ABSTRACT
Eighteenth-century London was Europe’s, if not the world’s, greatest centre of manufacturing, most industry being domestic, and not factory based. Many London houses were multi-occupied, but it has been understood that buildings were invariably designed for single occupation and then adapted if they were to be lived in by artisans or labourers. The purpose-built divided house, part of the domestic architecture of many other early-modern European cities, has been absent from histories of 17th- and 18th-century London. Recent survey in and around Spitalfields indicates that there were buildings that were designed for multiple occupation, as tenements of one-room loomshop homes for journeyman silk weavers. Forerunners of these tenements can be traced back into the 17th century across what were then London’s margins. A distinctive feature of the buildings is the siting of staircases at the front. This layout can be paralleled in other early-modern building types designed for multiple occupation or industrial use, also occurring outside London in places where artisan or tenement housing was widespread. By 1800 loomshop tenements were no longer being built in the Spitalfields area. The existence and disappearance of this form of housing raises important questions about industrialisation and domestic architecture.
