The grocery trade, its history and romance;

Aft)

THE GROCERY TRADE

THE GROCERY TRADE;

ITS HISTORY AND ROMANCE

-

BY

J. AUBREY REES, M.J.I

Ml

EDITOR OF "THE OROCER'g AMBIHTAMT,"

PILLOW IN8TITUTE OP CXB-

TinCATKD GROCERS

VOLUME I

LONDON
DUCKWORTH AND

1910

CO.

All rights reserved
This Edition is limited to one thousand copies

Printed by BALLANTTNE &• Co. LIMITKU
Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London

TO
MY MOTHER

INTRODUCTION

IN a recently published biography ot a great
writer, the word " Grocer " is referred to as a term
of reproach, signifying a " Philistine," or " one
who fears the light." In this volume it is my
object to show that not only is the grocer a most
important member of the community, but that his
trade can challenge comparison with any other
culling in the matter of the number of men of
eminence in Politics, Literature, Philanthropy
and Civic Life, who have sprung up from its ranks.
No less a personage than His Majesty King
Henry VIII. honoured the trade by accepting the
Freedom of the Worshipful Company of Grocers,
while many of our nobility could trace descent
from ancestors who purveyed groceries.

I little thought when I began the attempt to
compile a reliable record of a great trade, that so
many difficulties would have to be encountered ;
neither had I anticipated the extent to which the
fascination attached to the work of research would
grow, as obstacle after obstacle was surmounted and
new facts were brought to light.

vii

INTRODUCTION

As these pages will show, the grocer has, for
nearly six centuries, played a not unimportant part
in English history. I have endeavoured to trace
him from the time, when, in the fourteenth century,
he first appeared in London annals, through all the
subsequent changes up to to-day, when we find his
class comprising so many thousands, and his wares
arriving from all quarters of the globe.

Up to the end of the mediaeval period, the grocer's
customers were as few and select as the articles
which he sold ; only rich people, in fact, were able
to patronise him. Such groceries as were needed
by the village communities were purchasable from
the chapman who travelled from place to place,
with his pack on his back. From the reign of
Queen Elizabeth onwards we see the grocer and
his wares gradually multiplying — stepping out, as
it were, from the circumscribed sphere, and, re-
sponding more readily to the wants of the many,
becoming established as a distinct section of the
Shop-keeping class.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
as the surplus population of the villages went to
swell that of the towns, and the great centres of
industry sprang up, their necessity proved the
Grocer's opportunity, with the result that his trade
became indispensable to the community : for, on
the one hand, he received the constantly increasing
varieties and quantities of the goods that reached
our shores from over seas, while, on the other,
viii

INTRODUCTION

he satisfied the ever varying requirements of an
ever growing population. He was still, however,
many years distant from his successor of to-day ;
he ground and wrapped his own pepper; roasted
tiis own coffee, and, later, blended his own teas.
Few, if any, extended their outlook beyond their
own town.

It was not, however, until the nineteenth century
that the Grocer, no longer bound down by the
Apprentice Laws of Elizabeth and the conserva-
tive Bylaws of Municipalities, nor handicapped by
the fiscal barriers of the days of Protection, was
able to give free play to his capacity for business
enterprise, and embark upon the wonderful career
of commercial prosperity which has placed his
trade in the forefront of the Distributive Industries.
But, whether with the growth and multiplication of
the Universal Provider, or the Merchant Store-
keeper, the Grocer, whom we saw enter in the
fourteenth century, will be seen disappearing with
the twentieth, is a problem which I leave my
readers to solve. If, occasionally, we read his
name in the Birthday Honours List, seldom, if
ever, do we miss it from the Gazette List of
failures.

Details of absorbing interest have crowded them-
selves upon my notice in compiling this work, but
not the least gratifying part of the undertaking
has been the assistance I have received from so
many quarters. I am indebted, in particular, to

•

IX

INTRODUCTION

Dr. Reginald Sharpe, for his valuable aid in enabling
me to make some extracts from the City Reper-
tories ; to Mr. R. V. Somers-Smith, the Clerk to
the Worshipful Company of Grocers, for so kindly
placing their records at my disposal and for
facilities in connection with some of the illustra-
tions ; to Mr. J. C. Tingey, honorary Archivist of
Norwich, for his kindness in furnishing me with
the records of the Norwich Grocers' Company ; to
Mr. Arnold H. Miller, Town Clerk of Norwich, for
valuable extracts ; and to Mr. George Gray, Clerk
to the Grocers' Company of Glasgow, for useful in-
formation and documents. I also owe a deep debt
of gratitude to the Chief Librarians at Bristol,
Canterbury, Chester, Gloucester, Colchester and
Newcastle-on-Tyne. Nor should I forget the
obligations which I am under to Mr. William
Martineau, Mr. W. H. Simmonds, Mr. C. L. T.
Beeching and Mr. E. E. Newton for their help at
various stages of the work.

My thanks are also due to many grocery firms
for their courtesy in allowing me to examine the
early records of their business. My one regret is
that I have not been able, owing to the limited
time at my disposal, to do full justice to the mass
of material at my disposal.

