The London Journal
Volume 24 No.2 1999
ABSTRACTS
FRANCIS BREMER, William Winthrop and Religious Reform in London 1529-1582 (pp. 1-17)
William Winthrop (1529-1582) was a member of the Clothworkers Company
and long time resident of the parish of St Michael's Cornhill. He was a
committed Protestant who remained in London during the marian reign, being
active in the underground church in the metropolis and providing aid to
fellow believers in prison such as John Careless. After Elizabeth's
accession he sought to further the cause of reform in a vartiety of ways.
He provided the martyrologist John Foxe with letters of some hwo had died
for the faith. Winthrop served as an officer of his own parish church and
supported liturgical reforms. He was also actively engaged in supporting
the Protestant stranger churches in London, raising funds for the Spanish
and French congregations and serving as an elder of the Italian
congregation. Winthrop was associated with John Field and other clergy who
were identified as puritans and he used his financial resouces to
guarantee the composition for first fruits of reform-minded clergymen in
London and also in Stour Valley region along the Essex-Suffolk border
where his relatives lived.
JENNINE HURL, 'She being bigg with
child is likely to miscarry': Pregnant Victims Prosecuting Assault in
Westminster 1685-1720 (pp. 18-33) This paper studies
recognizances to appear for assault at Westminster Quarter Sessions from
1685 to 1720. In this period, there were roughly 4000 of these
recognizances representing women's complaints against an alleged
assailant. Though these women may have been victims of violence, they were
empowered by bringing their complaints before a justice of the peace. This
seems tobe especially the case for pregnant women. The number of
recognizances that mention the pregnancy of the victim - though small in
comparison with the total - become significant in contrast to those that
mention any other condition of the victim (such as age or infirmity) that
would exaggerate the effects of the assault. London society in the late
seventeenth and early eighteenth century placed strong value on
motherhood, and popular medical views advocated strict care and indulgence
of the expectant mother. These attitudes are reflected in the language of
the recognizances in this study. In their choice to record the extra
information of the plaintiff's condition, the Westminster justices appear
to have been heavily influenced by the veneration of maternity. Most
significantly, however, these pregnant women seem to have taken advantage
of their elevated status, volunteering the information of their pregnancy
to increase their likelihood of gaining retribution.
MARC BRODIE, Artisans and Dossers:
the 1886 West End Riots and the East End Casual Poor (pp.
34-50) The political and social attitudes of the casually
employed, unskilled, poor of nineteenth-century London - thought to be
typified by the residents of the city's East End - have not been the
subject of any particularly rigorous examination by historians. Support
for populist Conservatism, combined with a 'pre-industrial' willingness to
riot, have essentially been the responses ascribed to this group. The
riots which shook the West End of London on 8 February, 1886, following a
meeting of the unemployed called in support of trade protection, have been
tekn as classic evidence for this. This paper argues that the riot was not
the result of any simple tendency towards violence amongst the casual poor
nor did the events of that day demonstrate a fundamental attraction of
unskilled workers to protectionism. This incident in fact canbegin to
suggest aspects of a complex political and social, and far less
economically differentiated, relationship between London's 'casual poor'
and its artisan class. The extent of extreme poverty and casualisation
amongst manual workers in the East End has been greatly overstated by
historians. The support given to causes such as protectionism by some of
the poorest of workers also seems less likely to have resulted from their
vulnerability to populaist rhetoric than from localised political
socialisation processes which were fostered by their continuing
relationship with representatives of the artisan class.
SIMON PARKER, From the Slums to
the Suburbs: Labour Party Policy, the LCC and the Woodberry Down Estate,
Stoke Newington 1934-1961 (pp. 51-69) Using the example
of the Woodberry Down estate in Stoke Newington, this article explores the
often contradictory housing policy of the Labour-controlled London County
Council (LCC) from the 1930s to the 1960s. The LCC's previous involvement
in social housing is evaluated and the controversy surrounding the
adoption of the flatted estate as the principal form of LCC accommodation
in the capital is discussed. The early resistance by Stoke Newington
Borough Council and local residents to the planned devlopment in the late
1930s, the modification and adaptation of the estate's design in the 1940s
and 1950s, and Woodberry Down's distinctive social provision are dealt
with in the account of the estate's history. The article then considers
how successful the LCC was in establishing a genuine community among the
residents and concludes by addressing the obstacles to social cohesion
that London's economy and geography imposed. Contents List of Vol. 24 No. 2
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