Authorities In London Research Articles

Delivering affordable workspace: Perspectives of developers and workspace providers in London

The provision of subsidised workspace for small enterprises has been a public sector concern in many developed economies since the 1960s. In recent years, the focus of economic development initiatives has shifted away from supply side initiatives, such as fiscal incentives and the direct provision of premises, towards a consideration of the collective provision of infrastructure and services, in order to meet demands of businesses and workers in cities where there is already strong demand and growth. As well as this shift from supply- to demand-side initiatives, there has been a change in the political ideological approach to land and property development, away from public sector direct provision and funding, to place greater onus on the private sector to deliver development, infrastructure and services. The introduction of ‘affordable workspace’ planning policies by local authorities in London from the early 2000s is part of this shift – building on more established key worker and affordable housing policies.This paper evaluates the success of affordable workspace planning policies in thirteen mixed use schemes in London, from the perspectives of developers and workspace providers, who are responsible for delivering and managing the affordable workspace. First, it finds that the perspective of the developer, in particular whether it sees affordable workspace policy as (a) an opportunity, (b) a ‘tool’ to secure planning permission or (c) a burden, is mostly influenced by the way in which the affordable workspace emerged within the proposal. Developers’ perspectives and the success of their partnerships with workspace providers are critical to the successful delivery of affordable workspace within the scheme. Second, the findings show that ‘affordable workspace’ is difficult to define and deliver, with different interpretations used by delivery partners and the ability of workspace providers to deliver affordability depends critically on their organisational model. Finally, the research shows that although there are clear benefits of the policy for artists and small, creative industry businesses, it is not benefiting low-value manufacturers or small family-run retail and service businesses, nor is it generally benefiting start-ups. The implications of policy outcomes for economic development are considered; overall the beneficial impacts are limited. The research concludes that the predominant model of affordable workspace policy being promoted in London will fail to meet the aspirations of policy makers, with the limited success of policy further compounded by the global recession of the late-2000s. Alternative or complementary strategies are discussed.

Introduction

Introduction

Aspiration, Attainment and Success: An Agent-Based Model of Distance-Based School Allocation

In recent years, UK governments have implemented policies that emphasise the ability of parents to choose which school they wish their child to attend. Inherently spatial school-place allocation rules in many areas have produced a geography of inequality between parents that succeed and fail to get their child into preferred schools based upon where they live. We present an agent-based simulation model developed to investigate the implications of distance-based school-place allocation policies. We show how a simple, abstract model can generate patterns of school popularity, performance and spatial distribution of pupils which are similar to those observed in local education authorities in London, UK. The model represents 'school' and 'parent' agents. Parental 'aspiration' to send their child to the best performing school (as opposed to other criteria) is a primary parent agent attribute in the model. This aspiration attribute is used as a means to constrain the location and movement of parent agents within the modelled environment. Results indicate that these location and movement constraints are needed to generate empirical patterns, and that patterns are generated most closely and consistently when schools agents differ in their ability to increase pupil attainment. Analysis of model output for simulations using these mechanisms shows how parent agents with above-average – but not very high – aspiration fail to get their child a place at their preferred school more frequently than other parent agents. We highlight the kinds of alternative school-place allocation rules and education system policies the model can be used to investigate.

