User:Sayerslle/Wrong Side of the River

Wrong Side of the River [refers to] a commonplace of sixteenth century and seventeenth century English history that regarded Southwark as the most disreputable district of  London. It was attacked by pamphleteers and Puritan preachers. London's southernmost suburb at this time (1550- to around 1676, the time of Southwarks  great fire - ) regarded as a disorderly place - though previously it had been  a sought after  upper class retreat - [thru most of the Middle Ages, with its inns, public gardens and open spaces it had been fashionable - and the town houses of great ecclesiastics had been established there]- "the transformation seems to have arisen because of certain  jurisdictional anomalies and  the consequent attraction of  certain  trades, people and pastimes which  these anomalies attracted." (Jessica Browner; wrong side - essays in history )

during the 16th and early 17th centuries the population of London and its immediate suburbs grew rapidly - attracting immigrants from the rest of england, as well as from a continent damaged by religious wars - for the most part, newcomers were settling in parishes to the east of the city or, the poorer people, on the south side of the Thames in southwark. overcrowding, bad sanitation,, disorder - a concentration of population - it became  notorious. - Order by the privy Council to Justice of the Peace of Middlesex mentions  suburbs as  the ground  for ' a great nomber of dissolute, loose and insolent people harboured in disorderly houses,, stables, ins, alehowses, tavernes, garden howses converted to dwellings, ordinaries, dicying houses, bowling allies and brothell howses - apt to breed contagion and sicknes - cozenages, thefts,.."

Thomas Dekker in 1608, on the suburbs "How happy were cities if theyhad no suburbs, sithence they serve but as caves, where monsters are bred up to devour the cities themselves!"

Southwark [seems ] to have made its living by becoming  " the pleasure ground for the more closely regulated community to the north"

It was part of a thoroughfare from kent and Sussex to the Bridgehead - in its High street three Roman roads. - through its streets passed visitors to London and kings returning from the continent Southwark, by the later 17th century was even more densely populated than the sprawling suburbs of East London. and tendency for domestic industry to establish itself in the suburbs - by 1600 neary all the leatherworkers and feltmongers were living south of the river and poorer craftsmen who duiidnt have the money to set up wiythin the City tended to settle in eastern and southern parishes. - centres too for foreign and alien craftsmen and traders  who were not qualified to work in the City, not having served an apprenticeship as well as  native and foreign migration, an extremely large apprentice population. - in 1594 the Lord mayor assered that newington, and oother palces over the river were " very nurseries and breeding-places of the begging poor."- Southwark remained a poor and crowded area eg the inn of the prior of st swithun -in 1543 a twostoried building in 1649 had been divided into no less than 37tenements. - - breeding for plague during the outbreaks of 1577-78, 1603, 16225, 1635, 1636-37, 1641. poverty, varancy. ''dauncers, fydlers and minstrels, Diceplayers, maskers, fencers, bearewardes, theeves, Common pLayers, cutpurses, cosimers,  maisterless servauntes,  jugglers, Roges, sturdye beggars,  " demobilised soldiers, more often,, pennless, starving.