First Footsteps in London

GEORGE:
Before we start, I want to be fair to the truth.

We do not have a neat, signed lease saying:
“William Shakespeare, here is your first London room, congratulations.”
In fact, Shakespeare’s early London years are famously foggy.
What we have instead is a trail of documents — tax records, parish lists — the kind of evidence that proves you existed in a place even if doesn’t give you a cozy story.

WILL:
History often remembers a man
not when he is dreaming,
but when he is owing.

GEORGE:
Exactly.
So today, we’re going to walk into London the way a historian has to: by following the paper.

GEORGE:
Here’s our first solid anchor: by the late 1590s, Shakespeare is recorded in the parish of St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate.

The Folger has a documented record: the Lay Subsidy Roll for St. Helen’s (1598) lists “William Shakespeare” among parish householders and gives his assessed wealth and tax. 

And the UK National Archives teaching packet includes transcripts from tax commissioner records (1597 and 1598) tied to St. Helen’s/Bishopsgate, showing Shakespeare listed among those who hadn’t paid what was due. 

WILL (dry):
So my earliest London address is… a bill?

GEORGE:
In a sense, yes.

The National Archives packet explicitly describes a 1597 list of people in St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate who had not paid, with Shakespeare’s goods valued and tax owed. 

And the same packet includes a 1598 list in St. Helen’s parish and a later Exchequer entry showing the tax debt continuing. 

Transcript

“First Footsteps in London: A Room, a Parish, a Mystery”

We’ve spent these episodes with plague, grief, memory, mercy—
big, heavy subjects.
So today I want to do something that feels almost like a camera zooming in.
Not “the city.”
Not “history.”
Just… one man arriving.

A young man. Not famous. Not safe.
Walking into London with his future still unwritten.

WILL (dry):
Unwritten, yes.
And unpaid.

GEORGE:
Today: Shakespeare’s first place in London—
or, more honestly, Shakespeare’s first place we can actually find.

GEORGE:
Quick reminder: my Shakespeare can look back from the present day—films, scholarship, modern claims—
but he cannot predict the future. No prophecy.

WILL:
Memory, yes.
Foresight, no.

GEORGE:
Before we start, I want to be fair to the truth.

We do not have a neat, signed lease saying:
“William Shakespeare, here is your first London room, congratulations.”
In fact, Shakespeare’s early London years are famously foggy.
What we have instead is a trail of documents — tax records, parish lists — the kind of evidence that proves you existed in a place even if doesn’t give you a cozy story.

WILL:
History often remembers a man
not when he is dreaming,
but when he is owing.

GEORGE:
Exactly.
So today, we’re going to walk into London the way a historian has to: by following the paper.

GEORGE:
Here’s our first solid anchor: by the late 1590s, Shakespeare is recorded in the parish of St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate.

The Folger has a documented record: the Lay Subsidy Roll for St. Helen’s (1598) lists “William Shakespeare” among parish householders and gives his assessed wealth and tax. 

And the UK National Archives teaching packet includes transcripts from tax commissioner records (1597 and 1598) tied to St. Helen’s/Bishopsgate, showing Shakespeare listed among those who hadn’t paid what was due. 

WILL (dry):
So my earliest London address is… a bill?

GEORGE:
In a sense, yes.

The National Archives packet explicitly describes a 1597 list of people in St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate who had not paid, with Shakespeare’s goods valued and tax owed. 

And the same packet includes a 1598 list in St. Helen’s parish and a later Exchequer entry showing the tax debt continuing. 

WILL:
A thrilling debut:
young playwright, future legend, delinquent taxpayer.

GEORGE:
And for our purposes, St. Helen’s matters because it places him near the theatre ecosystem of the time: Bishopsgate is close to Shoreditch, where major playhouses operated.

The National Archives material itself notes the proximity to Shoreditch where the company performed. 
GEORGE:
Reading One — dramatized, because we don’t have the literal room, but we can honor the likely experience of a young man with little money in a loud city.

