The MarineLives project is exploring how to use GIS technology to map data gathered and generated through the transcription and linkage of HCA 13/71.
We are interested in displaying data about ships, places, people, and commodities mentioned in HCA 13/71, together with the ability to overlay maps and combine data sets, including map layers and datasets generated by other digital projects and sources.
For example: (1) Exploring the spatial location of ship purchases by English ship masters and merchants, which included significant purchases in the United Provinces, as well as in France; (2) Mapping of the mention of semantically marked up commodities, such as tobacco and textiles, to explore patterns of distribution; (3) Mapping of ship routes and ship route usage, to build a bottom-up understanding of the interlinkage of ports and regions.
We are interested in combining datasets to create composite maps, and in establishing electronic links from maps to original data points and data sets, both textual and numeric. Such maps will provide an additional route for researchers and interested readers to browse, explore, annotate, and link data.
Below are some example of experimental KML datasets for the mid and later C17th mapped using Google Map. They have been developed as context in which we will later examine data mapped from HCA 13/71. They are offered for general interest, and as examples of the potential to repurpose, combine and reanalyse data at a micro-level to create new hypotheses and insights.
Sources used include modified datasets from Woodhead (1966)¹, from Clark and Hosking (1993)2, and from MarineLives project analysis of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury PROB 11 series data.3 The manipulations of the original datasets have not been peer reviewed, and the orginal authors have not been involved in these manipulations. They are offered warts and all. Inevitably they will contain some incorrect disambiguations of place names, and some falsely identified matching of early modern to modern locations, given orthographical variation in the original source manuscripts.
If you are interested in discussing the data, please get in touch.
If you have GIS coding expertise and are interested in working as a MarineLives volunteer to explore and build HCA 13/71 GIS functionality in Phase Two of our project, please contact us.
Sample maps
Marine & river transportation
PRC data have been used to look at the spatial extent of specific occupations recorded in PRC data for marine and river transportation. For example, data for bargemen and wharfingers. A preliminary tiering of coastal towns has been developed, based on the degree of mariner intensity of PRC wills within the overall PRC will number and mix of coastal towns. Analysis of mariner wills could be combined with that of other marine trades, such as shipwrights and ship chandlers, to create a fuller picture. Note that, for barge and wharfinger wills the analysis is of geographical extent by location, without reference to intensity, whereas the mariner town analysis considers intensity as well as geographical extent.
Barges PRC wills 1640-99
Mariner dominated towns 1640-99
Wharfinger PRC wills 1640-99
Textiles
PRC data has been used to look at the spatial extent of textile related occupations
Fustian PRC wills 1640-99, & 1580-1639
Lace PRC wills 1640-99
Linen weaver PRC wills 1640-99
Serge PRC wills 1640-99
Silk PRC wills 1640-99
Worsted PRC wills 1640-99
Distribution on land
The distribution of carriers and chapmen was widespread geographically, but is not identical. The distribution of drover and grasier PRC wills shows much greater regional concentration, based on important droving routes and staging points for the fattening of cattle, largely for the London market.
Carrier PRC wills 1640-99
Carrier Somerset PRC wills 1640-99
Chapman PRC wills 1640-99
Drover PRC wills 1640-99, 1580-1639, & 1520-79
Grasier PRC wills 1640-99
Wag(g)oner & Lorryman PRC inventories 1640-99
Wag(g)oner & Lorryman PRC wills 1640-99
Urban and social
Clark and Hosking’s (1993)2 data for small and medium sized towns have been mapped for all English counties. Additionally, J.R. Woodhead’s study of London merchants achieving Alderman or Common Councilman status between 1660 and 1689 has been analysed for the birth location of the named merchants (where given) and has been mapped by county.
These data sets can be combined to look at user defined regions encompassing multiple counties, and to look at the overlay of London merchant birth origins on county or regional urban settlement
For example:
Devon Clark & Hosking (1993)
Devon Woodhead (1966)
Essex Woodhead (1966)
An experimental analysis has been made of the yeoman vs. gentry intensity of villages and towns named in PRC wills, 1640-99. Using a dataset of all PRC wills for 1640-99 locations were disambiguated manually, using modern and old map sources. Indices were then created showing the ratios of yeoman to gentry by location. London has been excluded from this analysis. Clark and Hoskings (1993) population data were used to group locations by population size.
Gentry dominated large towns, 1640-99
Gentry dominated small towns,Tier One, 1640-99
Gentry dominated small towns,Tier Two, 1640-99
Yeoman dominated small towns, Tier One, 1640-99
Yeoman dominated small towns, Tier Two, 1640-99
References
(1) J.R. Woodhead, The Rulers of London 1660-1689: A biographical record of the Aldermen and Common Councilment of the City of London (London, 1966), viewed 11/12/12
(2) P. Clark and J. Hosking, Population estimates of English small towns 1550-1851, rev. ed. (Leicester, 1993)
(3) TNA, PROB 11, viewed 11/12/12