Mapping the Proceedings: The Importance of Spatiality for Reconstructing Black and Multiracial Communities in Georgian London

Abstract

Exploring the vast references to spatiality in eighteenth-century criminal justice records reveals the presence of Black and multiracial communities in Georgian London. Trial records remain arguably the most detailed source for exploring where, and with whom, ordinary Black people lived, worked, and socialised across the city. This article adapts Kenneth Little’s definition of a community, characterised ‘by a common background of experience’, from his study of race in post-war Cardiff to the context of eighteenth-century London. Communities in the Georgian metropole were formed from a variety of shared experiences, such as heritage dispossession, poverty, work and socialisation, as well as the forced necessity of sharing homes. Black people were part of many, often overlapping, communities of experience, rooted in a contextually heightened desire for friendship, protection and belonging. An understanding of the composition of these communities is integral for reconstructing how ordinary Black people experienced eighteenth-century London