Beverly Lemire - Dress, Culture and Commerce - The English Clothing Trade Before The Factory, 1660-1800-Palgrave Macmillan (1997) PDF

DRESS, CULTURE AND COMMERCE
Also by Beverly Lemire
FASHION'S FAVOURITE: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in

Britain, 1660-1800
Dress, Culture
and Commerce
The English Clothing Trade
before the Factory, 1660-1800
Beverly Lemire
Professor of History
University of New Brunswick
Canada
$A
M First published in Great Britain 1997 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-333-65204-5
First published in the United States of America 1997 by

ft ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 0-312-16404-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lemire, Beverly, 1950-
Dress, culture and commerce : the English clothing trade before
the factory, 1600-1800 / Beverly Lemire.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-312-16404-1 (cloth)
1. Clothing trade—England—History. 2. Clothing and dress-
-England—History. 3. England—Social life and customs. I. Title.
HD9940.G82E545 1996
338.4'7687'0942—dc20 96-26645
CIP
© Beverly Lemire 1997
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with

written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted her rights to be identified as the author of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire
For Morris, for Shannon with love
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
List of Tables xi
Acknowledgements xii
Abbreviations xv
Introduction: Dress, Culture and the English People 1
1 Bobby Shafto's Shirt and Britches: Contracted
Clothing and the Transformation of the Trade 9
Military markets: dressing for war 11
Institutional markets and the demand for apparel 32
Conclusion 40
2 Redressing the History of the Clothing Trade:
Ready-Made Apparel, Guilds and Women
Outworkers 43
Guilds besieged: tailors in the provinces 44
Sewing for the market: women in the needle
trade 50
Putting-out and making-up: salesmen and
seamstresses 55
Quilting, quality and material evidence 64
Conclusion 71
3 Margins and Mainstream: Jews in the English
Clothing Trades 75
The clothing trades and early Jewish participants 78
Jewish presence in the lower clothing trades 80
Distribution and trade: from margin to
mainstream 88
Conclusion 92
4 Disorderly Women and the Consumer Market:
Women's Work and the Second-Hand Clothing
Trade 95
Housewifely skills and disorder in the marketplace 97
Pawnbrokers and saleswomen: the place of the
insured 104
vii
viii Contents
Home, street and neighbourhood: disorderly

women traders 112
Conclusion 118
5 The Theft of Clothes and Popular Consumerism 121
Popular fashion and second-hand clothing 122
Stripping strangers and rifling rooms 127
The looting of shops and disposal of clothing 135
Conclusion 145
Notes 147
Bibliography 193
Index 207
List of Illustrations
1.1 Tradecard - George Risdon, Slop-seller . . .
Billingsgate 21
Guildhall Library, Corporation of London
1.2 Two receipts for slops bought from Wm Jesser
& J n Baker, 1765 23
1.3 Bill for large order of slops bought from John
Baker, 1780 24
Lennox-Boyd Collection, Courtesy of the
Honourable Christopher Lennox-Boyd
1.4 Bill head and receipt of N. Shearerd, Cockspur
Street, London, 1776 32
Heal Tradecard Collection, British Museum
1.5 Tradecard - R. Maffett . . . Leicester Fields 35
2.1 Tradecard c. 1600s - Godfrey Gimbart . ..
Long Lane 49
2.2 Receipt for ready-made clothes bought from
James Cutts, 1712 58
2.3 Trade bill, William Ghrimes, Taylor and
Habit-maker, c. 1770s 72
2.4 Detail, trade bill of William Ghrimes, Taylor
and Habit-maker, c. 1770s 73
3.1 'Every One His Hobby', 1819. European
Department 76
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
3.2 The Old Clothesman 94
John Johnson Collection. Trades and Professions.
20.5. Bodelian Library, Oxford
4.1 'Old Satten Old Taffety or Velvet' 101
4.2 'The Pithay' (c.1820) H. O'Neill 111
City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
IX
x List of Illustrations
5.1 Tradecard - M. Harris, Taylor & Salesman 125

5.2 'Shop-Lifter Detected' by John Collett, 1778 138
5.3 'An Evenings Invitation; with a Wink from the
Bagnio' by John Collett, 1773 142
List of Tables
1.1 Slops sold to the Navy by Charles James,
1760-70 19
1.2 Clothing approved for foot soldiers, 1689 26
2.1 Salesman's six months' sales, 1699 48
2.2 Insured property of female and male
slopsellers, 1759-63 51
2.3 Insured property of female and male
slopsellers, 1777-96 51
2.4 Chronological distribution of probate sample,
1660-1759 59
2.5 Geographic distribution of probate sample,
1660-1759 59
3.1 Insured property of clothes dealers, 1777-96 83
3.2 Insured property of all women clothes dealers,
1777-96 83
3.3 Comparative value of insured property of Jewish
and non-Jewish men, 1777-96 84
3.4 Comparative ethnic distribution among three
clothing trades, 1777-96 85
3.5 Geographic distribution of insured Jews in the
clothing trades, 1777-96 89
3.6 Geographic distribution of insured non-Jews in
the clothing trades, 1777-96 90
4.1 Insured women and men in the lower
clothing trades 105
4.2 Insured women and men in the clothing
trades, 1777-96 106
4.3 Insurance entries of female and male
pawnbrokers, 1777-96 107
4.4 Insurance entries of saleswomen and salesmen,
1777-96 110
XI
Acknowledgements
One of the pleasures of this process comes with reflections on
the many individuals and institutions who provided assistance
during the years of labour on this book. The community and
corporate connections to which I am indebted are innumer-
able. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada provided me with two research grants over the course
of this project. These grants permitted me to explore this topic
in a way that would otherwise not have been possible. I thank
them for this support.
Many of the chapters of this book have had airings at vari-
ous academic gatherings and I benefited from the comments
and suggestions offered me on these occasions. An earlier and
more abbreviated version of Chapter 2 was presented as the
1993 Veronika Gervers Memorial Lecture, Royal Ontario
Museum, Toronto, and as the keynote address at the Costume
Society of America 1994 symposium; the text of the latter was
published in Dress. Versions of Chapter 4 were presented as
conference papers at the Anglo-American Conference, Lon-
don, in 1993 and at the Midwestern Conference of British
Studies, Toronto, 1994. A draft of Chapter 3 was presented at
the Economic History Society Conference, Nottingham, in 1993.
An earlier version of Chapter 5 was published in the Journal of
Social History.
The Veronika Gervers Research Fellowship, from the Royal
Ontario Museum, Toronto, provided a stimulating context in
which to work on the collections of the Textile Department. I
would like to thank the selection committee for this fellowship
and all the staff of the Textile Department who provided me
with so much help as I worked my way through unfamiliar
territory.
In the face of staff shortages and increased demands on
their time, archivists and librarians at virtually every archive
and library I consulted gave their time and assistance. I would
like to thank, in particular, the staff at the Bodleian Library,
Oxford Record Office, Hampshire Record Office, Chester
City Record Office, Shropshire Record Office, Guildhall Lib-
rary, Corporation of London Records Office, Greater London
xii
Acknowledgements xiii
Record Office and the Public Record Office, Chancery Lane and
Kew. Thanks are also extended to the Honourable Christopher
Lennox-Boyd for permitting me to range widely amongst his
collection and to Guy Shaw for assisting me in my research.
My colleagues in the Department of History, University of
New Brunswick, provide a stable, stimulating and collegial
environment in which to work. Years of lunchtime conversa-
tions and debates enriched my understanding of history in all
its myriad manifestations. I thank Gail Campbell for encour-
aging me to try a quantitative approach and assisting me in my
forays into this field of historical analysis. I cannot repay her
for the hours she invested on my behalf. Marc Milner answered
questions on the esoteric nature of the eighteenth-century mil-
itary; Brent Wilson introduced me to the vagaries of regimental
finance. Bill Acheson, Gillian Thompson, Steve Turner, Gary
Waite and Nicholas Tracy read drafts at various stages, and
discussed questions and theories as I sought to understand the
many facets of this topic. I am most grateful for their insights
and forbearance. Moreover, I cannot forget the support and
assistance which came from this department, and on which I
relied, during the period of illness and recuperation which
intruded on this work for several years.
Adrienne Hood, former head of the Textile Department,
the Royal Ontario Museum, contributed in many ways to the
formation of this work. She offered encouragement, years of
discussions on questions of material history and presented a
comparative historical perspective on conditions and issues on
the other side of the eighteenth-century Atlantic. Adrienne sup-
ported a documentary historian's first detailed look at material
evidence: an exhilarating, if sometimes daunting, process. The
dynamic interdisciplinary environment which developed dur-
ing her tenure as head of the Textile Department at the Royal
Ontario Museum stimulated a wide-ranging examination of
artefacts in the context of research issues. It was with mixed
feelings that I saw her move to the Department of History at
the University of Toronto and leave the material world where
she began her research on colonial America. But perhaps this
move reflects a growing interest within the historical commun-
ity in a wider range of evidence and interpretations. I hope
for a continuing exchange of views in the future. I am indebted
as well to others within the circle of the Royal Ontario Museum
xiv Acknowledgements
Tuesday night dinner group. John Nicks offered a timely sug-

gestion to examine the Hudson's Bay Company records. Grant
McCracken and Trudy Nicks contributed to the sort of intel-
lectual exchange that by its nature stimulates reassessments
and re-examinations.
I am indebted to many among the community of museum
curators and costume historians for their generosity. Sarah
Levitt juggled the demands of time and space to introduce me
to the collections she oversaw, first at the Bristol City Art Gallery
and next at the Gunnersbury Park Museum. Moreover, she
unfailingly responded to my queries and suggested ways to
overcome difficulties. The curators at the Museum of London
were also unfailingly helpful, providing access to their collec-
tions and offering their assistance. And finally, both Madeleine
Ginsburg and Anne Buck have, throughout the years, been
generous with their knowledge, answering questions and sug-
gesting sources. I am grateful for their continuing support of
my research.
There are many others with whom I have shared conversa-
tions and correspondence and whose responses and advice
assisted me in the course of this research. Maxine Berg, Stanley
Chapman, Ann Smart Martin, John Styles, Elizabeth Sanderson,
Mary Prior and Anne Lawrence are among those I would like
to thank for their personal and professional interest in the
progress of this work over a number of years. In addition, John
Prest provided me with a ready ear and an unflagging inter-
est in interpretations of the past. My contacts with Macmillan
began with Giovanna Davitti and were always a pleasure; I appre-
ciated her interest in this project during the time she was at
Macmillan.
I am, above all, sustained by my family. My debts to Morris
are too many to detail. Not least of my family's contributions
to this book came from our numerous conversations, some-
times heated, always spirited. In these discussions we tussled
with the intricacies of history, theory and gender politics, dis-
tracted and sustained by the rituals of dinners, glasses of wine
and endless cups of tea. This book is dedicated to Morris and
Shannon, for the many shared discussions and their agency in
daily life.
BEVERLY LEMIRE
Abbreviations
CLRO Corporation of London Records Office
GLRO Greater London Record Office
MJHSE Miscellanies of the Jewish Historical Society of England
PRO Public Record Office
TJHSE Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England
xv
Introduction: Dress,
Culture and the English
People
The clothing trades assessed in this work are not those of
court tailors and fashionable modistes, and neither is this a
study of changing styles in dress. Rather this work examines
the trades that covered the backs of sailors and soldiers; the
trade in apparel that shirted labouring men and skirted working
women; the trade that employed legions of needlewomen and
supplied retailers with new consumer wares; the trade whose
commodities, once bought, returned to the marketplace, cir-
culating like a currency and underpinning demand. 1 These
clothing trades were at the cusp of formal and informal mar-
ket activities, the intersection of solid main street commerce
and networks of kerb-side hagglers. The agents active in the
former commerce spanned the social spectrum, from govern-
ment contractors for military clothing to female homeworkers
employed by putters-out. The making of these garments was
increasingly dependent on a labour-intensive female outwork.
The experiences of these needlewomen exemplify critical fea-
tures of an expanding capitalist industry unconstrained by its
technological stasis; responding to demand, a re-organization
of production, a re-ordered labour and an abundance of raw
materials sustained the growth of this manufacturing sector, in
an alternative model of industrial development outside the
factory.
Demand changed markedly throughout this period. More
and different apparel and accessories became a necessity, rather
than a luxury, for most of the population, both military and
civilian. Indeed, the navy and army generated an unpreced-
ented demand for apparel. Shirting and breeching the armed
forces was an administrative imperative for a burgeoning gov-
ernment bureaucracy during periods of war that increased in
duration after 1689. Many tens of thousands of pounds flowed
annually from government coffers through the hands of fin-
anciers, to large and small clothing contractors, representing
1
2 Dress, Culture and Commerce
a major source of profit for entrepreneurs. Production and

consumption were transformed.
The voracious demand of an expanding military prompted
contractors to arrange for the manufacture of quantities of
clothing in London, the great ports and associated textile
manufacturing regions. The ever-larger armed forces cast wide
economic shadows which engulfed and transformed the cloth-
ing industry, along with many others. Whether stationed in
the West Indies or trading in Hudson Bay, the men fighting
for England and trading for England carried with them bales
of garments made in bulk by an increasingly female workforce.
The military, overseas trading companies and colonial adven-
turers conjoined to form a unique market for this thriving
industry. At the same time, the manufacture of ready-made
garments assumed a structure and sexual division of labour
that became the prototype for industrial expansion over the
next several centuries.
Within the second-hand clothing trade there were many
of the same retail players as in the new: tailors, shopkeepers,
salesmen and saleswomen, menders and makers of clothes.
Their activities were supplemented by legions of petty and
professional thieves, receivers, pawnbrokers and all classes of
sellers and recyclers of apparel. The arena in which they func-
tioned was fertile and their numbers were regularly augmented
by marginal entrepreneurs anxious to turn a profit and disdain-
ful of official commercial structures. Examining the female
dealers in once-worn goods reveals additional evidence of enter-
prising adjustments to the market demands of consumers and
the adaptations characteristic of petty household enterprise.
Traditionally, many middling and labouring people turned
to second-hand goods, some to trade and others to achieve a
respectable or even a refined appearance. Garments of all qual-
ities entered the second-hand market in extraordinary volumes,
passed from servants' hands to local clothes dealers, sold or
pawned by one owner to cover the price of a journey or the
cost of another jacket. 2 Even Adam Smith recognized the mut-
ability of this ubiquitous commerce, remarking on the plasticity
of the commodity: 'The old clothes which another bestows
upon him, he exchanges for other old clothes which suit him
better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which
he can buy either food, clothes or lodging, as he has occasion.' 3
Introduction 3
However, when clothing was chosen for wear alone, a range

of criteria entered into the buyer's calculations; price, fash-
ionability and utility all played a role. Until recently explana-
tions of expanding consumption, particularly of clothing, relied
principally on a monocausal theory of emulation which hypo-
thesized an exclusively top-down stimulus to demand. 4 Ben
Fine and Ellen Leopold propose an alternative vertical theory
of consumption specific to each commodity, suggesting that spe-
cific catalysts affect consumption within commodity groups. 5
No category of goods better illustrates this hypothesis than does
dress. As vital as food or shelter, the selection of apparel was
replete with personal, economic and cultural considerations;
moreover, influences travelled in both directions, vertical as
well as horizontal and across geographic and occupational
divisions. For example, geographic mobility and urbanization
introduced new imperatives in face-to-face encounters. How
could one ensure a response appropriate to one's standing?
How could a new acquaintance be assured of one's creditable
status? Mutable and mobile, appropriate dress affirmed the
reputable and disguised the rogue.
Recent studies of consumerism, which analyse the character-
istics of the economy in the late seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, challenge some of the prevailing interpretations of
this era, with regard to the standard of living over this period,
the rate of industrial change and the breadth of the market
for low cost commodities. Conclusions drawn in several prom-
inent macro analyses of the economy suggest sluggish growth
in the national economy and a general worsening of condi-
tions for the majority of the population by the late eighteenth
century. 6 Other findings by social and material historians
demonstrate a rising production of commodities, bought and
owed by ever-wider ranks of people; can these opposing views
be reconciled? Jan de Vries posits a solution through closer
scholarly attention to the household, to the strategies of house-
holders and the decisions made there in the apportioning of
time, labour and resources for desired ends: what de Vries
calls 'household negotiation with the market economy'. 7 It was
within households that the competing benefits of leisure and
labour were calculated and the value of material acquisitions
determined. De Vries proposes an 'industrious revolution', a
period of expanding production preceding a later technological
eruption. Within the proposed industrious revolution one finds

both a plethora of new commodities and the calculated deci-
sions of untold thousands of households to invest the requisite
hours of work to make and to acquire the new commodities. 8
The clothing trade exemplifies all facets of this industrious/
consumer equation, both in the work patterns of the partici-
pants and in the personal and collective strategies employed
to augment consumption. Issues of gender, of sexually specific
patterns of work and patterns of trade, defined and constrained
experiences; the ramifications of these patterns were played
out within thousands of households across generations.
From the outset, female sweated labour provided the foun-
dation on which the clothing industry was built. Numbers of
studies of sweated labour focus predominantly on the expansion
of outwork in the clothing trade from the nineteenth century,
identifying key affiliated transformations in textile production,
industrial capitalization and diversification, plus expanded retail
sales.9 In fact, an economic paradigm of production, established
first over the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, offers
an example of industrial development within an alternative
chronology, with many comparable structures of production
which proved adaptable to later technologies. The symbiotic
relationship of outwork and industrial manufacturing remains
a consistent hallmark of the clothing industry to this day.
The production of clothing was transformed from the mid-
seventeenth century; in that respect the history of this trade
has much in common with other trades like shoemaking and
textile manufacture. These too saw the erosion of older produc-
tion patterns under the pressures of growing capital investment,
combined with an expanding system of domestic manufac-
turing. Female labour was a key component of a flourishing
clothing trade. Mantua-making, millinery and dressmaking
remained genteel occupations for daughters of the middling
ranks. Women of the lower classes plied their needles stitching
ready-made goods in large workshops, back rooms of shops,
garret and lodging-house rooms. These were the sites of a vast
and largely unrecorded female manufacturing infrastructure,
with wages and conditions far removed from the concept of a
golden age of pre-industrial opportunity. Capitalization brought
more waged work to women, work which was generally low-
paid and which many had to fit in around household duties.
Introduction 5
By the later eighteenth century the manufacture of garments

also increased in textile districts like Lancashire, Yorkshire and
Ireland. The abundance of cheaper industrially produced cot-
tons, linens and wools, the years of war and escalating military
contracts facilitated the development of more and larger cloth-
ing manufacturing companies by the beginning of the nine-
teenth century. This industry developed largely unnoticed until
the nineteenth century, generations after its inception. Both
at the middle and end of the nineteenth century reformers
'discovered' a population of female garret workers seaming
shirts for a pittance. The 'Song of the Shirt' became an an-
them for the champions of the poor seamstresses in the 1840s.10
In both instances, this was a belated recognition of a trade and
gendered pattern of labour in effect for generations.
This volume cannot and does not cover every aspect of
the clothing industry. Tailors, mantua-makers and milliners,
for example, remain to be thoroughly investigated. The latter
two occupations were major fields of enterprise for independ-
ent business women and deserve comprehensive assessments.
Tailors have received attention from labour and trade union
historians: however, many other aspects of these ubiquitous
artisans remain to be addressed.11
Once made, clothing was acquired and worn. Throughout
this period, the choice of daily attire was as much a reflection
of political, economic and social concerns as it was a matter
of fashion. Indeed, the masses of garments worn by the mid-
dling and labouring peoples of England concerned commer-
cial, landed and legislative circles.12 In the late seventeenth
century, for example, each popular item of French linen or
Indian cotton aroused fears in the breasts of wool merchants
and weavers of declining markets for domestically made tex-
tiles. Official attention did not end there. Governments, as
well as pamphleteers, were preoccupied with how people dressed
as well as in what.13 The question of appropriate attire sim-
mered and steamed over the long eighteenth century, with occa-
sional eruptions from above or below as the changing criteria
of appropriate dress were negotiated. Joyce Appleby addressed
the ideological tensions around 1700 between those who advoc-
ated limited consumption within the domestic market, with
an emphasis on expanding exports, and their philosophical
adversaries who favoured an increasing range of consumer
wares in England. Opponents of the latter policy claimed

that it would imperil the social order and the established
hierarchy would be eroded. 14 Commentators were vexed by
a visible shift from plainly coloured woollens and linen to
printed and flowered cotton chintz and calicos. From time to
time patterns of popular attire elicited even more explosive
responses. The 1719-21 calico campaign is one instance of an
organized lobby affecting the climate for dress, temporarily
stifling consumer demand for Indian painted fabrics.15
Visible affirmations to one's credit began with dress. For
English men and women, the garments they wore reflected
deeply held views about their place in society and the ways in
which they expected to be perceived. Only occasionally did
unspoken expectation take material form. Daniel Defoe gave
voice to this sentiment through a female character of his cre-
ation. She vehemently protested the restrictions on her lib-
erty during the assaults on women which came as a result of
the calico chasing, in 1719, when calico-garbed women were
hounded through the streets and the gowns of Indian fabric
torn off their backs by disgruntled weavers. Harking back to
the Glorious Revolution, this character swore that her liberty
was symbolized in the right to wear what she pleased. 'We
always thought, and have been told by our Grandfathers, that
English people enjoyed their lawful Liberties above all the
Nations in the World . . . Never tell us of National Liberties!
If our Sex has not a Share in the Liberties, how can they
be National?', she queried. 16 More than almost any other
item, clothing acted as material manifestation of an amal-
gam of expectations and assumptions, whether these were dis-
played in the unique aesthetic of a macaroni or a quaker, the
beribboned wedding attire of a late seventeenth-century gen-
tleman, the 'low round' gowns of London prostitutes or the
serviceable bedgown and neat white cap of a respectable labour-
ing wife.17 Allegiances to social order or disorder, one's status
in a community or hierarchy, collective affiliations and indi-
vidual declarations found expression in the choice of dress,
whether this selection was made voluntarily or involuntarily,
as with paupers and children. The personal and the political
coalesced in dress.
Beyond the aggregate debates about dress were more per-
sonal events in which attire and attitude towards this attire
Introduction 7
loomed large. A striking example of this phenomenon appears

in a mid-century account of mayhem precipitated by the wear-
ing of livery. In 1751, two liveried servants were riding through
the Middlesex village of South Mimms on a summer evening
about seven o'clock when they saw a young man and two young
women playing 'Stool Ball' in front of a house. According to
the report, Daniel Derbyshire, one of the servants, called out:
'What does such a Black Dog do playing with such pretty Girls?
To which the [young man] . . . reply'd, I am not so much like
a Dog as you, for I wear my own Coat, and you wear your Master's'.
The insult, flung out at the passing stranger, identified the
single most obvious feature about the man: his servile dress.
Derbyshire wore a type of uniform, the most visible and iden-
tifiable sort of attire in this period, signalling his standing. His
coat, and that of his companion, were of a single colour and
cut with perhaps some identifying badge which made plain to
all that they wore their master's livery. By the eighteenth cen-
tury, working men and women did not relish wearing livery.
Servants resisted dressing in an ancient uniform of service which
so completely masked their personal presentation through
dress. Few female servants wore anything other than their own
attire, however it was acquired. So pervasive was the public
disdain for livery that such garments lost much of their value
in the second-hand market, making such items saleable only
overseas where the social stigma was mitigated by distance.18 'I
wear my own Coat', declared the young man to Derbyshire, 'and
you wear your Master's'. The insult was blatant, the imputation
explosive and the situation charged. Both parties recognized
in the affront the stigma implicit in wearing the livery, as
opposed to personally chosen garments. At those words Der-
byshire began thrashing the declaimant with his whip. Escap-
ing into a neighbouring house, the young man was pursued
by Derbyshire who by this time had pulled out a pistol which
he brandished. A hastily barred door did not hold off the
attacker. Derbyshire broke into the house through a window,
saw his quarry and fired, killing the young man. 19
The violence of Derbyshire's response seems extraordin-
ary to modern readers; but recall the recent deaths of inner-
city American youths over shoes and clothing with a material
value probably less than the livery Derbyshire wore, but with
an equally charged cultural significance. The flash-point of
the Derbyshire encounter came with the public ridicule of

his livery and status: the contrast of servility and individualism.
Daniel Roche's analysis of the significance of dress in ancien
regime France is equally applicable to England: 'Fashion acted
as the symbolic stake in the batde of appearances in a society
in which the distribution and diffusion of wealth was chang-
ing, permitting a greater or lesser social mobility.'20 The Derby-
shire affair illustrates in rather melodramatic terms the value
ascribed to personalized dress, measured against the disdain for
uniform apparel. Four generations earlier the wearing of livery
imbued the wearer with the master's status, to be employed in
face-to-face determinations of power and position on the city
streets. Remnants only of this sartorial authority remained by
the eighteenth century; traditional deference had even less
currency in urban districts. The revulsion against livery was the
flip-side of the coin which saw apprentices and ambitious trades-
men disport themselves in finery which implied a higher social
status than that to which they were entitled by birth. 21 Indeed,
the trade in cast-off clothing was sustained in large measure by
a broad demand for affordable clothing that reflected posit-
ively on the status of the wearer. Much of the theft of apparel
was similarly inspired.
Along with the makers of clothes were the recyclers of gar-
ments, many of whom followed irregular commercial paths.
Experienced needlewomen may well have worked as clothes
dealers, as eye-sight failed or necessity demanded. Would-be
shopkeepers and marginal pedlars found an accessible com-
mercial foothold in the second-hand trade. Necessity and inven-
tion sustained this trade; in households among the labouring
classes opportunities were adapted creatively. Not all adapta-
tions were legal or honest. Theft played a part in meeting col-
lective and individual needs, as aspirations were transformed.
Overall, the clothing trades are invaluable agencies through
which to examine the processes of economic and social change,
manifested individually and collectively. Government contrac-
tors and street-corner hagglers, Jewish dealers and female
shirtmakers, reflect in their experience the characteristics of
this most basic industry. Patterns of consumption, as well as
patterns of production, were redefined in the long prelude to
full industrialization.
1 Bobby Shafto's Shirt and
Britches: Contracted
Clothing and the
Transformation of the
Trade
Bobby Shafto's gone to sea,
Silver buckle on his knee 1
Thousands of Bobby Shaftos left for sea over the long eight-
eenth century. They travelled in merchant brigs to the Carib-
bean, manned naval vessels in a continuing circuit of wars and
manoeuvres, staffed the ships and outposts of merchant com-
panies from the fur-rich territories of Hudson Bay to tropical
forts on the Gulf of Bengal. Their lives at sea and the fate of
these ventures are well known for the most part. Less familiar
is the history of one of the major supply industries on which
the crews depended, the clothing trade. The expansion of the
military is the starting point for this study.
Sailors and soldiers were swept up with each new confronta-
tion. Once part of a fighting force they relied on the extant
administrative infrastructure for the necessities of life: for food,
clothing and munitions. Building naval and military forces
demanded foresight. The century of almost uninterrupted
European warfare absorbed enormous material resources and
required governments to rethink and restructure the adminis-
trative underpinnings which augmented and sustained these
war efforts.2 The history of this transformation left its legacy
in the names of battles, the new styles of armed forces, in the
swelling fleets of ships, enlarged dockyards and armouries, and
new infrastructures of government. The impact of military pol-
icy on the English state and its administration resulted in what
John Brewer termed the fiscal-military state. Nations, like Eng-
land, which underwent this transformation possessed there-
after 'the economic wherewithal and the organizational means
9
to deploy resources in the cause of national aggrandizement'. 3

The scale of demand for war materials, for the resources neces-
sary to sustain a fighting force, was one of the most notable ele-
ments of this evolving national structure.
As an organization, the fiscal-military state dwarfed any
civilian enterprise. The capital investment it demanded, the
running costs it incurred, its labour requirements and the
logistical problems that it posed were all of a different order
of magnitude from even the very largest eighteenth-century
private business.4
The success of the military policies of the late Stuart and
Hanoverian periods depended in large measure on the funds
available to sustain the war effort, to build the fleet, to arm the
regiments, to clothe the sailors and soldiers employed on the
monarchs' missions. The clothing trade was transformed
through the impetus of military expansion. 5 What distinguished
these clothes were the unprecedented quantities needed by
the expanding navy and the mobilized regiments. The demand
of government agencies, and the funds at their disposal, over-
shadowed any other single market in England, generating a
production capacity undaunted by the demands placed upon
it in the eighteenth century, a production capacity there to be
tapped by a range of other buyers.
This chapter will examine the linkages between government
and clothing contractors, surveying the distinctive provisioning
systems which characterized the navy and the army. Provisioning
varied within the two forces; however, the collective demand
exerted by these two bodies cast a single economic shadow
which grew steadily larger. Government turned its attention
to the creation of more effective and stable credit systems
after 1660, and most particularly after 1688.6 In this study the
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries will receive
the greatest attention, as the critical period when govern-
ment bodies worked to sustain their war effort, and contractors
struggled to expand their businesses and secure their profits.
The process of supplying clothing for the military tied London
financiers to tailors and garret seamstresses, and it established
and enlarged the trade in basic apparel, goods that would
then be accessible to other markets. Trading companies, like
the Hudson's Bay Company, for example, relied on the same
Bobby Shafto's Shirt and Britches 11
English suppliers for stores as did the military, a provisioning

infrastructure sustained by the fiscal-military state. The injec-
tion of ever-larger measures of government funding compelled
alterations in production; the expanding economies of scale
ensured that cheap utilitarian garments were available to an
ever-wider range of customers, both military and civilian, over-
seas and domestic.
MILITARY MARKETS: DRESSING FOR WAR
Military requirements represented a unique stimulus to the

clothing trade. The economic surge began in England with
the transformation of the size and administration of the forces
under Cromwell, continuing in William's reign and throughout
the eighteenth century. The Commonwealth fighting force of
70000 soldiers during the Civil War was matched by a navy
which grew by over two hundred vessels. The Civil War years
offered opportunities for contractors who were asked to pro-
vide quantities of supplies on short notice. For example, be-
tween August and September of 1642, Stephen Eastwick, a
London citizen, received orders from royalist forces for nearly
nine thousand coats and shirts, plus over seven thousand shoes
and knapsacks. The cost of these articles approached £2000.7
In 1644, the widow of a Cambridgeshire Parliamentarian, Mrs
Wildbore, was granted full payment of outstanding charges of
£1231 6s.l0d. authorized by the Earl of Manchester, for 'Clothes
delivered to ye Casde soldiers about a yeare since'.8 And, in Janu-
ary 1659, the needs of the Commonwealth troops in Flanders
led to orders for 2300 each of coats, breeches, shirts and stock-
ings, along with 4600 shoes.9 The suppliers, many of them Lon-
don based, filled these and other orders. The purchases of army
regiments and ships' captains did not dry up following the
military expansion of the mid-century. Changes in the capa-
city of manufacturers developed in tandem with the forces on
land and sea.
The size of the army waxed and then waned to 15000 by the
third quarter of the seventeenth century before William's wars.
Armies, even under William, Anne and the Georges, were demo-
bilized quickly when the need for them was past.10 The navy,
on the other hand, grew more steadily and was reduced less
completely at war's end. It is this market that will be examined

first. The size and numbers of ships involved in government-
funded ventures created unprecedented scales of production
in shipbuilding and provisioning at the royal dockyards of Ply-
mouth, Portsmouth, Woolwich, Chatham, Deptford, Sheerness
and Harwich, unmatched by private dockyards.11 Royal dock-
yards were magnets for labour, as well as for the copious quan-
tities of stores essential to the building and provisioning of
vessels. Spars, shot and sails are some of the better known con-
stituents of maritime adventure. The material remnants of
the rise of sea-power left a visible record in architecture, arte-
facts, paintings and copious documents. Less obvious were the
energies and organization expended to provide clothing, not
least because the material remains of this initiative did not
survive. Clothing remained an invisible element of the sea port
economy; it was, however, indispensable.
In 1623, contractors were appointed by the Navy Board to
provide basic apparel whenever it was required. By mid-century,
bales comprised of 'ticken breeches', blue and white checked
shirts, grey wool stockings, red caps and blue neckcloths were
routinely stocked in the growing number of naval vessels. The
garments worn by the crews in these ships were uniform in the
sense that they fell within a common idiom of labouring dress,
varying only slighdy from the daily wear of men in civilian
occupations; only by the mid-eighteenth century was there
consistent interest in prescribing and enforcing military attire.
Within a seaman's costume, slop breeches were wider than
the breeches of landsmen; however, the sailor's short white or
checked shirt, waistcoat and 'bum freezer'jacket were the same
sorts of garments labourers wore every day, standard basic bodily
coverings.12 Slop clothes, as they were called, have long been
recognized as the first type of utilitarian ready-made garments
produced on a large scale.
The accelerated production of clothing for the fleet matched
the tempo of growth in the navy. A voluminous literature tracks
the progress of England's Royal Navy over this period. 13 Just
as the construction and maintenance of the vessels occasioned
the development of more efficient and effective shipbuilding,
dockyards and armouries, 14 so the dressing of the sea-going
crews imposed organizational and production imperatives,
part of the administrative burden which preoccupied monarchs,
ministers and London merchants. From 1642 to 1660, the

Commonwealth government built 61 ships, nearly double
the number financed by the two previous Stuart monarchs.
The capital assigned to this naval expansion was remarkable by
contemporary standards of investment. Equivalent expenditures
continued after the Restoration. In 1677, for example, £600000
was approved for the construction and fitting of thirty new
ships of the line. John Ehrman notes that, 'At the accession
of William III England was one of three leading sea powers;
at the accession of George I, she was the leading sea power,
without a rival or even a companion.' 15 Between 1688 and
1697 eighty-two more ships were built, ordered or rebuilt.16
Similarly, from at least the mid-seventeenth century, Navy Com-
missioners ordered quantities of slops to kit out mariners in
the growing English fleet.17 The cost of clothing would be a
small fraction of the vast total costs in construction and main-
tenance. Nevertheless adequate clothing was a continuing and
essential element in the comfort and health of the seamen,
pressed or volunteers, whose numbers rose from about 12000
in 1688 to over 48000 by 1695.18 The number of sailors and
marines continued at around 48000 to 1710.19
Clothing this number of men was not a small undertak-
ing. It involved calculation and planning by boards and offi-
cials as to the minimum number of garments needed over a
given period, along with the cost. These high level computa-
tions were followed by the labyrinthine cycle of production, dis-
tribution and, finally, after some considerable delay, payment.
Contracting with the government was not for the faint of heart
or the shallow of pocket. But the potential for profit was con-
siderable, particularly when the Treasury was forced to pay
interest, after six months, on all bills assigned for payment 'in
course', or, as the funds became available. After 1688, the
dramatic militarization was matched by persistent problems
of government credit. The regulation of debt repayment, as
well as taxation and borrowing, had moved to a more stable
footing by the early eighteenth century.20 Throughout the late
Stuart period as the nascent financial infrastructure was shaken
by crises, contractors remained vigilant, defending their inter-
ests, maintaining their standing with the appropriate govern-
ment officials.
The navy developed unique administrative systems of supply.
The Navy Board, whose full title was 'the Principal Officers and
Commissioners of the Navy', controlled all business related to
provisioning and production for the navy from 1545 to 1832,
everything from the purchase of hammocks to the building of
first rates.21 The Navy Board found that if standards were not
enforced contractors took advantage, and such was the case
with the suppliers of clothes. Initially, too little attention was
given to the quality of the garments stocked aboard ships and
the charges extorted from the captive customers afloat miles
from alternative stock. In 1655, to try to staunch the stream of
abuses among clothing contractors, the Commissioners insisted
that slopsellers could not load goods on board without explicit
permission, to counter 'the several abuses done by those that
serve the state's ships with clothes, by exorbitant prices and
bad goods, to the prejudice of the poor seamen'. 22 Once a
contract was secured and the garments delivered, they would
be stored in slop chests on board ship under the care of the
purser, whose responsibility it was to sell items to the crew,
keeping a tally for the slopseller. Sailors supplemented their
kits as needed. Stipulations were always made, however, on
when these garments should be forthcoming, so that the newly
enlisted did not abscond with saleable merchandise. 23 In 1663,
a list of approved clothes was authorized: 'Monmouth Capps
Red Caps Yarne Stockings Irish Stockings Blew Shirts White
Shirts Cotton Wastcoats [sic] Cotton Drawers neat Leatherd
flatt heald Shoes Blew Neckcloathes Canvas Suites Blew Suit'.24
On paper at least a standard of dress was fixed. Prices, ideally,
would not exceed the limit set. However, individual pursers
had some latitude in what they charged when they opened
their packs on deck to the ship's company. Theoretically, sailors
were not to buy more than ten shillings' worth of clothes in
the first two months of service, or ten shillings more before
the end of the voyage. Items bought by crew members were
listed on their seaman's tickets, a personal account of wages
earned and expenditures made while at sea. An indebted sailor
was more easily kept on as crew. Given that pursers earned a
commission from the slopseller of about one shilling for every
pound's worth of goods sold and that slopsellers routinely
supplied garments which did not conform to the cheap util-
itarian model, sailors could and did find themselves indebted
for excessive clothing expenditures. From 1706, samples of the
goods ordered from suppliers were exhibited at the ports so

that the quality of stitching and fabric could be compared with
the bales of garments finally delivered.25 Warmth, durability
and price were on-going concerns that were never completely
resolved. Complaints made in 1670 about inadequate slops
would be echoed intermittently throughout the century. In
1670, a commander wrote angrily that, 'the seamen complain
for want of clothes, and fall daily by agueish distempers, many
being pressed men, who brought no more than was on their
backs'. 26
Once they secured a contract, slopsellers had a secure mar-
ket. At the same time, the slopseller accepted the risks that
came with stocking ships of war. Vessels lost at sea, with the
stocks of clothes and log books of sales, were the contractor's
loss. But these risks did not discourage the entrepreneur when
measured against the profits to be won. Contractors lobbied
hard to get an appointment as slopseller to the navy; once
acquired it offered a broad avenue for advancement. One of
the names which recurs in this era is Beckford. Richard
Beckford petitioned around 1655 against the decision of the
Vice-Admiral that he could not sell his £3000 worth of clothes
on twenty-two named ships.27 A decade later 'young Captain
[Thomas] Beckford', probably a relative, was busy developing
a relationship with Samuel Pepys in the hopes of establishing
a firm contract to supply slops to the Navy. Samuel Pepys held
the post of Clerk of the Acts, acting as secretary to the Navy
Board; he developed a passion for the administrative intricacies
which knit together this burgeoning bureaucracy. Pepys's offi-
cial remuneration was modest, however, as the Earl of Sandwich
advised him: 'It was not the salary of any place that did make
a man rich but the opportunity of getting money while he is
in the place.' 28 Pepys was concerned intermittendy with the
efficient provision of slops and their adequate distribution to
the men in the fleet. In March 1663, Pepys noted: 'Up betimes
to my office, where, with several masters of the king's ships, Sir
J. Minnes and I advising upon the business of slopps, wherein
the seaman is much abused by the Pursers.' 29
Naturally, Pepys was also in close contact with slopsellers,
including Thomas Beckford. Notes of their meetings appear
in Pepys's diary in a number of places. In the first instance, in
December 1665, Pepys joined Beckford and several other men
at an 'exceeding merry' dinner at a London tavern. Less than

three years later Thomas Beckford received his appointment
as slopseller to the Navy. It is too great a stretch to suggest a
direct cause and effect between the two incidents; however,
friendly relations and a few drunken dinners with a key func-
tionary usually facilitated business ties. Pepys displayed a dis-
dain for corrupt officials; however, when there were no official
issues immediately under consideration he saw no harm in
accepting gifts from suppliers such as Beckford. Pepys recorded
several encounters of this nature, the first in February of 1668.
At the office all the morning to get a litde business done . . .
Hence comes to me young Captain Beckford the slopseller,
and here presents me with a litde purse with gold in it, it
being, as he told me, for his present [to me] at the end of
the last year. I told him I had not done him any service I
knew of; he persisted and I refused . . . and telling him that
it was not an age to take presents in, he told me he had
reason to present me with something; and desired me to
accept of it; which, at his so urgeing me, I did; and so fell
to talk of his business, and so parted. 30
Fifty guineas were in the small purse. Moreover, it was not
very long before Beckford sent Pepys a petition on behalf of
all the provisioners, pressing for payment of their outstanding
charges. The following year, 1669, Beckford's gift to Pepys was
even more lavish, causing Pepys a few moments of anxiety and
some misgivings about whether or not to accept it. Perhaps
Pepys did accept the 'noble' silver warming pan. Later in the
same year complaints were made against Beckford by the
Commander of the Algiers force, who wrote that: 'You may
consider whether it be fit that his Royal Highness order Major
Beckford to give an account to the Navy Board why he hath set
exorbitant prices on his Cloaths, and Sent none that he can
suffer to be issued to the men at the rates appointed.' 31 Beckford
had previously convinced officials that the rules be bent, since
with the sudden end of the Dutch War, in 1667, he was left
with excessive stock, some of which exceeded the prices set by
the Navy Board. Beckford petitioned,
that the Agents of the said Major Beckford may accordingly
be permitted for one Year, from the Date hereof, to issue
out Cloaths unto the Seamen who shall desire the same,
of the greater Prices than the Rates for Cloaths established;
provided that at the same time there be a sufficient Store of
Cloaths of the established Prices on board the said Ships.
Even when challenged by a senior naval commander, Beckford's

position was secure enough to weather the criticisms of the
price of his stock.32
It was rare when government could afford to pay their sup-
pliers anything more than a percentage of the total charge
within the first year or two. The contractors, in turn, needed
to pay the tradesmen who provided them with the raw mater-
ials and they needed to pay the men and women plying shears,
needles and thread. The exigencies of government contracts
in the later seventeenth century demanded mercantile and
social acuity in equal measure. Thomas Beckford sustained
and expanded his place as a clothing supplier with a full por-
tion of both traits. Shordy after the tussle in the late 1660s
Beckford obtained for a period 'the sole privilege' of selling
slops to the navy.33 Thomas Beckford culminated his business
life by becoming a Sheriff of the City of London; he was by this
time Sir Thomas.
The Beckford name recurs again with William Beckford,
who followed in the footsteps of his father. William Beckford
was one of the prominent London based slopsellers at the
close of the seventeenth century, building on his father's con-
tacts and maintaining the business, as wars erupted and press
gangs swept the ports and docks.34 It is not possible to present
a complete analysis of the Beckford enterprise, since there are
only incidental references to the value of the goods supplied
to the navy. However, even with the scattered mentions from
1689 to the early eighteenth century, the scale of his trade
becomes evident. On several occasions from the years 1689 to
1693, Beckford received small sums in recognition of his out-
standing charges against the navy. In September 1689, a pay-
ment of £1400 was approved; in February 1690, £2000 was
granted him; and in July 1690, £3000 more was ordered paid
'to said Beckford for slops by him furnished for the Navy'.35
What portion of the whole cost did these payments represent?
It is impossible to come to a firm figure; however, Beckford
evidently felt that whatever the income it was insufficient as
the war expanded in the mid-1690s. He may have doubted

that the partial payments and the interest on the outstanding
bills could finance the continued production of the clothes
needed. In 1693, after several years of partial reimbursements,
Beckford calculated that £20 000 was owed him and petitioned
the Treasury for some portion of the same. He estimated that
£12000 would be needed to produce his portion of slop wares
for the Navy. In May 1697, £10000 was set aside for the immedi-
ate needs of the slopseller out of the recent acts raising funds
for the navy.36 The 1699 account survives relating the expend-
itures for slops on fifty-five ships in the Royal Navy; this reck-
oning offers another example of the scope of sales available
to a major slop dealer. The fifty-five vessels were of very differ-
ent sizes and the crews bought differing quantities of slop
clothes. On some of the smallest vessels expenditures ranged
from £4 to £11, while on the largest there was a total expend-
iture of £1133. Among the middling sized ships £600-700 of
slops was the common level of total sales by year's end. In total,
slops valued at nearly £9000 were sold aboard those fifty-five
naval vessels in a single year and these had been 'issued by
William Beckford, esq.'37
Most of the raw materials employed by slopsellers were inex-
pensive and readily accessible; labour to cut and to sew was
also plentiful in London and the other great port cities. The
skill of the slopseller lay in arranging for the stocks of fabric
and securing an efficient chain of manufacture, all the while
balancing outflow of funds with the dilatory payments of the
navy.38 The Navy Board, in turn, tread a narrow line between
containing costs and ensuring the fundamentals to keep crews
fighting fit. Depending on the course of the voyage different
garments would be assigned: a Newfoundland tour necessitated
heavier wool garb and more of it, for example. Based on a 1705
estimate, a full set of slop clothes - a lined kersey jacket, a ker-
sey waistcoat and breeches, a linen shirt and drawers, shoes,
wool stockings, leather caps and buckles - would cost about
£1 13s.39 When one considers the value of the goods being
made and sold and the total cost of the commodities provided
by Beckford it is apparent that many thousands of individual
articles were manufactured and made at very low cost. Shirts
were replaced far more frequendy than garments made of
heavier materials, for example, and thus ships were stocked
with many more blue or white linen shirts, costing about three
shillings. The importance of this estimate is to recognize the
scale of manufacturers implicit when Beckford notes an out-
standing debt for goods delivered over several years of £20 000.
The capital needed to supply the navy increased along
with the size of the fleet over die eighteenth century. Joseph
Browning, petitioning the Treasury in 1741, noted that during
peace time he was allowed a sum of money on his account to
sustain his production of clothing amounting to £5000 annu-
ally. Browning contends that 'now in this time of war a capital
of not less than 40000 1. is absolutely necessary for carrying on
the contract'. 40 The level of trade of these slopsellers matches
that of some of the largest merchants and traders in other
fields.41 In common with many businesses, the slopsellers did
not need to invest in expensive fixed capital equipment. Their
greatest ouday would be in textiles and related stock, the cost
of manufacturing being only a fraction of the total cost of the
goods. 42
A ledger amongst the Admiralty records, running from 1760
to 1794, notes the specific details of agreements with clothing
contractors and stipulates the specifications and size of the
orders agreed to by the parties. By this time many of the cloth-
ing manufacturers operated on a considerably larger scale than
did those of a hundred years before.43 Some of the contrac-
tors were active throughout the whole period covered by this
ledger and others were in evidence only for shorter periods.
Table 1.1 reflects the volume of slops provided by one of the
dealers. One of the most striking illustrations of the manufac-
turing capacity of this period can be found in the quantity of
sailors' checked shirts produced at the end of the Seven Years
Table 1.1 Slops sold to the navy by Charles James, 1760-70
Number of items Value Years

shirts 435100 £66899 09s.05rf. 1760-70
trousers44 44600 £5888 06s.08d. 1760-70
frocks 40300 £5653 15s.00d. 1766-70
drawers 35550 £2263 055.07d. 1760-62
Total 555550 £80704 I6s.08d.
War, when the pressures to supply combatants were high. The

navy's size swelled from over 40000 in the wars from 1689 to
1713, to over 80000 during the Seven Years War.45 During two
years of that war, between September 1760 and September
1762, Charles James organized the manufacture and dispatch
to naval warehouses of 269600 shirts, the deliveries divided
between the two years.46 The production of slops abated with
the end of the war. Fewer shirts were delivered over the remain-
ing years of the decade to 1770 than in that frenzied two-year
period during the Seven Years War, suggesting the pressures
on manufacturers to find alternative markets once naval ships
were decommissioned and sailors demobilized. Charles James
was not the only supplier of shirts listed in the ledger during
this conflict; however, he held the largest contract for this com-
modity. The capacity of this slopseller, who also sold drawers,
duck frocks and trousers, confirms the successful expansion
of production employing traditional technology, relying on
an expanded scale of sub-contracting and outwork. Between
1760 and 1762, the value of the shirts alone reached over
£42000, with the total value of shirts, drawers and trousers
produced by James for the Navy in the two war years totalling
almost £45000. 47
It is worth noting that during the same period three other
contractors were listed in the ledger, busy furnishing duck
trousers and frocks, waistcoats, jackets, breeches, shirts, great-
coats and haversacks. John Fullagar and Stephen Todd were
successful partners who maintained naval contracts from 1760
to 1793 selling these goods. In the two years examined dur-
ing the Seven Years War, 1760-62, Fullagar & Todd provided
approximately 71000 items of clothing for the Royal Navy,
adding to and complementing the stocks produced by James,
at a cost to the navy of over £14500.48
The war with America and her European allies, from 1775
to 1784, demanded a naval force that topped 100000 by the
final years of the conflict, considerably larger than that of
the previous war.49 Contractors were continually challenged to
respond to the urgent needs of the armed forces as wars broke
out during the eighteenth century. The manufacturers' capa-
city continued to grow, bolstered in part by the competitive
advantage of the mechanizing textile industries at their dis-
posal. British textile producers generated ever larger quantities
<ere»-" ",...•• &M0&S*-

% GEORGE RISDON,
• SLOP-SELLER,
At the Woohack and Sun, (No. 97) oppofite
,. BILLINGSGATE;
i W i r i ^ f^~^rr-So«s or arenas," Sea: Beds,
1 5 Blankets, Coverlids and Cots,. Whole-,
I fale and Retail
| N. B. Gentlemen fitted out in the neateft Manner,
•J fe* thefcattor Weft Indies. Cr
V wwr V*
Illustration 1.1 Tradecard - George Risdon, Slop-seller .. . Billingsgate
of cotton/linens, cottons and wool blends. Most of the early

successful products were geared towards the cheap utilitarian
mass market: just the sort of fabrics used by the makers of slop
clothes. 50 The tradecard of George Risdon, slopseller, is illus-
trative of the many hundreds who flourished in this trade at
any time over the century. (See illustration 1.1.) One of those
with contracts with the navy, from 1777 to 1793, was James
Wadham who sold checked shirts, duck trousers and frocks.
Sun Fire Insurance registers list several of Wadham's contracts
and describe his trade as that of linen draper and slopseller;
he was based in Southwark, one of the principal centres of the
slop trade in a metropolis that was at the heart of the indus-
try. Wadham took out insurance on two occasions, in 1790
and in 1792. Both insurance policies can be assumed to be new
insurance protection, although one cannot guarantee that the
value declared was the actual cash value of all his stock. Under-
valuation was a common feature of insurance; the valuation
of goods provides only an approximate estimate of property
values.51 Wadham insured his for £6000 in 1790 and £3800
worth of additional stock was insured in 1792. L.D. Schwarz
assessed the indexed registers from 1776 to 1785 for the value
of the goods insured by London traders and merchants, con-
structing a hierarchy of metropolitan trades. Those in the top
75 per cent of mercers and drapers, the most affluent of the
trades insured, carried insurance for goods valued at approxim-
ately £2200 and £2000 respectively.52 Wadham stands well above
the median of insured drapers and mercers; a pattern common
among the other large slopsellers examined. Moreover, this
insurance level only hints at the capital resources assigned
to the manufacture of naval slops. Elsewhere Schwarz notes
that insured goods accounted for a small portion of the fixed
and disposable assets of affluent industrialists.53 Wadham, in
common with all major slopsellers, needed capital and credit
to juggle the exigencies of manufacturing on government con-
tract. His production capacity is suggested by the 612 914 shirts,
frocks and trousers delivered to government storehouses be-
tween 1780 and 1782, double the total dispatched by Charles
James in the earlier two-year period, 1760 to 1762. This cat-
aract of shirts and flood of frocks generated total sales for
Wadham of over £79 000 for the two years during the Amer-
ican War.
The navy was one arm of Britain's fighting forces, one of
the principal markets for utilitarian garments. It, plus the
merchant fleet, consumed ever larger quantities of apparel.
The receipts and invoice depicted in illustrations 1.2 and
1.3 reflect a range of individual and collective sales on which
clothes dealers relied. In addition, as declarations of war were
signed, drum rolls sounded and armies marshalled, soldiers
also had to be dressed for the rigours of war. Each of the forces
developed distinctive practices surrounding the contracting
of clothing. It is worth reiterating that the two military institu-
tions grew over the same period, although in slighdy differ-
ent ways, with the army regularly surpassing the size of the
navy. During the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13),
for example, the army numbered over 92000, almost 20000
stronger than in the Nine Years War of 1689-97. The size of
the army in 1713 was not approached again until the Seven
Years War.54 Whatever the size of the army, hostilities meant
opportunity for some. Conflicts overseas brought the hope of
profits for those who had goods to sell and deals to make.55 Mer-
chants and traders sought out contracts for regimental apparel
' •
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Illustration 1.2 Two receipts for slops bought from Wm Jesser &
Jn Baker, 1765
as assiduously as slopsellers flattered and bribed their way to

naval contracts. Some overlap is evident between the contrac-
tors for the navy and those for the army regiments. 'Small
clothes' as they were called - shirts, stockings, caps and shoes
- were sold to both institutions by some of the same manu-
facturers, such as Fullager & Todd. John Gore was a major
slopseller in the later seventeenth century, specializing in linen
items. In 1689-90, he filled a large order for hammocks
for the navy, valued at nearly £12 000. In 1687, John Gore,
'slopseller', was also noted as providing sixteen companies of
the Royal Regiment of Foot with shirts, stockings and shoes.56
However, the wool jackets, waistcoats and breeches sold to the
individual regiments were usually prepared by contracted tai-
lors and journeymen tailors, commonly through a series of
sub-contracts with an intermediary in charge of filling the
complete regimental contract.
Colonels held a proprietary interest in regimental affairs, as
t "// l/lf Itf/i'/ittr/;, uni'i notin^ttHt <'/r//t:4//;.-/i '//AetK
SAYr//*r»<7'* .s/,*y/' vfi /A .. / / . ,
M Sdh*'** 4veJcS '//? $ 'J- '-
OJ ^/c// (y/7 f - _ ^ 6 . . £\ >?.. ,_

/QdffqQfafi ûrrf «V . ,^.. ,-?.. ,,
a (/,<*,} ?ae4y,/fy /#.. -.
Illustration 1.3 Bill for large order of slops bought from John Baker,
1780
Lennox-Boyd Collection, Courtesy of the Honourable Christopher Lennox
did some more junior officers; both ranks showed considerable

acuity where profits in regimental business were concerned. The
reputation of officers, particularly captains, was notorious dur-
ing the Tudor and early Stuart period when a routine larceny
was practised once the regiments were away from close scrutiny.
Funds for pay, arms, equipment and clothing found their way
into officers' pockets; the rank and file were often left in des-
perate straits, ragged and hungry. One garrison was reduced
to pawning their beds and clothing to get money for food.
Muster rolls were a key administrative mechanism to account
for the numbers and needs of the regiment. Padding the rolls
with non-existent combatants was a tactic typically employed to
swell the funds provided to a regiment, one to which a blind

eye was turned during the reigns of Charles and Anne. 57
There were periodic struggles between the Crown and the
officers, especially after 1689, when William III assumed the
throne, bent on a diplomatic and military course that would
test the capacity of government. The crown wanted to ensure
that the funds assigned to feed, arm and clothe regiments
went exclusively to that end. The officers' view of finance and
perquisites was rather more traditional. Parliamentary reforms,
in 1690-91, required the army to be financed through a vote of
supply and demanded the military provide a true accounting
of regimental strength. However, the fiscal liberties character-
istic of regimental finance could not be legislated away.58 The
scheming surrounding the contracting of clothing is explained
by the value of the regimental off-reckoning, the sum with-
held from soldiers' pay for clothing. As with the navy, various
government bodies set maximum costs and the rate at which
apparel would reasonably be replaced. In 1689, it was stipu-
lated that soldiers would receive a full new set of clothing once
every two years and a new great coat after the first year. Table
1.2 displays the list approved by the King for the common foot
soldier, costing £2 \0s.06d. in the first year and another
£1 09s.04d. the next. Apparel for the 'Light Horse' was slighdy
more elaborate, costing £5 lls.Od. in the first year of service,
with an added £2 ISs.Od. in the second year. David Chandler
calculates that cavalry comprised approximately 27 per cent
of the total strength of the army. Using that percentage as
a general guide, the expenditure for the first year only of an
army estimated during the Nine Years War at 76404 would be
in the region of £252 950, for both foot soldiers and mounted
regiments. Costs for sergeants' and drummers' coats, as well as
for officers' would be considerably higher.59 Moreover, uniforms
damaged in transit or in batde, lost through the desertion of
troops and other hazards ensured that costs were never so
easily or finally calculated.
On his accession to the throne William III moved immedi-
ately to assure the economic foundation of his new armed
forces, issuing orders in 1688 that the outstanding sums
owed for clothing were to be paid immediately. Several years
later the 1694 off-reckoning approached the levels estimated
above at £207 807.60 In 1697, orders were sent 'to apply 2708021.
Table 1.2 Clothing approved for foot soldiers, 1689
First Year pair stockings 0 02s.06d.

