Apprentice migration to London from Wales, 1600–1800

This article uses digitised apprenticeship bindings from the Records of London’s Livery Companies Online (ROLLCO) to investigate the migration patterns of those moving from Wales to enrol in 10 of the London guilds in the period 1600–1800. Engaging with existing historiography on metropolitan apprenticeship and migration from the English regions to London, this article outlines the sorts of people who travelled from Wales to join the livery companies as well as analysing their motives in terms of push and pull factors. It also compares Welsh migration with the smaller numbers of Irish and Scots who enrolled. Evidence from ROLLCO demonstrates that Welsh migrants moved to London in significant numbers during the early seventeenth century using similar migration routes to many of their English counterparts, but that livery companies did little to integrate Ireland and Scotland into a wider British economy.