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Women in the City:London 1720-1725

Ann M. CarlosDepartment of Economics

University of ColoradoBoulder, CO 80309

Ann.carlos@colorado.edu

Larry NealDepartment of Economics

University of IllinoisUrbana, IL 61801

lneal@uiuc.edu

May 23, 2006

This paper was prepared for the XIV International Economic History Congress, 21 to 25August 2006, Helsinki, Finland. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support for theNational Science Foundation for this project. All errors unfortunately remain our own.

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1. Introduction

Towards the denouement of Measure for Measure, in two short pieces of dialogue

between Vincencio, the Duke, and Mariana, a secondary female character, Shakespeare very

neatly sums up perception of the role of women in society.

Act V, Scene 1

Mariana: Pardon, my lord, I will not show my face until my husband bid me.

Duke: What, are you married?

Mariana: No, my lord.

Duke: Are you a maid?

Mariana: No, my lord

Duke: A widow, then?

Mariana: Neither, my lord.

Duke: Why, you are nothing then. Neither maid, widow, nor wife?

Later in the same scene, the Duke ordered Angelo to marry Mariana and then condemned Angelo

to death:

Mariana: O, my most gracious lord, I hope you will not mock me with a husband.

Duke: It is your husband mocked you with a husband. Consenting to the safeguard ofyour honour I thought your marriage fit; … For his possessions, although by confiscationthey are ours, we do instate and widow you with all, to buy you a better husband. (Italicsadded)

Written at the turn of the seventeenth century, Shakespeare captures the traditional

designations of women. Women could be unmarried, as in spinster (never married) or widow

(no longer married), or they could be married, as in wife. These designations would remain the

dominant descriptors for women for more than the next two centuries. In the second vignette,

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Shakespeare has Mariana move from maid to wife and then threatens to widow her, moving her

through the three designations in quick succession. In the act of making her a widow, he

bestows her putative husband’s possessions on her. This action gives her wealth of her own.

This wealth or capital, the Duke notes, will allow her to buy a better husband. Thus even when

in possession of capital, Shakespeare’s description makes that capital a dowry to move woman

back into a married state. Yet this capital has alternative uses. I could be used to buy income-

generating assets other than a ‘better’ husband.

Despite the fact that most women did marry, women also were widowed and some

women remained spinsters. As unmarried women, the law gave them the same rights as men in

that they could own property, buy financial assets, run businesses, sue and be sued. By the end

of the seventeenth century, women were involved in all of these financial activities, although, the

dominance of marital status descriptors many times hides women’s own financial agency. This

papers explores some of the ways in which women might have had access to and use of assets

other than marriage. We begin first with an examination of the extent of female head of

household in the City of London by ward in 1720 and 1725. In each of these years we

document the absolute level of female headship and size relative to the whole population.

Comparing both across wards and across years, we show the ways in which female headship

changes and, in particular, the extent of movement in households in the third decade of the

eighteenth century. In doing so, we add to the path breaking work by Glass (1966) and Spence

(2000) for London at the end of the seventeenth century. We then examine to what extent these

female heads of households were also involved in the market for financial assets, in particular in

the market for Bank of England shares both during the famous South Sea Bubble and five years

after. Do we see a pattern of cross holding of income generating assets for the same group of

women?

We start with a short discussion of women’s legal and hence economic position in the

early modern period. This is followed by a discussion of the data sources used to examine of the

data sources used and of the nature of female headship of households and share ownership. In

short, we find that while there were roughly the same number of households headed by women

in both 1720 and 1725, the women heading these households were different. We also find that

there is little cross holding across these two asset types. Women who were assessed on the tax

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records were not the women who owned shares in the Bank of England. This limited level of

cross holding could have to do with the nature of the assets themselves, or the level of wealth

among women of the more middling sort in the City of London at this time.

2. Women’s Economic Position

The early modern period is one of transition and with that transition there was a

corresponding change in the roles played by women. The transformation of agriculture reduced

women’s opportunities in that sector; the changing nature of manufacturing created some

opportunities in the new industries and reduced ones elsewhere. In addition, opportunities in

trade and business also existed. At the same time, Pamela Sharpe makes clear that there were a

number of factors affecting women’s access to income through work or business.1 The first of

these was economic returns where the wages paid to women were low. Even so, some women

had no choice but to work despite the low wages. In those situations where a woman might

have a choice between waged work and non-waged work, she then faced additional barriers in

terms of ideological factors and legal restraints. Over the course of the early modern period

perception of what constituted women’s work changed; in particular, whether women should be

working for wages at all and consideration of the ‘proper’ role for women in society. Ever

widening gender roles and changes in the perception of domesticity and gentility narrowed the

range of acceptable economic activity for non-poor women.