coat and breeches 1 lOs.OOd.
gloves 0 0l5.06d.
sash 0 0ls.02d.
belt 0 03s.06d.
shoes 0 03s.06d.
hat 0 055.00d.
shirt and cravat 0 03i.04rf. £2 I0s.06d.
Second Year stockings 0 02s.06d.
great coat 0 \5s.00d.
shoes 0 05s.06d.
hat 0 05s.00d.
shirt and cravat 0 03s.04d.
£1 09s.04d.
£3 I9s.\0d. total
Source: Calendar of Treasury Books vol. 9, part 1, p. 67.
185.8d. . . . to the offreckonings for the clothiers.' 61 With such

sizeable sums involved, payments for clothing were frequently
delayed or made only in part. Reimbursement to military con-
tractors was rarely given in cash; large clothing contractors
were offered other repayment mediums, such as tallies. Tallies
carried a legal title to revenues collected by the government
and the source of revenue was specified in the agreement.
However, tally holders could rarely exchange their tokens for
the face value. Tallies were routinely discounted, sometimes
quite substantially, when the contractor sought to exchange
them for cash or other goods; the rate of discount varied with
the financial health of the government. 62 When the discount
on tallies reached 15 per cent or more, contractors demanded
an added allowance to compensate for their losses.63
It was politic for the government to try to keep its suppliers
reasonably happy. Formal arrangements for government debts
were being devised during the late seventeenth and early eight-
eenth centuries. Crises were sometimes only narrowly avoided.
Periodically, when debts remained unpaid, contractors collect-
ively approached the government demanding redress. A mutiny
nearly broke out, in 1691, when clothing contractors refused
to deliver their products when the only security they were
offered was the promise of future payment on 'their Lord-

ships' word'. Yet again, in February 1697, contractors stated
that 'they cannot proceed in the clothing .. . unless [paid] for
the half of their debt for the year [past]'. Half the cost of
clothing came to £146000 for 1695-96. Military exigencies
compelled some sort of setdement with the recalcitrant con-
tractors for, as the colonels explained, 'the season is advanced
and the clothiers refuse to clothe [their Regiments] because
not paid for 1695'. The colonels emphasized the time con-
straints they were under for they had orders 'to take [to] the
field by the 1st of March'. 64 They could not comply with these
commands without coats and breeches for the regiments. This
crisis was resolved; but there were others during this critical
period of the re-organization of national finance. Throughout
the 1690s the government scrambled to finance the volume of
garments needed for their military units in Britain, Ireland,
Europe and abroad. Dire warnings were sometimes issued by
administrators, one stating that 'those tallies will go but a very
litde way towards discharging the whole debt to the clothing
. . . the charge thereof so far exceeds the offreckonings'.65 But
the army continued to be dressed, or at least half-dressed. On
at least some occasions, when the quality of the garments was
adequate and the supply sufficient, common soldiers did not
appear a bedraggled rag-tag rabble. There were certainly casu-
alties among the contractors, but many fewer than among the
soldiery whose threadbare jackets were often too thin and torn
to keep out the cold and damp. 66
During the early decades of the eighteenth century efforts
were made to secure large outstanding army debts through
the Bank of England. Short term credit arrangements for army
clothing were formalized before mid-century in the form of
Clothing Assignments. These were allowances received every
three years by the regimental colonels to cover the ouday for
clothing, allowances against which goods could be charged. 67
Such arrangements did not guarantee that every contractor
survived the rigours of the contract process, but it did ensure
a firmer footing for the large-scale, organized manufacture of
basic apparel.
Each regiment ordered goods individually, employing one
of several administrative systems. The Colonel, or Lieutenant
Colonel, might appoint an agent, on commission, to organize
the appropriate stores for the regiment; or an officer might

handle the whole transaction personally if the colonel was not
so inclined. 68 Whichever options were chosen the business at
hand was to obtain adequate stores. The garments were paid
for from the accumulated off-reckoning. This was a business
fraught with difficulty. Desertion of soldiers, loss of stores, loss
of muster rolls that verified regimental numbers, inadequate
funding, a change in the colonel of the regiment; all could
lead to a potential financial quagmire. Nonetheless, for all the
pitfalls, clothing contracts remained a rich source of profits for
the officers involved. Records from the Earl of Londonderry's
Regiment of Foot offer examples of the value of individual con-
tracts and the volume of articles provided. William Wilson,
a London woollen draper, was commissioned to arrange the
necessary merchandise for several years prior to April 1730.
For the 1729 contract, Wilson sent a total of 5399 articles of
clothing to the regimental base in Scodand. The bales and
boxes he sent up to Scotland were filled with goods valued at
£2331 15s.5d. The year previous, in 1728, the agent shipped
eight hundred and ten each of shirts, cravats, breeches, coats,
stockings, shoes and head gear, totalling 5670 items, a meas-
ure of the yearly regimental needs. 69
Reforms attempted by the Hanoverian kings did not erase
the patterns of graft long established around regimental pro-
visioning. An undated broadsheet, possibly from about l750,
criticized the continuing abuses of the army clothing system:
Notwithstanding the carefull Endeavours of the Gov't to
prevent frauds & abuses in cloathing the Army; yet Still there
remains many undiscover'd; which tends to the dishon'r of
the Nation, as well as the discouragement of the Sold'r . . .
The Gov't allows for cloathing a Soldier two pence a day
w'ch amo'ts to three pounds & ten pence p.ann. w[hi]ch
Sum the Coll. [colonel] has the sole disposal - and Assignes
the paym't thereof to whom he pleases for one year, Payable
by the Paymaster] Gen [era] 1 and so in a like preposition
for the whole Regim't.70
In detailed terms, the author of this tract notes steps by which
the colonel obtained his profit once a sample suit of clothes was
prepared by a tailor and approved by the Board of General
Officers. Price depended on the method of payment; if the
colonel had cash then he would get the best price and make
the greatest profit out of the total regimental off-reckoning
that would eventually come his way. Goods bought on credit
cost more. Occasionally officers staked their personal credit, a
risky business if the off-reckonings were delayed.71 If the manu-
facturer had to wait for the off-reckoning then he charged the
highest price for the garments. With the colonel's implicit or
explicit agreement, manufacturers commonly reduced the total
number of suits of clothes prepared. In all instances, the total
price of the regimental clothes was less than the yearly off-
reckoning; the difference between the price of the clothes
and the moneys from the off-reckoning was pocketed by the
colonel. Moreover, tradesmen seeking regimental contracts
commonly offered inducements to the regimental agent or
colonel, a percentage of the contract being the usual entice-
ment. So lucrative was the contracting of army clothing that
some colonels entered the business themselves, laying out
money to buy the materials and putting out the goods with
'some poor undertaker', of which there were many.72
A hierarchy existed among the clothing contractors, as with
traders in all commodities. At the bottom of a generally pros-
perous group were a varied collection of artisans, from button
sellers, belt makers and ironmongers to wool drapers and tai-
lors.73 Some demonstrated a logical connection to the clothing
trade; others approached army contracts as a speculative ven-
ture which, if successful, would enrich them. Sub-contracting
was the regular pattern of business; spreading the risk, several
medium-sized traders could try their luck. In Exeter a fuller
and other traders contracted with a local regiment, and a
collection of merchants in Edinburgh and York and clothes
dealers in Kent did likewise, looking for business from the
regiments stationed locally. The needs of the armed forces
drew products from disparate manufacturing areas: stockings
from Kirkby Stephen, shoes from Northampton and great coats
from Galway, for example. Individuals and groups in com-
mercial centres around the kingdom were eager to supply regi-
ments in their vicinity, or at a distance.74 London's standing
as a distribution site for the components of military dress -
hosiery and shoes, linen and wool fabrics - gave the advantage
to resident entrepreneurs active in any of these trades. Paul
Darby was a London woollen draper and army contractor,
operating at the turn of the century, who did not survive the
trials of this business. He was not among the largest of the
contractors but, as shown in one petition, his trade extended
beyond the £300 and £400 contracts referred to by many
petitioning tradesmen. In 1690, Darby petitioned the Lords of
the Treasury for the remainder of the £11638 debt owed him
and his partners for clothing 'divers regiments'. He had filled
contracts to outfit Major General Leveson's regiment with goods
valued at about £2700 and £3100 in 1695 and 1697 respec-
tively. Darby relied on partnerships to fill the orders; these
alliances were his subsequent undoing. Darby was driven into
bankruptcy by a saddler who could not or would not wait for
repayment for the several hundreds of pounds of merchandise
contributed to the equipping of two regiments. 75
At the turn of the century there was a handful of wealthy
financiers, politically powerful London merchants, who were
preeminent among army contractors. None of these men was
a specialist in the clothing trade; they financed the manufac-
ture of uniforms for the profits whicb accrued. For the fortu-
nate, contracts represented a conduit to an inexhaustible source
of profits as long as the government continued to need armies
and the men to need clothes. Between the government and
the large contractors a mutual dependency developed, recog-
nized by both sides, since, in addition to supplying the forces
with garments, the largest contractors loaned money to the
government and held senior positions in the great joint stock
companies which administered the national debt. Sir William
Scawen, Sir Stephen Evance, Sir Henry Furnese and Sir Joseph
Herne were among the most eminent of these entrepreneurs;
each one would have been familiar to habitues of the Royal
Exchange or patrons of coffee houses around Leadenhall Street
and the Poultry.76 Scawen, a leading cloth merchant, was a
long-time Member of Parliament and a director of the Bank of
England. Daniel Defoe used the example of the Scawen fam-
ily to illustrate the ennobling affects of trade, for Sir William
Scawen's offshoot had, by 1727, married into the family of the
Duke of Bedford.77 Of the other great army contractors, Evance
was a banker who became the King's Jeweller and held stock in
the Royal Africa Company; Furnese, initially a linen importer,
was one of the largest English stock holders of the Bank of
England, an East India Company stock holder and a Mem-
ber of Parliament; and Herne, an MP, City alderman and East

India Company merchant, was an indispensable financier of
whom it was said in 1695, 'that without his credit and assist-
ance the artillery train in Flanders would have starved during
the winter'. 78 These men were icons of commercial capitalism,
and among their assets were large contracts for regimental
apparel. 79 So prominent was their stature that on occasion
several of these men acted as representatives of the clothing
contractors in the critical years of the 1690s, negotiating with
the king and treasury officials over payment schedules.
The collective capital channelled by these men into the
production of clothing restructured the organization of pro-
duction. Many thousands of journeymen tailors and seam-
stresses were indirecdy employed by these enterprising City
merchants through a chain of sub-contractors. Smaller busi-
nesses, like that of N. Shearerd, a shirtmaker whose trade is
portrayed in illustration 1.4, might hope to benefit from sub-
contracts from the armed forces. She would have employed
seamstresses while scrambling to maintain a commercial foot-
hold against her male competitors. From various points of
commercial origin as wool drapers, textile importers, West
Country clothiers or goldsmith, Scawen, Herne and their ilk
charted a route to fiscal, social and political fortune through
army clothing contracts. This course would be followed by
others in the eighteenth century. DJ. Smith notes the out-
standing achievement of Richard Lowe in this field. His
London woollen drapery business, begun in 1740, was undis-
tinguished until the 1750s when he obtained regimental con-
tracts. Lowe expanded his trade by first supplying the militia,
the bottom end of the contracting business. He built on this
success, next acquiring the contract as sole supplier for the
marines during the American War. This was an economic
turning point for Lowe; with this deal Lowe garnered sales of
over £35000 in 1782. On his death, in 1785, his estate was
valued at £150000. Similarly, two of London's eighteenth-
century Lord Mayors, Samuel Fludyer and Thomas Harley,
built their fortunes as clothing contractors; several others,
enriched by these contracts, went on to found banks.80 These
financiers and entrepreneurs made it to the top of the heap.
Their success inevitably widened the availability of goods for
commercial organizations and individuals outside the armed
$ SHIRTS and SHIFTS,

5 MADE in the neatcft Manner, of fine Ihllend or Irifb Cloth, Plain or Ruffled. £
^ Shirts for the Armj% of ftrong yard-wiric Tr'jb Cktb. *p
6 Houfhotd and all other neceflary Linen for Families, or Gentlemen going jg
Abroad, ready made. X
f Laced Ruffles of all Sorts for Gentlemen -, with great Variety of ready-made
Stocks, at the loweft Prices.
•
5
b
By N. SHEARE'RDu
in C*skft*rStrtct% facing Suffolk-Strtttt Cb*ri*g-Crefs*
fe »Ho ate pleafed to favour ber with thc*r Order;, may eepend on bciifg \
luaJly and careiuMy (erred, and the Good* font to an; Part of England, *
i«£e free.
LONDON. U. faf* 17/^

d£/1\&*J£~- Bought of N. SHEARERD.
Illustration 1.4 Bill head and receipt of N. Shearerd, Cockspur Street,

London, 1776
forces. The manufacturing capacity put in motion by the ex-

pansion of the military turned inevitably for outiets among
civilian customers, particularly as the demands for military
supplies ended with the coming of peace. Manufacturers
needed other buyers to buffer the peaks and troughs of mili-
tary exigency. Institutional customers were numerous and their
origins diverse; however, they too were characterized by their
need for basic inexpensive apparel. The remainder of the
chapter will examine the characteristics of trade within other
institutional markets of this period.
INSTITUTIONAL MARKETS AND THE DEMAND FOR

APPAREL
In the Adantic trading network, clothing featured as a staple

commodity. 81 Sailors and marines stationed in far-flung ports
routinely arranged for shipments of garments; similarly, army

regiments stationed in various parts of the British Isles or the
continent organized stocks from local merchants or shipped
in the necessary bales of garments from English suppliers.82
Sometimes the goods sent them were inadequate for their
needs and were then sold locally.83 In the late seventeenth
century, in particular, colonial settlers and trading adventurers
resorted to English clothes dealers for the goods they could
not get at their final destination. The Heal and Banks collec-
tions of tradecards and business ephemera are replete with
material evidence of the vigour of the clothing trade and of
the diversification of those in business. Tradesmen like Kenelm
Dawson, at the Sign of the Jolly Sailor in Monmouth Street, had
a demonstrably broad clientele. Dawson's tradecard, probably
from the first half of the eighteenth century, shows a sailor
dressed in a jacket, waistcoat and wide slops with a handker-
chief round his neck. Dawson sold slops and 'all sorts of Men
& Boys Cloaths', as well as fashionable new and second-hand
goods. 'Captains Orders Executed with Dispatch' announced
one of many Southwark clothes dealers; 'Wholesale and for
Exportation' stated his competitor north of the river on Cock
Hill, Ratcliff Highway.84
Supplies of garments, in addition to the copious quantities
of shoes, hosiery and hats, were basic exports from the seven-
teenth century onwards and Bristol shipping records reflect
this pattern. In 1679, for example, shipments destined for the
Cape Verde Islands included three dozen felt hats, twelve
pounds of shoes and 'twenty suites of wareing apparrell'; while
another vessel headed for Maryland and carried six dozen hose,
one hundred and twenty pounds of shoes and fifteen 'suites'
of clothes. Three ships arrived in Virginia from Bristol in the
same year, 1679, bringing seventeen dozen bodices and seventy
suits of clothing. 85 Elizabeth Schumpeter noted that woollen
and worsted waistcoats were dispatched in quantity from Eng-
land: approximately 95000 were shipped overseas between 1697
and 1700.86 London was one of the principal sources of these
commodities. 87 Moreover, colonists were not the only groups
requiring stocks of clothes. The Adantic trade in African slaves
resulted in an expanding captive population who needed to
be dressed in the western style. Their apparel could well have
been provided on site, or from local contractors, once these
were established in the New World. However, there was no

equivalent distribution centre for ready-made wearing apparel
equal to that of London and this fact was recognized by con-
temporaries. Furthermore, ready-made garments were com-
monly supplied to slaves.88 In 1691, apparel ordered for the
military was found to be sub-standard and was relayed to plan-
tation colonies to be used instead by slaves. A century later,
a surviving trade bill from the 1790s notes the sale of a 'best'
coat from the warehouse of Richard Dixon, a tradesman whose
principal business was as a seller of 'Slops [8c] Negro Cloth-
ing'. 89 Other groups of men and women dependent on con-
tracted apparel included transported convicts and servants of
the East India Company in India. For the former, the badge of
their captive status was reflected in the coarse slops they were
forced to don as soon as they were loaded on convict ships. For
the latter, the 'Gentlemen Volunteers, brave Fellows, able
and willing to serve the Hon. United East India Company five
Years in India', were offered inducements such as bed and
bedding, plus 'two Jackets, three Shirts, two Pair of Stockings,
a Pair of Shoes [and] a Pair of Trousers'. 90 The tradecard of
R. Maffett, a tailor, habit-maker and dealer in second-hand
clothes, announced to the public his willingness to supply 'For
Abroad or Home Consumption' (see illustration 1.5). There is
a great deal about the structure and composition of the export
trade in clothing that remains to be discovered. My intention
here is to highlight the breadth of available institutional mar-
kets which widened with the increasing complexity of the At-
lantic community. As the Adantic commercial world expanded
and transactions increased, so the market for commodities grew.
With the structural developments in manufacture under way
quantities of garments were available at a low price; to cushion
the slumps in trade brought by armistices and peace treaties,
clothing contractors hunted out buyers in some surprising
locales. The records of the Hudson's Bay Company contain
evidence of an unexpected market for apparel in die North
American sub-arctic.
The Hudson's Bay Company exhibited characteristics distinct-
ive from other joint stock companies based in North America.
Trade, not settlement, was its rationale. In that regard, there
were many similarities between it and the East India Com-
pany.91 Furs were the source of profits for the Hudson's Bay
.*
u
I
t
•
<.<i
VJ
*.'"
,../v
' ! '1
R.U.lF/'ET'l
l-AYLOlt A I l A B I T MAKKK
N?7,Leieeftcr Street .Lefcefter Fields \
fi // y* y/
/f. /r//i rr//,tf>sK$ 4fl/*t4H*d 4 Y^' s/st////,t g
A«A &/9ff,,f {'/^/A
I*or Abroad orllomc Coitiuiuptum
It?. ZW*r /*« fttttlr/, /ril
ftkr ttitm-Atitm
Hru/. //nun/ Ar finM»r. /// fi
/
1. . 1 V «
•j^-.. t a ^ *
/, ri.<?3
Illustration 1.5 Tradecard - R. Maffett .. . Leicester Fields
Company, furs to be made into hats and garments once sold

in London. 92 The challenge for the early administrators was
to provide merchandise acceptable to the indigenous peoples
with whom they traded at the forts, or factories, set at the river
mouths along the coast of Hudson Bay and James Bay.93 As
with all new trading ventures, the directors experimented with
the merchandise that might appeal to this distant community.
In addition to looking-glasses, beads, ivory combs and ketdes,
ample supplies of apparel were sent out. Names of suppliers
recur in the minutes and accounts which are familiar from the
slop ledgers of the navy and the lists of army clothing contrac-
tors. Sir Stephen Evance was a notable presence, lending money
for the purchase of stock and arranging payments for sup-
pliers in the first few decades after the Company's establish-
ment, in 1670. Evance ultimately held the post of governor in
the Company for two periods: 1692-96 and 1700-12. 94 Given
the size and cohesion of London's mercantile community and
Evance's connections with the clothing trade, it is not surprising
that among the merchandise shipped to the northern heart of

the continent were various types of shirts, coats, caps and other
garments, along with stock items like Brazil tobacco, knives,
hatchets, guns, blankets and brandy. The Cree were familiar
with European commodities from their contacts with French
fur traders. Company traders sought to widen the demand for
European goods, weaning the native people away from skin
garments and into linen or calico shirts and red kersey coats.
They were successful to a surprising degree, creating a limited
market for textiles and clothing, provided that they stocked
acceptable products. 95
In 1684, the list of garments chosen for the spring voyage
to Hudson Bay reads very much like an inventory of slops
on a naval vessel: Irish-made stockings, wool waistcoats and
drawers, linen shirts and plain shoes. The only distinction was
the inclusion of one hundred calico shirts, not standard issue
on His Majesty's vessels. Calico garments were shipped across
the Atlantic over many more seasons and, in one instance,
painted calico shirts were included in the cargo. This starding
attempt to cultivate a market for East India cottons in the
North American sub-arctic is testimony to the close connec-
tions of the Hudson's Bay Company with its sister trading
company, and the willingness of the directors to assist in the
marketing of cottons at a time when their colleagues in the
East India Company were vigorously searching out customers
for their oriental fabrics.96 At least 4000 shirts were exported
from 1684 to 1694. The cheapest calico shirt cost one shilling
and sixpence, but the cheapest linen shirt cost one shilling
and eightpence; linen shirts were commonly a bit more expen-
sive. From this distance it is impossible to get a sense of the
weight of the fabrics and the comparative sturdiness of the
garments. The most cosdy linen shirt was listed at four shil-
lings, fourpence more than the painted calico shirts. Shirts
and coats came in many styles. Leading aboriginal traders, and
other favoured natives, received gifts of specially made coats,
sewn from quality wool or worsted fabrics and decorated with
distinctive buttons and braid. 'Present coats', as they were called,
became a stock item; so too did large parcels of undistinguished
coats made of red, blue or white wool, of two qualities, braided
and plain, for both men and boys. These garments found a
ready market. Nearly 900 assorted coats were exported in 1682,

with approximately 4000 shipped ready-made over a ten-
year period from 1684 to 1694.97
The Company consulted its experienced servants for sug-
gestions on appropriate trade goods. Slopsellers' names appear
regularly in the minute books and in the Grand Journal as pro-
visioners of the ships heading for the northern posts. As the
commercial relationship developed the native traders became
more demanding about the quality of manufactured wares they
exchanged for their furs. In a rare transcript of an opening
ceremonial trading speech, an Indian leader demanded fair
dealings and 'good measure' in cloth prior to the commence-
ment of trade, acknowledging that they 'Love to Dress and be
fine'.98 However, soldiers and Cree suffered from the same
problems of poor quality garments made in garrets and work-
shops with hasty stitches inadequately checked. In 1682, a report
to the governor and committee by a company officer reflected
his disgust with the calibre of goods brought to Hudson Bay.
'It is a great vexation to me to see a poore Indiane with his
coat all seem-rent, in less then 6 weeks tyme, and when they
are torne the poore rogues can not mend them, but must
suffer could [sic] in winter, and just occasione have they to say
we have stole their beaver, to my great shame and your loss.'99
He proposed that tailors be brought to the factories to make
and repair the articles on site and at less cost. However, for the
immediate future the committee decided to pay suppliers a
higher price and hope for better stock.100
Francis Mosley acted as the principal tailoring contractor
for the Hudson's Bay Company, making coats and caps through-
out the early decades of the Company's history. In the minute
books and Grand Journals he is referred to as a tailor. How-
ever, he was not a tailor in the sense that one thinks of a
bespoke tailor; Mosley did not make coats to measure. For all
practical purposes Mosley was a contractor producing coats to
order according to a set pattern, in several sizes and qualities,
for boys and men. He made goods in bulk on workshop
premises to a set price, in the same manner as the armed
forces were supplied. Usually a Company officer bought the
pieces of cloth needed; Mosley picked up the bolts at the
packer's house where they were delivered. His busy period was
in the late winter and spring, prior to the summer sailing, when
he would be cutting and stitching coats to set specifications as
quickly as possible.101 He certainly employed journeymen to
complete the orders as fast as he did; the earnings from his
labours appear more than adequate for this seasonal work.
Over several months, in the spring of 1678, Mosley collected
over £50 for the making of coats and caps. The next year
Mosley earned nearly £190 for the garments prepared for
export; it was a good year for him. Mosley's earnings fluctuated
between £90 and £130 for the 1670s and 1680s.102
By the last half of the seventeenth century the clothing trade
was neither novel nor original and therein lies its importance.
The foundations of the industry were well established. The
market base of the growing navy and army ensured that, first,
these utilitarian products would be available for numerous
other markets, and, second, that the manufacturing infrastruc-
ture was there to support the production of other categories
of goods as markets developed. These commodities circulated
as trade goods in part because of the numerous groups who
were not in a position to stitch their own clothes. However,
the cost of these garments was also a factor in their success.
The East India Company, for example, imported garments in
the tens of thousands in the late seventeenth century made of
calico and chintz: shirts, shifts and neckcloths in particular.
These were among some of the cheapest garments available.103
Variety and cost made them an attractive alternative commod-
ity even where tailoring and dressmaking facilities existed.
Patterns of clothing exports begun in this period continued
well into the nineteenth century, while productive capacity
was flexible enough to suit a range of buyers, overseas and
domestic.104
In England, institutions like charity schools, workhouses
and foundling hospitals also required a steady source of
cheap garments for their inmates. John Cook - woollen draper,
tailor, salesman and man's mercer - was one of the many
eager to fill the demand, advertising 'Charity Schools and
Workhouses supplyed cheaper than any where in London'. 105
Church-run charity schools increased in number over the
long eighteenth century; a common part of their mandate was
to clothe the boys and girls who attended the schools. One
Londoner opined that as many parents sent their children for
the clothing as sent them for the education offered. The num-
bers enrolled in these schools varied from parish to parish,
with some schools holding several dozen and others several
hundred. London's St Luke's parochial school permitted the
female teacher to arrange for the school girls to 'work for the
persons who want needle work and such things done'. 106 These
institutions were both consumers of basic apparel and pre-
paratory centres for seamstresses. Coram's London Foundling
Hospital exemplified another component of domestic institu-
tional demand for garments, now so easily met by the manu-
facturing sector. In a meeting to lay the guidelines for the
proposed hospital the General Committee determined 'to have
the direction of the Cloathing for the Hospital and Contract
for the same'. They likewise stipulated that: 'All Cloathing to
be used by the Hospital shall be of the Manufacture of Great
Britain or Ireland.' 107
The sums expended for the orphans' clothing varied from
year to year. Following the opening of the hospital, in 1745,
steadily larger amounts were spent on clothing as the num-
bers of foundlings increased; between 1747 and 1749, about
£150 to £250 was paid out annually. In 1759, £956 was ear-
marked for 'Cloathing for the Children', with £1333 required
the following year, years when all restrictions were lifted on
the numbers of children received by the hospital. These were
unusually large expenditures which perhaps represented pur-
chases of fabric against the future needs of the children. 108
Shordy after the foundation, contracts were made with a tailor
and several seamstresses. William Fell produced suits of jackets
and breeches; Ann Hollings and Elizabeth Forward made
petticoats and mandes for the children. In 1752, the General
Committee, hoping to save money, proposed to employ a
'[petti]Coat Maker' in the hospital 'to make proper Cloathing
for the Girls & Young Children, and to instruct some of the
Girls therein'. However, a petition presented by the established
children's petticoat makers convinced the Committee that even
with the resident seamstress they would need an outside source
for the required number of garments. A contract was approved
in February 1752 for thirty more petticoats and the contracts
with these two women continued thereafter.109 The Foundling
Hospital became one more of the many institutional customers
for the diverse products of clothes manufacturers.
CONCLUSION
Layer after layer of demand restructured the market for gar-

ments over the long eighteenth century. Work in this industry
was plentiful; the businesses in this trade were varied, but the
trade as a whole has been surprisingly neglected. It is ironic
that this trade received relative litde attention from historians,
when contemporaries found it such a rewarding avenue of
advancement. Clothing production assumed new and larger
prominence as a source of commercial wealth, as an employer
of labour and as a source of varied consumer products. How-
ever, those with the largest stake did not necessarily assume an
occupational tide indicating their affiliation, a fact that may
account for some of its relative invisibility. Many of the tailors
listed in trade directories, for example, were in fact contrac-
tors producing bulk orders rather than artisans making-to-
measure for the discerning elite; similarly, wool drapers and
linen drapers devolved some of their business effort to the
production of contracted clothing.110 Among the hierarchy of
participants in the clothing trade were many investors for whom
this was simply one more investment. Furthermore, this trade
lacked a single outstanding manufacturing site with the visual
impact on contemporaries of the mining districts of the north-
east, the West Midland potteries, or the metal working centres
of the Black Country. No new machinery was visible to draw
visitors or charm observers, such as Birmingham or Manches-
ter could boast. However, there is no doubt that a transforma-
tion in production took place. The records of military supply
and civilian ventures, like the Hudson's Bay Company, offer
cogent evidence of the integration of clothing producers in
the commercial life of England. The scale of trade of the larg-
est contractors is exemplified in the wealth of men like Stephen
Evance, Joseph Herne and Richard Lowe. Below the level of
the large entrepreneurs were prosperous dedicated manufac-
turers and a host of lesser artisans. This hierarchical industrial
structure was not unique and followed closely the characteris-
tic of other commercial-manufacturing sectors.111
Ready-made manufacturing progressed from commonplace
to staple, by the end of the eighteenth century. The impact of
large government contracts changed irrevocably the nature of
this sector. The impetus provided by military demand and the
influx of government funds cannot be overstated. England's

economic history contains several notable instances of an exem-
plary market demand on patterns of production: the growth of
agriculture to feed the insatiable metropolis is one of the best
known examples. While the armed forces never approached
the size of the capital, the intense and expanding requirements
of these bodies - the militia, army, navy and marines - consti-
tuted a unique catalyst, for, to paraphrase FJ. Fisher, military
men needed clothes, as well as food.112
The intent of this chapter was to render the process of trans-
formation more visible, tracing the complex links forged be-
tween the industry and government, tracing the rising rates of
production which then rebounded to the civilian markets. The
effect of this transformation extended well beyond institutional
consumers and those arranging and filling the contracts; these
changes touched the makers and sellers of clothes, their prod-
ucts and all the disparate consumers in England. England was
a society undergoing the many-sided processes of commer-
cial expansion and industrial growth. The clothing trade was
one of the many constituents whose patterns of investment, pro-
duction and sale combined unique and familiar elements.
Patterns of production were set in place by the end of the
seventeenth century that would change only in scale, with
growing numbers of manufacturers and an ever larger work-
force. Sexual division of labour and the proliferation of outwork
enabled this industry to grow in spite of a stasis in technology.
The clothing trade grew, relying on a large and growing pool
of labour. A study of this transformation in the internal pro-
cess of production forms the basis of the following chapter.
2 Redressing the History
of the Clothing Trade:
Ready-Made Apparel,
Guilds and Women
Outworkers, 1650-1800
From 1650 to 1800, the clothing commonly worn in England
underwent noticeable changes in fabrics, in styles and in the
method of manufacture. Throughout the second half of the
1600s ready-to-wear apparel became a discernable and increas-
ingly important part of the national clothing market in which
the total annual consumption of clothing accounted for about
one quarter of all national expenditure, in 1688.1 Manufac-
turers distributed a wave of products well beyond the con-
fines of regimental storehouses and naval slop chests, serving
diverse institutional customers, laying the ground work for rou-
tine production directed at civilian markets. Implicit in this
development was a qualitative re-organization of production
in a trade which was as common as the shirt on men's backs,
as varied as the petticoats worn by women of every class.
Technology was not the decisive force in this expanding
manufacture; shifts in production long preceded any techno-
logical change. Women workers provided one of the funda-
mental advantages for manufacturers. As with many other
industries, the ready-made clothing trade flourished with the
massive use of low paid female labour and the shift from guild-
controlled workshops. 2 Increased domestic manufacture of
ready-made apparel marked a watershed, challenging local and
national tailoring guilds, revising patterns of work in the mak-
ing of various commodities by differendy organized workforces.
London and the great southern port cities were the hub of this
growing industry with overlapping domestic and maritime mar-
kets. Most ready-made clothes, like slops, were unremarkable
and ephemeral in duration, neither fashionable nor noteworthy
43
to the casual contemporary observer; the history of produc-

tion and use of this type of ubiquitous attire has been just as
unremarked. 3 These commonplace articles were not the stock
of new or picturesque rural cottage industries or of skilled
workshop labour. The hands which made bales of shirts, draw-
ers, caps, gowns, bodices and petticoats were equally obscured:
the generations of women working in a largely urban putting-
out system. Both gender and urban anonymity contrived to
make this workforce and its products at once commonplace
and concealed. This chapter aims to redress this historic
anomaly, tracing the internal development of the ready-made
clothing trade and the characteristics of this new industry.
GUILDS BESIEGED: TAILORS IN THE PROVINCES
The policies of provincial tailors' guilds were a barometer of

change in clothing production. Tailors' guilds jealously guarded
their rights. Nonetheless the guild monopoly was eroding by
the end of the seventeenth century, particularly in the London
suburbs and in the portions of the nation where the forces of
commercial expansion were actively taking hold. The Civil War
also contributed to the decay of the guilds, not least because
of the shifting of the population, which broke down guild
restraints. Men who followed the King, for example, continued
to ply their trades with the sanction of royalist authorities. The
Oxford Company of Taylors left a clear record of the gradual
erosion of their authority in a district with a considerable local
market and well within the influence of metropolitan com-
merce. Oxford, as a Royalist stronghold, housed 'diverse
Souldiers . . . in this Garrison being Taylors by Trade [who] have
continue[d] working in the said Trade'. 4 The guild ordered
that all such tailors should enrol in the Company, paying
fines and quarterage and obeying directives from the guild.
But as some Royalist tailors were still not affiliated in 1661, it
is doubtful that there was a wholesale absorption into the guild
of all the independent soldier-tailors; compliance on their part
was partial at best.5 Try though they might, tailors' guilds could
not and did not restrain competitors.
The history of non-compliance and competition did not
Redressing the History of the Clothing Trade 45
begin with the Civil War. In June 1647, at the local Holland
Fair in Oxford, the arrival of a 'farren merchant' from outside
the city caused considerable anxiety to the Company of Taylors.
This outsider *offer[ed] to sale diverse sutes of clothes readdy
made to the great prejudice of the Company' at this local fair.
The Lord Mayor 'suppressed' the merchant 'that he should
not get to sale any of the s[ai]d sute readdy made'. The Com-
pany of Tailors then promised that should 'any trouble . . .
grow or arise ag[ains]t the s[ai]d Mr Mayor . . . because [of]
. . . his suppressing the . . . ffarren merchant' that they would
pay all costs.6 This is an intriguing event. It speaks of the con-
tinuing local strength of one tailors' guild, but also discloses
the availability of ready-made garments and the circulation of
these items to customers in a wide geographic area. Moreover,
the concern expressed about possible trouble for the mayor
implies that the merchant from away was not without resources.
The victory of the Oxford Company of Taylors was fleet-
ing. The guild felt itself to be under siege externally from com-
petitors and internally from recalcitrant members. After 1660,
records show unremitting campaigns against 'diverse abuses'
within, as well as without.7 One of the principal targets of the
Company's ire outside the guild was a group identified as the
Oxford milliners, charged with 'using the trade of Salesmen',
that is 'selling Sales clothes' ready-made.8 At the behest of the
tailors, indictments were issued at the Petty Sessions to try to
halt the sale of ready-to-wear apparel within the city of Oxford.
Nine men were formally indicted in 1669, charged with work-
ing as salesmen and infringing the Elizabethan Statute of
Artificers, which required a seven-year apprenticeship before
serving in a trade. 9 The legal defence of seven who were col-
lectively indicted the previous year verifies the alterations
underway within the industry. In their defence the seven
maintained that as retailers of ready-made articles they did not
fall under the scope of the legislation because 'the selling of
coates ready made by others is not nor can be [within] . . . the
Statute'. The Elizabethan statute pre-dated the rise of their
trade and they asserted:
it is not any of the Trades mentioned in any of the Branches

of the statute nor could be for that in truth . . . [this trade]
hath not been in use about 30 years as the Present Coate

fellowe and Brokers of London who deal in these comodities
do assert . . . [and] As it is not within the letter of the Stat-
ute soe, neither within the equity of it - for that they [the
Oxford Milliners] doe not make the coates or things they
sell, but only buy them ready made, of the Taylors whose
Trade it is to make garments; and buying them ready made
and soe selling them againe.10
The milliners' defence document, written in 1668, reveals

an enterprise well established by this date, an enterprise cen-
tred on London and radiating out along the trading networks
from south to north. Oxford exemplifies an inland provincial
magnet town: it was a centre of note, the site of a university
community and its service businesses, a provincial hub serving
common people keen to buy inexpensive utilitarian clothes.
The milliners buttressed their case by highlighting the cost
of the garments they sold, which they priced 'much cheaper
than [the] s[ai]d Taylors can or will make them also that they
[the milliners] are beneficial to the people in selling them'.
The defence concluded that the charges were laid 'through
Mallise'.11
Members and non-members of the Oxford Company of
Taylors were subjected to rigorous scrutiny, as the guild tried
to ensure that Oxford remained clear of ready-to-wear gar-
ments and that the old structures of bespoke manufacture
prevailed. Members of the Company were routinely disciplined
for 'exposing to Sale old & new clothes ready made'. James
Hall, charged in 1669, appealed to the guild officers for the
right to sell the remainder of his stock, before submitting to
the injunction of the Company. Only after the threat of a
substantial fine did he comply with guild directives.12 The
minute books are filled with plans for prosecuting those sell-
ing old or new apparel to the local market. In 1677, the cam-
paign was revived by the Company against 'the pretended
Milliners . . . for selling Sale Clothes'. Local glovers were even
warned against making and peddling leather garments. Each
decade brought a flurry of fresh charges against those outside
the guild. Inside the trade fraternity a steady stream of ambi-
tious members altered the character of their business, some
routinely transgressing guild restrictions by 'keeping a Sale's
Shop to Sell New Cloaths ready-made 8c hanging Such Cloaths

out of . . . Windows'.13
The travails of the Oxford tailors' guild were replayed in
many other provincial corporations. So concerned was the
Salisbury Guild of Tailors about the threat of clothes salesmen
that in 1685 they added an extra condition to the admission
of a foreign tradesman, that he 'not make . . . or sell or cause
to be made . . . or sold any Garment of Vestmt whatsoever . . .
or otherwise exercise the trade of a Salesman within this City'.14
The Chester Merchant Taylors' Company paid out regular sums
to a string of informants and to city constables employed to
enforce their monopoly. In common with most provincial
guilds, Chester faced a two pronged onslaught of incoming
salesmen and local infringers. Chester's seasonal fairs brought
London salesmen eager to present their wares to the north-
west market, netding local tailors. In 1701, three warnings were
issued to 'the Londoners & others to leave the faire 8c shutt
down their windows', but in vain. The next year the salesmen
were back on the occasion of two fairs where they were again
cautioned several times 'to shut up Shop at the fair'. One must
assume that the Londoners enjoyed a flourishing trade, for
exasperated guild officials finally carried the salesmen before
an alderman in a futile bid to rout the interlopers. Corporate
threats and penalties seemed to have litde effect, however, for
in 1703 the southern salesmen were back in force, defying re-
straints, refusing to quit the fairs and abandon local customers.15
London clothes dealers journeyed to most regions of the
country, carrying their wares to provincial customers. Samuel
Dalling was a Southwark salesman active in his trade until 1699.
Between the time of his death on 23 May 1699 and the taking of
the inventory on 17 November 1699, six months later, business
was conducted by his wife, a journeyman and probably some
apprentices. They travelled according to schedule, attending
fairs at Bristol, Sturbridge, Baldock, Maidstone and Marlow.
Table 2.1 lists the amounts made at these fairs, with Sturbridge
and Baldock combined as it was in the accounts, and the per-
centage of the six months' business income as represented
by the London shop and the provincial fairs. Although the
London shop brought in half the six monthly income, the
fairs collectively accounted for the other half and significandy
extended the market for this business.
Table 2.1 Salesman's six months' sales, 1699
Location of sales Amount Approximate %

Shop £325 05s.05d. 50
Bristol Fair £135 075.01 d. 21
Sturbridge and Baldock Fairs £137 \9s.07d. 21.2
Maidstone Fair £17 185.06d. 2.8
Marlow Fair £35 09s.00d. 5
Total £651 19i.07d. 100
Source: PROB 32/67/129, PRO.
The geographic scope of Dalling's trade was matched by

others whom we know by name. Herbert Allen, for example,
specialized in shirts, cravats, women's head clothes, hoods,
aprons and other accessories. His estate was valued at £2301 in
1668. On his death, he was owed substantial amounts from
customers around the country including over £300 owed by
three men in Bristol, £150 owed by a man in Norwich and over
£400 due him from an individual in Worcester; all of these
men were probably local retailers.16 The potential of provincial
markets may well have drawn Godfrey Gimbart out of London
(see illustration 2.1, Gimbart's tradecard). Provincial fairs drew
large and middling clothes dealers from the metropolis; 17 their
arrival and persistence challenged traditional patterns of pro-
duction, offering an alternative commercial model of produc-
tion and sale which appealed to some local dealers.
For the guild hierarchy, maintaining control over members
was an on-going problem. In Oxford, long-time members of the
tailors' guild seemed to submit to the corporate restraints. But
over fifteen or twenty years one finds stubborn repeat offenders:
men like Anthony frrankling, indicted in 1696 'for keeping a
Sale Shop to Sell new Cloaths ready-made'. He was under fire
again in 1711 for following the same practice.18 The Oxford
Company of Taylors issued a stream of citations; however, by
1725, Anthony ffrankling was among twenty-two members who
did not even bother to appear at meetings to answer charges. 19
These men abandoned craft guild production and guild pro-
tection, some adopting straightforward retail practices and others
V
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!
:
-
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uocurey- uimDart,ai i n e n o i e m
Smitlifipld.Buyet>i and
ouJiuiiiouîjuyt-Lu i n u f., ILeth all fortst* of
i i c u i ALLivi AivparellibrMen.
ar
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Illustration 2.1 Tradecard c. 1600s - Godfrey Gimbart... Long Lane

combining small-scale manufacture with the sale of old and
new clothes and other textiles. Oxford, Salisbury and Chester
typify towns swept into a new network of production and dis-
tribution of apparel, increasingly dominated by the manufac-
turing and distributive capacity centred around London.
SEWING FOR THE MARKET: WOMEN IN THE NEEDLE

TRADE
Many of those making ready-made clothes were women, yet

seamstresses left few written records of their working lives.20 It
is well known that for the expanding generations of young
women basic needle skills were the foundation of their formal
or informal eduction. 21 K.D.M. Snell maintains that the sev-
enteenth century offered greater options for training and em-
ployment than the century which followed. However, the later
seventeenth century presented finite employment choices for
women, both in the capital and in provincial settings. Options
were narrowing even for daughters of middling or gentry
families, while poorer young women were relegated to what
has been described as a 'segregated sector' of employment. 22
This was no seventeenth-century golden age of opportunity.
Apprenticeships for females were limited and employment
options narrowly defined; in London, for instance, the sec-
ond most prominent occupation for women after domestic
service was the making and mending of clothing. 23 Training in
needle work of all sorts was part of the basic instruction of poor
girls, an education that might keep them off the parish poor
rolls.24 Some women served apprenticeships and some did not.
For poor young women, however, their sex, rather than an
apprenticeship, largely determined work and wages. Collectively,
women were invaluable cheap labour, employable at a fraction
of male wages.25
London attracted generations of young single migrants, more
and more of whom after 1650 were single women. 26 Personal
accounts of a life's work are rare. Ann Scott exemplifies a
young newcomer to the capital, acknowledging just prior to
being hanged in 1685 for theft that she was 'brought up
. . . to work . . . with the Needle'. Scott left her home in Ire-
land intent on seeing England, confident that her extensive
skills could earn an honest wage.27 The reality of the London
economy propelled many women into the less attractive
and remunerative parts of the trade. Even women with an
advantageous marriage in the trade found themselves pushed
into sweated work upon widowhood. Informal training might
come through a husband's craft, but skill acquisition was un-
likely to be systematic and widowhood brought no guarantee
Table 2.2 Insured property of female and male slopsellers,

1759-63
Slopwomen % of Total Slopmen % of Total
£100-£200 3 43 9 32
£300-£400 2 29 7 25
£500-£600 1 14 5 18
£700-£800 1 14 3 11
£900-£1000 0 0 3 11
£1100-£2000 0 0 1 3
Totals 7 100 28 100
Table 2.3 Insured property of female and male slopsellers,

1777-96
Slopwomen % of Total Slopmen % of Total
£100-£200 11 29 31 17
£300-£400 14 37 60 34
£500-£600 6 16 34 19
£700-£800 2 5 13 7
£900-£1000 3 8 24 14
£1100-£2000 2 5 16 9
Totals 38 100 178 100
Sources: Ms. 7253 Royal Exchange Insurance Registers; Ms. 11936 &
11937 Sun Fire Insurance Registers, Guildhall Library, London.
of security, even in a trade so closely associated with female
skills.28 Some women successfully operated small businesses
making clothes: for example, Mary Antrobus and Dorothy Gray
worked as coatsellers in 1712. However, as Tables 2.2 and 2.3
illustrate, throughout the eighteenth century women affluent
enough to obtain insurance in the slop trade were neither as
wealthy nor as numerous as the men in these businesses. The
figures for the five years 1759-63 and the twenty years 1777-
96 from the Sun Fire and Royal Exchange Insurance registers
illustrate these patterns. 29 Women insured as slopmakers and
sellers were fewer in number than were men in the same trade,
with a higher proportion of women insuring goods worth less
than £400. These figures suggest a smaller measure of security

for women, even those owning their own clothing businesses,
with the mass of women relegated to lower paid piece work.
Given the extensive demand for clothing from the military
during much of these two periods, we may well be seeing here
a differential access to credit and government contracts which
favoured men in these trades.
London attracted young migrants with wage rates which
appeared favourable; the apparent advantages were illusory
for most.30 Martha Pillah was one of the generations of seam-
stresses who laboured in the ready-made clothes trade. A
memorial to Pillah's labours came in her last dying words prior
to execution for theft in 1717. In the Ordinary of Newgate His
Account she states: 'she was about 18 years of age, born of very
honest Parents in Brewers-yard, in . . . Westminster: That her
Friends put her out Apprentice to a Taylor, and when the
Time of her Service with him was expir'd, she work'd for her-
self, whose chief Business then was, the making and mending
Men's Cloaths.' 31 The metropolitan clothing industry absorbed
generations of women in addition to the steady stream of new-
comers. Moreover, in the last third of the seventeenth century
other demographic factors affected the overall labour market,
propelling women into sewing trades. First and foremost there
was a higher proportion of women than men in the popula-
tion. In addition, more women were marrying later in adult
life than previously or not marrying at all.32 The higher pro-
portion of single and widowed women within the population,
obliged to work to survive, represented an abundant trained
female labour force for manufacturers, at a time when the
process of production of clothing was in flux. As the ready-
made clothing industry grew and domestic manufacturing
expanded, women were increasingly identified with the cloth-
ing trade, a target for guildsmen and journeymen tailors with
whom they competed.
The late seventeenth century was a period of crisis marked
by the progressive erosion of old craft patterns of production.
Most provincial guilds struggled to maintain a beleaguered
status quo, although in some districts ancient rights were com-
pletely abrogated. 33 Within provincial cities and in London's
suburbs evidence abounded of manufacturing outside guild
workshops.34 One contemporary noted that 'many remember
when there were no new Garments sold in London as now

there are'. He considered that salesmen 'spoiled many other
Trades', particularly those of wool draper, mercer and tailor.35
The commentator recognized the process of transformation
in the clothing trade, even if he could not explain the reason
for the alterations. Military contractors, through the sheer scale
of their requirements, compelled the reorganization of work-
shops. In fact, the structure of work for tailors was being sys-
tematically undercut, in large part as a result of the military
contracts. The requirement of ever larger quantities of jackets
and breeches transformed tailors from artisans who made to
measure and repaired garments to managers and waged hands
in workshops where division of labour, long hours and pres-
sures to meet contract deadlines were the order of the day. It
cannot be a coincidence that tailors were among the first to
establish trade unions in the early eighteenth century, striking
as early as 1721 for improved conditions. 36 Piece work tech-
niques on the scale needed to outfit the forces inevitably eroded
guild standards. Production of garments for the army and navy
was the catalyst which effectively undermined guilds, pushing
generations ofjourneymen tailors to a purely waged labour con-
dition. Much of clothes production continued to be divided
by sex; thus, tailors worked predominandy in wool fabrics,
making coats, jackets and breeches, many under new condi-
tions of workshop labour, while greater numbers of needle-
women laboured sometimes on complementary goods and
sometimes in competition. Tensions rose surrounding the new
patterns of production, tensions which intensified between the
male and female sectors of workers, for the growing presence
of women in the workforce was seen by contemporaries as the
cause and not the consequence of the changes within the cloth-
ing trade.
The response of the guilds to the ready-made menace is
instructive. Guild officials kept a constant vigil, vainly attempt-
ing to restrict the numbers of male apprentices and jour-
neymen, trying to curb alterations in production that came
with greater capitalization and expanded demand for ready-
made garments. Vehement officials also confronted competing
women. By the eighteenth century tailors were penalized for
taking female apprentices or employing women on their boards.
Independent women in the clothing trade were targeted and
pressured to desist.37 In York, for example, the Company

of Merchant Taylors spent over £40 prosecuting the recalci-
trant Mrs Mary Yeoman, while for the Chester guild the price
of their campaign against women clothing workers was a steady
drain on their exchequer. Across the nation, tailors' organiza-
tions assailed women workers more than a century before the
well known trade union campaign by journeyman tailors against
seamstresses in the 1830s.38 By 1700, the complaints began to
peak. Three sources of grievance coalesced: the expansion of
the ready-made clothing trade outside workshop production
centres; the employment of untold numbers of women in the
manufacture of these goods undercutting guild-made goods;
and, at the higher end of the scale, the establishment of the
distinctly female trade of mantua-maker producing apparel
specifically for women by women. In response, journeymen
tailors increasingly attempted to distinguish their work from
that of women, emphasizing the gendered skills in their frater-
nities; women's work was associated increasingly with the new
aspects of the clothing trades, and by definition women's work
was deemed to be less proficient.39 In all cases, women were
the apparent agents abrading tailors' statutory advantages.
One can only speculate on the personal tensions seething
in local communities. Publicly, provincial guilds from York to
Chester, Norfolk to Salisbury, led a concerted attack against
women workers and the new style of ready-made production.
Searchers employed by the guilds and sanctioned by city author-
ities scoured garrets, apartments and shops for evidence of any
infringement on guild monopoly. Cosdy legal cases were pur-
sued against persistent offenders, of which there were larger and
larger numbers, some of the most prominent being women. 40
Corresponding among themselves, various of the provincial
tailors' guilds organized petitions to Parliament, recommending
legislation. These guilds contended that only an Act of Parlia-
ment would preserve their standing. The Salisbury Guild of
Tailors fervently advocated 'an Act of Parliament to suppress
women & others unlawfully practising the trade or Occupation
of a Taylor 8c Brokers selling Cloaths within the Kingdom of
England'. 41 The Oxford guild spoke of the need 'to Suppress
the Mantua Makers', through Parliament if possible.42 The
York guildsmen concurred. Oxford, York, Chester, Norwich
and Salisbury were five of approximately a dozen provincial
cities involved in a campaign against ready-made, a campaign

in which women were a central factor. Representatives from
the Salisbury guild travelled to London to handle the details,
submitting nine petitions to Parliament, exchanging informa-
tion with Norwich.43 The Chester Merchant Taylors' Company
spent time and money corresponding with Norwich, Oxford
and London, sending their representative to the capital and
soliciting the aid of their Member of Parliament in this ven-
ture. 44 The York guild consulted legal counsel, wrote and paid
to send letters to other guilds and paid a lobbyist over £5 to
solicit support among Members of Parliament. 45 This was a
decisive campaign. Its failure was as important as its inaug-
uration. Parliament's reluctance to defend the old system of
manufacture might have been influenced by the numbers of
poor women in gainful employment in a traditional and
increasingly feminized sphere of work. The employment of
the poor was always an issue of concern. Government self-
interest may also have figured in calculations of the outcome
of legislation that would inhibit the production of the bales of
garret-sewn garments on which the army and navy relied. Fun-
damentally, however, Parliament was not persuaded to defend
ancient privileges, reversing the devolution of clothes produc-
tion. Parliament's apparent reluctance to act tacidy recognized
the changing face of England's economy, a change percept-
ible outside the halls of Westminster in the adjacent suburban
streets where slop workers laboured. 46
PUTTING-OUT AND MAKING-UP: SALESMEN AND

SEAMSTRESSES
The seamstresses, slop-makers and cap-makers, the 'makers

and menders' of clothes whose labour was so necessary, were
entirely reliant on low paying, irregular employment which
was deemed to suit their sex. Their labour was the mainstay of
a diversified industry. Eric Hobsbawm notes that, 'The obvious
way of industrial expansion in the eighteenth century was not
to construct factories, but to extend the so-called domestic
system.'47 Technological innovation was only one method of
industrial growth; the clothing trade followed the alternative
route and persisted along this path through the next century
and beyond, reliant on gender divisions of the manufacturing

process, integrating new technology, when it arrived, with a
seemingly insatiable appetite for intense, low paid sweated
labour. From the outset expansion depended on processes
that can be classified as sweated work. Duncan Bythell notes
that small sub-contracting and independent handicraft could
both co-exist with a vast sweated sector. Indeed, sweated labour
comprised part of an industrial structure which could include
small workshop manufacture overseen by sub-contractors, as
well as garret stitching.48 Outwork which followed these 'indus-
trial' characteristics was a staple component of clothes manu-
facturing, evident in the domestic work of seamstresses and
in small workshop manufacture. The levels of skill required
for some of the processes varied, perhaps to a greater degree
than Bythell acknowledges. However, in all other elements
this pattern of analysis can profitably be applied to the period
before the nineteenth century. Cumulatively, this system of
production was a major intermediary step on the way to the
more intensive factory/sweated labour symbiosis of the sub-
sequent centuries. The stimulus for the transformation of the
clothing trade did not appear fully fledged in the nineteenth
century as contemporary reformists and some subsequent his-
torians believed.49 Modernization and diversification within the
garment industry predated nineteenth-century sweat shops,
factories and sewing machines; structural re-organization arose
in this earlier era with the changing scale of demand for clothes.
Manufacturing procedures varied depending on the vol-
ume of garments being made, for whom they were intended,
the capital available to the individual manufacturer and the
numbers employed. Many shopkeepers engaged seamstresses
to make stock items in the back of the shops, while merch-
ants with large contracts arranged for centralized cutting
under close supervision, distributing pieces for sewing to a crew
of women. Sub-contracting was common, permitting large
merchants to farm out parts of an order. Re-organization of
production was vital for the manufacturers' profits. At the
same time, there were specialized manufacturers of single com-
modities. Within the overall trade a great variety of goods was
manufactured, some inherently utilitarian and others linking
utility with a modicum of style, made through a labour-intensive,
extended production network. The collective capacity of these
complementary manufacturing techniques dressed mariners,

soldiers and civilians of many ranks.
The inventories of ready-made clothes dealers, large and
small, and the descriptions of trades from the eighteenth cen-
tury afford a sense of the re-organization of manufacture. The
term 'salesman' became a commonplace over the second half
of the seventeenth century. The individuals so designated were
clothes dealers, although some might act as manufacturers and
others retailed old and new clothing. Both functions were sub-
sumed under the same label. Only with detailed records can one
determine whether the majority of an individual's stock was
newly made or cast-off clothing. Typically most dealers carried
both sorts of merchandise. As noted elsewhere, retailers of
apparel - tailors, slopsellers, salesmen and general clothes
dealers - relied on the exchange of old clothes for some
of their sale of new goods.50 The word 'salesman' or 'sales-
woman' holds such a different meaning in our own time that
it is important to consider that this term represented extra-
ordinary alterations in both working and consumer life by
1700. In addition, a trade in clothing was subsumed under a
host of occupational tides, from the milliners of Oxford to
brokers in the north of England. Whatever the occupational
title, salesmen and saleswomen were among those new manu-
facturer/retailers reshaping the production and distribution
of apparel. They came in many sizes and with many variations.
For example, John Harner ran what was described as a 'litde
Shop about the Strand' in 1684, his trade being that of 'a
Taylor or small Salesman'.51 The 1712 entries in the Sun Fire
Insurance registers suggest other members of this trade, from
slopseller Nathaniel Stringer, to salesmen Francis Bruncker,
Thomas Pike and William Vere, and coatseller James Cutts52
(see illustration 2.2). Nearly sixty probate inventories and
administrations of men and women involved in the produc-
tion and sale of apparel were collected for the Midlands and
south of England, for the years 1663 to 1755. The period of
early growth is also the period of greatest concentration of
inventories, as shown in Table 2.4. These reflect the collective
trade characteristics of those active in this transition period. A
fuller picture of the participants emerges from this eclectic
assortment of tradesmen and women, with goods at the time
of their death valued at from £47 to £5800.53
•
G
iflu of odames (outts Q)c
oat
n
nUttler* atytMpcm Mrst-bacL m^s
i <JZmrwtta Qjircct {ooxwrit
iztta QJtr&a Wotscnc harden^
&
- r 5£c^&? 0
V <Û-f2> - - - -
s< m dS'/ao'/
0 /o'r nJ do? 0$
s-
oo f a A ',
k h . 1<3- <*>
Ccif. %$minc* fytM
%M O'ti
**<* -oe7 ''J?4
C7 <»Z?0f r,
-'
.
'I
Illustration 2.2 Receipt for ready-made clothes bought from James

