The response to plague and the poor in suburban parishes of early modern London

Description

London’s population grew from some 60-70,000 people in 1550 to 200,000 by 1600 and 400,000 in 1650. Plague and poverty were synonymous with that expansion and were particularly identified with the large and socially diverse parish communities beyond the city walls. Contemporary views of the suburban parishes were couched in the pejorative rhetoric of sin, pollution, poverty and pestilence.

The PhD thesis from which this paper is drawn rejects that pessimistic narrative and analyses the response of the suburban parishes to the intersecting problems of plague and the poor in the context of the significant demographic and social burden they managed. Since Paul Slack’s seminal studies of plague and poverty in early modern England, historians have tended to separate the management of the plague from that of the poor, whilst London’s plague narrative tends to focus on the epidemic events and to overlook the long periods when the disease was endemic.

This paper redresses these oversights and describes the search for efficiency amidst increasing need and limited resources and the power and responsibility devolved to the parishes by the Poor Laws and Plague Orders. These laws and orders led suburban parishes toward a double-faceted response that was marked by hardening perceptions of the right to belong, on the one hand, but also pragmatism, flexibility and independent action in meeting myriad social challenges that were exacerbated by the long-term problems of plague.