The legal restrictions underpinning these changes in ideology, which further restricted the

range of activities, have been explored by Holcombe (1983), Sharpe (1996), Staves (1990) and

Froide (2005) among others. As is now well understood, the legal rights of a women in England

independently to own property, real or chattel, revolved around her marital status (Holcombe,

1983: p. 19). As a wife, an English woman’s legal rights were severely constrained. To quote Sir

William Blackstone, the eminent jurist of the eighteenth century:

By marriage the very being or legal existence of a woman is suspended, or at least it is

incorporated or consolidated into that of her husband, under whose wing, protection and

cover she performs everything, and she is therefore called in our law a feme covert.

1Sharpe, Adapting to Capitalism: Working Women in the English Economy, 1700-1850, pp.8-9.

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(Holcombe, 1983: p. 25)

Although some wives did find legal ways to protect assets settled on them, the majority

had little independent financial existence. In contrast, the unmarried woman was a feme sole

with the same legal rights as men to own property, both real and chattel.2 Real property refers to

land and building, while chattel property refers to movable property. Women could own

property both real and chattel and they did so. Property could be settled on a woman at the time

of marriage or on reaching the age of maturity. A woman could also receive assets as part of an

inheritance and women could receive income as part of her dower rights. Right to dower gave

her the right to a life estate to the value of one-third of all real property that her husband owned

at any time during their marriage.3 These rights were protected by common law and the courts of

Common Pleas. Dower rights did, of course, require ownership of some real assets by the

husband. In addition to dower, widows regained control of all assets settled on her before and/or

during a marriage. Over the early modern period there was a shift away from dower and towards

jointure. Rights of jointure were covered under equity and brought tot he Chancery Court for

settlement. Jointure could be either a pre- or post-nuptial settlement. In contrast to dower rights,

jointure could make provision of income through not just through real property but also with

financial assets. In the event that a husband died intestate, the widow was legally entitled to

administer his estate. If he left a will, she could also be named the executor of his estate. Each

of these situations had the potential to give women access to capital which could then be used by

them to buy income-generating assets or another husband.

While legally able, women of the middle classes were restricted in the situations available

to them. In her work on spinsters, Bridget Hill (2001) describe the range of activities that were

possible for more educated or genteel women. They could work as teachers, governesses and

ladies’ companions or stay at home as companions and unpaid housekeepers for elderly parents

or brothers. However, none of these occupations was very highly paid. However, as Earle also

2In her discussion of reform of married women’s property law, Holcombe, points out thecommon law “recognized four different categories of property and applied different rules to each”.There was real property and personal property (or chattels personal) and chattels real and chattelsincorporeal. Wives and Property, p. 19.

3Staves, Married Women’s Separate Property, p. 27.

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notes as does Hill, women with capital could work in business, money lending or pawnbroking.

Many widows ran their own small businesses or lent out their money, but according to Earle,

when women had “sufficient capital to run a large business usually [they] preferred not to. ... [I]t

was not a very genteel activity. ... Richer women chose therefore to invest their money to provide

themselves with a rentier income....”4 Indeed, Earle further argues that “women must have

owned a sizeable proportion of the London housing stock (or at least of the long leases of that

stock) and a woman as landlady must have been a common experience.”5 In line with

Shakespeare’s comment some centuries prior, Earle also states that such assets made women

very attractive in the marriage market.6 With the advent of the capital market, there was another

avenue open to them. The emerging stock market in London was now increasingly available to

women for their own individual use. In examining the portrayal of commerce and gender in the

early modern period, Ingrassia states that “stock-jobbing allows the women to transcend,

however, briefly, constraints on their activities and increase their knowledge, discretionary

income, and power”.7

Capital could thus be used in the property market or in the stock market to increase

women’s financial independence and to reduce their dependency on family, however, broadly or

narrowly defined. We know that these opportunities existed and we know that women took

advantage of these opportunities. In recent work, Carlos and Neal (2004 and 2006) and Carlos,

Maguire and Neal (2006) demonstrate not only the degree of women’s financial activity but also

women’s financial acumen in the capital market during the South Sea Bubble and after. As with

modern studies, they found that gender mattered and that women as a group relative to men

made money in the market. This paper explores further the portfolio choices of women through

a comparison of those women in the property market in London in 1720 and 1725 in relation to

4 Earle, City of People, p.150.

5Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class, pp. 173-174.

6Staves, however, makes the counter argument asserting that “woman’s real protection is... the refusal of the offer of marriage with the individual man.” p.129.

7Ingrassia, Authorship, Commerce and Gender in Early Eighteenth Century England”,p.34.

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those women who owned shares in the Bank of England. In the next section we explore the

nature of household in the City.

