One in nine Englishmen lived in London near the end of the Stuart period. However plagues were even more deadly in a crowded city—the only remedy was to move to isolated rural areas, as Isaac Newton of Cambridge University did in 1664–66 as the Great Plague of London killed as many as 100,000 Londoners. The fast-growing metropolis was the centre of politics, high society and business. As a major port and hub of trade, goods from all over were for sale. Coffee houses were becoming the centres of business and social life, and it has also been suggested that tea might have played its own part in making Britain powerful, as the antiseptic qualities of tea allowed people to live closer together, protecting them from germs, and making the Industrial Revolution possible. These products can be considered as beginning the consumer society which, while it promoted trade and brought development and riches to society.