, these inhabitants should not enjoy the same privileges and benefits of trade as obedient subjects and therefore no goods or wares may be brought from there to any other colony, and exports to and imports from Great Britain were restricted, on pain of forfeiting the goods and the ship on which they were laden. There was also restriction of their vessels fishing off Newfoundland. These conditions were to be in force until the Governors were convinced that peace and obedience to laws was restored. Later in 1775, these trade restrictions were extended to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina. In 1776, because all the thirteen colonies had assembled an armed force and attacked British forces, these trade restrictions were extended to Delaware, New York, Georgia, and North Carolina and expanded to prohibit all trade during the present rebellion to prevent assistance to them. War had started; the new rifle was used instead of the musket.
By statute of 1775, anyone harboring of army or marine deserters in the colonies must forfeit 5 pounds, and persuading a soldier or marine to desert drew a forfeiture of 40 pounds or else up to six months in prison without bail and one hour in the pillory on market day.
Bounties were made available to vessels from and fitted out in
Great Britain for Newfoundland fishing.
Any shipmaster carrying as passengers any fisherman, sailor, or artificer to America shall forfeit 200 pounds because such men have been seduced from British fishing vessels in Newfoundland, to the detriment of the fishing industry.
The many years of significant achievements of the colonists, such as taming the wilderness and building cities, had given them confidence in their ability to govern themselves. The average colonial family had a better standard of living than the average family in England. Many of its top citizenry had reached their positions by hard work applied to opportunities for upward mobility. With the confidence of success, the American colonies in 1776 declared their independence from Britain, relying on the principles stated by John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau that man was naturally free and all men equal, and that society was only created with their consent. Issac's Newtons's unified laws of the universe had contributed to this idea of a natural law of rights of men. Thomas Jefferson wrote a Declaration of Independence which listed the colonies' grievances against the Crown which reiterated many of the provisions of the Petition of Right and Bill of Rights, specifically dispensing with and suspending laws, maintaining a standing army and quartering troops without legislative consent, imposing arbitrary taxation, encouraging illegal prosecutions in strange courts, and corrupting the jury process. It was adopted on July 4, 1776.
- The Law -
Trade and the economy boomed in time of war, buttressed by the increased production in the coal, iron, steel, shipbuilding, and cloth industries. But peace brought depression and much misery, including the imprisonment of many debtors. When many were imprisoned, statutes allowed release on certain conditions. After assets were paid to creditors in proportion to the amounts owed to them, debtors may be discharged from prison if they owe no party more than 100 pounds (later no restriction and still later, 50 pounds, and even later, 500 pounds, and in 1772, 1000 pounds, and in 1774, 2000 pounds) and take an oath that they have less than 10 (20 in 1772) pounds worth of property (including 40s. in money in 1774), because there are so many debtors in prison who were impoverished by war losses and other misfortunes in trades and professions and are totally disabled from paying their creditors and they and their families either starve or are a burden to their parishes and become an occasion of pestilence and other contagious diseases. Excepted are those objected to by a creditor who pays for the maintenance of the debtor in prison. Prisoners discharged are also discharged from chamber rent and gaolers' fees, but not from their debts to creditors. Except that no male prisoner may be discharged during war unless he enlists in the royal army or navy until the end of the war. In 1774, the discoverer of any asset not listed by a debtor was to receive 20 pounds per hundred, and anyone concealing an asset of a debtor was to forfeit 100 pounds and double the value of the asset.
A person declared bankrupt shall subsequently be examined from time to time as to their goods, money, or other effects or estate to prevent the frauds frequently committed by bankrupts. A default or willful omission shall be deemed felony without benefit of clergy.
A bankrupt or other person concealing goods to the value of at least 20 pounds or his books with intent to defraud is a felony without benefit of clergy.
A debtor refusing to come to court for examination or hiding assets of more than 20 pounds is guilty of felony and his goods and estate shall be divided among his creditors.
Later, a bankrupt coming to an examination was allowed to keep 5 (or 7 1/2 or 10) pounds per 100, up to a maximum of 200 (or 250 or 300, respectively) pounds if he paid his creditors 10s. (or 12s.6d. or 15s. respectively) per pound. His future estate was still liable to creditors (excepting tools of trade, necessary household goods, bedding, furniture, and wearing apparel of the family up to 10 pounds) if it could pay every creditor 15s. per pound. If he didn't pay this, he could be imprisoned. Bankrupts excepted from the benefits of this act are those who lost 5 pounds in any one day or 100 pounds in the preceding year from gambling or wagers.
No goods or chattels on lands or tenements which are leased for life or lives or term of years or at will or otherwise "shall be liable to be taken by virtue of any Execution on any pretence whatsoever unless the party at whose suit the said Execution is sued out shall before the removal of such goods from off the said premises by virtue of such Execution or Extent pay to the landlord" all money due as rent. If the lessee fraudulently or clandestinely conveys or carries off his goods or chattels with intent to deprive the landlord or lessor from distraining the same for arrears of such rent, the lessor or landlord may, within five days, seize such goods and chattels as a distress for the arrears of rent and may sell them as if actually distrained on the premises.
Every person under 21 and every woman-covert who is entitled by descent or will to be admitted tenants of any copyhold lands or hereditaments may be ordered to appear by a guardian or attorney to be compelled to be so admitted and to pay such fines as are owing by the lands. If one is so admitted, but does not pay, the lord may enter the lands and receive its rents (but not sell timber) until the fine and costs are satisfied, after which the land is to be given back and may not be forfeited to the lord.
Tenants holding over any lands after their term expired and after demand for possession was made shall pay double the yearly value of such to the landlord. The landlord may reenter and eject a tenant if rent is in arrears for 1/2 year.
Landlords may distrain within 30 days and sell goods and chattels fraudulently or clandestinely carried off the premises by renters in arrears of rent. This applies to goods sold to others privy to the fraud. They may use force if necessary to break open houses upon giving a Justice of the Peace reasonable grounds to suspect and to break open other buildings in the presence of a constable. The renter is to forfeit double the value of such. The landlord may distrain the renter's cattle on any common or any growing grain, roots, or fruit. Attornments of renters made to strangers who claim title and turn the landlord out of possession are void.
Chief leases may be renewed without surrendering all the under leases. This is to prevent subtenants from delaying the renewal of the principal lease by refusing to surrender their leases, notwithstanding that they have covenanted to do so. But the rents and duties of the new subleases may not exceed those of their former leases.
Any person claiming a remainder, reversion, or expectancy in any estate after the death of any person who has cause to believe that that person is dead and the death is being concealed by the person's guardian, trustee, husband, or other person may yearly request an order in chancery for the production of such tenant for life. Upon refusal, the tenant for life shall be deemed dead.
As of 1752, all devices, legacies, and bequests made by will in Great Britain or the colonies is void if not in writing and witnessed by three witnesses. No witness may receive under the will.