3. Land Tax Assessments

The Glorious Revolution and the subsequent wars with France increased the level of

government spending and hence increased government demand for revenue. To pay for the

wars, parliament, beginning in 1962, passed legislation to grant Aid to William and Mary. For

example, 4 William and Mary c. 1 granted aid of four shillings in the pound for one year to the

Crown “for carrying a vigorous war against France.”8 Although initially intended as a war

measure, these aids to the crown had, by the second decade of the eighteenth century, become

annual tax assessments. The original legislation, as noted above, set a rate of so many shillings,

normally four, in the pound, but later just specified an amount levied by area. These Aids to the

Crown set out a rate of assessment both on personal estate and on real property. The taxation of

real property was based on the rental value of the property, while the tax on personal property

was levied on the “yearly profits accruing to any such estate held in the form of ready moneys,

debts owing, goods, wares, merchandises, other chattels of personalty belonging to or held in

trust ‘within this realm or without’”.9

By the 1720s, these taxes were being assessed annually and collected at the local level.

Householders were basically taxed where they lived and so the records are given by ward and

precinct. The tax was administered locally by commissioners who, according to Spence, were

generally chosen for their business acumen, although sometimes also for their political or legal

expertise. The commissioners, in turn, selected the assessors who, in turn, nominated two

individuals in each jurisdiction to collect the tax revenues. There was thus some separation

between assessors and collectors. The records used in this paper are based on the land tax

assessments for the wards in the City of London for 1720 and 1725. The land tax records for the

8Beckett, “Land Tax or Excise:”, p. 285.

9The discussion here is based on the extensive description provided by Craig Spence inhis outstanding London in the 1690s. See chapter one for a much more complete description ofthe Aids p. 10.

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City of London are housed at the Guildhall Library and cover the years 1692-94 and then

continuously from 1703 to 1930.

In his monumental work, London in the 1690s: A Social Atlas, Craig Spence and the

Centre for Metropolitan History have created a portrait of social activity in the City of London

and in the Greater London area north of the Thames. The work is based on detailed assessments

for the aids of 1693 and 1694 in conjunction with the poll taxes for 1692, 1694 and 1698. The

contemporaneous nature of the Aids and the poll tax allow Spence to create an extraordinarily

rich tapestry of the London north of the Thames for this decade of the 1690s. These records for

the 1690s have also been used by Glass (1966) in his London Inhabitants within the Walls, 1695.

This paper focuses on the City in the 1720s. By this time, issues pertaining to the legitimacy of

the crown had been settled and the wars with France won.

The tax assessments records provide consistent information by ward and precinct. The

beginning of each assessment by ward starts with the following form of statement:

In Assessment made upon several Inhabitants of the Ward of Aldersgate within the City

aforesaid by Virtue of an Act of Parliament Instituted an Act for Granting to his Majesty

an aid by a Land Tax to be Raised in Great Britain for the Service of ye Year 1720

Or:

An assessment made upon the freedom part of the ward of Aldersgate within, by virtue of

an act of Parliament instituted an act for granting an aid to his majesty by a land tax to be

raised in Great Britain for the service of the year one thousand and seven hundred twenty

five and in pursuance of warrant for that purpose under the hands and seals of three of the

commissioners for putting the said act in execution for raising the sum of two hundred

twenty five pounds three shillings and three pence being so much deficient by the failure

of John Bird, late collector of the said Freedom Part of the ward 10

This was then followed by the names of the commissioners and collectors for each ward and/or

precinct.

10Land Tax Assessment Books, Guildhall microfilm 11316, 1720-1721 and1725.

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The tax was levied not just on individuals but also, as Spence notes, on “bodies politick

and corporate guilds mysteries fraternities and brotherhoods whether corporate or not.”11 Thus

the assessment rolls covered all types of buildings. Often when the assessor was not dealing

with a house per se, there is some description of the property itself such as tenement, meeting

house, cook hall, warehouse or synagogue or whether the property was empty. The tax

assessments provide the first and last name of the owner or occupier of each premises. However

in the case of a women, she might be listed just as the Widow Allen, Widow Wilde or Mrs.

Hawes. In these cases we do not have any first name. In each case the assessor listed the

amount at which each person was assessed with respect to his or her real property and his or her

personal property. . The records also note it the individual held more than one house. For

example, in the second precinct of the Ward Aldergate Without the records show that the Widow

Allen was paying tax for five houses. In the event that no tax was levied on either personalty or

on real property, the assessor would enter a zero. In some instances, occupation is listed, though

only in Tower Ward do we have occupation given for most of the householders and as might be

expected, most of the occupations had to do with the many areas of shipping and transportation.

Despite the richness in detail with regards to names and amounts levied on the types of property,

the records do not give any information on household structure. These tax records are not poll

taxes. We also do not know the route taken by the assessors which means that in comparisons

across years, we can map from individual to individual within a ward but we cannot know if the

individual is in the same house. Finally, because there was little revaluation of property after

1698, the assessments cannot be used as a measure of the actual market value of the property,

though they can still be used as relative measures.

One legacy of the wars with France was the resulting large government debt, about which

the government grew increasingly concerned. Precipitated perhaps by the actions of John Law in

France and a proposal from the South Sea Company in 1719, parliament once again decided to

undertake a debt for equity swap in the hopes of reducing the size of the debt burden. Despite

competition from the Bank of England, the South Sea Company was chosen as the vehicle for

the swap. The main implication of this debt for equity exchange for the purposes of this paper is

11Spence, London, p. 10.

