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Riches and Poverty: Capitalism in Britain, 1680-1830 - Sources

Module description

Bookended by financial and industrial revolutions, the long eighteenth century was a time of significant commercial development. What impact did these economic transformations have on people’s everyday lives? The market is much more than a place for exchanging goods. It is the space where power is brokered, and it structures human relationships. This module concerns Britain’s transition to a capitalist market society in the long eighteenth century (c.1680-1830), explored from social, cultural and economic perspectives. The module will consider what it meant to be in debt, the role that gender played in economic life, and the ethics that governed the market. We will consider how wealth and property were defined in terms of the value of things, and the value of people and their bodies. By studying the history of capitalism, we will address concepts that continue to sit at the basis of our economy today.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to:

• Consider the complex implications of the market; focusing on the economic lives of men, women and children in terms of the jobs that they did, the wealth that they owned, and the standards of living that they experienced
• Consider the social relations and power structures that the market bequeathed, and how contemporaries thought about and understood the market
• Focus on Britain, placed within a global perspective
• Draw on interdisciplinary primary source collections, including paintings and visual materials, legal sources, diaries, and account books
• By working with an extensive range of sources, you will develop a range of research, analytical, interpretative and communication skills that can be applied in further academic studies or in graduate careers

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Have a detailed knowledge of the different sources available for the study of eighteenth-century economic history, together with a very close specialist knowledge of those sources which the students focus upon in their seminar presentations and written work
• 2. Analyse the complex diversity of the sources studied

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Analyse closely original sources and to assess their reliability as historical evidence. Ability to focus on and comprehend complex texts
• 4. Understand and deploy relevant historical terminology in a comprehensible manner
• 5. Follow the changing economic developments in eighteenth century Britain

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Independently and autonomously study and also work within a group, including presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
• 7. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
• 8. Present complex arguments orally

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• The financial revolution: imagining money
• Bodies and labour
• Credit
• Being in debt
• Value and worth
• The debtors’ prisons
• The commodification of bodies
• Poverty and inequality
• Bankruptcy
• Images of wealth
• Gender and investment
• Exchanging wealth: gifts

The introductory sessions for this module will provide an overview of the subject and also expose you to the sources themselves. The seminars will focus on sources drawn from published and digitised resources, allowing you to develop their knowledge of the subject in conjunction with the close analysis of historiography provided in the co-requisite module, and to develop their skills in source analysis and acquisition. You will be expected to prepare for seminars by reading and evaluating the relevant sources in advance, and will discuss the issues raised by them in the seminars.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

The re-assessment consists of a 4000 word portfolio of source work, as in the original assessment, but replaces the individual presentation with a written script that could be delivered in such a presentation and which is the equivalent of 20 minutes of speech.

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Printed Primary Sources

• Coldham, Peter Wilson. The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations,  1654-1686. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing.
• Bly, Antonio T and Tamia Haygood. Escaping Servitude: A Documentary History of Runaway Servants in Eighteenth Century Virginia (Lexington Books, 2015)
• Amster, Mara I. Texts on prostitution, 1635-1700 (Ashgate, 2007).
• Sokoll, Thomas ed. Essex Pauper Letters, 1731-1837 (Oxford University Press, 2001).
• Horner, Craig (ed). The diary of Edmund Harrold, wigmaker of Manchester 1712-15 (Ashgate, 2008).
• Edwards, Dorothy and Christine M. Newman (eds). Northallerton wills and inventories, 1666-1719 .
• George, Edwin and Stella (eds), with the assistance of Peter Fleming ; with an introduction by Jonathan Barry. Bristol probate inventories. Part 3, 1690-1804 (Bristol Record Society, 2008).

Secondary Readings

• C. Muldrew, The economy of obligation: the culture of credit and social relations in early modern England (Palgrave MacMillan, 1998)
• A. Shepard. Accounting for Oneself: Worth, Status and the Social Order in Early Modern England (Oxford University Press, 2016).
• D. Graeber. Debt: The First 5,000 Years (Melville House, 2011)
• D. Valenze. The Social Life of Money in the English Past (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
• S. Newman. A New World of Labor: The Development of Plantation Slavery in the British Atlantic (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)
• K. Wrightson. Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain (Yale University Press, 2000)
• M. Overton et al. Production and consumption in English Households , 1600-1750 (2004).
• Steve Hindle and Alexandra Shepard (eds), Remaking English society: social relations and social change in early modern England (2013)
• J. Bohstedt. The Politics of Provisions: Food Riots, Moral Economy, and Market Transition in England, c. 1550-1850 (Farnham, 2010).
• A. Vickery. ‘His and Hers: Gender, Consumption and Household Accounting in Eighteenth-Century England’, Past and Present , Supplement 1 (2006), 12–38.
• S. King and A. Tomkins (eds). The Poor in England, 1700-1850: An Economy of Makeshifts (2003).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• The Old Bailey Online. https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/ 
• London Lives: https://www.londonlives.org/ 
• Cause Papers, Church Courts of the diocese of York: https://www.hrionline.ac.uk/causepapers/ 
• Defining Gender. Link via Exeter Library lib.exeter.ac.uk/search~S6/v?History 

Key words search

Capitalism, wealth, financial revolution, industrial revolution