Watch your pocket — krótka historia zamożności, czyli kradzieże zegarków w Londynie w XVIII wieku

Paweł T. Dobrowolski

Opublikowane: 2015-01-01

Tom 63 Nr 3 (2015)

Watch your pocket — krótka historia zamożności, czyli kradzieże zegarków w Londynie w XVIII wieku

Paweł T. Dobrowolski

Abstrakt

“WATCH YOUR POCKET” — A BRIEF HISTORY OF AFFLUENCE, OR ON POCKET WATCH THEFTS IN 18TH-CENTURY LONDON

Building on David Landes’s assumption that the growing popularity of clocks and watches was a marker of economic progress, this article probes London’s Old Bailey court records (OBSP) to assess the number of pocket watches brought as evidence of theft among the lower middle strata of metropolitan society. This statistical assessment is tied to the question whether in the second half of the 18th century the boom in the supply of and demand for „luxurious” (or semi-luxurious) products affected the lower classes of Londoners due to their growing fi nancial stabil-ity. Did the “relatively” poor become “relatively” wealthier? Two annual series are constructed: one for 1753 and the other for 1793. Watch thefts occurred as a result of highway robbery and/or housebreaking — in which case watches were simply a part of more diversifi ed loot — or in more individualized, “face to face” situations in the streets or in alehouses. In the latter case culprits were frequently women, especially prostitutes. “Watch theft cases” prove that despite the persistence of bloody code’s severe legal practices theft was increasingly punished with imprisonment sentences (although both capital sentences and deportations were signifi cant), while the number of the acquitted also grew due to more diligent scrutiny of doubtful cases. The number of cases in which pocket watches served as evidence (clocks were mentioned only twice in 1793) grew from 3.7% in 1753 to 6.8% in 1793: this was on the one hand a substantial increase and on the other a proof that a silver watch valued at 2 pounds (the most frequently stolen time measuring item) was still a marker of luxury, although it was becoming more affordable to aver-age Londoners, e.g. house servants, apprentices and lower class artisans.

Słowa kluczowe:

18 w. -- Anglia, Londyn (Anglia), symbole prestiżu, przedmioty luksusowe nowożytne, zegarki, kradzieże zegarków

Inne teksty tego samego autora

Paweł T. Dobrowolski, Tureckie fantazje: seks, przemoc i turystyka w XVIII wieku , Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej: Tom 68 Nr 3 (2020)
Paweł T. Dobrowolski, Miasto w ogniu: ludzkie tragedie i zachowania rynkowe w Londynie XVIII wieku , Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej: Tom 65 Nr 2 (2017)
Paweł T. Dobrowolski, Obserwacja i refleksja — dwie relacje „turystów” z Hiszpanii w XVIII wieku , Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej: Tom 67 Nr 2 (2019)
Paweł T. Dobrowolski, Latająca Europa — balony w XVIII w. , Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej: Tom 62 Nr 2 (2014)

Pobierz pliki

PDF

Zasady cytowania

Dobrowolski, P. T. (2015). Watch your pocket — krótka historia zamożności, czyli kradzieże zegarków w Londynie w XVIII wieku. Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej, 63(3), 451–470. Pobrano z https://journals.iaepan.pl/khkm/article/view/861

Cited by / Share

Licencja

Utwór dostępny jest na licencji Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa – Użycie niekomercyjne – Bez utworów zależnych 4.0 Międzynarodowe.

