1700: Scenes from London Life

by Maureen Waller

Maureen Waller captures the grit and excitement of London in 1700. Combining investigative reporting with popular history, she portrays London's teeming, sprawling urban life and creates a brilliant cultural map of a city poised between medievalism and empire in this Book of the Month Club Selection.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, London, British Literature, 18th Century, Historical, Social

326 pages, Hardcover

First published February 17, 2000

About the author

Maureen Waller was educated at University College London, where she studied medieval and modern history. She received a master's degree at Queen Mary College, London, in British and European history 1660--1714. After a brief stint at the National Portrait Gallery, she went on to work as an editor at several prestigious London publishing houses. Her first book was the highly acclaimed 1700: Scenes from London Life. She currently lives in London with her husband, who is a journalist and author.

Reviews

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been?
I have been to London to take in the scene.
Pussycat, Pussycat, what saw you there?
Tarry a while, dear sir, with you I will share..."

London is an iconic city, both for readers of literature and history and travel enthusiasts. There is hardly a book written in the UK where there is no mention of London; the city is steeped in history, and one can literally hear, touch, smell and even taste it while wandering around this bustling metropolis. When I visited it first in 2009, it was like returning to a favourite childhood haunt, so familiar were many of its landmarks from years of reading P. G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie. Though crowded and a bit noisy, the city charmed me.

Was it always like this? Say, what about three centuries back? That is what Maureen Waller sets out to explore in this book.

We are conditioned to see history as a kind of serialised movie, with one episode following the other. In this process, we tend to miss the backdrop where the action is taking place. Here, the author attempts to show us a still photograph from the movie that is British history; a picture of London, frozen in the year 1700, through the eyes of contemporary citizens and visitors.

In the period mentioned, London was a bustling metropolis, having been rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666. "London in 1700 was the most magnificent in Europe." Maureen Waller opens her book with these words. The city had 530,000 people - compared to 30,000 in Norwich, the second largest city. It was the hub of trade (with the Thames as its main artery), the centre for industry, and the place where thousands flocked to, to eke out a living. It had many magnificent buildings and parks and aristocracy thronged its streets - the forerunner of the quintessential metro.

But was everything hunky-dory? Well, apparently, no. Beneath the glitter, the city's face was really ugly, rather like those disease ridden prostitutes who prowled its night streets, the ravages of venereal disease on their faces hidden under patches. There were bogus marriages of convenience; forced marriages, where young girls were kidnapped and forcibly married to get hold of their property; and the "sale" of wives no longer required. Childbirth was fraught with real danger to mother and child, and of those safely born, between one-quarter and one-third died before their first birthday. Children were brought up strictly and not spared the rod, though there were voices of moderation. Disease was endemic in the filthy city, and healthcare only in its nascent stages - many people had surprisingly short lives compared to today. The concept of hygiene was non-existent, and the city stank of human excrement from the open sewers to which many a time the chamber pots were emptied. Poverty was endemic. Crime was rampant, so was prostitution and gambling; and public executions (carried out quite frequently) were a source of public entertainment.

All was not gloom and doom, however. There was employment to be had for all (even for refugees); many people lived well (though not very hygienically); the city had plenty of art and culture; and people moved about in fashion. Even though the system was highly layered and exploitative, one can see the skeleton of the welfare state taking shape beneath the fleshy capitalistic metropolis (soon to be bankrolled by exploitation of the colonies!).

This is a fascinating look at the life of a metro, at a crucial juncture in history. This book will stay with me when I read any of the period classics (like Dickens) in the future. The only teensy complaint that I have is that it is a bit rambling - but that can be forgiven.

[Jill H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ended my 2023 reading year with a book that I read several years ago and it was worth the re-read.

London......one of the great cities in the world in 1700.....trade was booming, William and Mary sat on the throne, beautiful buildings were being erected, many which still exist, and the city was growing by leaps and bounds. That was the positive side of London but there was a terribly dark side as well. It was a cesspool, sewage running in the streets and fouling the Thames, poverty that boggles the mind, a mortality rate that is hard to imagine, and rampant crime.

The author has divided the book into chapters dealing with specific components of life in the city and how the population dealt with living in a less than perfect society. She cover such things as marriage, disease, the poor, religion, and crime/punishment. The practice of medicine was a mix of superstition and quackery and people who escaped disease could expect to die before they reached the age of 35. The vaunted justice system of England sent thousands to the gallows for crimes ranging from stealing a loaf of bread to feed one's children to prostitution. Public hangings were a social event. Homeless children as young as five were put to work. Women whose husbands died or deserted were doomed to be interred in the "work house" or turned to prostitution to make a few shillings.

