Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:38:55.965Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Shopping streets as social space: leisure, consumerism and improvement in an eighteenth-century county town

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2009

Jon Stobart
Jon Stobart
Affiliation:
Geography Division, Staffordshire University, Stoke on Trent, ST4 2DF
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The eighteenth century witnessed the emergence of ‘leisure towns’ as the chief resorts of wealthy consumers of a new range of goods and services. Their prosperity related closely to the growth of consumerism, but little attention has been given to the ways in which shopping and shops linked into the changing social, economic and physical structure of such towns. This paper explores these processes in the context of Chester – a classic, but largely neglected leisure town – and concludes that shopping streets became central to the economy of the city and amongst the most important of its social spaces.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , May 1998 , pp. 3 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Clark, P., ‘Small towns in England 1550–1850’, in Clark, P. (ed.), Small Towns in Eighteenth Century Europe (Cambridge, 1995), 90–120Google Scholar; Wrigley, E.A., ‘Urban growth and agricultural change’, in Borsay, P. (ed.), The Eighteenth Century Town, 1688–1820 (London, 1990), 42Google Scholar; Corfield, P., The Impact of English Towns, 1700–1800 (Oxford, 1982), 9–16.Google Scholar

2 For the emergence of a consumer society, see McKendrick, N., Brewer, J. and Plumb, J. (eds), The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialisation of Eighteenth-Century England (London, 1982)Google Scholar, and critiques in Hudson, P., The Industrial Revolution (London, 1992), 173–80Google Scholar; Fine, B. and Leopold, E., The World of Consumption (London, 1993), 63–72Google Scholar, and Glennie, P., ‘Consumption within historical studies’, in Miller, D. (ed.), Acknowledging Consumption: A Review of New Studies (London, 1995), 164–203.Google Scholar

3 Towner, J., An Historical Geography of Recreation and Tourism in the Western World, 1540–1940 (London, 1996).Google Scholar For the growing literature on leisure and consumption, see above, note 2 and Weatherill, L., Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain 1660–1760 (London, 1988)Google Scholar; Borsay, P., The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Town, 1660–1770 (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar; Brewer, J. and Porter, R., Consumption and the World of Goods (London, 1993)Google Scholar; Nenadic, S., ‘Middle-rank consumers and domestic culture in Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1720–1840’, Past and Present, 145 (1994), 122–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Borsay, P., ‘The London connection: cultural diffusion and the eighteenth-century provin cial town’, London Journal, 19 (1994), 21–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Borsay, , The Eighteenth Century Town, 22–3.Google Scholar

6 Borsay, P., ‘The English urban renaissance: the development of provincial urban culture, c. 1680–c. 1760’, Social History, 5 (1977), 581–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Reed, M., ‘The cultural role of small towns in England 1600–1800’Google Scholar, in Clark, , Small Towns in Eighteenth Century Europe, 121–47Google Scholar; Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 323–67.Google Scholar

8 McInnes, A., ‘The emergence of a leisure town: Shrewsbury 1660–1760’, Past and Present, 120 (1988), 53–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Parallel evidence is found in, inter alia, Corfield, P., ‘A provincial capital in the late seventeenth century: the case of Norwich’, in Clark, P., The Early Modern Town (London, 1976)Google Scholar and Hill, J., Georgian Lincoln (Cambridge, 1966).Google Scholar

9 Jones, E. and Falkus, M., ‘Urban improvement and the English economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, in Uselding, P. (ed.), Research in Economic History, vol. 4 (Greenwich, 1979)Google Scholar; Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 39–113Google Scholar; Borsay, P., ‘The rise of the promenade: the social and cultural use of space in the English provincial town, c.1660–1800’, British Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies, 9 (1986), 125–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 McInnes, , ‘Emergence of a leisure town’, 55–65Google Scholar; Towner, , Recreation and Tourism, 82–3.Google Scholar

11 Glennie, P. and Thrift, N., ‘Consumers, identities, and consumption spaces in early-modern England’, Environment and Planning A, 28 (1996), 25–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 See, inter alia, McKendrick, et al. , Birth of a Consumer SocietyGoogle Scholar; Fine, and Leopold, , World of ConsumptionGoogle Scholar; Glennie, , ‘Consumption within historical studiesGoogle Scholar; Benson, J., The Rise of Consumer Society in Britain, 1880–1980 (London, 1994)Google Scholar; Weatherill, L., ‘The meaning of consumer behaviour in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England’Google Scholar, in Brewer, and Porter, , Consumption and the World of Goods, 206–27Google Scholar; Campbell, C., ‘Under standing traditional and modern patterns of consumption in eighteenth-century England’Google Scholar, in Brewer, and Porter, , Consumption and the World of Goods, 40–57.Google Scholar