An accessory before or after the fact of felony may be prosecuted and tried not only if the principal accused felon has been convicted, but even if he stood mute or peremptorily challenged over 20 persons to serve on the jury. The accessories shall be punished the same as if the principal had been attainted. Buyers and receivers of stolen goods may be prosecuted and punished if they knew the goods to be stolen, even if the principal felon has not been convicted. The punishment will be as for misdemeanor by fine and imprisonment. This is to deter the counselors and contrivers of theft and other felonies and the receivers of stolen goods from taking advantage of the former rule that an accessory could not be convicted or punished unless the principal had first been attainted. And if any captain or mariner or other officer belonging to any ship willfully casts away, burns, or otherwise destroys that ship to the prejudice of its owners or merchants loading goods onto the ship, he shall suffer death as a felon.
Journeymen shoemakers or employees of such who sell or pawn boots, shoes, slippers, cut leather or other materials for making such goods which are not his proper goods, or exchange for worse good leather which has been entrusted to them, shall for the first offense, recompense the injured person, or if his goods are insufficient for distress, may be whipped. For the second offense, he shall be sent to hard labor in a House of Correction for 14-30 days. A person who buys or receives or takes in pawn such goods shall suffer the same penalties. Justices of the Peace may issue warrants to search houses and buildings in the daytime if there is "just cause to suspect" such goods therein based upon information given to him under oath.
Anyone employed in the working up of woolen, linen, fustian, cotton, or iron manufacture who embezzles or purloins any materials for their work shall forfeit double the value of the damages done and anyone convicted thereof may be put into the House of Correction until he pays, or if he can't pay, to be publicly whipped and kept at hard labor for no more than 14 days. Persons convicted of buying or receiving such materials shall suffer like penalties and forfeitures as one convicted of embezzling or purloining such materials. Laborers employed in such manufacture must be paid in coin and not in cloth, victuals, or commodities in lieu thereof. Leatherworkers were added with a penalty of up to double the value. Later this statute was amended to include a penalty for the second offense of forfeiture of four times the value, or else hard labor at a House of Correction for 1-3 months and whipping once or more in the market town. Like penalties were given for buyers of such material knowing it to be false. One who neglected finishing and delivering such goods because he was leaving this employment were to be sent to the House of Correction for up to one month.
The penalty for possessing or offering to sell any hare, pheasant, partridge, moor or heath game or grouse by any carrier, innkeeper, victualler, or alehouse keeper is 5 pounds, 1/2 to the informer, and 1/2 to the poor of the parish. If unable to pay, the offender shall be placed in the House of Correction for three months without bail. Unauthorized persons keeping or using greyhounds, setting dogs, or any engine to kill game shall suffer the same penalties. In 1770, anyone killing hare at night or using any gun, dog, or other engine to take or kill or destroy any hare, pleasant, partridge, moor game, heath game, or grouse in the night shall go to gaol or the House of Correction for 3-6 months without bail and whipped for the first offense and for 6-12 months without bail and whipped for any further offense. If such occurs on a Sunday, the offender must forfeit 20-30 pounds or go to gaol for 3-6 months. In 1773, no one may kill or take or possess any heath fowl or any grouse except at a limited period during the year.
Each manor may have only one gamekeeper allowed to kill game such as hare, pheasant, partridge and only for his household's use. This gamekeeper must be either qualified by law or a servant of the land's lord. Other persons possessing game or keeping a greyhound or setting dogs or guns or other devices to kill game must forfeit them and five pounds.
Anyone killing or attempting to kill by shooting any house dove or pigeon shall forfeit 20s. or do hard labor for one to three months. Excepted are owners of dove cotes or pigeon houses erected for the preservation and breeding of such.
A gamekeeper or other officer of a forest or park who kills a deer without consent of the owner must forfeit 50 pounds per deer, to be taken by distress if necessary, and if he can't pay, he is to be imprisoned for three years without bail and set in the pillory for two hours on some market day. A later penalty was transportation for seven years. Anyone pulling down walls of any forest or park where deer are kept without the consent of the owner must forfeit 30 pounds and if he can't pay, he is to be imprisoned for one year without bail and spend one hour in the pillory on market day. Later, the killing of deer in open fields or forests was given the same penalties instead of only the monetary penalty prescribed by former law (former chapter). The penalty for a second offense was given as transportation for seven years. Anyone beating or wounding a gamekeeper with an intent to kill any deer in an open or closed place was to be transported for seven years.
Anyone who apprehends and prosecutes a person guilty of burglary or felonious breaking and entering any house in the day time shall be rewarded 40 pounds in addition to being discharged from parish and ward offices.
Anyone who feloniously steals or aids in the stealing of goods, wares, or merchandise over 5s. from a shop, warehouse, coach house, or stable (by night or by day, whether the owner is present or not, whether there is a break in or not) may not have benefit of clergy.
Anyone stealing goods of 40s. worth from a ship on any river or in any port or creek or from any wharf may not have benefit of clergy.
Anyone receiving or buying goods they know to be stolen or who harbors or conceals any burglars, felons, or thieves knowing them to be such shall be taken as accessory to the felony and shall suffer death as punishment if the principal felon is convicted.
A person taking money or reward for helping any other person to stolen goods or chattels is guilty of felony unless he brings the thief to trial.
As of 1717, any person convicted of grand or petit larceny or any felonious stealing or taking of money, goods, or chattels, either from the person or from the house of any person who is entitled to benefit of clergy and who is liable only to whipping or burning in the hand may instead be transported to the American colonies to the use of any person who will pay for his transportation for seven years. Any person convicted of an offense punishable by death and without benefit of clergy and buyers and receivers of stolen goods may be given mercy by the king on condition of transportation to any part of America to the use of any person who will pay for his transportation, for fourteen years or other term agreed upon. Returning before the expiration of the term is punishable by death.
Anyone assaulting another with an offensive weapon with a design to rob may be transported for seven years.
Any person armed with swords, fire-arms, or other offensive weapons and having their faces blackened or otherwise being disguised, who appears in any forest, park, or grounds enclosed by a wall or fence wherein deer are kept (including the king's deer) or in any warren or place where hares or conies are kept or in any high road, open heath, common, or down, or who unlawfully hunts, wounds, kills, or steals any deer or steals any hare or rabbit or steals any fish out of any river or pond or who unlawfully and maliciously breaks down the head or mound of any fish pone, causing the loss of fish, or who unlawfully and maliciously kills, maims, or wounds any cattle, or who cuts down any trees planted in any avenue or growing in any garden or orchard for ornament, shelter, or profit, or who sets fire to any house, barn or out house [outer building], hovel, or stack of grain, straw, hay or wood, or who willfully and maliciously shoots any person in any dwelling house or other place, or who sends any letter with no signature or a fictitious signature, demanding money, venison, or other valuable thing, or who forcibly rescues any person lawfully in custody for any of these offenses, or who procures others by gift or promise of money or other reward to join with him in any such unlawful act is guilty of felony and shall suffer death without benefit of clergy. Persons abetting them are also guilty of felony and shall suffer death without benefit of clergy. Attainder shall not work corruption of the blood, loss of dower, or forfeiture of lands, goods, or chattel. The persons sustaining damages can recover 200 pounds or less from the hundred, with inhabitants paying proportionately, unless one of the offenders is convicted within six months. If other hundreds have not diligently followed the hue and cry, they shall pay half such damages. In 1735, it was required that there be notice to the constable or other officer or tythingman and public notice in the London Gazette describing the robbery, offenders, and goods taken before the hundred had to pay damages. Also, it did not have to pay damages if one offender was apprehended with 40 days of publication in the London Gazette, but did have to pay the apprehender 10 pounds. In 1754 was also included letters threatening killing people or burning houses, barns or stacks of grain, hay, or straw, without any demand. Also, persons who rescued such offenders from gaol were given the same penalty.
