Social structure and occupations: 1608 and 1688

Many within the various groups who do ECW re-enactment use Gregory King’s 1688 estimate of the population and wealth of England and Wales to provide a plan of the social structure of society in the mid 17th century. I have recently been working on a 1608 census type document, a muster roll for the County of Gloucestershire, for a talk on Gloucestershire occupations that I am going to give later in the spring. I thought it would be interesting to try to see how the two compare, one forty years before 1648 and one forty years after. So what are these two data sets?

Gregory King's estimate of population and wealth, England and Wales, 1688

Gregory King (1648-1712) is often regarded as the first great English statistician, a subject known at the time as “political arithmetic”. He was Lancaster Herald and heavily involved in the tax system, his major work  ‘Natural and political observations upon the state and condition of England, 1696’ attempted to estimate a range of information including population size, household size, age distribution, tax revenues, and wealth. It has been commented that it “betrays a number of common assumptions of the propertied”, in particular in having only five categories for the poorer half of society. (Hoppit, 2011) For a further discussion of the accuracy of King’s work have a look at G. S. Holmes. (1977)

Gloucestershire 1608

For 1608 all able-bodied men “fit for his Majestie’s service in the warrs”, and between the ages of 20 and 60 “within the City of Gloucester and the Inshire of the same” were listed. Bristol was not included as it was a county in its own right. The list contains the names of 19,402 men, and 135 women who although they could not serve themselves could provide arms. Of these men 109 were unable in body, and 17,046 gave an occupation or status. There are defects to the listing, as mentioned above over 2000 don’t give an occupation, and as John Smyth, steward to Lord Berkeley for whom the list was compiled, remarked of one place “many made default in this hundred and appeareth not”. The under reporting does not appear to be large. The listing, with over 150 occupations, is far, far more detailed than King’s breakdown which only has 26 divisions, of which only five deal with the bottom half the population. It is often difficult to try and fit some of the occupations into King’s subdivisions. (Tawney, 1934)

King’s top five subdivisions

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
160	Temporal Lords	40	6,400	2,800
26	Spiritual Lords	20	520	1,300
800	Baronets	16	12,800	880
600	Knights	13	7,800	650
3,000	Esquires	10	30,000	450
12,000	Gentlemen	8	96,000	280

The 1608 census doesn’t list anyone that fits the first three categories. Henry, Lord Berkeley, died in 1613 and since he inherited the title in 1553 was probably over the age limit. Henry Parry the Bishop of Gloucester probably didn’t actually reside in the county as he was only bishop from 1607-10. The 1608 list has 430 men (presumed heads of households), who are gentlemen, esquires or knights, and a further 27 men declare themselves to be sons or brother of the same.  

King’s “educated” classes

King has six groupings which I have somewhat unceremoniously lumped together as below.

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
5,000	Persons in Offices	8	40,000	240
5,000	Persons in Offices	6	30,000	120
10,000	Persons in the Law	7	70,000	140
2,000	Clergymen	6	12,000	60
8,000	Clergymen	5	40,000	45
16,000	Persons in Sciences and Liberal Arts	5	80,000	60

In the 1608 list there are only 62 people who fit these groupings. Among them are surgeons, schoolmasters, barristers, scriveners, musicians, mayors, chamberlains, constables, and clergymen.

King has these 12 top ranks of society as forming 4.5% of the population, while in the 1608 list they are only 3%, this is because of...

The problem of indoor servants

There is a problem with indoor servants because King includes them with their employer. So for example a gentleman, esquire or knight has a household of between 8 and 13 people according to King. Based on the 1608 list nearly two thirds of these people are going to be servants. In the 1608 list 1196 men declare themselves to be servants to these groups, including 122 who describe themselves as servants to women, presumably of some status, and possibly part of the households already mentioned. There is a different servant problem in that only three clergymen are listed, however we have servants to fourteen different clergymen. The indoor servants from these top social groups are just over 7% of the 1608 list. 

King’s Merchants, Shopkeepers and Tradesmen

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
2,000	Merchants and Traders by Sea	8	16,000	400
8,000	Merchants and Traders by Land	6	48,000	200
40,000	Shopkeepers and Tradesmen	4½	180,000	45

This is obviously a very disparate group. Only one man in the 1608 listing declares himself to be a merchant. The largest group in 1608 are the butchers of whom there are 252 in the county, they are followed by 119 innkeepers, vintners and victuallers, and 109 bakers. Others relating to food sales include fishmongers, a cheesemonger, a grocer and a pearmonger. On the textile side there are 112 mercers, 30 drapers 12 haberdashers and 40 badgers, chapmen and pedlars.  Beyond these we have chandlers, barbers, apothecaries, stationers, and an ironmonger. People who are making rather than selling have been included with the artisans and handicrafts rather than this group. This group forms just under 5% of the population in 1608 and just under 3.7% in King.

King’s Artisans and craftsmen

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
60,000	Artisans and Handicrafts	4	240,000	40

This is where King and the 1608 listing depart from each other. It depends on your definition of artisan or craftsman, but for King these formed just over 4.4% of the population, whereas for 1608 it is over 34%.