13 Benson, , Rise of Consumer Society, 59.Google Scholar

14 Glennie, and Thrift, , ‘Consumption spaces’, 26.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., 35.

16 Perkins, E., ‘The consumer frontier: household consumption in early Kentucky’, Journal of American History, 78 (1991), 503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 See the account of Pepys as a consumer in Glennie, and Thrift, , ‘Consumption spaces’, 28–31.Google Scholar

18 Vickery, A., ‘Women and the world of goods: a Lancashire consumer and her possessions, 1751–81’Google Scholar, in Brewer, and Porter, , Consumption and the World of Goods, 274–301Google Scholar; Weatherill, , Consumer Behaviour and Material CultureGoogle Scholar; Davis, D., A History of Shopping (London, 1966)Google Scholar; Mui, H. and Mui, L., Shops and Shopkeeping in Eighteenth Century England (London, 1989).Google Scholar

19 Mitchell, S., ‘The development of urban retailing 1700–1815’, in Clark, P. (ed.), The Transformation of English Provincial Towns (London, 1984), 259–83.Google Scholar

20 Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 28–37Google Scholar; McInnes, , ‘Emergence of a leisure town’, 75–80Google Scholar; Corfield, , English Towns, 51–65.Google Scholar

21 Phillips, C. and Smith, J., Lancashire and Cheshire from AD1540 (London, 1994), 66–70 and 88–117.Google Scholar

22 Stobart, J., ‘An eighteenth-century revolution? Investigating urban growth in north-west England’, Urban History, 23 (1996), 26–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stobart, J., ‘The spatial organization of a regional economy: central places in north-west England in the early-eighteenth century’, Journal of Historical Geography, 22 (1996), 147–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 For useful lists of key cultural facilities in the region, see Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 323–67.Google Scholar

24 The number of Cheshire gentry was noted by Defoe, D., A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724–26; Penguin, ed., London, 1971), 395Google Scholar, and Aikin, J., A Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round Manchester (London, 1795), 388.Google Scholar The 1665 Hearth Tax indicates their ownership of town houses, as does the ‘Plan of the City and Castle of Chester’ by A. de Lavaux (1745), Chester Library, MF 5/3. The importance of such individuals is emphasized by, inter alia, Reed, , ‘Cultural role of small towns’, 127–8 and 139–40.Google Scholar

25 Towner, , Recreation and Tourism, 57–9Google Scholar; Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 28–37.Google Scholar

26 McInnes, , ‘Emergence of a leisure town’, 65.Google Scholar

27 Assemblies began in Preston in the late seventeenth century and took place in Liverpool and Manchester from the early eighteenth century; balls were common in many smaller towns: Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 336–49.Google Scholar

28 Carrington, P., English Heritage Book of Chester (London, 1994), 99Google Scholar; Willshaw, E., ‘The inns of Chester, 1775–1832 (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Leicester, 1979), 13.Google Scholar

29 Broster, P., The Chester Guide (Chester, 1782), 69Google Scholar – as elsewhere, Chester's was a winter season.

30 There were travelling players in Chester from the 1530s – Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 118Google Scholar – and regular performances by 1692: Kennert, A. (ed.), Georgian Chester (Chester, 1987), 36.Google Scholar

31 Hemingway, J., History of the City of Chester, vol. 2 (Chester, 1831), 342.Google Scholar

32 Broster, , Chester Guide, 30.Google Scholar

33 The origin of the music festival is not clear: Fenwick, G., A History of the Ancient City of Chester (Chester, 1896), 508Google Scholar, suggests a starting date in the 1720s; Kennett, , Georgian Chester, 39Google Scholar, gives 1786. Whichever is correct, Chester formed one of the few centres for music in the region; Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 330Google Scholar, lists only Manchester.