These are just a few of the horrors of 1700 in London.....a city growing too fast without a foundation to support those who lived there. I enjoyed this book but was also chilled by it.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read 2016 - A book about what you could have seen, eaten, heard, and smelled if you lived in London during 1700. It is a social history and the very first book I had read by this author. It made me a fan of her style of writing and I have read other books published by her since. This is my favorite by her and it is one that I love to re-read and use for papers for my history classes.

[Lorna]

A vivid, readable description of London at the turn of the century - not the 21st century, or even the 20th, but the 18th. Twelve years after the Glorious Revolution, 35 years after the Plague Year, 51 years after the execution of Charles I. Each chapter follows a different theme, and the book is full of fascinating snippets of real London life - marriages happy and unhappy, childbirth and childhood, work, leisure, food and drink, prostitutes, highwaymen, pickpockets and all. A great read for anyone interested in the early 18th century.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting subject. Poor presentation.

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

(sexism, premarital sex, incest, pedophilia, nudity, homosexuality, prostitution, alcohol/smoking, gambling, violence, domestic violence, violence against women, murder, abortion, suicide, lying, stealing, technically inaccurate errors that could cause harm)

I got this book thinking it would be a good non-fiction resource. Instead, it is poorly researched and filled with rumors instead of facts. There are few in-line citations, so when she says something that is blatantly wrong, you don't know which source to blame (or if there is a source). I did not take the time to check with the endnotes, especially since these are listed by chapter and page number without any link to the text, and the citations are not always complete--apparently, once you figure out what the note is referring to, you are then supposed to cross-reference the abbreviated citation with the bibliography! The e-book doesn't have page numbers. Even worse, since she frequently uses quotes without citing their sources in-text, this is plagiarism because there is no easy link to the source.

There are so many wrong things. For example, she states that women did not wear "knickers" in the 1700s. This is false. There are records of women wearing "drawers" back in the 1600s, including records in Samuel Pepys' diary talking about his wife wearing them. She talks about the practice of "bundling" without really explaining it. The problem is that this was unique to Pennsylvania Dutch communities in the United States--correct era, wrong place. In relating things they did in midwifery, the author defends midwives while acting like the Feverfew they used to expel a dead child from the womb would not work (it would, based on modern medicine). In the same way, she states that if the midwife ruptured the membranes early, it would slow labor--it would speed it up based on modern medicine practices. She gives the impression that the month-long waiting period after a woman gives birth was a silly 1700s practice--it is an important practice that is used today to prevent uterine infections.

She does not stick to the year 1700--instead, she wavers from 1600-1800.

She quotes fiction and satire works from the era as if they were non-fiction, and sometimes 90% of the page is a direct quote from source material. She purportedly references and quotes court cases, but I could not find the ones I was looking up in British online records, and again, they are not easily cited. Presumably, she is drawing on records in the sensational books put out by the Newgate chaplains--again, not a very reliable source. There are also typos all over. Then, there is the repetition of the same material. For example, in the chapter on marriage, we are told that people in the 1700s married for money. Then, we are told this again later in the same chapter. Sometimes she will be talking about one topic, move on to an entirely different topic, and then go back to the first one.

Of course, she has dug up every bawdy sexual reference she could find. I understand, based on another title of hers, that the sex lives of people past is extremely important to her, but it is useless to me--especially when the rest of the book lacked substance and the sex sections seemed like tidbits pulled out of context to titillate the reader and justify modern behavior.

I wanted to use this as a historical resource, but the only thing it is good for is the Bibliography, which gives a list of books and primary sources the reader could use to explore the history of the era. Unfortunately, she seems to have only a few favorite sources (Daniel Defoe's political pamphlets and the chaplain's books with "final confessions" are two that stand out). In addition to huge quotes from these, you will also get copied recipes, long lists of things like how much sheets cost, and fabricated teasers at the beginning of a chapter filled with "maybe"s and "probably"s. I find it disgraceful that a traditional publisher, known for academic books, would put this kind of click-bait garbage out.

[Rose Auburn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maureen Waller’s non-fiction history of the people of London at the turn of the Eighteenth Century is marvellous. She combines a rollickingly good prose style with a staggering depth of research.
The book is separated into sixteen chapters, each covering a salient area of life; Food, Drink, Religion, Disease, etc.. I don’t think upon finishing the book that I was left thinking of any immediate area of life or interest that had not been discussed or touched upon. Yet, each chapter remains fresh and there is a real sense of weaving a story – Waller has immense skill in achieving this in a non-fictional historical narrative.