Bibliografia

Berg M. 2004. In Pursuit of Luxury: Global History and British Consumer Goods in the Eighteenth Century, „Past & Present”, No. 182.
Google Scholar

Berg M. 2007. Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth Century Britain, Oxford.
Google Scholar

Bogart D. 2005. Turnpike Trusts, Infrastructure Investment and the Road Transporting Revolution in Eighteenth-Century England, „Journal of Economic History”, 65/2.
Google Scholar

Brooks Ch. 1994. Apprenticeship, Social Mobility and the Middling Sort, 1550–1800, [w:] The Middling Sort of People: Culture, Society and Politics in England, 1550–1800, red. J. Barry, Ch. Brooks, London–Basingstoke.
Google Scholar

Bunn J.H. 1980. The Aesthetics of British Mercantilism, „New Literary History”, 11/2.
Google Scholar

Burke P. 1987. Conspicuous Consumption in Seventeenth-Century Italy, [w:] P. Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy. Essays on Perception and Communication, Cambridge.
Google Scholar

Caskey J.P. 1991. Pawnbroking in America: The Economics of a Forgotten Credit Market, „Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking”, 23/1.
Google Scholar

Church R. 2000. Advertising Consumer Goods in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Reinterpretations, „The Economic History Review”, seria nowa, 53/4.
Google Scholar

Coquery N. 2004. The Language of Success: Making and Distributing Semi-Luxury Goods in Eighteenth-Century Paris,„Journal of Design History”, 17/1.
Google Scholar

Daniels G. 1975. The Art of Breguet, London–New York.
Google Scholar

Dawson M.S. 2011. First Impressions: Newspaper Advertising and Early Modern English Body Imagining, 1651–1750, „Journal of British Studies”, 50/2.
Google Scholar

Dyer Ch. 1989. Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages. Social Change in England c.1200–1500, Cambridge.
Google Scholar

Fairchilds C. 1997. Marketing the Counter-Reformation. Religious Objects and Consumerism in Early Modern France, [w:] Visions and Revisions of Eighteenth Century France, red. Ch. Adams, J.R. Censer, L.J. Graham, University Park.
Google Scholar

Grassby R. 2005. Material Culture and Cultural History, „The Journal of Interdiscipli-nary History”, 35/4.
Google Scholar

Green D.R. 1995. From Artisans to Paupers: Economic Change and Poverty in London, 1790–1870, Hants.
Google Scholar

Hatcher J. 1998. Labour, Leisure and Economic Thought before the Nineteenth Century, „Past & Pre-sent”, 160.
Google Scholar

Henderson T. 1999. Disorderly Women in Eighteenth Century London: Prostitution and Control in the Metropolis,1730–1830, New York.
Google Scholar

Himmelfarb G. 1984. The Idea of Poverty. England in the Early Industrial Age, London–Boston.
Google Scholar

Hitchcock T. 2004. Down and out in Eighteenth-Century London, London–New York.
Google Scholar

Hufton O.H. 1974. The Poor of Eighteenth Century France,1750–1789, Oxford.
Google Scholar

Hufton O. 1984. Women without Men: Widows and Spinsters in Britain and France in the Eighteenth Century, „Journal of Family History”, 9.
Google Scholar

Jackson I. 2004. Approaches to the History of Readers and Reading in Eighteenth Century Brita-in, „The Historical Journal”, 47/4.
Google Scholar

Jankiewicz S. 2012. A Dangerous Class: The Street Sellers of Nineteenth Century London, „Journal of Social History”, 46/2.
Google Scholar

Jones A.H. 1980. Wealth of a Nation to Be: The American Colonies on the Eve of the Revolution, New York.
Google Scholar

Jones C. 1996. The Great Chain of Buying: Medical Advertisement, the Bourgeois Public Sphere, and the Origins of the French Revolution, „The American Historical Review”, 101.
Google Scholar

Karpiński A. 1983. Pauperes. O mieszkańcach Warszawy XVI i XVII wieku, Warszawa.
Google Scholar

Kizik E. 2001. Wesele, kilka chrztów i pogrzebów. Uroczystości rodzinne w mieście hanzeatyckim od XVI do XVIII wieku, Gdańsk.
Google Scholar

Landes D. 1983. Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World, Cambridge, Mass.
Google Scholar

Landes D. 1979. Watchmaking: A Case Study in Enterprise and Change, „Business History Review”, 53.
Google Scholar

Lemire B. 1990. The Theft of Clothes and Popular Consumerism in Early Modern England, „Journal of Social History”, 24/2.
Google Scholar