Cutts, 1712
The accumulated probate inventories do not pretend to be

a comprehensive cross-section of all those manufacturing and
selling garments across England. Several of the large western
ports are underrepresented, as is the north. However, Table
2.5 displays realistically some of the most dynamic regions of
the trade and emphasizes the manufacturing strength of Lon-
don. Kent and Hampshire can also claim a significant stake in
this enterprise, developed in conjunction with their maritime
commerce. Provincial markets were also served by resident
clothes dealers and it is worth reiterating that ready-made
garments were not simply a phenomenon of the London market
or shipboard sales. As shown above, London dealers, travelling
across the country, bolstered the resident storekeepers spring-
ing up in provincial towns and villages.54 Local sales shops, mil-
linery and mercery stores sold and sometimes organized local
small scale manufacture for wholesale and retail customers, as
well as buying from urban suppliers. The detailed provincial
Table 2.4 Chronological distribution of probate sample,

1660-1759
Years Number %
1660-69 13 22
1670-79 9 15.3
1680-89 2 3.4
1690-99 11 18.6
1700-10 8 13.5
1711-19 1 1.7
1720-29 5 8.5
1730-39 6 10.2
1740-49 2 3.4
1750-59 2 3.4
Total 59 100
Sources: Orphan's Inventories, CLRO; Prerogative Court of Canter-

bury, PRO; Consistory Court of London, GLRO; Berkshire Record
Office; Hampshire Record Office; Kent Archives; Oxfordshire Record
Office.
Table 2.5 Geographic distribution of probate sample, 1660-1759
Place Number
Middlesex:
London and Westminster 36
Surrey: London 1
Kent: Canterbury, Dover, Faversham, Milton nr 11
Gravesend, Milton nr Sittingbourne, Margate,
Sandwich, Sittingbourne, Tonbridge
Hampshire: Basingstoke, Gosport, Southampton 4
Bedfordshire: Luton 1
Berkshire: Reading 1
Gloucestershire: Bristol 1
Hertfordshire: Cheshunt 1
Lancashire: Preston 1
Oxfordshire: Oxford 1
Somerset: Axbridge 1
Total 59
study by Anne Buck of eighteenth-century Bedfordshire illus-

trates other elements of the organization of the clothing trade
outside the economic shadow of the metropolis. In 1714, a
draper working in Ampthill enumerated the tasks that would
be part of his future wife's duties. These included 'cutting out
Pinners, Quoifs, etc. for the Pedlars'. As Miss Buck notes: 'The
. . . making up or preparing for a seamstress the small items
of dress which would be sold to pedlars was clearly for him
a wife's responsibility.'55 Part and parcel of the marketing of
clothing were the legions of shopkeepers who prepared lim-
ited quantities of garments, employing local women to sew,
selling wholesale to pedlars such as Jacob Gipson of Preston,
whose inventory at his death in Hampshire, in 1703, included
several hundred quoifs, quilted caps and handkerchiefs, plus
cravats and silk hoods. 56
The 1675 inventory of Samuel Bardett offers a wonderfully
detailed view of the components of a provincial business. He
was one of the Oxford milliners targeted by the local tailor's
guild. In this instance we also know the two assessors - they
were colleagues in the same field.57 The kinds and qualities of
linen, silk, lace, ribbon and trimming materials suggest that
Bardett manufactured some garments for the local market:
perhaps scholars' gowns for which there was a steady local
market. 58 Various of the other items in stock were probably
bought from specialist producers. There was no bone listed
among his inventory, for instance, although bodices were
among the items in stock; Bardett likely ordered from a Lon-
don supplier or a local bodice maker who offered adequate
stock.59 Silk and satin caps valued at over £3 were doubdess
bought from specialist Cappers or Cap-makers who made them
at the lowest cost.60 Similarly, the shirts, trousers, drawers, frocks,
morning gowns, mandes, petticoats, cloaks, children's coats,
linen ware and 'other ware made up', valued at over £65, were
end products of clothes manufacturers, some of metropolitan
origin.61 Elizabeth Caitlin is a later example of a provincial
shopkeeper in the clothing trade. Caidin lived in Luton and
her business was passed on to her son on her death in 1739.
Several items of her stocks could have been plucked from a
bale of slops on any Thames-side wharf; however, she also
sold a wider array of everyday and attractive goods that would
appeal to women and children, leaving shop goods valued at
£266.62 Bartlett's and Caidin's clothes shops were part of a

fixed and peripatetic commerce serving much of England, a
trade which included pre-eminent London manufacturers and
local retailers and producers. Most regions of the country were
served by these retailers before the mid-eighteenth century,
both through the wide commercial sweeps of London sales-
men and through the steady increase in manufacturing by
local businesses, especially those in proximity to ports and
industrial districts.
As Table 2.5 illustrates, inventories were uncovered for a
number of towns and cities. However, the weakness of this
category of document is that it offers only a snap shot, not
a moving picture, of the trade. Timing was an important fac-
tor in how many details were preserved.63 For example, after
the dispatch of contracted bales of garments from workshops
to markets or storehouses, little trace of this enterprise was
left on the premises. Similarly, a woollen draper or merchant
tailor who simply provided the materials to sub-contractors
would leave few tracks of his involvement in a probate inventory.
Unless the trader acted as a retailer, or routinely carried sig-
nificant stocks of apparel, connections to the trade would not
necessarily be evident. Several probate inventories discovered
in major ports offer tantalizing hints of involvement in the
trade; however, because of their ambiguity these were excluded
from the tables above. For example, a Southampton merchant
tailor's inventory contained over a dozen garments, in addi-
tion to over fifty parcels of handkerchiefs and hose. The copi-
ous quantities of fabrics carried, along with the forty gross of
buttons, point to links with slop manufacture, even though
insufficient quantities of apparel were listed in the inventory
to provide absolute proof. An Isle of Wight mercer's inventory
had much the same structure, with thousands of yards of linens,
canvas, kersey and other coarse wools, along with a few gar-
ments and accessories.64 These two inventories were similar
in almost every way to that of a Gosport tailor, Joseph Ash ton,
whose credentials as a manufacturer are not in doubt. Along
with the list of fabrics in this probate inventory there were 25
'plush' breeches, 8 'pee jackets', 31 'under wastcoats' and 18
linen drawers, plus shirts, stockings and handkerchiefs. On
Ashton's death, in 1712, there were also outstanding debts for
goods valued at £857, owed by 'Sailors belonging to her Ma'tys
Shipps of Warr'. Ash ton typifies the tailors who no longer

subscribed to guild patterns of production. 65 Some through
the scale of their enterprises could be categorized as major
manufacturers; others simply worked as small-scale producers
or vendors of garments.66 Robert Amison was one of the former.
Living in Canterbury, he left over £440 of stock and personal
effects on his death in 1703, the vast majority of which was
comprised of clothing and fabric. Under the heading 'Goods
in the Shopp ready made' the appraisers noted gowns and
petticoats for women and girls numbering over 200; plus a
combined total of nearly 400 waistcoats, breeches, frocks and
coats for men and boys.67 John Soames, of Dover, left a col-
lection of ready-to-wear apparel on his death in 1724 that
included these and other types of goods, although to a lesser
value of f^. 6 8
Given the varying connections among merchants and traders
in the clothing industry this sample of inventories can only be
suggestive, sketching the interconnected commercial links
developing from the 1660s. For all their limitations, the pro-
bate inventories do reveal a profusion of goods, from drab
daily wear to rainbow hued calico and silk apparel. Ready-
made garments were far more varied than might be suggested
from the proliferation of naval slops and army breeches. One
item made in bulk was the bodice, or 'bodies' as they were also
called, a type of undergarment like stays which defined the
female torso and formed part of the daily wear of women. 69
Bodice making was a specialized trade and eminently profit-
able by contemporary calculation.
However insignificant this Business may seem to be, it is a

Trade by itself; the Wholesale Dealers in which have been
used to get Money. It is a Branch of Tayloring, and different
from Stay-making, though they are Women's Wear for the
same Part of the Body, and scarcely ever worn in or about
London now . . . tho' at first litde else of this kind was in
Use: but are chiefly sent and sold up and down the Country,
for the Wear of the working Sort of Women and Children:
And, I apprehend, the making of them is principally Womens
Employ, and the poorer Sort of Girls who are put Appren-
tices to it . . . The Girls generally work from seven to eight;
and Work women get 7 to 8s. a Week.70
The 1667 inventory of Thomas Beetham, a London bodice

maker, affirms the claims of this writer. Beetham was a mid-
dling manufacturer and dealer, with assets at the time of his
death of £104 135. Among the articles listed in his three-room
dwelling were the raw materials of the bodice maker; ticking
for the body, narrow-ware like galloon to bind or edge the
garment, pounds of thread, and parcels of bone. There were
over two hundred bodices on the premises, in addition to 'a
parcell of boddies unstitched'. The two sorts in stock in largest
quantities were priced at 35. and 65. per bodice, with six other
bodices valued at £20 the half dozen. 71 In 1688, Gregory King
proposed the average cost of a pair of stays or a bodice at 85.,
so most of Beetham's stock was aimed at the low end of the
market. 72 Based in Warfield, Berkshire, Henry Horsnaile exem-
plifies the smaller regional manufacturer with stocks of bodices
at the time of his death in 1701 valued at over £27 in his home
town, as well as nearly £14 in nearby Henley. Demand for this
essential ready-made female garment was assured, with Lon-
don and provincial manufacturers selling to shopkeepers and
retail distributors. 73
London dominated the ready-made clothing industry in the
late 1600s as it would continue to do in the next century.74
A survey of surviving probate inventories finds no other cen-
tre with as large or as varied manufacturers. Edward Gunn
embodied the specialist maker of fashionable garments. As an
'Indian gown maker' his merchandise included gowns, or
banyans, for men and women in silks and satins of European
and Indian manufacture, plus women's waistcoats, mantles and
quilted petticoats. Some of these garments sound sumptuous,
even in the stilted language of the appraisers: 'one stript lemon
collourd Sattin gowne[,] one pinck water tabby gown . . . one
hand colloured Indian sattin gowne . . . one morning gowne
of band silke stript with lemon'. 75 At the time of his death, in
1672, Gunn's assets were valued at £413; his business appeared
prosperous. But Gunn's trade was comparatively modest when
placed beside the resources of individuals like John Broadhurst,
William Bowell, Peter Pickman, Richard Stock, John Playdell,
Thomas Walker or Herbert Allen. These London citizens had
in common the large scale production of apparel for national
and overseas markets. The collection of probate inventories,
drawn up by the Court of Orphans for the families of deceased
citizens of the City of London, provide detailed assessments

of the tradesmen who died in the prime of their lives leaving
minor children. We can assume that the state of their affairs,
as revealed in the inventories, reflected active businesses, an
assumption that cannot always be made for probate inventor-
ies.76 The extent of their stock and resources is instructive. In
Thomas Walker's inventory the single most valuable and size-
able entry is for '434 Mantuas of Crape . . . Lutestring Tammies
Serge and Linen' valued at over £207, followed by the entries
for 458 silk petticoats, 120 gowns, 39 coats and 70 suits. John
Broadhurst's stock included 120 coats of various size and fab-
ric, 87 waistcoats, 122 breeches and over 160 mantuas, as well
as matching stocks of petticoats, hoods, gowns, suits and frocks.
Samuel Dalling, a Southwark salesman not part of the Lon-
don citizenry, all but equalled these assets, including in his
inventory 350 coats for men and boys, over 240 petticoats,
168 waistcoats and 114 mantuas and gowns. As with other
manufacturers, Walker, Broadhurst and Dalling held sup-
plies of fabrics and finishings out of which the goods were
constructed. Although the evidence from the inventories is
random in its survival one can nevertheless appreciate the
diverse customers served by these manufacturers. For example,
Walker's workforce made up garments out of cosdy 'Lutestring',
'Bengali', 'Mohair', 'Silk Stripe', 'Red Perragon', and Norwich
crape, while Broadhurst's goods consisted normally of fustian,
kersey, stuff, serge, damask and crape - utilitarian materials.77
Even more commonplace were the 201 waistcoats in kersey
and flannel stocked in John Welsh's warehouse before his death
in 1669.78 In the 1660s, Herbert Allen's trade was very exten-
sive, both in terms of the yardage in stock and in terms of the
ready-made goods 'in the Shop on the Exchange'. A final
notation in the inventory refers to the value of the 'holland
and Cambrick in the hands of work women to make up'
(£51 125.0d.).79 The collective enterprise of these individuals
employed hundreds, if not thousands, over a single season.
QUILTING, QUALITY AND MATERIAL EVIDENCE
The development of the clothing industry continued unabated

over the eighteenth century, mirroring parallel transformations
in consumer industries such as in textiles and metal toys. Pro-

ducers offered child and adult garments in a range of sizes;
specialists with the morning gown and petticoat warehouses
constantly augmented the variety of products in conjunction
with shifts in fashion and demand. Ready-made wares clothed
'sirs' as well as servants.80 Tradecards, advertisements and bill
heads, such as that of James Cutts (see illustration 2.2), con-
firm the plethora of businesses and the diversity of output.
More concrete evidence is also discernible in the material
evidence extant in museum collections. Given the volume of
garments produced over this period it seemed likely that iden-
tifiable examples would survive to this day. With this hope
in mind a search was made of one of the major textile and
costume collections in North America at the Royal Ontario
Museum in Toronto. Findings made there were subsequendy
cross-checked with the costume collections at the Museum
of London. The costume and textile holdings at the Royal
Ontario Museum are a full and diverse representation of the
major European costume and textile products, with some out-
standing bodies of artefacts.81
Eighteenth-century garments in the Royal Ontario Museum
offered the opportunity to assess artefacts for insights into the
organization of production, as well as characteristics of ready-
made clothes. Different sorts of problems are posed by look-
ing at garments individually or in groups, rather than just by
name in written documents, as aggregate statistics or collective
descriptions. First, one must ask, how representative are surviv-
ing objects of the mass of eighteenth-century clothing? In fact,
variation in fabric, finish and stitching was the norm before
mechanical factory production; variations to some degree would
be expected in surviving items from this period. Randomness
in survival is also bound to be reflected in a collection. Few
examples of common clothing survived the second-hand mar-
ket and fewer still of the cheapest goods.82 Moreover, until
very recendy museums' collection policies dictated that acquisi-
tions be attractive and cosdy specimens. Thus, most major mus-
eum collections will be top heavy with higher quality goods.
But even this collection's history did not eliminate evidence of
new patterns of clothes production in the eighteenth-century
artefacts. The choice of garment to be assessed is important;
one need not look only at the cheapest sorts of articles for
evidence of the ready-made trade. For this study a basic type

of garment was considered in detail: quilted petticoats.83 Suf-
ficient numbers of these garments survive to ensure a sense of
their typicality. Quilted petticoats were a staple throughout
this period, employed as practical insulation against the cold
and as visible garments in whole or in part they were a perfect
surface for decorative display. Ready-to-wear petticoats were
widely available in saleshops and, as manufacturers discovered,
the physical properties of these garments made them ideal
commodities. Fitting was not needed as the waistband tapes
could be drawn and tied to fit, hooks and eyes or buttons
added or adjusted as required. The dimensions of a petticoat
were less related to the size of the wearer than to the width of
hoops or number of underpetticoats employed. Various col-
ours, prints and quilting patterns came in and out of fashion;
however, potential manufacturers were assured that petticoats
would continue as essential parts of dress.
Ready-made petticoats ranged from the economical to the
extravagant,84 and, not surprisingly, more of the costly sort
survived to the late twentieth century. Over two dozen petti-
coats were studied in the Royal Ontario Museum collection
and another dozen at the London Museum. Another dozen
comparative examples were reviewed from published sources.85
Most of the quilted petticoats which survive were made of silk.86
Their survival rate owes much to their relatively higher value,
even when old and second-hand. From the first examination
of these artefacts they showed a direct connection to the ready-
made trade, with standardized elements of construction and
composition. Uniformity and regularity distinguish many of
these garments. The top fabric was usually dyed silk or satin,
the backing was either a linen or wool fabric, frequendy a
glazed worsted wool, with a wool batting for insulation. Lin-
ings occasionally matched the top fabric in colour, while the
pocket and back openings were bound in matching tape or
ribbon, as was the bottom hem of the petticoat. The quilting
techniques were particularly telling. Quilting over the top two-
thirds usually followed simple configurations of lozenge design,
diamond or scallops, with various floral motifs picked out in
the bottom third. These were attractive additions to a ward-
robe. But very litde of the quilting approaches the highest
levels of the craft. Patterns were executed in fluid stitchery,
leaving much of the ground unquilted. 87 These goods were

valued for the fabric and for the novelty, if not the perfection,
of the quilting. Compared to the more detailed quilting found
in other apparel of the period, sometimes produced by fam-
ily members for loved ones, one can perceive a standardized
labour component in even the most attractive of the quilted
petticoats.
As noted above, many clothes dealers offered petticoats as
part of their stock. However, specialist petticoat manufacturers
also sprang up, for example, in London and in the Manches-
ter region, making and selling in bulk. One sees more special-
ist manufacturers in the last half of the eighteenth century.
One such London manufacturer advertised in 1779 that the
goods offered for sale ranged in price from 65. for a stuff
petticoat to 21-605. for satin; other dealers offered satin pet-
ticoats at 18-285.88 Silk and satin petticoats, examples of which
are probably preserved in most large costume collections, were
costly; however, additions to the basic quilted satin petticoat
could raise the price further still. The most elaborate garment
discovered in the Royal Ontario Museum collection is a coral
coloured satin petticoat, lattice quilted, which matched the
others in the sample in construction and fabric composition,
with one amendment. Prior to quilting, the bottom third of
the skirt was festooned with decorative floral embroidery, after
which the piece was quilted. If ready-made, this garment would
represent pre-eminent warehouse merchandise. With that one
exception, the rest of the collection was not distinguished by
flawless or outstanding needlework; rather these petticoats illus-
trate the range of new and varied designs offered to customers
looking seasonally for fashionable additions to their wardrobe
that incorporated the motifs currendy in vogue.
A critical examination of the quilted patterns reveals that
whatever the charm of the garments their creation did not
involve weeks of work. Seams were executed in a running stitch,
as was the quilting which joined the lining, wool batting, and
top fabric. Approximately half of the silk petticoats follow
an identical model of decoration. 89 Several others varied only
in that they were plainly quilted in diamond or lattice pat-
tern from top to bottom and would have been cheaper as a
consequence. 90 Aside from the silk goods, there is another
garment in the Ontario collection, heavier, more durable and
made of indigo-dyed worsted wool. It is very similar to one

in rose worsted held in the Colonial Williamsburg Collec-
tion, illustrative of the middle range, everyday garment that
is now much rarer than its silk counterpart. Such items were
advertised by one petticoat manufacturer as among the
'cheaper' types of stock he carried and were noted in many
of the earlier probate lists. Typically they were worn until worn
out, or modified into a bed quilt; such had been the fate of
the indigo blue petticoat when it was discovered and added
to the Toronto collection.91 All the garments quilted in floral
patterns, including the blue worsted, show a characteristic irre-
gularity, suggesting that templates were not employed. Seam-
stresses might look at drawings or cartoons of new designs, or
draw inspiration from printed fabrics. No doubt, after years of
quilting, experienced needlewomen adapted and modified pat-
terns with ease. Variety in design and fabric, speed of manu-
facture and a basic competence in execution were the hallmarks
of this type of production and are clearly evident in these
surviving material examples. The end-results were described
in the advertisements of the owner of a petticoat warehouse,
who announced that he could offer 'a very large assortment of
fresh quilted [petti] coats, in new and elegant patterns, never
before quilted'. 92 His competitor insisted that if his quilted
petticoats were 'not found superior to any offered the public,
[he] will take them [back] again, and return the money with
pleasure'. 93
The petticoats themselves offer additional insights into their
method of manufacture. They were probably quilted on frames
by more than one seamstress, with simpler elements performed
by less adept hands. In a 1747 description of trades the author
noted that quilting was performed chiefly by women, wherein
'poor Girl Apprentices' were taken on 'for the sake of their
Work . . . However, ajourneywoman will earn I5. ls.6d. and 25.
a Day at it.'94 The variable rates of pay for journeywomen
quilters confirms an equivalent range of skills. The size and
value of the garments also raise questions about the circum-
stances in which the articles were made. Domestic manufac-
ture in a small room or garret was the usual point of production
for many ready-made goods like shirts, waistcoats, caps or hand-
kerchiefs. However, the value of the yardage needed for the
tops and lining of silk petticoats exceeded that of a parcel
of shirts many times over. Manufacturers, anxious to avoid

embezzlement, had a distinct incentive to keep production
under their eye. Small shops might have the space to make
several quilts at a time; large scale production demanded more
space for quilting frames. The expense of maintaining a work-
shop was balanced by better protection of the cosdy fabrics in
a centralized work site. Centralized production also enabled
closer control over the design process and execution, a crit-
ical factor when novelty and style determined success. More-
over, a dispersed workforce made quality control more difficult
to enforce and it was precisely the quality and variety of the
quilting patterns that the warehouse owners emphasized most.
Advertisements from two of the prominent warehouses con-
firm what is suggested from the artefacts, that large workshops
lay behind the public retail emporiums. One owner stated
explicidy that the 'elegant patterns' quilted by his workforce
were 'quilted under his immediate inspection'. His competitor
asserted that all his wares were 'manufactured in his house,
under his own direction'. 95 In contrast, quilting of cheaper
items, perhaps like the worsted blue garment above, might
routinely be carried on without direct oversight. An eighteenth-
century commentator on trades stated that, 'There have been
some (and there still are such) who used to buy in the Mater-
ials wholesale, which they put out to be made up into Quilts,
and so served the Shops there with, as they wanted them, by
which Trade they got a great deal of Money.'96 Late in the
eighteenth century the British cotton industry produced a fab-
ric called Marseilles quilting, a cotton double-weave cloth with
the appearance of hand quilted work, examples of which sur-
vive in the Royal Ontario Museum collection. Substituted in
waistcoats, petticoats and other traditionally quilted garments,
this fabric gradually eroded quilting in the ready-made trade,
re-organizing production yet again.
Manufacturers employed a scattered force of needlewomen
earlier in the century and in some branches of the industry
this pattern continued unchanged. But the trade was always
differentiated and included large scale workshop production,
overseen by owners or supervisors. Just as stock varied, so the
production of clothing assumed various industrial patterns,
from batch production in small and large workshops to large
scale proto-industrial models of domestic manufacturing.
Manufacturing sites also sprang up in conjunction with textile

trades. From the 1760s and probably earlier, London clothing
manufacturers and wholesalers imported Irish linen shirts
of medium to high quality and advertised the excellence of
these shirts.97 In England's textile districts, like Lancashire,
the manufacture of apparel also developed as an off-shoot of
the textile industry during the eighteenth century, initially
with petticoat manufacturing. 98 Regional centres of clothing
production remain to be examined in detail during this era.
However, there is no doubt that the transformation of the
clothing trade incorporated most of Britain, as market centres
and as points of complementary production. 99
Contemporary depictions of these trades are scarce. How-
ever, in Hogarth's famous image of the Distressed Poet (1740)
we are offered a glimpse of the circumstance of production
for many. Usually viewed as a landlady haranguing a distracted
poet, we could just as easily be viewing a wife sewing to sup-
port her family and her husband in his creative aspirations, in
one of London's many attic rooms. The basic organization of
large-scale production changed litde over more than a cen-
tury. In 1764, Sarah Sackfield was one of the managers who
arranged the putting-out of sewing work to seamstresses work-
ing away from her employer's London shop. Sackfield identi-
fied an article of clothing for her employer, John Forbes, during
a court hearing. Forbes and his wife owned a general clothes
shop near the Hermitage Bridge and Sackfield related to the
magistrate that, T do business for Mr Forbes (she takes a plaid
waistcoat in her hand); this I can swear to with certainty: I
did not make it myself, but I gave it out to be made for
Mr Forbes.' 100 Women workers were not restricted to making
of shirts, handkerchiefs and other underclothes, but they
were generally channelled 'into particular branches that did
not compete direcdy with the men', 101 many of which were
poorly paid. Slopsellers, tailors and saleswomen who did not
employ workers on their premises put out pieces to be made
up, employing both tailors and needlewomen in some cases,
with characteristic inequities in the rates of pay.102 This was a
trade soon to be made infamous in nineteenth-century discus-
sions on sweating.103 One late eighteenth-century slopmaker
calculated that he and his partner employed from 1000 to
1200 workers each week to sew their shirts, in addition to the
cutters and porters engaged on their premises. When asked to

be more precise about the numbers he responded, 'It is impos-
sible to guess, I could not state the number within five hundred;
we employ a great number of parishes, and how many of the
poor are employed upon our work it is impossible for me to
tell.'104 In the crowded rookeries of London, behind the High
Street shops and in the congested dock-sides and industrial
districts of England, women in their thousands were absorbed
in perhaps the most anonymous of industries.
CONCLUSION
Renewed population growth from the mid-eighteenth cen-

tury onwards brought greater numbers of women into the
labour market, competing for work, ensuring at best static piece
rates. Demand for clothing encouraged the development of
more and larger enterprises, which also profited from the
falling cost of industrially produced fabric later in the eight-
eenth century.105 Women could not address the conditions
in which they laboured, except in covert acts of embezzlement
or theft.106 There was no possibility of their seeking support
from the developing trade unions, for the level of antagonism
between tailors and seamstresses barred women from a com-
mon participation in most labour actions.107 The trade was in
flux, with the flash point the organization of labour.108 Contigu-
ous within this process was an on-going antagonism towards
women in the clothing trade, sustained by the implied link be-
tween quality work and gender. An advertisement from William
Ghrimes, Taylor and Habit-maker of Tower Hill, exemplifies
the gendered demarcation drawn between the clothing in the
ready-made warehouses which banked the city streets of Eng-
land and that of tailoring establishments (see illustration 2.3).
Beneath the list of garments and prices printed on his broad-
sheet Ghrimes included a small subscript which read: 'Not
made by Women, as is customary at the Warehouses, but by
the best Workmen that can be got'109 (see illustration 2.4).
The quality of his goods was assured, Ghrimes claimed, not
just because much of his stock was not ready-made, but also
because it was not made by women. Ghrimes' disdain for the
products of female labour affords a significant continuity. The
To the PUBLIC in General.

WILLIAM GHRIMES,
, T A Y L O R and H A B I T - M A K E R ,
At No. 5, Little Tower-Street, near Tower-Hill;
M AKES the under-mentioned Articles in the bed and mod falhionable '
Manner, at the following though low Prices: H e engages that his Cloth, '
, Worktnanihip, and all Materials fhall be equal in Quality to any one of the ]
i Trade. If any Gentleman chufes to find his own Cloth, he fhall be allowed 17s. \
> per Yard, and the Clothes come to the under-mentioned Price : A1J under or over <
1
common Size to be allowed for accordingly. Metal Buttons, Velvet Collar?, and '
' other Superfluities., to be paid for extra.
jr. ,. J.
l A complete Suit of Superfine , 4 8 Ditto with Shag Breeches . . 3
. D i t t o half trimmed . , . . 4 16 Ditto half dreflcd . . . . . 3
A Frock Coat of D i t t o . . . 2 10 A Livery Surtout . . • . , 9
' A half trimmed D i t t o , . . 2 16 A Box Coat lined 3
> A full dreiTed Suit . . • - 5 10 A ThickfetFrock and Waiftcoat J
• A full drefled Cost . . . , j j lined j »
A drciTed Suit of Superfine -\ A Fuftion Ditto 1
Cloth, or Ratcen, lined with I D i t t o unlined 1
Feather Velvet, or Sattin, f 10 S °
and Gold Spangled Buttons J
' A Suit of die heft Second^ or 1
HuntenCloth . . . . f 3 G R E A T C O A T S .
[ Cafemere Waiftcoat and Breeches 16 0 T h e beft Bath Beaver Surtout t 1
t Prince's Stuff Ditto . ."" * . Ditto French Riding Coat , . j
Ditto of the beft Hunters Cloth ] 3
Chain, or corded Silk Ditto . 18
[ T h e very beft Silk K n i t Breeches ' 14 A Surtout of Ditto . . . . ]
16
, Manchefler Velvet Ditto . . . 1 A fine Rateen French Riding Coat ;
I Superfine Stocking, four Thread
H A Surtout of Ditto . . . . ]
16
o 16 14
. Ditto three Thread, ftrong . , A Kcrfey Beaver French Ridine )
0 14 l
1 Beft Velveret Ditto . . . .
1 I
Coat i '
. Beft Velveret D i t t o ribbed , . A Surtout of Ditto . . , . 1 6 0
o 18
r Beft Corderoy o t$ O 1 tfa *n*bfyWomen, AI is tujhmary at thtWardnup,
> A Frock Suit of Livery . . . 3 3 Inttbjtl'ikjt Workmen that im it go'..
• Ladies Riding Habits of all Sorts made in the neatcft and neweft Fafhions, on the loweft •
T e r m s ; with Boys Clothes, and every other Article in the T r a d e proponionnbly cheap,
' Lace and Embroidary done in the neateft Manner, T h e moil Money given for old Clothes '
in exchange. Gentlemen defirous of being clothed by the Year, will be agreed with on '
low T e r m s .
N . B . FT READT MOKET mfr.
J+O'tf-6
FftfflftffmJjj
Illustration 23 Trade bill, William Ghrimes, Taylor and Habit-maker,

C.1770S
8 Ditto French Riding Coat . . i 3 o

4 Ditto of the beft Hunters Cloth I 18 o
4 A Surtout of Ditto . . . . I 16 o
4 A fine Rateen French Riding Coat r 16 o
6 A Surtout of Ditto . . . . I 14 0
4 A Kerfey Beaver French Riding )
8
i
[8 A Surtout of Ditto . . , • i 6 o
ma e
tS £3* Not ^ by Women, as is eufiomary at theWareboufes,
3 but by the befl Workmen that can begot.
de in the neateft and neweft Faihions, on the loweft

try other Article in the Trade proportionably cheap.
;ft Manner. T h e moft Money given for old Clothes
)f being clothed by the Year, will be agreed with on
NET
D Centimetres
sr"' <r—»? - v - * - v " v -<q?---tt- jy
.
Illustration 2.4 Detail, trade bill of William Ghrimes, Taylor and

Habit-maker, c.l770s
claims in this advertisement from the second half of the eight-

eenth century hark back to the guild campaign of over fifty
years earlier and presage the tailors' trade union battle against
women in the clothing industry in the 1830s. The latter cam-
paign may have arisen at a period of trade crisis, but the eco-
nomic and cultural structures which gave rise to this crusade
were in place well before that time.110
The characteristics of production weighted heavily on women.
The skills necessary in an industry producing goods for ever
larger domestic and overseas markets were those of speed,
competence and above all endurance. Legions of women were
defined as unskilled or semi-skilled because they were adults
of the other sex making apparel, regardless of the quality of
goods being made. Certainly the standard of ready-made clothes
varied widely, but so too did the work of tailors, from the fash-
ionable London tailor to his rural confederates whose principal
tasks involved the reseating of breeches and letting out of

waistcoats.111 Periodically, advertisements for women workers
appeared at the bottom of advertisements for clothing. The
stipulated requirements were for 'those that can work exceed-
ing well', in the case of a shirt warehouse, or Journeywomen
that are good 'mantua-makers', in the case of a warehouse-
women's ad.112 The number of women outworkers, paid by the
piece, working in their own lodgings or in workshops, defies
any precise accounting. The expansion of the clothing indus-
try provided work in abundance for women over this period.
Moreover, the largely female urban workforce furnished the
productive impetus for the growth and continuing expan-
sion of this industry; the products of their labour brought new
commodities before the English consumer, as well as clothing
generations of sailors and soldiers. The expansion and cap-
italization of the trade relied on the massive use of female
labour, as Jenny Morris noted for a later period: 'the devel-
opment of a sexual division of labour . . . went hand in hand
with the advancement of the trade'. 113 Inextricably tied to the
common fabrics and basic finishes, the ready-made clothing
trade was geared to the broadest of markets. The labour of the
women underpinned this industry and was the principal agency
in its growth before, during and after industrialization. The sex-
specific employment and divisions opened between men and
women working in the clothing trade before 1800 would be
reinforced further in the nineteenth century. Ready-made items
in popular fabrics or colours, utilitarian or slightly stylish, were
prototypes for a pattern of production, for a pattern of sale,
for a pattern of society, that would become the measure of the
industrial age.
3 Margins and Mainstream:
Jews in the English
Clothing Trades
By 1800, Jewishness and clothes dealing were so closely iden-
tified that they were often portrayed as one and the same
thing, fusing into the single entity all the negative characteri-
zations assigned to the two categories. Anti-semitism and xeno-
phobia coloured attitudes towards Jews. But the taint of the
second-hand trade was also passed on to the Jewish commun-
ity as a whole. An eighteenth-century commentator, author
of A Peep into the Synagogue, lamented the pattern of trade of
poor Jewish immigrants who 'embrace the most pitiful and
mean employment to procure them food, such as buying and
selling old clothes, buckles, buttons . . . lemons, pencils, or
such like'. 1 In the last half of the eighteenth century, recently
arrived Jews from Central and Eastern Europe came to symbol-
ize all the alien elements of a foreign people. Accented Eng-
lish, bearded faces and uncommon garments, such as kaftans,
added to the visible singularity of a group already marked by
its distinct religion. The frissons of distaste enjoyed by a liter-
ate middle class reading descriptions of the wilds of urban
England, were intensified by references to occupations abhor-
rent to genteel sensibilities. These readers did not need to scan
travelogues of Africa, Arabia or India to be confronted by the
exotic, or to be confirmed in their perceived superiority.2 Para-
doxically, from the 1750s onwards, consumer wares depicting
images of these and other marginal people gained popularity,
as producers capitalized on the growing markets for exotica.
Shops stocked pottery figurines, printed caricatures and illus-
trations, and even engraved glass, featuring stylized repres-
entations of Anglo-Jewry as agents of the lowly clothing trades.
One noteworthy example of domestic glassware from the first
decade of the nineteenth century displayed two curious images
engraved on either side of the glass vessel; a Jewish old clothes
dealer was on one side and on the other was a figure of a
75
.
a •
*±S~4i%,Jty
fia^.SeitiTjy.
EVEBjT; ONE MllDS HUBBY hut a
I OS
if
•
•
Illustration 3.1 'Every One His Hobby', 1819

European Department Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
woman street pedlar. 3 The decanter amalgamates contradict-

ory elements: comfort and abundance on the one hand, as a
container for drink, combined with an unsetding glimpse of
irregular and unconventional people, at odds with the tenets
of genteel English life. Ceramic and glass artefacts and carica-
tures of the denizens of city life offer an almost uniform por-
trayal of Jews as clothes dealers. Indeed, one writer for The
Gentleman's Magazine in the early nineteenth century com-
mented on the difficulty of separating 'the idea of Jews from
pedlars who cry "old clothes" . . . and have a peculiar physio-
gnomical character'. 4 Cartoons and caricatures, such as illus-
tration 3.1, equated Judaism not only with a religious tradition,
with all the public prejudices attendant upon it; Jewishness
also came to be associated with a trade which was increasingly
despised for its arcane, unhygienic, disorderly functions. More
than perhaps any single groups, Jews came to be equated with
an occupation in which members of their community were
Jews in the English Clothing Trades 77
visible participants. The presumptions and assumptions about

the second-hand clothing trade altered the characteristics of
expressed bigotry as manifested towards English Jews.
As we have seen, throughout the eighteenth century, com-
mentators wrote about the second-hand clothing trade with
disdain, emphasizing its disrepute. 5 In 1701, a magistrate char-
acterized Rag Fair as 'Riotous meetings Dayly held . . . in the
public highway & streetes . . . for buying & Selling old . . .
Wearing Apparell & other things'. The trade was depicted
as a 'Common Annoyance' to the setded inhabitants. 6 Over
this period the whole process of marketing, retailing and sales
experienced significant change. Fixed prices, fixed premises,
new varieties of goods, no haggling, fair dealing: these were
the hallmarks of the new commercial norm, the High Street
mercantile standards to which the middling ranks increasingly
subscribed. These were the retailing equivalents of rational
enlightened commerce. It was these standards that were con-
tinually breached by adherents of the second-hand trade. 7 Pres-
sures abounded to conform in all categories of commercial
and personal behaviour, to eradicate practices deemed dis-
honourable. But buying, selling, bartering and exchange were
not so easily re-formed. Old patterns of trade flourished dur-
ing this period in tandem with the new. Reform of commer-
cial practice was as difficult to accomplish as was reform of
personal behaviour. 8 Moreover, suspicions of the lower cloth-
ing trades overlooked their benefits, undervalued the reli-
ance placed upon them by many classes of buyers and sellers,
and increasingly distorted Jewish participation.
Jews were denned by powerful iconographic images. Yet the
crude parodies found in contemporary artefacts provide no
sense of the relative position ofJews within the clothing trades.
Neither can one gain more than a rudimentary impression of
the functions of the traders and any change over time. Histor-
ians of Anglo-Jewry accept that Jews were active agents in the
lower clothing trades. 9 But did the pictorial representations, so
numerous by 1800, reflect a true sense of their numbers, their
normativeness, or their supposed dominance within the trade?
By using a statistical analysis of the records of the Sun Fire and
Royal Exchange Insurance Companies one can gauge the relat-
ive presence of Jews within the clothing trades and the char-
acteristics of their commerce. This chapter will consider the
impact on England and on England's Jews of one of the com-

monest trades of this period.
THE CLOTHING TRADES AND EARLY JEWISH

PARTICIPANTS
Jews were officially permitted back into England in 1656, by

a political leadership probably anxious to benefit from the
extensive mercantile connections of wealthy Jewish merchants. 10
A small Sephardic community established itself in England
during the next few years, the luminaries of which included
diamond merchants and overseas traders. In addition, a small
steady stream of poorer co-religionists began arriving from many
parts of Europe and the Mediterranean world, a stream which
grew in dimensions over the next century. Mainstream mer-
chants and marginal pedlars made up the Anglo-Jewish com-
munity; the former are memorialized in community histories
and genealogies, the latter escaped much systematic scrutiny.11
Among the poor migrants trickling into England were those
whose crafts came to characterize this community in the pub-
lic's eye through their barter, pawning and trade in second-
hand and ready-made garments. 12 Jews were attracted to
England by the prospect of greater security and fewer eco-
nomic and social restraints than they faced elsewhere in Eur-
ope. Numbering fewer than 500 in the 1680s, Anglojewry was
estimated at from 20000 to 25000 by the 1790s, concentrated
mainly in London and its environs.13 Whether present in hun-
dreds or in thousands, Jews faced overt and covert restrictions
and objections to their presence. City of London merchants
protested at the arrival of Jewish competitors on several occa-
sions after 1656, but to no avail.14 There is fragmentary evid-
ence only of the business dealings of the Sephardim prior to
the eighteenth century and the practices of a few cannot be
assumed to apply to all. However, a trade in clothing, fre-
quendy as a military or naval supplier, was among the diverse
commercial activities of prosperous Jewish residents in Eng-
land, although this seemed to form only an auxiliary element
of their commercial activity.15 More commonplace among the
generations of poor Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews travelling
to England was a less exalted commerce in cast-off clothing.
The occupations considered for this study include those of

salesman and woman, pawnbroker, plus slopmakers and sellers
who took advantage of the expanding demand and growing
market for cheap ready-to-wear garments. 16 Garments new and
used, solid and shabby were part of their stock-in-trade. This
trade was frequendy one of a series of occupations over a life-
time. Dealers in such wares could easily enter or exit the trade,
drawn in or out for reasons which varied with age, gender,
ethnicity and a personal measure of fortune. For instance, fail-
ing eyesight or other physical infirmities made fine needle-
work impossible with the onset of middle age, propelling those
involved in making goods into alternative areas like the hawk-
ing or bartering of garments. Unskilled young immigrants
or the unfit might turn to some aspect of clothes dealing at
different periods of their lives. Individual histories of poor
Jewish immigrants recount tales of young men, often with few
resources, for whom the used clothing trade was an obvious
first option. 17 Neither the Jewish nor the English establish-
ments were sanguine at the prospect of waves of unemployed
Jewish paupers washing over London and the great port cities.
In 1677, London's Court of Aldermen demanded that 'no Jew
without good estate be admitted to reside or lodge in London
or the liberties thereof'. 18 It was the first of many objections,
which had litde affect on a migration instigated by persecu-
tion, inquisition and economic crisis.19 Over the eighteenth
century, thousands of new arrivals turned to the organized
charity of their established brethren for grants of money to
launch lives as petty hawkers and pedlars, working in the broad
network of exchange.
A trade in cast-off garments represented the juncture between
informal and formal commercial activity; it was an unrestricted
commercial platform from which other ventures might be
launched. It linked households of all sorts with consumers
of every rank, tied together itinerant and neighbourhood
hawkers with large scale national and international commerce.
Participants might manage to expand their businesses from a
street corner to a shop, or move into other avenues altogether.
How many made this transition can never be known. It is in-
disputable, however, that for generations of poor Jews this
trade opened a commercial door not as closely guarded as it
was in other parts of Europe. Even in the Netherlands, Jews
working in the clothing trades faced legal impediments from

guilds and city officials throughout the whole of this period. 20
By contrast, in England, one did not need even linguistic flu-
ency to collect and resell apparel, feeding stocks into national
and overseas markets.21
JEWISH PRESENCE IN THE LOWER CLOTHING TRADES
Well before the mid-eighteenth century, Jews transplanted to

England their many mercantile activities in the clothing trades,
whether supplying clothing for sea-going markets, dealing in
high quality garments, or acting as a salesman or pawnbroker
for once-worn wares. Examples of such enterprise can be spot-
ted in the insurance registers for the decades from the 1730s
to 1760s. Over that period an increasing number of Jewish
men insured the ingredients of their trade. John Franks, for
example, was listed as a slopseller and haberdasher based in
Horselydown Lane in Southwark. Franks paid a premium to
insure merchandise for £800 in 1743 and £2300 in 1745; he
may well have enlarged his business supplying slop clothes for
crews in the expanding fleets. Joseph Francia was one of his
contemporaries who defined his trade in slighdy different terms.
He was a Monmouth Street salesman whose stock was valued
at £1000 in 1742.22 By the 1760s the scattering of insured Jews
increased within the registers, indicating the higher number
of Jews in England remaining within these trades and the
willingness of insurance companies to sell them coverage in
spite of an officially stated reluctance recorded in company
minutes. 23 In 1762 and 1763, for example, ten more individuals
of this community paid premiums to the Sun Fire Company,
noting their various trades as salesmen, pawnbrokers and
slopsellers.24 The Jewish merchants identified earlier in the
century were quite distinctive in that they displayed far larger
businesses and much more valuable stock than was held by the
bulk of their co-religionists later in the century. In the latter
period, by contrast, more paid to protect stock valued at only
£100 or £200. Fortunately, buying insurance was becoming a
widely accepted practice even among modest traders and shop-
keepers, and these records furnish the means to assess various
features of this trade over time.
Twenty years of insurance register entries, from 1777 to 1796,

were assessed as part of a comprehensive study of the lower
clothing trades. This sample numbers approximately 2220 and
about 10 per cent of these entries were identified as Jewish.
The methodology employed to detect insured Jews relies on the
cataloguing of common names adapted to English by Jewish
immigrants. Determining ethnicity in this manner is subject
to some degree of error. Nevertheless, one can discern most
family names by employing the extensive antiquarian, genea-
logical and historical resources devoted to Anglo-Jewry. Local
and provincial studies confirm the identities of many other
Jewish families, many of which were also found in the insur-
ance registers. Within the whole sample there may well be
individuals who escaped notice and thus were not correcdy
classified. Overall, however, the Jewish sample of 219 entries is
strong enough and representative enough to offer significant
insights into the characteristics of this community of traders. 25
From the mid-eighteenth century onwards higher numbers
of Jews found their way to England and many entered the
clothing trades. 26 It is likely that those who worked as dealers
in used or cheap ready-made clothes did so during only a por-
tion of their lives; however, an indeterminate number per-
severed within these trades over a lifetime and sometimes
across several generations, with varying fortunes. Some fam-
ily names recur in the insurance registers over many years.
Three examples only were found in the same locations, with the
same general occupations, across a span of decades. Benjamin
Phillips, Lion Markes and Solomon Sarradine apparendy stuck
to their chosen occupations for decades and in all instances
they appeared to prosper. Benjamin Phillips appeared first,
in 1755, in a Royal Exchange Insurance Register, working
as a salesman with goods in trade valued at £200. Phillips
resurfaced again in 1780 in the Sun Fire records, at the same
address in Rosemary Lane with trade goods worth approxim-
ately £900. Lion Markes located his trade on Shoemaker's
Row, Duke's Place, in the heart of one of London's vibrant
teeming Jewish neighbourhoods. The designation of his trade
altered slighdy between 1762 and 1781; in the first instance he
described his occupation as that of clothes dealer with £300 of
stock. Twenty years later Markes called himself a dealer in old
clothes, noting £600 of merchandise. Solomon Sarradine was
the sole illustration of continuing long-term trade found in

the insurance records outside London. On both occasions his
address was listed in Portsmouth, although he seemed to have
worked his way to a better address in the later entry. In 1761,
Sarradine already insured goods to a higher value than the
previous two tradesmen, valuing his Warlington Street shop
and contents at £650. Over twenty years later Sarradine's High
Street shop and business assets were insured at £1700. A scat-
tering of other family names of both Jews and non-Jews persist
over one, two, three and even four decades, continuing at the
same address and with the same general occupations. Propor-
tionately, slighdy more Jews than nonjews can be tracked in
this manner. In all of these instances the given names varied
over time as new premiums were arranged. Perhaps family
members stepped into enterprises established by forebears,
fathers, uncles, aunts or cousins. One can only speculate as to
the connection between the first insured and those who fol-
low.27 The persistence of the family name at the same location
is suggestive of a distinctive commercial longevity.
Phillips, Markes and Sarradine were uncharacteristic in their
commercial continuity and in their affluence. The majority of
insured Jews did not display an equivalent measure of wealth,
but they did demonstrate other collective characteristics. Most
evident was a relative paucity of assets when compared to non-
Jews in the same occupations (see Table 3.1).28 For example,
no Jewish salesman, pawnbroker or slopseller insured property
worth over £3600. Jews in these trades were not devoid of
capital, as evinced by the thirty-eight entries with property rated
at over £900; however, they could not match the range of
assets found at the upper levels of the trade among those of
largely English ancestry. Three of the latter group insured
property worth over £10 000 and another twelve carried insur-
ance for from £4000 to £6400. The minimum property insured
was £100 and the concentration of insurance for Jews with
from £100 to £200 worth of property is noteworthy. Nearly 20
per cent more Jews were clustered at the bottom of the trade
than non-Jews. Only one other group displayed a similar meas-
ure of wealth in insured goods, with comparable patterns of
trade; these were women clothes dealers. In both cases nearly
60 per cent of the insured held goods valued at less than £400
(see Table 3.2). However, even among the sample of women
Table 3.1 Insured property of clothes dealers, 1777-96*
Jews % All others %
£100-200 87 39.7 403 20.2

£300-400 45 20.5 486 24.3
£500-600 38 17.4 353 17.65
£700-800 11 5 169 8.5
£900-1000 26 11.9 335 16.75
£2000-4900 12 5.5 212 10.6
£5000-12400 0 0 41 2
Totals 219 100 1999 100
* The clothing trades referred to here include second-hand dealers

and pawnbrokers, as well as slop dealers.
Table 3.2 Insured property of all women clothes dealers,

1777-96
Number
£100-200 89 32.8
£300-400 69 25.5
£500-600 55 20.3
£700-800 17 6.3
£900-1000 30 11.1
£2000-4900 8 2.9
£5000-12400 3 1.1
Totals 271 100
clothes dealers one finds very prosperous women, three of

whom held businesses valued at from £5000 to £10000. The
differences in the distribution of resources becomes even
sharper when one compares men only, Jews and non-Jews, as
illustrated in Table 3.3. There is an obvious preponderance
of policies for Jewish men at the lowest level of the business
pyramid; while the insurance for non-Jewish men shows that
the mass at the bottom end of the scale was equalled at the
high-to-middling level with policies ranging from £900 to £1000.
Other material elements differentiating Jews and non-Jews
Table 3.3 Comparative value of insured property of Jewish and

nonJewish men, 1777-96
Jews % Nonjews %
£100-200 85 40.7 331 19.1
£300-400 41 19.6 419 24.1
£500-600 36 17.2 298 17.2
£700-800 11 5.3 152 8.7
£900-1000 24 11.5 334 19.2
£2000-4900 12 5.7 195 11.2
£5000-12400 0 0 9 0.5
Totals 209 100 1738 100
were evident from the insurance records. Among the non-

Jewish insured in the lower clothing trades, there was a higher
percentage who owned buildings rented out to tenants. Nearly
15 per cent of the non-Jewish sample branched out into real
property, renting out houses, tenements and shops; while fewer
than 5 per cent of the Jewish sample followed this common
commercial pattern by the last quarter of the eighteenth cen-
tury. Without a full scale survey of property ownership it is
impossible to say whether or not this model holds true in this
period for all Jews and nonjews in the commercial world at
large. However, in this more limited context, what emerges is
a portrait of a minority group with fewer resources than their
competitors outside the Jewish community. At this time, Jews
in these trades were apparendy less able to diversify outside
their immediate business concerns. The relative scarcity of assets
was reflected as well in the occupational distribution of Jews
within the three clothing trades under study (see Table 3.4).
Proportionately, within the three lowly clothing trades, more
of the Jewish sample worked as salesmen and saleswomen than
did those outside the Jewish community. This occupation re-
quired the fewest resources from entrants. Pawnbroking, in
contrast, required a larger measure of capital. In this trade
perception and reality were apparendy at odds, if the configu-
rations emerging from the insurance records can be extended
Table 3.4 Comparative ethnic distribution among three clothing

trades, 1777-96
Jews % Nonjews %
Salesmen/women 164 74.9 1015 50.8

Slopsellers/makers 30 13.7 275 13.7
Pawnbrokers 25 11.4 709 35.5
Totals 219 100 1999 100
to the pawnbroking trade at large. Contrary to popular stereo-

types, at the street and neighbourhood levels in London and
the major ports, individuals seeking to pawn goods for small
sums, or buying garments not redeemed by the owner, would
be dealing overwhelmingly with nonjewish pawnbrokers. Regis-
ter entries for Jewish pawnbrokers comprised just over 3 per
cent of all pawnbrokers insured from 1777 to 1796. Given that
most Jews congregated in London, insured Jewish pawnbrokers
appear to be somewhat overrepresented by population, com-
pared to the non-Jews in London. Nevertheless, the ubiquitous
image of the Jewish pawnbroker in Gilray cartoons and other
caricatures was clearly overdrawn. Jewish pawnbrokers were
the first to be legally sanctioned in Britain during the early
Middle Ages.29 By the late eighteenth century, however, follow-
ing the ancient expulsion of Jews from England and the more
recent return, Jews could be found more prominendy working
as clothes dealers.
Several other patterns mirror what appear to be distinct
cultural practices within the Jewish community. For instance,
Jewish women held a very small fraction of Jewish policies
for the clothing trades. Policies held by non-Jewish women -
that is, women of largely English ancestry - comprised approx-
imately 12 per cent of all insurance held in these related
clothing trades. Policies held by Jewish women accounted for
less than 5 per cent of the policies within the lower clothing
trades in their community. Legal records confirm that Jewish
women were active as clothes dealers, running family shops
and carrying on day-to-day business. However, in almost all
instances they worked within family enterprises; apparendy
Jewish women were less likely than English women to insure
and manage shops independently in their own right.30 Many

issues are left unresolved. Were the insured Jewish women
widows or single women? The evidence on gender hints at dif-
ferent modes of participation for women within late eighteenth-
century Anglo-Jewry, with less independent economic activity
among the female portion of the population. At this stage
conclusive statements about women in this ethnic minority
are premature. It is worth recalling, however, that the women
of this community carried a double burden. They arrived in
greater numbers at a time when the costs of business were
rising and when women as a whole were less in evidence among
the higher echelons of this trade. (See Chapter 4 for a fuller
discussion of the patterns of female trade.) Moreover, house-
hold duties were their responsibility. Isolated by language and
constrained by family obligations, it is little wonder that Jewish
women figure in such a limited way among insured dealers.
The commercial patterns exhibited by Anglojewish women
were among a number of distinguished features of this com-
munity. Another of the intriguing aspects revealed in the
records was the significant level of mutual support dispensed
within Anglo-Jewry. Evidence of this behaviour is apparent
within the clothing trades; reflections of these allegiances
appear as a common notation in the insurance ledgers.31 Insur-
ance agents consistendy entered the location of insured busi-
nesses and whether the businesses, or their owners, sub-let
space. When the insured worked out of someone else's apart-
ment or shop this was recorded, as too was the separate loca-
tion of the insured's lodging, plus the name and occupation
of the individual in whose dwelling she resided. This type
of sub-tenancy was commonest in London, where rents were
high. In the whole sample 57 examples of such arrangements
appear, 55 in London, one in Kent and one in Lancashire.
Within the Jewish sample there was an exceptionally high
proportion of men, and one woman only, living in or work-
ing out of a tenement apartment or part of a shop owned or
rented outright by someone else. Over one-third of the 57 sub-
tenancies were arranged by Jewish traders; that is, approximately
10 per cent of the Jewish sample. Outside the Jewish commun-
ity, there was an almost equal number of men who required
sub-tenancy arrangements of this sort; however, this represented
just over 1 per cent of all non-Jewish men. English women, on
the other hand, displayed a much higher proportion of sub-

tenancy arrangements than did English men. Over 5 per cent
of women (exclusive of Jewish women) listed this type of
provision in the insurance entries. Clearly ethnicity was not
the sole determining factor in working from or living in some-
one else's shop, home or lodgings, as one can see in the case
of the women clothes dealers.32 Female-headed households
usually arose in regions where work for women was plenti-
ful; wage rates or income commonly compelled a pooling of
resources within such households. Necessity was a spur. But
for Jews there were also other critical factors such as the com-
mon religious, linguistic and national ancestry of many in this
constituency.
In a community characterized by these close ties, owners
of homes or shops assisted their co-religionists, even if the
business of the sub-tenant was incompatible with that of the
host. One of very few insured Jewish businesswomen, Hannah
Jacobs, was a dealer in clothes who traded out of the house of
a Mr Levi, a poulterer, in Duke's Place.33 Mr Joseph, an orange
merchant, gave room in his Duke's Place shop to Benjamin
Davis, a salesman.34 In addition, tenants occasionally stored
stock in the private homes or shops of other salesmen.35 Gener-
ally it was the owners of the smallest businesses who made this
sort of provision; no examples were found where the insured
possessed property valued at more than £400. And in two
cases only does it appear that Jewish clothes dealers situated
their businesses in the houses of non-Jews.36 The cohesion of
the Jewish community was a source of strength, but it also
made them more visible targets for their critics. Patrick
Colquhoun fulminated on the trickery of Jewish pedlars and
their propensity to deal in stolen goods, castigating Jews in all
retail trades as being '[e]ducated in idleness from their earli-
est infancy'.37 Colquhoun's allegations elicited a reply from a
Jewish writer who explained the difficult adjustments within
the community which yearly saw more and more new immig-
rants. Establishing a foothold in England was a difficult under-
taking and the resources of Jewish charities were stretched.
The trades commonly followed, 'such as dealing in old clothes,
etc., are daily becoming less productive', he explained. 'The
restraints and observances of the Jewish ritual are such an
insuperable difficulty in the initiation of the Jewish lad into
any craft or trade, as makes it almost impossible for him to be

bound to a master who is not of the same persuasion.' 38 With
economic and social pressures rising it is litde wonder that
Jews of whatever calling banded together with the aim of sus-
taining their trades, sharing premises as well as religious ritual.
The simple notations in the insurance volumes confirm the
estimation of early Anglo-Jewry as a community where help
was sought and help was provided from within.39
DISTRIBUTION AND TRADE: FROM MARGIN TO

