Sanitation in Urban Britain, 1560-1700

222 Pages·2016·2.1 MB·English

by  Leona J. Skelton

Sanitation in Urban Britain,
1560–1700
Popular belief holds that throwing the contents of a chamber pot into the street
was a common occurrence during the early modern period. This book challenges
this deeply entrenched stereotypical image as the majority of urban inhabitants
and their local governors alike valued clean outdoor public spaces, vesting interest
in keeping the areas in which they lived and worked clean.
Taking an extensive tour of over thirty towns and cities across early modern
Britain, focusing on Edinburgh and York as in-depth case studies, this book sheds
light on the complex relationship between how governors organized street
cleaning, managed waste disposal and regulated the cleanliness of the outdoor
environment, top-down, and how typical urban inhabitants self-regulated their
neighbourhoods, bottom-up. The urban-rural manure trade, sanitation
infrastructure, waste-disposal technology, plague epidemics, contemporary
understandings of malodours and miasmatic disease transmission and urban
agriculture are also analysed.
This book will enable undergraduates, postgraduates and established academics
to deepen their understanding of daily life and sensory experiences in the early
modern British town. This innovative work will appeal to social, cultural and
legal historians as well as researchers of history of medicine and public health.
Leona J. Skelton is Post-Doctoral Research Assistant in the History Department
at University of Bristol, UK.
Perspectives in Economic and Social History
Series Editors: Andrew August
Jari Eloranta
1 Migrants and Urban Change 9 The Decline of Jute
Newcomers to Antwerp, Managing Industrial Change
1760–1860 Jim Tomlinson, Carlo Morelli and
Anne Winter Valerie Wright
2 Female Entrepreneurs in 10 Mining and the State in
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Galina Ulianova Gail D. Triner
3 Barriers to Competition 11 Global Trade and Commercial
The Evolution of the Debate Networks
Ana Rosado Cubero Eighteenth-Century Diamond
Merchants
4 Rural Unwed Mothers Tijl Vanneste
An American Experience,
1870–1950 12 The Clothing Trade in
Mazie Hough Provincial England, 1800–1850
Alison Toplis
5 English Catholics and the
Education of the Poor, 13 Sex in Japan’s Globalization,
1847–1902 1870–1930
Eric G. Tenbus Prostitutes, Emigration and
Nation Building
6 The World of Carolus Clusius Bill Mihalopoulos
Natural History in the Making,
1550–1610 14 Financing India’s Imperial
Florike Egmond Railways, 1875–1914
Stuart Sweeney
7 The Determinants of
Entrepreneurship 15 Energy, Trade and Finance
Leadership, Culture, Institutions in Asia
Edited by José L. García-Ruiz A Political and Economic Analysis
and Pier Angelo Toninelli Justin Dargin and Tai Wei Lim
8 London Clerical Workers, 16 Violence and Racism in Football
1880–1914 Politics and Cultural Conflict in
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Michael Heller Brett Bebber
17 The Economies of Latin America 26 Respectability and the London
New Cliometric Data Poor, 1780–1870
Edited by César Yáñez and The Value of Virtue
Albert Carreras Lynn MacKay
18 Meat, Commerce and the City 27 Residential Institutions in
The London Food Market, Britain, 1725–1970
1800–1855 Inmates and Environments
Robyn S. Metcalfe Edited by Jane Hamlett,
Lesley Hoskins and
19 Merchant Colonies in the Early Rebecca Preston
Modern Period
Edited by Victor N. Zakharov, 28 Conflict, Commerce and
Gelina Harlaftis and Franco-Scottish Relations,
Olga Katsiardi-Hering 1560–1713
Siobhan Talbott
20 Markets and Growth in Early
Modern Europe 29 Drink in the Eighteenth and
Victoria N. Bateman Nineteenth Centuries
Edited by Susanne Schmid and
21 Welfare and Old Age in Europe Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp
and North America
The Development of Social 30 Merchants and Profit in the Age
Insurance of Commerce, 1680–1830
Edited by Bernard Harris Edited by Pierre Gervais,
Yannick Lemarchand and
22 Female Economic Strategies in Dominique Margairaz
the Modern World
Edited by Beatrice Moring 31 Jewish Immigrants in London,
1880–1939
23 Crime and Community in Susan L. Tananbaum
Reformation Scotland
Negotiating Power in a Burgh 32 Commercial Networks and
Society European Cities, 1400–1800
J. R. D. Falconer Edited by Andrea Caracausi and
Christof Jeggle
24 Policing Prostitution, 1856–1886
Deviance, Surveillance and 33 A Global Conceptual History of
Morality Asia, 1860–1940
Catherine Lee Edited by Hagen Schulz-Forberg
25 Narratives of Drunkenness 34 Consuls and the Institutions of
Belgium, 1830–1914 Global Capitalism, 1783–1914
An Vleugels Ferry de Goey
35 Merchant Communities in Asia, 37 Philanthropy and the Funding
1600–1980 of the Church of England,
Lin Yu-ju and Madeleine Zelin 1856–1914
Sarah Flew
36 Insanity and the Lunatic
Asylum in the Nineteenth 38 Merchants and Trading in the
Century Sixteenth Century
Edited by Thomas Knowles and The Golden Age of Antwerp
Serena Trowbridge Jeroen Puttevils
Forthcoming Titles
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in Europe Nineteenth Century
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Simon Ruiz Edited by Mary Hammond and
Ana Sofia Ribeiro Barry Sloan
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Edited by Davide Gualerzi and 1550–1800
Claudia Sunna Connectors of Commercial Maritime
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Labour and Living Standards in Edited by Manuel Herrero Sánchez
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The Case of the Gold Coast
Klas Rönnbäck Workers, Unions and Payment
in Kind
Prostitution and Social Control in The Fight for Real Wages in Britain,
Eighteenth-Century Ports 1820–1986
Marion Pluskota Christopher Frank
A History of Drink and the English, A History of Professional Economists
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Paul Jennings Irrelevant Genius
Jonathan S. Franklin
Franco Modigliani and Keynesian
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Theory, Facts and Policy
Antonella Rancan
Sanitation in Urban Britain,
1560–1700
Leona J. Skelton
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Leona J. Skelton
The right of Leona J. Skelton to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act
1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
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registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Skelton, Leona J., author.
Sanitation in urban Britain, 1560-1700 / Leona J. Skelton.
1. Sanitation--Great Britain--History--16th century. 2. Sanitation--Great
Britain--History--17th century. 3. Public health--Great Britain--History--
16th century. 4. Public health--Great Britain--History--17th century.
I. Title.
RA485.S536 2016
363.720941--dc23
2015029600
ISBN: 978-1-8489-3592-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-62075-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
Dedicated to the memory of Prof. Christopher W. Brooks
(1948–2014)
My brilliant PhD supervisor who died before he could see this
work in print
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