Later, persons obtaining money or goods by false pretenses with an intent to defraud or cheat or sending a letter without a true signature threatening to accuse any person of a crime with an intent to extort money or goods, are punishable by fine and prison, pillory, or whipping or transportation for seven years.
Later, no person may recover more than 200 pounds after a hue and cry unless there are at least two witnesses to the robbery.
No one may advertise a reward for return of things stolen or lost with no questions asked, because this has resulted in thefts and robberies.
Justices of the Peace may authorize constables and other peace officers to enter any house to search for stolen venison. Any person apprehending an offender or causing such to be convicted who is killed or wounded so as to lose an eye or the use of a limb shall receive 50 pounds. Any person buying suspect venison or skin of deer shall produce the seller or be punished the same as a deer killer: 30 pounds or, if he couldn't pay, one year in prison without bail and one hour in the pillory on market day. An offender who discloses his accomplices and their occupations and places of abode and discovers where they may be found and they are subsequently convicted, shall be pardoned.
Anyone stealing sheep or cattle or parts thereof is a felon and shall suffer death without benefit of clergy.
Persons who steal or aid in stealing any lead, iron bar, iron gate, palisadoe, or iron rail fixed to any house or its outhouses, garden, orchard, or courtyard is guilty of felony and may be transported for seven years. In 1756 also included was copper, brass, bell-metal, and solder; buyers and receivers; and mills, warehouses, workshops, wharves, ships, barges, and other vessels. Search warrants were authorized in case of suspicion. Officers and solicited buyers and receivers were required to take persons who at night were reasonably suspected of having or carrying such items, to an accounting before a Justice of the Peace. Also a notice was put in the newspaper for any owners to claim such. If the person did not give a satisfactory account of the items, he was guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by forfeiture of 2 pounds or prison up to one month for the first offense, 4 pounds or prison for two months for the second offense, and 6 pounds or prison for any subsequent offense (without bail). An officer or solicited buyer or receiver who did not take a suspect to a Justice of the Peace was punishable by the same penalties except the amounts of forfeiture were 1 pound, 2 pounds, and 4 pounds respectively. A felon who brought two buyers or receivers to justice was to be pardoned.
A description of any goods and the appearance of a rogue or vagabond or idle and disorderly person shall be advertised in a public paper for identification by the owner as stolen.
Pawning goods without consent of the owner is punishable by forfeiture of 20s. or hard labor for fourteen days with whipping there.
Maliciously destroying river banks resulting in lands being overflowed or damaged is a felony for which one shall suffer death without benefit of clergy. Later, transportation for seven years was made an alternative.
All persons pretending to be patent gatherers or collectors for prison gaols or hospitals and all fencers, bearwards, common players of interludes, minstrels, jugglers, and pretended gypsies, and those dressing like Egyptians or pretending to have skill in physiognomy, palm-reading, or like crafty science, or pretending to tell fortunes, and beggars, and all persons able in body who run away and leave their wives or children to the parish shall be deemed rogues and vagabonds. Apprehenders of such persons bringing them before a Justice of the Peace may be rewarded 2s. Any constable not apprehending such shall forfeit 10s. Persons wandering outside the place determined by a Justice of the Peace to be his settlement may be whipped on the back until it is bloody or sent to hard labor at a House of Correction. If he was dangerous and incorrigible, for instance as indicated by swearing falsely before a Justice of the Peace, he could suffer both punishments with the whipping being on three market days. If he escaped from the House of Correction, it was felony. If he has been absent for more than two years, he could be put out as an apprentice for seven years in the realm, in the colonies, or in a British factory beyond the seas. Included later were performers for gain from outside their parish of any play, tragedy, comedy, opera, farce or other entertainment of the stage, including performances in public places where wine, ale, beer, or other liquors are sold, or forfeit 50 pounds. Excluded were performances authorized by the king in Westminster.
Unlicensed places of entertainment are deemed disorderly (like bawdy houses and gaming houses) because they increase idleness, which produces mischief and inconvenience. Persons therein may be seized by a constable. Persons keeping such a place shall forfeit 100 pounds. No licensed place of entertainment may be opened until 5:00 p.m.
Later there was an award of 5s. for apprehending a person leaving his wife and children to the parish, living idly, refusing to work at going rates, or going from door or placing themselves in the streets to beg. This includes begging by persons who pretend to be soldiers, mariners, seafaring men, or harvest workers. These rogues and vagabonds shall be sent to hard labor at a House of Correction for up to one month. The real soldiers, mariners, seafaring men, and harvest workers shall carry official documents indicating their route and limiting the time of such passage.
Persons pretending to be lame who beg are to be removed. If he comes back to beg, his back may be whipped until bloody. If a constable neglects this duty, he shall forfeit 10s.
Masters of ships bringing in vagabonds or beggars from Ireland or the colonies shall forfeit five pounds for each one. This money shall be used for reconveying such people back at a price determined by a Justice of the Peace. A master of a ship refusing to take such a person shall forfeit five pounds. These vagabonds and beggars may be whipped.
Anyone who profanely curses or swears shall suffer the following penalties: day laborer, common soldier, common sailor, common seaman - 1s., anyone else below the degree of gentleman - 2s., gentlemen and above - 5s., and for the second offense, a double fine, for further offense, a treble fine. If a person can't pay, he shall be put to hard labor at a House of Correction for ten days, or if a common soldier, common sailor, or common seaman, he shall be set in the stocks for 1-2 hours. This is to prevent the provocation of divine vengeance.
Anyone setting up or maintaining lotteries or deceitful games must forfeit 200 pounds, or go to prison up to 6 months. Any one who plays at such, such as by drawing lots or using cards or dice, must forfeit 50 pounds. Sales of lottery items, such as houses, lands, plate, jewels, or ships, are void and these items will be forfeited to any person who sues. Such have caused many families to become impoverished, especially through their children or through the servants of gentlemen, traders, and merchants. Backgammon games are exempt. Later, People who lost up to ten pounds in deceitful gaming were allowed to sue to recover this money from the winners. Also, anyone winning or losing ten pounds at one time or twenty pounds within 24 hours shall be fined five times the value of such. Offenders discovering others, who are convicted, are indemnified from all penalties and shall be admitted to give evidence.
No one may run more than one horse, mare, or gelding in a horse race. No prize may be under 50 pounds value. This is because a great number of horse races for small prizes have contributed to idleness, to the impoverishment of the meaner sort of people, and has prejudiced the breed of strong and useful horses.