GEORGE (reading):
“The first room is never glamorous.
It smells of someone else’s life.
It has thin walls that teach you London is always listening.
You put your bag down and feel the foolish hope of it:
‘I am here.’

And then the city replies with its own language:
prices, noise, hurry, strangers who don’t look at you twice.

You count your coins.
Not because you are greedy.
Because rent is a cliff-edge.

And you realize the first lesson of London is not poetry—
it is arithmetic.”

WILL (soft):
Yes.
London makes artists practical.

22:00–29:00 “Bishopsgate days”: why this parish is such a good narrative stage
GEORGE:
So what does St. Helen’s/Bishopsgate feel like as a setting?

It’s city territory. Business territory. Merchants. Money. Work. Status.

And what’s fascinating is: Shakespeare is recorded among householders — but not among the top-tier wealth names in the list.

In the National Archives transcript, you can see major figures assessed at large sums, and Shakespeare at a small valuation by comparison. 

WILL:
So: a man near power, not in power.

GEORGE:
Exactly. That’s a Shakespearean vantage point all by itself.


Modern London loves “Shakespeare walks,” and documentaries love pinpointing addresses as if we can GPS the past.

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has even done an episode on where he lived, emphasizing how complicated it is to pin down London residence details. 
And modern writing on London locations often notes: Shakespeare’s early London living situation is largely unknown, and the first mention comes in the Bishopsgate records. 

WILL:
Your century likes certainty.
Mine liked certainty too.
It merely had less of it.

GEORGE:
That’s our theme today: resisting fake certainty while still telling a good story.

Modern claim: “We know exactly where Shakespeare lived when he first arrived in London.”

Will, do we?

WILL (immediate):
No.

GEORGE:
What we can say is: the first documentary footprint puts you in St. Helen’s/Bishopsgate in the late 1590s — partly because you show up in tax-related documents. 

But your very first London lodging — the first weeks, the first months — remains uncertain.

WILL:
And uncertainty is not failure, sir.
It is honesty.

GEORGE:
Exactly. So here’s the corrected version:

First documented London area/parish: St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate (late 1590s). 

Earlier arrival lodging: unknown; may have been near the theatre districts, but we should label that as inference, not fact.

WILL:
And let us note something else:
the first place a historian finds you
is rarely the first place you lived.
It is the first place you were caught by paperwork.

GEORGE:
That line is gold.
Now tie-back to our previous arc: after plague, grief, and reopening—why does “first place” matter?
Because it reminds us Shakespeare wasn’t born a monument.
He was a working man finding a foothold in a dangerous city.


GEORGE:
Reading Two — dramatized, built directly on the kind of language in those tax commissioner lists: names, valuations, amounts owed, the bluntness of civic accounting. 

SFX (optional): quill scratching, paper stamp, a firm knock

GEORGE (reading):
“A list is made.
Names are written.
Numbers are attached to people as if people are numbers.

‘Goods valued at—’
‘Tax owed—’

And somewhere in the ink, a young man becomes official.
Not celebrated. Not praised.
Recorded.

The city does not say, ‘Welcome, poet.’
The city says, ‘Pay.’”

(Pause.)

WILL (dry):
London’s love language.

GEORGE:
And yet — that harshness is part of what shapes him. It’s the pressure that makes a career real.

GEORGE:
So today we’ve done something important: we’ve grounded the “legend” in the “footprint.”
We don’t know the first bed.
We don’t know the first landlord.
But we do know that by the late 1590s, Shakespeare is in the Bishopsgate orbit — a Londoner enough to show up in civic records. 

WILL:
And that is how history often begins, sir:
not with glory,
but with evidence.

GEORGE:
Next episode: “Shoreditch and the Playhouse District.”
We’ll explore the theatre neighborhood near Bishopsgate/Shoreditch, what daily life around the playhouses felt like, and how a newcomer learns the business of the stage.


WILL:
Ah.
Where dreams and money shake hands—
and often pick each other’s pockets.

GEORGE:
See you next time.

(Music out.)