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that it brought the holders of government debt into the flourishing market for equities. The rise

and fall of equity prices experienced in 1720, called the South Sea Bubble, brought many more

people into this market. Information on some of those who were in the market for equities

comes from the stock ledgers and transfer books for the Bank of England in both 1720 and 1725.

Although this is just one of the equity issues available on the secondary market, Bank of England

shares were the blue chip stock of the period.12 Thus 1720 and 1725 are ideal year in which to

compare the nature of female headship in the property market with female participation in the

equity market

Land Tax Assessment Books.

4. Within the Walls: The City of London

The City of London is the area within the old medieval walls. I t is also known as the

square mile or the current financial district. According to Spence, by the early seventeenth

century more than half of the those living in London lived outside the city. This had increased to

about three-quarters by the 1690s. As a result by the beginning of the eighteenth century, the

London metropolitan area stretched from Westminster to Limehouse.13 This stretching along the

northern shore of the Thames was in part the result of the dearth of bridges over the river;

London Bridge being the sole bridge at the time of the Glorious Revolution. The City of London

was comprised on twenty five wards. Each ward was divided into precincts. An alternate

division of the City is by parish. There are many more parishes than wards and the overlay of

the two is not perfect in that a parish can be part of more than one ward.

In 1741, John Smart wrote a pamphlet entitled A short account of the several wards,

precincts, parishes, etc in London 1741. Here he listed the total number of houses in the City

and the number by each ward, precinct and parish. In addition he gives the names of all

aldermen by ward, their dates of election and when they died, back to the 1680s. Smart also

listed the Ward of Bridge Without which had an alderman, but no common council men, “nor

12For a more complete discussion, see Carlos and Neal (2004, 2006) and Carlos, Maguireand Neal, 2006.

13Spence, London, p. 5.

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any house belonging to it within the City of London”. It appears that aldermen who, once

elected, served for life but could be removed from their original ward and given the Ward of

Bridge Without which has no inhabitants. Two examples are:

Sir Gerard Conyers removed from the Ward of Broadstreet, and did accept and take this Ward;

and upon his decease in 1737

Sir John Eyles removed from the Ward of Vintry, and did accept and take this Ward, and the

present alderman thereof.14

According to Smart there were 21,649 houses in 25 wards in 1741. There are a number of Wards

that are ‘without’. These refer to wards outside the city walls. See Map 1 show the names and

locations of the wards.

Given the fixed land area of the City, it is not surprising that the tax assessments give just

about the same number of houses/household heads in 1720, (20,800) and in 1725 (20,600). The

tax assessments list over 20,000 household heads in the each of these two years. Of these

household heads, there were 2,894 and 2, 899 women respectively, which is 14% of the all

householders. This is a lower bound estimate of female headship because it takes women as a

percentage of all households. When we take women as a percentage of male households, the

percentage of households headed by women increase to over 16%. Table 1 shows the

distribution of households by ward for 1720. Column 1 gives the total number of

houses/households by ward. We then give the number of houses/households headed by women,

followed by those households as a percentage of the total. The ward with the largest number of

female headed households in is Farringdown Without. However, the ward with the largest

percentage is Dowgate, where 20.5% of all household heads were women. Very few households

were headed by women in either Candlewick or Cheap wards. Overall, there is a range from the

low of 8% to a high of 20%, again recognizing that these are lower bounds for percentage of

female headship.

14John Smart of Guildhall London A short account of the several wards, precincts,parishes, etc in London 1741. Guildhall Library Pamphlet 6894. John Smart appears to havefound the writing of this pamphlet quite frustrating, He opens his pamphlet with the statement: MyExpectations were great; but the Assistance given me very small, not above five or six having yetsent me any Corrections.

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Measures of rental value of the properties is also given in Table 1. Column 4 shows the

mean assessment on property for the female headed households in 1720 in pounds (£) . The

range here is from a low of £0.25 in Aldgate to £5.59 in Cheap. The mean assessed value of

course is also going to depend on the housing stock in each ward and the houses occupied by

women. It could be that women lived in the lower valued property in any given ward or that

women in lived predominantly in wards with overall lower valued properties. In order to try and

understand the pattern of property value (albeit very roughly measured) for women, column 5

gives the median assessed value of property with male heads of household. Because there

existed a difference in average wealth holdings between men and women in the early modern

period, we have used the median assessed tax for those properties whose household head was

male in order to reduce the upward bias exerted on the mean from the outliers in the upper tail of

the distribution. What is striking in the comparison of columns 4 and 5 is the similarity in the

mean/median assessments. The outlier appears to be the Cornhill ward, where even the median

of the assessed tax on male headed houses is significantly higher than the mean for female

headed houses, £7.50 to £4.38. In the majority of the wards, the median assessment for men is

lower than the mean assessment for women headed households suggesting that women are

occupying/owning houses across the distribution of assessments within each ward.

