CMH Projects

Life in the suburbs: health, domesticity and status in early modern London

This project investigates the character and development of London’s eastern suburb by examining the life of the inhabitants of the extra-mural parishes of St Botolph Aldgate and Holy Trinity Minories from c.1550-c.1700. Covering just under 80 acres running south from the parish of St Botolph Bishopsgate to the Thames, this area experienced a population explosion during the early modern period, from c.3,500 inhabitants in 1540, over 11,000 by 1650, to nearly 20,000 by 1700.

London and the tidal Thames 1250-1550: marine flooding, embankment and economic change

The lands bordering the tidal river Thames and the Thames Estuary have historically been highly vulnerable to marine flooding. The most severe of these floods derive from North Sea storm surges, when wind and tide combine to drive huge quantities of water against the coast, as happened to devastating effect in 1953. This project seeks to understand the occurrence of storm flooding in the past, and to explore the ways in which people have responded to the threat.

Records of London's Livery Companies Online: Apprentices and Freemen 1400-1900 (ROLLCO)

Stained glass - Worshipful Company of Ironmongers and of Clothworkers

ROLLCO is a collaboration between four of London’s Livery Companies and the Centre of Metropolitan History/Institute of Historical Research which provides free access to the historic membership records of the Worshipful Companies of Clothworkers, Drapers, Goldsmiths and Mercers. The first phase of the online database contains the details of 60,000 apprenticeship bindings, 40,000 admissions to the freedom, and 270,000 named individuals from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

A checklist of unpublished London diaries

Unpublished diaries often contain useful information about London life. This guide attempts to list as many as possible, of all periods, that survive in the record offices, libraries and private lands in the country and abroad. It will be indexed by author, place and subject. The checklist was published by the London Record Society in 2003.

Bibliography of printed works on London history to 1939 and supplement

Cover of Bibliograph of printed works on London history to 1939

The bibliography, undertaken in co-operation with the Guildhall Library, comprises selected works published to the end of 1990. The supplement continues the work of the volume published in 1994, adding material published since 1991. The bibliography was incorporated into London's past online in May 2002.

Borough market privileges in southern England, c.1370-1430

This short project assembles information from printed sources on the operation of markets, tolls and trading connections in southern and eastern England over the period c.1370-1430. The results are in the form of a computer database, which is especially informative on Londoners' activities and on bridges and trade routes.

Comparative Metropolitan History

Since October 2001, the Leverhulme Trust has provided support for comparative metropolitan history at the CMH. This funding includes a chair in Comparative Metropolitan History, a postdoctoral fellowship, a postgraduate studentship, lectures and conferences.

Coventry and Dresden after 1940/45

The project explores the cultural history of two cities in the aftermath of total devastation in the Second World War. Much of Coventry and Dresden were wiped out or 'coventrated' by aerial bombardment in November 1940 and February 1945 respectively. These events inflicted death and destruction upon historic cities in a manner disproportionate to military objectives and their story has been recalled through social rituals and monuments time and again since 1940/45.

English merchant culture: the overseas trader in state and society, 1660-1720

This project studies the influence of the merchant classes on the politics and society of late-Stuart England. Historians have for some time acknowledged the importance of economic developments in this age of financial and commercial revolution, which saw the nation transformed into a major international power. However, relatively little is known of mercantile opinion and its political and cultural impact.

Epidemics and mortality in the pre-industrial city: Florence and London compared

Image from the cover of the Bills of Mortality

This is the first study to compare the effect of epidemic disease on two of the major cities of seventeenth-century Europe, using the outbreaks of 1630-3 in Florence and 1665 in London as case studies. The studies compare the 'normal' patterns of mortality in the two cities with those for the crisis years, paying special attention to the geographical spread of plague within the cities and its differential impact in areas of contrasting social and physical character.