What was it like to live in the world’s first million person city … London? Crime, poverty, and illness; apprenticeship, work, politics and money; how people voted, lived and died; all this and more can be found in the documents on the newly released London Lives 1690-1800 website.
Due to be launched at a conference on 5 July 2010, London Lives is impressive in that it is is a fully searchable edition of 240,000 manuscripts from eight archives which gives users access to 3.35 million names. The website also provides facilities which allow users to link together records relating to the same individual, and to compile biographies of the best documented individuals.
London Lives includes 39 individual Document Types many previously inaccessible to the public. Among them are workhouse records, criminal registers, coroners’ reports, court orders and papers governing the dispensation of poor relief.
For anyone with a family connections to London, or just an interest in London’s history, this has to be worth a look.