By 1725, the situation appears to have changed somewhat. The data from the 1725 tax

assessment is given in Table 2 with a somewhat smaller total of 20,300 houses. Once again, the

aggregate number of houses/households is given and then the number of female-headed houses.

However in 1725, the number of wards has increased. The wards of Bishopsgate and

Cripplegate have been subdivided into Within and Without, while the Ward of Farringdown is

now comprised on Farringdown Within, Without and Extra. Although there are still

approximately 2,800 female headed houses, the distribution of women across the wards is

different. The largest number of female headed houses is still in the Ward of Farringdown

Without ,but now there are only 492 rather than 610. However, the total number of houses listed

for Farrindown Without has also fallen from 4,064 to 3,173 with the result that there are still the

same number of female headed houses, 15%. The ‘missing’ households are now in the ward of

Farringdon Extra. Interestingly, in all wards, now at least 10% of the houses have women listed

for assessment. The ward with the largest percentage of female headed houses is in Vintry rather

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than Dowgate. When we look at the distribution of the percentage female assessed houses it

appears that the re-division of wards has smoothed out the distribution of female headed houses

relative to the total.

The mean assessed tax for those houses headed by women is given in column 4 and again

the median for male houses is given in column 5. When we look both within each column and

across these two columns, we can again see similarity in the assessments. Although the ranges

are narrower than in 1720, perhaps due to the movement of ward boundaries, the lowest mean

assessment now occurs in the wards of Aldergate Withough and Cripplegate Without, while the

assessment for Aldgate has risen from £0.25 to £1.76. The highest median ward assessment for

men still occurs in Dowgate but this has fallen from £7.50 to £5.00. Of course, we have to be

careful in our understanding of these numbers. To the extent that the Aid was to raise a specific

number of pounds, the assessed amount could fall between the two years. What a comparison of

tables 1 and 2 does suggest is movement or fluidity in the types of housing and location of

female householders across these five years.

The tax assessment gives the name of the person on whom the tax is assessed. As a result

we can look more directly at the question of movement or fluidity in the housing market. We

can begin simply by asking how many of those assessed in 1720 are to be found in the assessed

households in 1725. Thus we are looking at mobility within the City of London. So we searched

for the same person in the later year in any ward. Out of the 20,500 household listed in both

years, 2,776 or 7% moved within the City over this five year period. This measure could

suggest that most people staying in the same property or that they moved out of the city. This is

an issue that we will explore in future work. When we look more specifically at women, we can

ask how many of those women assessed in the ward or precinct still live in that same ward or

precinct five years later. We explore this question in Table 3. The first two columns give the

number of women-headed households by ward. In column 3, we ask how many of these women,

matched by first and last name were in the same ward and precinct five years later. There were

exact matches for 851 women after five years. How much change this represents depends on

how one want to calculate the matched households. If we take the 851 households only as a

percentage of the households in 1720, then 30% of women are in the same location five years

later. If we take the 851 householders as a percentage of the total number of female headed

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households in 1720 and 1725, then only 15% are in the same location. Either way, there is

extensive mobility in the nature of female headship.

One might well expect that fluidity in female-headed households has to do with the

marital status of the woman. Many women probably became the head of household on the death

of her husband. In columns 4 and 5, we give the number of those female assessed households

whom we know to have been headed by widows, in that the assessor listed the woman as a

widow. It is possible that some of these widows were so listed by convention. At the same time,

there may have been women for whom the assessor did not list widowed status. For those

women who had obtained possession (use or ownership) of the house on the death of the

husband, tt might, therefore, be the case that the same family lived in the house in both 1720 and

1725 but the person assess changed. So the person assessed could go from male to female as in

husband to widow, or from female to male, as in widow to son. The last two columns in Table 3

examine the extent to which we find the same last name in the same ward after five years. The

number of houses in which the assessed person had the same family name and went from male to

female is 487 out of all possible 20,500 (or 40,000) households. The number of assessed

households with the same family name within the ward which went from female to male between

1720 and 1725 is only 115 out of the same 20,500 (or 40,000) houses listed. These are very

small numbers. Thus is would appear that mobility in the City and out of the City was very high.

Given the changing nature of the greater London metropolitan area at this time, perhaps such

fluidity is not surprising. At the same time, such fluidity does suggest a very vibrant property

market and ever changing neighborhoods.

5. Financial Assets and the City

Access to property whether through ownership or renting provided some measure of

wealth holding by individuals. Land is perhaps the most traditional of all wealth assets.

Beginning in the seventeenth century and certainly by the eighteenth century, the secondary

market in financial assets provided individuals with another way to hold their wealth. With a

secondary market in stocks, an person could hold derive an income stream from the dividend

payments on their equity or a person could also use the market for speculative financial gains (or

losses). Equity and land could thus act as substitutes venues for wealth holdings, while at the

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same time, they could be complementary assets in a person’s portfolio. In this section we

explore the nature of cross holding of assets by women in the City.

