New urban demands in early modern London.

From 1550 onwards, London grew and changed enormously, with the attendant problems of disease and disorder. The combined impact of "rapid immigration, recurrent mortality crises and population growth applied critical pressures to the social and administrative structures" ofthe metropolis. ' This paper gives an overview ofhow local authorities endeavoured to deal with problems of drainage, water supply, and street cleaning between 1500 and 1700. Despite London's growth in area and population, it continued to have two separate administrative centres-the Court ofCommon Council in the City, and from 1585 the Court of Burgesses at Westminster. Outside the City liberties and Westminster, the Middlesex Justices of the Peace (the royal representatives) were responsible, either collectively or as individuals, for law and order. This division led to conflict over public responsibilities. The City, for example, could not compel the Middlesex Justices to clear the Fleet River above Holborn Bridge of the filth which polluted the downstream City ward of Farringdon Without. No single authority ran hospitals and almshouses, organized street cleaning or policed streets in the new suburbs east and west of the City-Stepney, Soho, and St James's. "Many problems of drainage and flood prevention, safe building, welfare, fire prevention, medical care and education were outside the powers of the Justices of the Peace and the parish vestries to control. Various ad hoc bodies were set up to deal with these problems",2 as we shall see. The Corporation of London has a tradition extending back to the Middle Ages of care for the health of the citizens. The City archives contain many references, from the thirteenth century on, to ordinances dealing with water supplies, the adulteration of food, the cleansing of streets, the removal of refuse and the abatement of the grosser nuisances, including smoke, and the provision of hospitals for the sick poor.3 Such measures for the promotion of public health were mainly organized on a ward basis