Tradition and Innovation in English Retailing, 1700 to 1850

Narratives of Consumption

Ian Mitchell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317008491
• Topic: Économie
• Subtopic: Histoire économique

Three decades of research into retailing in England from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries has established a seemingly clear narrative: fixed shops were widespread from an early date; 'modern' methods of retailing were common from at least the early eighteenth century; shopping was a skilled activity throughout the period; and consumers were increasingly part of - and aware of being part of - a polite and fashionable culture. All of this is true, but is it the only narrative? Research has shown that markets were still important well into the nineteenth century and small scale producer-retailers co-existed with modern warehouses. Many shops were not smart. The development of modern retailing therefore was a fractured and fragmented process. This book presents a reassessment of the standard view by challenging the usefulness of concepts like 'traditional' and 'modern', examining consumption and retailing as inextricably linked aspects of a single process, and by using the idea of narrative to discuss the roles and perceptions of the various actors in this process - such as retailers, shoppers/consumers, local authorities and commentators. The book is therefore structured around some of these competing narratives in order to provide a richer and more varied picture of consumption and retailing in provincial England.

Part I
Traditional and Dynamic: Retailing c. 1700–1820

Chapter 1
Basic Goods at a Fair Price:
The Morality of the Market

In the summer of 1713 a Derbyshire jury was summoned to consider the implications for the small market town of Tideswell of proposals to establish markets and fairs in the neighbouring villages of Hope and Castleton. The jury concluded that a market at Castleton would damage that at Tideswell, but was split on the proposal for Hope. Those against allowing a market there subsequently complained that they had been pressurized into agreeing to it.¹ Early in the following year John Balguy of Hope petitioned the Crown for a Saturday market and four annual fairs there.² He obtained his grant, although by the middle of the eighteenth century only two of the fairs seem to have survived.³

There was nothing particularly unusual about these legal proceedings even in the eighteenth century. Markets and fairs remained important for the sale of foodstuffs, livestock and a range of durable goods. They could be profitable to the person who owned the right to hold them and to collect toll on goods sold in them. They might stimulate trade in the place where they were located and the surrounding area, or they might threaten an existing market. It was worthwhile for a local landowner or local authority to spend time and money on obtaining a formal grant of a market and fairs in order to establish and protect their rights and potential income. Even though traditional markets and the regulations surrounding them were increasingly challenged by changing attitudes and alternative modes of selling, and examples can be found both of individual markets that were decaying as well as those that were thriving, there is no strong evidence to suggest that markets in general were declining in importance until at least the second third of the nineteenth century.⁴

This chapter explores how traditional markets in growing towns operated in practice. It discusses the legal framework within which markets were situated and the changing effectiveness of regulation. The extent to which it was appropriate for the market authorities to attempt to control trade in the market, and to prevent it overflowing into unregulated spaces was a particular concern in times of scarcity. There were those who called for more rigorous enforcement of the laws surrounding market trading; and those who argued for greater freedom. Although the latter view prevailed, the contest was a real one and at times closely fought. Urban improvement also impacted on markets. By the late eighteenth century there was pressure in many towns for markets to be tidied up and removed from main thoroughfares. The final section of this chapter discusses several instances of market improvement and expansion in some growing industrial towns.

The Traditional Market

Although the number of market towns in England and Wales decreased after the mid seventeenth century, there were still over 600 such towns in 1720 and 728 were listed by Owen in 1792.⁵ Not all of these markets were of any real significance and some may have existed more in name than in reality. In the 1670s Richard Blome described the market at Tarvin in Cheshire as ‘inconsiderable’, that at Sandbach as ‘not very considerable’, and that at Knutsford as ‘indifferent’, while that at Ashbourne in Derbyshire was ‘much decayed’ of late and that at Chapel-en-le-Frith ‘now disused’.⁶ Some towns disappeared from the lists during the eighteenth century to be replaced by new entrants, which may themselves have struggled. For example, in Cheshire the inhabitants of the small Wirral town of Neston made fruitless attempts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to establish a market and fairs in the face of opposition from Chester. A market and three fairs were finally granted to Sir Roger Mostyn in 1728. These never flourished, however, and were on a very small scale. Income from the market in its first year was a mere £1 14s 9d with expenditure of 11s 1½d plus the initial outlay on dishes and scales.⁷ Neston was not listed as a market town in the 1796 edition of Owen, but did have a small market for meat and potatoes according to the 1800 crop return.⁸