Textile workers

Textile workers are the largest group forming over 15% of the 1608 list, the question is whether King would have considered them craftsmen, or placed them in his cottagers and paupers grouping. The largest number over 1,800 are weavers of one sort or another, but there are also fullers, dyers, shearmen, etc. There are also over 300 clothiers, these are men that actually sell the cloth so should perhaps be in the tradesmen section. In addition we have one knitter, one bone (bobbin) lace maker and one embroiderer, remember these are men, considerably more women would have followed these occupations. 

Leather workers

Again are these men King would have considered artisans or craftsmen. They are a small group 201 all told that include tanners, saddlers, collarmakers, curriers and a furrier.

Clothing makers

Most of these may well have been considered craftsmen by King, they form 7.5% of the 1608 list and include the obvious tailors, shoemakers and glovers, but also hatters, cobblers, hosiers, point-and garter-makers.

Craftsmen in wood

These form just under 4% of the 1608 list and two thirds of them are described as carpenters or joiners. As Gloucestershire includes the River Severn there is a small group of shipwrights and ship’s carpenters. Others in this grouping include coopers, wheelwrights, wheelers, turners, hoopers, bowyers, fletchers, shovel makers, basket makers, trencher makers, hive makers, and more.

The building trades

Again difficult to decide how many of these King would have included as artisans, but here forming around 2% of the list we have masons and freemasons, by far the largest group, slatters, tilers, thatchers, glaziers, stonelayers, plasterers, pargeters, painters, limeburners and paviors. 

Metal workers

A group forming 3.3% of the 1608 list of whom three quarters are smiths. The other occupations which can be included in this grouping are nailers, cutlers and pewterers. Six men are ironfounders and one is a bell founder. There are 8 wiredrawers and 5 pinmakers, plus tinkers, braziers, plumbers and two goldsmiths. 

Makers of food and drink

These form 1.5% of the list and comprise millers, the largest group, maltsers and brewers.

Miscellaneous

Finally for this section a group of occupations that can be considered artisanal or crafts, but otherwise don’t fit. Here we have paper, parchment, card and cardboard makers, also potters, bottle makers, a starch maker, and a saltpetreman. 

King’s farmers

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
40,000	Freeholders	7	280,000	84
140,000	Freeholders	5	700,000	50
150,000	Farmers	5	750,000	44

King does not list either yeomen or husbandmen, the two largest agricultural groups in the 1608 list. Generally speaking yeomen are freeholders and husbandmen are not, so perhaps the husbandmen equate to the 150,000 farmers King lists. These three groups above form 24% of households according to King but 30.5% of the 1608 list.

King’s labourers and out servants

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
364,000	Labouring People and Out Servants	3½	1,275,000	15

For King these form 27% of the population, however even by taking all those who list themselves as labourers, all servants to yeomen and husbandmen plus those in towns who list themselves as labourers, all other agricultural workers (shepherds, warreners, etc.) and all servants to artisans and craftsmen,  I can only get this up to 19.3%. So I am adding in the 172 people in the mining and quarrying industries which takes it to 20.5%

King’s soldiers and sailors

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
5,000	Naval Officers	4	20,000	80
4,000	Military Officers	4	16,000	60
50,000	Common Seamen	3	150,000	20
35,000	Common Soldiers	2	70,000	14

Gloucestershire has no officers, nor does it have any soldiers, however it does have seamen. There are 18 fishermen, 194 sailors, 22 boatmen, watermen and trowmen. To these I am going to add the 62 other men who are related to transport; carriers, carmen and loaders. For King these formed nearly 7% of households, but for Gloucestershire it is just over 1.5%

The “missing” 30 percent

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
400,000	Cottagers and Paupers	3¼	1,300,000	6.5

King has almost 30% of the population as cottagers and paupers, and late Stuart poverty has been discussed by Arkell (1987) among others. Unsurprisingly no one in the 1608 list describes themselves as either a cottager or a pauper.  Undoubtedly some of the artisans and some of the agricultural workers were very poor, but it is difficult with the Gloucestershire list to separate them out from those that weren’t. Below is a table of the comparisons, figures do not add to 100% because of rounding.

	1608	1688
King’s top five subdivisions &“educated” classes	3	4.5
Indoor servants	7	0
King’s Merchants, Shopkeepers and Tradesmen	4	3.7
King’s Artisans and craftsmen	34	4.4
King’s farmers	30.4	24
King’s labourers and out servants	20.3	27
Soldiers and sailors	1.6	6.9
Cottagers and paupers	0	29.4
	100.3	99.9

Arkell, T., 1987. The incidence of poverty in the later seventeenth century. Social history, 12(1), pp. 23-47.

Holmes, G. S., 1977. Gregory King and the Social Structure of Pre-Industrial England. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Volume 27, pp. 41-68.

Hoppit, J., 2011. Gregory King (1648–1712)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2011. [Online] Available at: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/15563 [Accessed 16 Feb 2015].

Tawney, R. H., 1934. An occupational census of the seventeenth century. Economic History Review, 5(1), pp. 25-64.