It had rained violently, and, from the shattered state of the roof, a torrent of water made its way through every floor, from the garret to the ground. The shallow looks, and filth of the wretches, who crowded round me, indicated their situation, though they seemed insensible to the stench, which I could scarce sustain for a few minutes. While it is unfortunate that Whitelaw did not apply the class breakdown of the detailed street sheets to the published parochial tables, he did apply it to the grand table of the published Essay. A striking feature is the preponderance of servants 10.6 per cent of the total, with women outnumbering men by a ratio of two to one an example of how the gentry shaped the occupational profile of the city. The big picture of the city s social profile is best obtained by expressing Whitelaw s figures and arranging these into the six wards delineated on Faden s 1797 map of the city.
Clear patterns emerge.
It was the same in 1798. The parishes in the middle lay somewhere between these extremes but with a much lower ratio of servants than the residential eastern districts, suggesting a more middle than upper class profile. Twice as many people lived on the south side and at a much higher density, especially in and around the old walled city. Originally Whitelaw intended surveying the religion of his respondents but on nearer view . . . He did suggest that an approximation could be arrived at discreetly by a little exertion on the part of the Protestant clergy visiting their parishioners, totting up the numbers and deducting it from the total.