London, like Venice was a trading hub, and throughout the documents of the 18thC, London is compared with her Italian counterpart in all things apart from our 'superior' manner of government (they let 'tradesmen' govern in Venice, can you imagine?).  I am inclined to think that our import and export business was slightly less glamorous than that of the Floating City's, but perhaps familiarity has bred contempt and a fine piece of cheddar was as highly valued in Venice as parmesan cheeses were in London.  

This blog post is a very brief overview of our import and export trade in the mid-18thC and reflects the abundance of foreign goods available in London, and thus throughout England.  I think it is hard to over-estimate the extent to which the ordinary people of London were involved in 'trade' and to the extent they identified themselves as 'tradesmen'.  The expansion of the Empire beneath the Tudor family's reign had opened up parts of the world formerly inaccessible to the English people, and the writers of the 18thC certainly looked back on their medieval forebears as ruder cousins, lacking sophistication and knowledge of the world.  Trade brought not only goods to England's shores, but new ideas, schools of thought and scientific developments; our own advances were also traded as part of the ongoing development of the civilized world.  This air of enthusiasm, excitement and potential is lost to modern London where we are little more than a hub for financial services, and an exporter of bad cars, worse actresses and Newcastle Brown Ale.

England was beaten only by the Dutch for international trade, 'a country not much bigger than Yorkshire, and with a soil naturally barren'.  However, the legacy of the Spanish was a superb navy, and they were 'mighty in traffic'.  The wealth of the Dutch merchants was thrown into sharp relief in 1747 when the government went to them in crisis: they put over six millions pounds (sterling) at the service of the government in less than four hours.  It is almost impossible to put a modern figure to this sum, but it's more than a billion pounds.  In cash.  With those sorts of amounts, it isn't hard to see how the Netherlands convinced the poorer countries of the world, possessed of valuable commodities, to trade with them over any other nation.  Britain had struggled with long and sapping wars, and the countries with which it traded were in decline.  They had one large advantage over the Dutch though: the plantations.  The tobacco, sugar and other byproducts of the American and Caribbean plantations were vital to keeping England, and London, wealthy.

Merchants tended not to deal in one commodity; it was too risky.  Instead, they would deal in the produce of one country, hence Virginia merchants (tobacco and wood), and French merchants (wine and foodstuffs).  England imported wine, sugar, flax, hemp, cotton, rums, copper and iron ore amongst other basic products such as indigo for dyes.  It also imported a large quantity of fish from America, but it was deemed fit only for the Levant.  England exported made-up clothing, furniture, cutlery, haberdashery, clocks, glassware, toys and all manner of 'fancy goods'.  The rule of thumb is that England imported raw products, but exported finished products of a relatively high standard.  The upper-classes of Ireland had a strong 18thC, and were buying heavily from the London markets, but the poor remained very poor, often arriving in England with little more than a strong back and a desire for gin.  Robert Campbell made an acid note of the English attitude to the Irish, 'The balance paid by Ireland in exchange of goods, and the money spent by their gentry and nobility in England, amount to at least one million sterling per annum, which is a greater advantage (relative profit) than we reap from all our other branches of commerce; yet we grudge these people the common privileges of subjects, despite their persons, and condemn their country, as if it was a crime to be born in that kingdom from when we derive the greatest part of our wealth'.

Exports of fancy goods to Denmark and Sweden are recorded, in exchange for woods and minerals, although this trade was apparently dying out by the late 18thC.  To Turkey we sent lead, tin and sugar, and received carpets, coffee, and silks.  Tin and wool were sent to Portugal, and wine, olive oil and ready money were received in return.  To the East Indies, we sent woollen clothes, hats, firearms and silver bullion, but imported gold, diamonds, spices, drugs, tea, porcelain, china, silk, cotton, salt-petre and various other goods.  It was judged a very profitable branch of England's trade, and no wonder.  The less savoury aspects of our history are also recorded in our exports of guns, swords and cutlasses to Guinea, 'in exchange for negroes to work on our plantations, gold dust, and elephants' teeth'.