Introduction

Introduction Sheila Corrall (bio) and Barbara Sen (bio) This issue of Library Trends, on the theme of Research Into Practice, has been designed with two aims in mind. Published in 2013, it marks the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Information School (iSchool) at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom by presenting a selection of papers that demonstrate the creativity and variety of research undertaken in the field of librarianship and share a unifying concern to make links, as well as establish meaningful connections, between research and practice. The issue is dedicated to Bob Usherwood, now an emeritus professor in the school, whose work and legacy at Sheffield are distinguished by an exemplary commitment to putting research into practice, and it is especially pleasing for us to be able offer this tribute to Bob in the year when he is due to celebrate his seventieth birthday. We also believe that an issue on this theme is timely and important for our profession. There has been a strong drive lately to promote evidence-based practice in library and information work and to develop a research culture in the practitioner community, exemplified in the United Kingdom by the DREaM project, amid continuing concerns about the disconnect between the research and practitioner communities (Hall, 2011a, 2011b). The Sheffield iSchool was founded as the Postgraduate School of Librarianship in 1963. It was the second university-level school of its kind in the United Kingdom and the first to switch from the postgraduate diploma to a master’s degree, the master’s degree in librarianship (MA Librarianship), as a basic qualification for the library profession (the first library school in the United Kingdom was established at University College London in 1919, and it was not until after World War II that other schools appeared, many of them located in technical colleges and colleges of commerce) (Bramley, 1981). In 1967, an additional program, which offered the MSc in Information Studies, was introduced and the school’s name changed to the Postgraduate School of Librarianship and Information [End Page 471] Science. Over the next forty years, the school continued to grow, to develop and expand its areas of expertise, and to introduce new programs, including bachelor’s and master’s degrees in information management and a master’s in information systems, in addition to specialized master’s degrees in chemoinformatics, health informatics, information systems management, multilingual information management, and digital library management, while the master’s in librarianship continued as its flagship program. Throughout its history, professional education at the iSchool has been research led, incorporating research from Sheffield and elsewhere into the teaching of faculty and the learning of students. The school was a pioneer in library and information science (LIS) research in the United Kingdom, winning its first research grant (in the area of information retrieval) within months of opening and subsequently developing a very strong doctoral program, which now attracts candidates from all parts of the world. Sheffield has consistently achieved the top ranking in the United Kingdom for LIS research in every national research assessment exercise since the process was introduced more than twenty years ago. Research at the school can be broadly grouped into two main areas: library and information management, covering the use and management of information in a range of organizational contexts, and computational informatics, covering the computational tools required to support information systems of various sorts. In 2009, Sheffield became the first U.K. school to join the international iSchools group and formally adopted the name Information School in 2010. Bob Usherwood joined the school as a lecturer in librarianship in 1976, after a distinguished career in public libraries, which included the position of chief librarian for a large library authority in London. After promotions at Sheffield to senior lecturer and then reader, he was appointed as a full professor of librarianship in 1998. Over a period of nearly thirty years in the school, Usherwood led the development and expansion of its teaching, research, and outreach in public librarianship, as well as doing innovative and seminal work of wider applicability in the areas of quality management, workforce planning, and leadership development. He deliberately set out to...

Curtis’s Cephaloscope: Deafness and the Making of Surgical Authority in London, 1816–1845

Aural surgery is a branch of nineteenth-century medicine and surgery providing specialized treatment for ear diseases. During the 1830s, faced with a "popular prejudice" against the curability of deafness as well as intraprofessional rivalries and continuous accusations of quackery, aurists found their surgical authority questioned and their field's value threatened. In an attempt to bolster aural surgery's reputation, in 1841, the aurist John Harrison Curtis (1778-1856) introduced his new diagnostic instrument, the cephaloscope, which could not only improve diagnosis but also provide approaches for regulating aural knowledge, thus strengthening aural surgery's authority. This article examines the motives underlying Curtis's introduction of the cephaloscope and the meanings it held for the occupational group at large.

You Forgot Your Double Security Check

Just three years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the British historian Phillip Knightly published an unconventional history of western espionage entitled The Second Oldest Profession. The title cleverly ranked the sordidness of espionage just shy of the dirty secrets of prostitution (the oldest profession) and foreshadowed one of the book's central theses. The secret history of intelligence communities, Knightly argues, remains untold not because it is comprised of classified material. The history remains untold, he argues, because it is comprised of unimpressive, exaggerated successes accompanied by countless failed performances and because a full critical assessment of this history would counter the very justification for the existence of intelligence communities as such. While a questionable use of the veil of national security is certainly a plausible reason that this history is obscured from the critical scrutiny, my paper argues that however unimpressive the record of the intelligence community might be, intelligence communities thrive not because of a clever ability to obscure their short-comings but because they appeal to a more basic cultural desire to believe in performance, particularly performance shrouded in mystery and particularly mystery that performs as a surrogate for memory. They themselves are not immune to this desire. Examples from the history of espionage that illustrate this point are numerous, but my paper suggests that there are few better examples than that of Great Britain's “Special Operations Executive,” or SOE during WWII. As a focal point, I am specifically interested in the frequent capture of SOE agents by Germans in Holland and France who then coerced the captured SOE agents into transmitting false reports to London that seduced the British into sending more agents who, in turn, were met, captured and also coerced by the Germans into transmitting false reports. Drawing upon an odd configuration of theories about performance, encryption, radio drama and poetic discourse, my essay explores how the multi-layered performances that these false transmissions required played against agreed upon protocols for signaling capture. In short, my paper explores the question of why the authorities in London repeatedly chose – indeed, were culturally predisposed – to believe the radio performances and forget the signs designed to signal capture and failure.

