‘To prevent the great influx of poor people into this parish’: Local Responses to the Rate Problem in the Suburbs of Early Stuart London

2025/08/27 by Aaron Columbus · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Arts and Humanities · #Historical Economic and Social Studies #Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

paper · doi:10.1080/03058034.2025.2526888

Abstract

While arrears in the poor rate was a distinctive feature of Westminster and London’s more immediate suburban parishes in the first half of the seventeenth century, it has not been discussed in great detail by historians. This article shows that it was a worsening problem exacerbated by plague. Understanding the rate problem helps elucidate the growth of urban inequality and the resultant variegated perceptions of belonging and communal obligations in London’s suburbs. The article explores the dimensions of the problem and the response of parish vestries to rate refusal, which includes the ways in which plague and poverty intersected. Problems with the collection of rates impacted the available resources of parishes to manage the poor and plague, which influenced hardening perceptions of belonging. The article also considers the increasing preoccupation of suburban vestries with those taking accommodation in the parish without recognised residency and the landlords who provided that accommodation.

Discussions

• My brilliant friend Aaron Columbus just had this published in The London Journal. doi.org/10.1080/0305... It is well worth a read! [bsky, 6 points, 0 comments]

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