Professor Matthew Davies

Layers of London: mapping the city’s heritage.

Abstract

Layers of London is a map-based history website developed by the Institute of Historical Research, and directed by Professor Matthew Davies at Birkbeck. Users can access free historic maps of London and contribute stories, memories and histories to create a social history resource about their area.

Project partners include: the British Library, The London Metropolitan Archives, Historic England, The National Archives, MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) and a wide range of national and local archives, institutions, community groups and individuals.

This website allows users to interact with and contribute to many different 'layers' of London's history from the Romans to the present day. These layers include: historic maps, old pictures of buildings, films, recordings, as well as stories about people who have lived and worked in London over the centuries - added to the map by Londoners themselves.

Funded by

Heritage Lottery Fund

Records of London's Livery Companies Online (ROLLCO)

Abstract

The Records of London's Livery Companies Online (ROLLCO) project has been established to create a fully searchable and freely accessible online database of membership information for the City of London's Livery Companies, from their earliest surviving records to c.1900.

The project began in 2008 with the creation of the ROLLCO database and the digitisation of The Clothworkers' Company extant Apprenticeship and Freedom records. In 2010, the records of The Drapers' Company and The Goldsmiths' Company were added to the database, followed by those of The Mercers' Company in 2012. In April 2014 the records of The Bowyers', Girdlers' and Salters' Companies were added, as were those of the Musicians' and Tallow Chandlers' Companies in July 2014. These updates brought the number of records of apprenticeship bindings to 87,705, the number of freedom admissions to 56,384, and the number of records of named individuals to 366,275. The records of further Companies will be released in a future update.

Generous funding from participating Livery Companies has made possible the digitisation of the records as well as the development of the website and API.

People, property and charity: the Clothworker' Company 1500 - 1750 (Clothworkers' Company)

Abstract

In October 2010, the project 'People, Property and Charity: The Clothworkers' Company,1500-1688' began in the Centre for Metropolitan History at the Institute of Historical Research. The project was funded by The Clothworkers' Company. The Director of the project was Professor Matthew Davies, while the project researcher was Dr Annaleigh Margey. The website was developed by IHR Digital.

The project focused on the history of benefaction to The Clothworkers' Company in the early modern period (c.1500-1700). It provided the first detailed history of the benefactors, property acquisitions and other bequests of the Company in the City of London from the late fifteenth century through to the eighteenth century. Focusing specifically on the properties that came to the company through the bequests of several benefactors, the project aimed to trace the Company's management of these properties and associated charities using the Company’s Court Orders, account books, bequest records, lease records, and benefactor wills.

Specific research questions related to the Company's acquisition of the properties; their continual surveys and viewings of their lands; reparations undertaken by the company on these properties; their lease agreements relating to the properties; their financial transactions; and the charitable giving by the company from the rental incomes of these properties.

Locating London's Past: a geo-referencing tool for mapping historical and archaeological evidence, 1660-1800 (JISC)

Abstract

Locating London’s Past provides an intuitive GIS interface enabling researchers to map and visualize textual and artefactual data relating to seventeenth and eighteenth-century London against John Rocque’s 1746 map of London and the first accurate modern OS map.

Life in the Suburbs: Health, Domesticity and Status in Early Modern London (ESRC)

Abstract

This project investigated the character and development of London’s eastern suburb by examining the life of the inhabitants of the extra-mural parishes of St Botolph Aldgate and Holy Trinity Minories from c.1550-c.1700. Covering just under 80 acres running south from the parish of St Botolph Bishopsgate to the Thames, this area experienced a population explosion during the early modern period, from c.3,500 inhabitants in 1540, over 11,000 by 1650, to nearly 20,000 by 1700. The area offers a population with a unique range of social and economic experiences which allow the greatest possible scope for studying suburban living in early modern London. Moreover, it also offers an unprecedented array of sources, including parish registers, records of poor relief, numerous taxation and household listings, and the observations of the parish clerks of St Botolph.
Project aims

The project had three main aims. The first involves a full family reconstitution and demographic analysis of the area’s parish registers - the largest reconstitution yet attempted from English registers. Relevant issues here are seasonality of mortality across the period, and the impact of maternal feeding practices. The second area of research involves study of the status, wealth and arrangement of the domestic units within the two parishes. Major themes here concern the levels of poverty and overseas immigration, the impact of London’s growth on existing social structures and whether communities of wealth congregated in different areas of the suburb. Finally, the third project strand concerns the topographical development of the area, specifically the expansion of its housing stock. Subjects of interest here include the residence patterns and spatial characteristics of the population, variables such as housing quality and amenity, and rental values. It is also one of the express purposes of the project to integrate what are often seen as distinct methodologies and to fully utilise recent developments in historical mapping techniques. By so-doing, these analyses will inform and underpin large-scale explanations of the development of the early modern metropolis and its role in the ‘modernisation’ of English society.

Londoners and the Law: Pleadings in the Court of Common Pleas, 1399-1509 (AHRC)

Abstract

The project analysed and published online information from the court of Common Pleas, one of the two great central courts of common law in late medieval England. The cases to be studied relate to litigation involving Londoners during the period 1399-1509, and these shed light on many aspects of the use and perception of the law, as well as Londoners' commercial and other links with the regions.

Housing environments and health in early modern London 1550-1750 (Wellcome Trust, 2006-8)

London and Middlesex Hearth Tax Project (AHRC, 2008-10)

People in Place: families, households and housing in early modern London (AHRC, 2003-6)

Views of Hosts: reporting the alien commodity trade, 1440-45 (ESRC, 2003-5)