In this section ask to what extent those women who owned shares in the Bank of England

in 1720 and in 1725 and lived in the City were also the women listed as head of household in the

tax assessments in these two years. Using two separate sources from the Bank of England

archives, the Bank of England transfer books 1720 (AC28/1545-1554) and Bank of England

stock ledgers 1720-1725 (AC27/434-437) with their corresponding alphabets (AC 27/430-433),

we know who held or were active in the market for Bank stock at this time. The alphabets to the

stock ledgers tell us the names, addresses, occupation or socio/marital status. The alphabets also

tell us who owned stock on the opening of the new ledger in September 1720 and who owned

when that ledger closed in September 1725. From the stock ledgers, we get the actual book

value of holding by each individual woman for September 1720 and September 1725. Because

the alphabet ledger list address, using an A-Z from 1747, we can determine who lived within the

City.

The transfer records for Bank of England stock show that there were 577 unique women,

or roughly 17% of all who bought or sold shares at some point during 1720. These women had

10% of sales and 8% of purchases by value. The stock ledgers provide a somewhat different

measure of participation. They tell us who owned on any given date. Thus in September 1720

when the new ledger was opened women made up 20% (or 640) of the 3,163 shareholder and

owned 10% of the £5.5 book value of capital. By September 1725, 1,091 women owned 14.5%

of the total book value of capital which itself had increased to over £8 million. The women who

actually lived within the City of London is much smaller. There are approximately 307 women

who owned shares and whom we know lived with the walls of the City; of these 133 were

spinsters, 162 were widows and 11 wives.

Shares and property are two different ways to hold wealth. They could act as substitutes

or as complements in any individual portfolio. The extent to which this would happen depends

on the use value of housing and the correlation across the variance of returns on financial assets.

With enough extant personal records, it is possible to build a picture of asset holding on an

individual by individual basis. Very often the extant records are those for the nobility or the very

wealthy. We might expect that such individuals would hold a wide range of assets. But the

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extent to which assets are complements or substitutes for those in the middle ranks of society is

less obvious. Here we examine whether women who owned Bank of England shares were also

listed on the tax assessment records. Thus, how many of the 310 women who lived in the City

were heads of households? The results are shown in Table 4. When we search over women by

first and last names, there were 64 exact matches by ward. In essence, very few of the women

on the tax rolls also owned shares in Bank stock. Table 4 also gives the book value of stock

owned for those women who actually owned their stock in September 1720 and 1725. This is

an even smaller subset, twenty, of the 64. In addition, Table 4 also gives the book value of

shares held on September 30, 1720 and September 30, 1725. Book value of shares held were

large in the wards of Broadstreet, Cordwainer and in Lanbourn. In Broadstreet these book value

of shares are held by three widows and one spinster. In Lanbourn the two women were Elizabeth

de la Chambre, a widow with £3,500 book value of shares and Martha Thorold, spinster with

£2000 book value. The situation in Cordwainer is more interesting. There are three women who

owned shares on September 30, 1720. The £5610 book value of shares is dominated by the

holdings of one Lenora da Costa with £5334 book vlaue. She is also listed in the tax records for

the ward as Mrs. da Costa. Interestingly she is not down as head of house but rather for her tax

assessment for personality. Because we have matched on both property and personalty

assessments, including women such as Lenora da Costa in our estimate women head of

household means our 64 is an upper limit on the true number. Most women have very low levels

of tax on personalty as seen in the last column of Tables 1 and 2.15

In Table 5, we exclude the 64 women for whom we have exact matches by first and last

name and ask how many of the remaining 264 (310 - 64) women shareholders can we match by

family name to the tax records. Using just family name and ward we can match a further 95. Of

course, we can not be certain that the shareholding women and the tax household are actual

matches. But it gives us an upper bound on matching. Thus we can match roughly half of the

shareholding women back to the tax assessments. Although this comprises roughly 50% of

women who lived in the City and owned Bank of England shares, it comprises at most only 6%

15The mean tax for personalty is low because the mean includes the vast number ofwomen for whom the tax assessment was zero. The mean adjusted to exclude the zeroassessments would, of course, be higher.

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of all houses headed by women . Table 5 gives also the book value of shares for these women

matched by family name who owned shares on September 30, 1720 and September 30, 1725.

Of the 64 first and last name matches who owned shares on September 30, 1720, 21 women

continued to own shares on September 30, 1725. The corresponding number for the women

matched by family names is 20.

6. Conclusions

The nature of wealth holding and urban mobility for women is addressed in this paper.

Using tax records for the City of London for 1720 and 1725, we build on work that has been

undertaken from the tax assessments for the 1690s. The focus in this particular paper has been

the extent to which women were assessed as household heads in the records for these two years.

We further explore the extent to which there was cross holdings across different wealth assets.

We believe the findings give us a very interesting picture of this urban environment three

decades after the Glorious Revolution when one might expect the political turmoil to have settled

down.

