ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews patterns of ownership of key goods between 1675 and 1725 in the North-East and elsewhere. It argues that mechanisms influencing ownership of movable property in other parts of the country are valid for an understanding of the North-East, so the North-East was similar to other places in England. England did have distinctive economic and social landscapes and the North-East itself had a distinctive economy in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, an economy based on the mining of coal and other primary activities, as well as contacts with London through the coal trade. The inventories give useful information on a number of variables that influenced ownership both in the North-East and elsewhere, specifically wealth, social position and urban/rural location. The cross-tabulations suggest that many of the influences on ownership of goods were similar in the North-East and other areas. In the North-East the general associations between the variables and ownership remain, with the exception of China.