MAINSTREAM
The ships which brought Jewish immigrants to the shores of

England marked the first stage in their gradual dispersal
through the nation's towns and cities. Of course, London was
the great magnet, with established religious and charitable
institutions, plus the most significant numbers of Jews with
whom to interact. Over 70 per cent of the Jewish insurance
entries come from London, north or south of the Thames. 40
At the same time, it is well known that Jewish pedlars and
merchants travelled to various parts of England throughout
the eighteenth century. The port cities of the southern coast
offered easy access to the Continent, plus opportunities to
prosper for the adventurous or ambitious. A greater ration of
these qualities was needed to survive in regions far from the
core Jewish population. Proximity to the Continent was one of
the great advantages of the southern locations, facilitating
European trade and family contacts. Moreover, for merchants
there was also the potential profit to be made supplying ships
and mariners, trading with overseas markets, or moving
commodities from ports through the hinterlands. A significant
portion of the insurance entries arise from the provinces, as
illustrated in Table 3.5. Obviously the collection of insurance
entries does not reflect the full measure of commercial activity
among Jewish traders. However, the profile does correspond
with the other documentary records illustrating the geographic
range and concentration of Jewish traders. Compared with the
distribution of non-Jews in the clothing trades, as seen in
Table 3.6, Jewish competitors follow their distinctive setdement
pattern; insured dealers are found in higher numbers in the
Table 3.5 Geographic distribution of insured Jews in the clothing

trades, 1777-96
Place Number %
Northwest: 3 1.4
Lancashire
Midlands: 7 3.2
Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire,
Oxfordshire, Warwickshire
West Country: 18 8.2
Dorset, Devon, Cornwall
South East: 34 15.5
Hampshire, Kent, Essex
London: 157 71.7
Middlesex, Surrey
Total 219
vicinity of London, the south-west and south-east ports. For

example, nearly 10 per cent of the Jewish sample are located
in Hampshire, in the ports of Portsmouth, Portsea or Gosport.
Moreover, many in this group focused on a distinctive com-
bination of trade goods with 9 of the 21 Hampshire entries
combining silversmithing with clothes dealing. The comple-
mentary elements of these goods are perhaps not immediately
apparent; however, the two retail components aimed to satisfy
demand for inexpensive attractive consumer wares among the
labouring population. To this end these two categories of
merchandise held a natural affinity. Moreover, cheap silver
buckles, rings and trinkets were common trade goods associ-
ated with Jewish pedlars. Levi Solomon was one of several who
combined slopselling with silversmithing. Solomon's shop in
Broad Street, Portsea, stocked with £500 of goods in 1793,
was perhaps the centre of a peddling trade far flung into the
provinces.41 This Hampshire group linked trades in clothing,
decorative metal wares, and groceries, in various combinations,
relying on the influx of sailors, the local workforce and circuits
through country towns for the sales which would sustain their
enterprises. 42
Devon's ports, although more distant from London, attracted
Jewish families by about 1740. These sites offered the potential
Table 3.6 Geographic distribution of insured nonjews in the

clothing trades, 1777-96
Place Number %
East: 50 2.5
Norfolk, Cambridgeshire,
Huntingdonshire, Hertfordshire,
Suffolk
North and North-West: 107 5.4
Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire,
Durham, Northumberland,
Midlands: 120 6.0
Berkshire, Buckinghamshire,
Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire,
Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire,
Warwickshire, Worcestershire,
Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire
West: 121 6.1
Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset,
Wiltshire, Gloucestershire
South-East: 279 13.9
Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Essex,
(including Isle of Wight)
London: 1320 66.1
Middlesex, Surrey
Total 1997*
* Two variables are missing.
for a profitable c o m m e r c e with E u r o p e , I r e l a n d a n d t h e

Americas. Plymouth was host to the largest n u m b e r of the
insured Jews in this western region, including the pawnbroker
a n d salesman Jack S h e r e n b e c k of Colmers Lane, w h o first
appears in the insurance registers in 1782. His predecessor,
J a c o b Sherenbeck, was n o t e d for acquiring land for a cem-
etery, in 1752, for t h e small Jewish community which h a d set-
tled in Plymouth t h e previous decade. 4 3 S h e r e n b e c k , w h o
abbreviated his n a m e to Sheren in the 1788 entry, described
himself as a p a w n b r o k e r a n d salesman. However, this designa-
tion does n o t fully encompass the b r e a d t h of his mercantile
interests. With t h e clothing trade as a foundation, S h e r e n b e c k
launched into a more diversified commerce, holding £150 of

plate and 'Plymouth timber' for sale, plus £2000 of pledged
goods.44 The provinces were probably more demanding than
the metropolis in many ways. The breadth of support that one
could rely on in London was simply not available in the smaller
provincial cities; the very poor and those without resources
would find charity less easy to obtain and trade more of a chal-
lenge. Perhaps it was a matter of necessity that those Jewish
tradesmen who founded provincial businesses required a high
level of resources to ensure a measure of security. Not surpris-
ingly then, the value of the insured property of provincially-
based Jews was usually substantial; most were comfortably placed
in the middle and upper end of insured businesses. On these
families rested the responsibility for sustaining their local com-
munity, employing the young or the poor, while adapting their
commerce to the winds of fortune.
During the first half of the eighteenth century, Jews moved
out of London and into the countryside along peddling routes,
some travelling to trade and others to setde. Outside Lon-
don and the ports and towns of the south and south-west, the
insurance registers offer evidence of a scattering of Jews along
national and regional thoroughfares, as well as a few in the ris-
ing centres of the north-west. There is no evidence of insured
Jews in the clothing trades in the eastern counties; only lim-
ited evidence survives of Jews in the Midlands and northern
England. Perusing records for market towns and provincial
hubs one finds intermittent references to the Jews drawn to
these locales in the hope of trade. Oxford is a case in point.
By the middle of the eighteenth century a few Jewish families
had set up residence in the university city, providing a base
for pedlars, relying mainly on the sale of used apparel. While
Oxford's growing Jewish community continued to depend on
the clothing trades, more affluent individuals diversified into
retailing sugar, chocolate and confectionery. The clothing
trades were a mainstay, but often just a transitional occu-
pation; as resources were accumulated tradesmen blended a
range of businesses to suit the needs of the community. 45 In
the 1790s, Solomon Isaac was setded not far from London,
in Eton, carrying on a trade as an orange merchant, oil mer-
chant and slopseller, with assets worth fÔO.46 Further north,
on a main provincial thoroughfare, the Bedfordshire village of
Biggleswade was the site of a modest second-hand clothes trade

in the 1770s run by one woman. Earlier that century, in 1748,
Jewish 'travellers' Abraham and Elizabeth Moses arrived in
Biggleswade. They were described in legal records as 'travel-
lers', suggesting that they were pedlars, possibly in used
clothes.47 Nearly forty years later, David Moses, a possible off-
spring, was living in Biggleswade, combining a business in
apparel with the sale of hardware and toys.48 Second-hand and
ready-made apparel were linked here, as in many other loca-
tions, with the sorts of inexpensive useful or necessary goods
that were becoming the mainstay of retailers large and small
across the country; trade in the new decencies and modest
luxuries offered wider merchandising opportunities for the
up-and-coming, more established Jewish dealers.
CONCLUSION
Respectable, prosperous, mainstream and main street status

eluded most of those involved in the lower clothing trades.
The majority of Jewish clothes dealers toiled on dock-sides, in
alley ways or on the less salubrious streets of English cities.
Moreover, the Jews who arrived in England from the late sev-
enteenth century were distinct in many respects from other
immigrant groups in England. Unlike the Huguenots, for
example, Jews could not claim the status of religious ally, worthy
martyrs, deserving of succour. Whatever tensions surrounded
the extensive immigration of Huguenots, they integrated quickly
and were acclaimed for contributing to England's economic
health.49 However much England's Jews enhanced the economy,
the public perception of this group was very different. First,
their dedication to a religious heritage won them few friends;
while for many first-generation migrants from Central and East-
ern Europe their language, dress and hirsute features labelled
them as alien. In addition, by the later eighteenth century Jews
in particular were linked to the second-hand trade at a time
when it was coming under increasing suspicion and dis-
dain, attacked as an agency of crime and a threat to honest
shopkeepers. In no category of petty dealing was it easier to
gain a foothold than the second-hand clothing trade, and this
was as true for Jews as it was for other groups. The insurance
registers hint at a disproportionate concentration of Jews

in these clothing trades, based on a total population. Further-
more, most of these Jewish dealers concentrated in London.
Thus, the poor Ashkenazi crying 'old clothes' through the
streets of London attracted attention, although neither he nor
his compatriots comprised anything even approaching a major-
ity of second-hand dealers.
Patterns of trade among Jews were not typical in all respects
for the trade as a whole. Many of the characteristics of Jews in
the lower clothing trades were unique; the relationship of Jews
to the clothing trades was also singular. The image of a Jew
made from clothing, in illustration 3.2, exemplifies the per-
ceived concurrence of old clothes dealers and Jews. Increas-
ingly, as part of a secularized anti-semitism, the lower clothing
trades were linked to all of Anglojewry, the taint of this trade
applying to the Jewish community as a whole. At the turn of
the century it was not in any way unusual for a lone Jew travel-
ling in a coach to be harangued as 'a bag of old clothes'. 50
Cited as among the principal conduits for stolen goods,51 Anglo-
Jewry as a whole suffered from the increasing official distaste
for the disorderly second-hand trade. By 1800, British popular
culture portrayed the lowly clothing trades as dominated by
Jewish traders, while Jewishness was depicted as largely indis-
tinguishable from the old clothes trade. In reality, over the
eighteenth century Jewish clothes dealers helped fill a niche
as a visible component, but an element only, of a dynamic
national and international network. Over generations of mig-
ration and setdement, Jews contributed to the vigour of the
clothing trades in England, but they in turn were marked by
their participation.
Illustration 3.2 The Old Clothesman

fohn fohnson Collection. Trades and Professions. 20.5. Bodelian Librar
Oxford
4 Disorderly Women and
the Consumer Market:
Women's Work and the
Second-Hand Clothing
Trade 1
Our knowledge of early modern economic activity in England
has been selectively filtered through a dense historic mesh of
economic agendas and theories laid down layer upon layer by
historians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 2 Many
of these historians were preoccupied with the transformations
and innovations displayed within major textile, metallur-
gical, mining, transportation, banking and distribution systems.
Records from these sectors are tantalizing in their promin-
ence and seductive in the apparent ease with which they
could be quantified and analysed to trace change over time.
Some elements in these sectors have also been described as
forming definably 'modern' components of economic develop-
ment. 3 However, as other historians have noted, these systems
did not constitute the whole of the economy. Maxine Berg
and Pat Hudson recendy reiterated this point, noting that:
'Large areas of economic activity have of course left no available
source of quantitative data at all.' 4 In spite of such caveats,
selected economic activities are still seized upon as defining
landmarks in the economic landscape, easily discernible from
our great distance. Such prominent features may obscure with
their wide shadows as much territory as they reveal. The low-
lying terrain of ubiquitous humdrum enterprises is too often
unnoticed, yet it constituted the bedrock upon which the visible
prominences rose. 5
The theoretical interpretation of England's economic trans-
formation had practical implications in the post-war world.
Development policies were linked to industries thought to be
the decisive nodes of economic change, or industrial 'take-off'.
95
However, the transformation of Third World nations into

regions of thriving capitalist economic enterprise, following
these development prescriptions, has not been wholly suc-
cessful over the past fifty years. One of the outcomes of failed
projects has been a re-evaluation, a reassessment of the role of
small-scale, peripheral and auxiliary economic activities. Once
seen as an unproductive sector destined to be eradicated with
full modernization, it is now recognized as the means of sus-
taining innumerable individuals and their families. During the
last twenty years economic theorists explored the role of sup-
posedly peripheral sectors in contemporary economies. Their
analyses are of some interest when viewing economic strategies
of centuries past. Economists sought to define the 'informal
economies' on the margins, describing them in part as ad hoc
conglomerations of household producers and street corner
sellers of goods acting, at times illegally, to serve sectors of a
population which could not afford or did not yet have access
to other alternatives.6 Dealers of this sort often trade unsanc-
tioned, breaching by-laws and offending established commer-
cial interests. Yet they extend more flexible credit and retail
selection, while sustaining the traders, offering a range of
goods to the poor that would otherwise not be within their
purview.7 The activities described are not just a recent phe-
nomenon of modern inner-cities or developing nations. There
were whole segments of traders in the early modern period
and later who fulfilled exacdy the same functions.8 Through-
out this era and beyond men and women in the lower social
ranks developed a vigorous informal trading system, which
intersected with formal commercial networks. Women, the poor
and immigrants devised strategies to survive; some recycled
and revamped, bought and resold volumes of clothing, spin-
ning webs of petty enterprise, linked to national systems of
trade. The nature of this trade earned it the appellation 'dis-
orderly'. Thus, the participants and their activities are defined
here, in the language of the day, as disorderly traders. The
particular focus is women's disorderly work which held some
uniquely gendered characteristics. Their ventures redefined
the functional concepts of housewifely competence and mar-
ketable skills, bridging the apparent division of home and mar-
ket. Their unending circuit of integrated activities, meshing
domestic and commercial tasks, were only counted as profit-
Disorderly Women and the Consumer Market 97
able when they matched the criteria of formal business norms,

following formal avenues of endeavour. Revamping once-worn
garments was one of the standard tasks of a thrifty housewife;
selling such wares, from a front room or on the street, chal-
lenged formal constructs of production and retailing. 9 Women
seemed to earn disproportionate disapproval for independent,
unsanctioned economic activities. Nonetheless, generations of
women exploited their limited opportunities, with significant
economic and social results. Without formal training, women's
homely practices assumed commercial value, intersecting with
the market needs of the community.
Insurance registers provide quantifiable data about some
practitioners in this field. The majority of those with insurance
were men. However, the women in these ledgers exemplify the
more prosperous of their sex and their rates of participation
over the century offer significant insights into the differential
opportunities for women and the changing nature of their
commerce within the formalized trade in old clothes. The
registers stand as peaks of measurable data, enabling a more
effective charting of a trade difficult to map with any exacti-
tude. Outside the ledgers of the insurance companies, there
were larger and more amorphous bodies of often unsanctioned
traders in used and recycled apparel where the majority were
probably women. Women clothes dealers were more plentiful
on the edges of the formal economy, linking households to
marketplace. This chapter considers, in sequence, the peculiar
structures of women's work in the lower end of the clothing
trade, the prevailing attitudes towards disorderly trade, the
qualities and characteristics of the women at the top who car-
ried insurance, and the niches filled by uninsured women
dealers in this disorderly occupation.
HOUSEWIFELY SKILLS AND DISORDER IN THE

MARKETPLACE
A needle and thread were the constant companion of the

working woman, used to mend things torn, to make things
whole, or to create from whole cloth. This housewifely skill
enabled generations of women to earn a living, acquire goods,
manage commodities and run small businesses. There is no
way of knowing how many women were 'brought up . . . to

work . . . with the Needle'. 10 Training in needlework of all sorts
was fundamental for girls and women, part of the basic school-
ing of poor girls, an education that might keep them off the
parish. At Coram's Foundling Hospital, for example, house-
wifery skills were taught to foundling girls from six years of
age and first on the list was 'Needle work'.11 The young Moll
Flanders hoped to support herself with such arts; Moll claimed
to be 'very nimble at my Work, . . . [I] had a good Hand with
my Needle.' 12 In common with generations of female chil-
dren, Defoe's heroine received domestic instruction that could
be translated into a paying occupation; although without a cosdy
apprenticeship with a mantua-maker or milliner or money to
establish a business, proficiency with a needle brought only
the most meagre returns.
Dexterity in recycling apparel was one of the natural pre-
serves of female ingenuity.13 Deftness at refashioning a gown,
waistcoat or set of cuffs was learned at a mother's knee. Moll
Flanders noted the ways the stockings, petticoats and gowns
given her by charitable ladies were altered at the urging of her
foster mother who 'oblig'd me to Mend them, and turn them
and twist them to the best Advantage for she was a rare House-
wife'.14 Such mending, twisting and turning was part of the art
of housewifery which acknowledged the value of materials.
Shifting activities of this sort from the hearth-side to the market-
place would not be a great step for many women. This sort of
enterprise blended readily with domestic responsibilities and
was one of many home-based enterprises. However, work of this
sort differed in significant ways from other cottage industries,
involving as it did no actual production, but rather the modi-
fication of a product and the marketing of these goods within a
community. 15 Women probably began to work as second-hand
clothes dealers from the time that such trades first assumed a
commercial form.16 But when women engaged in this enterprise
for profit they were often beset with difficulties. Women were
free to sew and to repair garments in the home, for the home,
as long as none of their products reached the market. The
marketplace, ideally, was reserved for sanctioned dealers. Pro-
duction was to be controlled and regulated, sales likewise.
When intrusion into the market became apparent, both town
guilds and city fathers batded against the infringement of their
privileges, exhibiting resistance to competitors even in the late

eighteenth century. Two elements, in particular, elicited their
condemnation: the commercial production or refurbishment
of goods by unregulated labour in households rather than
approved workshops; and the hawking of goods to consumers
by itinerants. In both cases, disorder and irregularity was the
point of contention. Some opposition arose from a desire to
guarantee business for formally apprenticed sons and male
colleagues, while restraining the numbers of women in trade. 17
Equally significant was a moral opposition to the wandering
petty trader whose stock of inessentials disturbed the orderly
patterns of trade.
Attitudes towards middlemen evolved over the late six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, as the benefits of trade which
went through many hands was acknowledged by a percept-
ive contingent of pamphleteers and legislators.18 During that
time, as Joyce Appleby has described, liberal theories of a more
open market gradually gained pre-eminence. 19 Pedlars and
petty chapmen were even licensed over this period. However,
acceptance and tolerance of small mobile traders was far from
unanimous. In 1681, the author of The Trade ofEngland Revived
concluded that the current distress faced by traditional mer-
cantile sectors arose 'not from the total defect or want of Trade,
but from the irregularity or disorder thereof, it being quite out
of the Channel in which it was wont formerly to run'. Chief
among the abuses he listed was the proliferation of retailers,
hawkers, and pedlars; for example, 'the Women in London, in
Exeter, and in Manchester, who do not only Profer Commodit-
ies at the Shops and Ware houses, but also at Inns to Countrey
Chapmen'. 20 His solution was the enforcement of ancient regu-
lation: 'Reviving Old; or Constituting New Lawes' to return
trade to its former more restricted pattern. 21
Disorders in the marketplace were anathema to regulators,
city governments and legislators. Only publicly sanctioned
manufacture and marketing were approved. Bonds of defer-
ence, as well as legal charters, were weighted on the side of the
agents permitted to buy and sell. Every effort was expended to
quash the regrator or the unauthorised seller of wares, particu-
larly those associated with women's household work.22 Indeed,
offences were deemed particularly abhorrent when associated
with women. Covert home-based production employing homely
skills affronted the social order, it was claimed. Indeed, disor-

der itself held a particular association with the female sex. The
nature of women was understood to be essentially unstable
and liable to outbreaks against the natural order unless care-
fully restrained. Legal status and societal ethos attempted to
limit women's options. Within trades, women were frequendy
depicted as less trustworthy than males and invariably more
susceptible to ethical transgressions that would hurt unsuspect-
ing customers. Popular ballads and poems of the early mod-
ern period ridiculed and excoriated petty tradeswomen, whose
gender disposed them, claimed the authors, to every excess
and evil.23 The theological and cultural attributes assigned to
women in Western Europe militated against tolerance or accept-
ance of their economic activities outside established structures
of production and distribution, and these attitudes were par-
ticularly evident in times of crisis. The independent woman in
the marketplace was, thus, an affront on many levels.24
A contest between women and city officials appears in the
late sixteenth-century records of the Borough of Leicester,
chronicling the irate response of city fathers to some enter-
prising women traders. Described harshly as 'evill persons',
these 'Brogers or pledge women' were engaged in 'the trade
of sellinge of apparell 8c howshold stuff . . . hawkinge abrode
from howse to howse'. Like the despised regrators of food
stuffs, who divided and resold smaller portions of food bought
at the market, these women interfered with the ideal conven-
tions of the marketplace. They sold old garments, offered credit
for some pieces of clothing and accepted goods in pawn as
well. These 'pledge women' were at odds with formal com-
mercial proprieties: they were not freemen of the city and
wandered unlicensed, selling goods that were neither uniform
nor subject to inspection. Moreover, their commercial zeal
threatened to displace the men now appointed by the City
fathers. The Leicester council was determined that henceforth
this trade should be conducted by its new male appointees,
Richard Raynsford and William Shippon, 'and non other'. 25
The trade developed by these townswomen was formally reas-
signed.26 (Illustration 4.1 offers a late seventeenth-century image
of a dealer in old clothes and textiles.)
Jean Quataert contends that the official distaste for certain
trades in Central Europe, categorized as 'dishonourable', arose
Ola'Satten OldT&jfrtu or 'tth-ct

J2i« a dcs >r itiuv i 'affctas a rend re >
M Ljiir.-a ftm («(.;<) f^.'*/.'. WV)ft'tt> Ut It 'tWtrd i >../ff..
Illustration 4.1 'Old Satten Old Taffety or Velvet'

precisely because of their association with the female house-

hold economy. Guildsmen could and did engage in equivalent
activities. Making and repairing clothes and selling old clothes,
for example, were staples of the tailoring trade with no stigma
attached to the 'honourable' labour of those who had passed
through apprenticeships, obtained guild membership and were
paid for their work according to guild rates. 'Bunglers' and
'disturbers' were persons, like the Leicester 'pledge women',
who employed homely talents for commercial ends, challen-
ging the hegemony of traditional producers and retailers.27 In
England, the term 'dishonourable', as applied to the house-
hold clothing trade, appears in a more ambiguous form in the
nineteenth century. It is unclear from the context whether the
trade is dishonourable because of the low rate of pay given to
women, or whether the work performed by women is dishon-
ourable. Using figures for 1821, Mayhew differentiated between
the honourable tailoring trade, which consisted of journey-
men 'in "Union"' and 'the cheap, slop or dishonourable trade'
associated with women's sweated work.28 The ambiguities inher-
ent in the term 'dishonourable' are suggestive, particularly when
directed towards a female working population in need of work
and indispensable in the expansion of the clothing industry.
Needlework for women was apparendy imbued with the indel-
ible cultural taint of housework, distinguishing it from the
skilled labours of tailors. In England, trades might not be
categorized as honourable or dishonourable in as formalized
a manner as in the German states; however, abhorrence of
certain activities by women in the market undoubtedly had
the same conceptual origins.
Local authorities could and did continue to struggle against
the peripatetic petty dealers in apparel, local botchers and bun-
glers, peddling their goods to local buyers.29 Efforts to define
appropriate behaviour in the marketplace persisted through
the eighteenth century.30 Recall the 1702 campaign by provin-
cial tailors' guilds to legislate against women in the clothing
trades. In spite of the defeat of that initiative, antagonistic
attitudes remained. For example, from the opening of the
eighteenth century to the close, London authorities worked to
eradicate unlicensed itinerant dealers in old clothes. In 1701,
the High Constable noted that 'unlawfull & Riotous' assem-
blies were being held daily 'in the public highway & streetes
in about . . . called Rosemary Lane . . . for buying & Selling

old Goods Wearing Apparrell & other things'. Constables
were empowered to surprise 'such meetings 8c Assemblyes . . .
[and] to take & Apprehend all such [Persons]' and bring the
transgressors before a Justice of the Peace. Controlling the
movement of goods in London's second-hand market pre-
occupied local and national legislators. A mid-century par-
liamentary committee which deliberated on regulations for
pawnbrokers proposed new guidelines for second-hand dealers
as well. Although these recommendations were never imple-
mented, the structure of the prescribed trade illustrates the
thinking among parliamentarians. In the first instance they
wanted 'every Person, who shall . . . exercise the Trade of a
Pawnbroker, or Broker, dealing in Second Hand Goods . . .
[to] take out a Licence for the Purpose'. Licence fees of 405.
a year for pawnbrokers and 10$. for used clothes dealers were
suggested, with the aim of excluding the marginal and the
disreputable. In addition, they proposed that the trades be
restricted solely to 'Housekeepers' and rate payers, to Main
Street tradesmen and shopkeepers. A series of fines was sug-
gested to drive out the mass of petty dealers, those working
from cellars and doorways.31
Late in the eighteenth century, freemen of one London
district were still trying to quash the mass of independent,
unlicensed dealers to the benefit of the shopkeeping fratern-
ity. For over a decade, and probably longer, Minute Books
from the City of London wards recount attempts to repress the
peripatetic dealers in second-hand clothes, many of whom, it
was declared, exhibited all the most reprehensible features of
informal commerce. Street sellers were comprised in the main
of the humblest in the trade. Poor women, Jews and other
street hagglers attracted censure founded on fears of their
criminality and on their undesirable competition. 32 In 1790,
nearly ten years after the first mention of this problem, a pre-
sentment complains of the:
encreasing Nuisance occasioned by vast numbers of unli-

censed Hawkers and Dealers in old Cloaths assembling every
Afternoon (Sundays excepted) on the common Footways and
Paths in Houndsditch the Minories and Sparrow Corner . . .
and there exposing to Sale their Goods and Wares to the
great Obstruction and Annoyance of the Publick in general

and also to the very great Injury of the honest and indus-
trious Tradesmen . . . in those parts[,] to many of whose
Shops there is scarce any possible Access for several Hours
every Afternoon on Account there of.33
Three years later Ann Flynn is cited as another 'Cloths Sales-
woman' carrying on her trade without being a citizen of the
City.34 The patterns described here replicate most features of
the modern informal economies. These final protests took place
at a time when the requirement of consumers and alterations
within national and local markets eroded any real capacity to
constrain trade. Women traders were frequendy among the
unhallowed practitioners, conducting their businesses without
blessings or favours. This largely invisible enterprise of women,
and other marginal traders, is an important and undervalued
facet of national economic activity; it explains in part the vital-
ity and expansion of consumer trades like clothing and the
capacity of families in periods of economic strain to sustain
themselves through these agencies.35 But while the disorderly
informal traders persisted, fewer women developed beyond
the terrain of marginal commerce and fewer still left records
of their endeavours, except in the protests of their opponents.
PAWNBROKERS AND SALESWOMEN: THE PLACE OF

THE INSURED
Two of the most prominent sectors of the second-hand trade

examined were pawnbrokers (whose principal pledge item was
clothing) and salesmen/women (a standard term used to
designate the retailer in clothing, usually both new and cast-
off apparel) .36 Women took clothes in pawn, bought clothing
outright and prepared apparel for the market; men, however,
appear most frequendy in directories and business records.
However, from the opening years of the Sun Fire company,
in 1710, insured women were represented in these trades.
Two short five-year runs of register entries were examined for
comparative purposes, the first from 1741 to 1745 and the sec-
ond from 1759 to 1763 (see Table 4.1).37 A twenty-year series
of register entries was explored in greater detail for the
Table 4.1 Insured women and men in the lower clothing trades
Year Women Women % Men Men % Total
1741-45 32 21.1 120 78.9 152

1759-63 34 12.8 231 87.2 265
Source: Ms. 11936 Sun Fire Insurance Registers, Guildhall Library,

London.
years 1777 to 1796 and for each period women were found
affluent enough to purchase insurance from the Sun Fire and
Royal Exchange insurance companies. Fire insurance was pur-
chased for stock, personal effects, goods held in trust or in
pawn, shops, houses or buildings owned, as well as precious
metals and jewellery. For the purposes of this assessment each
register entry was considered as a distinct entity, whether or
not it was a renewal or additional insurance acquired by the
insurer. The minimum value of goods insured was £100. Not
only do the insurance registers list specific values in each cat-
egory, they also give the name, sex, address, partnerships, and
exact occupations of the insured, whether it be singular or a
combination of six or seven trades. With all the imperfections
of this source, the registers offer the opportunity to gauge the
relative strength of a trade, the wealth of the practitioners and
the comparative wealth of those in business. With this informa-
tion it may now be possible to trace some features on an eco-
nomic landscape hitherto seen only dimly.
It is worth considering from the outset how frequently
women sought insurance over the century. In a broad study
of policy holders P.G.M. Dickson found that women held 7
per cent of the Sun Fire policies in 1716 as well as in 1790,
although Dickson notes that by the later date the relative
value of women's insured property dropped from 7 to 2 per
cent of total value of insured property.38 At every period studied
over the eighteenth century, insured female tradeswomen
were much more prevalent within the clothing trades than
among the general mass of female insured. Women were chan-
nelled into the needle trades, so this result is not surprising.39
Nonetheless, the relative presence of insured tradeswomen did
Table 4.2 Insured women and men in the clothing trades,

1777-96
Women Women % Men Men % Total
Salesmen/women 141 11.9 1039 88.1 1180

Pawnbrokers 79 10.8 655 89.2 734
Total trades 220 11.5 1694 88.5 1914
change, and change markedly, over the century. Table 4.1 ex-
amines the earliest data, tracking the proportion of men and
women in the lower clothing trades for two five-year periods. 40
In the 1740s, over 21 per cent of the total sample were trades-
women working either singly or in partnership. A higher pro-
portion of insurance was bought by women in the first half
of the century than in the other sample periods after 1750. A
trade-specific comparison of men to women is one of the
most intriguing aspects of the quantitative data and among the
insured in these trades the variability of women's participation
over the course of the century is suggestive. From a high of 21
per cent in the 1740s, the entries of insured women clothes
dealers declined to nearly 13 per cent for the period 1759-63.
For the twenty years from 1777 to 1796, women's entries ac-
counted for 11.5 per cent of the total, a 10 per cent drop from
the first half of the century (see Table 4.2). These results suggest
an important fluctuation in women's standing within the for-
mal structures of the clothing trades, particularly when one
recalls that more women in the lower clothing trade bought
insurance than did women in general. The marked decline of
these tradeswomen in the insurance registers may denote long
term alterations in the nature of their commercial participa-
tion, even in these rather female friendly occupations. In the
last third of the century greater numbers of women may well
have operated small scale enterprises without the protec-
tion of insurance, reflecting the shift of an expanding popu-
lation of women to ever more petty enterprises. Eric Richards
contends that this model of diminishing formal economic par-
ticipation is characteristic for women as a whole from 1700
Table 4.3 Insurance entries of female and male pawnbrokers,

1777-96
Women Women % Men Men % Total Total %

£100-200 9 11.4 65 9.9 74 10.1
£300-400 16 20.2 127 19.4 143 19.5
£500-600 19 24.1 108 16.5 127 17.3
£700-800 8 10.1 66 10.1 74 10
£900-1000 15 19 139 21.2 154 21
£2000-10000 12 15.2 150 22.9 162 22.1
Totals 79 100 655 100 734 100
onwards. 41 The patterns uncovered in the insurance data

appear to concur.
One factor does remain constant within these data. Collect-
ively, the value of women's insured property was consistendy
worth less than the holdings of men, as shown already in the
insurance data of slopsellers above. Table 4.3 lists the com-
parative value of goods insured by male and female pawn-
brokers. Intriguing differences in the resources of male and
female practitioners appear in the aggregate data. At the top
end, for example, male pawnbrokers with insured goods total-
ling from £2000 to £10000 comprised 23 per cent of insured
males; female pawnbrokers in this category made up only 15
per cent. Nearly 60 per cent of women pawnbrokers held less
than £600 in insured goods; 10 per cent fewer men were in
this position. Nevertheless, women who insured their pawn-
broking businesses possessed capital far in excess of the informal
brokers and far beyond the modest majority who dealt exclus-
ively in the sale of used and new apparel.
Insured women pawnbrokers were by far the most affluent
and the least typical of tradeswomen at these trades. In most
instances it is impossible to determine the marital status of
insured women or to make any systematic correlation with the
holdings they insured. Indeed, one cannot assume from the
designation 'widow' either that the bereavement was of recent
vintage or that the resources the widow controlled were of her
creation. In 1734, records reveal the widow Elizabeth Waltears,

a pawnbroker, managed a London business valued at £1000.42
Ann Tosler's business, on Rotherhithe Wall, was ideally situ-
ated for trade from seafarers. She was another widow oper-
ating as a pawnbroker in 1740, with goods in pledge, stock in
trade and household wares in her timber house valued at £200.43
Francis Saunders described her occupation as pawnbroker in
1755 and took out insurance with the Royal Exchange Insur-
ance Company. However, Saunders had moved beyond pawn-
ing and required insurance for seventeen properties of various
sizes in and around London with a total value of £1590.44 In
these cases, as with most others, the source of women's assets
are unknown. Whether they developed businesses personally,
with family assistance or inherited wealth, the crucial factor is
that their names appear as holders of insurance. In that capa-
city they were acknowledged as property-holding women, how-
ever their resources were attained.
Pawnbrokers routinely accepted clothes in pawn, singly or
in bulk.45 A description in 1760 of the late Mrs Sarah Nowler's
merchandise illustrates the point. 'All the genuine Stock in
Trade of the late Mrs Sarah Nowler, Pawnbroker deceased,
in King Street . . . Rotherhith; Consisting of a large Parcel of
very good Men and Women's Wearing Apparel of all Sorts'.46
Many women emphasized their specialization in apparel by
describing themselves as pawnbrokers and saleswomen. But
whether or not it was so stated this combination of trades rep-
resented different facets of one function, which shifted quan-
tities of garments of every quality through English society. Jane
Jayes' name appeared on three occasions in Royal Exchange
ledgers from 1780 to 1784, apparently insuring new com-
modities on each occasion. Jayes specifically noted her occu-
pation as pawnbroker and saleswoman and in each entry
indicated that her stock of garments was valued at nearly £400.
The value of pledged goods fluctuated around £5000 and in
the later years she listed plate and watches in stock.47 For Jane
Jayes, and for the other less affluent, clothing constituted their
staple commodity. Of the sixty-four women pawnbrokers, thirty-
eight listed single occupations and fourteen others linked
pawnbroking with the used clothes trade. Competition in the
metropolis or the opportunity to diversify pressed retailers
of both sexes to blend a number of occupations to suit local
conditions. 48 Tailoring and slopselling were also combined with

pawnbroking; while assorted businesses such as baker, chand-
ler and innkeeper, shopkeeping, watchmaking and silversmith-
ing were claimed by other women pawnbrokers. In fact, more
women would thrive pawning and selling clothes than would
be found linking pawnbroking with watchmaking or metal work,
crafts less easily accessible for women.49
The patterns of trade differed in some distinctive ways when
one looks at those insured as salesmen/women and clothes
dealers. Among the insured salesmen and saleswomen, nearly
12 per cent were female, a fractionally higher participation
rate than among pawnbroking, where just over 10 per cent
were women. The insured saleswomen were undoubtedly at
the pinnacle of their trade, yet none matched the wealth of the
women pawnbrokers and many more were very small traders
indeed. For example, a dozen female pawnbrokers insured
property worth from £2000 to £10000; no saleswoman could
boast more than £1000 of insured holdings. Similarly, the dis-
parities of wealth were much more apparent among the sales-
men and saleswomen. Looking at the upper end of this trade,
seventy entries from salesmen listed goods valued at from £2000
to £5000; not one entry from a saleswoman reached this level
in the twenty years at the end of the century. Certainly one
finds a high proportion of men in the bottom of the cloth-
ing trade; however, structural differences in women's position
are distinctive. Significandy more insured women were to be
found at the lowest levels of the trade when compared to male
insured; nearly 19 per cent more saleswomen were insured for
£400 or less than were salesmen in this category. Not only were
there consistently fewer women insured, but women insured
formed a distinct concentration densely clustered at the bottom
end of insured businesses. This variation in insured assets held
true in the 1740s and in the last quarter of the eighteenth
century. The data for the latter period is presented in Table
4.4. No saleswomen attained the commercial heights of their
male counterparts. The Bristol street scene in illustration 4.2
of a clothes dealer's shop may well reflect the best circum-
stances to which most women in this trade could aspire. The
simple trade in cast-offs was more within the grasp of an enter-
prising housewife or modest tradeswoman, particularly when
age made fine needlework a less eligible option. 50 Accordingly,
Table 4.4 Insurance entries of saleswomen and salesmen,

1777-96
Women Women % Men Men % Totals %

£100-200 63 45 297 28.6 360 30.5
£300-400 38 27 258 24.8 296 25.1
£500-600 23 16 186 18 209 17.7
£700-800 8 6 79 7.6 87 7.4
£900-1000 9 6 149 14.3 158 13.4
£2000-10000 - - 70 6.7 70 5.9
Totals 141 100 1039 100 1180 100
in the late eighteenth century, one finds that women were

more numerous as clothes dealers although poorer overall
than those who worked as pawnbrokers. And London is the
venue where most insured saleswomen were located. There
the opportunities of population, market and supplies of clothes,
plus the active agency of the insurance industry, left the clear-
est oudine of commercial configurations within this field.
As in the case of the pawnbrokers, saleswomen frequendy
built their businesses around a combination of activities, wher-
ever opportunity or a restricted market might warrant such a
strategy. The single trade in cast-off and cheap new apparel,
known by several names, predominated in the insurance vol-
umes. However, a significant portion of the insured combined
clothes dealing with a plethora of other retail and craft trades.
These small multifarious hawkers, pedlars and shopkeepers
were crucial agents in the expansion of retail trade. Thus
Rebecca Adams, in Blandford, Dorset, and Grace Styles, of
London's Carnaby Market, combined their business in used
clothing with work as cornchandlers. 51 Hannah Jones, of
Wantage, Berkshire, blended grocery selling and clothes deal-
ing, offering her customers assorted commodities; while Mary
Williams of Wallingford in Berkshire worked simply as a sales-
woman, providing stocks of apparel valued at £330 to shoppers
in her neighbourhood. 52 In 1779, Isabella Lawrence could boast
£250 of stock, plus personal apparel valued at £50, in her brick
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Illustration 4.2 'The Pithay' (c.1820) - H. O'Neill
City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery
and plaster house in High Street, St Giles, London, one of the
metropolitan hubs of cheap retail trade. This busding, narrow
street linked the ends of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford
Street through Broad St Giles to High Holborn. A public thor-
ough fare encompassed by the alleys and rookeries of Drury
Lane and St Giles, it was frequented by honest artisans, ser-

vants, clerks and coachmen looking for bargains, as well as men-
dacious professional and amateur thieves. Lawrence diversified
her business, offering options to her customers with seemingly
disparate merchandise such as used clothing, haberdashery
and hardware. 53 Lawrence probably accepted used attire as
credit towards new items: a flexible strategy that has been
employed by pedlars and small shopkeepers and undervalued
as a mechanism to increase trade and extend markets. Barter
enabled poorer customers to buy new haberdashery, hosiery
or hardware, as they wished, without cash. At the same time,
the shopkeeper was assured of a profit in the resale of used
goods as part of network of retailers in recycled wares. Straight-
forward purchase and sale of second-hand clothing would also
guarantee that Lawrence's shop was stocked with articles both
cheap, useful and moderately stylish. Demand generated within
the labouring and lower middling ranks was nurtured through
these adaptations of ancient barter techniques. Such dealers
made necessary accommodations aimed at sustaining mod-
est businesses, a common feature of commercial life at this
period. 54
HOME, STREET AND NEIGHBOURHOOD: DISORDERLY

WOMEN TRADERS
Outside the insurance registers a too frequent official silence

on the legitimate occupations of women shrouds their eco-
nomic initiatives. It is unlikely that there will ever be a compre-
hensive depiction of women in all trades; nor will it be possible
to trace the numbers involved with any exactitude. Neverthe-
less, recent research and some surviving records illuminate the
generations of single, married and widowed women engaged
in what Olwen Hufton described as 'the economy of expedi-
ents', 55 pulling together the threads of opportunity. The small
and diminishing proportion of women purchasing insurance
suggests that fewer women than men accumulated goods to the
basic amount of £100 and could afford the cost of insurance.
Moreover, the numbers of insured women in these clothing
trades declined over the century. However, it is most probably
that many more worked uninsured or at a much lower level of
trade. A profile of these women, gleaned from the insurance

sources, cannot indicate the place of the uninsured, or the
unlicensed, who trawled busy city streets and county fairs in
search of trade. The type of 'evill persons' who illicitly sold
clothes, took pledges and lent money in late sixteenth century
Leicester persisted in the intervening years in market towns
and cities across Britain. Legal records reveal fleeting glimpses
of women such as Dorothy Hoskyns of Ludlow, charged, in
1711, with 'opening [a] shop not being qualified';56 and in
London female pawnbrokers, like one in 1680 'Tryed for
receiving stoln Goods'; or Mary Wilson, who announced T
keep a broker's shop and buy all sorts of household goods'
when she too was charged with receiving stolen goods early in
1744.57 Women on the commercial margins were often ready
and willing to deal in stolen goods, their only questions being
the cost and quantity of goods available. As receivers and
recyclers they knew what was in demand, what housewives
needed and what they would pay. These dealers were keen to
acquire products where they could and how they could, goods
within their realm of expertise, secured through their circle of
acquaintances. These dealers did not enquire too closely how
the goods had been acquired by the vendor, asking only that
they be supplied with the articles in demand. 58 Not all petty
tradeswomen would have been so morally flexible; however,
necessity, opportunity and proximity to goods affected their
attitude towards goods; the nature of the trade was conducive
to the distribution of stolen goods.
Legal records indicate, as well, the honest tradeswoman,
working within the law. Catherine Rogers, a labourer's wife
living in Deptford, is another of the unofficial female pawn-
brokers whose trade might have remained invisible were it not
for a court case in which she was a witness. Her occupational
status survives in the records of a magistrate's examination.
In 1756, she recounted the arrival of a woman at her house
with a gown, asking for a loan of three shillings on a gown
that would be redeemed the next day. At noon the following
day, before the gown was reclaimed, a pawnbroker's servant
came to Catherine's house enquiring about a printed cotton
gown stolen from her master's shop the previous day. Catherine
Rogers was demonstrably a pawnbroker and clothes dealer;
both the original customer and the official pawnbroker who
had been robbed recognized her status within the trading

community. To the court, however, she was recorded simply as
'Catherine Rogers wife of David Rogers of the parish of St
Nicholas, Deptford, in the County of Kent, Labourer'. 59
Survival for these tradeswomen frequendy depended on a
judicious cobbling together of opportunities, taking advantage
of the commercial niches in the urban landscape. Throughout
the early modern period women embarked on temporary, full-
time or part-time businesses as necessity demanded or oppor-
tunity afforded, blending this work with the requirements of
home and family. Enterprising women bought, repaired and
resold garments and are chronicled doing so, functioning at
the lowest commercial level, channelling small bundles of
garments into the stock of larger distributors. For example,
Margaret Scott bought goods on the London streets in 1687,
which she then resold to a bigger sales shop.60 Names of women
like Scott and Rogers appear fleetingly and then disappear,
building up a fragmentary profile of the collective initiative of
thousands of women, who responded to the stimulus of oppor-
tunity and need. Mary Matthews spoke for many women when
she described her reason for being out on the London streets
one autumn morning in 1732: T and Margaret Creed were a
going to Rag-Fair, for you must know we buy and sell Things,
and go Partners together.' 61 Only a few, like Hannah Tatum,
left evidence of the sophisticated system of barter and cash
sales which involved exchanging old clothing for new earthen-
ware. Her tradecard, dated around 1740, announced that she
'also buys and sells (for ready Money) all Sorts of old Cloaths;
and changes all Sorts of fine China for left-off Cloaths', con-
cluding that, 'Country Chaps [chapmen] may be furnished
with Cloaths at reasonable Rates.'62
Repairing and recycling clothing was a versatile occupa-
tion that could be revived as needed over a lifetime. Elizabeth
Ranwell combined small scale work as an old clothes dealer
with household responsibilities. In 1769, she supplemented
her husband's wages and was identified as a married woman
'who deals in old Cloaths for Sale', keeping a shop in Woolwich,
while her husband worked locally as a shipwright.63 Port com-
munities were quite literally built through systems of barter,
exchange and perquisites. In neighbourhoods where dockyard
workers' wages could be years in arrears, alternative sources
of currency were invaluable. For the dock workers, as Peter

Linebaugh has shown, wooden chips were staple perquisites
which held workers' cottages together, or served as a medium
of exchange. Inside the dockyard and out, perquisites and pil-
fering fed the commercial fires of the local economy, even as
it drained the resources of government. The wives permit-
ted on Wednesdays and Saturdays to 'take from thence the
small Chips and Gleanings of the Yard' were ideally placed to
build a broader trade once outside the gates of the dockyard.64
Sailmakers like Ann Wilson, who made up 4000 yards of can-
vas into sails in 1706, might have augmented her income by
making slops from any extra canvas while she awaited payment
for her formal labours. Such actions were commonplace. 65
Clothing from sailors, canvas from stores, chips from the yard
came into the market in trickles and streams, and much of it
fell first into the hands of local women dealers, the first stage
in the market course. John Mitchell laboured as a carpenter
in the London dockyards and according to his testimony, 'my
wife deals in these things [clothing] to help maintain my fam-
ily', hanging garments outside the front door to advertise her
wares.66 In November 1798, Mitchell, his unnamed wife and
children were sitting down at dinner when a man knocked at
the door with a shirt and pantaloons to sell, illegally acquired
from a ship moored on the Thames. Business took precedence
over food and Mrs Mitchell got up to examine the clothing
offered by a sailor wanting 'a litde money to have a spree with
his shipmates'. Mrs Mitchell gave three shillings for garments
later valued at ten. 67 Working out of their homes, women exer-
cised needle and business skills, adding to the sum of their
family's income in a model of economic initiative which has
gone largely unnoticed in subsequent calculations of England's
commercial vigour.68
Up and down the streets of towns and villages and through-
out England's labouring districts were shops, stalls and front
rooms, where women with scant capital bargained and sold
clothing and all manner of household wares.69 There were
striking variations in the scope of trade, from those who man-
aged barely to eke out enough to survive, to those with the
modest comfort of a shop in which to work. Those with actual
shops were more formally established than women like Mrs
Mitchell, who worked out of a store in her front room. Francis
Cornwall was one such with a site in Earl Street described by

a neighbour as 'an old Iron shop', yet Cornwall was quite
prepared to purchase the sheets, bolster, waistcoat, aprons and
gown offered her. 70 Hannah Pead acknowledged the breadth
and flexibility of the business she carried on in the Whitechapel
Road, stating, T keep a sale-shop, and sell almost every thing,
but particularly women's wearing apparel and hosiery.' Pead's
was one of thousands of petty enterprises in the metropolis,
businesses of extraordinary commercial diversity and flex-
ibility.71 Elizabeth Latham provides a vivid depiction of a modest
mother and daughter venture of intermediate status. Her pre-
mises were not quite the standard of a shop and might well
typify those chastised by shopkeepers for cluttering up the
streets.
I live in South-street, St George's Hanover-square; it is a stall

I keep; I dwell in it; I sleep there; it is only one floor; there
is a bed in it; it is all the dwelling-place I have; and whilst I
went out, which is at eleven at night, to Oxford-market, the
window was o p e n e d ; . . . I returned about twelve, and missed
fourteen pair of stockings and one odd; they belonged to
different people; I had them to mend; it was Mr Frost's stall;
he let it to my mother; she was ill at the time . . . in St
George's hospital; she is in the same business with me. 72
Latham and her mother mended stocking and sold their offer-
ings to the public. The stall gave them a place to work and
store their goods, putting them a step above the peripatetic
street trader. In London and the great ports, competition for
employment and the high costs of necessities compelled many
women to turn to this commonest of trades. Without a partner
to spell them or a shop as a hub, most second-hand clothes
women had to patrol their territory, calling their trade, hag-
gling over goods, offering their wares for sale to passers-by, the
very epitome of disorderly traders. 73
The second-hand clothing trade spanned the nation. In the
last quarter of the eighteenth century, fourteen of the insured
saleswomen were located outside London in counties at every
compass point. Insured women pawnbrokers appeared in the
provinces at approximately twice the rate of saleswomen, pawn-
brokers like Ann Barnes of Stratford near the turnpike in Essex
with £500 in pledged goods, Mary Whitehead of Halifax with

£550 in pledges in 1791 and Mary Robber of Vicarage Street
in Yeovil, Somerset with £200 of pledged items.74 In general
petty clothes dealers in county towns and villages left litde
trace of their existence. However, the probate inventory of
Susannah Sommers of Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, provides tes-
timony of a provincial clothes dealer situated on one of the
thoroughfare roads that criss-crossed England. 75 Susannah
Sommers's name was not entered in any county directory, yet
she left what appears to be a healthy collection of merchan-
dise at the time of her death, in 1770. Local tradesmen, one
a tailor and staymaker, appraised her remaining possessions
with a keen eye to the value of the remaining merchandise.
Over £17 in cash was in the house, in addition to household
effects and stock which included:
One Scarlet Sattin Petticoat, Three old other Petticoats, One

