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2020 | Buch

Contracts and Pay

Work in London Construction 1660–1785

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This book presents a new economic history of London construction in the early modern period. Drawing on extensive archival material from key sites such as St Paul’s Cathedral and London Bridge, it describes the organization of contracts and work on large-scale ‘extraordinary’ projects and maintenance contracts in the city during a key period of architectural and organizational development in Britain. Stephenson shows that the organisation of the industry and the welfare of its workers were shaped by the contracts and finance of large institutions and ambitious businessmen. Providing fresh wage and earnings data for craftsmen and labourers during the period, it offers new material and debate for economic, business and construction historians.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. A Short History of Builders’ Wages in Economic History
Abstract
Throughout history, construction workers not only built many of the landmarks of modern day London but, unknowingly, gave us the building blocks for the methods most widely used to evaluate the economic performance of the past. Economic historians have a long studied the pay of construction workers, but their sources and methods are not well understood. This chapter gives a concise history of early modern and pre-industrial builder’s wage sources and their conversion to wage series. It introduces the idea that there has been a serious misapprehension of those sources which has influenced our understanding of early modern wages.
Judy Z. Stephenson
Chapter 2. The Market for Building
Abstract
From all accounts, the period from after the Restoration to the 1780s was one of significant high investment, both public and private, in the built environment in London. London’s building industry was large and well developed by the 1660s. This chapter explores the market for construction and the sources of wage data.
Judy Z. Stephenson
Chapter 3. Contractors
Abstract
Who were the men and women who undertook the delivery of these large-scale seventeenth and eighteenth-century construction projects? A body of research in architectural history has sought to detail the backgrounds and biographies of the ‘master craftsmen’, or ‘artisans’, who built St Paul’s, the City Churches, Greenwich Hospital, and who carried out work at other sites—particularly those who worked for Sir Christopher Wren. In this chapter I argue that they are best understood as well-capitalised businessmen.
Judy Z. Stephenson
Chapter 4. Contracts and Ways of Working in the Building Trades
Abstract
This chapter will discuss the evidence from building contracts and work records to show that seventeenth-century business men in construction understood the costs, incentives, and benefits of different organisational and contractual arrangements, and that they used such varying arrangements purposefully to mitigate risk.
Judy Z. Stephenson
Chapter 5. What did Bosses (in London Construction) do?
Abstract
The question and debate about processes of pre-industrial management are highly relevant to understanding organisation of the building industry in the long eighteenth century. As will be apparent by now, large institutions chose to pay middlemen, contractors, or entrepreneurs, a significant share of scarce public funds in order not to have to manage production. This chapter considers the activities of early modern business contractors to calculate their costs of operating.
Judy Z. Stephenson
Chapter 6. Contracts and Pay at St Paul’s Cathedral, and at the Office of the King’s Works
Abstract
This chapter presents a significant proportion of the new evidence presented by this book using the day books of William Kempster, the mason contractor responsible for the south west tower, west front, geometric staircase, and library, at St Paul’s Cathedral in the decade after 1700. It shows that men were paid different rates to the day rates billed to institutions, and that labourers and craftsmen’s pay was lower than previously assumed.
Judy Z. Stephenson
Chapter 7. Pay at Bridge House, Westminster Bridge, and Middle Temple
Abstract
This chapter explores craftsman’s and labourers’ pay rates and forms of pay at sites beyond the large projects of Wren and his successors, from 1660 to the late eighteenth century, with a particular focus on London Bridge.
Judy Z. Stephenson
Chapter 8. Contracts and Pay in Construction in the Long Run
Abstract
This chapter seeks to put the new wage observations into the context of debates about early modern remuneration and wage formation more generally, and it attempts to offer a new craft and labourers wage series within the limitations set out in the book.
Judy Z. Stephenson
Chapter 9. Conclusions and Further Notes on Understanding Early Modern Contracts and Pay
Abstract
The work and wages of early modern building craftsman and labourers have for a great deal of time provided the underpinnings of many historian’s narratives. New wage evidence gives us the opportunity to evaluate how useful builders really are to historians in economic and social analysis.
Judy Z. Stephenson
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Contracts and Pay
verfasst von
Dr. Judy Z. Stephenson
Copyright-Jahr
2020
Electronic ISBN
978-3-319-57508-7
Print ISBN
978-3-319-57507-0
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57508-7