The Cost of Living in Glasgow in the Early Nineteenth Century
I N the debate on the standard of living during the Industrial Revolution many historians, while bemoaning the absence of systematic data relating to local retail prices, have nevertheless made generalizations based on the movement of indexes derived from London's wholesale and institutional prices. There has been very little research into regional price data, and this is hardly surprising in view of the nature of the evidence.2 In these circumstances, one may feel perturbed by the implications of T. S. Ashton's categoric statement that: "We cannot measure changes in real wages by means of an index of wholesale or institutional prices. We cannot apply the price data of one area to the wage data of another."3 This anxiety is emphasized by the fact that in a recent work which made much of the aggregative approach to economic history, the authors admitted that "each region had its own price history and its own set of price relationships."4 But is it necessarily so dangerous to rely upon the price series of Rousseaux, or of Gayer, Rostow, and Schwartz ?5 Might not a carefully weighted analysis of London wholesale prices be preferred to crude and incomplete regional data? This article provides a cost-of-living index for an important industrial centre, using local retail price information. The results make possible a comparison of the price experience of Glasgow in the early nineteenth century with that suggested in the "London series".