Lawn flowered apron, Four coarse white aprons . . . Five
Shifts and four pair of sleeves . . . Six Gauze wired Caps and
Hood . . . Nine Womens Bonnetts, Six Childrens Do., Three
Old Black Hats and Chip'd Hat, One Boys Sattin Cap . . .
Four pair of old stays, Three pair of Childrens Red Morocco
leather pumps and one Black . . . Three old fans, One pair
of Stays Covered with Green . . . One old Black Sattin cloak
. . . Two childrens short black silk cloaks . . . One yellow
womans quilted Petticoat, Three childrens Old Petticoats
. . . One Crimson Stuff Gown and one Blue . . . One Scarlet
quilted petticoat. . . One printed Linnen Gown, One sprig'd
Do., One Old printed Cotton Do. . . . Two Old Linnen Bed
Gowns . . . Four chip'd Hatts covered with Sattin three with
black 8c one with white.76
These items hint at the wares that sustained village trade; some
garments cheap and utilitarian, once worn and almost worn
out, other ready-made articles endowed with a modicum of
fashion. Sommers's name adds to the list of women around
the country whose clothes shops found their way into local
county directories.77 However, her omission from the local cata-
logue of retailers also speaks to the unnamed and unnum-
bered women whose enterprises were never recognized beyond
the communities they served.
CONCLUSION
As in other sorts of paid employment, women's working lives

selling cheap ready-made and second-hand clothes were not
well documented. Many of the talents women employed - as
food dealers, seamstresses, laundresses and wet-nurses - to
secure a livelihood were domestic in origin and, as such, were
outside the experience of most male observers. Moreover, they
subverted household skills into money-earning public instru-
ments and as such challenged established concepts of training
and employment. Edward Higgs notes that in the construc-
tion of nineteenth-century censuses some sorts of female occu-
pations and certain aspects of economic participation were
ignored by male census takers either as work or as contributing
to the household economy. 78 Women's work history has fre-
quently been overshadowed and its characteristics obscured,
particularly when skills defined as domestic (and therefore not
of the economy) were applied in ways divergent from the stand-
ard male paradigms of employment. Women found work where
they could, flourishing in ad hoc business as these were dis-
covered. The second-hand clothes trade did not require an
apprenticeship, and neither did it involve the creation of a new
product from raw materials. Nevertheless, commodities were
exchanged, value was added and profits accrued. A broad and
sustained market demand encouraged and maintained the
trade, in much the same ways for the old clothes woman as for
the High Street mercer. Skill at 'turning and twisting', sharp
eyes to recognize good fabric and a finely crafted garment -
homely skills - could be translated into a commercial venture,
a paying concern. Disruptive, expansive market forces reflected
the new avenues of trade, as well as the unsatisfied depths of
consumer demand; in addition, they disclosed the inventive-
ness of those, particularly at the lower end of the market, to
meet a demand so expressed, while sustaining themselves and
their families.
The clothes trade is noteworthy, not least for the complex
enterprises it engendered on the periphery of the commer-
cial world. Women's work in this landscape speaks to the ways
in which they laboured to get by, applying gendered needle
skills to secure a living in this most common of the consumer
trades. Complex channels of distribution developed, in part, as
a result of the adaptive and inventive qualities of the females

who incorporated modest commercial initiatives with the life
cycle demands of families and households. The collective enter-
prise of women extended far beyond the solitary preparation
of family clothing idealized by Sir Frederick Eden at the close
of the eighteenth century.79 Far from being detached from the
market, households and markets were often closely integrated
through the modest trades in refurbished or repaired apparel,
supporting or supplementing families' incomes. Women's eco-
nomic agency followed multiple paths. Households and mar-
kets overlapped and interconnected in ways which demand
acknowledgement.
Why did the numbers of insured women second-hand dealers
apparendy diminish so markedly by the end of the century?
What became of those unable to obtain or sustain their insur-
ance premiums? Over their lifetimes women took up the recyc-
ling and hawking of old garments as necessity demanded, less
prominent as formal traders, more often the informal commu-
nity agents who effected an informal pattern of economic
activity. Women were not alone in cultivating this sort of trade.
Its obvious utility made it an ideal point of entry for poor men
or couples starting up; moreover, the second-hand trade was
also a component of retail and tailoring businesses. In the
difficult economic times of the late eighteenth century, com-
petition with larger more capitalized firms and with the influx
of new male immigrants may explain in part the smaller per-
centage of women insured. It may be that even in this humble
trade the larger traders squeezed out competitors. For what-
ever combination of reasons, women were less in evidence as
insured main street traders by the end of the century than
they had been earlier. However, over the same time they were
more and more in evidence as piece-work sewers, sweating in
the expanding domestic manufacture of apparel.
The proliferation of small decencies and little items of
'luxury' during the seventeenth century led Joan Thirsk to ask
'among what classes of customers did the consumer industries
achieve their main success?'80 The taste for consumer goods,
for inexpensive, new articles of clothing was a facet of English
society, even among the humble. The vigour of the clothing
trades, even at the lowest end of the market, reveals a com-
mercial diversity within England that was fundamental to its
economic strength. 81 Irregular household-based trade was

anathema to traditional authorities, but historical evaluation
should not end with the guildsman's assessment. 'Disorderly'
commercial practices were as common as they were reviled;
disorderly trading women were agents of economic adapta-
tion. Customers of all ranks brought their sixpence to a shop
or stall with the expectation of finding something to meet
their needs; their expectations were met. In a period of con-
siderable economic upheaval, the legions of petty women
clothes dealers were more than ever a crucial supplementary
agency for the barter and exchange of goods in local commu-
nities. Initiatives employed to supply apparel or to exchange
garments for cash or new goods helped spread a greater meas-
ure of choice into the many corners of the English market.
With or without formal apprenticeships an untold number
of hawkers, pedlars, dealers and tradeswomen parleyed a know-
ledge of clothing and dexterity with a needle into largely unre-
corded retail livelihoods, working for months or for years, as
necessity dictated. Informally structured patterns of commerce
assured the survival of single women and families in ways here-
tofore uncharted in most depictions of economic life. Trade
from the front room, or out of a single-room stall, did not con-
stitute the normal business or work pattern of most journey-
men. Yet these collective enterprises represented a vast network
of commerce, which must be integrated into our concepts of
the market. Our understanding of economic activity must
include the differentiated commercial patterns adopted by
many women. Marginal trading women brought choices to
their neighbourhoods and should, perhaps, be considered not
so much marginal as essential, as intrinsic, to the markets of
this industrious society. Outside the defined traditions of ado-
lescent apprenticeship and adult male labour, generations of
women sustained themselves and their families with a different
style of trade. The disorder they engendered in the market was
a fruitful disorder which added to the vigour of the economy
as a whole.
5 The Theft of Clothes
and Popular
Consumerism
As for the meaner sorts of Jilts,
Who can't attain to silver Quilts;
Yet they will Gay and Flaunting go,
And truly Ape the Furbeloe,
And Gowns with Printed Callico:
Poor Joan that Cryes about new Milk,
Will counterfect an Indian Silk,
Add [sic] seem as Lofty as her Dress,
As Lady of the Prince of Hess . . .
The Cinder Wench, and Oyster Drab,
With Nell the Cook and hawking Bab,
Must have their Pinners brought from France,
Appear most gay and learn to Dance,
But if they're honest 'tis by chance.
(Daniel Defoe, The London Ladies Dressing-Room: or,
The Shopkeepers Wives Inventory, 1725)
Popular consumerism swept through England during the early

modern period, centring first on appropriate apparel. Cloth-
ing in a wider breadth of fabrics and fashions was increasingly
the article of choice among a range of classes well below the
social median. The incentive to acquire a broader array of
garments was a catalyst among shoppers around the kingdom,
as well as for thieves working in town and country; indeed,
it can be difficult to separate the motivation of the opportun-
istic thief from that of the resolute shopper. In some cases
the individuals were one and the same. This chapter aims to
assess the relationship between consumerism and crime in
early modern England, as expressed through the appetite for
clothing. 1 Consumerism has been described as generating a
level of social emulation, an elasticity of demand and a 'com-
petitive spending which infected all levels of society from the
aristocracy down to the very labourers'. 2 But the motivation
121
for consumerism was more complex than simple trickle down

emulation. As Fine and Leopold contend, the specific nature of
commodities must be considered one of the defining criteria in
the construction of demand. 3 Demand for clothing developed
in response to a plethora of social and economic forces, from
simple necessity on the one hand to the desire for social cohe-
sion or social distinction within a specific community. Fashion
was never a unipolar phenomenon arising from the court and
the West End salons and sweeping in dilute forms through the
lower ranks. Its effects were always dynamic, moving in both
directions across social boundaries. The effect of consumerism
showed itself in the criminal targeting of goods and in the
dispersal of illegally acquired wares through the retail chan-
nels within the country. Several aspects of the theft of clothing
deserve closer scrutiny, such as the inherent qualities in cloth-
ing, as well as the manner of the thefts and resale of goods,
plus women's agency as thieves, sellers and buyers. Demand
functioned through a network of legal and illegal distribution,
moving the products of theft to eager customers who would
not accept a limited income as a barrier to sartorial display.
The importance of clothing as a desirable end to criminal acts,
and the circulation of stolen items into the mainstream of
legal trade, reveal elements of consumerism acting at a wider
social level than previously averred.4
POPULAR FASHION AND SECOND-HAND CLOTHING
How general was the public fascination with stylish dress? The
impression of foreign and domestic writers, combined with
the political and commercial campaigns against fashionable
East Indian and French imported textiles, suggest that mem-
bers of all ranks were moved by the desire for novel and pop-
ular items, with or without official sanction. In Daniel Defoe's
satiric verse he ascribes to common women an unfitting pre-
occupation with luxury, a luxury that is counterfeit, an indica-
tion of corruption. Defoe's rhyme is replete with common
allusions of the era, cautioning male readers on the expense
of providing their loved one with the endless array of lockets,
muffs, tippets, lace, ribbons, scarves, aprons, perfume, as well
as the endless essential and ever-changing clothes. He contends
The Theft of Clothes and Popular Consumerism 123
that all women were 'by Tyrant Mode controul'd'. 5 Defoe's

jotting has the air of cliche. Nonetheless, to observers of this
era the references to insatiable appetites for clothing and
fashionable accessories have a familiar ring. Joan Thirsk's
ground-breaking study identified the onset of the manufac-
ture of cheap, popular consumer goods in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, much of the new merchandise directed
towards personal and household amelioration. Neil McKendrick
recognized the importance of the commercialization of fash-
ion in the nascent consumer society. The characteristics and
significance of this apparent transformation in consumer de-
mand captured the interest of historians, leading to intensive
reappraisals of this phenomenon. 6 Defoe's verse raises other
questions about this feature of English society not yet fully
considered. Did his metaphoric allusions to aspiring cooks,
oyster sellers and maids reflect the actual scope of demand
among the labouring ranks? Did labouring women affect a
particular role in this phenomenon? If these cravings waxed
as generally as Defoe implied were the less affluent able to
assuage the newly defined needs so identified?
Long before industrial production filled shops throughout
the nation, the English were charged with an appetite for the
current modes which transcended rank. Such general aspira-
tions appalled moralists. Yet high relative income was not as
universal as the desire to have the semblance of style and
respectability consistent with one's aspirations. A narrowly
denned spirit of emulation cannot account for the powerfully
expressed desire for certain sorts of goods, if one takes emu-
lation to mean a desire to look like a duchess, or at least a
facsimile of a duchess. In fact, apparel of the highest fashion
was outside the experience of all but the elite. It must be recog-
nized that appropriate, genteel or even charming attire was a
relative proposition; variations of the desirable costume were
exhibited among social groups, within communities of affilia-
tion and throughout provincial centres. 7 Moreover, expressions
of fashion moved down and up the social scale, modifications
taking place along the way. For example, the simplification of
young noblemen's dress was deplored by some, in the 1730s,
as an adapted labourer's costume, yet this modification gradu-
ally became the norm, even among the elite, by the end of
the eighteenth century.8 A sense of social inclusion might be
attained through the appropriation of items of dress among

a group defined by age, occupation or interest. Fashion or fash-
ionability in its widest sense was never the absolute standard
identified in catalogues of costume history, revolving exclu-
sively around the latest court styles. Similarly, the impetus for
consumption was more than one-dimensional and did not arise
solely from exposure to Parisian courtiers or fashion plates. Pat-
terns of dress were imbued with numerous associations within
social, political or cultural contexts. Refining our appreci-
ation of the way in which this force called fashion worked to
enhance demand requires an appreciation of clothing as a
material manifestation of multiple societal forces.9 Emulation
can be seen as a powerful agent if one recognizes that the
ideals being emulated may have been very broad or very spe-
cific, varying with time, place and local culture. The public
presentation of self preoccupied English men and women from
most sectors of society, inspiring close attention to clothing
and to the evolving redefinitions of decent, respectable or
fashionable dress.
Aside from the more practical considerations about the effect-
iveness of apparel in keeping out the rain, cold or dust, motiva-
tions to acquire certain kinds of clothing cannot be dismissed
as affecting only the top classes or wealthy middling orders. A
process of substitution was often indispensable for the acquisi-
tion of the desired element of apparel: scarf, patterned stock-
ings, shoe buckles, waistcoat, gown or hat. Moreover, elements
of a fashionable exterior could be approximated with the
counterfeit second-hand rather than new. Outside the high-
est social ranks many depended on used clothes, instead of
new, to extend the choice in affordable garments. An extensive
second-hand trade brought an enormous range of options to
buyers from the middling and labouring classes alike. (See
illustration 5.1 for an example of a tradecard from one in this
dynamic sector.) Financial limitations did not restrict the de-
sire to own and display the material symbols of respectability.10
In the service of utility and transient style, the second-hand
trade flourished as a facet of everyday commercial life, well
known by housewives, servants, traders, pedlars and gendefolk.
Allied with this legitimate trade was an equally common
pattern of theft that through illicit means aimed at meeting
popular aspirations. Clothing was the most sought-after and, at
M. HARRIS. *3t gI
Taylor and Salesman, j)
80, |
Opposite Dock-Street, ft
ROSEMARY-LANE, jf
Kippax, Priuter, 38, Rosemary Lane,
Illustration 5.1 Tradecard - M . Harris, Taylor & Salesman

the same time, the most easily disposable commodity in this

period. Olwen Hufton described the ubiquitous theft and resale
of stolen clothing among the poor in eighteenth-century
France. 11 Analogous revelations about the theft of clothing
in England were uncovered by J.A. Sharpe for seventeenth-
century and J.M. Beattie for eighteenth-century England. 12
Sharpe noted that in Essex clothing and household linen
constituted 14 per cent of all thefts between 1620 and 1680,
while Beattie discovered that for the later period clothing
and textiles were the most commonly stolen item in reported
larcenies in Surrey. In the urban districts, prosecutions for
the theft of clothes accounted for 27.1 per cent of recorded
larceny cases, the greatest percentage of all prosecuted thefts.
In the rural areas of Surrey and Sussex this pattern remained
similar, although at a rate of approximately 5 per cent less;
nevertheless, theft of clothing was still the second most com-
mon type of theft, apparendy higher even than in the seven-
teenth century.13
The significance of these discoveries cannot be overstated.
The implications of the generalized theft of clothing travels

to the heart of the new ideas and ambitions of the men and
women of this age. The demand for consumer goods extends
beyond simply the yen of a London merchant's wife for stylish
aprons or gowns, new window curtains, Wedgwood pottery or
carpets, although these demands were certainly of enorm-
ous significance in the development of industry and the re-
ordering of households. Even the combined aspirations of this
middling, affluent group and their landed superiors do not
constitute the sum of those affecting new patterns of demand.
Indeed, the prevalence of this contagion was noted by contem-
poraries, usually with abhorrence. Henry Fielding defined this
phenomenon as a spirit of luxury travelling down through the
social spectrum, linking the expansion of commerce and 'the
vast torrent of luxury, which of late hath poured itself into this
nation' with the rise in crime. 14 Infatuation with the 'luxury'
infected all levels of society, in Fielding's opinion, even to 'the
dregs of the people, who aspiring still to a degree beyond that
which belongs to them'. He likewise deplored the practice of
'the meanest person who can dress himself clean, [and] may
in some degree mix with his betters'. 15 Thus, public presenta-
tion depended, in the first instance, on the exterior appear-
ance, a fact much discussed at this time. 16 Dress was the
apparent making of the man or woman, by all public calcula-
tions at any rate. The correct dress was one of the constant
recurring considerations of the era, both for groups and indi-
viduals, as revealed in the private writings of diarists from
Samuel Pepys to Nicholas Blundell, Thomas Turner to Barbara
Johnson, James Boswell to Rev. Woodforde, Mrs Philip Lybbe
Powys to Elizabeth Place.17 The theft of clothing suggests that
those who left no written record were similarly attentive to out-
ward appearance; at the very least they were well acquainted
with the demands of the market and were prepared to feed
that demand.
The general and pervasive theft of clothing speaks to his-
torians not only of the pilfering propensities of English men,
women and children, but also of the assumptions and ambi-
tions with regard to dress that powered industry and at the
same time inspired criminal acts guaranteed of profit. Whether
thefts of clothing were initiated to satisfy individual wants or
larcenous enterprise, these activities sustained a commercial
network of second-hand trade which in turn mirrored wider

social manifestation allied to popular consumerism. Castigations
of the thieving poor or disloyal servants and their penchant
for luxury reflect a momentous national phenomenon, tying
the criminal to the respectable consumer impulse. The latter
has received the most consistent attention. However, it has
recendy been suggested that demand was two tiered and that
the second level of demand, manifest in the trade in used
goods, was also a vital element in the structure of national
demand. 18 The importance of the collective thefts extends be-
yond the response of the courts to this ubiquitous form of
robbery. The choice of article stolen stands as a measure of
public perception of desirable, marketable commodities. Fur-
thermore, stolen clothes, taken randomly or by organized gangs,
moved the components of dress through the social hierarchy,
extending the volume of attire available to the public through
involuntary and illegal redistribution.
STRIPPING STRANGERS AND RIFLING ROOMS
Clothing was stolen in as many ingenious ways as there were

problems of access. Shop walls were torn down or windows
broken, doors forced open and wash tubs ransacked, drunks
and young children stripped, and trunks and bundles removed
from wagons; force, cunning, or stealth employed to acquire
garments for personal use or profit. Stolen clothing was eas-
ily sold, presenting a continuing headache to the authorities.
J.A. Sharpe characterized much of the theft of clothing he
uncovered as being opportunistic in nature. 19 But this desig-
nation does not enquire sufficiently into the motivational
environment in which these thefts took place; it describes too
generally a range of strategies for both occasional and profes-
sional thieves that needs further refining. The intrinsic char-
acteristics of apparel explain much of its attraction and should
be added to the equation when assessing levels of crime. Cloth-
ing was negotiable, portable and readily converted into cash
or kind: it was a type of currency in itself. In many instances
the apparel also epitomized elements of style and that inspired
many of the thefts.20 Moreover, unlike some commodities such
as lead, plate, tools, or livestock, specialist receivers were not
necessary.21 By the mid-eighteenth century the difficulty of suc-

cessfully tracing stolen goods was well known. The London
market in particular soaked up vast quantities of pilfered
merchandise. 22 Outside the large centres clothing was almost
as disposable precisely because it was clothing being sold. Nearly
260 officially designated pawnbrokers were listed nationally
in The Universal British Directory by the end of the eighteenth
century: over double that number of clothes dealers were also
noted. 23 These numbers reflected only a fraction of those in
the trade. Small wonder Fielding complained that 'the thief is
under no difficulty in turning them [the stolen goods] into
money'. 24 Pawnshops accepted articles for pawn with few if any
questions, many specializing in fencing stolen wares.25 Adver-
tisements might alert the legitimate pawnbrokers to the goods
lost, and to that end The Public Advertiser developed into the
officially sanctioned vehicle for presenting information about
thefts. Sir John Fielding authorized large notices to be pub-
lished, stipulating that any resultant information be reported to
him. Fielding was convinced that, 'if SUCH INFORMATIONS
are properly attended to, by Pawnbrokers, Jewellers, Silver-
smiths, Stable-Keepers, Buyers of Second-Hand Cloaths, etc.
few Robberies will escape Detection'. 26
The particular difficulty faced by those wanting to recover
stolen garments was that the lost goods could be sold almost
anywhere and bought by almost anybody. Court records re-
flect only that fraction of cases where thieves were caught.
Untraced depredations left few signs, and examining the prac-
tice of the petty or some-time thieves one can see how easily
goods were absorbed by the market. Person-to-person sales
were common, at back doors, on street corners, across the bars
of most taverns, victuallers' and distillers' shops and even in
the corner general store.27 Unless the prospective buyer sus-
pected and denounced the thief, the sale would be concluded
satisfactorily for the seller and the buyer.
Prior to the regular published accounts in The Public Adver-
tiser, some victims believed that their only hope was to check
the local pawnshops, as soon as possible after the theft. An
example of such prompt action in pursuit of stolen prop-
erty appears in the testimony of a shoemaker. This craftsman
noticed noises in the attic one night and on rising at five
o'clock he discovered the loss: 'And so away goes I to Field-
lane, for you must note, that when these Fellows steal Shoes,
they sell them in or about Field-lane or Rag-Fair, but Boots
they carry to Charing-Cross. As good Luck would have it, I
soon met with my Chap at one of those Shops, where they
Vamp up old Shoes.' 28 Advertisements and trips to likely dis-
posal sites were the only recourse for those who had suffered
thefts; a weak alternative given the volume of illicit goods.
In the late eighteenth century Patrick Colquhoun estim-
ated that a startling number of receivers flourished in the
metropolitan region trading in the products of successful
thefts. Colquhoun's list included sixty 'Professed and known
Receivers of Stolen Goods (of whom 8 or 10 are opulent)' as
well as 4000 'Receivers of Stolen Goods, from petty Pilferers,
at Old Iron Shops, Store Shops, Rug and Thrumb Shops, and
Shops for Second-hand Apparel'. Colquhoun believed that an
additional 2000 metropolitan street hawkers willingly received
the proceeds of crime from servants or sneak thieves.29 Col-
quhoun's estimates were always somewhat suspect. In this
instance, he omitted from his figures any in the national net-
work of pedlars and tradesmen employed in moving second-
hand merchandise throughout the country and overseas.
Among this group too there must have been those not overly
zealous in enquiring into the origins of used items offered for
sale. Thus when a drunken crowd of men and women encoun-
tered a servant of 'my Lady King' in Holborn and seized the
cloak off her back, they were able immediately to pawn it for
35. Incidents of this sort were replicated countless times, both
inside the metropolis and out.30 Unfortunately there is no way
of telling what proportions of thefts ultimately resulted in
prosecutions, or of finding the total number of such incidents
that actually occurred. One can assume it would be many more
than reached the courts.
The young and unwary were easy marks for the seasoned
thief and youth was no protection; neither, it seemed, was the
standing that came with age, as John Murray discovered. Murray
was a man of sober maturity who had worked at the Tower for
thirty years and the assault on his person took place one
evening, as he later reported.
One end of this Well-street, comes into Rosemary-Lane, the

other into Rag-fair, and there the Prisoner and another
Woman pick'd me up, and would have had me into a House

with them, but I being unwilling, they push'd me in . . . they
stripp'd me stark naked . . . After they had taken my Cloaths,
they all ran away, and I was forc'd to send for more, for I
could not go home naked. 31
The assailant, Sarah Birk, remarked unrepentandy to a friend
that, T stripp'd a Man stark naked and sold his Clothes . . . a
good middling working Man, but an old foolish Son of a
B 732 The catalogue of his clothing was impressive and
might well have gone towards the improvement of some other
worthy working man's wardrobe had the prosecution not gone
forward. William Taylor, a butcher, was similarly assaulted on
his return to work early one Monday morning. Taylor had
gone out for a walk one Sunday to visit and drink with friends
on Tyburn Road. After sleeping there overnight, he set out for
work at three o'clock the next morning only to be accosted by
robbers who stole everything he was wearing: 'one Fustian Frock
with 12 Plate Buttons, Value 405. one white Duffel Coat, Value
155. one Cloth Waistcoat, Value 55. one Pair of Buckskin
Breeches, Value 105., one Perriwig, Value IO5. a Hat, Value 55.
and a Pair of Silver Buckles, Value 65.'33 When dressed, Taylor
must have looked the picture of prosperity. Twelve gleaming
buttons on his coat were answered by glinting silver buckles on
his shoes; from the wig on his head to the buckled shoes on
his feet he was a walking temptation to the chance criminal.
Fashionable components of dress were the common targets in
these sorts of assault.34
A Swedish visitor in the mid-eighteenth century was aston-
ished at the pervasiveness of fashionable display in England
among the common people. The matter of wigs intrigued him
particularly, for this public preoccupation with the wearing of
false hair was unlike anything he encountered in Scandinavia.
I believe there is scarcely a country where one gets to see so
many Peruques as here. I will not mention that nearly all the
principal ladies, and also part of the commoner folk, wear
Peruques, but I only speak of the men, who in short, all
wore them . . . It did not, therefore, strike one as being at
all wonderful to see farm servants, . . . clodhoppers, .. . day-
labourers, . . . Farmers, . . . in a word, all labouring-folk go
through their usual every-day duties with Peruques on the
head . . . I asked the reason for the dislike of, and low esti-
mation in which they held of their own hair. The answer was
that it was nothing more than the custom and mode?b
The specialization exhibited by some thieves was aston-

ishing. One young Irishman, committed to prison, stole hats
exclusively and seemed to have made the Wesleyan congrega-
tion the object of his attentions. This young man was charged
with 'stealing Hats, for several Nights before, out of Mr Wesdey's
[sic] Chapel in West-street, Seven Dials, during Divine Service
. . . His Practice had been, when he sold any of these Hats, to
take Part of the Value in Money and an old Hat.' The old hat
was then left in the place of the next pilfered hat on his sub-
sequent foray to the Chapel. One wonders about a possible
religious motivation in his actions.36 With or without an ecu-
menical bent, thieves such as the young Irishman responded
to the public demand, assured that what they stole would usu-
ally find a buyer.
Eighteenth-century accommodation offered litde real pri-
vacy or security for the inhabitants, placing lodgers, mas-
ters, mistresses and servants in close proximity. Propinquity
enhanced the opportunity for larceny, but also laid before the
servant the ideals of dress which they rapidly embraced as
their own. Moreover, the familiarity which came with everyday
care of objects imbued the servant with a sense of ownership.
The numbers and frequency of such thefts led to an amend-
ment of the law in 1713, removing benefit of clergy from those
charged with thefts from dwelling houses. However, in Beattie's
opinion, prosecutions by employers were exceptional for thefts,
for employers of servants seldom wanted to expend the time
and expense to prosecute when it was so much easier simply
to dismiss the offender. 'It is a fair presumption that the real
level of servants' pilfering was at a much higher level than
the numbers of charges made under this statute or the more
general charge of simple larceny involving employees would
lead one to suppose.' 37 Thus the cases brought before ajustice
were material representations of a much wider phenomenon.
Unhappy work situations, or malicious prosecution following a
dispute, might account for some of the cases which reached
the court. 38 Flight during a contract of employment, where
clothing had been part of the wage paid, could also lead to
charges of theft. But in innumerable other cases the proximity

to articles, so easily turned to cash or added to personal dis-
play, proved too great a temptation for the waged members of
a household. Such was the case when William Russell's servant
took away with her a silk and stuff gown, a black silk cardinal,
and a linen apron. Russell reported that: T am a glass polisher:
. . . I missed the things mentioned in the indictment, from a
chest of drawers in my parlour; the prisoner was my servant; I
had been out for about a quarter of an hour; when I returned
I missed the prisoner and the things mentioned.' 39
Beattie discovered that prosecutions were brought most fre-
quently by a broad middling group of citizens, although even
the more humble servants and journeymen pursued their pros-
ecutions against suspected thieves. Few would accept the loss
of valued material possessions when there was a clear oppor-
tunity for recovery.40 Thefts of a particularly irksome nature
were usually prosecuted most vigorously. Such was the case
against Susan Morgan who cleared out with a parcel of clothes
and a gold ring belonging to her employers while the wife lay
dying and the husband sick.41 Thomas English had hired a
female servant only three weeks previously when he and his
wife went out one evening, returning about ten o'clock. 'I
went upstairs, and found the backdoor open . . . I called to . . .
[my wife], and told her; and she said, then I dare say all my
clothes are gone' - and, indeed, most were.42
Fielding proposed a rigorous check be made of servants'
references before they were admitted to the household. He
even recommended a central registry office in the Strand in a
Notice to the Public, where each prospective servant would be
vetted and 'where the public can be assured, that no servant
shall ever be register'd, who cannot produce a good char-
acter'. 43 However even long term service did not preclude
larceny, as the Earl of March discovered. Two of his female
servants stole 'an incredible Quantity' of household linens and
other goods, hiding the booty in their lodgings.44 Clothes were
stolen clean or dirty. In fact, laundry bundles, wash-houses
and drying hedges were frequent targets.45 John Bedder, a brick-
layer living with his family in Lime Street, sent a trunk con-
taining 'foul linen' to Islington regularly once a month to have
the clothes washed. The cart carrying this and other parcels of
dirty laundry was emptied of its contents by thieves, during a
routine stop in Threadneedle Street.46 The monarch's dirty

clothing was similarly vulnerable. Joseph Paterson was charged
with the theft of seven linen waistcoats, valued at £10, 'from a
Ground-Room in His Majesty's Laundry at St James's', a cap-
ital offence. In another incident, the Duchess of Kendal's linen,
sent weekly to be washed at her country house in Twickenham,
was seized by robbers. In January 1733, highwaymen stopped
the cart carrying the linen, loaded the bundles of linen on a
spare horse and made off. The report concluded that, 'The
Linnen that was taken away was of a considerable Value.' 47 For
every spectacular theft of noble linen, clean or dirty, coundess
washtubs and laundry bundles of the more humble families
suffered depredations large and small.48
Every theft within a residence could not be attributed to
either dishonest servants or outside thieves. All too often
habitues of a lodging house used their familiarity with the
setting to help themselves to clothing owned by the residents.
Eleanor Read had no doubt about the cause of her loss. She
kept lodgers and discovered one day that much of her cloth-
ing was missing from her room, taken by one of her lodgers.49
In a similar episode John Bagshaw went out looking for a new
position as an osder and left his box of clothing in a cup-
board at his old lodgings. On his return he found the box
empty and only by chance was the culprit discovered, wearing
Bagshaw's hat upon his head. 50 There is a commonality to the
patterns of theft that extends across the country; a survey of
other county court records discloses innumerable similar cases.51
John Varney and his family lost clothing valued at £3 when
the servant decided not to finish the washing but to leave with
it instead. Varney's daughter was left with nothing to put on
when Jemima Wilson absconded with her calico gown, petti-
coats and stays.52 Neither ties of blood nor friendship could
guarantee the security of personal clothing against the depre-
dations of friends and acquaintances. John Bullen brought a
prosecution against his sister-in-law, explaining that, 'the Pris-
oner is my wife's sister; my wife and I went out and left her a
cleaning the lower room; when we came back the door was
locked up, she was gone, and had taken the things with her'. A
month later Bullen discovered his sister-in-law at an old clothes
dealer in French Alley.53 The cumulative testimony of plaintiffs
attest to an astonishing acquisitiveness within families, among
neighbours and between friends. The opportunity to dress in

the desired attire held a tenacious allure that prevailed even
over practical considerations of imminent detection and legal
penalties. 54
In a surprising number of instances stolen clothing was not
exchanged for cash, or swapped for other garments. Many of
those who stole simply wanted to enjoy the best of the pil-
fered garments in spite of the dangers. This facet of the theft
of clothing confirms the importance ascribed to dress within
this society. The reward for daring to break the laws of prop-
erty was the pleasure of being garbed in more fashionable,
more attractive stolen goods. What industry precluded, stealth
or recklessness provided, if only temporarily for some. The
attraction of the clothing outweighed reasonable caution. John
Crocksford, a farm servant in Kent, related how his great coat
was filched out of the stable and immediately he suspected
William Moon. He followed Moon, finding his coat on Moon's
back, when at last they met.55 Elizabeth Kelly spotted her cloth-
ing walking down Spitalfields on the person of Sarah Capell.
As Kelly later testified, Capell was out 'with my Gown and Shift
upon her Back, and my Shoes on'. 56 Christopher Bones had
a very similar experience. Bones met up with an out-of-work
servant who asked him if he knew where there was work. The
two men fell into conversation and walked on to Islington to
drink cider. Bones and his new-found friend then rambled
over to the Swan Yard in the Strand where this fellow lived.
Bones related that, T sat down on the stairs, and having been
drinking in the morning without eating, I was very sick and fell
asleep.' On awakening Bones discovered his bundle was gone
and so was his drinking partner. Setting off in pursuit, he
discovered that the fellow had a place on the Northampton
coach. Fortunately, 'a man lent me a horse, and I overtook . . .
[the coach] at Islington; the prisoner was on top of the coach,
and had my neckcloth, shirt and waistcoat on . . . he confessed
he had pawned the other things'. 57 One cannot assume that all
who encountered similar losses would be as resourceful and
determined as Christopher Bones. But it seems safe to pre-
sume that many working people in the labouring and mid-
dling ranks suffered such misfortunes, when the attraction to
their clothing felt by family, friend or chance acquaintance
overcame the bonds of friendship and fidelity.
The recorded statements of the victims are too brief to sat-

isfy all the questions raised by these events. The descriptions
of the clothes give only the most rudimentary impression of
the garments themselves, leaving no clear description of the
specific characteristics of the items, in fabric, colour, pattern,
or trim, that so tempted the men and women of this age. In
addition, the value assigned the goods frequently bore litde
relation to the true worth, as the stated value of the goods
stolen was a determining factor in sentencing. But even with
these limitations, it is apparent that some items exerted a tre-
mendous magnetism, not just for cash value but because of
the intrinsic features of the garments. The stolen clothing kept
by the amateur thief was most probably the most handsome,
the best quality, the apparel most nearly in style. Hours, weeks
or perhaps years of pleasure may have come from the illicit
attire, particularly in the urban settings, 'where obscure Men
may hourly meet with fifty Strangers to one Acquaintance, and
consequendy have the Pleasure of being esteem'd by a vast
Majority, not as what they are, but what they appear to be:
which is a greater Temptation than most People want to be
vain' 58 - or indeed to be honest.
THE LOOTING OF SHOPS AND DISPOSAL OF

CLOTHING
Professional thieves stole to support themselves, relying on the

extensive national demand and the well developed second-
hand trade. Shops, as repositories of marketable commodities,
endured attacks by burglars, shoplifters and unscrupulous
employees. Knowingly or unknowingly, these thieves relied
on the pressures of popular consumerism and the deficiencies
of existing production levels. Even as the trades in stocking-
making, textile manufacture and hatting increased the volume
of their output, there was an insufficient quantity of cheap,
new clothing to meet popular demand within England. This
deficiency ensured the continuing sale of used clothing by
whatever route it arrived in the marketplace. However imper-
fectly practitioners in the commercial underworld understood
the conundrum that faced those in the clothing industry, they
well knew that good quality garments could easily find a buyer.
Later nineteenth-century industrialization would ultimately

meet the challenge of matching the level of demand for fashion-
able, affordable apparel with industrial capacity: popular stolen
goods change with time. In this period, however, demand for
clothing outstripped the national capacity to produce these
goods at the price level required. Second-hand clothing, legally
or illegally acquired, was assured of sale and had a guaranteed
value.
Historians of crime, like J.A. Sharpe and J.M. Beattie, have
been able to discern the percentage of thefts of various com-
modities in their communities over time. But it has not been
possible to determine whether or not the thieves were a 'pro-
fessional' or 'amateur' at the time of the crime. One thing not
in doubt, however, is that there was a very professional collec-
tion of criminals who made their living acquiring and selling
stolen clothes. Women played a central role in the theft and
dispersal of textile commodities. Textiles and clothing were
the stock with which many women worked; women also spent
many hours of the week in shops and markets buying for the
households they served or the families they helped support. 59
Both occupations gave women an access to potential plunder
and familiarity with market needs that could be bent to crim-
inal ends. In 1701, Mary Browne testified at length before two
magistrates on the criminal agency of which she was a part.
Browne confined her evidence to the recent past, relating events
over the period of less than a year. Even with such a circum-
scribed period Browne had a great deal to disclose on the
workings within her circle of thieves, receivers and marks. Most
of the thefts she recounts were undertaken by pairs or groups
of thieves, with alliances shifting and new partnerships form-
ing. The women Browne encountered tended to work with
women, except when it came to receiving and selling the pil-
fered materials when they worked alone. She noted many more
thieves than receivers, with Browne herself acting as a conduit
for stolen articles as diverse as 'a flowerd Satten Mande lined
with white persian' to 'a parcell of wet linen' lifted from a
wash tub. It is unlikely that Browne revealed everything she
knew about her confederates, but her story discloses the fluid,
fast-moving circulation of items from the shops of Mr Aston
in Leadenhall Street, the Three Nuns in Cheapside, Mr Bull in
Westminster and Mr Wise in Ludgate Hill in a circuitous route
to the open market. 60
Shoplifting was a particular speciality of women, an activity

additionally advantaged by the prevailing female dress. Illus-
tration 5.2 offers an eighteenth-century artist's rendition of a
surprisingly fashionable woman caught in the act of shoplift-
ing and about to be delivered up to the law. Deep pockets
under aprons or petticoats, as well as the capacious petticoats
themselves, concealed all manner of pilfered garments, from
gowns and stays to shoes, petticoats and handkerchiefs. 61 No
doubt the female teams of thieves who brought muslin neck-
cloths and other ware to Mary Browne acquired the items
through these stratagems. The full participation of women in
this sort of theft may never be accurately revealed; however,
there is no doubt that this was one criminal arena in which
women took a major role.62 In that respect, at least, Defoe's
characterizations of female servants and pedlars may well have
been accurate. Women's familiarity with local shopping and
trade inspired an equivalent facility for receiving and resell-
ing stolen goods.63 Many operated easily out of their homes or
local taverns both feeding on and supplying their neighbour-
hoods. Moll Flanders described the steady trade of her pawn-
broker friend: 'she bought everything that came without asking
any Questions, but had very good Bargains as I found by her
Discourse'. 64
Occasionally receivers were brought to book, as was Mary
Browne above and Rachael Freeman; the latter was the victim
of the confession of one of her regular suppliers who was
caught shoplifting at a linen draper's. The shoplifter offered
Freeman's name to the judge, perhaps in the hopes of reduc-
ing her sentence. When Freeman's lodgings were searched
they discovered 'a large Quantity' of stolen goods, which they
hoped would be identified by the rightful owners.65 In 1765,
The Public Advertiser announced that Elizabeth Wylder, described
as a notorious receiver of stolen goods, had been imprisoned
for receiving £70 worth of stockings.66 Legal victories such
as these, however, did litde to curb the dispersal of stolen
apparel when it was so easy to find a buyer, inside or out
of the trade. The system of receivers supplied by crews of
pickpockets, shoplifters, prostitutes and common thieves
confounded authorities. An example of the manner in which
stolen goods were dispersed can be found in the case of Simon
Badey. One night he broke into a house in Blue Anchor Alley
off Whitecross Street and removed a heap of clothing at about
SHOP-UKTER DKTKOTKO.
*ri>M <rn /%////»<// >/t</nrr J/'ti////,,//i/, ••/'• '. / (
J>m*t. .RS,
Illustration 5.2 'Shop-Lifter Detected' by John Collett, 1778

Lennox-Boyd Collection, Courtesy of the Honourable Christopher Lennox-Boyd
seven o'clock at night. The same evening Badey and his part-
ner brought these goods to Mrs Wilson's broker's shop at the
sign of the Iron Grid in Whitecross Street. At the trial Badey
contended that Mrs Wilson was a willing receiver of the stolen
goods and had in fact offered them the use of a 'dark lanthorn'
when they told her there was more back in the house. 67 With
no substantiating evidence Mrs Wilson was acquitted.
However, in another case three women were less fortu-
nate when an eye witness testified to their involvement. In the
spring of 1722, two thieves stole shirts, smocks and other linen
to the value of £4 from several sites. Some loot they took to a
broker in Chick Lane and some was brought to Ann Thatcher's
house where the wakeful Mary Thornton witnessed the mid-
night encounter. There was a family connection. The thieves
apparently retained Thatcher and another woman as go-
betweens; next they arrived at Ann's house to enquire what
she would offer for the clothing. Mary Thatcher negotiated for
the thieves and when Ann proposed to pay 85. for the lot Mary
dismissed the offer, according to the witness. 'Phoo, says Mary
Thatcher, you may very well afford to give 12 [shillings].' 68
One might imagine that business was brisk from Mary's re-
sponse. She was certainly experienced as an agent. As John
Beattie suggests, the particular economic and social conditions
of London affected die patterns of crime and criminal oppor-
tunity open to women.69 But the female pattern of criminal
behaviour extended well beyond the metropolis. Speaking of
early modern Chester, Garthine Walker notes, 'The world of
stolen clothes, linens and household goods was populated by
women: women stealing, women receiving, women deposing,
women searching, and women passing on information, as well
as goods, to other women.' 70
Opportunity abounded for criminally inclined men as well,
particularly in centres with such dense concentrations of goods.
Warehouses stocked with all kinds of garments were a feature
of the London scene in the second half of the seventeenth
century. These edifices reflected the qualitative change in the
clothing industry and they also presented a significant new
temptation, as did the smaller retailing establishments lining
streets in cities and towns.71 One pamphlet, allegedly written
by a convicted felon, warned shopkeepers of the risks from
professional thieves; multiple editions were published of this

book, reflecting a common anxiety within the commercial com-
munity. Specialist thievery - Ringing Tuggs and Seats, Dudders,
Lifts or Files - was explained by the one-time criminal, aimed
at putting shop owners and stall keepers on guard. 72 Vigilance
was required at all levels of the trade to protect stock from
men like John Roach, who used his position as foreman to sell
merchandise filched from the shop. His employer suspected
him of trading privately in ill-gotten goods, but had been unable
to prove the thefts, so one day the proprietor hid himself in
one of the deep shelves in the shop, heaping garments in
front to mask the hiding place. Lying behind piles of breeches
he awaited developments. The master tailor testified that he
saw Roach select a set of clothing which he prepared to smuggle
from the premises. T saw him placing the breeches and this
coat very smooth, to go into a small compass; he came . . . to
go out; I jumped down [from the shelf] and stopped him.' 73
Pilfering by employees was a commonplace, and was fre-
quently a source of dispute between masters and their jour-
neymen or servants, particularly where the latter assumed a
right to perquisites based on established past practice. The ero-
sion of the tradition and practice of perquisites was a source
of considerable tension between masters and journeymen, par-
ticularly from the mid-eighteenth century as purely waged work
became increasingly common. Disputes over the appropriate
use of perquisites might result in charges being laid. Such was
the case in a dispute between a breechesmaker, Charles Earle,
and Joseph Gofton, his journeyman. Gofton was dispatched to
sell breeches at the Sittingbourne and Maidstone fairs. He was
given a pair of sheepskin breeches to wear while at the fairs,
which he then sold as second-hand. Journeymen customarily
wore the 'cheap [sheepskin] breeches' when they worked as
barkers at these fairs 'that poor people may imagine they are
better made, and a better sort'. Although Earle admitted that
his journeyman sold stock valued at hundreds of pounds at
these fairs, he objected to the private profit the journeyman
made with the sale of the worn breeches. 74 Tensions surround-
ing perquisites and the threat of pilfering employees was a
constant feature of commercial life. However, the greatest losses,
and those most feared by the shopkeeper, came as a result of
professional shoplifters and burglars.
The professionals collected and moved large volumes of

clothing; it was the basis of their profit.75 Deedery Hosse was
one of many who experienced the discomfort and distress of
losing his stock-in-trade. Hosse kept a 'sale shop', selling used
clothes in Chick Lane. On the evening in question, in 1764,
the shop was locked and Hosse retired to a local public house,
where he later heard that his shop had been breached through
the window and door. Hosse lost about £1 in clothing, as well
as having the inconvenience of having to clean up for, 'the
shelves were quite stripped, and there were clothes heaped
up as high as my knee by the side of the door.' 76 John Parker
lost much more when one hundred handkerchiefs worth £15
were seized from his shop in the Strand through a broken
window. The thieves then went from place to place offering the
handkerchiefs for sale at much reduced prices. One receiver
insisted he would only buy one at the price asked if he could
have another to wear around his neck. In this case the volume
of goods stolen made it difficult for these rather amateurish
thieves to dispose of the merchandise quickly and quiedy. The
trail led direcdy to them, to their cost. But before their arrest
they had been quite successful at finding buyers for the hand-
kerchiefs, selling some to a woman in a tavern, and even to a
Quaker they encountered. 77
Eighteenth-century newspapers cautioned and chilled their
readers with descriptions of bold thefts and desperate break-
ins. Illustration 5.3 offers an impression of the seductive powers
of lower-class metropolitan belles, employed to distract the mark
while his handkerchief is lifted. Deception was not the only
tactic employed. Thieves led by a locksmith, Robert Stubbs,
broke through a wall to gain access to one salesman's shop,
carrying off a suit of clothes, waistcoats, yards of dimity and
pewter dishes.78 Examples of such desperate ingenuity must
have daunted the honest shopkeeper, who could never guar-
antee the security of his or her merchandise. The criminal
orders developed numerous strategies in their pursuit of stocks
of clothes; not walls, windows, locks, or bars could keep out
the determined thief, as one such thief related.
Under the window, on one side of the door, we took the

whole pannel out: I got into the shop, and took out three
great coats, four waistcoats, eight shirts, and eight silk and
f V *?
t
jj
1
*.' 7
*wl"k y. ai ' ^Wf*'
1
1 V 7
I
•I X UT B;
X
Wk W*
11 1 owl
iJi^r IB'^B . T>\
1
i \ •\ %•• 1 \
* - \
i1
\n KYEM1NGS IN VIT.VNON ; will, a W NK from iln- ( J A C J . V I U .
illustration 5.3 'An Evenings Invitation; with a Wink from the Bagnio'
by John Collett, 1773
Lennox-Boyd Collection, Courtesy of the Honourable Christopher Lennox-Boyd
cotton handkerchiefs, five pieces of printed linnen, two rem-

nants of silk, one about 8 yards long, a black cardinal, six
pair of white gloves, four pair of worsted stockings and an
odd one, we dropt the other; . . . I handed them out to . . .
[Thompson], then we put them into a bag, and went away
with them, and the things that we broke the house with to
Thompson's house; there we distributed the things. He took
three shirts, and I took three: we sent our wives to sell some
of the things in Rosemary-lane.79
Subsequendy they contacted a receiver who came to their house

and bought a selection of the stolen items, including the great
coat. In the history of this theft the coat proved too readily
identifiable because of the hole under the cape.
Purloined clothing could often be identified by its rightful
owner, so it was important to alter or disguise the goods.
Modern observers might be starded at the lengths to which
the thief would go to disguise the stolen items. Cautious thieves
or professional receivers cut up, restitched, or otherwise trans-
formed identifiable garments. These stratagems reflect the
considerable breadth of demand for clothing of all sorts,
whether in pieces or whole, as well as the sagacity of the re-
ceivers. Rachael Milford made shirt sleeves of an apron she
stole, but had not got around to altering the other proceeds of
her theft when she was arrested. 80 Matthew Morton recovered
many of the items stolen from his shop, including a valuable
black silk gown and matching petticoat. These were dis-
covered 'picked to pieces' in the room of the accused, awaiting
reconstruction to another shape, or sale as parts of a garment. 81
In another case a table cloth was turned into a petticoat, to
hide its origins.82
Robberies occasionally netted thieves more goods than they
could easily, or personally, dispose of with safety. Neighbours
and wives were pressed to pawn articles for the thieves in an
effort to minimize the chance of identification. Fielding
stormed at the brokers, pawnbrokers and shopkeepers who
received stolen goods and organized raids on their premises,
but with litde result.83 Shopkeepers could and did obtain stock
at lower prices if they asked no questions about its origins.84
The number of prosecutions attest to the danger associated
with these thefts. Nevertheless, the volume of goods streaming
through the second-hand trade furnished some anonymity for

those adding their mite to the flow. The market seemed infin-
itely elastic. Theft rechannelled the stock of clothes in cir-
culation, bringing into the marketplace clothing from fine
to poor quality, that the private owner had not planned to sell
or that the commercial owner had hoped would add to his
revenue. This merchandise was then offered for sale at a frac-
tion of the original price to receivers and dealers, who knew
the profit they could make feeding a demand for clothing.
The circulation of clothing has come around full circle,
from the random, personal pilfering, to the organized thefts
and receivers, and back to the consumer, looking for a bargain
from street sellers, vendors, saleswomen and brokers. In some
instances such a bargain brought risks for the purchaser.
Clothes brokers, pawnbrokers and even customers found them-
selves answering the questions of a magistrate when, accord-
ing to their testimony, they took the gowns, coats and aprons
offered in good faith. Mary Bird should have followed her first
inclinations and refused to buy the children's clothes brought
to her; but when she was told that another old clothes woman
had also wanted to buy them Mary decided to jump at the
bargain. Unfortunately it was discovered that the clothes had
been stolen off the back of a child and Mary Bird found herself
in court. 85 The clothes dealer Elizabeth Mills found herself in
a similar predicament, but denied that the presence of stolen
gowns in her stock was anything but bad luck.
I deal in old cloaths; I had been out about my business, and
coming home I met a litde woman with a bundle in a hand-
kerchief in Holborn. She asked me if I traded in old cloaths?
I said I did. She said her husband was pressed to go to sea,
and she wanted to make up a litde money, and had got two
gowns to sell; we went into a litde court in Chick-lane, there
I looked at them, and bought them for eleven shillings; one
I got Jacobs to sell; and the other I wore myself.86
Jacobs proceeded to try to sell the other gown. One of the heads
of household approached by Jacobs exhibited a litde more
caution than Mrs Mills had done. The householder testified:
These gowns were brought to my house by Mary Jacobs, to
sell. My servant wanted to buy one; I said she might if she
would. She bought it for eight shillings; . . . After that I read

of two gowns being stolen, and described; I suspected this to
be one. I said to my servant, don't you wear this till I am
better satisfied.87
Prudence paid off for master and servant, although the ser-
vant would once again have to hunt for an attractive gown, at
a price she could afford. It is unlikely she had long to wait.
CONCLUSION
Clothing in the eighteenth century, in the period of economic

transformation and a rising preoccupation with appearance,
had a multitude of uses not sufficiendy recognized by histor-
ians. A good stock of apparel sustained an appropriate public
demeanour, but the goods themselves were mutable, respon-
sive to the variable forces of social change or economic need.
A wardrobe could be the equivalent to a savings account;
articles of clothing were commonly used as a ready source of
cash in emergencies. In the mid-seventeenth century Ralph
Josselin's journey to Bedfordshire in search of a position was
financed by such a sale. Over one hundred years later James
Boswell realized funds to continue in the less high-minded
pursuit of the elusive Louise, with the sale of a suit of which
he had tired plus the lace from his hat.88 These instances illus-
trate a practice that is confirmed by the over 650 pawnbrokers
and clothes dealers of sufficient stature to be listed nationally
in the directories at the end of the eighteenth century.89 The
business of these traders was founded on the frequent ex-
change of clothing and other goods. Financial exigencies, as
well as changes in fashion and fortune, inspired most trans-
actions. The collective thefts of clothing operated within the
informal economy of the second-hand trade to supply the per-
sonal and collective demand for an essential commodity which
defined one's public standing.
The perceived increase in thievery, on both a large and
small scale, was of concern to contemporaries as part of a
broader preoccupation with the moral character of England.
Fielding equated luxury, the desire for goods representative of
current fashions, with the rise of crime. He was not alone in
his conclusions. A scourging editorial in the London Chronicle

thundered that, 'the basis of all the inconsistencies of this
undisciplined, unprincipled, unenlightened nation, is a false
appetite for Liberty; which has, through an unreasonable
persuit [sic], degenerated in Licentiousness. Ye are in all things,
O Britons, a licentious people!' By the calculations of this
author the appearance of English men and women, masters
and servants, journeymen and milliners confirmed his fears
about the passing of the old order of society and the arrival of
a materially different society. 'Dress, fashion, and affectation,
have put all upon an equality', the editorialist charged. 90 His
claims were manifesdy overstated. However, in the pursuit of
this vaunted equality, theft was placed at the service of con-
sumerism. Such criminal activity must be reconsidered in this
context, as a strategy which responded to, and sustained, a
consumerism that permeated early modern England.
Notes
Introduction: Dress, Culture and the English People
1 Beverly Lemire, 'Peddling Fashion: Salesmen, Pawnbrokers, Taylors,

Thieves and the Second-hand Clothes Trade in England, c 1700-1800'
Textile History 22:1 (1991).
2 Alan Macfarlane, The Family Life of Ralph fosselin (1970) p. 17; Ralph
Josselin sold some of his clothes to help finance his trip to Bedford-
shire where he hoped to obtain a post as a schoolmaster.
3 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776) I, ii, quoted in Peter
Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth
Century (1991) p. 254.
4 Neil McKendrick, John Brewer and J.H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer
Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England (1983) par-
ticularly chapters 1 and 2; however, in the same volume John Brewer
emphasizes the impact of popular political campaigns in the produc-
tion and consumption of associated goods. See Chapter 5.
5 Ben Fine and Ellen Leopold, The World of Consumption (1993), pp. 6 -
8, and Chapter 2. The authors contend that:
Each commodity or commodity group is best understood in terms
of a unity of economic and social processes which vary significandy
from one commodity to another, each creating and reflecting upon
what will be referred to as its own 'system of provision' . . . This
framework encourages the exploration of multiple perspectives,
suggesting the possibility that consumer behaviour has played a more
determining role in some periods of history and in some commod-
ities than in others, (pp. 22-23)
6 Views which continue to be postulated by N.F.R. Crafts, in par-
ticular, and Joel Mokyr. Opposing interpretations are offered by
Berg and Hudson, and David Landes, as well as by Javier Cuenca. See
Bibliography.
7 Jan de Vries, 'Between purchasing power and the world of goods:
understanding the household economy in early modern Europe' in
John Brewer and Roy Porter (eds), Consumption and the World of Goods
(1993) p. 121.
8 Cary Carson, 'The Consumer Revolution in Colonial British America:
Why Demand?' in Cary Carson, Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert
(eds), Of Consuming Interest: The Style of Life in the Eighteenth Century
(1994), presents a compelling analysis of die impact of the study of
consumption in both Britain and Colonial America.
9 Duncan Bythell, The Sweated Trades: Outwork in Nineteenth-century Britain
(1978); James A. Schmiechen, Sweated Industries and Sweated Labor: The
London Clothing Trades, 1860-1914 (1984); Jenny Morris, Women Workers
and the Sweated Trades (1986). Tessie Liu notes the advent of sweated
147
Notes
needlework trades in a region of western France which was formerly

the site of a vigorous handloom weaving industry. The spread of this
sort of domestic needlework marked a stage of industrial diversifica-
tion that had been played out earlier in many other textile regions of
Europe. Liu, The Weaver's Knot: The Contradictions of Class and Family
Solidarity in Western France, 1750-1914 (1994).
10 For a discussion of the circumstances in which this song was written
see Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Idea of Poverty (1984) pp. 312-15. For
a survey of the visual depictions of the seamstress over the Victorian
period see TJ. Edelstein, "They Sang T h e Song of the Shirt": The
Visual Iconology of the Seamstress' Victorian Studies 23:2 (1980).
11 Dr Elizabeth Sanderson gives a preliminary survey of milliners in
Edinburgh, 'The Edinburgh Milliners, 1720-1820' Costume 20 (1986).
This material is addressed in more detail in her book: Women and Work
in Eighteenth-Century Edinburgh (1996). Dr Stanna Nenadic is currently
engaged in a study of women in business in late eighteenth- and early
nineteenth-century Edinburgh. For a regional study of this topic see
John Styles, 'Clothing the North: The Supply of Non-elite Clothing in
the Eighteenth Century North of England' Textile History (1994).
12 Tim Keirn, 'Parliament, Legislation and the Regulation of English
Textile Industries, 1689-1714' in L. Davison, T. Hitchcock, T. Keirn,
and B. Shoemaker (eds), Stilling the Grumbling Hive (1992), notes the
active lobbying surrounding various successful and unsuccessful pieces
of legislation related to the textile industry.
13 The continuing efforts to amend dress through legislation, aimed at
aiding the wool industry, for example, or inhibiting Irish woollens,
persisted throughout the later seventeenth and into the eighteenth
century. For extracts of the contemporary debate on the wool trade
see Chronicum rusticum-commerciale: memoirs of wool, vols I-II, ed. John
Smith (1747, reprinted 1968). The linen trade was also affected by
various efforts at protective restriction: N.B. Harte, 'The rise of protec-
tion and the English linen trade, 1690-1790' in N.B. Harte and KG.
Ponting (eds), Textile History and Economic History (1973).
14 Joyce Appleby, 'Ideology and Theory: The Tension between Political
and Economic Liberalism in Seventeenth Century England' American
Historical Review 81:3 (1976). The pages of Gentleman's Magazine are
replete with concerns about inappropriate dress, the spread of luxury
among the lower orders and the 'degraded' appearance of young
nobles who adopted a simpler attire.
15 Natalie Rothstein, 'The Calico Campaign of 1719-1721' East London
Papersvii (1969); P.J. Thomas, Mercantilism and East India Trade (1926);
Beverly Lemire, Fashion's Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in
Britain, 1660-1800, Chapter 1 (1991).
16 Daniel Defoe, Weekly foumal, reprinted in William Lee (ed.), Daniel
Defoe and His Life and Recently Discovered Writings. .., 1716-1729(1869,
reprinted 1969) ii, p. 140.
17 Individual descriptions of such dress reveal an implicit association within
the groups where this attire arose. Adaptations of standard patterns of
dress reflect the interplay of regional, social and cultural identity with
Notes 149
the main patterns of dress. Aileen Ribeiro, 'The Macaronis, in the late
eighteenth century' History Today 28:7 (1978); Anne Buck, Dress in Eight-
eenth Century England (1979); Jane Tozer and Sarah Levitt, The Fabric
of Life (1983); Mary Thale (ed.), The Autobiography ofFrancis Place (1972)
p. 78.
18 Speaking of liveries, one early nineteenth century clothes dealer re-
marked that 'I fancy all those sort of things is sent abroad . . . Perhaps
where people doesn't know they was liveries.' (Quoted in Lemire,
'Popular Consumerism in Preindustrial England: The Trade in
Secondhand Clothes' foumal of British Studies 27:1 (1988) p. 17.)
A mid-eighteenth-century letter on the topic of servants confirms
their general disdain for livery:
To Abel Doltin, Jun. Esq. At English near Nettlebed

Oxfordshire July 27 1756
Sir/
Vsye tells me he can send you a Man [servant] who will undertake
to Dress [your] Hair and look after Horses, but you must not expect
him to Dress Hair very well, for no servt which can [choose], will wear
Livery, much less look after Horses. (C 108/30, PRO.)
19 Bristol Weekly Intelligencer 15 June 1751.

