Liverpool University Press Liverpool, 1660-1750: People, Prosperity and Power

This book charts the history of a City unique in the rate of its commercial development from the late-seventeenth century. The characteristics of the population and social structure of the city in its formative period have never been systematically examined in the way pioneered in this work, and while the political structure has been studied before, new light is cast on the way in which it helped economic development. The book combines a number of methodological approaches to early-modern Liverpool, using parish registers, probate material, and city government records. The book opens with the characteristics of marriage, birth and death in a fast growing and mobile population. It goes on to probe the occupation structure, family lives and connections of workers in a maritime city, and the way in which wealth and assets were accumulated and distributed among men and women. The final section examines the political tensions experienced during this period. Particular attention is given to the actions of a consensual but intrusive government in a city in which trade remained unrestricted and fast-growing during a highly volatile period. Liverpool, 1660-1750 provides the first significant detailed published study of the population, occupation, social and political structure the city during this crucial period and will provide a stimulus to further investigation of its early and precocious eighteenth-century growth.