Through all the chapters, emphasis is placed on the brutality of life in the 1700s and yet Waller retains a wry tone of amusement throughout. This does not detract from the seriousness of living conditions but draws you ever more along and nicely counter-balances some of the horrors reported.

The late 17th century is my favourite period of history and I am also fascinated by the history of London, especially the City, so I have read an awful lot on both subjects and it took me a while to pick this book up as feared it would be fairly repetitive for me. But, no, I learned so many new facts and I love the way that she included small little points of etymology such as the origin of ‘daylight robbery,’ and other figures of speech still used extensively today. She also takes time to set the chapters in the various areas of London and provides a fascinating history into some of the old street and place names and areas; many of which remain today. I thought I was well-versed in not only the names but also the geography of 17th and 18th century London but again, I learned some interesting new details.

A few chapters relied a little too heavily on primary source material – mainly because Waller’s style is so readable and flowing, it distracted a little at times to keep having 17th century dialogue every other paragraph or so. But that is a small gripe and as a non-fiction book of history, Waller is correct to illustrate her findings with primary source material. Also, the inclusion of black and white pictures was incredibly helpful and well-chosen.

Obviously, if Early Modern English history is not your thing, then don’t read, but if it is and you also enjoy reading about London – I cannot recommend highly enough. Excellent.

[Brian Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A readable and fun account of the sociology of early 18th century London. This is the era when London gradually became the center of the world, and the society of that capital began to become recognizable to modern eyes more or less. The book covers marriage, childbirth, childhood, disease and medicine, death and burial, domestic arrangements, fashion, consumption of food and drink, the emergence of social gathering places such as coffee houses and taverns, amusements, the work environment, poverty, religious denominations, vice and prostitution, and crime and punishment. A fun read full of interesting anecdotes.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that does what it says on the tin. When you've finished it, you'll have a pretty clear idea about the sights, smells and activities of this overcrowded city and centre of commerce as it enters the eighteenth century. You'll read about rich and poor, immigrant Huguenots, prostitutes, life in the taverns and coffee houses. You'll find out what each stage of life is like, from newborn to elderly, for the well, the ill and diseased, the working person and the wealthy resident. It's full of incident and telling detail. A good, lively and informative read.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is history the way it should be written about and taught. London has always been fascinating even to those who only encountered it in fiction, and this picture of it in the year 1700 brings some understanding of the conditions of daily life and historical events of the time. It was a hard place to live regardless of social status, like most large cities of the time, and the book is well organized with chapters on marriage, childbirth, childhood, disease and death--and those are just the first five chapters.

[Teresa Bolster]

This book is so dense with (fascinating) detail I couldn't read it from cover to cover. A couple of chapters here and there between novels meant I was able to absorb so much information and marvel at the authors mind-boggling research.
And it's great fun to boot. What an odd expression, I wonder where it came from? Maureen would know!

[Sarah]

DNF at page 34

I tried to make it to page 50, but this is written in a very dry way that isn't engaging me. It's kind of info dumping and feels a little repetitive in parts, too.

Overall, I just wasn't interested enough to continue. I've read a similar book to this which I enjoyed more, so I'll go back to that if I need a read like this in the future.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at the social side of 1700 life but feels thrown together.

[Pamela Holmes]

Wonderful evocative book about our cosmopolitan capital.

[LA · Rating 2 out of 5]

not academically rigorous, but a good overview of the city in early 18th century.

[Ken Sampson · Rating 4 out of 5]

[2000] An interesting and informative read.

[Moira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing overview - great intro to an era in London - highly recommend

[Lora Shouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! It discusses in depth how Londoners managed to live (or sometimes not) in and around the year 1700. The author covers many topics from marriage and childbirth to work and poverty to vice, crime, and punishment.

Suicide seemed to be unusually prevalent in the years around 1700. It is unclear whether there were actually more suicides than there had been earlier or whether the large population and the newspaper coverage given to suicides at the time just made it seem that way. A frequent cause of suicide was to escape destitution. The way the poor were treated, it almost seems as if the rest of the population hoped or expected that they would take their own lives.

Some things in London in 1700 were quite primitive. For example, there was almost no clean running water. On the other hand, sewerage was almost everywhere. Disposing of dead bodies was difficult because there were so many of them and so little space to put them. Public executions were practically a form of popular entertainment, and, far from pondering their own mortality and resolving not to break the laws and suffer the same fate, the majority of the populace who attended public hangings often seemed to sympathize with the criminals.

On the other hand, there were many aspects of society that seemed to be relatively modern. Clubs and coffeehouses were beginning to be major social institutions, joining the already ubiquitous alehouses and taverns. This was the time when early primitive hospitals first became established, including the later infamous ‘Bedlam’ for the insane. There were also numerous private asylums, some of which were used as much to put away unwanted wives as to house the truly insane.