20 Daniel Roche, The Culture of Cbthing: Dress and Fashion in the 'ancien
regime' (1994) p. 57.
21 Gentleman's Magazine January 1734, pp. 13-14.
1 Bobby Shafto's Shirt and Britches: Contracted Clothing and the

Transformation of the Trade
1A traditional eighteenth-century nursery rhyme. Gloria T. Delamar,

Mother Goose: From Nursery to Literature (1987) p. 110.
2 The classic volume by G.N. Clark focuses on, among other things, the
military and administrative pressures of a century of European war.
G.N. Clark, The Seventeenth Century (1929).
3 John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State,
1688-1783 (1989) p. xv.
4 Brewer, p. 34.
5 See Daniel Roche, for a study of the cultural attributes of uniforms
among the French military over this period: The Culture of Clothing:
Dress and Fashion in the 'ancien regime' (1994), Ch. 9, 'The discipline of
appearances: the prestige of uniform' pp. 221-56. Uniforms were an
important source of business for the nineteenth-century clothing trade.
However, historians of that period have not recognized that the pat-
terns of trade extant in the nineteenth century originated in an earlier
era: Pamela Sharpe, ' "Cheapness and Economy": Manufacturing and
Retailing Ready-made Clothing in London and Essex 1830-50' Textile
History 26:2 (1995), pp. 204-5.
6 See the authoritative assessment of this transformation in P.G.M.
150 Notes
Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development

of Public Credit, 1688-1756 (1967).
7 S.P. 28/1A, ff. 74, 85, 162, 164, 280-2, PRO. I am indebted to Anne
Laurence for this reference.
8 S.P. 28/23, ff. 347, 349. Anne Laurence kindly supplied me with this
reference.
9 S.P. 25/1, 115, pp. 4 - 5 , PRO, in Seventeenth Century Economic Docu-
ments, Joan Thirsk and J.P. Cooper (eds) (1972) pp. 370-1.
10 Brewer, pp. 8-9.
11 The economic impact of the naval contracts is assessed in D.C. Coleman,
'Naval Dockyards Under the Later Stuarts' in Myth, History and the
Industrial Revolution, D.C. Coleman (ed.) (1992).
12 N.AM. Rodger, The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy
(1986) p. 64; Phillis Cunnington and Catherine Lucas, Occupational
Costume in England (1967) pp. 56-60.
13 The Navy Record Society publications in themselves constitute a pro-
digious record of this process.
14 Some of the foremost accounts include: John Ehrman, The Navy in the
War of William III, 1689-1697 (1953); R.D. Merriman, Queen Anne's
Navy: Documents concerning the Administration of the Navy of Queen Anne,
1702-1714 (1961); Ralph Davis, The Rise oftheEnglish Shipping Industry
(1962); Daniel Baugh, British Naval Administration in the Age ofWalpole
(1965) and Naval Administration, 1715-1759 (1977); Brian Lavery, The
Ship of the Line: The Development ofthe Battlefleet, 1650-1850vo\. I, (1983);
Rodger, The Wooden World.
15 Ehrman, p. xv.
16 Lavery, vol. I, pp. 43, 158-165.
17 S.P. 29/68, 5 0 - 3 ; S.P. / I, 94, 155, PRO. The First (1651) and Sec-
ond (1665) Dutch Wars announced England's determination to pro-
tect, expand and preserve overseas trade against even the most powerful
competitors. Cromwell's determined policy of defence of trade inaugur-
ated a qualitative restructuring and continued reliance on an expanded
Royal Navy, a policy maintained through the next two centuries.
18 Ehrman, pp. 109-10.
19 Brewer, p. 42. See also Table 2.1, p. 30. Brewer tracks the growth of
the navy through the wars to 1784:1739-48 - 50313; 1756-63 - 74800;
1775-84 - 82002. However, naval historians acknowledge that num-
bers in this period can only represent a best estimate.
20 Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England, pp. 393-403; Bernard
Pool, Navy Board Contracts, 1660-1832 (1966) pp. 65-76.
21 Pool, p. ix.
22 S.P.Dom. quoted in M. Oppenheim, A History of the Administration of the
Royal Navy .. . From 1509 to 1660 (1895 reprinted in 1988) p. 329.
23 J.B. Hattendorf, RJ.B. Knight, AW.H. Pearsall, NA.M. Rodger and
Geoffrey Till (eds), British Naval Documents, 1204-1960 (1993) p. 515;
Ehrman, p. 122.
24 Adm/2/1725, p. 95, PRO. Shirts at that time were T-shaped, thigh-
length simply stitched garments without shoulder seams and with
a simple slit head opening, and the cotton referred to was a type
Notes 151
of woollen cloth with a napped finish, commonly made in northern

England.
25 Ehrman, pp. 122-4.
26 S.P.Dom., vol. 226, 176, quoted in G.E. Manwaring, 'The Dress of the
British Seaman - III' Mariner's Mirror 10:2, p. 329.
27 S.P. 29/71/4, PRO.
28 Pepys, quoted in Pool, p. 3. Pepys survived the upheavals of 1676 when
a new Admiralty Commission was appointed by the King to silence the
opposition. In 1684, after his brief exile from office, he returned as
'Secretary for the affairs of the Admiralty of England': Pool, p. 20.
29 Quoted in Manwaring, 'Dress' p. 326.
30 The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Robert Latham and William Matthews (eds),
vol. 9 (1972) pp. 81-2.
31 S.P.Dom., vol. 265, 171, quoted in Manwaring, p. 328.
32 Diary p. 82, n.l; p. 405, n.l. Pool, pp. 37-40, discusses the rather flex-
ible business morality which prevailed at this time in Navy Board busi-
ness, even as Pepys struggled to get the best and cheapest supplies.
33 Thomas Beckford sustained his position in the face of several scandals
in the 1670s, defending himself against charges of selling brandy as
clothes on board ships and distributing on more than one occasion
higher quality, more cosdy garments.
34 Calendar of Treasury Books, hereafter Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 22, part 2, p. 161.
35 Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 9, part 1, pp. 246, 268 and part 2, pp. 345, 500-1, 744;
vol. 10, part I, p. 356.
36 Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 10, part I, p. 356; vol. 12, pp. 24 and 171.
37 Adm/20/74, PRO.
38 Chapter 2 of this volume considers in detail the impact of the expand-
ing demand for clothing on the gendered patterns of production.
39 Adm/A/1935, no. 317, PRO.
40 Cal.Tr.Bks., 1739-1741, p. 507.
41 Schwarz outlines the various levels of investment required to begin in
these trades. For example, mercers and woollen drapers needed from
£5000 to 10000 to set up trade. Established, large-scale traders might
naturally work with greater sums invested in stock. Julian Hoppit lists
the levels of debts of sixty-seven bankrupts in the eighteenth century.
Within that list £30000-£50000 was described as large among the
businesses examined. L.D. Schwarz, London in the Era of Industrialisa-
tion: Entrepreneurs, Labour Force and Living Conditions, 1700-1850 (1992)
pp. 61-65; Julian Hoppit, Risk and Failure in English Business, 1700-
1800 (1987) p. 141.
42 For discussions of the hierarchy of trades and the stresses in the business
world related to manufacturing, debt collection and credit see: Peter
Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class: Business, Society and Family
Life in London, 1660-1730 (1989) especially ch. 4; Schwarz, pp. 57-77;
Hoppit, pp. 75-87.
43 See S.D. Chapman, 'Innovating Entrepreneurs in the British Ready-
made Clothing Industry' Textile History 24:1 (1993), a useful article
which traces the process of expansion of selected firms from the late
eighteenth century through to the mid-nineteenth century.
152 Notes
44 Labouring men wore trousers long before they were popular with
the fashionable gentry. These garments loosely covered the legs and
were worn for practical reasons by sailors, soldiers and labourers and
only occasionally by country squires. The practicality of the garments
resulted in their upward mobility. Trousers, along with frocks (or frock
coats), were adopted and adapted by the upper ranks by the end of
the eighteenth century. Frocks, too, were originally worn only by labour-
ing men. These were loose fitting coats with a turned down collar. The
linen or canvas drawers referred to in many slop orders were probably
the shorter wide-legged slops called in an earlier period petticoat
breeches, because of their width. Suits of canvas jacket and drawers
were the common names given to garments ordered for seamen from
the mid-seventeenth century. C.W. and Phillis Cunnington, Handbook
of English Costume in the 18th Century (1972) pp. 17-18; Cunnington
and Lucas, Occupational Costume, pp. 56-61.
45 Once again, various numbers are given for the size of the naval estab-
lishment. Schwarz suggests about 85000 around 1760; Brewer suggests
75000. Schwarz, Table 3.3, p. 98; Brewer, p. 30, Table 2.1.
46 Adm/49/35, PRO.
47 The value of his products, the size of his trade, compares favourably
with those of prosperous wool manufacturers in the mid decades of
the eighteenth century. S.D. Chapman, 'Industrial Capital before the
Industrial Revolution: An Analysis of the Assets of a Thousand Textile
Entrepreneurs c. 1730-1750' in N.B. Harte and K.G. Ponting (eds),
Textile History and Economic History: Essays in Honour ofMissfulia de Lacy
Mann (1973), pp. 119-21.
48 Adm/49/35, PRO. Fullagar & Todd also clothed an unknown number
of militia regiments during the 1760s. DJ. Smith, 'Army Clothing
Contractors and the Textile Industries in the 18th Century' Textile
History 14:2 (1983), p. 158.
49 Schwarz, Table 3.3, p. 98.
50 Examinations of the markets served by the British textile industries
include: S.D. Chapman and Serge Chassagne, European Textile Printers
in the Eighteenth Century (1981) especially p. 90, Table 16; Beverly Lemire,
Fashion's Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660-
1800 (1991) especially ch. 3; and for a sample of the numerous studies
of the textile industries see AP. Wadsworth and Julia de Lacy Mann,
The Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire (1931); G.D. Ramsay, The
English Woollen Industry, 1500-1750 (1982); Nesta Evans, The East Anglian
Linen Industry (1985); Eric Kerridge, Textile Manufactures in early mod-
em England (1986); D.T. Jenkins, The West Riding Wool Textile Industry,
1750-1835: A Study in Fixed Capital Formation (1975). I have noted
elsewhere that clothing manufacture was frequendy associated with
those regions of the country where fabrics were made: for example,
Lancashire, the West Country and Ulster. Evidence from regional stud-
ies suggests that Scodand also developed clothes manufacturing, at
least in Edinburgh. I would like to thank Elizabeth Sanderson for this
information.
51 The Sun Fire and Royal Exchange Insurance Company registers provide
Notes 153
a wealth of information for researchers and have been the foundation

of major studies. For a discussion of the records see Schwarz, appen-
dix 1. Works based on these insurance registers include Schwarz, London
in the age of industrialisation and L.D. Schwarz and LJ. Jones, 'Wealth,
Occupations, and Insurance in the Late Eighteenth Century: The Policy
Registers of the Sun Fire Office' Economic History Review 2nd series,
35:3 (1983); S.D. Chapman, 'Fixed Capital Formation in the British
Cotton Industry, 1770-1815' Economic History Review 2nd series, 23
(1970) and 'Industrial capital before the industrial revolution'; and
Jenkins, West Riding Wool.
52 Schwarz, p. 66.
53 Schwarz and Jones, pp. 368-9.
54 Brewer, p. 30, Table 2.1. AlanJ. Guy, Oeconomy and Discipline: Officership
and administration in the British army, 1714-1763 (1985) p. 9, places the
numbers in the British army, excluding the Irish Establishment, at
peace time figures of 26314 in the 1730s, 29132 in the 1750s and
111 553 in 1762. The numbers in the military establishment are never
precise for this period and can only be considered best estimates. For
a full discussion of the hazards of military enumeration see Jeremy
Black, European Warfare, 1660-1815 (1994) pp. 92-3.
55 Daniel Defoe describes the cyclical effects of war on trade. 'Upon
some sudden Accident in Trade here comes a great unusual Demand
for Goods, the Merchants from Abroad have sudden and unusual
Commissions, and the Call for Goods . . . encreases . . . animated by
the advanc'd Price.' A Plan of the English Commerce, 2nd edn (1730,
reprinted 1967) 257-8.
56 Adm/20/50, PRO; Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 8, part I, p. 1504.
57 It was cynically assumed by all parties that if on some occasions the
officers would be obliged to dip into their pockets to service their
commands, then on others they would cream off the public money
entrusted to them. The narrow line between legitimate emolument
and fraud was easily crossed. Guy, p. 3.
58 In 1703, following the fall of die Paymaster General, the Earl of
Ranelagh, the Comptrollers of the Accounts of the army were intro-
duced to scour regimental accounts for graft and maladministration.
But their staff was too small to be entirely effective.
59 Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 9, part 1, p. 67; David Chandler, The Art of Warfare in
the Age of Marlborough (1976) pp. 30, 84-85; Brewer, p. 30, Table 2.1.
60 Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 10, part 2, p. 1104.
61 Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 12, p. 31.
62 Tallies originated from an ancient accounting tradition. They were
receipts in the form of a piece of wood scored with coded notches
which indicated the sums owed; it was divided between the Exchequer
and the creditor and was considered secure from counterfeit. Dickson,
Financial Revolution, pp. 344-5; 350; 393-5.
63 Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 12, pp. 34; 55.
64 CalTr.Papers, 1556/7-1696, p. 161; Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 11, p. 355; p. 352.
65 The Treasury papers are full of references to the juggling that went
on to keep the clothing contractors quiescent. In May 1699, £10000
154 Notes
was ordered to be paid out of loans on the Land Tax to clear the
outstanding debts for clothing several regiments: Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 14,
p. 365. In December, 1700, the contractors were brought before
the Treasury Board and told that no more money would be forth-
coming that year, promising £4000 out of the surplus in the civil list
after Christmas: Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 16, p. 26. Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 10, part 2,
p. 756.
66 There are periodic references to the impact of inadequate clothing on
the various land forces. In 1689, a letter to King William described the
state of the English forces in Ireland.
Next, as to the army; we have some good officers, but abundance of
very ill ones, who take no manner of care of their men, whether well
or sick. The common men are the bravest and best creatures in the
world, obedient and ready to hazard their lives cheerfully .. . but
they are ill-clothes, and many of them have no shoes to their feet.
We hope that there are come over the 4000 which I bespoke at
Northampton . . . As to our wants, the greatest are shoes, some
warm coats for the men .. . Coats cannot be had here but would be
of great use to the men's health.
C.S.PJ)om., 1689-1690, p. 276.
67 Dickson, Financial Revolution, pp. 395-9.
68 See Alan J. Guy, 'Regimental Agency in the British Standing Army,
1715-1763: A Study of Georgian Military Administration: I' Bulletin of
the John Rylands Library LXII (1980) pp. 423-53; and 'Regimental
Agency in the British Standing Army, 1715-1763: A Study of Georgian
Military Administration: II' Bulletin of the fohn Rylands Library LXIII
(1980) pp. 31-57.
69 C 108/421, PRO.
70 S.P.Dom., 41/48, f. 396.
71 There are numerous instances of officers pursued for debts incurred
through their pledging their credit for regimental clothing. For ex-
ample: 'petition of Robert Duncanson, Lieut. Col in Lord Lome's
Regiment, shewing that he is under arrest for 12001. due to Joseph
Ashley for clothing furnished to the said Regiment in 1696: and
praying relief therein': CalTr.Bks., vol. 14, p. 410; 'The king to the
Treasury commissioners of Scodand. It is represented by severals
[sic] of the officers of our forces that they stand personally engaged
for clothing furnished to our regiments, and that they are at pres-
ent distressed by merchants with whom they contracted, so that they
cannot attend our service. We therefore require you without delay
. . . to clear their accompts': Calendar of State Papers, Domestic . . . William
III, April 1700-March 1702 p. 489. Also, C.S.P.Dom., 1699-1700,
pp. 164-5.
72 S.P.Dom., 41/48, f. 396. Henry Mayhew printed an expose of the
corruption and starvation piece rates paid to needlewomen and tailors
for army clothing work. See E.P. Thompson and Eileen Yeo, The Un-
known Mayhew: Selectionsfromthe Morning Chronicle, 1849-1850 (1971)
pp. 150-74.
Notes 155
73 In the records consulted from 1680 onward I came across no examples
of women contractors with the army.
74 There are many examples of the local traders and merchants pro-
visioning nearby regiments. Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 8, part 1, p. 406; vol. 9,
part 1, p. 285; vol. 13, pp. 277-8; Cal.Tr.Papers, 1556/7-1696, pp. 361,
481, 509. In one specific memo with regard to the British army in
Scodand and Ireland, it was noted that: 'Overcoats can be obtained
best and cheapest from Galloway in Scodand': S.P. 8d. 1691 Memoran-
dum. See also T.S. Willan, An Eighteenth Century Shopkeeper: Abraham
Dent of Kirkby Stephen (1970) pp. 60-111. Note the trade of John
Totterdell, woollen draper and tailor of Bath, below.
75 CaLTr.Papers, 1556/7-1696 pp. 138, 426; Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 13, p. 398;
C.107, 158, 19 and 34, PRO.
76 The original sites of the East India Company offices and the Bank of
England, to 1734.
77 Daniel Defoe, The Complete English Tradesman (2nd edn 1727, reprinted
1969) p. 309.
78 Dickson, Financial Revolution pp. 345, 252; 257-8; 265-7; 343-4; 429;
Gary Stuart de Krey, A Fractured Society: The Politics of London in the First
Age of the Party, 1688-1715 (1985), pp. 145-6; 153. Furnese was so
closely associated with war-time financing that he was satirized by both
Swift and Defoe as a war profiteer.
79 Sir William Scawen and partner petitioned for the payment of over
£30000 in 1694, for clothing several regiments. Sir Stephen Evance
and Sir Joseph Herne, who frequently worked together, asked for a
payment schedule on the £71000 owed them in 1693 and the £8557
owed them for clothing two regiments in 1695: Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 10,
part 1, p. 186 and part 3, p. 1258; Cal.Tr.Papers, 1556/7-1696, p. 369.
80 Smith, 'Army Clothing Contractors' pp. 159-163. Robert Blunt, one
of the largest shirt makers in the last half of the eighteenth cen-
tury, advertised not only for civilian customers, but also listed 'Shirts
for the Army, of strong yard-wide Irish Cloth . . . [and] Any Quantity
of Hosiery contracted for, at the most reasonable Rates': The Public
Advertiser 10 February 1766.
81 For example, The Royal Africa Company included clothing among
the exports that it carried down to the west coast of Africa: KG. Davies,
The Royal Africa Company (1957) p. 234.
82 In 1705, 10000 pairs of stockings, shoes, shirts and cravats, plus 2000
hats were relayed to the forces in Portugal. In 1729, £2331 of clothing
in twelve bales, for Lord Londonderry's Regiment of Foot, was shipped
north to Fort William at a cost of nearly £30. Particular orders were
sent for regiments headed out to Newfoundland and the West Indies,
while payments to European merchants for clothing regiments was
not uncommon. Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 20, part 2, pp. 264-5; C.108/421,
PRO; CaLTr.Papers, 1697-1701/2, pp. 226, 290-1; Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 13,
p. 229; vol. 14, pp. 84, 209, 218.
83 For example, moth-eaten jackets and other regimental clothing were
ordered to be sold to the Portuguese, if the English regiments would
not take them. Cal.Tr.Bks., vol. 22, part 2, p. 92.
156 Notes
84 40.37; 40.79; 108.6, Heal Tradecard Collection, British Library.
85 Merchants and Merchandise in Seventeenth-Century Bristol, Patrick McGrath
(ed.) (1968) pp. 268, 271-2. Sarah Levitt has begun a study of the
Bristol region manufacturing communities: 'Ready-made clothing trade
in Bristol in the late 18th and early 19th centuries' in Ready-made
Fashion: Research and Problems in the History of Mass-produced Clothing
(1991) published conference proceedings.
86 Elizabeth Schumpeter, English Overseas Trade Statistics, 1697-1808
(1960), Table XTV, p. 44. In the probate inventory of a Southwark
salesman who died in 1699 there is an example in miniature of the
sort of recurrent overseas trade that one would expect to find, 'sent
to Virginia p. Capt. Jeffries a p'cell of goods .. . £39.18.00'. This sales-
man dealt in all the basic apparel, from flannel petticoats to lined
men's jackets. PROB 32/67/129, PRO.
87 Nuala Zehedieh, 'London and the colonial consumer in the late seven-
teenth century' Economic History Review 2nd series, 47:2 (1994), pp. 248-
57, especially tables 9 and 10, discusses the significance of the colonial
market as an oudet for quantities of manufactured goods, including
ready-made clothes, and the resultant structural developments in these
industries.
88 'For the most part, slaves were either given ready-made clothes or
used "negro cloth" to make trousers, petticoats and the like': Shane
White and Graham White, 'Slave Clothing and African-American Cul-
ture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries' Past and Present 148
(1995), p. 154.
89 108.2, Heal Tradecards Collection, British Museum.
90 Lemire, Fashion's Favourite, pp. 184-5; The Public Advertiser 23 March
1763.
91 Elizabeth Mancke, A Company of Businessmen: The Hudson's Bay Com-
pany and Long-Distance Trade, 1670-1730 (1988) pp. 4-16. Mancke
notes the insightful remark made by K.N. Chaudhuri, which applied
equally to the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company, that the 'most
difficult task for the . . . managers was the creation of an equilibrium
between the supply and the consuming markets': K.N. Chaudhuri, The
Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company, 1660-1760
(1978) p. 457. I am indebted to John Nicks for suggesting that I
consult the records of the Hudson's Bay Company for examples of
overseas trade in clothing.
92 See David Corner, 'The Tyranny of Fashion: The Case of the Felt-
Hatting Trade in the Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries'
Fabrics and Fashions: Studies in the Economic and Social History of Dress
N.B. Harte (ed.) (1991).
93 For a survey of the early history of the Hudson's Bay Company see:
Graham D. Taylor and Peter A Baskerville, A Concise History of Business
in Canada (1994) pp. 44-9; Michael Bliss, Northern Enterprise: Five Cen-
turies of Canadian Business (1987) pp. 79-88; and for a classic study see
E.E. Rich, The Hudson's Bay Company, 1670-1870 vol. 1 (1958).
94 E.E. Rich (ed.), Minutes of the Hudson's Bay Company, 1679-1684
(1946) part 1, vol. 8, p. 105, note 1. Thomas Beckford is also noted
Notes 157
as a slopseller to the Company early in its existence in 1672, before
his business with the Navy expanded. John Gore, the slopseller, was
a frequent supplier in the early years. Henry Cornish, a prominent
army clothing contractor, was among the stock holders of the Hudson's
Bay Company in 1682. Minutes of the H.B.C., 1671-1674, vol. 5, pp. 82;
vol. 8, pp. 85, 105, 209, 308.
95 Mancke, pp. 45-6.
96 A 15/1 and A 15/2, Grand Journal. Sir Joseph Herne, a close col-
league of Evance, had a brother with stocks in the East India Com-
pany. Similarly, several of the other top army clothing contractors
held stock in that company; no doubt an incentive to find markets for
those goods: Robert Walcott Jr, English Politics in the Early Eighteenth
Century (1956) pp. 162, 164; PJ. Thomas, Mercantilism and East India
Trade (1926) pp. 25-6.
97 A 15/2, A 15/3, A 15/4, Grand Journal.
98 Quoted in Arthur J. Ray, 'Indians as Consumers in the Eighteenth
Century' in Calor M. Judd and Arthur J. Ray (eds), Old Trails and New
Directions: Papers of the Third North American Fur Trade Conference (1980),
p. 255.
99 'Report to the Governor and Committee by John Nixon, 1682' in
Minutes of the Hudson's Bay Company, 1679-84, vol. 8, Appendix A,
pp. 251-2.
100 Ray suggests that the complaints from the Indians with whom they
were trading reflected their efforts to obtain better quality trade goods.
Rather than being passive receivers of whatever was sent out, the Com-
pany servants found some goods unsaleable to the native people: Ray,
'Indians as Consumers', pp. 258-68.
101 Minutes of the Hudson's Bay Company, 1679-1684 vol. 8, pp. 147, 167-
8, 181, 187, 195.
102 A 15/1-A 15/3, Grand Journals.
103 Lemire, Fashion's Favourite, p. 19; Chaudhuri, p. 287.
104 A survey of the data base created for the Atlantic Canada Newspa-
per Survey reveals numerous examples of British apparel of all sorts
imported into the various ports cities of British North America and
sold at auction and as part of regular retail trade.
105 131.26, Heal Tradecard Collection, British Library. William Olive,
staymaker, of Whitechapel, placed a similar advertisement in a Lon-
don newspaper: 'Country Shop-keepers may be supplied with Sortments
of Womens and Childrens ready made, either Whalebone or Leather,
on the lowest Terms, and Masters and Governors of Schools and Work-
houses, may be waited on, . . . by a Line directed as above, within ten
Miles of London': The Public Advertiser 7 February 1764.
106 Parliamentary Papers, Report on the Education of the Lower Orders in the
Metropolis IV (1816) pp. 80, 84, 5 0 - 1 , 18-19, 1-2.
107 A / F H / A / 3 / 2 / 1 , General Committee Minute Book, GLRO.
108 A / F H / A / 3 / 2 / 7 , Rough Minute Book of the General Committee; A /
F H / A 3 / 5 / 1 , Subcommittee Minute Book, vol. 1, 1748-1754, GLRO.
M. Dorothy George, London Life in the Eighteenth Century (1925, repr.
1965) pp. 55-7.
158 Notes
109 For example, their contract 23 June 1752 for:

30 Coats at 6/ea. 9.00.00
55 Coats at 5/ea. 13.15.00
5 altered Coats at 2/6 ea. 0.12.06
£23.17.06
A / F H / B 1 / 1 1 , Clothing Expense Account Book, 1741-78; A / F H / A 3 /
5 / 1 , pp. 114, 122-4, Subcommittee Minute Book, vol. 1, 1748-54,
GLRO.
110 John Totterdell, a woollen draper and tailor in Bath, is an excellent
illustration of the way trade tides can obscure actual business prac-
tices, particularly if one relies solely on one static source such as a
trade directory. In fact, Totterdell was a clothes manufacturer, as is
made clear in his 1766 advertisement.
Serves Gendemen and others with any Suit, either Laced or Plain
with every other Garment on the lowest Terms.
The remaining Part of his Stock, is now making up to a very great
Advantage; having a large assortment manufacturing against the
Winter Season.
Any Gendeman or Merchant, that chuses to contract for Five or
Six Thousand Pounds worth of Cloaths, for Exportation etc., may
have it made to Order, in four or five Months Time.
Pope's Bath Chronicle 25 September 1766.
111 Corner offers a parallel example in the expansion of the hatting trade.
112 The classic article on this subject is FJ. Fisher, 'The Development of
the London Food Market, 1540-1640' Economic History Review 5:2
(1935). It is interesting to note that in the nineteenth century demand
for military and police uniforms continued to exert a significant influ-
ence on the structure of the clothing trade in London. Jenny Morris,
'The Characteristics of Sweating: The Late Nineteenth-Century Lon-
don and Leeds Tailoring Trade' in Angela V. John (ed.), Unequal
Opportunities: Women's Employment in England, 1800-1918 (1986) p. 109.
2 Redressing the History of the Clothing Trade: Ready-Made Apparel,

Guilds and Women Outworkers
1 N.B. Harte, 'The Economics of Clothing in the Late Seventeenth

Century' in N.B. Harte (ed.), Fabrics and Fashions (1991), p. 278.
2 The low cost of women's pay was critical in ensuring profitability in
many industries, enabling an expansion of production and the cre-
ation of new ranges of goods. See Maxine Berg, 'Women's work, mech-
anisation and the early phases of industrialisation in England' in Patrick
Joyce (ed.), The Historical Meanings of Work (1987). The contract system
of clothes production also adversely affected journeymen tailors' work,
a subject discussed below.
3 Three well known examples of articles of dress which were manufac-
tured in growing volumes from the middle of the seventeenth century
were the hosiery, shoe and hat industries. Hosiery was being made both
Notes 159
with the aid of knitting frames and by hand in provincial districts of
England and distributed through London. Shoe production followed
a similar pattern of cottage manufacture with centralized distribution,
while hatting was very much a London-based trade which fixed ready-
made stylized felted head-coverings as an essential part of dress. The
histories of these trades, which encased the extremities of the body,
have been much better documented than has the clothing trades which
covered the body proper. Why would there be such a disparity? One
might find some answers by reflecting on the functions of the gar-
ments themselves, characteristics of the regions which specialized in
the manufacture of ready-made apparel and the workforce which
produced these garments. For hosiery, see Joan Thirsk, 'The fantast-
ical folly of fashion: the English stocking knitting industry, 1500-1700'
in N.B. Harte and K.G. Ponting (eds), Textile History and Economic
History: Essays in Honour ofMissfulia de Lacy Mann (1973) and 'Indus-
tries in the countryside' in FJ. Fisher, Essays in the Economic and Social
History of Tudor and Stuart England (1961); S.D. Chapman, 'The Gen-
esis of the British Hosiery Industry, 1600-1750' Textile History 3 (1972)
and Introduction in Gravenor Henson, History of the Framework Knitters
(1831, reprinted 1970). For shoes, June Swann, Shoemaking (1986);
Dorothy George, London Life in the Eighteenth Century (1925, reprinted
1966) especially ch. 4, section 3; L.A Clarkson, 'The Organization of
the English Leather Industry in the Late Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries' Economic History Review 2nd series, 13 (1960); Harte, 'The
Economics of Clothing'. For hats, David Corner, 'The Tyranny of
Fashion: The Case of the Felt-Hatting Trade in the Late Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries' in Fabrics and Fashions (1991); Joan Thirsk,
Economic Policy and Projects (1978); Madeleine Ginsburg, The Hat: Trends
and Traditions (1990).
4 Ms. Morrell 6, f. 142, 3 January 1648. Election and Order Book 1570-
1710, Oxford Company of Taylors, Bodleian Library.
5 C.S.P.Dom., 1661-2, pp. 230-1. Ferdinando Seaborne petitioned to
become a member of the Oxford Company of Taylors, claiming mem-
bership as his right after leaving his London trade as a tailor and fol-
lowing King Charles to Oxford, where he served in the militia under
General Monk. Although he was not born in Oxford he had lived
there eighteen years by the time of his petition, all the while working
as a tailor.
6 Ms. Morrell 6, f. 137, 28 June 1647.
7 Ms. Morrell 6, f. 174, 12 September 1661.
8 Ms. Morrell 6, ff. 195 v., 27 April 1669; 212v. 12 September 1676. From
the use of the term 'milliner' one might assume that those indicted
were women; however, only one among the many charged was found
to be female.
9 05-11-13, Oxford Petty Sessions, ff. 108, 110, 111.
10 WP B 8(7), The State of the Case of the Milliners of Oxford, 1668.
University Archives, Oxford University.
11 WP B 8(7).
12 Ms. Morrell 6, f. 195, 5 January 1669; f. 197, 28 October 1669.
160 Notes
13 Ms. Morrell 6, f. 215, 30 July 1677; ff. 231-232, 27 April 1685 & 29
June 1685; f. 237, 2 January 1687; f. 267, 28 October 1695.
14 WRO G 2 3 / 1 / 2 5 4 , 4 February 1685, Wiltshire Record Office,
Trowbridge.
15 G22/1 Minute and Account Book, Merchant Taylors' Company, 1700-
1703, Chester City Record Office.
16 #570, Orphans Inventories, CLRO.
17 Isaac Parker was a London-based staymaker who regularly attended
the Bristol Fair, carrying with him 'a quantity of Goods as [sic] also a
Book of Accounts of Money due to him'. Parker died unexpectedly, in
1734, at the house of a tallow chandler where he usually stayed. PROB
3/33/138, PRO.
18 Ms. Morrell 6, ff. 267 v., 269 v., 5 May and 11 March 1696; Ms. Morrell
7, Company of Taylor's Order Book, 1710-1833, ff. 6, 8, 16 April
1711, 16 October 1711.
19 Ms. Morrell 7, f. 39, 24 June 1725.
20 Artefacts made for the ready-made clothing trade can be usefully con-
sulted for insights into patterns of work. See penultimate section, this
chapter.
21 The young Moll Flanders hoped to support herself with such arts
learned from her kind foster mother. Moll claimed to be 'very nimble
at my Work, . . . [I] had a good Hand with my Needle': Daniel Defoe,
Moll Flanders, Edward Kelly (ed.) (1721, reprinted 1973) pp. 12-13.
See also the testimony of witnesses on the parochial training offered
girls in metropolitan schools: Parliamentary Papers, Report on the Educ-
tion of the Lower Orders in the Metropolis IV (1816).
22 liana Krausman Ben-Amos, 'Women apprentices in the trades and crafts
of early modern Bristol' Continuity and Change6:2 (1991), pp. 236, 232-
48.
23 K.D.M. Snell, Annals of the Labouring Poor. Social Change and Agrarian
England, 1600-1900 (1985), p. 311. Peter Earle, 'The female labour
market in London in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth cen-
turies' Economic History Review, 2nd series, 42:3 (1989), pp. 339. See
also A.L. Beier, 'Engine of manufacture: the trades of London' in A.L.
Beier and Roger Finlay (eds), London: The making of the metropolis (1986)
pp. 147-51.
24 Very litde has been gleaned about the scale or characteristics of
women's work in either the prominent and respectable fields of the
clothing trades or their humbler counterparts, although retail work in
the clothing trades was a traditional resort of women young and old,
rich and poor. Studies of women's work in England during the pre-
industrial and early industrial period include Alice Clark, Working Life of
Women in the Seventeenth Century (1919, reprinted 1968); Ivy Pinchbeck,
Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution (1930, reprinted 1981);
Dorothy George, London Life in the Eighteenth Century (1925, reprinted
1965) touch briefly on various features of women's work in the cloth-
ing trade before the nineteenth century, as did Sally Alexander, Women's
Work in Nineteenth-Century London: A Study of the Years 1820-50 (1983)
who examines the needle trades at a later date. Some of the recent
Notes 161
studies of women's work experience include Bridget Hill, Eighteenth

Century Women: An Anthology (1984); Mary Prior (ed.), Women in Eng-
lish Society, 1500-1800 (1985); Lindsey Charles and Lorna Duffin (eds),
Women and Work in Pre-industrial England (1985); Barbara A. Hanawalt
(ed.), Women and Work in Pre-industrial Europe (1986); Bridget Hill,
Women, Work, and Sexual Politics in Eighteenth Century England (1989);
Anne Laurence, Women in England, 1500-1760 (1994); Deborah
Valenze, The First Industrial Woman (1995); Pamela Sharpe, Adapting to
Capitalism: Working Women in the English Economy, 1700-1850 (1995).
Snell, Annals of the Labouring Poor, considers the changing patterns of
apprenticeship for women; however, while an excellent overview, there
is no specific focus on employment or trade related to apparel. For
the European experience see Merry E. Wiesner, 'Spinsters and Seam-
stresses: Women in Cloth and Clothing Production' in Margaret W.
Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan and Nancy J. Vickers (eds), Rewriting the
Renaissance (1986).
25 Eng. Ms. WH/864, Bodleian Library. This tailor's day book, kept
by Humphries of North Weston, Thame, Oxfordshire from 1757 to
1778, records the work done by him, his wife and several men, perhaps
apprentices or journeymen. Mrs Humphries's work was accounted to
be worth half that of her husband at 6d per day.
26 Roger Finlay and Beatrice Shearer, 'Population growth and suburban
expansion' London: The Making of the Metropolis, 1500-1700 A.L. Beier
and Roger Finlay (eds) (1986) pp. 5 0 - 1 .
27 The man who joined Scott in the cart ride to their place of execution
also had some familiarity with the fruits of London women's work,
having broken into a warehouse and stolen £120 of clothes from a
merchant. A True Account of the Behaviour, Confession, and Execution of
William Charley and Ann Scott . . . , 1685, pp. 1-3.
28 For example, Jane Wright tried to continue with her dead husband's
trade as a master tailor, but was ultimately obliged to work in 'a slop
shop': Earle, 'London female labour', p. 339. The appendix listing
occupations of husbands and wives shows numerous examples of women
working in the clothes trade while their husbands were sailors.
29 See Chapter 3, the section entided 'Jewish Presence in the Lower
Clothing Trades', for a fuller discussion of the insurance policies and
the quantitative analyses developed.
30 MJ. Kitch, 'Capital and kingdom: migration to later Stuart London' in
Beier and Finlay, London: The Making of the Metropolis pp. 227-48.
31 The Ordinary of Newgate His Account ... , May 1717, p. 5.
32 For a brief survey of the significant patterns of population and work
models see Maxine Berg, 'Women's Work and the Industrial Revolu-
tion' in New Directions in Economic and Social History vol. II, Anne Digby,
Charles Feinstein and David Jenkins (eds) (1992), p. 26. Pamela Sharpe
notes the channelling of women into domestic industries in similar
demographic and economic circumstances in another part of England.
There, female headed households became a normal aspect of the
community where work in lace making or spinning was so abundant
for a time. Pamela Sharpe, 'Literally spinsters: a new interpretation of
162 Notes
local economy and demography in Colyton in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries' Economic History Review 40:1 (1991) pp. 52-3.
33 Anne Buck, 'Mantuamakers and Milliners: Women Making and Sell-
ing Clothes in Eighteenth Century Bedfordshire' Bedfordshire Historical
Record Society vol. 72 (1993) pp. 142-3.
34 August-November 1698; November-February 1698; May-August 1699;
G22/1, Minute & Account Book, 1698-1860, Merchant Taylors' Com-
pany, Chester City Record Office.
35 The Trade of England Revived: and the abuses thereof Rectified . . . , (1681),
p. 36. The author lists an interesting collection of trades, particularly
when one considers how readily drapers, mercers and tailors were
becoming contractors for army clothing and clothing manufacturers
in general.
36 This facet of industrial change has been most thoroughly investigated
in traditional labour histories. See, for example, F.W. Galton, Select
Documents Illustrating the History of Trade Unionism: The Tailoring Trade
i, (1896); S. and B. Webb, The History of Trade Unionism (1911); C.R.
Dobson, Masters andfoumeymen: A Pre-history of Industrial Relations, 1717—
1800 (1980) pp. 39-40, 60, 69-73; John Rule, The Labouring Classes in
Early Industrial England, 1750-1850 (1986) pp. 256-9; L.D. Schwarz,
London in the Age of Industrialisation: Entrepreneurs, Labour Force and
Living Conditions, 1700-1850 (1992), pp. 186-92. Tailors could not
hold back the changes in clothing production or limit the numbers
working in the trade which continued to swell throughout the nine-
teenth century. For a contemporary examination of the tailoring and
needletrades in that century see, The Unknown Mayhew: Selections from
the Morning Chronicle, 1849-1850, E.P. Thompson and Eileen Yeo (eds)
(1971) pp. 137-272.
37 The Chester Merchant Taylors' Company Minute and Account Book
is replete with notations of the expense of prosecuting women infring-
ing guild rights: G22/1, Chester City Record Office. A prominent Salis-
bury official was fined 40.$. at the turn of the century as a result of
employing a woman in his workshop: WRO G23/1/254, 11 January
1770, Wiltshire Record Office. Mary Prior addresses the attempts by
authorities to quash competitive women in the clothing trades in
Oxford in, 'Women and the Urban Economy' in Prior (ed.), Women in
English Society pp. 111-13. Ms. Morrell 6, f. 237, 2 January 1687; f. 283,
16 February 1703; f. 287 v., 6 November 1704; f. 296, 11 May 1709. Ms.
Morrell 16, f. 38, 6 June 1706; f. 49, 16 April 1711.
38 Bernard Johnson, The Acts and Ordinances of the Company of Mer-
chant Taylors in the City of York (1947), pp. 84-6; G22/1, Minute and
Account Book, Merchant Taylor's Company, Chester City Record
Office; Barbara Taylor, ' "The Men Are as Bad as Their Masters ...":
Socialism, Feminism and Sexual Antagonism in the London Tailoring
Trade in the 1830s' in Judith L. Newton, Mary P. Ryan and Judith R.
Walkowitz (eds), Sex and Class in Women's History (1983). Schwarz,
pp. 191-2. For an insightful discussion on the patterns of gen-
der conflict which arise in the labour market at times of crisis for
established male institutions of production see Katrina Honeyman and
Notes 163
Jordan Goodman, 'Women's work, gender conflict, and labour mar-

kets in Europe, 1500-1900' Economic History Review, 44:4 (1991).
39 Merry Wiesner, 'Guilds, Male Bonding and Women's Work in Early
Modern Germany' Gender and History 1:2 (1989) presents the social
and cultural context for journeymen's hostility towards women in the
clothing trade at a period of trade transition.
40 Johnson, pp. 57; 70-6; 81-94. Johnson relates in some detail the pursuit
of Mrs Mary Yeoman from 1699 for a period of over two years and
with a cost to the guild of over £40.
41 WRO G23/1/254, 14 October 1702. Salisbury Guild of Tailors, Wilt-
shire Record Office, Trowbridge.
42 Ms. Morrell 16, f. 31, 26 October 1702.
43 WRO G23/1/254, 14 October 1702; 27 November 1702; 10 December
1702; 5 February 1703, Wiltshire Record Office, Trowbridge.
44 G22/1, Minute and Account Book, Merchant Taylors' Company, 1702-
3, Chester City Record Office.
45 Minutes quoted in Johnson, pp. 158-9. For a full study of guild activ-
ity over the long eighteenth century, see Michael John Walker, 'The
Extent of the Guild Control of Trades in England, c.1660-1820', unpub-
lished PhD, Cambridge University, 1985.
46 The transformation of London's extra-mural economy is described by
A.L. Beier as 'a change in the mode of production from the regulated
system of the medieval gilds to something like a free-market situation':
A.L. Beier, 'Engine of manufacture: the trades of London' in A.L.
Beier and Roger Finlay (eds), London: The Making of the Metropolis,
1500-1700 (1986) p. 159. The view of the legislators may also have
been affected by the government's vested interest in keeping clothing
prices low.
47 EJ. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution (1967) p. 55.
48 Duncan Bythell points out that outwork and factory production can
have a long coexistence. 'The essential point is that, within a given
industry, there was not necessary antithesis between outwork and fac-
tory systems; the two could and did, co-exist for long periods, comple-
menting one another in perfect harmony.' Bythell offered a series of
useful criteria characteristic of sweated or industrial outwork. Examin-
ing the criteria below it is evident that they fit a pattern of industrial
organization that pre-dated and post-dated the nineteenth century.
1 The basic unit of production in one or more of the key processes

was often co-extensive with a domestic household, and the workers
in that unit were, as a rule, members of the conjugal family.
2 The goods made, or the processes undertaken, in the domestic
workshop were normally of small value individually, and the skills
and equipment used in making or performing them were usually
simple.
3 The objects which were wholly or partly made under these cir-
cumstances were consumer goods destined for the mass mar-
ket, and the supplying of this market was almost invariably in the
hands of large capitalists. The workers did not produce on their
164 Notes
own account or make direct for customers, but were stricdy wage
labourers earning a piece-rate for work done on materials which
belonged to these capitalists.
Bythell, The Sweated Trades: Outwork in Nineteenth-century Britain (1978)

pp. 15-16. Other studies of sweated work which concentrate on the
nineteenth century clothing trade include, James A. Schmiechen,
Sweated Industries and Sweated Labor (1984); Jenny Morris, Women Work-
ers and the Sweated Trades: The Origins of Minimum Wage Legislation (1986).
49 Schwarz suggests that the clothing trade was 'very largely' bespoke
even in the last half of the eighteenth century, seeing no real connec-
tion with the contracting of slops and the broader extension of ready-
made clothing for the mass market. While he examines the history of
tailors' union activity he does not recognize that the source of the
journeymen's concern was the clear and evident threat of an alternat-
ive method of ready-made clothes production that affected most tai-
lors' markets. These patterns of production drove down wages. The
progressive expansion of the ready-made commodities into the tailors'
territory was well under way by 1700 and continued thereafter, accel-
erating in the last decades of the century: Schwarz, pp. 179-88.
50 Lemire, 'Peddling Fashion: Salesmen, Pawnbrokers, Taylors, Thieves
and the Second-hand Clothes Trade in England' Textile History 22:1
(1991). By the end of the eighteenth century and in the early nine-
teenth century the designation salesman began to be used to refer
to dealers in other commodities, although salesmen of commodities
other than clothes were usually linked with their product, for example,
'butcher's salesman' and 'potato salesman'. Directories published in
the latter period still assigned the single term salesman to a retailer of
apparel. However, over the nineteenth century the term must have
gradually come to mean simply a seller of goods. See, for example,
Johnson's London Commercial Guide and Street Directory . . . , (1817) pp. 4,
13, 25, 58, 60, 149, 379, 454-5.
51 Proceedings of the King's Commission Of the Peace ...inthe Old Bayly (here-
after noted as Old Bailey Records), 16-18 January 1684, p. 3. Through-
out the period under study, salesmen and saleswomen appear regularly
in the Old Bailey Records as dealers in new and old clothes.
52 Ms. 11936, vol. 2, Nos 2944, 2028, 2526, 2529, 2302, 2687. Guildhall
Library, London.
53 The probate inventories were selected from various collections of
probate inventories and administrations. For a detailed list of sources
see bibliography.
54 The role of chapmen in distributing apparel is addressed in Margaret
Spufford, The Great Rechthing of Rural England: Petty Chapmen and their
Wares in the Seventeenth Century (1984).
55 Buck, 'Mantuamakers and Milliners'.
56 21 M65 D3/503, Hampshire Record Office.
57 6/5/26, Oxfordshire Archives. The assessors were among a group of
men indicted as milliners in an Oxford court. Oxford Petty Sessions,
f. 108, 1669.
Notes 165
58 Note the prosecution by the Oxford Company of Taylors of John

Hawkins for selling scholars gowns. Ms. Morrell 6, f. 231 v., 27 April
1685. The inventory of another tailor from 1670 noted 'In the Shopp
12 Scholars Gowns new & old'. W.I. 3 3 / 3 / 1 1 . Oxfordshire Archives.
59 The 1706 inventory of William Durling, an Oxford bodice maker, listed
eighteen pair of bodices, ticking and thread as his stock goods. Bd.I.
107.306; 164/2/38, Oxfordshire Archives.
60 In 1747 the trade was described as:
formerly much more in Request than now, when the Makers were
called Cappers, and by that Tide incorporated with the Haberdashers;
yet there are divers Kinds of Caps worn at this Time, for different
Uses, and made by as many differnt [sic] Sets of People: Those for
the Army is one Branch, and the most profitable, of which there are
not above two or three principal Undertakers, who employ a Number
of Hands, chiefly Women and Girls, who seldom take Apprentices.
The next are the Leather Sort, to bear out much Weather, chiefly
for the Use of Sailors and Postillions. The last Sort are chiefly of Silk
and Velvet, worn by Men, Women and Children, which are made
and sold, by those properly called Cap-makers, some of whom also
keep Shops, (of which there are not many) and take Apprentices,
with about 5 or 10£. each, who generally Work from six to eight,
and can earn in that time, when perfect in their Business, which is
mosdy Needle-work, ls.6d. or 2$. (A General Description of all Trades
. . . , pp. 51-2.)
61 Spufford includes among her chapmen selling items of apparel, sales-
men engaged in a fixed retail trade in clothing: see Spufford, p. 233
for index of names, occupations and locations.
62 PROB 3/38/40, PRO.
63 It has frequendy been noted that probate inventories offer only par-
tial insights into the trade or business community of the individual
assessed. For a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of probates
inventories as a source, see Margaret Spufford, 'The Limitations of the
Probate Inventory' in J. Chartres and D. Hay (eds), English Rural Soci-
ety, 1500-1800 (1990); Philip Riden (ed.), Probate Records and the Local
Community (1985); Lorna Weatherill, Consumer Behaviour and Material
Culture in Britain, 1660-1760 (1988) pp. 2-4, 201-7.
64 1672 B35/1-3; 1694 AD129/1-3, Hampshire Record Office.
65 PROB 5/2739, Joseph Ashton, 1712, PRO.
66 Probate inventories from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries reveal the sorts of tradesmen/women who ventured into
the manufacture and sale of clothing, some of whom were probably
putters-out and others of whom simply bought and sold. D A I / 2 1 8 /
110, John T h o m e Jr, 1701, Berkshire Record Office; 1670AD/173,
Joseph Whitehead, 1670; 1694A/16, William Box, 1694, Hampshire
Record Office; AM/P1(1) 1678/38, John Meade, 1678, GLRO; 9052/
26, John Seamer, 1686, Guildhall, London.
67 P R C / 1 1 / 6 4 / 1 , Kent Archives.
68 PRC/27/41/168, Kent Archives.
166 Notes
69 Bodices, suits of apparel, morning gowns, hosiery and shoes were among
regular export items from Bristol in the 1679 records reproduced in
Merchants and Merchandise in Seventeenth-Century Bristol Patrick McGrath
(ed.) (1968), pp. 268, 271-3.
70 A General Description of all Trades, Digested in Alphabetical Order .. . ,
(1747) pp. 25-6.
71 9898/2, Thomas Beetham, Guildhall, London. The stock of Moses
Read far exceeded that of Beetham. Read's 1720 inventory listed over
600 stays, jumps and stomachers with nearly eight hundred pounds in
bone, plus canvas and other materials. His trade was extensive. One
hundred and twenty-seven customers repaid the estate after his death
a total of over £1821. Another sixty-five trade customers owed the
estate £1193 12.s.: #3102 Orphans Inventories, CLRO.
72 Harte, p. 293. Beetham's stock in trade is dwarfed by a bodice maker
who died in 1732 with £1903 of stock in his shop and outstanding
debts of over £5000: #3328, Orphans Inventories, CLRO.
73 DAI/198/9, Henry Horsnaile, 1701, Probate Inventory, Berkshire
Record Office. A similar provincial trade is found for the tailor Joseph
Whitehead of Newport, Isle of Wight. In his shop at the time of his
death were £55 15s. worth of 'boddis'. The London stay maker, Isaac
Parker, died suddenly while attending the Bristol Fair in 1734. He
carried over 200 stays and stomachers with him to the fair. PROB 3 /
33/138, PRO.
The following advertisement reflects the continuing pattern of dis-
tribution of this sort of undergarment.
William Olive, Staymaker at the Old Shop, the Corner of Bull Inn,
Whitechapel for making of stays; also, Country shop-keepers may be
supplied with Sortments of Womens and Childrens ready made,
either whalebone or Leather, on the lowest Terms, and Masters and
Governors of Schools and Workhouses, may be waited on, . . . by a
Line directed as above, within ten Miles of London. (The Public
Advertiser, 7 February 1764.)
74 At the same time regional centres, particularly those in proximity to
textile manufacturing regions and ports, produced garments ready-
made for various markets. For an examination of the ready-made cloth-
ing trade later in the eighteenth century see ch. 5 in Lemire, Fashion's
Favourite.
75 AM/PI (1) 1672/33, Edward Gunn, Probate Inventory, GLRO.
76 For a discussion of the unique characteristics of this source see Earle,
Making of the English Middle Class, Appendix A, pp. 394-5.
77 #1885, 2262, Orphans Inventories, CLRO; PROB 3/67/129, PRO.
80 Manufacturers were making ordinary sorts of clothing that sold
within the domestic market and this trend was recognized by a com-
mentator on clothes for the poor later in the eighteenth century: Anon.,
Instructions for Cutting out Apparel for thePoor (1789), p. 56. I would like
to thank Madeleine Ginsburg for telling me about this source. For a
Notes 167
discussion of the expansion of the ready-made clothing products

and the close affiliation of manufacturing with textile industries see
Lemire, Fashion's Favourite. Variations in sizing of ready-made clothes
is a clear indication of the intent of the manufacturer to meet the
needs of customers. See Irena Turnau's comments on the expanded
manufacture of clothing and footwear for the poorest part of Poland's
population. Nine sizes of footwear, for example, were available from
at least the sixteenth century. Irena Turnau, 'Consumption of Clothes
in Europe between the XVIth and the XVIIIth Centuries' Journal of
European Economic History 5:2 (1976), p. 462. Also note Robert Amison's
probate inventory and in particular the various sizes for children's
wear: P R C / 1 1 / 6 4 / 1 , Kent Archives.
81 Many of its resources have not been widely published. One of the
exceptions is the work done in the 1950s on the East India printed
textiles held in this collection. I would like to thank Adrienne Hood
for her unflagging encouragement. I am most grateful for the oppor-
tunity she provided me during my tenure as a Gervers Fellow at the
Royal Ontario Museum, as well as for many earlier years of support in
this venture.
82 The auction in London recently of a blue and white checked linen
shirt worn by a British crewman at the beginning of the 1700s caused
excitement only among those who recognized how rarely these sort of
garments survived the needs of housewives (for rags) and papermakers
(for raw materials).
83 The description of the hoop-petticoat and quilting trade used for
petticoats reflects the same style of organization as with other items of
apparel. Of the former it was written in 1747:
Hoop-Petticoat-Makers Though this Business seems to be only a
Part of Stay-making . . . yet the Wear of these extending Attires
has so mucb increased as well as their Sizes, that of late it is become
a separate Trade . . . these Goods being a great Part of the Stock
of divers Shops, where many Things chiefly for Women's Use are
sold.
Quilting is another Trade [he wrote], performed chiefly by the
Women; . . . and their Work is for Bedding and the Women's Use
. . . The Mistresses (and any of them are so, who can get Work to
do from the Owners of the Goods) either take poor Girl Appren-
tices, whom they keep for the sake of their Work, or have a small
Sum for learning a Person to work; However, a Journeywoman will
earn ls.6d. and 2s. a Day at it.
There have been some (and there still are such) who used to buy
in the Materials wholesale, which they put out to be made up into
Quilts, and so served the Shops therewith, as they wanted them, by
which Trade they got a great deal of Money. (General Description of
all Trades .. . , pp. 117, 178-9.)
84 T h e stocks of petticoats in London probate inventories offer
some evidence on the range of quality available: ' (unspecified) 8s.3d.
-Playdell, 1670; ls.9d. -Pickman, 1669; (silk) 6sAd. -Walker, 1682; 13.s.
168 Notes
-Bowell, 1702; (silk & gauze) 6s.9d. -Bowell, 1702. #595, #733, #1885,
#2285, #2394', Orphans Inventories, CLRO.
85 Anne Buck, Dress in Eighteenth Century England (1979); Linda
Baumgarten, Eighteenth Century Clothing at Williamsburg (1987); Revolu-
tion in Fashion (Kyoto Costume Institute, 1989).
86 Cotton and linen objects were much more ephemeral, although pet-
ticoats in these fabrics were also made in abundance (as were bed
quilts).
87 Some examples of artefacts with these characteristics include: 931.41,
959.250.4, 976.199.97, 920.28.4B, 958.96.6, 930.107, 959.141.1 Tex-
tile Department, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; 54.78/2, 39.83/7,
Z656, Z876, 53.146, A12978, NN8186 Costume Collection, Museum
of London.
88 The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser 14 and 20 January 1779; 12 Octo-
ber 1779.
89 959.250.4; 931.41; 958.96.6; 976.199.97; 920.28.4B; 930.107; 932.23;
959.141.1; 975.241.91; 926.39.4; 972.286.3a. Textile Department, Royal
Ontario Museum.
90 34.173/1, Z758 Costume Collection, Museum of London; 926.39.4,
975.241.91 Royal Ontario Museum.
91 The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser 14 January 1779.
94 A General Description of all Trades . . . (1747) pp. 178-9.
95 The Gazetteer and Neiu Daily Advertiser 20 January 1779; 12 October 1779.
96 A General Description of all Trades . . . (1747) p. 179.
97 The Public Advertiser 4 March 1762; 5 April 1762. For an analysis of the
nineteenth-century clothing industry which developed alongside Irish
linen manufacture, see Brenda Collins, 'The Organization of Sewing
Outwork in Late Nineteenth Century Ulster' in Maxine Berg (ed.),
Markets and Manufacture in Early Industrial Europe (1991). There is also
evidence of shirt production in Edinburgh for shipment to London
distributors at about this time. Contractors numbered the seamstresses
in their ledger. Personal correspondence, Dr Elizabeth Sanderson.
98 Lemire, Fashion's Favourite, pp. 190-7; A P . Wadsworth and Julia de
Lacy Mann, The Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire (1931), p. 257; five
petticoat manufacturers were noted in a 1781 directory of Manchester;
while in a 1788 Directory a slopseller was noted as well: Lewis's Directory
for the Town of Manchester and Salfordfor the Year 1788 (reprinted 1888),
p. 6. The rise of the port of Liverpool further stimulated the regional
manufacture and sale of clothing. Ms. 11936, #553919; #554653;
#133616; #145588; #148017; #133000; #57927; Ms. 11937, #646149;
#641729, Sun Fire Insurance Registers; Ms. 7253, #77866, Royal Ex-
change Insurance Registers, Guildhall Library, London. Maxine Berg
notes that recent models of effective small-scale corporate production
require a reinterpretation of the range of productive patterns which
worked very profitably in the early industrial period: Maxine Berg,
'Small Producer Capitalism in Eighteenth Century England' Business
History 35:1 (1993).
Notes 169
99 A 1763 advertisement in Northamptonshire is indicative of the pen-

etration of the production for the ready-made clothing trade into the
provinces.
WANTED, immediately,
Journeymen TAYLORS, to a considerable Number: None will
be refused that are good Hands, whilst this Advertisement is
continued, nor Objection to any having Work to their Homes.
Such, by applying to SAMUEL FRESLOVE in this Town, may be
sure of Employment much greater to their Advantage than the usual
Wages.
Northampton Mercury 4 April 1763; 11 April 1763.
100 Old Bailey Records, January 1764, p. 54.
101 Schwarz, p. 186.
102 PROB 32/67/129, PRO; A / F H / B H / 1 0 , GLRO.
103 Old Bailey Records, Febmary 1800, p. 205. Francis Place and his wife
Elizabeth worked in exactiy this manner for many months after he
was blacklisted by his former employer for his involvement in a
strike. Elizabeth Place would pick up the garment pieces and, with her
help, he toiled sixteen to eighteen hours daily in their rented room.
On Saturday afternoons the completed work was returned and pay-
ment secured. Francis and Elizabeth Place celebrated the week's work
with a hot dinner, which they ate out, dressed in their best clothes.
Although this work kept the pair from starvation, Place deplored the
degradation of work performed over such long hours, in such close
quarters. Nonetheless, he knew of many others who worked in similar
conditions: Mary Thale (ed.), The Autobiography of Francis Place (Cam-
bridge, 1972), pp. 114-25.
104 Old Bailey Records, September 1800, pp. 500-1.
105 Stanley Chapman, 'Innovating Entrepreneurs in the British Ready-
made Clothing Industry' Textile History 24:1 (1993); Sarah Levitt, Vic-
torians Unbuttoned: Registered Designs for Clothing, their Makers and Wearers,
1839-1900 (1986), and 'Ready-made clothing trades in Bristol in the
late 18th and early 19th centuries' in Ready-made Fashion: Research and
Problems in the History of Mass-produced Clothing (1991). Directories,
though incomplete mirrors of business development, do reflect the
multiplication of businesses engaged in the manufacture of clothing
through the later eighteenth century.
106 The question of changing attitudes towards perquisites is of particu-
lar importance to outworkers, although women clothing workers
have not been addressed in detail in the specific studies. See John
Styles, 'Embezzlement, industry and the law in England, 1500-1800'
in Maxine Berg (ed.), Markets and Manufacture in Early Modern Europe
(1991) pp. 173-81. Women's patterns of theft were linked to their
areas of employment and the female networks developed in their daily
lives. For a re-evaluation of women's criminal behaviour see Garthine
Walker, 'Women, theft and the world of stolen goods' in Jenny Kermode
and Garthine Walker (eds), Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modem
England (1994).
170 Notes
107 Schwarz, pp. 186-94. In the membership lists of the Oxford Journey-
men Tailors Company, checked each decade after 1660, women are
not listed as members. F4.2, Journeymen Tailors Company, 1612-
1732. Oxfordshire Archives. Similar responses to economic change
occurred in European guilds: Wiesner, 'Spinsters and Seamstresses'.
108 Ironically, employers in the clothing trade, pushing to increase pro-
duction and secure good workers, were at times penalized for paying
above the legal rate. Benjamin Everingham, described as a 'Shoemaker
and Master Taylor', was sentenced to one week's hard labour for pay-
ing his journeymen too much. The Public Advertiser 8 June 1765.
109 4047, Heal Tradecard Collection, British Museum.
110 Judith Bennett proposes that historians re-examine the manifestations
of misogyny not least for their serious economic impact on women's
employment opportunities and work conditions. The underlying cir-
cumstances which restricted women from guilds, relegated them to
low-paid piece work and stigmatized their labour as unskilled should
certainly recognize the cultural context in which women lived and
worked, including the power of misogyny. Judith M. Bennett, 'Misogyny,
Popular Culture, and Women's Work' History Workshop foumal 31
(1991). Wiesner discusses the concepts of unskilled labour in 'Spin-
sters and Seamstresses', pp. 200-5.
111 C.108/30, PRO; WH/864, Eng. Ms., Bodleian Library.
112 The Public Advertiser 29 March 1765; 14 January 1771.
113 Jenny Morris, 'The Characteristics of Sweating: The Late Nineteenth-
Century London and Leeds Tailoring Trade' in Angela V.John (ed.),
Unequal Opportunities: Women's Employment inEngland 1800-1918 (1986)
p. 95. This model of expansion holds true for a variety of sectors. See
also, Jane E. Lewis, 'Women clerical workers in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries' in Gregory Anderson (ed.), The White
Blouse Revolution: Female Office Workers since 1870 (1988).
3 Margins and Mainstream: Jews in the English Clothing Trades
1 A Peep into the Synagogue, or a Letter to thefews, n.d., quoted in Todd M.