34 Willshaw, , ‘Inns of Chester’, 43–51.Google Scholar

35 There were two newspapers from 1775: Kennett, , Georgian Chester, 38.Google Scholar In terms of newspapers, Chester lagged about twenty years behind towns like Norwich and Exeter, but compared favourably with regional neighbours: Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 129–30.Google Scholar

36 Kennett, , Georgian Chester, 39.Google Scholar Chester was also prominent in the growth of provincial printing: Stewart-Brown, R., ‘The stationers, booksellers and printers of Chester’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 83 (1952), 101–52.Google Scholar

37 Broster, , Chester Guide, 27Google Scholar. The Roodee also formed a favourite walk for Chester residents; for example, see Addy, J. (ed.), ‘The diary of Henry Prescott, LLB’, Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 127 (1987).Google Scholar Horse racing regularly took place at twenty-two other venues in Lancashire and Cheshire: Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 356–7 and 360.Google Scholar

38 Hemingway, , History of Chester, vol. 2, 340Google Scholar; Lavaux, de, ‘Plan of Chester’Google Scholar; Carrington, , Chester, 99Google Scholar; Willshaw, , ‘Inns of Chester’, 42Google Scholar; Hughes, T., The Stranger's Handbook to Chester and its Environs (Chester, 1856), 83Google Scholar; ‘A plan of Chester’ by I. Stockdale (1796), Chester Library, MF 1/12.

39 Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 351Google Scholar and Towner, , Recreation and Tourism, 41Google Scholar, list only one walk, putting Chester on a par with, inter alia, Preston, Liverpool, Leeds and Nottingham. However, by 1770, there were two walks and two parks plus the Roodee, making Chester the equal of Exeter, Shrewsbury and Norwich.

40 Using the city walls as a promenade was common throughout Europe, but, particularly in England where many towns had lost their walls by the early modern period, it was more usual for walks to follow the line of the walls rather than run along the top of them: Towner, , Recreation and Tourism, 38Google Scholar. Money was spent on improving the surface, removing obstacles such as Saddler's Tower and Goblin's Tower, and so on: Carrington, , Chester, 102.Google Scholar This was funded by a murage duty levied on Irish linen coming into the city: Broster, , Chester Guide, 14.Google Scholar

41 The fournies of Celia Fiennes, ed. Morris, C. (London, 1947), 178Google Scholar; Defoe, , Tour Through Britain, 393Google Scholar; Pennant, T., ‘A tour of Scotland’ (1769), in Palliser, D., Chester, 1066–1971 (Chester, 1972), 23.Google Scholar

42 Fletcher, J., The Stranger in Chester (Chester, 1816), 50.Google Scholar

43 Borsay, , ‘Rise of the promenade’.Google Scholar

44 Broster, , Chester Guide, 24.Google Scholar

45 Carrington, , Chester, 99.Google Scholar By the early nineteenth century, the river was also used for boating and the first regatta held in 1814 attracted a crowd of 10,000: Kennett, , Georgian Chester, 38.Google Scholar

46 Hemingway, , History of Chester, vol. 2, 342.Google Scholar Chester's status as a major social centre was clear by the early nineteenth century: Herson, J., ‘Victorian Chester: a city of change and ambiguity’, in Swift, R., Victorian Chester (Liverpool, 1996), 13–22.Google Scholar

47 Definitions of ‘leisure’ and ‘leisure-oriented’ are problematical. The groupings used here are based on McInnes, ‘Emergence of a leisure town’, 84–5, and are laid out in detail in Appendix 1.

48 These occupation counts are based on Freeman admissions: Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 51 (1906) and 55 (1908).Google Scholar They tend to overemphasize the professional and leisured classes, but, as McInnes (‘Emergence of a leisure town’, 54–65Google Scholar) demonstrated, the overall trends are correct.

49 Leather working remained far stronger in Chester than in Shrewsbury, but textiles production collapsed in the first half of the eighteenth century: Woodward, D., ‘The Chester leather industry’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 119 (1968), 65–111Google Scholar; Phillips, and Smith, , Lancashire and Cheshire, 36–7.Google Scholar

50 This ‘de-industrialization’ stands in marked contrast with the industrial and commercial growth seen in southern Lancashire, although it seems likely that a similar process occurred in Preston, at least until the later eighteenth century: Ibid., 88–98 and 169–81.

