London Lives

Poverty, Crime and the Making of a Modern City, 1690–1800

Tim Hitchcock (University of Sussex), Robert Shoemaker (University of Sheffield)

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English

Cambridge University Press
03 December 2015

History; British & Irish history; Early modern history: c 1450 to c 1700; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900

London Lives is a fascinating new study which exposes, for the first time, the lesser-known experiences of eighteenth-century thieves, paupers, prostitutes and highwaymen. It charts the experiences of hundreds of thousands of Londoners who found themselves submerged in poverty or prosecuted for crime, and surveys their responses to illustrate the extent to which plebeian Londoners influenced the pace and direction of social policy. Calling upon a new body of evidence, the book illuminates the lives of prison escapees, expert manipulators of the poor relief system, celebrity highwaymen, lone mothers and vagrants, revealing how they each played the system to the best of their ability in order to survive in their various circumstances of misfortune. In their acts of desperation, the authors argue that the poor and criminal exercised a profound and effective form of agency that changed the system itself, and shaped the evolution of the modern state.

By: Tim Hitchcock (University of Sussex), Robert Shoemaker (University of Sheffield)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 228mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 21mm
Weight: 750g
ISBN: 9781107639942
ISBN 10: 1107639948
Pages: 496
Publication Date: 03 December 2015
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Tim Hitchcock is Professor of Digital History at the University of Sussex. With Robert Shoemaker and others, he is responsible for a series of websites giving direct and searchable access to some 20 billion words of primary sources reflecting the social history of Britain, including: The Old Bailey Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org), London Lives (www.londonlives.org), Connected Histories (www.connectedhistories.org), and Locating London's Past (www.locatinglondon.org). With degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Oxford, he has published extensively on the histories of eighteenth-century poverty, street life, sexuality and masculinity. His most recent books include Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London (2004) and with Robert Shoemaker, Tales from the Hanging Court (2007). In 2011, with Shoemaker, he was given the Longman-History Today Trustees Award, for their substantial contributions to history as the 'directors of the groundbreaking digital projects The Old Bailey Proceedings Online and London Lives'. Robert Shoemaker is Professor of Eighteenth-Century British History at the University of Sheffield. Holder of a PhD from Stanford University, he is an expert on London history, gender, and crime and criminal justice in the 'long' eighteenth century. In addition to his collaborations with Tim Hitchcock, he is the author of Prosecution and Punishment: Petty Crime and the Law in London and Rural Middlesex, c.1660-1725 (Cambridge University Press, 1992), Gender in English Society, 1650-1850: The Emergence of Separate Spheres? (1998), and The London Mob: Violence and Disorder in Eighteenth-Century England (2004). With Hitchcock and others, he is currently working on a new project, 'The Digital Panopticon: The Global Impact of London Punishment, 1780-1925' (www.digitalpanopticon.org).

Reviews for London Lives: Poverty, Crime and the Making of a Modern City, 1690–1800

'Reveals how the cunning, courage and sheer resourcefulness of some of eighteenth-century London's poorest residents forced the city's authorities to overhaul its justice and welfare systems.' BBC History Magazine 'A compelling read and there is a huge amount of meticulously researched information in here.' Your Family Tree 'A brilliant analysis of an outstanding resource.' Who Do You Think You Are? 'Shocking in its depiction of survival and desperation ... this book shows how the criminal underclass helped shape the English justice system.' Hallie Rubenhold, 'Books of the Year', BBC History Magazine