Wagers and agreements in the nature of puts and refusals relating to prices of stocks or securities are void. Those making or executing such agreements must forfeit 500 pounds. Those selling stock which one does not possess must forfeit 500 pounds. Brokers negotiating such agreements must forfeit 100 pounds.
Only a person with an interest in the life or death of another may have insurance on this other, to prevent the mischievous kind of gaming that has been introduced.
The punishment for forgery or counterfeiting or assisting in such or claiming a counterfeit item is good while knowing that it is not, with an intent to defraud is death without benefit of clergy. The punishment for perjury or subordination of perjury is hard labor in the House of correction for up to seven years or transportation for up to seven years. The punishment for altering numbers on bills of exchange or other payment papers is death.
It is high treason to counterfeit the coinage. A person who tenders coin, knowing it to be false, shall spend six months in prison and acquire sureties for good behavior for the next six months. If he offends again, he shall spend two years in prison and acquire sureties for good behavior for the next two years. The third offense is felony without benefit of clergy.
In 1773, makers, aiders, or possessors of any frame, mould, or instrument for forging paper notes of the Bank of England and putting this identification thereon is felony for which one shall suffer death without benefit of clergy. Anyone who forges promissory notes, bills of exchange, or inland bills of the Bank of England by engraving or etching on metal or wood "Bank of England" or "Bank Post Bill" shall go to gaol for up to six months.
Anyone selling gold or silver ware, vessel, plate or other item large enough to be marked which has not been marked by its maker shall forfeit 10 pounds or be kept at hard labor up to six months. Anyone counterfeiting such mark shall forfeit 100 pounds. Later, vendors of these items were required to be licensed and the penalty for counterfeiting was raised to felony for which one shall suffer death without benefit of clergy. Later still, transportation for fourteen years was allowed as an alternative. If an item was not all silver, e.g. had metal underneath, 100 pounds was to be forfeited.
In 1769, receivers of stolen jewels and gold and silver plate and watches knowing them to be stolen, in cases of burglary and highway robbery, may be transported for 14 years.
Apples and pears may not be sold by any measure other than a standard water measure, or forfeit 10s., one-half to the informer, and one-half to the poor, except for measures sealed by the Company of Fruiterers. This is to decrease the suits between buyers and sellers.
There shall be enough silver and gold on silver and gold plated silk thread and wire so that it does not crumble off, thereby wasting the bullion of the nation. This is also to encourage its export by making it competitive in trade with such foreign articles, which may not be imported.
Malt to be sold or exported must not be fraudulently mixed with unmalted grain to lower duties payable or forfeit 5s.
Any one who adulterates coffee with water, grease, butter, and such shall forfeit 20 pounds, 1/2 to the king, and 1/2 to the suer.
Walnut tree leaves, hop leaves, sycamore leaves and such may not be made to imitate tobacco leaves for sale or forfeit 5s. per pound.
Persons near London may not make unsound, hollow, or improperly heated bricks.
Makers of narrow woolen cloths must weave or set in the head of every piece his initials or forfeit one pound. This is to prevent frauds and abuses, particularly in stretching and straining the cloth. The fulling mill owner must append his seal of lead with his name and with his measurements. The searcher to be appointed must measure such cloths when wet for conformity to standard measurements and append his seal with his measurements. He may also inspect any places he chooses.
In 1774, wool making employees not returning all working tools and implements and wool and all materials with which entrusted back to their employer or who fraudulently steams, damps, or waters such wool or who takes off any mark on any piece of cloth shall go to the House of Correction for one month. If he absconds with or sells such or anyone fraudulently buys or receives such from him, a search warrant may be issued to seize any other such tools or material. If found, the person may be brought to account before a Justice of the Peace, and if the account is not satisfactory, he shall forfeit such. A search warrant may also be issued for houses on "just cause to suspect" by oath of a credible witness. For a second offense, the penalty is up to three months in a House of Correction. For a third offense, the penalty is up to six months in a House of Correction and public whipping.
Bakers must mark their bread with W for white, WH for wheaten, and H for household or forfeit 20s. to the informer. In 1758, a new assize of bread set prices for rye, barley, oats, and beans by the bushel. The prices for the three qualities of wheat, for wheaten (prized and unprized), and for household grain by the bushel were to be determined from within a statutory range by the local Mayor or Justice of the Peace. Mayors and Justices of the Peace were to determine a fair profit for their local bakers for all the types of bread. A miller, mealman, or baker adulterating bread was to forfeit 40s. 10 pounds, part of which money could be used in publishing his name, abode, and offense in the local newspaper. Later, there was a forfeiture of 1-5s. for every ounce underweight. Household bread was to be 1/4 cheaper than wheaten or forfeit 10-40s. Bread inferior to wheaten was not to be sold at a price higher than household or forfeit up to 20s. If the forfeiture was not paid, it could be levied by distress, or otherwise the offender was to spend one month in gaol or a House of Correction.
Straw to be sold in London must be sound, firmly bound in a truss, and of a given weight or forfeit it and 20s. if no truss, and 1s. if in truss but underweight or of mixed quality. Handlers must keep registers of sellers, buyers, weights, dates of sale, and prices or forfeit 10-20s.
Frame-work knitted pieces and stockings shall be marked with the correct number of threads by the master, frame-work knitter, or master hosier, or forfeit the goods and 5 pounds. If a journeyman apprentice, or servant employ does not mark correctly, he shall forfeit the goods and 5s.-40s. Sellers of such shall forfeit the goods and 5 pounds per piece.
At every fishing season, the quantity of salt, foreign or domestic, used by a proprietor for curing fish for export shall be accounted and sworn to so that it can be compared with the quantity of fish exported by the proprietor to ensure that the salt duties are fully paid, or forfeit 40 pounds. If such salt is sold for other uses than curing fish, the proprietor is to forfeit 20s. per bushel sold and the users thereof, to forfeit 20s. per bushel bought, delivered, or used. If one can't pay, he is to be whipped and put to hard labor in a House of Correction for up to three months.
Agreements between coal owners, lightermen, fitters, master or owners of ships, hindering the free sale, loading, and unloading, navigating, or disposing of coals are illegal, null, and void. This is engrossing and has caused the price of coals to go up.
No coal trader or dealer may use his own lighters, barges, or other vessels to carry coals on the Thames River to and from any ship and to and from any wharf, dock, or creek because this has impaired the business of the watermen and wherrymen, whose vessels must now be registered and display such mark on their hulls. No lightermen nor buyers of coals may act as agent for any master or owner of a ship importing coals into London or forfeit 200 pounds, because this combination has caused the price of coal to go up. Selling one sort of coal for another is punishable by forfeiture of 500 pounds. Only standard size coal sacks may be used for selling coal and they must be sealed and stamped by an official at the Guildhouse before sale. The mayor and aldermen of London may set the price of coals coming into this port. In other areas, Justices of the Peace set the prices of coals which allowed "a competent profit". If a merchant refused to sell at that price, the Justice of the Peace could authorize seizure and sale by officers.
