Emergent Modernity in an Urban Setting: Nineteenth-Century Bristol Revealed in Property Surveys

Abstract

This article analyses the urban structure of nineteenth-century Bristol through the analysis of property surveys. Examination of a machine-readable version of a property survey for 1837 demonstrates that Bristol exhibited modern patterns of urban development as the city's medieval form was supplanted by processes associated with the segregation of class and economic activity, a functional change from a mercantile centre to one broadly based on manufacturing and services. The longitudinal implications of this change are examined using subsequent surveys for 1851 and 1871.