This is a broad subject for a blog post and does not take into account the 'triangular' nature of the slave trade.  I will tackle it in more detail in future but until then, I quote Campbell again, in what has to be one of the greatest comments on the English relationship with France, ever:

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The modern return to seasonal eating throws into sharp relief the variety of food available to us in any given month; reading Hannah's manual (Art of Cookery) throws into even sharper relief the variety of native fruits and vegetables now lost to us in Britain through both neglect and intensive agriculture.  Just in case anyone thought the people of the 18thC sat shivering throughout the winter, gnawing on a frozen turnip and praying for the thaw, I give you Hannah's entry for the fruits and vegetables that made good eating during December:

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Every century has an epic lady cookery writer: Elizabeth David and Isabella Beeton obviously spring to mind for the 20th and 19th centuries, but how many of you have heard of Hannah Glasse?  Like all great cookery writers, Hannah's life was a bit of a mess, but her most famous work, Art of Cookery, first published in 1747 was the household book of the 18th century.  It would eventually save Hannah from the debtors' prisons of the Fleet and the Marshalsea, and enable her as a widow to raise her eight children.  

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Today I went shopping with a friend who is getting married.  When at last, I managed to pry her away from shops filled with grossly over-priced wedding frippery, we went for tea near Berkeley Square.  Weddings mean green tea and no cake apparently.  Bad luck for her.  All the more for me.

     

Click here to download:

Today.zip (281 KB)

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I find the history of Hungerford Market and the surrounding area fascinating.  It was full of grand but rotting buildings, street and river traffic, French and black immigrants, booksellers, printers (often of rather dicey material) and also a burgeoning luxury goods trade.  Closer to the large houses of the nobility than the City, it was also more squalid and often dangerous.  Much more interesting than the rows of gaudy theatres and chain stores standing there now.

Sir Edward Hungerford was born in 1632 and rose through the ranks during Charles IInd's exile, serving as a Knight of the Order of the Bath at Charles's coronation.  Edward had inherited a fortune in Wiltshire property and a London house, Durham Yard, which sat  between the Strand and the Thames, on the site of Charing Cross Station. 

Heavy debt sustained at the tables made Edward Hungerford unable to repair the mansion and the smaller buildings on the site, and they fell into disrepair.  The area at the time was one of faded grandeur.  The labyrinthine old royal and ducal palaces sat by the water, crawling with damp and neglect.  Durham House had one huge advantage: the Hungerford Steps, leading up from the Thames.  Originally the lading dock for the house, and the manner by which the family took to the water to travel to the City, it was a convenient place for traders to land their commodities for sale at nearby Covent Garden market to the north.  In a time of no supermarkets, London relied on its markets, each specializing in something different.  Nearby Covent Garden supplied fruit, vegetables, pot and pans, and gardening tools.  Rather alarmingly, it was also London's pet shop.  Fish, newts, parrots, and even monkeys could all be yours for a price. 

In the 1670s the Strand area was a warren of residential property.  Hundreds of people lived and worked in a small area. They all needed to eat, and all the food had to be brought in.  Small street markets were everywhere, and it soon became apparent that the densely populated area of the Strand needed its own market.  Edward Hungerford applied to the King for permission to establish a market on the site of Hungerford House, stating his own house, and the buildings attached to it to be 'soe old and ruinous that the same could not be rebuilt without great expence.'  A meeting was held at 'le greyhounde taverne in le Strand' to discuss the matter with local residents, and in 1678, the market was approved, with additional stall-holders allowed on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

 It opened in 1682; a thriving shopping mall-type affair with a covered piazza.  The immediate reception was favourable and Hungerford must have breathed a sigh of relief before returning to his cards.  He died in reduced circumstances in 1711.

Unlike most London markets, Hungerford had no particular speciality.  It sold fish, meat, and all types of fruit and vegetables.  After 1685, the area became very popular with the French Huguenot refugees, and the market was known for selling 'furren' foods.  Christopher Wren and his partner Stephen Fox purchased the market in 1684, and held it until Wren's death, when it was sold to Henry Wise.  A bust of Wren can be seen in the niche between the upper windows in the engraving.  There was a large meeting hall upstairs, which in 1688 the refugees established as Hungerford Market Church, although presumably it still functioned as a meeting room outside services.  It remained a church until 1754, when the market itself was already in decline.  However, demand for a market in the area remained high, and so many people came and went via Hungerford Stairs, that it limped on for another century, when Peter Cunningham, in his Hand-book of London, declared its failing as being 'of too general a character and attempts too much in trying to unite Leadenhall, Billingsgate, and Covent-garden Markets'.

Despite attempts to revive it, including building a suspension footbridge to the South bank, Hungerford Market failed, and was eventually pulled down to make way for Charing Cross Station, completed in 1864.  The footbridge was replaced with a railway bridge, and the suspension chains were removed to Bristol, where they completed Brunel's Clifton Suspension Bridge.

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