The relative insignificance of some market towns, and the decline of other markets in the eighteenth century, particularly as small centres were eclipsed by larger ones, was only part of the picture. Other new markets flourished. The townspeople of Penistone in south Yorkshire faced opposition from Barnsley and Huddersfield when they tried to establish a market at the end of the seventeenth century. Rather than give up, however, they sought the support of the inhabitants of towns on both sides of the Pennines from Salford in the west to Doncaster in the east and Wakefield in the north to Hope in the south. Over 2,000 people signed their petition and in 1699 Penistone held its first Thursday market. Both town and market prospered in the eighteenth century.⁹ The markets of middling and larger towns often attracted favourable comments from travellers. Celia Fiennes noted that the market in Chesterfield was ‘very large; it was Saturday which is their market day and there was a great Market like some little faire’.¹⁰ Daniel Defoe wrote of the market at Shrewsbury that it was ‘the greatest market, the greatest plenty of good provisions, and the cheapest that is to be met with in all the western part of England’; of Nottingham that ‘there is a very good market, with a vast quantity of provisions, and those of the best sort, few towns in England exceeding it’; and of Leeds that ‘the ordinary market for provisions … is the greatest of its kind in all the north of England, except Halifax’.¹¹ Leeds also had a very important cloth market.

It seems likely that in the seventeenth century the markets in around two in five English towns specialized in some product or group of products, as well as providing a focal point for the sale of provisions and other basic goods.¹² The latter may not have been glamorous, but was important. It was also picturesque, an acceptable subject for illustrators and artists.¹³ Moreover, market day was often the busiest day for town shopkeepers, particularly those in prime locations around the market place.¹⁴ Disputes between some traders and the Corporation in the Cheshire silk town of Macclesfield in the mid eighteenth century suggest a flourishing market with shopkeepers taking advantage of those who came to the town on market days. For example, toll was demanded in 1759 of Mark Furnall who sold goods such as breeches and stays from outside his market place shop on market days. Furnall refused, but offered to pay a smaller amount. The Corporation claimed that other traders, including a shoemaker, had agreed to pay toll in similar circumstances.¹⁵ A freeman butcher, Nicholas Chapman, was also in dispute with the Corporation over his refusal to pay stallage for a second stall in the market, needed because of the increase of his business.¹⁶ Lists of tolls chargeable in the 1750s show the town authorities making provision for charging not just those selling provisions (including lemons and oranges) but also breeches makers, glovers, shoemakers, hatters, handkerchief and lace sellers, potters, glaziers, coopers, and sellers of maps and pictures.¹⁷ This is not, of course, evidence that such a wide range of goods was regularly on sale in the market, and some of these items may have been more common at fairs, but at least implies that Macclesfield market amounted to a lot more than just a few provisions stalls. The market tolls were generally leased by the Corporation to a toll collector and trade in the market seems to have been increasing significantly in the second half of the eighteenth century. Jonathan Downes agreed to pay £65 a year in 1752; by 1794 George Oldfield was paying £120 a year.¹⁸

At the other end of Cheshire the markets in the ancient city of Chester, which experienced much slower population growth in the eighteenth century but which was a prosperous service and leisure centre, also remained important. Chester lacked a large central market place with the result that markets were spread around the city. In the 1780s Northgate Street was the principal market area, with butchers’ shambles and a daily market for fish and vegetables (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Chester market place, Northgate Street

Source: Ancient Chester. Reproduced by permission of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council.

Poultry, butter and cheese were sold in Eastgate Street, the most prestigious of the city’s shopping streets. The markets were described as well supplied and cheap.¹⁹ Not all shoppers agreed. There were complaints in the 1770s of the high prices of turkeys and of fish as well as of their quality: ‘Great plenty of salmon … I saw no other fish, except a few small, stinking mackerel at ten pence each’.²⁰ These dispersed markets had never been wholly satisfactory and could easily cause congestion. There was also little scope for expansion, at least until major improvement schemes were set in hand in the early nineteenth century. Profits from the butchers’ markets fell from around £100 a year in the 1730s to £70–£80 in the 1770s before rising again to reach £120–£130 by 1800. Income from the fish market was much less, rising from around £7 to around £12 in this period.²¹ These were not markets that attracted much attention from visitors or writers of guide books to the city, but they were indispensable to the city’s inhabitants.

Part of the reason why markets mattered was that they operated within a framework of law and regulation. Acquiring the right to found a new market or alter an existing one might involve complex and potentially costly procedures, including legal advice and representation. The extent to which market rights were enforceable could lead to legal proceedings, or at least the preparation of a case for counsel’s opinion. Disputes between owners and users of markets could easily end up in one of the courts of equity. The fact that it tends to be legal records that have survived probably gives a somewhat distorted view of the volume of disputes regarding market rights. Markets that worked smoothly have left less historical evidence. Yet even allowing for this, it is clear that some, particularly private, owners of markets rights in the eighteenth century and ea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• General Editor’s Preface
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Abbreviations
• Preface
• Introduction
• PART I TRADITIONAL AND DYNAMIC: RETAILING C. 1700–1820
• PART II DISTURBING INFLUENCES: LUXURY, NOVELTY AND FASHION
• PART III RETAILING, CONSUMPTION AND MODERNITY: ADAPTATION AND INNOVATION C. 1820–1850
• Appendix: Browns of Chester
• Bibliography
• Index