The book is excellently written, not boring in the least, references numerous sources directly from the period, and contains several illustrations depicting the fashions of the times and the new buildings that were going up at that time.

[Clay Kallam · Rating 2 out of 5]

First, I'm really glad I'm not living in London circa 1700. Maureen Waller's in-depth examination of the everyday life of a Londoner at the turn of the 18th century is chilling. Not only was life for the vast majority of the city's citizens nasty, brutish and short, London itself was filthy, foul-smelling and crime-ridden.

And what's really frightening is that other Englishmen and women flocked to the capital because life there was better than where they were from.

On top of all that, Waller's maybe-too-meticulously researched book relies heavily on primary sources from 1700 -- which means the description of life in London at that time comes from those who were educated, and thus presumably living significantly better than those who couldn't read or write.

But all that said, this wasn't a very good read. Waller quotes extensively from her many primary sources, but all they do is repeat a point she's already made. For example, she'll describe the primitive health care, and follow up with a long passage saying the same thing. In short, many of the 332 pages are superfluous, and "1700 Scenes from London Life" would have been a lot better if it were 232 pages.

For someone looking to write a college paper on marriage or some other aspect of British life in 1700, this book would be invaluable; for someone looking for a bit of entertaining history, there's just too much of some not-very-good things and a whole lot of repetitive material.

[Nick Fagerlund · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frances Hardinge mentioned this one in the acknowledgements for Fly by Night, so I grabbed it from the library. It’s exactly what it says it is — there’s no underlying narrative here, just a series of themed chapters that each explore some aspect of London life at the time. I liked it a lot, but it was harder to read than something like The Ghost Map, which also makes an effort to immerse the reader in the technology and society and zeitgeist of another time but does so in the context of a guiding narrative. This one is all infodump.

Here’s an interesting thing, though: you already pretty much have your context, because London at the turn of the 18th century is still kind of everywhere you look. I have this half-cocked suspicion that it’s the original devil metropolis in Anglophone literature, and every later one borrows from our collective cultural memory of what an unbelievable hellhole olde London Town was. (For example, I am very gratified to have found Ankh-Morpork’s exact space/time coordinates.)

[rené lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fascinating look into the life of Londoners in the 1700s. True to the title of the book, each chapter reads like a scene depicting a certain topic. My favorites were towards the beginning, such as the chapters about marriage, childbirth, childhood, death, and disease. The chapter about childbirth was exceptionally interesting, yet brutal, and made me thoroughly glad I'll never have to live through their procedures.

The biggest flaw for me in this book was the amount of time I had to spend looking up the definitions of words. Sometimes the author would assume that the reader would understand phrasing or slang from ages ago. Many times I could figure out the meaning by context, but I also spent a lot of time with Google to understand passages in this book.

[John Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big, dirty and merciless London at the turn of the eighteenth century. Maureen Waller covers life and death in THE metropolis of its day. The lives of servants, merchants, the wealthy and every one caught between pop out through referential use of contemporary diarists and observations recorded by foreigners. The customs of marriage,childbirth and childhood,death,fashions,the home,amusements,the working classes, and vice and punishments are explored. Entertaining and gritty,it was a good read.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a re-read for me. A fascinating examination of all facets and classes of life in 1700 London. Britain had established itself as THE world military and economic power in the 1600s, following the defeat of the Dutch and the Spanish. "1700" covers marriage, birth, death, disease, life in the coffee houses (the first "men's clubs"), transport, art, and daily life among the "middling sort."

[Steve Haywood · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting book. Some chapters are better than others, I particularly liked the chapters on food, coffee shops and working life. I read it from start to finish which was slow going - I'd recommend reading it a chapter or two at a time.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although my eyes did occasionally gloss over, this was a mostly entertaining and informative account of daily life in London at the beginning of the 18th century. There are, it turns out, many similarities between then and now.

[Melissa Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was ok. Not a lot of stuff I didn't already know. The biography of Samuel Pepys, is more informative. (Not to be confused with Pepys' Diary). I also thought it came to a sudden end. Like there had been more, but was removed. (??) *Shrug*

[Redsteve · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really excellent overview of life in London at the turn of the Century.

[Alisa Kester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good, with lots of fascinating detail. I loved the excerpts from journals and other period writings.

[Judi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book if you are an anglophile like I am and love finding out about what day to day life was like during that time period. Very well written.

[Glenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting account of life in london in 1700, i really enjoyed it. Well written.