Taking the pulse of the London maternity units

Capacity, closure and diverts has been an issue for the maternity services in the capital. London is unique in that there are 26 provider units accepting maternity admissions with an additional number of stand-alone and attached midwifery units. In the past, escalation, closure and monitoring relied on each maternity unit self-reporting to the local supervisory authority (LSA) in London. Any formal closure (suspension) of service and diverts of women with in the maternity services also entailed informing the London Ambulance Service (LAS) of any temporary closure so that pregnant women or any obstetric emergencies could be directed or taken elsewhere by the ambulance service. The development of the pan-London closure and divert policy between the LSA, strategic heath authority (SHA), LAS and London maternity provider units provided a unique opportunity to develop a coordinated strategic planning and monitoring tool, which enabled monitoring of escalation and unit closure. This monitoring tool developed as a traffic light system and embedded in the closure policy, enabled maternity unit capacity and service status to be an effectively monitored with an independent information system hosted by the LAS which informs the LSA, and importantly ensures that women are able to access care from the nearest open maternity service in a timely fashion during times of high capacity.

The Market for Argument: Preaching the Puritan Counterpublic at Paul’s Cross

The Market for Argument: Preaching the Puritan Counterpublic at Paul’s Cross Simon du Toit (bio) Reverend John Stockwood delivered two sermons at Paul’s Cross, London, on August 24, 1578, and May 10, 1579. Stockwood’s sermons have been most widely known as antitheatrical pamphlets. Later antitheatrical pamphlets used the Paul’s Cross sermons of Stockwood and Thomas White as authority and precedent and the sermons circulated and re-circulated in print. I will suggest, however, that in spite of this legacy, Stockwood’s sermons can be read as resistant political action whose very embodied performance, delivered with the fire of passionate preaching, for which many puritans were notorious, produced his social status. I want to suggest that Stockwood’s preaching and the entire arc of his journey into London share a similar end: the bringing to market of what Michael Warner has called a counterpublic, and with it the circulation of a resistant order of both private interiority and public space.1 Consumption, digestion, and circulation of bodily order produced performances such as Stockwood’s, and contributed significantly to the market value of prophetic performative speech. By means of a distinctive cultural disposition to produce, market, and consume performance, puritan speech strove to reshape the civic order of early modern England. In this light, Paul’s Cross becomes a central space for mediating the struggle between public (sovereign) authority and the private realm. What interests me in this discussion is, first, the consequences and function of antitheatrical speech, which seem to offer a kind of limit case in discussing theories of performative authority. Antitheatricality has been resolved by some into a binary2 of opposed models of performance, and by others into a mutually constitutive exchange of ideologies and practices.3 In either view, questions of normativity and transgression are implied. Secondly, the evidence presented below suggests that the performative authority accorded to ritual speech placed ritual performance into circulation in distinctive ways in early modern London. Consumers sought it out because of its perceived efficacy. Although Warner never specifically discusses Austin, his examination of Habermas, which asserts that [End Page 75] publics are among the conditions of textuality, may provide a useful set of ideas for approaching performative uptake through a discussion of the conditions of circulation. 4 Since publics are “all local culture and contingent history,”5 they might offer a useful model for viewing the social role of performative speech in history. To attend to Stockwood’s deployment of performance strategies, this essay will first examine two important aspects of place in performance: the geographic and the textual. Paul’s Cross blended church, state, and discursive authority in early modern London as it was at once the seat of the Bishop of London, the pulpit from which official state policy was often announced, and the center of London’s bookselling trade. Next, I want to examine the crucial role of embodiment in Stockwood’s assertion of a proper social order, in both their public and their private aspects. The proper order of the affections in the humoral body emerges, in Stockwood’s view, as a crucial aspect of preaching efficacy. Finally, the essay will trace the patterns of circulation that enabled Stockwood to participate in the construction of the resistant power constituted in the puritan poetic world. A Counter-Cross on the City-Stage Although Stockwood did not record his journey, similar journeys through Elizabethan civic space were recorded. With the help of those records and some conjecture, it seems possible to suggest some features of Stockwood’s pedestrian performance as he approached London. Stockwood, who was headmaster of the Tonbridge School in Kent, would have set out from Tonbridge on a journey towards London, probably on Friday, May 8, 1579. A month or so earlier he would have received a notice from John Aylmer, Bishop of London, inviting him to preach a public sermon at Paul’s Cross on Sunday, May 10. He was promised the customary fee, which was then about 45 shillings, and was given an address at which he would be offered the usual four nights’ lodging at the Bishop’s expense. As he traveled he no doubt was turning his...