Later, coal measurers must give the coal cart driver a ticket with the name of the sellers and consumers, the quantity and quality of the coal, its price, the date of sale, and the name of the cart driver or forfeit 5 pounds. The cart driver must give this ticket to the consumer or forfeit 5 pounds. If coal is carried by cart without a ticket, the seller forfeits 50 pounds and the driver 5 pounds.
Anyone who willfully and maliciously set on fire any mine or pit of coal is guilty of felony and shall suffer death without benefit of clergy. Anyone who willfully and maliciously floods a coal work, mine pit or who makes underground cavities or passages with intent to destroy or damage such, or obstructs any sough or sewer made for draining such, which has been held in common for 50 years, shall forfeit treble damages. This is to deter these offenses, which have been done to enhance the price of coals and gain a monopoly thereof.
If twelve or more people who riotously and tumultuously assemble and disturb the peace, do not disburse within an hour of an order to disburse by a justice or sheriff or mayor, they shall be deemed felons without benefit of clergy. Any people pulling down or destroying a church, dwelling house, barn, stable, or other out house; any mill; any engine used for draining water from any coal, lead, tin, or copper mines, or for drawing coals from mines; or bridge, wagon, or fences used in such industry will be deemed felons without benefit of clergy and may be transported for seven years. The cost of repair is to be borne by the hundred or town.
Owners of timber trees, fruit trees, and others used for shelter, ornament, or profit which are cut down or otherwise destroyed shall be made good by his parish or town, as are hedges and dikes overthrown by persons in the night. In 1765, anyone cutting down or destroying any oak or other timber trees at night shall forfeit up to 20 pounds for the first offense, up to 30 pounds for the second offense, and shall be transported to the colonies for seven years for any further offense. Anyone digging up or destroying or carrying away any root, shrub, or plant worth up to 5s. in a garden, nursery, or other enclosed ground at night shall forfeit up to 2 pounds for the first offense, up to 5 pounds for the second offense, and shall be transported to the colonies for seven years for any further offense. Anyone not paying was to be gaoled. Aiders and buyers who knew the item was stolen incurred the same penalties. Later, many other types of trees, such as beach, ash, elm, cedar, and walnut were included as timber trees, and hollies, thorns, and quicksets included as plants.
The previous statute that substituted burning in the cheek for burning in the hand is repealed because this not only did not deter offenders, but on the contrary, made them unfit for honest livelihoods and therefore more desperate. Those convicted of theft or larceny shall be burnt in the hand and may be kept at hard labor in a House of Correction for 2-24 months, without bail.
Persons using violence to hinder the purchase or transportation of grain, e.g. by beating or wounding a buyer; beating or wounding the driver or horse of a cart loaded with wheat, flour, meal, malt, or other grain, or cutting the harness of or driving away the horse, or cutting or carrying away the sacks of grain is to be put in the common gaol or House of Correction with hard labor for 1-3 months, and whipped in the market place between 11:00 and 2:00. The penalty for a second offense or for destroying a storehouse or granary where grain is kept to be exported or for taking or spoiling such grain, or for throwing such off a ship or vessel is transportation for seven years. The hundreds concerned are to pay damages up to a total of 100 pounds, but only if notice is given to the constable within two days and there is an oath and examination before a Justice of the Peace within ten days of the owner or his servants. If any offender is convicted within a year, the hundreds are released.
Anyone who steals at night any cloth or wool or woolen goods set out to dry on racks shall forfeit treble damages, or if he can't pay, be sent to prison for three months without bail. For the second offense, he shall forfeit treble damages and be sent to prison for six months without bail. For the third offense, he shall be transported for seven years. Upon complaint, a Justice of the Peace may authorize a constable or other peace officer to enter and search houses, outhouses, yards, and gardens of a person suspected by the owner. This person shall account to the Justice of the Peace and may bring a witness to his purchase of the items. If the account is unsatisfactory, he shall be penalized.
Anyone taking linens, fustians, or cottons set out for whitening, bleaching, or printing up to the value of 10s. in lands, grounds, or buildings may be transported for seven years. Later, this penalty was increased to death without benefit of clergy or transportation for fourteen years.
Anyone stealing or maliciously pulling up or destroying any turnips on a person's land must pay damages or go to gaol for up to one month. He may be whipped. The penalty for a second offense is three months in a House of Correction. This statute of 1750 was, in 1773, extended to include potatoes, cabbages, parsnips, peas, and carrots. A penalty up to 10s. was added. Evidence of the owner was to be taken.
In 1769, anyone who steals a dog or receives such knowing it to be stolen shall forfeit 20-30 pounds for the first offense, and 30-50 pounds for the second offense or go to gaol or the House of Correction for 12-18 months and be publicly whipped there. Search warrants may be issued to search for stolen dogs or their skins. One-half of the forfeiture will go to the informer.
Persons pretending witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment, or conjuration; or telling fortunes; or pretending by occult knowledge to discover the location of stolen goods may be imprisoned for one year without bail and put in the pillory in the market place once in every quarter of such year.
Anyone stealing goods off shipwrecks, or putting out a false light to bring a ship to danger, or beating or wounding with an intent to kill or otherwise obstructing a person escaping from the ship to save his life shall suffer death without benefit of clergy. Except that good of small value taken without violence shall be punished as petit larceny. The houses of suspect people may be searched by warrant. If there are goods found or if people are found offering goods to sell, they may be ordered by a justice to give an account of these goods. If the account is not satisfactory, the punishment is forfeiture of treble their value or six months in prison. A reasonable reward may be given to the discoverer. Anyone assaulting a magistrate or officer involved in salvage work shall be transported for seven years.
Officers of the revenue who collude with importers to return to them goods which have been seized for nonpayment of duties shall forfeit 500 pounds and lose office, unless he discloses his accomplices within two months. The importer shall forfeit treble the value of such goods.
Armed person to the number of three assembled to assist in illegal exporting or running, landing, or carrying away prohibited or uncustomed goods and any person apprehended by any revenue officer, and anyone with his face blackened or masked who obstructs, assaults, opposes, or resists any revenue officer seizing such goods, or who shoots at or maims or wounds any revenue officer attempting to go on any ship shall suffer death as felons without benefit of clergy or serve as a commons sailor in the navy for at least one year. Harborers of such offenders will be transported for seven years. The hundreds shall pay 100 pounds for each revenue officer killed, and up to 40 pounds for each one beaten, wounded, or maimed, and damages up to 200 pounds for goods, unless an offender is caught and convicted in six months. There is a reward of 500 pounds to an apprehender, and 50 pounds for an attempt to apprehend in which one loses a limb or eye or is maimed or wounded, and 100 pounds to his family if he is killed. An offender who brings two of his accomplices to justice will be acquitted and rewarded 50 pounds for each such accomplice. Later, an incentive was given to customs officers to have a portion of the proceeds of the sale of such goods seized by them, such as 2/3 for wrought silks and calicoes, and 1/3 for tea, coffee, foreign brandy, and rum. Still later, any person could seize wrought silk, including ribbons, laces, and girdles containing it, from the importer or retailer, and the importer was to forfeit 100 pounds, and any import assistants 50 pounds, and retailers or concealers 50 pounds, with one half going to the suer. Also, the goods were to be publicly burnt. Still later, the penalty was increased to forfeiture of 200 pounds for all offenders, but not including wearers, and the goods were to be publicly sold for export rather than burnt. Then the import of silk stockings, silk mitts, and silk gloves was prohibited for the support of the English silk industry. Retailers, sellers, and concealers of such were to forfeit the goods and 200 pounds. Search warrants could be issued. In 1765, importers, sellers, and manufacturing users of most foreign wrought silks or velvets were to forfeit the goods and 100 pounds. The goods were sold for export with the proceeds going 1/2 to the king, and 1/2 to the seizing officer. The wearer was not liable. The burden of proof of the place of manufacture was on the person prosecuted rather than on the prosecutor. Persons breaking into houses or shops to destroy any wool or silk being made or tools or racks used shall suffer death as felons, to prevent combinations of workmen. In 1768, bounties were made available to American exporters of raw silk to Great Britain, whose climate was not conducive to the growing of mulberry trees on which silk worms feed. In 1774, cotton printed, stained, or dyed that has been manufactured in Great Britain may be worn and used, but must have a mark woven in the warp that it was manufactured in Great Britain. Persons importing other such cloth shall forfeit it and ten pounds per piece. Persons selling such with a counterfeit stamp with an intent to defraud shall suffer death without benefit of clergy. The protective measures for English silk manufacture did not work well.