Endelman, Thefews of Georgian England, 1714-1830 (1979) p. 183.
2 For a trenchant examination of developing attitudes towards the lands
and peoples of empire see Margaret Hunt, 'Racism, Imperialism and
the Traveller's Gaze in Eighteenth-Century England' foumal of British
Studies 32:4 (1993).
3 English glass carafe, Davenport cl810, 991.18.1, European Depart-
ment, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Such likenesses were entirely
absent in late seventeenth-century depictions of used clothes traders,
as in, for example, Marcellus Laroon's Criers and Hawkers of London
engraved from life: The Criers and Hawkers of London: Engravings and
Drawings by Marcellus Laroon Sean Shesgreen (ed.) (1990).
4 The Gentleman's Magazine 1830, quoted in Endelman, p. 182. My em-
phasis. The association ofJews with the old clothes trade was well estab-
lished in France by the seventeenth century. Daniel Roche, The Culture
of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the 'ancien regime' (1994) p. 331, n.2.
Notes 171
5 The types of reported incidents involving these lowly clothing trades

were universally negative. Take, for example, the account in The Public
Advertiser 19 August 1761, of two women who knocked down a man
following a fracas about the price of a pair of trousers they were
selling. He subsequendy died from a fractured skull. The trade was
also a source of inappropriate apparel, whereby those of lower ranks
could dress above their station. This was a constant worry for author-
ities. Beverly Lemire, Fashion's Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Con-
sumer in Britain, 1660-1800 (1991), p. 64; 'Peddling Fashion: Salesmen,
Pawnbrokers, Taylors Thieves and the Second-hand Clothes Trade in
England, 1700-1800' Textile History 22:1 (1991) pp. 69-70; 80. Earlier
commentators on trade in the regions of London were entirely neu-
tral on the subject of the second-hand trade, seeing it, perhaps, as a
natural feature of commercial life. The Trade of England Revived . . .
(1681), p. 36; John Stow, The Survey of London H.B. Wheatley (ed.)
(1592, reprinted 1987) p. 117.
6 MJ/SP/MSP/ 1701 January/2/29, GLRO.
7 Concurrent with the modifications in business practices was a renewed
interest in the reform of personal moral codes of conduct, a move-
ment emphasized particularly among the trading classes. See Margaret
Hunt, 'English Urban Families in Trade, 1660-1800: The Culture of
Early Modern Capitalism', particularly ch. 3, 'In Pursuit of Rational
Virtue: Fraternal Moral Associations, 1670-circa 1740', unpublished
PhD, 1986, New York University; Martin Ingram, 'Ridings, Rough Music
and "Reform of Popular Culture" in Early Modern England' Past and
Present 105 (1984); Peter Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class
(1989); Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-
1783 (1989). For an examination of the attitudes of the middling sort
towards markets and the question of fair dealing and fair price see
Susan E. Brown, ' "A Just and Profitable Commerce": Moral Economy
and the Middle Classes in Eighteenth-Century London' foumal of Brit-
ish Studies $2:4 (1993). Roche notes the 'moral and social dangers' that
French commentators associated with the second-hand trade. Roche,
p. 331.
8 Even those in the more elevated ranks consulted used clothes dealers as
long as anonymity was assured. For example, a pawnbroker promised
'Most Money given for rich and plain Cloaths', adding that, 'Secrecy
may be depended upon': The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser 14 Feb-
ruary 1777.
9 Betty NzggTX, Jewish Pedlars and Hawkers, 1740-1940(1992); Cecil Roth,
A Hisfory of the fews in England, 3rd edn (1964) pp. 228-9.
10 There is considerable debate about the motives for the readmission in
1656. For a summary of the various views see Endelman, pp. 13-19;
for one of the prominent accounts of the readmission see Roth (1964),
ch. 7, pp. 149-72.
11 Examples of which include Maurice Woolf, 'Foreign Trade of Lon-
don Jews in the Seventeenth Century' TJHSE vol. xxiv, 1973; Maurice
Woolf, 'Joseph Salvador, 1716-1786' TJHSE, xxiv, 1975; Hilda F.
Finberg, 'Jewish Residents in Eighteenth-century Twickenham' TJHSE,
Notes
xvi, 1952; and Lucy Sutherland, 'Samson Gideon: Eighteenth-Century

Jewish Financier' reprinted in Politics and Finance in the Eighteenth Cen-
tury (1984).
12 These commercial activities among Jews in the Netherlands are dis-
cussed in Bianca M. du Mortier, 'Introduction into the Used-Clothing
Market in the Netherlands' in Per Una Storia Delia Moda Pronta (1991).
Patricia Allerston's doctoral research at the Instituto Universitario
Europeo, Florence, examines the second-hand clothing trades in Ven-
ice and addresses the role of Jews. Jewish enterprise in the clothing
trades remains to be examined in detail throughout Europe, as Irena
Turnau noted a decade ago: 'Consumption of Clothes in Europe be-
tween the XVIth and XVIIIth Centuries' Journal of European Economic
History 5:2 (1976) p. 462.
13 This number represented approximately one quarter of one percent
of the estimated English population of ten million. Harold Pollins, Eco-
nomic History of thefews in England (1982), Table 1, p. 242; John Rule,
Albion's People (1992) p. 1; Edward Royle, Modern Britain: A Social History,
1750-1985 (1987) pp. 73-4.
14 Pollins, pp. 38-43.
15 Antonio Fernandez Carvajal was one of Cromwell's principal army
contractors: Endelman, pp. 17-18. Given the size of the orders for
army clothing issued during the Interregnum, Carvajal was certainly
involved in sub-contracting to manufacturers.
16 As noted above, salesmen/women are defined as dealing in second-
hand and ready-made clothes; pawnbrokers are considered for this
study because their principal working commodity was clothing; and
slopsellers made a n d / o r sold cheap ready-made apparel, although
they also dealt in second-hand goods. The sharp differentiation of
these occupational categories is rather arbitrary, for saleswomen were
routinely makers of clothes and slopsellers might also act as a pawn-
broker or sell second-hand goods. Keeping the fluidity of these occu-
pational groups in mind, one can still detect useful similarities and
differences among those engaged in these interconnected occupa-
tions. See Chapter 4, note 36, for a fuller discussion of occupational
terminology.
17 Generally, migrants were the young, able and ambitious, and much of
Jewish migration held true to this rule. The Plymouth aliens list from
the turn of the eighteenth century shows a concentration of Jewish
immigrants aged between sixteen and thirty years of age: Endelman,
pp. 174-80; V.D. Lipman, 'The Plymouth Aliens List, 1798 and 1803'
Miscellanies of the fewish Historical Society of England, MJHSE, VI (1962)
p. 188. Migrants to London from inside England, for example, trav-
elled in greater numbers from age twenty onwards, peaking at age
twenty-five to thirty-five: EA. Wrigley and R. Schofield, The Population
History of England (1981) p. 218.
18 Bill Williams, The Making of ManchesterJewry, 1740-1875 (1976) quoted
p. 1.
19 Roth, pp. 197-203.
20 Du Mortier, pp. 120-1.
Notes 173
21 Endelman, p. 178; Betty Naggar, 'Old-clothes men: 18th and 19th

centuries' TJHSE 31 (1990), p. 181.
22 Ms. 11936, vol. 67, #96127; vol. 75, #103472; vol. 62, #92685, Sun Fire
Insurance Registers, Guildhall Library, London.
23 I am grateful for the comments made by Mr Oliver Westall, University
of Lancaster and Dr David Jenkins, University of York, on this point,
which arose from a presentation of a version of this work at the Eco-
nomic History Society Conference, Nottingham, April 1994. Westall
and Jenkins both noted that members of the Board of Directors of the
Sun Fire Insurance Company spoke against insuring Jews and pawn-
brokers. Nevertheless, as research into the registers has shown, both
Jews and pawnbrokers appeared in considerable numbers. Any offi-
cial disinclination to offer insurance to people of this ethnic origin, or
within a particular occupation, did not translate into an effective policy.
The attitude of company officials does not invalidate this study.
24 Ms. 11936, vol. 140, #187729; vol. 141, #197413; vol. 143, #193229; vol.
144, #193869, #193829, #194246, #195730; vol. 145, #194039, #193980;
vol. 146, #197734, Sun Fire Insurance Registers, Guildhall Library,
London.
25 Examples of local studies which provided evidence of Jewish fam-
ilies and common names during the eighteenth century include:
Dudley Abrahams, 'Jew Brokers of the City of London' MJHSE part 3,
(1937); Arthur P. Arnold, 'A List of Jews and Their Households
in London, Extracted from the Census Lists of 1695' MJHSE part 6
(1962), 'Apprentices of Great Britain, 1710-1773' MJHSEpmt 7 (1970);
Finberg, TJHSE 16 (1952); Alex M. Jacobs, 'The Jews of Falmouth:
1740-1860' TJHSE 17 (1953); Lipman, MJHSE part 6 (1962), Three
Centuries of Anglo-fewish History V.D. Lipman (ed.) (1961); Eugene
Newman, 'Some New Facts About the Portsmouth Jewish Community'
TJHSE 17 (1953); Alfred Rubens, Jews of the Parish of St James, Duke's
Place, in the City of London' in Remember the Days, John M. Shaftesley
(ed.) (1966); E.R. Samuel, 'Portuguese Jews in Jacobean London' TJHSE
18 (1958); Bernard Susser, 'Social Acclimatization of Jews in Eight-
eenth and Nineteenth Century Devon' in Industry and Society in the
South-West Roger Burt (ed.) (1970) especially appendix translating
Hebrew names into English; Williams (1976); Maurice Woolf, 'Foreign
Trade of London Jews in the Seventeenth Century' TJHSE 24 (1973).
Jews who completely anglicized and broke all ties with their commun-
ity are virtually invisible, as they intended to be. Those who assumed
surnames such as 'Smith', for example, could not be distinguished
from the many English Smiths active in these various clothing trades.
26 Pollins, pp. 64-5; Table 1, p. 242; Endelman, pp. 172-3.
27 Ms. 7253 vol. 2 #31085, Royal Exchange Insurance Register; Ms. 11936
vol. 136 #182131; vol. 143 #193229; vol. 287 #433516; vol. 289 #438156;
vol. 314 #480066, Sun Fire Insurance Registers, Guildhall Library,
London.
28 All references to tables and to the analysis of data in this study was car-
ried out using SAS (Statistical Analysis System), a package programme
designed for the social sciences. The data were collected from Ms. 11936
174 Notes
and 11937, Sun Fire Insurance Registers, and Ms. 7253, Royal Exchange
Insurance Company, Guildhall Library, London.
29 Melanie Tebbutt, Making Ends Meet: Pawnbroking and Working-Class Credit
(1983) p. 102.
30 Old Bailey Records December 1764, p. 22; July 1784 p. 939; July 1795
p. 845; January 1786, p. 242; Febmary 1800 p. 188; April 1800 p. 267;
May 1800, p. 387. In most of these cases the wives appear to work with
the husband in the clothes shop. In the one case where there is
ambiguity, Mrs Moses stated that 'I keep a clothes-shop in Whitechapel.'
There is no mention of Mr Moses. Old Bailey Records May 1800, p. 378.
31 This type of aid was not unique to this population. Commercial sup-
port from families, social and religious groups was readily sought and
widely provided during this period: Hunt, 'English Urban Families',
pp. 145-9.
32 Of the fifty-six entries found in the registers of people of European
ancestry, exclusive of Jews (Samuel De Laforce, Harman Hellenburg,
Richard Louens, or John Wohlgemuth, for example), no men recorded
a sub-tenancy arrangement. This latter sample is geographically diverse
in its national origins and probably comprised of individuals recendy
arrived as well as possible Huguenots who were well established in Eng-
land. The comparative patterns of sub-tenancy suggests a greater degree
of integration from non-Jewish Europeans, compared to European Jews.
It may also indicate a particular cultural cohesion displayed by theJewish
constituency in London.
33 Ms. 11936 vol. 339 #521768, Sun Fire Insurance Register, Guildhall
Library, London.
34 Ms. 11936, vol. 285 #431213, Sun Fire Insurance Register, Guildhall
Library, London.
35 Ms. 11936 vol. 268 #403005; vol. 336 #519070; vol. 347, #535993; vol.
382, #588895, Sun Fire Insurance Registers, Guildhall Library, London.
36 Ms. 11936 vol. 257 #382348; vol. 339 #520045, Sun Fire Insurance
Registers, Guildhall Library, London.
37 Patrick Colquhoun, A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis . . . , 6th edn
(1800) p. 120, quoted in M. Dorothy George, London Life in the Eight-
eenth Century (1925, reprinted 1965) p. 135.
38 Letters on the present State ofthefewish Poor in the Metropolis (1802), quoted
in George, p. 135.
39 Aside from evidence of business connections in the registers, there
are also other indications of community ties. Israel Benedick, for
example, earned his living as a salesman, insuring stocks of clothes
valued at £180, with household good and personal apparel worth £10
each. He took out insurance in 1784 and 1788, for the identical sums
for two different shop sites; and on both occasions he lived as a lodger
in the house of 'Solomon Arans, Gent.' In 1785, Henry Libel, a clothes
dealer of similar stature, lived away from his shop in Houndsditch in
the house of 'Lyon Arans, Gent'. The description of the landlords
as gentlemen suggests men adjudged by their tenants to have a gen-
teel standing, perhaps arising out of commercial success. One cannot
determine whether or not there were any family connections between
Notes 175
the Arans and their lodgers. Whatever the Arans' arrangement with
Benedick and Libel, they were willing to provide house room for two
men working in humble occupations. One can only speculate whether
these too exemplified the readiness of the established and more pros-
perous Jews to lend a hand to others poorer than themselves. Examples
of this sort of behaviour are well documented. See Pollins, pp. 79-81;
Endelman, pp. 167-8; 176-7.
40 This distinctive geographic concentration is surpassed only by that
of insured women clothes dealers. London-based insurance for non-
Jewish women comprise over 76 per cent of all entries for women in
these trades. Insured English male clothes dealers based in London
made up 64.9 per cent of register entries, compared to 76.6 per cent
for women clothes dealers and 71.5 per cent for Jewish clothes dealers
of both sex.
41 Ms. 11937, vol. 2 #620971, Sun Fire Insurance Register. Established
Jewish merchants were known to supply young pedlars with stock for
weekly forays into the surrounding countryside, offering a site for
worship on the Sabbath with kosher implements for food preparation:
Jacob, TJHSE 17 (1953) pp. 6 3 - 6 .
42 Ms. 11936, vol. 267 #402253; vol. 274 #413949; vol. 276 #417798; vol.
284 #431387; vol. 293 #445209; vol. 314 #480066; vol. 340 #526684;
vol. 352 #544554; Ms. 11937 vol. 2 #620971; vol. 5 #631833, #635240;
vol. 7 #635898, #640096; vol. 10 #641104, #641918, #641395; vol. 11
#648606; vol. 12 #648358; vol. 13 #653636; vol. 14 #651733; #653742,
Sun Fire Insurance Registers, Guildhall Library, London.
43 Cecil Roth, The Rise of Provincial fewry: The Early History of the fewish
Communities in the English Countryside, 1740-1840 (1950) pp. 91-2.
44 Ms. 7253, vol. 13 #106789, Royal Exchange Insurance Register, Guild-
hall Library, London. Exeter and Newton Abbot were two other sites
ofJewish enterprise, along with Poole, Beaminster, Falmouth, Redruth
and Penzance. Benjamin Wolfe, for example, lived in Falmouth in
1794, working as a jeweller and pawnbroker; Henry Hart worked as a
mercer, grocer and slopseller in Beaminster, Dorset in 1780. Ms. 7253,
vol. 27 #143020, Royal Exchange Insurance Register; Ms. 11936 vol.
285 #432540, Sun Fire Insurance Register, Guildhall Library, London.
45 David M. Lewis, Thefews of Oxford (1992) pp. 1-12.
46 Ms. 11937 vol. 31 #150587, Sun Fire Insurance Register, Guildhall Lib-
rary, London.
47 I am grateful to Anne Buck for bring Susannah Sommers to my atten-
tion a number of years ago. See Anne Buck, 'Buying Clothes in Bedford-
shire: Customers and Tradesmen, 1700-1800' in N.B. Harte (ed.),
Fabrics and Fashions (1991). Biggleswade Burial Registers, 1748, noted
in personal correspondence Mr James Collett-White, Bedfordshire
County Record Office.
48 Ms. 11936 vol. 334 #515830, Sun Fire Insurance Register.
49 Robin D. Gwynn, Huguenot Heritage: The History and Contribution
of the Huguenots in Britain (1985), ch. 3, pp. 42-59; 'Patterns of
Study of Huguenot Refugees in Britain: past, present and future' in
Irene Scouloudi (ed.), Huguenots in Britain and their French Background,
176 Notes
1550-1800 (1987) pp. 219-20. For a brief overview of immigrants
and difficulties which they encountered see Colin Holmes, John Bull's
Island: Immigration and British Society, 1871-1971 (1988), Introduction.
50 A recorded comment from Coleridge exemplifies how the taint of the
disreputable old clothes trade spread to the community at large. Quoted
in Endelman, p. 107.
51 Colquhoun, A treatise on the Police of the Metropolis . . . , (1800) p. 11, for
example. Colquhoun's estimates of old clothes dealers, Jewish old
clothes dealers and criminal receivers should be taken with more than
a grain of salt, however, as L.D. Schwarz has illustrated in his critique
of Colquhoun's proposed number of London prostitutes: London in
the Age of Industrialisation: appendix 1, pp. 247-8.
4 Disorderly Women and the Consumer Market: Women's Work and the
Second-Hand Clothing Trade
1 I would like to thank Gail Campbell for her invaluable help with the
data collection program and the useful comments which she and Gillian
Thompson provided in the preparation of this material.
2 Some recent syntheses of these evolving views of the industrial period
can be found in David Cannadine, 'The Present and the Past in the
English Industrial Revolution, 1880-1980' Past and Present no. 103,
1984; Joel Mokyr, 'The Industrial Revolution and the New Economic
History' in TheEconomics of the Industrial Revolution (1985);Julian Hoppit,
'Counting the industrial revolution' Economic History Review 43:2 (1990);
and for a critique of these overviews which takes into account the
work of women economic historians see Maxine Berg, 'The first women
economic historians' Economic History Review 45:2 (1992).
3 See E.A. Wrigley, Continuity, Chance and Change (1988), where he defines
the industries with which he associates the developing modern sectors
of the British economy at the time of the industrialization.
4 Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson, 'Rehabilitating the industrial revolu-
tion' Economic History Review 45:1 (1992) p. 29.
5 Jan de Vries' call to reconsider the role of the household in key eco-
nomic transformations since the 1600s offers an important corrective
to a prevailing attachment to macro overviews of economic develop-
ment based on quantifiable data alone. He also focuses in a new way
on one of the central social and economic institutions, the household.
'The Industrious Revolution and the Industrial Revolution' foumal of
Economic History 54:2 (1994) and 'Between purchasing power and the
world of goods: understanding the household economy in early mod-
ern Europe' in Consumption and the World of Goods John Brewer and
Roy Porter (eds) (1993).
6 In some regions the creation of a stratum of modest manufacturers
and traders has been stimulated where no such enterprises previ-
ously existed, to the enhancement of many communities; the Grameen
Bank's history in Bangladesh exemplifies the new theory and prac-
tice of small scale individual development projects. A survey of some
of the major theorists can be found in Estelle M. Smith, 'The Informal
Notes 177
Economy' in Stuart Plattner (ed.), Economic Anthropology (1989); while
a debate about the significance of the theory can be found in Louis
A Ferman, Stuart Henry and Michele E. Hoyman, The Informal Economy
(The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science)
vol. 493 (1987); C. Moser, 'Informal sector or petty commodity pro-
duction: dualism or dependence in urban development?' WorldDevel-
opment 16 (1978) offers an earlier assessment of some of the same
questions. An historical study from the nineteenth century can be
found in John Benson, Penny Capitalists (1983).
7 Philip Mattera defines the informal economy as 'transactions t h a t . . .
do not conform with the rules set down by the state in its role as
overseer of the economy': Off the Books: The Rise of the Underground
Economy (1985) p. 1.
8 For an example from Paris see Barrie M. Ratcliffe, 'Perceptions and
Realities of the Urban Margin: The Rag Pickers of Paris in the First
Half of the Nineteenth Century' Canadian foumal of History 27 (1992).
9 Marilyn Waring, If Women Counted: Towards a Feminist Economics (1988)
challenges the basic premises of traditional economic valuation of
tasks which ignored activites outside mainstream models, largely omit-
ting women's work which did not fit the pattern of waged work. The
impact of these reinterpretations is suggested in Nancy Folbre and
Barnet Wagman, 'Counting Housework: New Estimates of Real Prod-
uct in the United States, 1800-1860' foumal of Economic History 53:2
(1993). Merry Wiesner proposed a status for the female petty traders
in early modern Europe somewhat consistent with current concepts of
the informal economy: see Merry Wiesner, 'Paltry Peddlers or Essen-
tial Merchants? Women in the Distributive Trades in Early Modern
Nuremberg' The Sixteenth Century Journal 12:2 (1981); Margaret
Spufford, The Great Reclothing of Rural England (1984). The market,
even in the late medieval period, was supposed to be regulated as to
time, place and participants. However, even in this period Christopher
Dyer notes the alternative opportunities taken by nobles and com-
moner to buy more cheaply outside the approved markets. 'The con-
sumer and the market in the later middle ages' Economic History Review
42:3 (1989) pp. 305-27.
10 A True Account of the Behaviour, Confession, and Execution of William
Charley and Ann Scott . . . , 1685, p. 3.
11 A / F H / A 3 / 5 / 1 , Subcommittee Minute Book, vol. 1, 28, GLRO.
12 Daniel Defoe, MoU Flanders, Edward Kelly (ed.) (New York, 1973)
pp. 12-13.
13 Household account books such as one for the years 1763-65 (North-
ampton Record Office, Bou ASR 103) note the regular ouday of money
for the repair and refurbishing of clothing. Similarly, local tailors seem
to have spent as much time repairing their clients' garments as they
did making new clothes. The Day Book of one eighteenth-century
country tailor provides excellent testimony to this feature of a tailor's
trade and in this instance the tailor's wife figures prominently as a
mender of clothing. W H / 864 Eng. Ms. Bodleian Library.
14 Defoe, p. 13.
178 Notes
15 Maxine Berg, 'Women's work, mechanisation and the early phases of
industrialisation in England' in Patrick Joyce (ed.), The Historical Mean-
ings of Work (1987) examines the complex debates about the nature of
women's work experience before and during industrialization. Fur-
ther exploration of women's working history is essential to unravel the
many paths travelled by women during this transitional period.
16 Margaret Spufford notes 'a patcher of old clothes in the oudying
village of Balsham in 1578' without stating whether this was a man or
woman: Margaret Spufford, Small Books and Pleasant Histories (Cam-
bridge, 1981, reprinted 1985) p. xvii. In early modern Nuremberg
women known as Keuflinnen were licensed to sell a wide range of
second-hand merchandise, with used apparel as a main stay; no fewer
than 111 Keuflinnen were licensed in 1542, leading one to wonder at
the extent of women's participation in local economies as distributors
and redistributors. Merry Wiesner, 'Paltry Peddlers' pp. 9-13. Old
clothes women were noted in Paris tax records from 1292: David
Herlihy, Opera Muliebria (1990) pp. 146-50.
17 Mary Prior traces the retaliations of Oxford tailors to the competit-
ive women working in a related clothing trade overs the seventeenth
and into the eighteenth century. 'Women and the urban economy:
Oxford: 1500-1800'in Mary Prior (ed.), Women in English Society, 1500-
1800 (1985) pp. 111-13.
18 Joan Thirsk, Economic Policy and Projects (1978) pp. 16-17.
19 Joyce Appleby, 'Ideology and Theory: Tensions between Political and
Economic Liberalism in Seventeenth Century England' American His-
torical Review 81:3 (1976).
20 The Trade of England Revived: and the Abuses thereof Rectified .. . , (1681)
pp. 1, 21-3, 3 4 - 5 , 38-46 [my emphasis].
21 Trade of England Revived, p. 2. Many were distressed at the restructur-
ing of trade channels which encouraged consumption. Appleby presents
a vivid analysis of the tensions which arose from competing views of
the economy. In the late seventeenth century, mercantilist regulation,
restricted markets and balance-of trade policies gained pre-eminence
over those who advocated cheap imports for consumers, expanded
domestic consumption and the unregulated market. 'The possibility
that at all levels of society consumers might acquire new wants and
find new means to enhance their purchasing power which could generate
new spending and produce habits capable of destroying all traditional
limits to the wealth of nations was unthought of, if not unthinkable',
wrote Appleby of this period [my emphasis], p. 501.
22 For a survey of the history and regulations of guilds see George Unwin,
The Gilds and Companies of London, 3rd edn (1938); E. Lipson, The
Economic History of England, vols I—III, 3rd edn (1943); A.E. Bland, P.A.
Brown and R H . Tawney, English Economic History Select Documents (1914);
F.W. Galton (ed.), Select Documents Illustrating the History of Trade Union-
ism: The Tailoring Trade, preface by Sidney Webb, (1896); Steven A.
Epstein, Wage Labour & Guilds in Medieval Europe (1991).
23 Judith M. Bennett, 'Misogyny, Popular Culture, and Women's Work'
History Workshop foumal 31 (1991) offers a challenging assessment of the
Notes 179
overriding significance of misogynistic cultural manifestations and the

response to women in trade. Women of the upper and lower classes
were similarly depicted as corrupted with greed and other vices. Ex-
amples of popular poems include: Mary Evelyn, Mundus Muliebris: or
The Ladies Dressing-Room Unlock'd (1690, reprinted 1977) and Daniel
Defoe, The London Ladies Dressing-Room: or, The Shopkeepers Wives Inven-
tory, 1725.
24 Natalie Zemon Davis, 'Women on Top' Society and Culture in Early
Modern France (1975) pp. 124-8, 140; Keith Thomas, 'The Double
Standard' foumal of the History of Ideas 20 (1959).
25 Minutes of Common Hall November 20, 1573, Act for night-walkers,
Hall Book II, p. 227, in Mary Bateson (ed.), Records of the Borough of Lei-
cester, 1509-1603, vol. Ill (Cambridge, 1905), p. 147. Bennett notes the
declining numbers of alewives in the Oxford trade and efforts to buy
out some women who continued in the trade: 'Misogyny' pp. 181-2.
26 The number of complaints raised against women's infringement of
market regulations suggests how widely women were involved in infor-
mal retail activities: Clark, pp. 189-206. The economic significance of
these sorts of ventures in early modern Europe has yet to be fully
realized. However, one theoretician of modern development economics
posits that the current informal sector is the vital impetus to economic
growth in many Third World communities. Working outside the legally
sanctioned avenues to trade, providing services or manufacture goods,
de Soto points to the vibrancy of this economy and the scope of the
markets which were served: Hernando de Soto, The Other Path: The
Invisible Revolution in the Third World, translated by June Abbott (1989).
27 Jean H. Quataert, 'The Shaping of Women's Work in Manufacturing:
Guilds, Households, and the State in Central Europe, 1648-1870'
American Historical Review 90:5 (1985) pp. 1122-33. Quataert goes on
to propose a connection between an early classification of women's
household-based work as 'dishonourable' and the later depreciation
of women's wage labour in the industrial age.
28 Unknown Mayhew, p. 218.
29 Spufford, Great Reclothing, ch. I, describes the chequered legislative
history of those petty chapmen and women who sold goods through-
out England. Prosecutions against petty chapmen continued in spite
of licensing. Interesting definitions of bodger, botcher, bumbler, and
bungler reflect the history of official antipathy for unstandardized
non-guild work. The term bodger also appears as a regional word for
pedlar: The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 211, 221, 251,
252.
30 In 1785, pedlars were required once again to defend their trade rights
against the organized campaign by the shopkeeping retailers. The
proposed prohibition of pedlars led to an outcry from manufacturers
who were well aware how much of their products were distributed by
these travellers. For a fuller elaboration of this campaign see Lemire,
Fashion's Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660-
1800 (1991) pp. 135-7; and fournals of the House of Commons, vol. 38,
pp. 893, 912; vol. 40, pp. 1017-18, 1038-9. Further investigation of
180 Notes
guild activity in the transitional period of rising consumer demand

and market activity will probably reveal similar tactics to control the
market and resist change.
31 MJ/SP/MSP/1701 Jan./2/29, Sessions Papers, GLRO; JHC, vol. 26,
pp. 381, 396.
32 Patrick Colquhoun expounded at length on the dangers of street
traders as conduits for stolen goods: A Treatise on the Police of the Metro-
polis . . . 6th edn, 1800, pp. 9-12. An orderly and regimented com-
merce was seen as the counterpart of a moral life.
33 Ms. 2649, 1790, WardmoU Inquest Minute Book, 1684-1798, Ward of
Portspoken, Guildhall Library. I am indebted to Dr Susan Brown for
bringing my attention to this document.
34 Ms. 2649, 1794, Ward of Portspoken, Wardmote Inquest Minute Book, 1684-
1798, Guildhall Library, London.
35 It may well be impossible to determine every aspect of women's employ-
ment in the clothing trades, as poverty erases most records. Marital
relations may also be a factor obscuring the contribution of women to
the market. One Day Book in which this is not the case is that of an
eighteenth-century Oxfordshire tailor who records the work of his
wife making gowns and repairing clothes for their customers: W H /
864 Eng. Ms., Bodleian Library.
36 There is a frustrating ambiguity surrounding the trade activities of
clothes dealers, tailors, slopsellers, etc. Trading in used goods was a
common part of business for most clothes dealers; however, all those
within clothing trades could not be incorporated into this data base on
that basis. For example, data on 'clothiers' was not collected because
of the extreme ambiguity of this term. Robert Blunt was described as
a clothier in some documents; he was a major shirt manufacturer in
the late 1700s. Many who provided army clothing described them-
selves as clothiers, but so too did wool manufacturers. Thus the deci-
sion was made to exclude this category of occupation when collecting
data from the insurance registers. Even with these omissions, however,
a sufficiendy strong body of data was accumulated to offer insights
into the used and ready-made clothing trades. In an effort to con-
centrate as clearly as possible on the used and lower clothing trades,
pawnbrokers and saleswomen/men were assessed for Tables 4.3 and
4.4, focusing on the last quarter of the century. Included among the
pawnbrokers and saleswomen were many with multiple occupations as
diverse as 'salesman, piecebroker & milliner', 'mattmaker and old
clothes seller', 'dealer in coals and old clothes', 'dealer in malt, flour
& old clothes', 'pawnbroker, chandler & dealer in coal & clothes' and
'carpenter & dealer in women's clothes'. All references to tables and
to die analysis of data in this study was carried out using SAS (Statis-
tical Analysis System), a package programme designed for the social
sciences. The data were collected from Ms. 11936 and 11937 Sun Fire
Insurance Registers and Ms. 7253 Royal Exchange Insurance Com-
pany, Guildhall Library, London.
37 These data include those who made and sold slops. See L.D. Schwarz,
London in the Age of Industrialisation (1992) pp. 64-73, for an examina-
Notes 181
tion of the hierarchy of London trades as reflected in the insurance

registers and Appendix 1, pp. 245-7.
38 P.G.M. Dickson, The Sun Insurance Office, 1710-1960: The History of
Two and a Half Centuries of British Insurance (1960) p. 78, quoted in
Margaret Hunt, 'English Urban Families in Trade, 1660-1800: The
Culture of Early Modern Capitalism', Unpublished PhD disserta-
tion, New York University (1986) p. 192, n. One must assume a con-
tinuing policy among insurance companies to insure women of all
occupations.
39 A look at the apprenticeship patterns illustrates this statement. See the
category of seamstress, for example, or milliner, mantua maker, coat
maker and child coat maker in the Surrey Apprenticeshipsfromthe Regis-
ters of the Public Record Office, 1711-1731 (1929), and the apprentice-
ships are entirely female. The two apprenticeships with salesmen listed
in that index were arranged for boys. See also liana Krausman Ben-
Amos, 'Women apprentices in the trades and crafts of early modern
Bristol' Continuity and Change 6:2 (1991).
40 Selection of the years was made randomly for a five year period, one
before 1750 and one after, with approximately fourteen years between
the two samples and also between the later long run study of the
registers 1777-1796. The earlier years were selected from the insur-
ance registers after values, and not just premiums, began to be listed
in a complete form after the 1730s. Data for each of the short run
samples was obtained from approximately sixteen insurance register
volumes for the two periods.
41 Eric Richards, 'Women in the British Economy since about 1700: An
Interpretation' History, 59 (1974).
42 Ms. 11936 vol. 60 #88986, Sun Fire Insurance Register, Guildhall Lib-
rary, London.
43 Ms. 11936, vol. 59, #86988, Sun Fire Register, Guildhall Library,
London.
44 Ms. 7253 vol. 2 #30951, Royal Exchange Insurance Register Company,
Guildhall Library, London.
45 In the 1727 probate inventory of London pawnbroker Joseph Gun the
appraisers describe rooms piled with men's and women's apparel. Ms.
9174/46, Commissary Court, Probate Inventory, Guildhall Library.
Similarly, within the pledge book of a York pawnbroker, George Fettes,
1777-1779, one finds that the commonest items pawned were cloth-
ing. Once forfeited the pawnbroker would arrange their sale. Ace. 38,
York City Archives. The few surviving pages from another London
pawnbroker's account book reveal an identical sort of trade. C 108/
252, PRO. See also PROB 3/29/213, PRO, #885, 2576 Orphans Inven-
tories, CLRO. Melanie Tebbutt, Making Ends Meet (1983), examines
the practice of pawning in the working class for the mid-nineteenth
and twentieth centuries when clothing still constituted a major part of
the brokers' stock.
46 The Public Advertiser, 2 January 1760.
47 Ms. 7253 vol. 5 #77805; vol. 7 #86149; vol. 9 #89203, Royal Exchange
182 Notes
48 Maryanne Kowaleski, 'Women's Work in a Market Town: Exeter in the
late Fourteenth Century' in Barbara A. Hanawalt (ed.), Women and
Work in Pre-industrial Europe (1986) p. 157, notes that women in Exeter
at that period incorporated several occupations, supplementing the
prominent trade with subsidiary businesses.
49 Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution (1930, re-
printed 1981) p. 293.
50 Peter Earle, 'The Female Labour Market in London in the late seven-
teenth and early eighteenth centuries' Economic History Review, 2nd
series 42:3 (1989), p. 343.
51 Ms. 7253, vol. 7, #86767, vol. 9, #89644, Royal Exchange Insurance
Registers; Ms. 11936, vol. 301, #456817, Sun Fire Insurance Register,
Guildhall Library, London.
52 Ms. 11936, vol. 288, #436805, Sun Fire Insurance Register, Guildhall
Library, London.
53 Ms. 11936, vol. 274, #413473, Sun Fire Insurance Register, Guildhall
Library.
54 See Lemire, 'Peddling Fashion', Textile History 22:1 (1991), for a fuller
discussion of the patterns of multiple retailing commodities common
in the second-hand clothing trade.
55 Olwen Hufton, The Poor in Eighteenth-Century France, 1750-1789, p. 363.
56 Several women were also charged with being forestallers and regrators.
356/6/238, Presentments, Ludlow Borough Quarter Sessions, 1711,
pp. 12, 29. Shropshire Record Office.
57 Old Bailey Records, July 1680, p. 4; January 1744, p. 49. Garthine Walker
notes the initiatives women took dealing in commodities with which
they were most familiar, selling out of their homes, as well as from
taverns or inns where they worked. Walker in Jenny Kermode and
Garthire Walker, Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England
(1994), pp. 92-3.
58 Chapter 5 looks in greater detail at the role of theft in the distribution
of goods. This subject has also been addressed by Sara Mendelson,
'Women and Consumer Goods in 17th Century England' paper pre-
sented at the Midwestern Conference of British Studies, Toronto,
October 1994.
59 Q/SB 29 December 1756, Kent Archives. Mary Minton of Greenwich, a
widow, was recognized as a broker when she appeared before a magis-
trate in 1788: Q/SB January 1788. In a case in Ludlow, Herefordshire,
in 1702, a widow, Mary Jones, appeared to carry on some sort of
brokering business, agreeing to take in textiles and clothing from a
young woman unknown to her. When the young woman returned for
the goods later Jones informed her that the items were, in her opinion,
stolen and she refused to turn over the goods as asked until threatened,
beaten and abused by the young woman: 356/242, Examinations,
Ludlow Borough Quarter Sessions, Shropshire Record Office.
60 Old Bailey Records, Febmary 1687, p. 3.
61 Old Bailey Records, October 1732, p. 242.
62 Hannah Tatum, Tradecards Box 6, John Johnson Collection, Bodleian
Library Oxford.
Notes 183
63 Q/SB, Examination and Information, J u n e 1769, Kent Archives,
Maidstone.
64 Quoted in Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged (1991) pp. 378-9; see
also 375-82.
65 ADM 20/100 part 2, 30 April 1710, PRO; Linebaugh, p. 377.
66 Old Bailey Records, December 1798, p. 59.
67 Ibid, p. 59.
68 Appendix VI in M. Dorothy George, London Life in the Eighteenth Cen-
tury (1925, reprinted 1965) pp. 425-528 is entided 'Women's Work -
Occupations of Married Couples'. In this she sets out eighty-six
examples of working women's occupations gleaned from the Old Bai-
ley Records. Fully twenty-five of the women in this list, dating from 1728
to the end of the century, were linked to the clothing trade in some
capacity. The wife of a shoe-maker, for example, worked as a dealer
in old clothes and hardware, while a waterman's wife 'occasionally
hawks old clothes'.
69 Among these women were ones such as Sarah More who testified that,
'I buy and sell old stockings.' She carried on her trade on the pave-
ment of Rosemary Lane. Lucy Variot related that, 'I sell old cloaths in
a cellar in Monmouth-street' where she worked with her eleven year
old son: Old Bailey Records, July 1764, p. 245, p. 271. There is a striking
variation in the scope of trade.
71 Old Bailey Records, May 1683, p. 1; July 1689, p. 1; May, 1743, p. 172;
April 1755, p. 150; December 1789, p. 48; May, 1795, pp. 655, 772;
January, 1795, p. 240; May 1800, pp. 378, 387.
72 Old Bailey Records, September 1790, pp. 723-724.
73 The temptation to act as a receiver of stolen property was consid-
erable, so easy was it to dispose of articles through the network of
dealers and pawnbrokers. By the same token everyone who owned
or dealt in clothing was also a potential target for professional and
amateur thieves, all of which added to the problems of trade. Elizabeth
Dickinson testified to her loss, stating:
I keep a cloaths-shop; the prisoner has frequented my shop for

three or four months. I live in Broad St Giles's, about a month ago
. . . I missed a man's night-gown, I knew nobody had been at my
house but the prisoner . . . I found some of the things mentioned
in the indictment and some of them at a pawnbroker's in Bow-
street, a silk gown, a night-gown, neck-cloaths, and sheets, my prop-
erty. (Old Bailey Records, December 1764, p. 28.)
See Chapter 5 for a full discussion of the topic.

74 Ms. 11936, vol. 336, #518861; Ms. 11937, vol 18, #120070, Sun Fire
75 Bedfordshire Record Office. I am very grateful to Miss Anne Buck
for drawing my attention to this document. She has discovered many
more facets of Susannah Sommers' life which may well be the focus
of a future study. See also Anne Buck, 'Buying Clothes in Bedfordshire:
184 Notes
Customers and Tradesmen, 1700-1800' Fabrics and Fashions N.B. Harte
(ed.) (1991).
76 The complete inventory can be found in Buck, 'Buying Clothes in
Bedfordshire' pp. 229, 234-6. Sommers is not the only local clothes
dealer to remain so long invisible. The Jewish dealer David Moses, also
of Biggleswade, was listed as a dealer in clothes, hardware and toys in
a 1786 insurance entry.
77 Apparel new and old could be bought from women whose names are
recorded in directories in what must be acknowledged is a partial
accounting only of women in the trade: Elizabeth Pocock of Maiden-
head, Jane Mason of Pershore, Elizabeth Bowker of Blackburn, Mrs
Peacock of Lincoln, Sarah Pollard of Horsham, Rebecca Smith and
Mrsjarvis of Worcester, Elizabeth Cope of Rugeley, Hannah Broomhall
of Namptwich, Mary Nuttell of Wigan, Ann Wood of Rochdale, Sarah
Wood of Dorking, Ann and Mary Love of Oxford, Rebecca Cockley of
Birmingham, Susannah Naggs of Faversham, Mrs Balls of Ongar,
Hannah Gunton of Putney, Mary Green of Maidstone or Mrs Ball-
hatchet of Stratton in Cornwall. The Universal British Directory of Trade
... , 1790-1798, vol. II, pp. 841; vol. Ill, pp. 110, 291, 563, 875; vol.
IV, pp. 92, 153, 176, 253, 345, 361, 500, 760, 860, 863; vol. V, pp. 20,
114, 153. Sketchley's and Adam's Tradesman's True Guide . . . For the Towns
of Birmingham, Wolverhampton, WalsaU, Dudley ... , 4th edn, 1770, p. 5.
78 Edward Higgs, 'Women, Occupations and Work in the Nineteenth
Century Censuses' History Workshop fournaL 23 (1987) pp. 59-63.
79 Sir Frederick Eden, The State of the Poor (1797, reprinted 1928) pp. 108-
9. For a thorough analysis of Eden's deficiencies in assessing clothing
production see John Styles, 'Clothing the North' Textile History (1994).
80 Thirsk, Economic Policy and Projects p. 125.
81 W. Thwaites, 'Women in the Market Place: Oxfordshire c.1690-1800'
Midland History, vol. IX (1984) pp. 29-31.
5 The Theft of Clothes and Popular Consumerism
1 In the study of crime, historians have identified criminal practices and

judicial responses of many sorts, some of which occurred during the
period of the more rapid commercialization of society, the swelling of
the population, the growth of cities and the progressive restructuring
of trades. War and peace also affected patterns of crime. See, for
example, J.A Sharpe, Crime in Early Modern England, 1550-1750 (1984);
J.S. Cockburn (ed.), Crime in England, 1550-1800 (1977); J.M. Beattie,
Crime and the Courts in England, 1660-1800 (1986); a summary of the
development of somewhat earlier research can be found in Michael R.
Weisser, Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Europe (Brighton, 1979),
see particularly chs 1, 3, 5; Joanna Innes and John Styles, 'The Crime
Wave: Recent Writings on Crime and Criminal Justice in Eighteenth
Century England' Journal of British Studies 25:4 (1986), pp. 380-435.
2 Harold Perkin, The Origins of Modem English Society, 1780-1880 (Lon-
don, 1969) pp. 91-2.
Notes 185
3 Ben Fine and Ellen Leopold, The World of Consumption (1993) pp. 1 0 -
11.
4 Daniel Roche notes the significance of the theft of clothing, stating
that: 'the theft of clothes read from the perspective of the economic
theory of crime can reveal both mental changes affecting consump-
tion and sociological changes among consumers': The Culture of Cloth-
ing: Dress and Fashion in the 'ancien regime' (1994) p. 333.
5 Daniel Defoe, The London Ladies Dressing-Room: or, The Shopkeepers Wives
Inventory (London, 1725), p. 4.
6 Joan Thirsk, Economic Policy and Projects (Oxford, 1978); Neil
McKendrick, John Brewer, J.H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society
(London, 1983) have been followed by Lorna Weatherill, 'A Posses-
sion of One's Own: Women and Consumer Behaviour in England,
1660-1749' foumal of British Studies 25 (1986), plus her volume, Con-
sumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain, 1660-1760 (London,
1988); and Beverly Lemire, 'Developing Consumerism and the Ready-
made Clothing Trade in Britain, 1750-1800' Textile History 15 (1984),
'Consumerism in Preindustrial and Early Industrial England: the Trade
in Secondhand Clothes' foumal of British Studies 27:1 (1987) and Fash-
ion's Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660-1800
(1991); for a study of consumerism in colonial America and England
see Carole Shammas, The Pre-industrial Consumer in England and America
(1990); for America only see by T.H. Breen, for example, 'An empire
of goods: the Anglicization of Colonial America, 1690-1776' Journal of
British Studies 25:4 (1986) and '"Baubles of Britain": The American
and Consumer Revolutions of the Eighteenth Century' Past and Present
119 (1988). Wide-ranging essays on the subject of consumerism are
published in John Brewer and Roy Porter (eds), Consumption and the
World of Goods (1993). For a critique of McKendrick's thesis see Ben
Fine and Ellen Leopold, 'Consumerism and the Industrial Revolution'
Social History 15:2 (1990).
7 The community in which merchants and trading people lived and
worked, for example, incorporated ideals, ethics and interests which
encouraged different sorts of consumer behaviour from that of the
gentry: Weatherill, Consumer Behaviour, especially ch. 8. Peter Earle,
The Making of the English Middle Class (1989) considers the cultural
context of the London middle class. See also Penelope J. Corfield,
who notes the variations in hat angle and in the use of hats among
different social groups in 'Dress for Deference and Dissent: Hats and
the Decline of Hat Honour' Costume 23 (1989). Colour selection could
also indicate political and economic affiliations. See Jane Schneider,
'Peacocks and penguins: the political economy of European cloth and
colors' American Ethnologist 5:3 (1978) and Grant McCracken, 'Dress
colour at the court of Elizabeth I: an essay in historical anthropology'
Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 22:4 (1985).
8 The Gentleman's Magazine ix (1739) p. 28. One of their correspondents
wrote with distress of the adaptation by young men of coachmen's
attire.
9 John Brewer described the memorabilia which proliferated around the
186 Notes
Wilkes campaign. The survival of items such as a commemorative hand-
kerchief of Wilkes' 1768 election (in Gunnersbury Park Museum, for
example) reminds one of the mass of other sorts of clothing and acces-
sories produced over this period and associated with broad popular
interests. Handkerchiefs printed with almanacs, and those commem-
orating batde scenes, frost fairs, Mayday, Valentine's day, happy mar-
riages, or decorated with maps appealed to a wide spectrum of the
middling and lower orders, as well as to those with particular views.
Aspirations to own and attachments to particular articles of dress must
be recognized for their material connection to powerful personal emo-
tions, social allegiances and political ideals. John Brewer, 'Commer-
cialization and Politics' in McKendrick, Birth of Consumer Society, see
also Corfield, 'Dress for Deference and Dissent'.
10 Many more question about the characteristics of consumption remain
to be answered than are considered here, not least of which is whether
the use and ownership of goods in a society acted as a cohesive social
force within the nation, as an element of national culture. Future
developments in this area will be aided by volumes such as Grant
McCracken, Culture and Consumption (1988) and Colin Campbell, The
Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modem Consumerism (1987).
11 Olwen Hufton relates that: 'Over half of all thefts were thefts of cloth-
ing or materials and a certain amount of ancillary metal-ware, shoe
buckles or belt buckles, buttons, brooches, and trimmings': The Poor of
Eighteenth-Century France, 1750-1789 (1974), p. 259.
12 Sharpe, pp. 94-114; Beattie, p. 187.
13 Beattie, p. 187, Table 4.9.
14 Henry Fielding, An Inquiry into the Cause of the Late Increase of Robbers,
in The Complete Works of Henry Fielding, Esq., XIII (London, reprinted
1967) p. 21.
15 Fielding, pp. 21-2, 23. A writer published in The Northampton Mercury
reiterated Fielding's views:
one of the Daily Papers of Saturday the 5th Instant, makes very
sharp, but just Remarks on Luxury in Dress, which, if suffer'd to
continue, will have a bad Effect amongst the better Sort of People:
Those who dress above their Rank or Ability will stick at nothing to
support their Extravagancy, and hence must necessarily ensue the
most flagrant villanies . . . where-ever this destructive Passion pre-
vails, it goes very near to destroy all Moral Virtues. Nothing is seen
but Vanity and Contempt of others, a vicious Emulation and Neg-
lect of Industry . . . this Sort of Luxury has gain'd such an extraor-
dinary Footing amongst us of late. (The Northampton Mercury, 14
June 1736.)
16 Harold Perkin, The Origins of Modem English Society, 1780-1880 (1969)
pp. 91-5, provides additional examples of the prevalence of the spirit
of 'luxury' among virtually all ranks of society. See as well McKendrick,
Birth of a Consumer Society. Philosophies of liberalism and individualism
have a collective expression in the expansion of commerce and, per-
sonally, in the choice and selection of public apparel.
Notes 187
17 The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Robert Latham and William Matthews, vols
IV-VII (London, 1972-); Passages from the Diaries of Mrs Philip Lybbe
Powys, 1756-1808, EJ. Climenson (ed.) (1899); The Autobiography of
Francis Place, Mary Thale (ed.) (1972); Woodforde, Rev. James, The
Diary of a Country Parson, John Beresford (ed.) (1924, reprinted 1968);
Boswell's London foumal, 1762-1763, Frederick Pottle (ed.) (1950); T219
- 1973, The Barbara Johnson Sample Book, Victoria & Albert Mus-
eum; The Diary of Thomas Turner, David Vaisey (ed.) (Oxford, 1985);
The great diaurnal of Nicholas Blundell of Little Crosby, Lancashire, tran-
scribed and annotated by Frank Tyrer (1968); observing this phenom-
enon a Swiss journalist, Henry Meister, noted: 'Pride and a desire to
preserve the public esteem seem to force upon them that attention to
their conduct and outward appearance.' J.H. Meister, Letters written
during a Residence in England (1799), p. 8, in Perkin, p. 92.
18 Lemire, 'Consumerism in Preindustrial . . . ' , p. 2.
19 Sharpe, p. 101.
20 The advertised theft from 'a poor Woman' exemplifies this point. The
gown she lost was described as 'a small running sprigged Purple and
White Cotton Gown, washed only once, tied down with red Tape at
the Bosom, round plain Cuffs, and the Bottom bound round with
broad Tape'. Colour, pattern and fabric made this a very desirable
commodity: The Public Advertiser 19 February 1765. Jane Tozer and
Sarah Levitt, The Fabric of Society: A Century of People and their Clothes,
1770-1870 (1983). Current examples of thefts of high-top shoes, jackets
with team logos, the latest electronic gadgetry and other articles sug-
gest the continuing attraction of certain sorts of items within specific
communities. One cannot assume that these impulses are peculiar
solely to our own time, however different the circumstances for the
patterns of theft.
21 Stolen clothing was offered for sale to shopkeepers of all sorts, house-
holders, and passers-by. There was a clear expectation that this sort of
article could be readily exchanged outside the established retail net-
works. QS/JC/1, Justices Case Books, Midsummer 1805, Buckingham-
shire Record Office; Buckinghamshire Calendar of Quarter Sessions Records,
vol. 5, William le Hardy (ed.), 1718-24, p. 41, 1724-30, p. 162; Q/SB,
Examination and Information, 25 March 1788, 29 December 1790, 30
May, 1791, Kent Archives; Calendar of Oxfordshire Quarter Sessions Records,
Epiphany, 1768, pp. 366-7 #20; Epiphany, 1769, p. 367 #5; Epiphany,
1782, p. 499 #6; Epiphany, 1794, p. 124 #29-30.
22 Sharpe, p. 112. Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged (1993) discusses,
among other subjects, the difficulties for the authorities in constrain-
ing the circulation of goods described as stolen. A study of the difficulty
of tracing thieves is presented in John Styles, 'An Eighteenth-Century
Magistrate as Detective: Samuel Lister of Little Horton' Bradford Anti-
quary 47 (1982).
23 The Universal British Directory, I-V (1790-8). Ian F.W. Beckett, The
Buckinghamshire Posse Comitatus (1985) p. xxv, notes fifty-nine itiner-
ant pedlars and traders between the ages of 15 and 60 years of age
based in Buckinghamshire in 1798, in addition to thirty-nine dealers,
188 Notes
two pawnbrokers, three salesmen, and seventy-nine shopkeepers. One

of the shopkeepers was also listed in the Universal British Directory as a
pawnbroker.
24 Fielding, p. 77.
25 Henry Fielding described the substantial trade of the most sophistic-
ated receivers:
there are others . . . who engage openly with the thieves, and who
have warehouses filled with stolen goods only. Among the Jews, who
live in a certain place in the city, there have been, and perhaps still
are, some notable dealers this way, who, in an almost public manner,
have carried on a trade for many years with Rotterdam, where they
have their warehouses and factors, and whither they export their
goods with prodigious profit and as prodigious impunity. (Inquiry
into the Causes ... , p. 77.)
26 The Public Advertiser 1 January 1765.
27 356/242, Examinations, 1 May 1701, Ludlow Borough Quarter Ses-
sions, Shropshire Record Office; Q/SB, Examination and Informa-
tion, 29 December 1756, 7 September 1762, 9 December 1774, 27
March 1775, 28 September 1775, 8 November 1775, 21 December
1775, 8 January 1776, Kent Archives. Buckinghamshire Calendar of Quar-
ter Sessions Records, vol. 5, Easter 1719, p. 41; Michaelmas, 1721, p. 118;
Easter 1721, p. 136. Calendar of Oxfordshire Quarter Sessions Records, 1713-
83 Trinity, 1725, p. 117; Michaelmas, 1759, p. 303.
28 Old Bailey Records, May 1732, p. 136.
29 Patrick Colquhoun, Estimates of Persons who are Supposed to Support Them-
selves In And Near the Metropolis by Pursuits Either Criminal - Illegal - Or
Immoral, in Donald A. Low, Thieves Kitchen: The Regency Underworld (1982)
p. 25. Colquhoun's estimates were fodder for polemics on the ques-
tion of policing and cannot be relied upon with assurance. See cri-
tique by L.D. Schwarz, London in the Age of Industrialisation (1992),
Appendix 1, pp. 247-8.
30 Newspaper accounts in eighteenth century were often one of the only
ways to put out a general alert to more distant magistrates and trades-
men about stolen goods. Moreover accounts of the theft of apparel
were commonplace fare in newspapers of the day. The Northampton
Mercury, for example, regularly carried news of such thefts: like the
thieves who posed as customs officials and made off with a number of
handkerchiefs saying they were smuggled, while the servants of the
house looked on; or the weaver who ran off wearing his landlord's
clothing; or the report of the transportation of Samuel Wills for steal-
ing wearing apparel from a woman in Wellingborough; or the theft
from 'a Labouring Man, of Ombersley' of a bundle of wearing apparel
bought at the Worcester Fair. The Northampton Mercury, 1 December
1735; 15 December 1735; 17 March 1760; 11 April 1763.
31 Old Bailey Records, April/May 1742, p. 72.
32 Old Bailey Records, April/May 1742, p. 72.
34 In 1718, a City Marshal of London complained of the damage to trade,
Notes 189
as the patrons of 'taverns, the coffee-houses, the shopkeepers and

others', feared to go out after dark. They not only feared physical
assault, but that 'their hats and wigs should be snitched from their
heads or their swords taken from their sides'; a common example of
selective theft: Hitchin, A true Discovery of the Conduct of Receivers and
Thief Takers in and about the City of London . . . , (1718), in M. Dorothy
George, London Life in the Eighteenth Century (1965), p. 24.
35 Per Kalm, Kalm's Account of his Visit to England on his Way to America in
1748, trans. Joseph Lucas (London, 1892), p. 52. More detailed work
on the topic of wigs and wiggery is being conducted by Negley Harte.
36 The Public Advertiser 2 January 1764.
37 Beattie, pp. 173, 174.
38 Old Bailey Records, June/July 1743, p. 238; December 1743, p. 24. Q /
SB, Examination and Information, 14 October 1771, Kent Archives.
Buckinghamshire Calendar of Quarter Sessions Records vol. 7, Easter 1730,
p. 192.
40 Beattie, pp. 174-98.
42 Old Bailey Records, April 1790, p. 500. For similar incidents see: Q/SB,
Examination and Information, 14 October 1771, 8 May 1776, 26 Sep-
tember 1791, Kent Archives.
43 Henry Fielding, Notice to the Public, n.d., in The Complete Works of Henry
Fielding, Esq., XIII (London, reprinted 1967) p. 128.
44 The Public Advertiser 26 Febmary 1762.
45 Laundry houses were targets in towns and cities, while drying areas
attracted thieves in the rural locales. The frequent complaint in the
latter regions was the theft of clothing from hedges where the gar-
ments were drying. Q/SB Examinations, 14 November 1755; 18 March
1756; 21 May 1776, Kent Archives Office.
46 Old Bailey Records, December 1775, pp. 68-9.
47 The Country foumal: or, the Craftsman 13 January 1732-3.
48 Records remain of a family in Catherine Wheel Alley, who lost all the
clothes in their laundry bag; another washer woman came back to her
tub to find her customers' gowns, aprons, shirts and the like all miss-
ing; while John Rigg, Esq., of Walthamstow, Essex, had his laundry
house burgled, leading to the loss of a thickset coat and waistcoat. Old
Bailey Records, October 1784, pp. 1244-5; July 1743, p. 191; The Public
Advertiser 17 July 1762. Laundresses were themselves frequendy sus-
pected of theft of the clothing they were intended to wash. The char-
acter of laundresses in one part of London came under suspicion in
1733. An announcement was carried in a London newspaper that:
A strict Examination will soon be made into the Characters of sev-

eral Laundresses who assist in the Temple, in order to discharge
such who cannot be well recommended; and the Watchman will be
obliged to go hourly up every Staircase and call the Hour of the
Night. Enquiry will also be made into the Characters of divers Peo-
ple inhabiting the Garrets in the several Staircases; it being suspected
190 Notes
that People of bad Repute live therein. (The Country foumal: or, the
Craftsman 17 Febmary 1732-3.)
49 Old Bailey Records, September 1745, p. 199.