Directing the War from Trafalgar Square? Vincent Massey and the Canadian High Commission, 1939–42

This article explores a number of key facets of Vincent Massey's tenure as Canada's wartime high commissioner in London between 1939 and 1942. Using the personal tensions and mutual suspicions which existed between Massey and the mercurial Canadian prime minister, W. L. Mackenzie King, this essay analyses how Massey and his dedicated staff coped with the increasing and punishing workload during the first three years of the Second World War. Wheat, wartime finance and the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan dominated Anglo-Canadian relations during the early stages of the war when the British Empire/Commonwealth stood almost alone against the European dictators. What emerges is that, despite King's attempts to restrict Massey's authority in wartime London, the pressure of prime ministerial work in Ottawa allowed Massey, for the first time since his appointment in 1935, to exert the authority and responsibility he so desperately craved prior to the war. However, this essay is not just about high policy and the tensions between Trafalgar Square and Ottawa or within the Commonwealth alliance. Massey and his wife Alice also responded magnificently to the needs of off-duty Canadian service personnel while on leave in London. At the centre of this analysis is the changing and at times frustrating part played by the Canadian high commissioner in London and Massey's role in modernising the office of high commissioner.

‘Diversity in setting of words makes diversity in understanding’: Bureaucratic and Political Language in Thomas Usk’s Testament of Love

The language of Thomas Usk’s Testament of Love is profoundly influenced by his professional linguistic environments, notably his work for John Northampton’s political party and as scribe for the Goldsmiths’ guild. Usk uses technical terms and stylistic features which are typically relegated to political and bureaucratic Anglo-Norman French texts. Gathering these examples and contextualizing them within the Goldsmiths’ Minute Books and Usk’s Appeal Against John Northampton, this essay shows that Usk’s creative use of language is an important strategy for his aims in writing the Testament, and that it is a provocative tool for the construction of identity and authority in London at the end of the fourteenth century. That the ‘vernacular’ language of the Testament includes the Anglo-French terminology of Usk’s professional background should prompt us to reconsider the significance of technical bureaucratic and political registers for the communication of experience.

Variation, precision and validity of 1-year survival estimates for lung, breast, colon and prostate cancer in South East England primary care trusts

English cancer policy has encouraged primary care trusts (PCTs) to consider their 1-year cancer survival estimates. This study quantifies variation in these estimates across 39 PCTs in the London and South East Coast strategic health authorities, and explores their precision, possible confounding by age and bias due to death certificate only (DCO) registrations. Retrospective observational study. One-year relative survival estimates and data on DCO registrations for patients diagnosed with lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers between 2002 and 2006 were extracted from the UK Cancer Information Service. Direct age standardization was performed with weightings derived from the standard cancer patient population for Europe. Pearson correlation coefficients between survival estimates and DCO proportions were calculated. Mean 1-year PCT survival estimates ranged from 6.9 to 19.4 percentage points, and the precision of individual estimates ranged from ±0.9 to ±6.5 percentage points (at 95% confidence level). Age standardization significantly changed the estimates of nine PCTs for breast cancer, five PCTs for lung cancer and three PCTs for colorectal cancer. None of the prostate cancer estimates were affected significantly. DCO proportions were positively associated with lung cancer survival and negatively associated with colorectal and breast cancer survival. PCT 1-year cancer survival estimates may be informative, but caveats relating to data quality and hence the validity of the estimates means that they require careful investigation before naïve use, as random variation, confounding due to age and bias due to DCO registrations may be significant.

London 1911 : celebrating the imperial

Unlike many rival capital cities (Paris, Berlin, Washington D.C.), London combined functions as the seat of government, major seaport, industrial and commercial centre. London authorities sought to control and improve the living and working conditions within their boundaries. Unlike its rivals however, London was seen to be lacking in monuments and urban layout suitable to its calling. The local authorities in London sought to remedy the planning side but celebration in stone and pageantry were ensured by official displays and semi-official entertainment heavily underpinned with imperial designs.

