Bachelor's furnished lodgings in the eighteenth century London

Abstract

The great fire of 1666 destroyed London, this and the growth of its population (650.000 in 1700 -1.474.069 in 1831) made it necessary to begin a process of building and development that shaped the city we know today. However as there were still no houses for everybody and there were almost no hotels, people had to hire furnished lodgings. James Boswell ( 1740-1795) lived in London in 1762, in his diary he describes "his rooms", the money he paid for them , he also writes about his life and how London -its coffee-houses, eatings-houses, theatres, churches, parks and streets- became "his house".