Wren, St Paul’s and 17th Century Craftsmen

Over one hundred account books survive for St Paul’s Cathedral and these have been a major source for Professor Campbell’s research into the building trades. He remains one of the leading experts on the building of the cathedral, working closely with the cathedral on research projects. Particularly significant in this regard has been Professor Campbell’s work on the system of payment of craftsmen on the cathedral and elsewhere, showing that the overseers took a large share of the payments made to workmen. This is significant because it undermines previous calculations in economic history which have presumed that all such payments represented the actual amounts paid to craftsmen and these figures have erroneously been used to calculate indexes of wealth and inflation. This research has led to major research projects by others in economic history, particularly Judy Stephenson who did her doctorate testing Professor Campbell’s ideas and is now an economic historian in Oxford.

Publications

James W.P. Campbell, “The Finances of the Carpenter in England 1660-1710: a Case Study on the Implications of the Change from Craft to Designer-Based Construction”, in Simonetta Cavaciocchi (ed.), L’Edilizia Prima della Rivoluzione Industriale. Secc.XIII-XVIII (Prato: Instituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “F.Datini”, 2005) ISBN 88-00-72237-7, pp. 313-346 (34 pages). 

James W.P. Campbell, Building St Paul’s (London: Thames & Hudson, 2007) ISBN 978-0-500-34244-2 (176 pages).