12 C O N T E X T 1 2 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 2 Eleanor John From halls to dining rooms A reorganisation of domestic space in homes of the middling sort in London in the mid-seventeenth century points to the importance of the years before the Restoration. Little has been published that gives much detail about the homes of London’s middling sorts in the 17th century. The re-display of the 17th- and 18th-century galleries at the Geffrye Museum, a museum which focuses on the homes of London’s middle classes and shows their main living spaces in a series of period rooms, required new research to establish what rooms middling people had in their homes during this period, how they were furnished and how they might have been used.The backbone of the research was a sample of London probate inventories. The analysis of the inventories revealed a previously undocumented shift in the homes of the middling sort in London in the mid-17th century, a reorganisation of their domestic space.This article outlines this shift and considers its significance, suggesting that it points to a re-thinking of the importance of the years before the Restoration, a period that has tended to be overlooked in most histories.¹ The ‘middling sort’ or ‘sorts’, along with other terms such as ‘middle station’ and ‘middle orders’ or ‘ranks’ were contemporary terms, used to describe those people below the gentry and aristocracy and above the ‘labouring people’. According to Peter Earle’s study, the middling sorts were people who worked for their living, but not in the same way as ‘the labouring people’. In the main they made their money in trade, turning over capital, producing, importing, wholesaling and retailing goods, making investments and providing services.While some accumulated a wealth of tens of thousands and a few even of over £100,000, the majority of the middling sort, according to Earle, fell within the range of a personal wealth of between £500 to £5,000.2 This very loosely suggests an annual income of between £50–£500. The sample of 52 inventories dating from between 1600 and 1700 that the museum worked with to examine this period broadly fits with Earle’s figures and definitions, although it should be noted that the small size of the sample means that the findings should only be taken as a suggestion of what might have been happening. The sample contains no titled individuals and all appeared to be engaged in business of some type.While the deceased’s trade is frequently stated in the inventory – the sample includes, among others, haberdashers, upholders, barber surgeons, mercers and fishmongers – the evidence within the inventories points to the diversification of business interests beyond the immediate stated trade, such as wealthier individuals’ investment in shares in ships and their cargoes.3 Many of the inventories in the sample give a sense of a two-room plan house spread over three or so floors, with garrets at the top. The photographs give an indication of the sort of houses occupied by the middling sort over the 17th century, from timber-framed to the flat-fronted brick houses with regularly spaced, tall windows.While the exterior of people’s homes changed dramatically, the floor plans of the earlier two-room plan houses and those of the new style were not so different. The new houses were more likely to have more passageways, allowing rooms to be accessed without needing to go through another room, but passageways existed in the layout of some early 17th-century houses too.The changes about to be discussed could be fitted into either the new or old style houses, and it is worth remembering that much timber-framed building survived in use in London after the Fire of 1666. In terms of the room names present in the probate inventories, a major shift occurs in the mid-17th century. Between 1600 and the mid-1650s middling Londoners’ homes, in this sample, usually contained a hall and, in the wealthier homes, a parlour too, a kitchen, chambers Staples’ Inn, Holborn, built 1586 (Photo by John Hammond, copyright Geffrye Museum) 52–55 Newington Green, Islington, built 1658 (Photo: copyright Geffrye Museum)
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