The Complete Tradesman

A Study of Retailing, 1550–1820

Nancy Cox

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781859281697
• eBook ISBN: 9781351892483
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The Complete Tradesman redresses the relative paucity of studies on the history of retailing before 1800. Based upon extensive research into diverse trade sources, Cox takes issue with the surprisingly resilient stereotype of the 'dull' and 'out of date' shopkeeper in the early modern period, showing that the retailing sector was well adapted to the social and economic needs of the day and quick to exploit new opportunities. Chapters cover not only distribution, shop design, customer relations and networks between tradesmen, but also attitudes to retailing, official controls, and the response to novelty. By throwing light on subjects hitherto overlooked and challenging existing whiggish preoccupations with progress towards modern retailing systems, this study signals a new approach to the history of retailing. The focus is placed on assessing how far tradesmen, especially shopkeepers, satisfied and stimulated contemporary desires for consumer goods.

Chapter 1
A 'dangerous Consequence if the Trade of a Nation run into over-much Shopkeeping':¹ contemporary thoughts on the retail sector, 1550-1800

As a background to any study of retailing and distribution there must lie a proper understanding of the economic theories of the day and the way they were implemented by the authorities. It might seem, since most economic writers concern themselves with macroeconomics and the grand issues of Trade with a capital T, that the minutiae of the market town mercer or the village shopkeeper would be of little moment. To an extent this is true. But the activities of the retailing tradesman impinged themselves on the theories of trade and the wealth of nations and, albeit often indirectly, they were the object of concern for the government of the day.

Napoleon Bonaparte is famously supposed to have dismissed the British as a Nation of shopkeepers. The remark, whether or not the attribution is genuine, was intended to be the very reverse of complimentary to his former adversary. Clearly if to be a nation of shopkeepers were derogatory to Britain, then it follows that, in his eyes at least, to be a shopkeeper was not a route to social success or respectability. Nor did Napoleon stand alone in taking this approach. The assumption that shopkeepers were in some way of dubious worth was a strand of thought that ran right through the early modem period, and even found expression, though in muted form, in the works of Adam Smith, the famous advocate of free trade and the probable originator of the phrase attributed to Napoleon.²

The work of Adam Smith seriously challenged the thoughts of his contemporaries and even altered government policy, not just during his lifetime, but for generations. To some extent he had developed his theory in response to the economic pressures of his time, but he also synthesised a growing body of thought that had been edging towards his conclusions for well over a century without ever quite attaining their coherence. However, the view of many Whiggish historians such as McCulloch that the work of Adam Smith was the apex of economic thought in the early modem period towards which some other thinkers feebly struggled gives an entirely wrong impression of the times.³ From the sixteenth century onwards several economists, usually men well versed in matters of trade, were developing very different theories about what some of them chose to term the wealth of nations - a phrase that Adam Smith was to hijack so successfully that it has been associated with his name ever since. Their philosophy was the complete antithesis of his; they postulated control and regulation as opposed to free trade, and government intervention as opposed to laissez faire. They believed that the true wealth of the nation lay not in the volume of trade but in a favourable balance of payments that brought increased stores of bullion into the national coffers. These ideas had important implications for the retailing and distributive trades and encouraged an environment that was hostile to their development.

In the sixteenth century when these ideas were clearly articulated and rarely challenged, the economic environment was very different from that of the eighteenth. England was seen, and indeed was, a country producing a surplus of raw materials or semi-finished goods whose exports paid for the importation of desirable consumer artefacts and of a range of exotic goods from warmer climes. Under these circumstances it was deemed sound economic sense to regulate trade to redress a perceived imbalance. Even so, there are some clear similarities between these earlier economists and Adam Smith. Like him they focused their attentions on trade, by which they invariably meant foreign trade. They gave only a sideways glance at internal distribution at the wholesale level and, if they looked at the retail sector at all, it was more often than not to heap suspicion and abuse on the shopkeeper. Perhaps the most vituperative came from the mouth of the Lawyer in Thomas Wilson's Discourse upon usury. Retailers, he said, are 'not worthy of the name of merchants, but of hucksters, or chapmen of choyse, who retayling small wares, are not able to better their own estate but wyth falsehode, lying and perjurye'.⁴

One exposition of these theories touched directly upon retailing. It was probably written in about 1549 by John Hales, but it was not published until 1581, ostensibly by an author identifying himself only by the initials W.S.⁵ This work was presented in the form of a conversation between a naive and innocent Knight of the shires and a learned Doctor who was able to explain all. Ignoring the heavy overlay of complaint about the degeneration of modem times, which is an aspect common to all such polemic writing, the author presented a solid attack on those tradesmen who did not combine retailing with manufacturing.

W.S. divided what he called artificers into three groups. The first, consisting of 'all mercers, grocers, vinteners, haberdashers, mileyners, and such', were involved primarily in selling goods imported from beyond the seas. In so doing, they were encouraging money to go out of the country and thereby did 'but exhause the treasour out of the Realme'. The second group, the 'Shomakers, tailors, carpenters, masons, tilers, bowchers, brewers, bakers, vitailers of all sortes', were neutral in that they neither brought money in nor encouraged it to flow out. The third group was the one that attracted his praise. It was this one consisting of the 'clothiars, tannars, cappers, and worsted makers', that alone 'doe bringe in anie treasour'. So far as W.S. was concerned foreign trade that brought goods in and let treasure out was wholly undesirable as were those retailers who fostered this drain on national resources by providing outlets for the goods involved. If W.S. had had his way, there would have been few if any of those tradesmen who specialised in retailing and who did not manufacture what they sold.