Any ship not more than 50 tons hovering on the coast with customable or prohibited goods may be boarded by a customs officer, who may demand bond for treble the value of the goods.
In 1724, persons contracting with artificers and manufacturers of wool, iron, steel, brass, and other metals, clock-makers, watch- makers to go to a foreign country and there receive greater wages and advantages shall forfeit 100 pounds and spend 3 months in prison for the first offense, and shall forfeit a sum determined by the court and spend 12 months in prison for the second offense. An artificer or manufacturer not returning after warning is given by the ambassador is to forfeit hereditaments, goods, and lands and to be deemed an alien. Later, in 1750, cotton and silk were included and the penalty was increased to 500 pounds and 12 months in gaol for the first offense, and 1000 pounds and 2 years in prison for the second offense. Also, anyone exporting tools of wool or silk manufacture was to forfeit the tools and 200 pounds. This statute was strictly enforced. In 1774, tools of cotton and linen manufacture were included.
In 1772, all statutes against engrossing, forestalling, and regrating were repealed because they had prevented free trade and tended to increase prices, e.g. of grain, meal, flour, cattle, and other victuals.
Anyone assisting a felon (except for petty larceny) to try to escape from gaol, is guilty of felony and shall be transported for seven years. Anyone assisting a person who owes or is to pay 100 pounds to try to escape from gaol is guilty of a misdemeanor. In 1772, prison keepers were indemnified from creditors for any escapes of debtors due to conspiracy and break out with weapons and firearms rather than negligence, as had been occurring.
Any pirate, accessory to piracy, commander or master or other person of any ship or vessel who trades with a pirate or furnishes him with ammunition or provisions of fits out a ship to trade with pirates shall suffer death and loss of lands, goods, and chattels. Seamen maimed in fighting pirates may be admitted into Greenwich Hospital. (This hospital received support from duties paid by vessels of the realm and of the colonies.) Masters or seamen not fighting shall forfeit their wages and spend 6 months in prison if the ship is taken. Masters shall not advance to any seamen above half his wages since deserting is the chief occasion of their turning into pirates.
In London penalties for crimes against property rose so that by 1740, a child could be hanged for stealing a handkerchief worth 1s. from a person's body.
No more than 600 pounds of gunpowder may be kept in any building in London or Westminster or suburbs thereof. Later, no more than 200 pounds of gunpowder were allowed to be kept therein for more than 24 hours. Buildings may be searched on "reasonable cause" shown to a Justice of the Peace. Later, no more than 400 pounds of gunpowder could be kept for more than 24 hours near any town, or more than 300 pounds for more than 24 hours in any place. Then no gunpowder could be conveyed by land over 25 barrels or by water over 200 barrels.
It was customary for officers to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy to any new monarch. When George I became king in 1714, all civil and military officers, clergy, schoolmasters, and lawyers, solicitors, clerks, etc. living within 30 miles of London had to take an oath of allegiance and a new oath that the person was not Papist and agreed that no foreigners had jurisdiction in the realm, such as to excommunicate someone and thus declaring he could be legitimately killed. Soon after, it was required that Papists had to register their names and real estates. Commissioners were appointed to make inquiries. If a person did not take the oaths or did not register, he was to forfeit 2/3 of his land to the king and 1/3 to a Protestant who sued for such. This was in order to deter future rebellions against the king and efforts to destroy the Protestant religion.
Papists enlisting in the army are liable to corporal punishment, but not death, as determined by a court martial.
Any mayor, bailiff, or other magistrate who is present at any meeting for public worship other than the Church of England will lose office and is barred from any public office or employment.
As late as 1722, there was a Papist conspiracy to take the Tower of London and the King, and make a Catholic king. This resulted in the imprisonment of the conspirators and a new statute: Persons not taking the oath of allegiance and above oath that they were not Papist shall register their lands and yearly rents and pay double the land tax and 100,000 pounds. After payment, they are discharged from forfeiting 2/3 of their lands' rents for one year.
Jews may not refuse suitable maintenance to their children who are
Christian to pressure them to convert back to Judaism.
In 1712 was the last execution for witchcraft. By statute of 1736, witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment, and conjuration were abolished as crimes.
Black slaves were common for a time in London. This was a result
of the voluminous triangle trade of manufactured goods from
England, slaves from West Africa, and sugar and tobacco from the
West Indies. Slavery was largely abolished by judicial decision of
Chief Justice Mansfield in 1772.
If a sheriff does not answer for money collected for the Exchequer, he shall forfeit treble damages to the aggrieved person, double the sum missing to the aggrieved person, 100 pounds to the king, and 100 pounds to the party who sues. If a sheriff take a fee for levying or collecting money due to the king (except 4d. for an acquittance) or take a sum for not levying money due, he is guilty of extortion, injustice, and oppression and shall forfeit treble damages and costs to the aggrieved person, and double the sum extorted to the aggrieved person. A sheriff may not levy more than 12d. for every 20s. of yearly income of any manor for up to 100 pounds of income, and 6d. for value over 100 pounds.
No one may cut pine trees that are fit for masts of ship in New England without license by the Queen or forfeit 100 pounds. Later, pine trees on private property were excluded.
Citizens of Great Britain may sue colonial debtors by oath before British magistrates and a debtor's colonial lands and houses and negroes may be used to satisfy his debts.
Anyone pretending to act under a charter and taking subscriptions in Great Britain or the colonies must forfeit treble damages.
No hats, including beaver hats, may be exported from any colony even to another colony because this has hurt British hat manufacture. The penalty is 500 pounds. No one in the colonies except present hatmakers who are householders and journeymen may make hats unless they serve a seven year apprenticeship. No hatmaker in the colonies may have more than two apprentices at once.
Whaling ships near Greenland were prohibited from returning until their hulls were full. Vessels built or fitted out in America may engage in whaling.
