Eighteenth-century London.(Book Review)

The title of this month's book narrows itself into a cone as it progresses: The Small House in Eighteenth-Century London: A Social and Architectural History. The introduction is something of an apologia for these self-imposed limitations, beginning with the caution: "Much of this book focuses on ... the bottom half of the top half, broadly definable as made up of artisans, that is skilled tradespeople and their families." The author goes on: "This is also a deliberately unbalanced account. Or rather, it is critically counterbalanced, tipping towards London's east and south, to artisans and labourers, with little to say about the west or the wealthy." At a stroke this rules out the visitor's London, which is chiefly the west and the north.

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The first two chapters are surveys of eighteenth-century London and its small house architecture. The remainder of the book zeroes in on various sections of the town, the most interesting of which are centers of specific trades such as silk weaving (Spitalfields and Bethnal Green), tanning and hatmaking (Southwark and Bermondsey), and shipbuilding (Deptford to Woolwich).

The imperative for silk weavers in Spitalfields and Bethnal Green was good light so that they did not break the fragile thread and could properly match colors. This led to the development of the broad weaver's window in the upper story of weavers' houses, which were both their place of business and home. In the interest of maximum light these houses were only one room deep. In this quarter, the weaver's window lingered into the nineteenth century even in houses rebuilt for nonweavers.

Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames, was the dumping ground for noxious industries like tanning and brewing and dangerous trades like burning lime and making saltpeter. Because it was beyond the control of the authorities in the City of London, the region attracted radicals, religious dissidents, prisons, brothels, and bear pits. The development of Southwark was dictated by its situation on the edge of a marsh, which also extended to Bermondsey to the southeast. However, the tidal streams that meandered through the marsh perfectly suited tanners, who needed lots of water and space for large tanning pits. And the tanning of hides suited the hatmakers, who also lived in these parts. Despite the Building Act of 1707, which made all wood houses illegal, timber was the normal building material in this part of London in the eighteenth century. A late nineteenth-century account of one of these surviving two-room houses makes an early New York City tenement seem positively palatial: "You were straightaway in the combined reception-drawing-living-scullery-kitchen-and-extra-bedroom. A very convenient arrangement which saved a lot of walking and housework. Opposite the fireplace you opened what appeared to be a cupboard door and ascended the stairs to the remaining room overhead. The steps rising in front of your nose were placed conveniently for putting one's hands on in order to assist the assent [sic], rendering handrails ...