Reconstituting families and their demographic behaviour in intra- and extra-mural London parishes c. 1550-1750
Introduction | Cheapside | Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell
The other case study focuses on a family reconstitution of the rapidly growing, extra-mural parish of Clerkenwell which more than doubled in size over the course of the seventeenth century. By 1723 it contained 15,000 persons compared with a population of 4000 in 1600. It had received a large number of immigrants and, as a result of high population throughput, the challenge to nominative analysis of sources is very great. However, given the large and burgeoning size of the population, it has been possible to secure an array of demographic attributes which it has so far not been possible to derive from a residentially-specific population grouping, identified individually, in this part of London. This work is still in progress, but it is clear that unlike the Cheapside parishes this was a relatively poor area of the growing metropolis which suffered from housing shortages and most likely deteriorating housing conditions in the early eighteenth century. Such environmental conditions are consistent with infant mortality rates that exceeded 400 per 1000 by the 1740s. These rates may be regarded as more robustly secured than those for Cheapside since few infants would have been at nurse and therefore at risk to die extra-parochially.
Data on those who married in Clerkenwell, as well those from Clerkenwell who married elsewhere in London and Middlesex locations, have been assembled, making it possible to engage in a demographic analysis of those marrying clandestinely in the early eighteenth century—a period in which this mode of marriage became exceedingly common.
Marriage Location 1550-1770 [click for larger version]
It has proved possible to investigate the ages of those marrying in Clerkenwell and at the Fleet (a particularly important centre of clandestine marriage), and in the early eighteenth the mean age at first marriage was high for both marriage categories, having risen to the late twenties. Although there were a significant number of persons marrrying at younger ages, this is counterbalanced by numbers of late first marriages with brides and grooms aged in their thirties and even forties.
Female age at first marriage frequency distribution by marriage location, 1701-50
Male age at first marriage frequency distribution by marriage location, 1701-50
In fact, rapid demographic growth was taking place within the context of a low-intensity nuptiality regime. What is also striking is that the data suggest that Clerkenwell brides, whether marrying in accordance with canonical best practice or marrying clandestinely, were far less likely to be pre-nuptially pregnant that those outside the metropolis, indicating that a desire to hide pregnancy was not a significant factor encouraging this highly popular form of clandestine marriage. Indeed, prenuptial pregnancy as well as illegitimacy were relatively uncommon features of this demographic regime, suggesting that London was not a magnet for unmarried mothers or those who were sexually active outside of or prior to marriage.
Prenuptial pregnancy rates 1700-49
Future work will make it possible to look more thoroughly at the marital fertility and infant and child mortality of this parish, which might be regarded as an exemplar for broad sections of the Northern and Eastern suburbs of early modern London that grew so rapidly between c. 1650 and 1750.