differences wrought in the first half of the eighteenth century were dramatic. In
the City of London the changes can be seen in the remarkable increase in the
number of lights employed, the areas they illuminated, the number of hours
they were in service, and the way they were financed. By the middle of the eight-
eenth century an essentially new public service had been established, and in the
process the area regarded as public space had been significantly extended.
Soon after the Restoration of Charles II the customary system oflighting was
confirmed by act of parliament.^125 Under this, householders on the main streets
were obliged to place a candle in a lantern outside their houses for a few hours
on a number of nights in the year. The rules in force had emerged in the City
over the previous two and a half centuries. The obligations they set out had been
enlarged gradually, but they had never aimed at providing anything more than
the most modest oflighting. Essentially, the intention still in place in 1660 was to
help pedestrians to avoid serious obstructions as they found their way home be-
tween sunset and the 9 p.m. curfew, but only when this was really necessary—
that is, only in the winter months and only on nights on which there would be
no natural light from the moon. Candles were to be lit between dusk and 9 p.m.
from Michaelmas to Lady Day— 29 September to 25 March—‘when the moon
shall be dark’ (that is, from the second night after the full moon to the seventh
after the new moon), a total of about 117 days in the year.^126 There would be no
need for candles before 9 p.m. in summer; nor on moonlit nights in the winter
because the candle power that could be mustered would not add much to the
light provided by the moon (assuming there were no clouds). After 9 p.m. the ex-
pectation was that few people would be on the streets, except those wealthy
enough to afford to have their way lighted by servants with links. In times of
emergency or danger the lord mayor might order that householders ‘renew’
their candles at 9 p.m. to provide a few more hours oflighting on the streets, but
that was clearly unusual.^127 Depending on the cloud cover and the phase of the
moon, the streets of the City of London in the seventeenth century must have
been varying degrees of dark or dim during the evening hours, and very dark
indeed as evening turned to night.
Such street lighting came to be seen as inadequate for the City of London by
the last quarter of the seventeenth century. One underlying reason may have
been the changes introduced into the City as a result of the Great Fire of 1666 ,
in which a very large proportion of the old buildings were destroyed. As tragic
as the fire was for those who suffered by it, it provided an opportunity to make
significant changes in the streets which had become increasingly inadequate
by the seventeenth century as the population grew. They were narrow and
crooked and difficult to negotiate for a vehicle of any size—a problem that only
208 Policing the Night Streets
(^12514) Chas II, c. 2 ( 1662 ); De Beer, ‘Early History’, 315.
(^126) Jor 25 , fo. 98. For earlier regulations, and the meaning of ‘dark’ nights, see De Beer, ‘Early
History’, 314 – 15 ; and Falkus, ‘Lighting’, 249 – 52.
(^127) Rep 83 , fo. 307 ( 1678 ).