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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 March 2021
The Rookery of London's St Giles-in-the-Fields became the city's most notorious slum by the eighteenth century. This article asks why? Why there, why then and why for so long? Building on existing research about urban development and the failure of local government, by considering the geography, economics and legal influences acting upon the space and the people who interacted with it over the long durée, it becomes clear that the Rookery of St Giles-in-the-Fields was always high risk because of happenstance of geography, but that a lack of leadership from its owners and a system of urban upkeep that distributed responsibility too widely led to its longevity and the depth of its misfortune.
The author would like to thank the ‘British History in the Long Eighteenth Century’ seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, Louise Falcini, Katrina Navickas, Sarah Lloyd, Esther Brot, Tim Hitchcock, Joe Cozens, Gillian Williamson and Jim Clifford who commented on drafts or provided resources.
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38 Riley and Gomme, Survey of London, vol. V, 117–26.
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72 Calculated from descriptions in Beames, The Rookeries, 30–43.
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75 Keene, Earle, Spence and Barnes, ‘Four shillings in the pound’.
76 The Olla Podrida, 29 (Sep. 1787), 171–2. For an example of a piecemeal landlady, see Ann Dunn, 1804: LMA, Royal and Sun Alliance Insurance Group (1788–93), CLC/B/192/F/001/MS11936/431/760514.
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