Books published by London Record Society

Accounts providing details of the quantities and cost of clothing and other items manufactured for the first Tudor kings.

Translated anthology of 'London Letters' written by Russian foreign correspondents which makes available for the first time in English the Russian perspective on early twentieth-century London life.

Edition of young men's magazines from just before the First World War, presenting a vivid and touching picture of life at the time.

In 1865, when just twenty-five years of age, Edward Whymper achieved the fame of which he had dreamt as a teenager by making the first ascent of the Matterhorn, the last great unclimbed summit in the Alps. With renown came notoriety and lasting sorrow, though, due to the catastrophic accident on the descent, which cost the lives of four of his party. Whymper's life was marked by the conquest of the Matterhorn, but his mountaineering achievements have overshadowed his distinction as a wood engraver and book illustrator. Before he had ever thought about the Alps, while a teenager fulfilling his apprenticeship in the family engraving studio, Whymper kept a diary for six years, detailing his daily life in Lambeth. Showing frequent glimpses of the dry and sardonic humour so characteristic of the older Whymper, the diary is written with a developing style which looks forward to his classic works on mountaineering, Scrambles amongst the Alps and Travels amongst the the great Andes of the Equator. Providing a rare picture of the workings of a wood engraving studio during the heyday of this reproductive medium, the diary also reveals the world of his father, Josiah, and those London-based artists seeking to make a living from their water-colour painting. An avid reader of The Times, the young Whymper's diary follows the events of the day - the Crimean War, trhe Indian Mutiny, the affairs of Parliament, notorious trials, business scandals - and also the many fires and daily catastrophes so prevalent in Victorian London. This edition reproduces the complete text of Whymper's first diary for the first time. Ian Smith is a librarian, who is writing a biography of Edward Whymper. He is a member of the Alpine Club and has climbed many of Whymper's first ascents. He is from south London and lives in Kennington.

Kathleen Tipper's diary, kept for Mass-Observation from July 1941 till peace in 1945 and beyond, offers a unique personal insight into one young woman's war.

This edition of the Bede roll of this London fraternity has been published in two volumes: the first volume contains the text of the roll and the second volume provides an index to the nearly 7000 names of those who were members of the fraternity between 1449 and 1521. These included not only the clerks themselves and their wives, but also members of the nobility and high-ranking clergy. The bulk of the membership consisted of middle-ranking Londoners whodecided the extra prayers and funeral ceremony which the parish clerks could provide. The editors have also supplied an account of the immensely popular Parish Clerks fraternity and of the ways in which it was governed and administered.

A collection of advertisements placed by the flourishing London debating societies of the late eighteenth century in the most popular London newspapers.

Transcription of Public Record Office manuscripts E.179/144/120 and E.179/251/16.

A calendar of the 1567/8 London Port Book, detailing imports in London, plus related documents.

A comprehensive catalogue of and guide to three centuries of seals from London and its environs.

The diaries of an MP and Lord Mayor in the eighteenth century shed light on contemporary political life.

The imposition in 1695 of a new tax on births, marriages and deaths, in support of England's contribution to the Nine Years' War, led to the creation of a full register of the population of London [as of other counties]. The surviving records offer an unequalled level of information on social, family and household structures. In particular, they enumerate entire households by name and status, including children, servants and lodgers. This volume provides an index ro the surviving manuscript assessments for London's thirteen extramural parishes, and complements David Glass's index of inhabitants within the walls, published by the London Record Society in 1966.

The Pinners' and Wiresellers' Book covers the accounts of the medieval craft of the Pinners between 1462 and 1511, prior to and following their meeger with the Wiremongers to form the Wiresellers Company in 1497. It is a most unusual volume since there are no other administrative records surviving from such a lowly craft in medieval London. It reveals how a small craft (some thirty members) struggled to maintain a hall, control working practices, license alien craftsmen and secure prayers for themselves and their families at the house of the Carmelite Friars in Fleet Street and St James's hospital in Westminster. On occasion the Pinners joined forces with other crafts, such as the Girdlers in searching in the City to confiscate defective goods, or with the Cutlers to petition Parliament against the import of manufactured goods from abroad. However, in spite of their brave efforts, to which this slim volume bears witness, the Pinners were not able to remain an independent craft. They joined the Wiresellers in 1497, and this amalgamated craft itself went on to merge with the Girdlers in the sixteenth century.This volume has never been in print before and has hitherto only rarely been used by historians. The London Record Society edition is enhanced by the inclusion of the wills of some thirty medieval pinners and wiresellers, most of which were registered in the Court of the Bishop of London's Commissary (whose records are now in Guildhall Library). Barbara Megson read history at Girton College, Cambridge, and spent much of her professional life in the field of Education as a teacher, administrator and as H.M. Inspector of Schools. More recenlty she has focused her attention on the medieval city of London and in 1993 published Such Goodly Company: A Glimpse of theLife of Bowyers of London 1300-1600. She is currently working on a history of the Farriers of London.

In British gaols and on hulks, awaiting transportation to New South Wales, prisoners convicted of forged paper currency offences wrote to their influential prosecutor, the Bank of England. This volume comprises several hundred ofsuch letters held in the Bank's archives. Many, mainly those wirtten by or for women, came from the depths of abject misery and poverty, begging help to cope with prison conditions and with the journey to Australia. Others offeredinformation to the Bank about forged note traffickers in the hope of gaining some benefit for themselves. The collection reveals an extraordinary story of a surprising relationship between convicted prisoners and a mighty financial institution.

The unique manorial and household accounts of William Worsley, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral.

A unique snapshot of London life as recorded by diarists whose interests range from high politics to housework, childbirth to deathbeds, burglaries to bowel movements.

The cases presented at the Court of Exchequer contain a wealth of information about many aspects of London history such as commerce, colonial trade, property and social customs.

St Andrew was a small and comparatively obscure parish situated in the south-east of the medieval city of London, but its churchwardens' accounts survive in a virtually unbroken series starting in 1454 and continuing into the 1620s. Such complete sets of churchwardens' accounts are rare and particularly so for the period before the Reformation. These accounts reveal much about the practices and priorities of ordinary Londoners and demonstrate how they responded to the often conflicting demands of royal government in the sixteenth century. In addition to the accounts, the editor has also provided the texts of nearly a hundred wills of men and women who lived and died in this smallparish during these years. There is a full index provided to both the accounts and the wills.

Records of settlement and bastardy examinations held in the parish of Chelsea in the mid-eighteenth century.

A uniquely valuable insight into Elizabethan and Jacobean culture in early modern London.

The rulers of London in the late middle ages sought to safeguard the future of their important river crossing by placing its administration in the hands of a specially created institution. By the mid-fourteenth century the "BridgeHouse", as it became known, had been endowed with a large portfolio of properties which provided the bulk of the revenue needed for the frequent, and often urgent, repairs to London Bridge's structure: as many as 130 shops stoodon the bridge itself. As well as providing information on the technicalities of bridge-building or wider issues concerning urban crafts and productive processes, the accounts and rentals from the institution's archive provide useful snapshots of the bridge at various points in its often turbulent history.

The documents calendared in this volume consist of Petty Custom recordings of general imports and exports (other than wine, wool and hides) by alien merchants, and of cloth exports by alien and denizen merchants, in the port of London from Michaelmas 1480 to Michaelmas 1481; together with less detailed accounts for wool, wine and other commodities. Petty Custom accounts were kept by royal officials in each customs port, who recorded each ship entering or leaving, the merchant in whose name goods were shipped and each item of customable cargo.