Heritage Discourse and the Desexualisation of Public Space: The “Historical Restorations” of Bloomsbury's Squares

Abstract: In recent years, the local authorities in London's historic Bloomsbury district have carried out a number of refurbishments of the area's public squares. These landscaping schemes have typically been labelled “historical restorations” in attempts to predetermine the evaluation criteria as “historic” rather than political, social and aesthetic. Focusing on Russell Square and Bloomsbury Square, this paper illustrates how the “restorations” were selective: the introduction of gates and railings and the removal of planting were not primarily designed to restore these historical gardens, but reflect a surveillance‐friendly ideal of urban space, specifically introduced to displace the men who used these squares for cruising. Through a detailed review of archival material from both mainstream and gay media, I illustrate the shifting forms of policing and landscaping in Bloomsbury's squares, while also highlighting how homonormative capital has colluded with the regulation of public space in this part of London.

Improving statutory health assessments for looked after children

The aim of the change project described in this article was to improve the service provision of statutory health assessments for looked after children in the children's services department of a local authority in London. These children and young people are some of the most vulnerable in the UK, with many associated health needs and poor outcomes. Statute dictates they undergo a series of health assessments, but how this service is provided differs from borough to borough. The change process was led by a change agent and was based on change theory. It resulted in an effective referral system, with an increase of 93 per cent in the number of referrals received. Ongoing evaluation allows for continued development and improvement of the service. The changes have gone some way towards ensuring the health needs of this group are being better addressed by those who are accountable.

Social acceptance; a possible mediator in the association between socio-economic deprivation and under-18 pregnancy rates?

This study examines the social acceptance of young (under-18) pregnancy by assessing people's acceptance of young pregnancy and abortion in relation to deprivation. A cross-sectional survey design was conducted in two relatively affluent and two relatively deprived local authorities in London (n=570). Contrary to previous findings, participants were significantly more accepting of young pregnancy in the more affluent areas and if they were young parents. When controlling for other personal characteristics, only age remained significantly related to acceptance, and there was evidence of an interaction between level of area deprivation and age. The work supported previous findings, with people in more affluent areas being the most accepting of abortion. Age and ethnicity were significantly associated with acceptance of abortion after adjusting for level of area deprivation. An interaction effect between ethnicity and area deprivation was found. The importance of the psychosocial processes behind acceptance of young pregnancy was highlighted. Area deprivation does not have a uniform influence over people who vary in their personal characteristics. Young pregnancy prevention programmes and support groups for young parents must address the influence of social deprivation, age and ethnicity and how this affects the fabric of young people's lives.

Deviance and Power in Late Medieval London (review)

Reviewed by: Deviance and Power in Late Medieval London Barbara A. Hanawalt Deviance and Power in Late Medieval London. By Frank Rexroth. Translated by Pamela E. Selwyn. [Past and Present Publications.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2007. Pp. xiv, 411. $115.00. ISBN 978-0-521-84730-8.) Frank Rexroth’s study of the marginals and the underworld of medieval London was first published in German as Das Mileu der Nacht: Obrigkeit und Ranggruppen im Spämittelalterlichen London (Göttingen, 1999). The book is a very important one and deserving of a translation to make it more generally [End Page 141] available to an English-speaking audience. The change of title is an improvement, because it places the emphasis on the author’s thesis that by defining deviants, the governing elite increased their own power. The book is divided into two parts that rest somewhat uneasily with each other. The first part is a chronological consideration of the changing mentality of medieval London civic ideas and official thinking starting with the Hundred Years War and culminating with the major moral legislation of John of Northampton at the end of the fourteenth century. The second part of the book deals more directly with the underworld itself, taken largely from the few surviving courts of the aldermen. These courts, Rexroth argues, strengthened the hand of the aldermen and helped to define the expected behavior of citizens of London. These records, however, are sporadically preserved and leave some doubt about their effectiveness in supporting the author’s thesis. Rexroth argues in the first section that London authorities, struggling with keeping peace in the city, focused on differentiating the insiders (the elites) from the other, the good from the bad. The program of marginalizing segments of the population started with Jews and lepers, but then moved on to include prostitutes and sturdy beggars. Foreigners, particularly Italians and Flemish, and new arrivals from the countryside were regarded with suspicion and sometimes became the object of deadly riots. The Hundred Years War brought new levels of xenophobia and anxiety about keeping order. The next crises, the plague of 1348 and subsequent outbreaks of the disease, brought new alarms. The king, Parliament, and London’s elite became alarmed at the increased mobility of the surviving population who sought higher wages. The old order seemed to have become unmoored. The immediate reaction was to try to freeze prices and wages at the 1347 level. Enforcement was difficult, but it gave renewed possibilities for London’s mayor and aldermen to crack down on the vagrants and new immigrants to the city. The Revolt of 1381 gave impetus to more refined definitions of “the other” and more public humiliations of offenders such as the pillory. As reflected in the original title of the book, Rexroth argues that the marginalized groups functioned after dark, but his argument contains contrary threads. He argues that London authorities not only wanted to marginalize people but also wanted to strive for moral purity and transparency of the city laws and ordinances. To this end, they also passed ordinances about butchering, street cleaning, and other aspects of the daily running of the city. But these activities were not all conducted at night, and the offenders were not marginals. The fault of Rexroth’s argument lies in his attempt to weave into his argument all the information available on London’s records. In the process he loses the thread of the argument and stretches the patience of the reader with superfluous data. For a scholar interested in the detail of London peacekeeping, Rexroth’s book is a great contribution. For readers who would like to learn about the [End Page 142] medieval underworld, however, the attempt to tie virtually everything that happened to his thesis obscures the author’s main points. Barbara A. Hanawalt The Ohio State University Copyright © 2009 The Catholic University of America Press