We find that 14% of all assessed houses were headed by women in both 1720 and 1725.

Unfortunately, the tax assessors did not always note marital status for women. The records thus

list some body for example as Mrs da Costa, Madam Turgis, Widow Ireson or Margaret Dancer.

However, for these women, half of the female assessed houses were headed by widows. What

we think is very interesting is the fact that the mean assessment for female headed houses is

almost identical to the median assessment for male headed houses. By taking away the upper tail

bias in the mean for male assessed houses, this result suggests that women were not

predominantly occupying the lowest assessed properties in any given ward not were they living

only in the lower assessed wards. Examination of women assessed houses shows that women are

spread through the City of London.

Because we have comparable records for 1720 and 1725, we are able to comment on the

level of entrenchment or mobility within ward and between wards for women in the City. We

find that there are 851 exact matches for 1720 and 1725, when we had 2,894 and 2,942 female

headed households respectively. Depending on whether one takes the denominator as the

households in one year or the sum, 30% or 15% of the households are headed by the same person

over the five year period or 70% or 85% of the female headed households are headed by

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different people. Even when we correct for households changing from male to female, or vice

versa, by family names, we find that there are very few of the houses are headed by an

individual with the same family name, again suggestive of high mobility, perhaps into other

areas of the city.

A comparison of wealth holding by women across property and Bank of England shares

shows very little overlap. While we can match 64 women exactly by first and last name and

ward, this is a very small percentage of female headed households. These results might suggest

that financial assets for the middle ranks of society were acting as substitutes rather than

complements. Overall, what we are able to show is the richness of property and asset holding by

women in the early modern period. Thus given the opportunities made available by the property

market and by the newer financial assets, 15% of women in the City were holding or using assets

in the form of equity or housing rather than using them as the Duke opined for Mariana.

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Table 1: Tax Assessment By City of London Ward:1720Ward Total

HouseholdHeads

Household- FemaleHead

%Female

MeanPropertyAssessement- Female (£)

MedianPropertyAssessment- Male (£)

MeanPersonalty- Female(£)

Aldergate Within 413 43 10.41 2.02 1.90 0.02Aldergate Without 455 76 16.70 1.10 1.05 0.01Aldgate 986 169 17.14 0.24 2.10 0.19Bassishaw 179 24 13.41 4.13 2.40 0.90Billingsgate 423 45 10.64 4.71 3.90 0.29Bishopsgate 1456 211 14.49 2.62 1.65 0.05Breadstreet 347 36 10.37 2.76 3.90 0.27Bridge 404 49 12.13 4.42 4.50 0.14Broadstreet 771 115 14.92 4.26 3.75 0.11Candlewick 317 27 8.52 3.86 3.75 0.18Castlebaynard 778 110 14.14 2.32 1.80 0.12Cheap 393 33 8.40 5.59 5.40 0.15Coleman 599 82 13.69 3.27 2.40 0.03Cordwainer 380 55 14.47 3.08 3.00 0.18Cornhill 258 36 13.95 4.38 7.50 0.06Cripplegate 2567 379 14.76 1.49 1.20 0.04Dowgate 385 79 20.52 2.28 1.95 0.05Farringdown Within 1245 140 11.24 2.74 2.40 0.07FarringdownWithout

4064 610 15.01 2.13 1.80 0.04

Langbourn 583 67 11.49 5.27 5.10 0.17Limestreet 223 34 15.25 3.36 2.70 0.02Portsoken 964 126 13.07 1.89 1.50 0.03Queenhith 470 81 17.23 2.09 1.80 0.00Tower 1203 140 11.64 3.72 4.75 0.12Vintry 412 82 19.90 2.09 1.98 0.06Walbrook 325 45 13.85 4.41 4.35 0.44Total 20600 2894

Source: Land Tax Assessment,1720

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Table 2: Tax Assessment City of London by Ward: 1725Ward Total

HouseholdHeads

Households- FemaleHead

%Female

MeanPropertyAssessement- Female (£)

MedianPropertyAssessment- Male (£)

MeanPersonalty- Female(£)

Aldergate Within 646 66 10.22 1.01 0.90 0.01Aldergate Without 453 89 19.65 0.88 0.75 0.00Aldgate 959 171 17.83 1.76 1.10 0.16Bassishaw 174 24 13.79 3.15 1.60 0.40Billingsgate 412 56 13.59 3.23 2.20 0.11BishopsgateWithin

395 48 12.15 3.82 2.75 0.04

BishopsgateWithout

988 135 13.66 1.17 0.80 0.03

Breadstreet 335 36 10.75 2.36 2.00 0.22Bridge 401 46 11.47 2.60 2.00 0.06Broadstreet 772 118 15.28 2.82 2.30 0.06Candlewick 308 36 11.69 2.54 2.70 0.14Castlebaynard 742 104 14.02 1.58 1.00 0.06Cheap 417 42 10.07 3.32 2.90 0.02Coleman 594 86 14.48 2.10 1.47 0.01Cordwainer 386 66 17.10 2.01 1.80 0.13Cornhill 251 41 16.33 3.27 2.20 0.06Cripplegate Within 703 84 11.95 2.14 1.80 0.12CripplegateWithout