Lemire B. 1991. Fashion’s Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660–1800, Oxford.
Google Scholar

Levene A. 2010. Parish Apprenticeship and the Old Poor Law in London, „Economic History Review”, 63/4.
Google Scholar

Levene A. 2005. The Estimation of Mortality at the London Foundling Hospital, 1741–99, „Population Studies”, 59.
Google Scholar

MacCracken G. 1988. Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities, Bloomington.
Google Scholar

MacKay L. 1999. Why They Stole: Women in the Old Bailey, 1779–1789, „Journal of Social History”, 32/3.
Google Scholar

McCants A.E.C. 2008. Poor Consumers as Global Consumers: The Diffusion of Tea and Coffee Drinking in the Eighteenth Century, „The Economic History Review”, seria nowa, 61/1.
Google Scholar

McCrossen A. 2010. The “Very Delicate Construction” of Pocket Watches and Time Consciousness in the Nineteenth-Century United States, „Winterthur Portfolio”, 44/1.
Google Scholar

Nash G.B. 1976. Urban Wealth and Poverty in Pre-Revolutionary America, „The Journal of Interdisci-plinary History”, 6.
Google Scholar

Palk D. 2003. Private Crime in Public and Private Places: Pickpockets and Shoplifters in London, 1780–1823, [w:] The Streets of London, red. T. Hitchcock, H. Shore, London.
Google Scholar

Pennell S. 1999. Consumption and Consumerism in Early Modern England, „The Historical Journal”, 42/2.
Google Scholar

Pointon M.R. 1997. Strategies for Showing: Women, Possession, and Representation in English Visual Culture, 1665–1800, Oxford.
Google Scholar

Pośpiech A. 1992. Srebrna łyżka — probierz szlacheckiej zamożności? (Przykład Wielkopolski XVII w.), [w:] Nędza i dostatek na ziemiach polskich od średniowiecza po XX wiek, red. J. Sztetyłło, Warszawa.
Google Scholar

Reid D.A. 1976. The Decline of Saint Monday,1766–1876, „Past & Present”, No. 71.
Google Scholar

Roberts M.L. 1998. Gender, Consumption, and Commodity Culture, „The American Historical Review”, 103/3.
Google Scholar

Roche D. 1997. Histoire des choses banales: Naissance de la consummation dans les sociétés traditionnelles, XVIIe–XIXe siècle, Paris.
Google Scholar

Sarti R. 1999. Vita di casa: Abitare, mangiare, vestire nell’Europa moderna, Rome.
Google Scholar

Shinder J. 1979. Mustafa Efendi: Scribe, Gentleman, Pawnbroker, „International Journal of Middle East Studies”, 10.
Google Scholar

Shively D.H. 1964. Sumptuary Regulation and Status in Early Tokugawa Japan, „Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies”, 25.
Google Scholar

Schoemaker R.B. 2008. The Old Bailey Proceedings and the Representation of Crime and Criminal Justice in Eighteenth-Century London, „Journal of British Studies”, 47/3.
Google Scholar

Schwarz L. 1999. English Servants and Their Employers during Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, „Economic History Review”, 52.
Google Scholar

Smith C. 2002. The Wholesale and Retail Markets of London, 1660–1840, „The Economic History Review”, 55.
Google Scholar

Smith R. 2004. The Swiss Connection: International Networks in Some Eighteenth-Century Luxury Trades, „Journal of Design History”, 17/2.
Google Scholar

Steedman C. 2003. Servants and Their Relation-ship to the Unconscious, „The Journal of British Studies”, 42.
Google Scholar

Thompson E.P. 1967. Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism, „Past & Present”, No. 38.
Google Scholar

Voth H.-J. 2000. Time and Work in England, 1750–1830, New York.
Google Scholar

Voth H.-J. 1997. Time Use in Eighteenth-Century London: Some Evidence from Old Bailey, „The Journal of Economic History”, 57/2.
Google Scholar

Wetherill L. 1988. Consumer Behavior and Material Culture in Britain, 1670–1760, New York–London.
Google Scholar