be expected, not as many constables elected in the larger wards were so securely
in the middling-to-wealthy ranks of the citizens of the City as the Cornhill
records suggest. The middle City ward of Farringdon Within, for example, was
a more populous and less-stable community than Cornhill, and a more trouble-
some place to spend a year as constable. In a ward with approximately 1,300
ratepayers in 1692 , of whom 67 per cent, as against 42 per cent in Cornhill, paid
at the basic rate of poll tax, it would hardly be surprising if the body of elected
constables did not reflect that difference. As far as one can tell from the ward
presentments that have survived for six years between 1690 and 1701 , they did.
They reveal that a larger proportion of the fifty men elected as constables in
those years are missing from the tax assessments than in Cornhill (more than 40
per cent in 1692 , for example, as against 25 per cent)—even though our Corn-
hill group included constables elected in several years after 1701 , and were thus
even further removed in time from the tax records. This could mean a number
of things, not least a difference in the quality of the record keeping or record sur-
vival. But it also suggests that in a ward with a large and diverse population more
of those chosen as constables would be among the poorer householders of the
ward. That is also strongly suggested by the fact that among the elected con-
stables whose poll tax payment is known, only a third of them in Farringdon
Within paid at the surtax rate, compared to 58 per cent in Cornhill. And,
whereas in Cornhill more than half of those elected had real property rated at a
value of more than forty pounds a year, the comparable figure in the larger
ward was 10 per cent (Table 3. 2 ). Farringdon Within could still count some sub-
stantial citizens among those elected to the office of constable in the 1690 s.
Some of the sixteen precincts into which the ward was divided were by no
means poor areas—St Paul’s Churchyard and Paternoster Row, for example—
and its constabulary continued to include vintners and goldsmiths, glovers and
booksellers living in houses with a substantial rental assessment.^75 But the ward
included proportionately fewer such men than in the richer inner-City ward. In
Farringdon Within, a larger numberof men paid more than the basic rate of tax-
ation. If fewer of them were elected as constables, it may be because there were
so many other candidates. But it is also possible that the problems the peace-
keeping forces faced in such a ward also encouraged the more substantial
citizens to avoid service by buying their way out.^76
Constables and Other Officers 13964 % paid between 3 s. 6 d. and 5 s., and 6 % paid between 6 s. and 8 s. The payments by the constables
elected between 1690 and 1706 mirrored that almost exactly: the forty who can be found in that record
were assessed in those three bands at the rates of 25 %, 70 %, and 5 %, respectively.
(^75) A list of inhabitants of Farringdon Within living on Cheapside collected in 1721 for jury purposes,
included fifteen goldsmiths, ten linen drapers, six drapers, five hosiers, and smaller numbers of many
other shopkeepers and artisans (Misc. MSS 83. 3 ).
(^76) The evidence for the ward of Farringdon Within is derived from the ward presentments for 1690 – 2
and 1699 – 1701 in CLRO; from De Krey, ‘Trade, Religion, and Politics in London in the Reign of
William III’, 335 – 7 ; and from the tax returns of 1692 and 1694 as reported in Alexander’s thesis,
‘Economic and Social Structure ofLondon, c. 1700 ’.