The Rise of Commercial Playing in 1540s London

The advent of custom-built playhouses such as the Theatre in the 1570s has rightly been seen as an important turning point in the development of English theatre, but these playhouses did not arise in a vacuum, as some scholars have long recognized. This paper argues that a similar turning point occurred more than thirty years earlier in the early 1540s, when commercial playing -- in which players had to find a venue and attract their own audience, rather than being hired for a specific occasion -- became widely popular in London. Only in the late 1530s and early 1540s do we start to see evidence of players paying to rent out livery company halls, and at the same time we find the earliest records of London authorities trying to control playing that was occurring outside official channels. This paper provides much previously unknown information about the people and places named in these records, allowing us to gain a fuller picture of the social context and physical conditions of this early London playing.

Child protection and re‐referrals involving serious concerns: a follow‐up study of 400 referrals closed by Social Services Departments

ABSTRACTIn England and Wales, local authorities have a duty under the 1989 Children Act to protect children from significant harm. This study builds on a previous paper that considered patterns of re‐referral in cases that were not allocated; it considers re‐referrals involving serious concerns about a child. File studies were carried out on 400 consecutive referrals to three local authorities in London that were closed rather than being allocated for long‐term work in early 2000. Information on the presence and nature of re‐referrals involving concerns about actual or potential ‘significant harm’ in the 27 months after closure (i.e. up to 2002) was noted. Such re‐referrals were rare (2.75%). The factors that were statistically associated with them were: previous involvement with Social Services, physical abuse and parental alcohol misuse in the closed referral. These factors were also identified in a descriptive analysis of the re‐referrals, though in addition issues not present in the original referral were identified as important, namely parental mental illness and sexual abuse. The findings were encouraging about the effectiveness of initial child protection assessment processes at the time of referral closure. The potential for the factors identified in the analyses to be used in initial risk assessment and their applicability to current policy and practice is considered.

ANDREW T. HARRIS. — Policing the City. Crime and Legal Authority in London, 1780-1840. (Columbus: The Ohio State U P, 2004, x + 205 pp., $ 41.95.)

ANDREW T. HARRIS. — Policing the City. Crime and Legal Authority in London, 1780-1840. (Columbus: The Ohio State U P, 2004, x + 205 pp., $ 41.95.)

Housing for the Lesser Sort in Stuart London: Findings from Certificates, and Returns of Divided Houses

Conflicts between the Crown's and London authorities' desire to prohibit and control London's growth, and in-migrants' need for cheap housing, forced many builders to provide it in unconventional ways, sometimes from unusual sources. The Certificates of offending houses and builders, and the Returns of Divided Houses give us an unusually clear picture of the types of houses so produced along with a sense of the people, mostly poor, who were forced to seek out this kind of shelter. The Returns also provide detailed first-hand accounts of the incredible degree of overcrowding that sometimes occurred in the heart of London in the mid-seventeenth-century.