‘Giving directions to the town’: the early town directories

Abstract

Swift's poetic jibe was aimed at the ever-friendless literary critic; but there were many others who shared in the polymorphic business of ‘giving directions’ to the unwieldy town. Some very literally so: the makers of the early directories provided names, addresses, and occupations of leading urban residents, plus staple information about transport services, posts, banks and miscellaneous local offices. Itemizing and classifying a complex urbanity took a certain confidence. ‘I have taken upon me the arduous Task of compiling a Complete Guide, for the easy finding out of every inhabitant of the least Consequence…’, asserted Elizabeth Raffald, publishing the Manchester Directory in 1772, while confessing the difficulties of the task. Not everyone may have been convinced by her computation that the significant citizens numbered only 1,500 men and women, in a growing conurbation of over 30,000 residents. But that was not the point. A directory offered immediacy rather than complete accuracy or comprehension. Indeed, most compilers were careful not to claim too much. ‘Errors and Deficien- cies must unavoidably appear in every Work of this Kind, from the extreme Difficulty of procuring Information in some Things, and the fluctuating Variety of others’, as A Directory of Sheffield explained firmly in 1787. Many compilations made a caveat of this sort, and indicated a willingness to accept corrections and additions for future editions.

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