51 Reed, , ‘Cultural role of small towns’, 133Google Scholar; Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 41–113.Google Scholar

52 McInnes (‘Emergence of a leisure town’, 56 and 60) records a fall in the number of merchants and even his Frankpledge lists show only the most marginal growth. Chester had evidently developed a sizeable retail sector well before the period studied by Young, C. and Allen, S., ‘Retail patterns in nineteenth century Chester’, Journal of Regional and Local Studies, 16, 1 (1996), 1–18.Google Scholar

53 Towner, , Recreation and Tourism, 83.Google Scholar

54 Glennie, , ‘Consumption within historical studies’, 179–81Google Scholar; Glennie, and Thrift, , ‘Consumption spaces’, 36–9Google Scholar; Nenadic, , ‘Middle-rank consumers’, 122–9Google Scholar; Weatherill, , ‘Meaning of consumer behaviour’, 207–17.Google Scholar

55 Adams Weekly Courant, 5 07 1785.Google Scholar Whilst this was not the product advertising which receives so much attention in studies of consumption (see, inter alia, Fine, and Leopold, , World of Consumption, 219–26Google Scholar), it is apparent that advertising was important to many traders. Certainly, adverts in the local press long pre-date the developments noted by Young, and Allen, , ‘Retail patterns’, 12–15Google Scholar and suggest the early emergence of a sophisticated and customer-aware retail sector.

56 Poole's Catalogue of 1792 (Chester, 1792).Google Scholar

57 Chester Courant, 1 07 1794.Google Scholar

58 Borsay, , ‘London connection’.Google Scholar

59 Adams Weekly Courant, 6/17 12 1746.Google Scholar

60 Borsay, , ‘London connection’, 24Google Scholar; McKendrick, N., ‘Commercialisation of fashion’Google Scholar, in McKendrick, et al. , Birth of a Consumer Society, 38–97.Google Scholar

61 Phillips, and Smith, , Lancashire and Cheshire, 112–13Google Scholar; Mitchell, , ‘Urban retailing’, 259–83.Google Scholar

62 Aikin, , The Country round Manchester, 388.Google Scholar

63 Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 168–70Google Scholar; Towner, , Recreation and Tourism, 82–3.Google Scholar

64 Dyke, E. (ed.), ‘Chester's earliest directories’, Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society, 37, (1949)Google Scholar indicates the street only, and in Figure 2 the tradesmen have been evenly spaced. Batenham's etchings published in Hughes, T., Ancient Chester: A Series of Illustrations of the Streets of this Old City (London, 1880)Google Scholar suggest that the shops were probably concentrated more around the Cross than this would allow. Whichever, a distinct shopping area was clearly established by the mid-eighteenth century: see Young, and Allen, , ‘Retail patterns’, 8.Google Scholar

65 Broster, P., Sketch Plan of Eastgate Street (c. 1754), Chester City Record Office [hereafter CCRO], CR 63/2/133/17.Google Scholar

66 Roberts, H., The Chester Guide (Chester, 1851), 65.Google Scholar

67 Hughes, , Stranger's Handbook, 64.Google Scholar

68 Broster, , Sketch Plan of Eastgate Street.Google Scholar See also Young, and Allen, , ‘Retail patterns’, 8.Google Scholar

69 Hemingway, , History of Chester, vol. 1, 387.Google Scholar

70 Broster, , Sketch Plan of Eastgate Street.Google Scholar

71 Glennie, , ‘Consumption within historical studies’, 185–90.Google Scholar

72 Glennie, and Thrift, , ‘Consumption spaces’, 33.Google Scholar

73 Fletcher, , Stranger in Chester, 32.Google Scholar

74 Walkowitz, J., City of Dreadful Delight (London, 1992), 46–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, highlights shops as important social arenas for women in nineteenth-century London. To an extent, the same was true of eighteenth-century shops: Glennie, , ‘Consumption within historical studies’, 189.Google Scholar

75 Jones, and Falkus, , ‘Urban improvement’Google Scholar; Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 68–74.Google Scholar

76 CCRO, A/B/1/111v; CCRO, A/B/1/193v.

77 CCRO, A/B/3/163v; CCRO, A/B/3/264v. The volume of work was considerable and several schemes were carried out by private contractors: CCRO, A/B/3/264v.

