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You are here: Home / Publications / The Port Books of Boston 1601 – 1640
Volume 50

The Port Books of Boston 1601 – 1640

21 October 2011 by

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LRS-Vol-50
The Boston Port Books make available in a clear and useful fashion the materials for a study of foreign trade of Boston in the first half of the 17th century. At one time the port of Boston was second in importance only to London, but by the 17th century its trade was much smaller than Hull’s. The great inland area once served by Boston had come to depend on the rivers of Humber and Thames, and Boston now exported mainly the produce of a limited hinterland, and imported goods apparently for local consumption. These port books, displaying what is indeed a negligible proportion of the total trade of the United Kingdom, are therefore a contribution to the economic study of Lincolnshire. This does not necessarily mean that they are only of local value. If the merchants of Boston in their relatively small trade were subject to the same influences as the merchants of greater ports, to study the trade of Boston is in some sort to study a national trade in miniature.

Adapted from the Preface.
LRS-Vol-50
Volume 50                   The Port Books of Boston 1601 – 1640

Editor                          R.W.K. Hinton Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge

Date                            For the years ending 31st August, 1954 and 31st August, 1955

Publication Date         1956

Size                             255 x 155  mm

Language                     English

Printer                         The Hereford Times Limited, Hereford

Content                       Frontispiece, facsimile of Entries from the collectors’ book for Michaelmas 1602 to Easter 1603

Preface, 2 pages

Contents, 1 page

Abbreviations, Etc., used in the text, 2 pages

List of Port Books, 1 page

Introduction, 31 pages

Appendix A A comparison of Boston Port Books and the Danish Sound Toll Registers, 8 pages

Appendix B Some figures of tonnage and poundage in selected years, 2 pages

The Port Books, 321 pages

Index of Persons, 6 pages

Index of Places, 3 pages

Index of Subjects, 5 pages

Description                 The Boston Port Books make available in a clear and useful fashion the materials for a study of foreign trade of Boston in the first half of the 17th century. At one time the port of Boston was second in importance only to London, but by the 17th century its trade was much smaller than Hull’s. The great inland area once served by Boston had come to depend on the rivers of Humber and Thames, and Boston now exported mainly the produce of a limited hinterland, and imported goods apparently for local consumption. These port books, displaying what is indeed a negligible proportion of the total trade of the United Kingdom, are therefore a contribution to the economic study of Lincolnshire. This does not necessarily mean that they are only of local value. If the merchants of Boston in their relatively small trade were subject to the same influences as the merchants of greater ports, to study the trade of Boston is in some sort to study a national trade in miniature.

Adapted from the Preface.
LRS-Vol-50
Purchase from Boydell & Brewer

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Lincoln Record Society is a registered charity, number 513433