Pig iron from the colonies may be imported free, but there may be no mill for slitting or rolling iron and no plateing-forge or other engine to work with a tilt hammer and no furnace for making steel erected or used in the colonies or forfeit 200 pounds.
No paper bills of credit may be used in New England because such have depreciated.
William Blackstone lectured on law at Oxford University in 1753. As a result, the first professorship of English law was established. His lectures were published in 1769 as the "Commentaries on the Laws of England". They greatly influenced the American colonists and were the basis of legal education in England and America for years. They were comprehensive and covered real property, crime and punishment, court procedure, contract, corporations, and commercial law. He wrote "The Great Charter and Charter of the Forest" in 1759.
- Judicial Procedure -
For actions under 10 pounds in a superior court and actions under 40s. in an inferior court, the offender shall be served with process to appear in court rather than being arrested. For money at issue, an affidavit shall be taken. No more money may be taken for bail than the amount at controversy. This is to prevent frivolous and vexatious arrests. Perjurers, forgers, those involved in barratry or suborning perjury, and pretenders practicing as attorneys or solicitors in the courts of law or equity shall be transported for seven years to the American colonies. Unqualified people acting as attorneys or solicitors in the county court shall forfeit 20 pounds.
No one may practice as an attorney in the courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, or Exchequer until he has been examined by a judge of such court on his fitness and qualifications and has taken the oath to honestly demean himself and practice according to his best knowledge and ability. The same applies to a solicitor in the equity courts. This shall not exclude persons who have been bound to an attorney or solicitor for four years. Attorneys and solicitors, with consent of an attorney of another court, may participate in proceedings of such other court. No attorney may have more than two clerks bound to him at one time. Attorneys may be admitted as solicitors and vice-versa.
There were twelve common law justices of the Court of the King's Bench, Court of Common Pleas, and Court of the Exchequer. The Chief Justices of all of these courts were paid partly from fees paid to the court. The other Justices of these courts were paid completely by salary, which in 1759 was well over 500 pounds per year. These justices were to continue in office even after a king died and could be removed only for good cause upon the address of both houses of Parliament. The officers of these courts were attorneys. There was one justice at Doctors' Commons. The two chancery justices (since Edward I) were the Lord Chancellor and the Master of the Rolls. The salary of the eleven masters of the court of chancery in 1765 was 400 pounds per year. The officers of this court were solicitors.
Appeals from the Exchequer could be made to a court of the King's Bench and Common Pleas combined. Appeals from Common Pleas could be made to the King's Bench. Decisions of the King's Bench and other common law courts could be appealed to Parliament.
The common law courts rode circuit twice a year in five circuits and once a year in the north circuit. So an accused person could spend up to a year in gaol waiting for trial. Few prisoners were granted bail. In each common law court, the law justices in banc would hear demurrers [contentions that the other party was wrong in the law]. No one with an interest in a suit, including the plaintiff and the defendant, could give evidence. There was no power to amend pleadings, so misspelling of the defendant's name, for instance, could result in dismissal of the suit. In 1730, the pleadings and indictments ceased to be in Latin. Compurgation still existed for debt and detinue.
Writs of error at variance from the original record or otherwise defective may be amended to correct the defect by the court where such writ is returnable. No judgment is to be reversed for any defect in any bill or writ, excepting an appeal of felony or murder, or misdemeanor. This is to prevent delays of justice. Justices of the Peace may correct defects of form on appeals to them.
Plaintiffs neglecting to go to trial after an issue has been joined may be nonsuited.
The qualification for jury service is having land with an income over rents of at least 20 pounds, with leases for 500 years or more, or 99 years, or any term determinable on one or more lives. Being a freeholder is not necessary. In London, the qualification is being a householder and having lands to the value of 100 pounds. No sheriff may excuse a qualified person from jury service for money or other reward. Selection of jurors for each case is to be done by some indifferent person pulling their names from a box. Later, persons refusing jury service could be fined.
Poor persons may be paid up to 6d. to give evidence against felons.
Pirates may not be tried again for the same crime or for a certain crime and high treason. When the marine force was raised, the marines were also given protection from double jeopardy.
In Chancery, a plaintiff filed a complaint and interrogatories prepared by counsel. Only in Chancery could there be discovery. The interrogatories were addressed by court officials to witnesses without the presence of the parties or their lawyers. Officials wrote down the answers in their own terms. So there was no cross- examination possible. Most decrees took many years to be made.
The ordinary administrative court of first instance is that of one or two Justices of the Peace who issue orders in matters of public safety, public order, public morals, health, the poor, highways, water, fields, forests, fisheries, trade, building, fire, begging, and vagrancy. He examined suspicious persons and issued warrants for the removal of persons likely to become a public charge. The Justice of the Peace also regulates wages, servants, apprentices, and day laborers. In his judicial capacity, he tried all crimes and felonies except treason, though in practice death penalty cases were transferred to the assize justices. The Justices of the Peace of a hundred hold special sessions such as for appointment of parochial officers, highway disputes, and the grant of wine, beer, and spirit licenses. The appointment of overseers of the poor, authorization of parish rates, and reading of the Riot Act to mobs to disperse them, required more than one of the Justices of the Peace of the hundred to participate. All the Justices of the Peace of the county met four times a year at Quarter Sessions to hear appeals from penal sentences, to determine the county rate of tax, to appoint treasurers of the county and governors of the county prison and house of correction, to issue regulations on prices of provisions and on wages, to settle fees of the county officials, to grant licenses for powder-mills and other industries, to hear nuisance complaints such as those against parishes for failing to keep their roads in repair, to make regulations for the holding of markets, to hear complaints concerning local government, and to register dissenting chapels. In more and more matters specified by statute, the Quarter Sessions heard appeals from the orders of the individual Justices of the Peace instead of common law courts hearing them by writ of certiorari. The writ of certiorari allows administrative decisions to be reviewed by the common law courts for compliance with law, competency of the court, and interpretation of the administrative law. The writ of habeas corpus appealed administrative decisions to imprison not only after arrest for criminal proceedings, but any coercive measure for enforcing an administrative order. The writ of mandamus was available for enforcing the injunctions of administrative law against towns, corporations, and all other authorities and private persons, where the ordinary punishments were insufficient. Justices of the Peace in rural areas were squires and in towns aldermen.
In 1747, Justices of the Peace were authorized to decide issues between masters and mistresses and their employees who were hired for at least one year. If a servant misbehaved, they could authorize reduction of wage, discharge, and hard labor at a house of Correction up to one month. If a servant was not paid, he could authorize payment of wages up to 10 pounds for an agricultural servant, and up to 5 pounds for an artificer, handicraftsman, miner, collier, keelman, pitman, glassman, potter, or ordinary laborer. Later, tinners and miners were added to the last category. In 1758, employees of less than a year were included.
In 1775, Justices of the Peace were authorized to administer any oath for the purpose of levying penalties.