78 CCRO, A/B/2/156v; CCRO, A/B/2/169v. Similar arrangements were made in Leicester (1686), Hereford (1694) and Lincoln (1707): Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 70.Google Scholar

79 CCRO, A/B/3/10v. Liverpool had a comparable system by 1719: Picton, A. (ed.), City of Liverpool: Municipal Archives and Records (Liverpool, 1886), 64.Google Scholar

80 The lead in the north-west was probably taken by Preston (1699) and Liverpool (1718): Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 72.Google Scholar From 1503, all innkeepers, and past mayors and sheriffs of Chester were charged with hanging out lanterns from nightfall to 8 a.m. between All Saints Day and Candlemas: Bethell, D., A Portrait of Chester (London, 1980), 28.Google Scholar

81 CCRO, A/B/4/5V.

82 CCRO, TCC/WP/65.

83 In this, Chester was about twenty-five years behind innovators like Salisbury, but still possessed one of the first fifty commissions: Jones, and Falkus, , ‘Urban improvement’, 213–17.Google Scholar

84 Hemingway, , History of Chester, vol. 2, 12Google Scholar; Stockdale, , ‘Plan of Chester’Google Scholar; Hemingway, , History of Chester, vol. 1, 413 and 419.Google Scholar

85 CCRO, A/B/5/185; CCRO, A/B/5/207.

86 Seacombe, J., The Chester Guide (Chester, 1836), 139.Google Scholar

87 Mitchell, S., ‘Urban markets and retail distribution, 1730–1815’ (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1975), 160.Google Scholar

88 Hemingway, , History of Chester, vol. 2, 24.Google Scholar

89 Mui, and Mui, , Shops and Shopkeeping, 157.Google Scholar

90 See, for example, CCRO, A/B/4/148V.

91 Mitchell, , ‘Urban markets’, 273.Google Scholar

92 Borsay, , Urban Renaissance, 172.Google Scholar

93 Ibid., 41–113.

94 Defoe, , Tour Through Britain, 392.Google Scholar See also Journies of Celia fiennes, 179.Google Scholar

95 Borsay, , ‘London connection’, 27.Google Scholar

96 CCRO, A/B/4/299V.

97 CCRO, A/B/4/99V and many subsequent entries. Further from the centre, on Lower Bridge Street and the bottom of Watergate Street, enclosure was permitted, normally on payment of a fine for the loss of the row: Carrington, , Chester, 94.Google Scholar

98 CCRO, A/B/2/195v; CCRO, A/B/153v.

99 Glennie, and Thrift, , ‘Consumption spaces’, 32.Google Scholar

100 See, for example, CCRO, A/B/4/298; CCRO, A/B/4/149.

101 CCRO, A/B/4/25.

102 Fletcher, , Stranger in Chester, 34.Google Scholar

103 Ibid.; CCRO, CR 658/60; illustration of ‘Watergate Street Row, Chester’, published by T. Catherall (Chester, 1852); illustration of ‘Eastgate Row, Chester’, published by Evans and Ducker (Chester, no date).

104 Glennie, and Thrift, , ‘Consumption spaces’, 33Google Scholar; Davis, , History of Shopping, 183–204.Google Scholar

105 Hughes, , Ancient Chester; CCRO, A/B/4/259v.Google Scholar

106 CCRO, CR 658/58.

107 Glennie, and Thrift, , ‘Consumption spaces’, 33Google Scholar; Hughes, , Stranger's Handbook, 46.Google Scholar

108 Hemingway, , History of Chester, vol. 1, 388.Google Scholar Such local boosterism must be treated with some caution, but the analogy was clearly chosen to link Chester's improvement to the latest developments in the capital.

109 Ibid., 417. The early nineteenth century also saw decay in some areas, notably the lower reaches of Watergate Street: Herson, , ‘Victorian Chester’, 17.Google Scholar

110 Hemingway, , History of Chester, vol. 1, 410.Google Scholar

111 This is a major theme of Glennie, and Thrift, , ‘Consumption spaces’.Google Scholar

112 Austen, J., Northanger Abbey (1818)Google Scholar, quoted in Towner, , Recreation and Tourism, 83.Google Scholar

113 Ideas of social activity within shops are discussed by Glennie, and Thrift, , ‘Consumption spaces’, 31–6.Google Scholar

114 Roberts, , The Chester Guide, 64.Google Scholar

115 These notions of safety and seclusion find their echo in the arenas for female consumption discussed by Walkowitz, , City of Dreadful Delight, 46–50.Google Scholar