1844 293 15.89 0.83 0.60 0.01

Dowgate 387 67 17.31 1.45 1.00 0.03FarringdownWithin

1395 172 12.33 1.74 1.20 0.03

FarringdownWithout

3173 492 15.51 1.53 1.00 0.01

Farringdown Extra 686 94 13.70 1.68 1.34 0.01Langbourn 566 68 12.01 2.97 2.20 0.03Limestreet 212 33 15.57 2.25 1.50 0.00Portsoken 798 92 11.53 2.04 1.25 0.01Queenhith 496 81 16.33 1.38 0.90 0.00Tower 1127 140 12.42 2.61 1.58 0.07Vintry 416 80 19.23 1.30 0.95 0.01Walbrook 317 39 12.30 2.53 2.40 0.07Total 20353 2899Source: See Table 1

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Table 3 : Comparison by Ward: 1720 to1725Ward House-

holds -FemaleHead1720

House-holds -FemaleHead1725

ExactMatchesBy Ward:1720 and1725

Widows1720

Widows1725

House-holds:male tofemale

House-holds:femaleto male

Total 2894 2942 851 1528 1508 487 115Aldergate Within 43 66 23 29 55 11 3Aldergate Without 76 89 28 46 43 15 5Aldgate 170 171 76 105 103 32 7Bassishaw 24 24 5 0 2 4 0Billingsgate 45 56 14 34 41 14 4Bishopsgate (within, without) 211 219 50 39 50 33 7Breadstreet 36 36 11 0 23 4 1Bridge 49 46 16 59 37 15 0Broadstreet 115 118 33 72 64 18 2Candlewick 27 36 8 16 21 8 0Castlebaynard 110 104 40 69 63 20 4Cheap 33 42 9 25 26 4 1Coleman St 82 86 25 49 55 15 2Cordwainer 55 66 2 1 0 14 0Cornhill 36 41 6 8 12 3 0Cripplegate (within, without) 379 384 102 162 122 53 25Dowgate 79 67 10 45 0 16 4Farringdon (within, without,extra)

749 758 230 348 384 128 31

Langbourn 67 68 19 37 43 9 1Limestreet 34 33 9 31 31 10 1Portsoken 126 92 37 102 75 18 6Queenhith 82 81 37 70 70 11 2Tower 140 140 47 92 101 15 8Vintry 82 80 0 57 60 13 0Walbrook 45 39 15 32 27 5 1

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Table 4: Bank ofEngland WomenShareholders byWard - ExactMatchWard Women

Share-holders1720

BookValue ofSharesHeldSept.1720

WomenHoldingSharesSept.1720

WomenShare-holders1725

BookValue ofSharesHeldSept.1725

WomenHoldingSharesSept. 1720

Aldergate Within 0Aldgate 5 12450 4 5Bassishaw 1 0 2Billingsgate 3 2000 1 3 4600 3Bishopsgate Within 6 3965 3 6 4825 4Breadstreet 1 0 1 1000 1BridgeBroadstreet 6 5928 4 6 7100 5Castlebaynard 6 338 1 1 4500 1Cheap 2 100 1 2 700 1ColemanCordwainer 3 5610 3 3 5485 2Cornhill 2 2 1500 1Cripplegate Within 7 1300 2 7 2366 4Dowgate 1 800 1 1 1000 1Farringdown Within 2 959 1 2 1459 1Farringdown Without 1 1 500 1Langbourn 4 5500 2 4 8200 2Portsoken 3 3 2000 2Queenhith 3 3 1204 3Tower 9 2000 1 9 3531 8Vintry 3Walbrook 3 4000 1

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Table 5: Bank of England Women Shareholders by Ward - Family NameWard Number of

WomenShareholders1720

Book Valueof SharesHeldSeptember1720

Number ofWomenShareholders1725

BookValue ofSharesHeldSeptember1725

Aldergate Within 1 0 1 500Aldgate 7 3800 7 5000Bassishaw 1 0 1 3000Billingsgate 4 0 4 700BishopsgateWithin

10 2100 10 3715

Breadstreet 3 0 3 5549Bridge 1 0 1 450Broadstreet 13 4300 13 11500Castlebaynard 2 300 2 400Cheap 7 6532 7 5500Coleman 1 0 1Cordwainer 4 150 4 350Cornhill 2 83 2 2116Cripplegate Within 3 0 3 1900Dowgate 4 4300 4 6100FarringdownWithin

5 1500 5 1600

FarringdownWithout

1 125 1 125

Langbourn 5 2000 5 3000Portsoken 4 326 4 726Queenhith 1 0 1 300Tower 12 4584 12 9800Vintry 3 1000 3 1599Walbrook 1 100 1 100

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