Systems of Reclamation

Chapter 3 shows that although urban denizens increasingly sought to prevent loss, possessions still went missing on London’s streets. In response, Londoners established and developed systems of reclamation. Institutions such as the Goldsmiths’ Company and the Bank of England were important in developing systems for dealing with lost plate and bank notes. However, alongside these systems, in the late seventeenth and eighteenth century, the capital’s residents also benefited from the great age of print culture. Londoners printed handbills and had them pasted up around the city, but a big change took place with the onset of newspaper publications. Newspapers such as the London Gazette and daily newspapers such as the Daily Courant included advertisements for lost watches, strayed dogs and servants who had runaway. As the chapter shows, the efficacy of such notices was at times bolstered by thief-takers, but as the century rolled on, the advertisement themselves became more popular. The chapter shows how urban denizens often sought to simply reclaim their possessions rather than pursuing the prosecution of the thieves who so often ‘found’ them.