LEADER 05321nam 22007452 450 001 9910151575903321 005 20170822094119.0 010 $a1-78204-900-2 024 7 $a10.1515/9781782049005 035 $a(CKB)3710000000951931 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC4721178 035 $a(UkCbUP)CR9781782049005 035 $a(DE-B1597)675435 035 $a(DE-B1597)9781782049005 035 $a(EXLCZ)993710000000951931 100 $a20161115d2016|||| uy| 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur||||||||||| 181 $ctxt$2rdacontent 182 $cc$2rdamedia 183 $acr$2rdacarrier 200 10$aAccidents and violent death in early modern London, 1650-1750 /$fCraig Spence$b[electronic resource] 210 1$aSuffolk :$cBoydell & Brewer,$d2016. 215 $a1 online resource (xii, 273 pages) $cdigital, PDF file(s) 225 1 $aStudies in early modern cultural, political and social history ;$vvolume 25 300 $aTitle from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 11 Aug 2017). 311 $a1-78327-135-3 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $tFrontmatter -- $tContents -- $tList of Illustrations -- $tAcknowledgements -- $tAbbreviations -- $tIntroduction -- $tPart One -- $t1. ?Here Falling Houses Thunder on your Head?: Sudden Violent Death and the Metropolis -- $t2. ?I told my Neighbours, who sent for the Searchers?: From Personal Trauma to Public Knowledge -- $tPart Two -- $t3. ?Good Servants, but Bad Masters?: Fire and Water -- $t4. ?Much Mischief Happeneth to Persons in the Street?: Everyday Urban Accidents -- $t5. ?Death Hath Ten Thousand Several Doors?: Rare and Unfortunate Events -- $t6. ?Thro? Freezing Snows, and Rains, and Soaking Sleet?: A Time to Die -- $tPart Three -- $t7. ?She was Lame Long After?: Medical and Social Response -- $t8. ?To the Great Hazard of Peoples Lives?: Bringing Order to Chaos -- $t9. ?Telling Pretty Stories?: Constructing Accident Event Narratives -- $tConclusion -- $tBibliography -- $tIndex 330 $aBetween the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries more than 15,000 Londoners suffered sudden violent deaths. While this figure includes around 3,000 who were murdered or committed suicide, the vast majority of fatalities resulted from accidents. In the early modern period, accidental and 'disorderly' deaths - from drowning, falls, stabbing, shooting, fires, explosions, suffocation, animals and vehicles, among other causes - were a regular feature of urban life and left a significant mark in the archival records of the period.
This book provides the first substantive critical study of the early modern accident, revealing and chronicling the lives - and deaths - of hundreds of otherwise unknown Londoners. Drawing on the weekly London Bills of Mortality, parish burial registers, newspapers and other related documents, it examines accidents and other forms of violent death in the city with a view to understanding who among its residents encountered such events, how the bureaucracy recorded and elaborated their circumstances and why they did so, and what practical responses might follow. Through a systematic review of the character of accidents, medical and social interventions, and changing attitudes toward the regulation of hazards across the metropolis, it establishes the historical significance of the accident and shows how, as the eighteenth century progressed, providential explanations gave way to a more rational viewpoint that saw certain accident events as threats to be managed rather than misfortunes to be explained. Additionally, the book explores how knowledge of such incidents was transformed to become a recurring cultural trope in oral, textual and visual narratives of metropolitan life, thereby opening a window to the way in which sudden death and violent injury was understood by early modern mentalities.

CRAIG SPENCE is Senior Lecturer in History at Bishop Grosseteste University. 410 0$aStudies in early modern cultural, political and social history ;$vv. 25. 517 3 $aAccidents & Violent Death in Early Modern London 606 $aAccidents$zEngland$zLondon$xHistory 606 $aViolent deaths$zEngland$zLondon$xHistory 607 $aLondon (England)$xHistory$y17th century 607 $aLondon (England)$xHistory$y18th century 607 $aLondon (England)$xSocial conditions 608 $aHistory.$2fast 610 $aBritish History. 610 $aCity life. 610 $aCultural History. 610 $aDeath. 610 $aDying. 610 $aEarly Modern England. 610 $aEighteenth Century. 610 $aEngland. 610 $aEuropean History. 610 $aFatalities. 610 $aHistory of Medicine. 610 $aHistory. 610 $aLondon. 610 $aPrint Culture. 610 $aSeventeenth Century. 610 $aSocial History. 610 $aUrban. 615 0$aAccidents$xHistory. 615 0$aViolent deaths$xHistory. 676 $a304.6/40942109032 700 $aSpence$b Craig$0487808 801 0$bUkCbUP 801 1$bUkCbUP 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910151575903321 996 $aAccidents and violent death in early modern London, 1650-1750$92787738 997 $aUNINA