50 Old Bailey Records, September 1758, p. 283.
51 Calendar of the Oxfordshire Quarter Sessions Records, Easter, 1761, p. 310
#5; Michaelmas, 1767, p. 360 #25; Epiphany, 1782, p. 499 #6; Trinity,
1787, p. 53, #18, 23; Epiphany, 1788, p. 57, #21-3; Buckinghamshire
Calendar of Quarter Sessions Records, vol. 5, Easter, 1718, p. 41; vol. 7,
Michaelmas, 1725, p. 39; Easter 1730, p. 192; QS/JC/1 Justices Case
Books, Easter 1805, p. 77, Buckinghamshire Record Office; Q/SB,
Examination and Information, 27 March 1775, 7 November 1775, 2
November 1790; 3 November 1790, Kent Archives.
54 It was impossible to plead accidental acquisition of the clothes if the
'accidental' holder of the clothes then wore them out in public. Old
Bailey Records, September 1682, p. 2.
55 Q/SB, Examination and Information, 18 August 1788, Kent Archives.
56 Old Bailey Records, June/July, 1743, p. 216.
57 Old Bailey Records, July 1776, p. 338.
58 Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees: Or, Private Vices, Publick Bene-
fits (1714, reprinted 1924) p. 128.
59 Note Weatherill's calculation of the number of hours women probably
spent buying for a household. Consumer Behaviour Table 7.1, p. 143.
60 MJ/SP/MSP 1701 AP/45/108, GLRO.
61 Old Bailey Records, September 1680, p. 2; October 1686, p. 3; April 1687,
p. 3; January 1727, p. 1; September 1743, p. 259; April 1745, p. 115; Feb-
ruary, 1748, pp. 88, 92; May 1786, p. 765; Febmary 1786, p. 383; Decem-
ber 1789, p. 90; 723; April 1797, p. 297; September 1799, pp. 562-3.
356/242, Examinations, 27 May 1702; 356/242, Examinations, 17 July
1761, Ludlow Borough Quarter Sessions, Shropshire Record Office.
Michaelmas 1705, p. 203; Michaelmas 1720, p. 66; Easter 1753, p. 254,
Calendar of Oxfordshire Quarter Sessions Records. Michaelmas 1720, pp. 86
and 118; Easter 1729, p. 162, Buckinghamshire Calendar of Quarter Sessions
Records.
62 John Beattie, 'The criminality of women in eighteenth-century Eng-
land' foumal of Social History 8 (1975), pp. 9 4 - 5 . Garthine Walker,
'Women, theft and the world of stolen goods' in Jenny Kermode and
Garthine Walker (eds), Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern
England (1994), pp. 81-105, offers an insightful reassessment of the
criminal activities of women.
63 Q/SB Examination and Information, 29 December 1756; 22 June
1769; 8 November 1770; 9 December 1774; 21 December 1775, Kent
Archives. Old Bailey Records, July 1680, p. 4; April 1722, p. 1; July 1732,
p. 152; December 1799, p. 52. 356/242, Examination, 1 May 1701,
Ludlow Borough Quarter Sessions, Shropshire Record Office. Bucking-
hamshire Calendar of Quarter Sessions Records vol. 5, pp. 118, 152. QS/JC/
1, Justice's Case Book, p. 77, Buckinghamshire Record Office.
Notes 191
64 See Chapter 4 for further discussion on women's small scale and

informal trading ventures in the clothing trades. Daniel Defoe, Moll
Flanders (1721, 1973 edition) p. 156.
65 The Public Advertiser 23 June 1762.
66 The Public Advertiser 10 May 1765.
68 Old Bailey Records, April 1722, p. 1.
69 The testimony of a transplanted Hertfordshire servant exemplifies this
metropolitan crime. 'That all these 4 Years she had been in London
she liv'd that lewd and vicious Life, pilfering and stealing whatever she
could lay Hands on; That her common way of Robbing was, the taking
Linnen, Cloaths, and other things out of Courts and Yards': The Ord-
inary of Newgate His account . . . , 23 December 1715, p. 5.
70 Walker, p. 97.
71 In 1685 William Charley stole £120 of clothes from Mr Loveday's
London warehouse. Given the individual value of the items, this rep-
resents a great quantity of apparel. In addition to warehouses, indi-
vidual clothes shops mushroomed in the metropolis: A True Account of
the Behaviour, Confession, and Execution of William Charley and Ann Scott
(1685) pp. 1 and 2; Old Bailey Record, March 1679, pp. 1-2; July 1680,
p. 2; January 1681, p. 2; May 1683, p. 1; January 1684, p. 3; October
1684, p. 1; April 1686, p. 2; July 1687, p. 3; September 1689, p. 4.
72 The Discoveries offohn Poulter, alias Baxter, Who was apprehended for rob-
bing Dr. Hancock, of Salisbury . . . To which he has added . . . useful Cau-
tions to Tradesmen ... , 15th edn (1774, London), pp. 29-35. Ringing
Tuggs was a foolproof sort of pilfering with relatively litde risk, as
described in this pamphlet:
People in Fairs or Markets in the Summer, are apt to give their
Great Coat to the Maids, and put their Names on it with a Piece of
Paper; the Servant cannot remember every Coat, and the Sharper
comes in and writes his Name on his Coat that is worth but litde,
and changes his Note to another Coat; then he goes out, and comes
in presendy and calls for the Coat with such a Note on it, and the
Servant delivers it without Dispute . . . They often get six or seven
Coats a Day with that old one. (John Poulter, p. 35.)
73 Old Bailey Records, March 1792, p. 209.
74 Old Bailey Records, December 1757, pp. 3 0 - 1 .
75 This was not simply a metropolitan phenomenon. Proceedings of the
King's Commission of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer . . . Held for the County
of Hertford at the Sessions House in Hertford, . . . March, 1774 . . . , pp. 9 -
10. However, the concentration of goods in urban centres resulted in
a particular concentration of crime.
77 Old Bailey Records, January 1765, pp. 71-2.
78 The Stamford Mercury, 22 August 1728.
81 Old Bailey Records, May 1745, p. 153. Olwen Hufton described the very
192 Notes
similar practices of the revendeuse, the second-hand clothes dealers, in

later eighteenth-century France. These women were also expert at
disguising the clothing received, by picking it apart or reassembling it
into a different garment. In common with her English counterpart,
the revendeuse 'had a clientele which communicated its wants to her
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82 Q/SB, 2 November 1790, Kent Archives.
83 Fielding, p. 82.
84 Old Bailey Records, December 1724, p. 8, is an example of one such
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88 Alan Macfarlane, TheFamily Life of Ralph fosselin (1970), p. 17; Boswell's
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89 Lemire, 'Consumerism in Preindustrial . . . ' , p. 12, Table 1.
90 The London Chronicle, 3-6 January 1761.
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Index
Abrahams, D. 173 Bank of England, army clothing
Adams, R. 110 debts and 27
Albert, PJ. 147 banyans 63
Alexander, S. 160 Barnes, A 116-17
Allen, H. 48, 63, 64 Bartlett, S. 60, 61
Allerston, P. 172 Baskerville, P A 156
Amison, R. 62, 167 Bateson, M. 179
Anderson, G. 170 Badey, S. 137-9
anti-Semitism .see Jews Baugh, D. 150
Antrobus, M. 51 Baumgarten, L. 168
Appleby, J. 5 , 9 9 , 1 4 8 , 1 7 8 Beattie, J.M. 125,131,132,136,
aprons 48 139, 184, 186, 189, 190
lawn 117 Beckett, I.F.W. 187
linen 132 Beckford, R. 15
theft of 143 Beckfort, T. 15-17, 151, 156-7
Arans, L. 174-5 Beckford, W. 17-18, 117
Arans, S. 174-5 Bedder.J. 132-3
armed forces .see army; navy Bedfordshire, clothing trades in
army 60,90
clothing for 1-2, 10, 11, 154, Jews in 89, 91-2
165; Board of General Officers Beetham, T. 63, 166
and 28-9; cavalry 25; Beier, AL. 160, 161, 163
Clothing Assignments 27; belts, army 26, 29
contractors and 22-3, 25, Ben-Amos, I.K 160, 181
26-7, 28, 29, 30-2, 155, 162, Benedick, I. 174-5
172; corruption and 23-5, Bennett, J.M. 170, 178-9
28-9, 153; costs of 25-6, Benson, J. 177
154; drummers 25; guilds Beresford, J. 187
and 53; infantry 25; officers Berg, M. 95, 158, 161, 168, 169,
and 23-5, 28-9, 153, 154; 176, 178
off-reckoning 25, 28; Berkshire, clothing trades in 90,
ordering 27-8, 33; payment 110
for 24-7, 153-4; quality Bird, M. 144
of 27; sergeants 25; small Birk, S. 130
clothes 23; uniform 25 Black, J. 153
growth of 11, 22 Bland, AE. 178
soldier-tailors 44 Bliss, M. 156
Arnold, A P . 173 Blundell, N. 126
Ashton, J. 61-2 Blunt, R. 155, 180
'bodgers' 179
Bagshaw,J. 133 bodices 60, 62-3, 165
Ballhatchet, Mrs 184 exports of 33, 166
Balls, Mrs 184 Bones, C. 134
207
208 Index
bonnets 117 Cambridgeshire, clothing trades in

Boswell, J. 126, 145, 192 90
'botchers' 102, 179 Campbell, C. 186
Bowell, W. 63 Campbell, G. 176
Bowker, E. 184 Cannadine, D. 176
breeches 62, 64, 74 Capell, S. 134
army 23, 26, 28 caps 68
buckskin 130 army 23, 28, 165
kersey 18 gauze 117
naval 12, 18, 20, 152 Hudson's Bay Company, for 36,
petticoat 152 37
plush 61 leather 18, 165
sheepskin 140 naval 12, 14, 165
'ticken' 12 postillions' 165
wool 53 quilted 60
Breen, T.H. 185 satin 60
Brewer, J. 9, 147, 149, 150, 152, silk 60, 165
153, 176, 185-6 velvet 165
Bristol, clothing trades and 33, cardinals see cloaks
166 Carson, C. 147
Broadhurst, J. 63, 64 Carvajal, A.F. 172
Broomhall, H. 184 censuses 118
Brown, P A 178 Chandler, D. 25, 153
Brown, S.E. 171, 180 Chapman, S.D. 151, 152, 153,
Browne, M. 136, 137 159, 169
Browning, J. 19 chapmen 99, 114, 164, 165, 179
Bruncker, F. 57 see also pedlars
Buck, A. 60, 149, 162, 164, 168, charity schools, clothing trades and
175, 183-4 38-9
Buckinghamshire, clothing trades Charles, L. 161
in 90, 187 Charley, W. 161, 191
Jews in 89, 91 Chartres, J. 165
buckles Chassagne, S. 152
silver 130 Chaudhuri, KN. 156
theft of 130, 186 Cheshire, clothing trades in 90
buckskin see leather theft and 139
Bullen, J. 133 Chester Merchant Taylor's Company
'bumblers/bunglers' 102, 179 47, 54-5, 160, 162, 163
Burt, R 173 chintz, cotton see fabrics
buttons 61 Clark, A. 160, 179
army 29 Clark, G.N. 149
plate 130 Clarkson, L A 159
theft of 130, 186 Climenson, EJ. 187
Bythell, D. 56, 147, 163-4 cloaks 60
cardinals 132, 143
Caidin, E. 60-1 satin 117
calico see fabrics silk 117, 132
cambric see fabrics theft of 132, 143
Index 209
clothes, clothing see dress middlemen in 99
clothing trades navy and 1-2, 9-22, 150
army and 1-2, 10, 11, 22-32 Parliament and 55
capitalism and 1, 4 pedlars and 60, 76, 78, 79, 87,
charity schools and 38-9 88, 89, 91, 92, 99, 120, 124
civilian markets and 31-9, 43 ready-to-wear see ready-made
clothiers 180 clothes
colonists and 32-3, 156 retailing in 77, 99
consumerism and 4, 8, 41, 95, salesmen/women in see
104, 118, 119-20, 121-7, salesmen/women
135-6, 144-5 second-hand .see second-hand
contractors in see contractors clothing trade
dealers in see salesmen/women sexual division of labour in 2,
'dishonourable' 102 4, 41, 53, 56, 70, 74, 118
disorderly traders and see shops and see salesmen in
disorderly traders slave trade and 33-4, 156
economic change and 8, 9-10, slopsellers .see navy, clothing
71, 96-7, 118, 119-20 trades and
economic importance of 1, 38, social change and 8
40-1, 43, 104, 115, 118-19, specialisms in 62-3, 67
150 sub-contracting in 29-30, 31,
ethnic distribution in 85 56
exports and 5, 32-8, 156-7, tailoring guilds and see guilds
166 and
fabrics for .see fabrics technology and 55-6
fairs and 4 5 , 4 7 - 8 , 7 7 , 1 1 4 textile production and 2, 4, 5
'fiscal-military state' and 9-11, theft and see theft, clothing and
40-1 varieties of 57
foundling hospitals and 38, 39 women in .see women, clothing
governments and 8, 10, 11, 55, trades and
163; see also army; navy workhouses and 38
guilds and 43, 44-9, 52, 53-5 coats
hierarchy in 29-32, 40 army 25, 26, 28, 154, 155
High Street standards and 77 children's 60, 62, 64
'honourable' 102 duffel 130
individual purchasers and 31, frock 19, 20, 21, 22, 130
43 great 20, 25, 26, 29,134, 141,191
institutional markets and 32-9 Hudson's Bay Company, for 36,
insurance and see insurance, 37
clothing trades and kersey 36
investment in 40, 41 men's 62, 64
Jews and .see Jews, clothing naval 19, 20, 21, 22
trades and 'present' 36
manufacturing and see theft of 130, 134, 141, 143, 189,
manufacturing, clothing trades 191
and thickset 189
marketing in 77, 98-100 wool 36-7, 53
merchant navy and 22 worsted 36
210 Index
Cockburn, J.S. 184 Cornwall, clothing trades in 90
Cockley, R 184 Jews in 89
Coleman, D.C. 150 Cornwall, F. 115-16
Coleridge, S.T. 176 cotton see fabrics
Collett, J. 138 Crafts, N.F.R. 147
Collett-White, J. 175 crape .see fabrics
Collins, B. 168 cravats 48, 60
colonists, clothing trades and army 26, 155
32-3, 156 crime see theft, clothing and
Colquhoun, P. 87, 129, 174, 176, Crocksford, J. 134
180, 188 Cuenca, J. 147
commodities, nature of 122, 147 Cunnington, C.W. 152
consumerism Cunnington, P. 150, 152
clothing trades and 4, 8, 41, Cutts, J. 57, 58, 65
104, 118, 119-20, 135-6, 144,
145-6 Dalling, S. 47-8, 64
dress/fashion and 3, 5-6, damask 5ee fabrics
121-7, 134-5, 144, 145-6, 186 Darby, P. 29-30
growth of 3, 5-6, 8, 41, 104, Davies, KG. 155
119-20, 121-2, 123-4, 126, Davis, B. 87
145-6, 147, 178, 186 Davis, N.Z. 179
motives for 121-2 Davis, R. 150
theft and 126-7 Davison, L. 148
contractors, clothing Dawson, K 33
army, for 22-3, 25, 26-7, 28, de Krey, G.S. 155
29, 30-1; sub-contracting de Soto, H. 179
29-30, 31 de Vries, J. 3-4, 147, 176
charity schools and 38-9 dealers, clothes see salesmen/
colonists and 33 women
convicts and 34 Defoe, D. 6, 30, 98, 121, 122-3,
East India Company and 34, 36 137, 148, 153, 155, 160, 179
foundling hospitals and 38, 39 Delamar, G T . 149
government contracts, impact of demand .see consumerism
40-1 Derbyshire, D. 7-8
Hudson's Bay Company and Devon
34-8 clothing trades in 90, 99, 182
naval, for (slopsellers) 13,14-17, Jews in 89-91, 172
18-20, 21-2, 23, 24 Dickinson, E. 183
slave trade and 33-4 Dickson, P.G.M. 105, 149-50,
workhouses and 38 153, 154, 155, 181
convicts, clothing for 34 Digby, A. 161
Cook, J. 38 disorderly traders
Cooper, J.P. 150 attitudes to 98-104, 177
Cope, E. 184 definition of 96
Coram's London Foundling guilds and 98-9, 120
Hospital 39, 98 insurance for 97
Corfield, PJ. 185, 186 officials and 99, 100, 102-4, 120
Corner, D. 156, 158, 159 women as 98-102, 112-17, 119,
Cornish, H. 157 120
Index 211
'disturbers' 102 working classes, for 1

Dixon, R. 34 see also individual items, e.g.
Dobson, C.R. 162 bodices, shirts
Dorset, clothing trades in 90, 110 dresses see gowns
Jews in 89 du Mautier, B.M. 172
drapers duck see fabrics
linen 40, 137 Duffin, L. 161
ready-made clothes and 60, 162 Duncanson, R 154
wool 29-30, 31, 38, 40, 53, 61, Durham (county), clothing trades
151, 155 in 90
drawers 60 Durling, W. 165
canvas 152 Dyer, C. 177
cotton 14
linen 18, 61, 152 Earle, C. 140
naval 14, 18, 19, 20 Earle, P. 151, 160, 161, 166, 171,
woollen 36 182, 185
dress East India Company, clothing
appropriateness of 5-8, 121, contractors and 34, 36, 157
122, 124, 126, 148-9, 171, 185 Eastwick, Stephen 11
consumerism and 3, 5-6, 43, economic development 3-4, 9-10,
118, 119-20, 122, 121-7, 13, 27, 95, 104, 120, 127, 145
145-6, 186 clothing trades and 1, 38, 40-1,
cost of 3, 124 43, 96-7, 104, 115, 119-20,
economic forces and 122 121-2, 150
expenditure on 43 Huguenots and 92
fabrics for see fabrics Jews and see Jews; .see also
fashions of 3, 43-4, 122-4, 126, disorderly traders; second-hand
130-1, 134, 135, 145, 152 clothing trade
governments and 5, 148, 171 Edelstein, TJ. 148
importance of 123, 124, 126, Eden, F. 119, 184
134, 145-6, 186 Ehrman, J. 13,150,151
labourers' 1, 12 Endelman, T.M. 170, 171, 172,
livery 7-8, 149 173, 176
ready-made see ready-made English, T. 132
clothes Epstein, S.A. 178
repair of 177, 178 Essex
second-hand .see second-hand clothing trades in 90, 116; Jews
clothing trade in 89
selection of 3, 6 theft in 125
servants' 7-8, 131, 149 Evance, S. 30, 35-6, 40, 155, 157
social order and 6-8, 122, Evans, N. 152
123-4, 126, 148-9, 185 Evelyn, M. 179
theft of 8, 113, 121, 122, Everingham, B. 170
124-30, 131-2, 134-5, 145-6 exports see clothing trades,
uniforms 1-2, 9 - 4 1 , 149 exports and
utility of 3
wedding 6 fabrics 43, 74
women's 6, 7, 48, 62-3, 116, calico 62; campaign 6, 148;
123, 137, 138 chasing 6; gowns 6, 133;
212 Index
fabrics: calico - continued 68-9, 143, 167-8; theft of

neckcloths 38; shifts 38; 132, 141-3
shirts 36, 38 stuff 64; gowns 117, 132;
cambric 64 petticoats 67
canvas 115; drawers 152; suits velvet caps 165
152 wool 66, 148; blends 21;
chintz, cotton 6, 38 breeches 53; coats 36-7, 53;
cost of 71 drawers 36; English 5, 6, 29;
cotton 21; double-weave 69; Irish 148; jackets 53;
drawers 14; gowns 117, 187; petticoats 68; shirts 150-1;
handkerchiefs 143; Indian stockings 12; waistcoats 23,
5, 6; petticoats 168; quilts 33, 36
168; shirts 150-1 worsted: coats 36; stockings
crapelmandes 64 143; theft of 143; waistcoats
damask 64 33
dimity 141 fairs, ready-made clothes at 45,
duckfrocks (naval) 19, 20, 21, 47-8, 77, 114
22 fashion see dress: fashion
duffelcoats 130 Feinstein, C. 161
flannel: petticoats 156; Fell, W. 39
waistcoats 64 Ferguson, M.W. 161
fustian 64; frocks (men's) 130 Ferman, L A 177
gauze 117; petticoats 168 Fielding, H. 126, 128, 132, 143,
holland 64 145, 186, 188, 189
kersey: breeches 18; coats 36; Fielding, J. 128
jackets 18; waistcoats 18, 64 Finberg, H.F. 171-2, 173
lace 60, 145 Fine, B. 3, 122, 185
lawn 117 Finlay, R. 160, 161, 163
linen 60, 64, 66, 148; aprons 'fiscal-military state', clothing
132; bed gowns 117; cotton trades and 9-11, 40-1
21; drawers 18, 61, 152; Fisher, FJ. 41, 158, 159
English 6, 29; French 5; flannel see fabrics
gowns 117; Irish 70, 168; Fludyer, S. 31
petticoats 168; quilts 168; Flynn, A. 104
shirts 18-19, 70, 167; theft of Folbre, N. 177
132, 133, 143; waistcoats 133 Forbes, J. 70
lutestring 64 Forward, E. 39
Marseilles quilting: petticoats foundling hospitals, clothing trades
69; waistcoats 69 and 38, 39
muslin neckcloths 137 ffrankling, A. 48
plush breeches 61 Franks, J. 80
satin: caps 60, 117; cloaks 117; Freeman, R 137
gowns 63; hats 117; mandes frocks
136; petticoats 66, 67, 117 men's see coats, frock
serge 64 women's see gowns
silk 62, 117; caps 60, 165; Fullagar, J. 20, 152
cloaks (cardinals) 132; gowns Furnese, H. 30-1, 155
63, 132, 143; handkerchiefs fur hats 35
141-3; petticoats 64, 66, 67, fustian see fabrics
Index 213
Galton, F.W. 162, 178 ready-made clothing and 45-9,
George, M.D. 157, 159, 160, 174, 53-5
183, 189 Salisbury Guild of Tailors 47,
Ghrimes, W. 71-3 54-5, 162, 163
Gimbart, G. 48, 49 women and 52, 53-4, 71, 73,
Ginsburg, M. 159, 166 98-9, 102, 162, 178
Gipson, J. 60 York Company of Merchant
Gloucestershire, clothing trades in Taylors 54-5, 162
90 Gun, J. 181
glovers 46 Gunn, E. 63
gloves, army 26 Gunton, H. 184
Gofton, J. 140 Guy, AJ. 153, 154
Goodman, J. 163 Gwynn, R D . 175
Gore,J. 23,157
governments haberdashers 80, 112, 165
clothing trades and 8, 10, 11, Hall, J. 46
40-1, 55, 163; second-hand hammocks, naval 23
103 Hampshire, clothing trades in 58,
contractors and see army/navy, 61, 90
clothing for Jews in 82, 89
dress, appropriate, and see dress Hanawalt, B A 161, 182
see also army; navy handkerchiefs 60, 61, 68
gowns 62, 64 commemorative 186
banyans 63 cotton 143
bed 6, 117 silk 143
calico 6, 133 theft of 141, 142, 143, 188
cotton 117, 187 Harley, T. 31
Indian 63 Harner, J. 57
linen 117 Harris, M. 125
'low round' 6 Hart, H. 175
morning 60, 65, 166 Harte, N.B. 148, 152, 156, 158,
satin 63 159, 166, 189
scholars' 60 hats 130, 135, 145, 185
silk 63, 132 army 26, 28, 155
stuff 117, 132 chip 117
theft of 132, 133, 144-5 exports of 33
Gray, D. 51 felt 33
great coats see coats fur 35
Green, M. 184 manufacturing of 158-9
guilds, tailors' 43 satin-covered 117
Chester Merchant Taylor's theft of 131, 189
Company 47, 54-5, 160, 162, Hattendorf, J.B. 150
163 haversacks, naval 20
decline of 44-9, 52, 62 hawkers 99, 120, 129
Norwich tailors' guild 54-5 see also pedlars
Oxford Company of Taylors 44, Hawkins, J. 165
45-7, 48, 54-5, 159, 165, 178 Hay, D. 165
Oxford Journeymen Tailors headwear 48
Company 170 see also caps; hats; hoods; milliners
214 Index
Henry, S. 177 Huntingdonshire, clothing trades

Henson, G. 159 in 90
Herefordshire, clothing trades in 90
Herlihy, D. 178 immigration 78, 79, 81, 87, 92,
Herne, J. 3 0 , 3 1 , 4 0 , 1 5 5 , 1 5 7 96, 119, 172
Hertfordshire, clothing trades in 'industrious revolution' 3-4, 176
90 Ingram, M. 171
Higgs, E. 118, 184 Innes, J. 184
Hill, B. 161 insurance, clothing trades and
Himmelfarb, G. 148 21-2, 51-2, 90, 175
Hitchcock, T. 148 disorderly traders 97
Hitchen 189 Jewish 77, 80-4, 85-6, 87,
Hobsbawm, E. 55, 163 88-9, 91, 92-3, 173, 175
Hoffman, R. 147 pawnbrokers 104-10, 116-17,
Hogarth, W. 70 173
holland see fabrics Royal Exchange 51, 77, 81, 84,
Hollings, A. 39 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 152-3
Holmes, C. 176 salesmen/women 104, 106, 109,
home/outworkers 163-4 110-12
see also women, clothing trades Sun Fire 21-2, 51, 77, 81, 84,
and 104-7, 110, 152-3, 173
Honeyman, K 162-3 women 51-2, 82-3, 85-7, 97,
Hood, A 167 104-8, 109-11, 112-13,
hoods 48, 64 116-17, 119, 175, 181
gauze 117 Isaac, S. 91
silk 60 Isle of Wight, clothing trades in
Hoppit, J. 151,176 61, 90, 166
Horsnaile, H. 63
hosiery 61, 116 jackets 156
army 23, 26, 28, 29, 155 army 23, 155
exports of 33, 166 'bum freezer' 12
manufacturing of 158-9 East India Company 34
naval (wool) 12, 14, 18 kersey 18
see also stockings naval 12, 18, 20
Hoskyns, D. 113 pea [pee] 61
hospitals, foundling, clothing wool 53
trades and 38, 39 Jacobs, A.M. 173
Hosse, D. 141 Jacobs, H. 87
Hoyman, M.E. 177 Jacobs, M. 144-5
Hudson, P. 95, 147, 176 James, C. 19, 20, 22
Hudson's Bay Company, clothing Jarvis, Mrs 184
contractors and 10-11, 34-8, Jayes, J. 108
40, 156-7 Jenkins, D. 161, 173
quality, problems of 37, 157 Jenkins, D.T. 152, 153
Hufton, O. 112, 125, 182, 186, Jews
191-2 Ashkenazi 78, 93
Huguenots 92 assets of 82-4
Humphries, Mr 161 attitudes to 75-6, 77, 78, 79,
Hunt, M. 170, 171, 174, 181 85, 92, 93, 94
Index 215
Jews - continued return permitted 78, 171

Bedfordshire in 91-2 Sephardic 78
Buckinghamshire, in 91 silversmiths, as 89
caricatures of 75-6, 77, 85, 93, stolen goods and 92-3, 188
94 sub-tenancies and 86-7, 174
clothing trades and 75, 80, 85, sweet goods, retailing of 91
91, 93, 172; army/navy women 82-3, 85-6, 92
supplies 78, 80, 82, 83, 85, John, AV. 158, 170
91; haberdashers 80; Johnson, Barbara 126
insurance 77, 80-4, 85-6, 87, Johnson, Bernard 162, 163
88-9, 91, 92-3, 173, 175; Jones, H. 110
pawnbrokers 78, 79, 82, 83, Jones, LJ. 153
84-5, 90, 175; proportion of Jones, M. 182
85, 93; salesmen/women 79, Josselin, R 145, 147, 192
80, 82, 84, 90; second-hand Joyce, P. 158, 178
8, 75-7, 78, 79-80, 81, 92-3, Judd, CM. 157
94, 170; slopsellers 79, 80, jumps 166
82, 83, 91, 175; sub-tenancies
86-7; tenancies 174-5; theft kaftans 75
92-3; women 82-3, 85-6, 92, Kalm, P. 189
175 Keirn, T. 148
community feeling among Kelly, E. 134
86-8, 174-5 Kendall, Duchess of 133
Cornwall, in 175 Kent, clothing trades in 58, 62, 90
Devon, in 89-90, 172, 175 Jews in 89
distribution of 88-92 theft and 134, 140
Dorset, in 175 Kermode, J. 169, 182, 190
economy, national, and 78, 92, Kerridge, E. 152
93 kersey see fabrics
grocers, as 175 King, G. 63
Hampshire, in 82, 89 Kitch, MJ. 161
immigration by 78, 79, 81, 87, Knight, RJ.B. 150
92, 172 Kowaleski, M. 182
insurance and 173
jewellers, as 175 Lancashire, clothing trades in 70,
London, in 78, 79, 85, 88, 89, 90
103, 174 Jews in 89
mercers, as 175 see also Liverpool/Manchester,
merchants, as 78, 88, 91, 92 clothing trades in!
Midlands, in 91 Landes, D. 147
objections to 78 Langford, P. 171
Oxford, in 91 Laroon, M. 170
pawnbrokers, as 78, 79, 82, 83, Latham, E. 116
84-5, 90, 175 Latham, R 151, 187
pedlars, as 78, 79, 87, 88, 89, laundry see theft, clothing and:
91, 92, 175 laundry, of
property ownership and 84 Lavery, B. 150
proportion of 172 Laurence, A. 150, 161
restrictions on 78 Lawrence, I. 110-11
216 Index
leather 46 Love, A. and M. 184

buckskin breeches 130 Low, D A 188
caps 18, 165 Lowe, R. 31, 40
Morocco 117 Lucas, C. 150, 152
shoes 14, 117 lutestring see fabrics
stays 166
Leicester, clothing trades in 100, McCracken, G 185, 186
102 Macfarlane, A 147, 192
Lemire, B. 147, 148, 149, 152, McGrath, P. 156, 166
156, 157, 164, 166-7, 168, 171, McKendrick, N. 123, 147, 185,
179, 182, 185, 187, 192 186
Leopold, E. 3, 122, 185 Maffett, R 34, 35
Levitt, S. 149, 156, 169 Manchester, clothing trades in 67,
Lewis, D.M. 175 99, 168
Lewis, J A 170 Mancke, E. 156, 157
Libel, H. 174-5 Mandeville, B. 190
Linebaugh, P. 115, 147, 183, 187 Mann.J. de L. 152,168
linen see fabrics mandes 60, 63
linen drapers 40 crape 64
Lipman, V.D. 172, 173 foundlings, for 39
Lipson, E. 178 satin 136
Liu, T. 147-8 mantua-makers 4, 5, 54, 74
Liverpool, clothing trades in 168 mantuas 64
livery 7-8, 149 manufacturing
London, clothing trades in capacity 19-21, 136
dealers 33, 47-9, 58, 6 0 - 1 , 70, clothing trades and 1, 4, 8, 10,
110 19-21, 22, 38, 41; areas of 58,
army/navy, supplies to 11, 61, 67, 70, 152, 166-7, 168;
21-2, 23, 24, 28, 29-32; capacity 136; disorderly
imports by 70; second-hand 98-100; patterns of 65-6,
102-4, 110-12, 113-14; 69-70, 74, 98-100; pedlars
women 99, 110, 110-12, and 179-80; procedures
113-14, 115-16 56-7; reorganization of 31-2,
distribution centre, as 47-9 40, 43, 53, 55, 56-7; see also
institutional markets in 38-9 ready-made clothes
Jews in 78, 79, 85, 88, 89, 103, London and see London
174 out/homeworkers and 163-4;
manufacturing centre, as 2, 11, see also women, clothing trades
18, 33, 34, 35, 49, 52-3, 55, and
58, 63-4, 67 stimulation of 176-7
migration to 50, 52, 172 systems of 56, 65-6, 69-70
pawnbrokers in 85, 108, Manwaring, G.E. 151
113-14, 181, 183 March, Earl of 132
second-hand 102-4, 110-12, Markes, L. 81, 82
113-14, 171, 183 marketing, clothing trades and
tailoring guilds in 52-3 77, 98-100
theft and 128-30, 131, 132-4, see also clothing trades
136, 137-9, 141-3, 144-5, 183, Marseilles quilting see fabrics
188-9, 191 Mason, J. 184
Index 217
Mattera, P. 177 clothes (slops) 12, 13, 18,

Matthews, M. 114 19-20, 21; slopsellers 14-17,
Matthews, W. 151, 187 18-20, 21-2, 23, 24, 51-2, 70,
Mayhew, H. 102, 154 109, 168, 172; standard of
Meister, J.H. 187 14-15, 18, 19; uniform 12
Mendelson, S. 182 growth of 11-12, 13, 22
merchant navy, clothing trades and neckcloths
22 calico/chintz 38
mercers 53, 58, 151 muslin 137
ready-made clothes and 162 naval 12, 14
Merriman, R.D. 150 Nenadic, S. 148
Middlesex, clothing trades in 90 Newman, E. 173
Jews in 89 Newton, J.L. 162
Milford, R. 143 Nicks, J. 156
military see army Northamptonshire, clothing trades
milliners 4, 5, 148, 159 in 90, 169
ready-made clothes and 45-6, Northumberland, clothing trades
58 in 90
Mills, E. 144 Norwich tailors' guild 54-5
Minnes, J. 15 Nottinghamshire, clothing trades
Minton, M. 182 in 90
Mitchell, J. 115 Nowler, S. 108
Mokyr.J. 147,176 Nuttell, M. 184
Moon, W. 134
More, S. 183 O'Neill, H. I l l
Morgan, S. 132 Olive, W. 157, 166
Morris, J. 74, 147, 158, 164, 170 Oppenheim, M. 150
Morton, M. 143 out/homeworkers 163-4
Moser, C. 177 see also women, clothing trades
Moses, A. 92 and
Moses, D. 92, 184 Oxford
Moses, E. 92 Company of Taylors 44, 45-7,
Moses, Mrs 174 48, 54, 159, 165, 178
Mosley, F. 37-8 Jews in 91
Murray, J. 129-30 Journeymen Tailors Company
170
Naggar, B. 171, 173 Oxfordshire, clothing trades in
Naggs, S. 184 90, 161, 177, 180
navy Jews in 89
clothing for 1-2, 9-22;
contractors and 13, 14, 15, Parker, I. 160, 166
17, 19, 150; corruption and Parker, J. 141
16; cost of 16, 18-19, 23, 24; Paterson, J. 133
guilds and 53; Navy Board pawnbrokers 83, 84-5, 145, 171,
and 12, 14, 18; ordering 172, 181, 187
13-15, 32-3; payment for insurance and 104-10, 116-17,
17-18, 19, 22, 23, 24; prices 173
of 14, 16-17, 18; pursers and Jewish 78, 79, 83, 85, 90, 175
14, 15; quality of 14-15; slop licensing of 103
218 Index
pawnbrokers - continued Prior, M. 161, 162, 178

stolen goods and 128-9, 137, production see manufacturing
143, 144, 182, 183
women 100, 104, 106, 107-8, Quataert, J. 100, 179
109, 110, 113-14, 116-17, 137, Quilligan, M. 161
139, 182 quilting 66-9, 167
Peacock, Mrs 184 Marseilles 69
Pead, H. 116 quoifs 60
Pearsall, AW.H. 150
pedlars 60, 76, 120, 124, 187 Ramsay, G D . 152
Jewish 78, 79, 87, 88, 89, 91, Ranwell, E. 114
92, 175 Ratcliffe, B.M. 177
manufacturers and 179-80 Ray, AJ. 157
shopkeepers and 179 Raynsford, R. 100
theft and 129, 137 Read, E. 133
women 92, 99, 137 Read, M. 166
see also chapmen ready-made clothes 160, 180
Pepys, S. 15-16, 126, 151 army see army, clothing for
Perkin, H. 184, 186 dealers in 45, 47-8, 57-64
perquisites 140, 169 East India Co and 38
petticoats 60, 62, 63, 65, 70, 133, fairs, at 45, 47-8
168 glovers and 46
flannel 156 growth of 1-2, 4, 40-1, 149,
foundlings, for 39 166-7
gauze 168 Hudson's Bay Co. and 36-8
hoop 167 institutions and 38-9
Marseilles quilting 69 Jews and see Jews, clothing
quilted 66-9, 117, 167 trades and
satin 66, 67, 117 milliners and 45-6
silk 64, 66, 67, 68-9, 167-8 naval see navy, clothing for
Phillips, B. 81, 82 sizes of 167
Pickman, P. 63 slaves, for 34
Pike, T. 57 standard of 73-4
Pillah, M. 52 tailors and 45-9, 53-5, 71-3,
Pinchbeck, I. 160, 182 162, 164, 169
Place, E. 126, 169 uniforms see army/navy,
Place, F. 149, 169, 187 clothing for
Plattner, S. 177 see also individual items, e.g.
Playdell, J. 63 bodices, shirts
Plumb, J.H. 147, 185 retailing see clothing trades,
Pocock, E. 184 retailing in
Pollard, S. 184 ribbons 60
Pollins, H. 172, 173 Ribiero, A. 149
Ponting, KG. 148, 152, 159 Rich, E.E. 156
Pool, B. 150, 151 Richards, E. 106-7, 181
Porter, R. 147, 176, 185 Riden, P. 165
Poulter, J. 191 Rigg.J. 189
Powys, (Mrs) P.L. 126 Risdon, G 21
Index 219
Roach, J. 140 second-hand clothing trade 2, 8,
Robber, M. 117 77, 119, 180
Roche, D. 8, 149, 170, 171, 185 attitudes to 93, 176
Rodger, N A M . 150 confidentiality in 171
Rogers, C. 113-14 credit, items as 112
Roth, C. 171, 172, 175 demand for 135-6
Rothstein, N. 148 disorderly traders and 96,
Royal Exchange Insurance 51, 77, 98-104, 112-17
81, 84, 105, 106, 107, 108, fashion and 124, 136, 171
110, 152-3 governments and 103, 171
Royle, E. 172 insurance and see insurance,
Rubens, A. 173 clothing trades and
Rule.J. 162, 172 Jews and 8, 75-7, 78, 79-80,
Russell, W. 132 81, 92-3, 94, 170; see also Jews,
Ryan, M.P. 162 clothing trades and
local authorities and 99, 100,
Sackfield, S. 70 102-4
salesmen/women 57-64, 165 salesmen/women in 2, 33, 34,
definition of 57, 104, 164, 172 57, 113-14, 183; see also
growth of 57-9, 120, 145 salesmen/women
insurance and 104, 106, 109-12 scope of 116-17
Jewish 79, 82-3, 84, 90 standards in 171, 176
second-hand clothing trade and tailors and 102
2, 33, 34, 57, 113-14, 187-8 theft and 87, 92, 126-7, 128,
tailoring guilds and 45-9 129, 133, 135-6, 140, 143-4,
theft and see theft, clothing and 145, 180, 192
see also disorderly traders; women and 2, 8, 82-3, 85-6,
pawnbrokers 92, 95-120, 178, 192; see also
Salisbury Guild of Tailors 47, pawnbrokers; pedlars; women,
54-5, 162, 163 clothing trades and
Samuel, E.R. 173 serge see fabrics
Sanderson, E. 148, 152, 168 sexual division of labour see
Sandwich, Earl of 15 clothing trades, sexual division
Sarradine, S. 81-2 of labour and
sashes, army 26 Shaftesley, J.M. 173
Saunders, F. 108 Shammas, C. 185
Scawen, W. 30, 31, 155 Sharpe, J A 125,127,136,184,
Schmiechen, J.A. 147, 164 186, 187
Schneider, J. 185 Sharpe, P. 149, 161-2
Schofield, R. 172 Shearer, B. 161
Schumpeter, E. 33, 156 Shearerd, N. 31, 32
Schwarz, L.D. 21-2, 151, 152, 153, sheepskin: breeches 140
162, 164, 169, 170, 176, 180-1, Sherenbeck, Jack 90-1
188 Sherenbeck, Jacob 90
Scott, A. 50, 161, 191 shifts 117
Scott, M. 114 calico 38
Scouloudi, I. 175-6 chintz 38
Seaborne, F. 159 Shippon, W. 100
220 Index
shirts 48, 60, 61, 68, 74 Snell, KD.M. 50, 160, 161
army 23, 26, 28, 31, 155 Soames, J. 62
calico 36, 38 social order, dress and 6-8, 122,
chintz 38 123-4, 126, 148-9, 185
cotton 150-1 soldier-tailors 44
East India Company, for 34 Solomon, L. 89
Hudson's Bay Company, for 36 Somerset, clothing trades in 90,
linen 18-19, 36, 70, 167 117
naval 12, 14, 18, 19-20, 21, 22, Sommers, S. 117, 175
150-1, 167 'Song of the Shirt' 5, 148
theft of 139, 141 Spufford, M. 164, 165, 177, 178,
wool 150-1 179
Shoemaker, B. 148 Staffordshire, clothing trades in
shoes 90
army 23, 26, 28, 29, 154, 155 stays 117, 133
East India Company, for 34 leather 166
Hudson's Bay Company, for 36 whalebone 166
exports of 33 Stock, R 63
leather 14, 117 stockings 61, 135
manufacturing of 158-9 army 23, 26, 28, 29, 155
naval 14, 18 East India Company, for 34
sizes of 167 Hudson's Bay Company, for 36
theft of 128-9 Irish-made 36
shopkeepers see salesmen/women mending of 116
shoplifting see theft, clothing and: second-hand 183
shops, from theft of 137, 143, 192
Shropshire, clothing trades in 90, wool (naval) 12, 14, 18
113 worsted 143
silver see also hosiery
buckles 130 stomachers 166
buttons (plate) 130 Stow.J. 171
slavery, clothing trades and 33-4, Stringer, N. 57
156 Stubbs, R. 141
sleeves 117, 143 stuff see fabrics
slop clothes (slops), slopmakers Styles, J. 148,169,184,187
see navy, clothing for Suffolk, clothing trades in 90
slopsellers 14-17, 18-20, 21-2, suits of clothes 45, 64, 141
23, 24, 70, 172 canvas 152
Jewish 79, 80, 82, 83, 91, 175 exports of 33, 166
pawnbroking and 109 foundlings, for 39
women as 51-2, 109 naval 14, 152
see also navy, clothing for Sun Fire Insurance 21-2, 51, 77,
small clothes see army, clothing for 81, 84, 104-7, 110, 152-3, 173,
Smith, A. 2, 147 181
Smith, DJ. 31, 152, 155 Surrey
Smith, E.M. 176-7 clothing trades in 90; Jews in
Smith, J. 148 89
Smith, R. 184 theft in 125
smocks 139 Susser, B. 173
Index 221
Sussex Thatcher, M. 139
clothing trades in 90 theft
theft in 125 advertising of 128, 141, 187,
Sutherland, L. 172 188
Swann, J. 159 assault and 129-30
sweated labour 163-4 clothing and 8, 113
see also women, clothing trades consumerism and 121, 122,
and 126-7, 135-6, 144, 145-6, 187
Swift, J. 155 disposal of 127-9, 135-6,
137-9, 141, 143-4, 180, 187,
tailors 5, 10, 34, 40, 70 190, 192
army clothing and 154, 155, employees and 131-2, 140
162 families and 133-4, 139
contracted 23, 37-8 fashion and 124-5, 127, 130,
guilds 43, 44-9, 52, 53-5, 73 134, 135
'honourable' 102 friends, from 133-4
journeymen 23, 38, 52, 54, 102, identification of 143
158, 169, 170 laundry, of 132-3, 136, 189-90
merchant 61 lodging-houses, in 133
pawnbroking and 109 methods of 127-45, 191
pay of 164, 170 motives for 127, 134, 135, 187
ready-made clothes and 45-9, neighbours, from 134
53-5, 71-3, 162, 164, 169 pawnbrokers and 128-9, 137,
repair of clothes and 177, 180 143, 144, 182, 183
second-hand clothing and 102, pedlars and 129, 137
109, 119 percentage of crime of 125-7,
slopselling and 109, 164 136, 186
soldier 44 perquisites and 140, 169
trade unions 53, 71, 73, 164 professional 135-6, 137, 139,
women and 52, 53-5, 71-3, 140-3
162, 170, 178 prosecutions for 131, 132, 137,
tallies see army, clothing for: 144
payment for receivers of 127-9, 136, 137,
Tatum, H. 114 139, 143, 144, 188
Tawney, R.H. 178 recovery of 128-9
Taylor, B. 162 second-hand trade and 87, 92,
Taylor, G D . 156 126-7, 128, 129, 133, 135-6,
Taylor, W. 130 140, 143-4, 145, 180, 192
Tebbutt, M. 174, 181 servants, by 131-2, 133, 137,
textiles 191
clothing trades and 2, 4, 5, shops, from 135, 136-45, 183,
20-1, 70, 152, 166-7, 168 192
imports of 122 specialization in 131, 140, 141,
legislation and 148 142, 189
manufacturing of: areas of 5, warehouses, from 139, 161
70, 152; growth of 65, 135 women and 136-7, 138, 139,
see also fabrics; manufacturing 169, 192
Thale, M. 149, 169, 187 Thirsk, J. 119,150,159,178,184,
Thatcher, A. 139 185
222 Index
Thomas, K 179 theft of 130, 133, 141, 189

Thomas, PJ. 148, 157 thickset 189
Thompson, E.P. 154, 162, 179 under 61
Thompson, G. 176 woollen 23, 33, 36
Thornton, M. 139 women's 63
Thwaites, W. 184 worsted 33
Till, G. 150 Walcott, J. 157
Todd, S. 20, 152 Walker, G 139, 169, 182, 190, 191
Tosler, A 108 Walker, M.J. 163
Totterdell, J. 155,158 Walking, T. 63, 64
Tozer, J. 149 Walkowitz, J.R. 162
trade unions Waltears, E. 108
tailors 53, 164 war, clothing trades and see
women and 71 army/navy, clothing for
trimming materials 60 Waring, M. 177
trousers 19, 22, 60, 152 Warwickshire, clothing trades in
duck 20, 21 90
East India Company 34 Jews in 89
Turnau, I. 167, 172 Weatherill, L. 165, 185, 190
Turner, T. 126 Webb, B. 162
Tyrer, F. 187 Webb, S. 162, 178
Weisser, M.R 184
uniforms Welsh, J. 64
army 1-2, 10, 25 Westall, O. 173
navy 1-2, 9-22; 'slop clothes' Wheadey, H.B. 171
12, 13, 14-17, 18-19 White, G. 156
police 158 White, S. 156
Unwin, G. 178 Whitehead.J. 166
Whitehead, M. 117
Vaisey, D. 187 Wiesner, M.E. 161, 163, 170, 177,
Valanze, D. 161 178
Variot, L. 183 wigs 130-1
Varney, J. 133 theft of 130, 189
Vere, W. 57 Wildbore, Mrs 11
Vickers, NJ. 161 Wilkes, J. 185-6
Willan, T.S. 155
Wadham, J. 21-2 Williams, B. 172, 173
Wadsworth, A P . 152, 168 Williams, M. 110
Wagman, B. 177 Wilson, J. 133
waistcoats 62, 68, 74 Wilson, M. 113
army 23 Wilson, Mrs 139
cloth 130 Wilson, W. 28
cotton 14 Wiltshire, clothing trades in 90, 162
flannel 64 Wolfe, B. 175
Hudson's Bay Company, for 36 women
kersey 18, 64 alewives, as 179
linen 133 attitudes to 52, 53-4, 71, 73,
Marseilles quilting 69 98-102, 170, 179
naval 12, 14, 18, 20 bakers, as 109
Index 223
women - continued theft and 136-7, 138, 139,
censuses, in 118 192; trade unions and 71;
chandlers, as 109, 110 training for 39, 50, 97-8, 181
clothing trades and 11, 118, domestic industries, in 161-2
120, 160-1, 183, 184; dress see dress, women's
advertisements for 74; economic importance of 74,
apprenticeships 181; attitudes 102, 115, 118-19, 176, 179
to 52, 53-4, 71, 73, 98-102, education of 39, 50, 98, 160
162; cap-making 165; employers, as 31, 50
dealers see salesmen/women; employment of 52, 71, 105,
second-hand clothing trade; 118, 160-1, 170
'dishonourable' 102, 179; guilds and 52, 53-4, 71, 73,
disorderly trades see 98-9, 162, 170, 178
disorderly traders; employers haberdashers, as 112
of 3, 31, 39, 43, 50, 70-1; innkeeper, as 109
importance of 74, 102, 115, insurance and 51-2, 82-3,
118-19, 176; insurance 51-2, 85-7, 97, 104-8, 109-11,
82-3, 85-7, 97, 104-8, 112-13, 116-17, 175, 181
109-11, 112-13, 116-17, 175, ironmongers, as 116
181; Jewish 8 2 - 3 , 8 5 - 6 , 8 7 , London, migration to 50, 52
92, 175; mantua-makers 4, 5, marriage and 52
54; milliners 4, 5, 45-6, 58, occupations of 183
148, 159; out/homeworkers pawnbrokers, as 100, 104, 106,
1, 4, 5, 8, 10, 43-4, 55, 68, 107-8, 109, 110
70-1, 74; pawnbrokers 100, pay of 43, 50, 52, 55, 62, 68,
104, 106, 107-8, 109, 110, 70, 74, 102, 158, 170, 179
113-14, 116-17, 137, 139, 182; pedlars, as 92, 99, 137
pay 43, 50, 52, 55, 62, 68, 70, proportion to men of 52
74, 102, 148, 154, 167; pedlars sail makers, as 115
92, 99; 'pledge' 100, 102, shopkeepers, as 109, 110, 112,
113; quilting 68, 167; ready- 115-16
made clothes and 43-74, silversmiths, as 109
118; repair of clothes 177, theft and 136-7, 138, 139, 169
180; sailors' wives 161; watchmakers, as 109
saleswomen see salesmen/ Wood, A 184
women; schoolgirls, Wood, S. 184
employment of 39; Woodforde, J. 126
seamstresses 1, 4, 5, 8, 10, wool see fabrics
31, 39, 5 0 - 1 , 55, 56, 70, 97-8, wool drapers 29-30, 31, 38, 40,
119, 177; second-hand clothes 53, 61
2, 8, 82-3, 85-6, 92, 95-120, Woolf, M. 171, 173
178, 192; slopsellers 51-2, Worcestershire, clothing trades in
109; sub-contracting to 31, 90
56; sub-tenancies and 86-7; workhouses, clothing trades
sweated labour 4, 50, 55-6, and 38
70-1, 102, 119, 147-8, 158; worsted see fabrics
tailoring guilds and 52, 53-4, Wright, J. 161
71, 73, 98-9, 162, 170, 178; Wrigley, E A 172, 176
tailors 109, 161, 177, 180; Wylder, E. 137
224 Index
Yeo, E. 154, 162, 179 Yorkshire, clothing trades in 90,

Yeoman, M. 54, 163 117
York Company of Merchant
Taylors 54-5, 162 Zehedieh, N. 156

Beverly Lemire - Dress, Culture and Commerce - The English Clothing Trade Before The Factory, 1660-1800-Palgrave Macmillan (1997) PDF

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DRESS, CULTURE AND COMMERCE

Also by Beverly Lemire

FASHION'S FAVOURITE: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in

First published in the United States of America 1997 by

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with

Home, street and neighbourhood: disorderly

5.1 Tradecard - M. Harris, Taylor & Salesman 125

Tuesday night dinner group. John Nicks offered a timely sug-

a major source of profit for entrepreneurs. Production and

However, when clothing was chosen for wear alone, a range

eruption. Within the proposed industrious revolution one finds

By the later eighteenth century the manufacture of garments

wares in England. Opponents of the latter policy claimed

loomed large. A striking example of this phenomenon appears

the Derbyshire encounter came with the public ridicule of

to deploy resources in the cause of national aggrandizement'. 3

English suppliers for stores as did the military, a provisioning

MILITARY MARKETS: DRESSING FOR WAR

Military requirements represented a unique stimulus to the

completely at war's end. It is this market that will be examined

ministers and London merchants. From 1642 to 1660, the

goods ordered from suppliers were exhibited at the ports so

at an 'exceeding merry' dinner at a London tavern. Less than

Even when challenged by a senior naval commander, Beckford's

the war expanded in the mid-1690s. He may have doubted

Table 1.1 Slops sold to the navy by Charles James, 1760-70

Number of items Value Years

War, when the pressures to supply combatants were high. The

<ere»-" ",...•• &M0&S*-

of cotton/linens, cottons and wool blends. Most of the early

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as assiduously as slopsellers flattered and bribed their way to

t "// l/lf Itf/i'/ittr/;, uni'i notin^ttHt <'/r//t:4//;.-/i '//AetK

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M Sdh*'** 4veJcS '//? $ 'J- '-

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did some more junior officers; both ranks showed considerable

swell the funds provided to a regiment, one to which a blind

Table 1.2 Clothing approved for foot soldiers, 1689

First Year pair stockings 0 02s.06d.

Source: Calendar of Treasury Books vol. 9, part 1, p. 67.

185.8d. . . . to the offreckonings for the clothiers.' 61 With such

offered was the promise of future payment on 'their Lord-

the appropriate stores for the regiment; or an officer might

ber of Parliament; and Herne, an MP, City alderman and East

$ SHIRTS and SHIFTS,

LONDON. U. faf* 17/^

Illustration 1.4 Bill head and receipt of N. Shearerd, Cockspur Street,

forces. The manufacturing capacity put in motion by the ex-

INSTITUTIONAL MARKETS AND THE DEMAND FOR

In the Adantic trading network, clothing featured as a staple

routinely arranged for shipments of garments; similarly, army

were established in the New World. However, there was no

Company, furs to be made into hats and garments once sold

that among the merchandise shipped to the northern heart of

ready market. Nearly 900 assorted coats were exported in 1682,

Layer after layer of demand restructured the market for gar-

influx of government funds cannot be overstated. England's

to the casual contemporary observer; the history of produc-

GUILDS BESIEGED: TAILORS IN THE PROVINCES

The policies of provincial tailors' guilds were a barometer of

it is not any of the Trades mentioned in any of the Branches

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SAYr//r»<7' .s/,*y/' vfi /A .. / / . ,