To be a Justice of the Peace, one must have income of 100 pounds a year from a freehold, copyhold, or customary estate that is for life or for a term of at least 21 years, or be entitled to a reversion of lands leased for 1 or 2 or 3 lives, or for any term of years determinable on the death of 1 or 2 or 3 lives. Excepted were peers, justices, and heads of colleges or vice chancellors at the universities. The Justices of the Peace were selected by the superintending Sheriffs and Lords Lieutenant, the latter of whom were usually peer with a ministers' office or a high court official. No attorney or solicitor or proctor could be a Justice of the Peace unless the locality had Justices of the Peace by charter.
A request for Certiorari for removal of convictions, judgments, orders made by Justices of the Peace must be made within six months and after notice to the Justice of the Peace who may argue cause against granting certiorari.
In the common law courts, trespass in ejectment served the purposes of most of the actions involving land. Assumpsit covered the whole province of debt, and much more. Trover more than covered the old province of detinue. Trespass still served for all cases in which the defendant had been guilty of directly applying force to the plaintiff's body, goods or chattels. Trespass on the case covered miscellaneous torts. Replevin was still used. Covenant remained in use for the enforcement of promises under seal. Account gradually came under the equity jurisdiction of Chancery. Common law writs of dower are largely superseded by the relief given to the doweress in the courts of equity, where new and valuable rights were given to her and to her personal representatives against the heir and his representatives. The actions of indebitatus assumpsit is being extended to actions upon quasi-contract, in which the element of contract is not required e.g. quantum meruit, where a contract is implied from the facts of the case.
Mercantile law was developed by the common law courts, especially the King's Bench.
The king was to appoint the marshal of the King's Bench. The marshal was to select his inferior officers to hold office as long as they "behave themselves well within". These offices had been sold by James I to a certain person, his heirs, and assigns. The marshal was to keep the prison of this court in good repair from his fees and profits of office.
The office of sheriff was now an accessory department of the common law courts for summons, executions, summoning the jury, and carrying out the sentence of the law.
Summons for excise offenses may be left at a person's abode, workhouse, or shop as well as on his person.
The coroner's office now investigated unusual deaths with a jury from the neighborhood elected by county freeholders.
The last beheading was of a Scottish lord in 1747; he had been involved in an attempt to restore the Stuarts to the throne. So many people came that some overcrowded bleachers fell down and crushed about 20 spectators. Henceforth, every sentence of death was by hanging, even for peers.
In 1772, the process of pressing a man to death, if he refused to plead to an indictment was abolished. In 1772, persons accused or indicted, in Great Britain or America, of felony or piracy who stand mute shall be convicted of such charge. Property of a felon was still forfeited to the crown.
From 1749 on were established special procedures for speedy decisions in local courts in some areas for debts or damages under 40s. and imprisonment for such was limited for up to three months. Otherwise, sentences were longer, and debts grew during the time in prison. When prisons were overcrowded, Parliament let the inmates out if they gave up their possessions. They could go to Georgia.
In 1763, the homes of John Wilkes and others were searched for a seditious and treasonous published paper and all related papers because they had been rumored to have some relationship to the conception, writing, publication, or distribution of the paper. Wilkes had such papers and was convicted of libel. He countersued for damages due to criminal trespass. The court held that general search warrants were subversive of the liberty of the subject of the search in violation of the British Constitution, declared the statute void, and found for Wilkes. The Court of Common Pleas agreed on appeal and put the burden of proof on the persons searching to justify the search warrant. His decision gave support to William Pitt's assertion that "every man's home is his castle".
There were felons' prisons and debtors' prisons. Sometimes they were one and the same. There was much fighting among inmates. The inmates slept on hay if lucky. There were no washing facilities and little light. Counties or friends paid for their bread. They were also sold beer, which made them drunk and riotous. The sale of beer was a recognized and legitimate source of profit to the keeper. This was remedied by statute of 1760 that no sheriff or other officer may take an arrested person to a tavern or other public house or charge him for any wine, beer, ale, victuals, tobacco or other liquor without his consent and shall allow prisoners to be brought beer, ale, victuals, bedding, and linen as the prisoner sees fit. Sheriffs often kept people imprisoned unless and until they paid all their fees due to the sheriff. In 1772 was founded the Society for the Discharge and Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts for those inmates unfortunate instead of fraudulent or extravagant. Legacies were often made to debtors. There was much Gaol Distemper fever with fatal consequences. When John Howard, a grocer who had inherited wealth, but poor health, became a sheriff, he visited many gaols. When he saw the squalid conditions there, he advocated hygenic practices. In 1774, Justices of the Peace were authorized to order walls and ceilings of gaols to be scraped and washed, ventilators for supplies of fresh air, a separate room for the sick prisoners, commodious bathing tubs, provision of clothes for prisoners, keeping of prisoners not below the ground, and apothecaries at a stated salary to attend and to report the state of health of prisoners.
In 1773, clergymen were employed in gaols to alleviate the distress of prisoners and to contribute to morality and religion. Also, no longer may any fees be taken by gaol keepers or sheriffs because persons not indicted or found not guilty have been kept in prison pending payment of such fees. Instead, the counties shall pay to gaol keepers up to 13s.4d. per prisoner so discharged.
There was much Gaol Distemper fever with fatal consequences, so in 1774, Justices of the Peace were authorized to order walls and ceilings of gaols to be scraped and washed, ventilators for supplies of fresh air, a separate room for the sick prisoners, commodious bathing tubs, provision of clothes for prisoners, keeping of prisoners not below the ground, and apothecaries at a stated salary to attend and to report the state of health of prisoners.
Colonials acts which infringed upon the English common or statutory law, or were against the interests of other American colonies were submitted to the Privy Council, which allowed or disallowed them. Appeals from the colonial courts came to the Privy Council.
Judges in the colonies were appointed by royal governors and paid by colonial legislatures. They served at the pleasure of the king. Colonial courts included superior courts of judicature, courts of assize, general gaol delivery, general sessions of the peace, inferior court of common pleas, and commissions of Oyer and Terminer. There were also Justices of the Peace, marshals, provosts, and attorney generals. There were few cases of vagrancy, theft, or homicide. This may have been because the people were few and dependent on each other, and economic opportunities were great.
In 1735 John Peter Zenger, printer of the New York Weekly Journal, was tried for seditious libel for its criticisms and satire of the New York governor, who exceeded his powers, such as by demanding that bills from the assembly be presented to him before the council, and by arbitrarily displacing judges. Seditious libel was defined as "false, scandalous, and seditious" writings. Traditionally, this word "false" could mean "disloyal". The prosecution argued that truth of such criticism was an aggravation of the crime because it was more provoking of sedition, as found by Star Chamber cases. The defense argued for a right publically to remonstrate abuses of power by public officials to guard against violence and destruction of liberties by men in authority. The American jurors, who were supposed to be familiar with the facts pertinent to the case, knew the truth of the paper's criticisms. They agreed with the defense that the word "false" in the definition: "false, scandalous, and seditious" writings, to mean "untrue" instead of "disloyal". So truth became a defense to seditious libel. Pamphletts describing the Zenger trial and acquittal were published and republished in London and the colonies.
Benefit of clergy was available in the American colonies to all who could read and write. It could be used in trials for manslaughter.