England Mercantile Occupations, Merchants, Retailers, Clothing Materials, Dress, Drapers, Haberdashers - International Institute

Merchants and Retailers
The term merchant meant a businessman in mediaeval and early modern England. They ranged from wealthy merchant adventurers trading all over the world through average town retailers to poor pedlars. Some traders specialized in one type of goods whilst others dealt in whatever would turn a profit at the time. Although impossible to draw dividing lines, for convenience here, I have grouped the exporters and importers as merchants, and those who sold goods either from a shop or on the street as retailers. Merchants, dealers and shopkeepers are readily found in contemporary city directories and newspapers since they found it profitable to advertise. Merchants, dealers (wholesalers), and larger retailers can often be found through business records and the indexes in archives.

Merchants
Those who exported and imported goods and materials were classified either by their commodities such as wine merchant or tea merchant, or by the country they deal with, for example West India merchant or China merchant (Hurley 1991). Merchants were townsmen who frequently owned or part-owned the ships they traded in, and the most prosperous ones became leading figures in society. London merchants were frequently the younger sons of landed families sent there to make their fortune rather than having it handed to them on a silver platter like their eldest brother! Once they had acquired sufficient wealth to retire to a pleasant country seat they usually did so, and few remained in trade for more than two or three generations (see Hey’s The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History for studies in this area).

Shakespeare, in Macbeth and Othello, refers to the English merchants in 16th century Aleppo (Syria) and Saunders notes that the cemetery inscriptions for them start in 1655, earlier than most British ones! Collis described the travels and influence of the successive merchant adventurers Fitch (fl 1583-1611), Roe (1580-1644), White (1650-1689), Clive (1725-1774), Park (1771-1806), and Raffles (1781-1829) developing trade in the Middle East, India, East Indies and Africa. The most important ancient trading centre was the Pool of London, that is the River Thames downstream from London Bridge, with 75% of foreign trade by the late 18th century. Bristol and Liverpool were also important from early times, particularly as the North American trade developed; in fact Bristol mariners probably saw the New World before Columbus did. It was in Bristol that the term paying on the nail came about, since the merchants there passed money on nails, wooden trays supported by a vertical post (Bailey 1982).

A linen merchant would import materials such as linen from Ireland, cloths made of flax and hemp from Russia, Ticklenburghs and other stuffs from Germany, and such types as muslins, nankins, and calicoes from the East Indies (Hurley 1994). The merchant would then sell to the wholesale linen draper (or dealer) who, acting as middleman, sold to the retail linen draper. The large merchant trading companies went into decline in the late 17th and 18th centuries (Prest).

Retailers
Some shopkeepers might call themselves dealers, and this term meant those who purchased directly from the importers or producers rather than through a middleman. Thus a tea dealer attended the sales of tea on London Docks when the East India Company ships arrived from the Far East (Bebb 2002).

In the late 17th century there were an estimated 40,000 shopkeepers in England and Wales (King, quoted by Hey), and these were mainly in towns but each sizable village seemed to have at least one shop. Town centres contained the market and the shops, some of which were craftsmens’ workshops and others purely retail establishments. Although a shop was called a draper or a grocer probate inventories have shown that they sold a much greater range of goods, depending on local needs. For an excellent article describing the life of retail merchants in Yorkshire in the early 1800s see Bebb (Shops in Regency Yorkshire 1811-1820 in The Family and Local History Handbook. 6th edition, page 33-35.Genealogical Services Directory, 2002). Camp (Shop Assistants - White Slavery. Family Tree Magazine. Vol 16 #2, page 22-24, 1999) investigated the life of 19th and early 20th century shop assistants, details their horrendous hours and conditions and the progress of legislation, and suggests ample further reading.

Drapers and Haberdashers
Drapers, or linen drapers, used to be the supervisors of the makers of woollen and other types of cloth since only they were allowed to buy from the manufacturers or to import it. The wholesale draper (or dealer) would buy imported cloths from the merchants, and also British-produced goods from manufacturers in, say Manchester or Paisley. He acted as the middleman by reselling these to the retail linen drapers throughout his chosen territory in Britain, through his travellers (travelling salesmen). Hurley (The Book of Trades or Library of the Useful Arts. Vol III. Wiltshire Family History Society, 1994) lists the specialties of each of the manufacturing towns in 1818.

The retail linen draper actually draped selected fabrics across his doorway so they could be seen and felt (Bebb 2002). Since ready-to-wear clothes were not readily available until the mid-19th century drapers were in great demand by seamstresses and tailors. The London establishments were sometimes huge, with dozens of live-in staff called draper’s assistants, as can be seen from the census returns. Brownrigg (The Linen-Draper’s Assistant in Portraits of the English Vol V: Working Lives edited and published by COLLINS, Audrey. 1999-1. Original published by Robert Tyas, London, 1840) presents a fascinating glimpse into their world.

Haberdashers dealt in the accoutrements needed for sewing, such as lace, buttons and ribbons, and as they imported the better quality items from Milan they were also known as Milaners, which later gave rise to the term milliner, one who decorated dresses and ladies’ hats. Pins were among the articles introduced by haberdashers and at first were expensive as they were individually hand made, giving rise to the term pin money, for that used to buy fashionable frippery.

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