As the discussion between the Knight and the Doctor developed, it became clear that W.S. was not opposed to the goods as such, thus running somewhat counter to current ideas about luxury discussed in the Introduction, but he did display the typical unease of the well to do at the perceived desires of the poor to adorn themselves with the prerogatives of the rich. Unlike some religious thinkers he saw nothing wrong per se with such goods as 'drinkinge and lokinge glasses, paynted clothes, perfumed gloves, daggers, kniues, pinnes, pointes, aglets, buttons, and a thowsand other things of like sort'. He focused his disfavour on their importation rather than on their consumption. Thus he advocated the same policy that characterized Tudor government, particularly in the Elizabethan period, of setting up 'Projects' in this country.⁶ With proper encouragement from the government he envisaged the revival of towns 'replenished with all kind of artificers; not only clothiars, ... but with cappers, glovers, paper makers, glasiers, pointers, goldsmithes, blacke smithes of all sortes, coverlet makers, nedle makers, pinners and such other ... '. As for 'mercers, and haberdashers, vinteners and grocers', W.S. could 'not se what they doe in a towne, but finde a livinge to v or vj howsholdes, and in steade thereof impoverished twise as manie'.⁷

A somewhat later tract by Philip Stubbs laid out the moral and political rather than the economic objections to the 'foreigners trifling merchandizes, more plesant thann necessarie'. In this sense he was more concerned with the dangerous attractions of excessive luxury. Initially, perhaps because he was anxious to avoid offence to his patron, the Earl of Arundel, Stubbs argued that such exotic goods were appropriate only for the nobility and gentry 'to innoble, garnishe, & set forthe their byrthes, dignities, functions, and calling'. This approach was in line with most current thinking - and official policy - on the importance of maintaining distinctions of status through dress. Later his attack became more general; unlike Hales and W.S. he saw 'these two collaterell Cosins, apparel and Pride' as' the Mother and Daughter of mischiefe'. He railed against decorations like 'great and monstrous ruffes' or a feather in the cap as 'sternes of pride and ensigns of vanitie'. Although his attack was never explicitly directed against the retailing tradesmen who sold such wares, his sustained and vituperative attack added a moral dimension to the economic arguments against the value of an active retail market in anything but necessities. It was a dimension that had a continued presence for nearly a century.⁸

A development of W.S.'s economic arguments appeared early the next century set out by Thomas Mun.⁹ He was a Director of the East India Company and he published his Discourse against the background of a serious depression in the cloth industry.¹⁰ Like other economic experts of the time, he was concerned about the way bullion and specie were attracted abroad. Later he was to articulate a influential explanation of the exchange mechanism, ¹¹ but back in the 1620s he was more concerned to defend the East Indian trade, which by its nature was unacceptable to the received wisdom of the day on the balance of payments, even if it brought huge profits to its participants. Mun confronted this dilemma quite cleverly. In place of the three types of artificer delineated by W.S., Mun divided goods into three categories; the essential, 'such as are foode, rayment, and munition for warre and trade', the desirable, such as those 'wares, fitting for health, and arts', and the unnecessary 'which serue for our pleasure, and ornament'.¹² For the purposes of his argument he had to convince his readers of the desirability of the 'moderate vse of wholesome Drugges and comfortable Spices' since most were imported by the East India Company. Where he could not defend the East Indian trade on the grounds of necessity or use, and this would particularly have applied to the importation of Indian textiles, he turned from defence to attack, inveighing against imports such as 'Sugars, Wines, Oyles, Raysons, Figgs, Prunes and Currandes', not to mention the even less defensible 'Tobacco, Cloth of Gold and Silver, Lawnes, Cambricks, Gold and Silver lace, Veluets, Sattens, Taffetries, and diuers other manufactures', most of which came either from continental Europe, particularly France, or from the New World. Their importation he would have been happy to see curtailed. Like W.S. he recognized that the importation of luxuries was indefensible in general, even if he attempted to make a special case for the Indian trade.¹³ His attitude to goods of luxury was rather more ambivalent than the positions taken up by W.S. or by Stubbs, but he seems to have had no particular prejudice against luxuries in themselves, only against their importation. Nevertheless his animosity towards imported luxuries was an implicit attack on the retailing tradesmen like mercers, haberdashers and grocers whose livelihood depended on just these commodities.

A feature of all these economic works is a failure to appreciate the potential of internal trade. Its possible contribution to the nation's wealth was not discussed and the mechanics of distribution were virtually ignored. The writers seem to have had relatively simplistic ideas about the ideal internal market, which found no place for the retailing tradesman and precious little for the wholesaler. Presumably these writers accepted the existence of a group who conveyed the surpluses of agriculture and industry to the ports, but the mechanisms were unspecified. Only the exporting merchant was viewed with favour so lo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• General Editor's preface
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Introduction: 'Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production': the current debate on consumption and retailing
• 1 A 'dangerous Consequence if the Trade of a Nation run into over-much Shop-keeping': contemporary thoughts on the retail sector, 1550-1800
• 2 'Too great numbers of shopkeepers in this kingdom': access to consumer goods, 1550-1800
• 3 'Their shops are Dens, the buyer is their prey': shop design and sale techniques
• 4 'For a tradesman ... his customers are to be his idols': the relationship between the retailer and his customers
• 5 'It is the most dangerous state of life that a man can live in': managing credit
• 6 'A settled little society of trading people who understand business': networking among retailing tradesmen
• 7 'I know not yet what that is, and am ashamed to ask': accommodating innovation and novelty
• Conclusion
• Appendix: List of tradesmen
• Bibliography
• Index