LANOLAND BAY, September 1909.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
IN EARLY ENGLAND

Trade in Anglo-Saxon Times : The Utility of the Fair : The Pedlar : Perio-
dical Markets : Traders in Early England : The First Shop* : Varieties
in Trade : London and its Trade Marts : Restriction of Trade : Advan-
tages of Freemen Pp. 1-1 :(

CHAPTER II
SPICERS AND PEPPERERS

The Craft-gild : The Oaths of the Newcastle Spicers : The Pepperers' Qild
of London : Prominent Pepperers : The Early Ordinances : Upholding
the Honour of the Trade : The Cheesemongers' Gild : Ordinances
approved by the Mayor : The Cheesemongers' Ordinances : Objection
to Dairymen from Wales : Offences and Penalties Pp. 14-23

CHAPTER III
THE GROCERS OP LONDON

Cheapside in the.Thirteenth Century : Sopers' Lane : Grocers' Porters : Their
Duties and Remuneration : Formation of the Grocers' Company ;
Memorable Meeting of Twenty-two Pepperers : Their Singular Ordi-
nances : Their Regulations re Apprenticeship : Election of Wardens :
Foremost Grocers of the Day : William de Gran tham : Roger Carpenter :
John Hammond : Andrew Aubrey : Activity in Cine Life : Progress of
the Grocers' Company : New Members added : Decisions re Admission
of Women Pp. 84-40

xi

CONTENTS

CHAPTER IV
THE GROCERS' COMPANY

The Year 1376 : Disputes amongst Londoners : The Fraternity of St. Anthony
Petition to Parliament re "Merchants called Grossers" :A Notable
Grocer of the Period : Nicholas Brembre : His Leadership of the Vic-
tuallers : The Grocers draft New Ordinances : Establishment of a
Court of Assistants : Grocers elect Kepresentatives on the Common
Council : Brembre's Influence with the King : John Philpot — his
Miniature Navy : The Tragic Death of Brembre Pp. 41-49

CHAPTER V

MEDIAEVAL GROCERIES

Derivation of the Name Grocer : Early Grocers as Ministers of Luxuries to
the Rich : Foreign Wares : Introduction of Sugar : Miss Margaret
Paston : Fixing the Prices of Food : The Sale of Butter : Pepper receives
the Attention of Parliament : Disadvantages of the Traders : The Pillory :
Evolution of the Early Retail Shop : Kent of Shops in the Fourteenth
Century Pp. 50-62

CHAPTER VI

PROGRESS OF THE COMPANY

The Grocers' Company and its Oversight of the Trade : Its Petition to the
Mayor of London : Compulsory Garbling : The Duties of the Garbler :
Foundation of Grocers' Hall : Grocers' Company incorporated : New
Privileges : Management of the King's Beam : Goods weighed at the
Company's Weigh-house : Tariff of Charges Pp. 63-71

CHAPTER VII
SOME PUISSANT GROCERS

Illustrious Lord Mayors : Andrew Bokerel : Andrew Aubrey : Thomas
Knolles : Robert Chicheley : Sir William Sevenoke : Sir Stephen Browne :
Sir Thomas Canning : Sir John Crosby : Grocer Mayors of York

Pp. 72-83

xii

CONTENTS

CHAPTER VIII
MCDIAVAL PERIOD

Conclusions : The Apprenticeship System : Duties of the Apprentice* :
Premiums paid : The Dishonest Apprentice and his Punishment : The
Credit Grocer in the Fifteenth Century : Prices of Groceries : Conten-
tion between Members of the Trade : Powers of the Grocers' Wardens
exercised : Disorderly Behaviour by a London Grocer : His Heavy Fine :
A Grocer Victim of Fraud : The Grocers' Social Position : Margery
Paston and her Marriage Pp. 84-97

CHAPTER IX
IN THE DAYS OF THE TUDORS

The Sixteenth Century and its Developments : The London Grocer of the
Period : Thomas Lodge, Alderman : His Smart Manager : Visits to
Antwerp : The Unemployed Assistant, and his Visit to London : Sub-
sequent Rise to Fame : Shakespeare's Friends among the Grocers :
Merchandise from Venice : References by Shakespeare thereto

Pp. 98-114

CHAPTER X
TRADE UNDER THE TUDORS

The Religious Changes of the Period : Grocers and the Army : The Grocers
Company establish an Armoury : Prices of' Groceries of the Period :
Queen Elizabeth and the Sugar Monopolies : The Introduction of
Starch : The Soap Monopoly : Civic Dignitaries teat Quality : Forma-
tion of Soap Company Pp. 115-131

CHAPTER XI
TRADE GOVERNMENT

Regulating Prices : The Clerk of the Market : The Merchant Adventurer*
Companies : Local Companies of Traders : Norwich Grocers' Company :
Their Regulations : Objections to Interlopers : List of Grocery Wares :
Bylaws : Admission to Freedom : Regulations of Windsor Traders :
A Darlington Grocer's Licence Pp. 138-149

xiii

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XII
TRADE OVERSIGHT IN LONDON

The Grocers' Company's Power over the Trade : Their Searchers : The
Cheesemonger and the Pillory : Punishment for selling Noxious Drugs :
The Grocer and his Apprentice : Rivalry in Shopkeeping : The King's
Grocer : A Royal Complaint : Inferior Sugar : The Lord Mayor
intervenes : The Sugar-refiners of the Seventeeth Century : Their
Objections to Foreigners : The Introduction of Tobacco Pp. 150-162

CHAPTER XIII
PAGEANTRY

Early Pageants of the Grocers of Norwich : Sale of the Properties : The
London Pageants : The Spectacular Display in 1613 : The Cost of the
Pageant in 1617 : Trade Features : Poetical Effusions in Praise of the
Trade Pp. 163-176

CHAPTER XIV

GROCERS AND EDUCATION

Educational Facilities in the Sixteenth Century : William Sevenoke : Guild-
ford School — founded by a Grocer : Oundle School : Foundation of
Rugby School : Lawrence Sheriff, " Purveyor to Princess Elizabeth " :
His London Property : A Yarmouth Bequest : Other Schools founded
by Grocers Pp. 177-187

CHAPTER XV
THE MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

Spices and Voyages of Exploration : Foundation of Levant Company : A
Currant Monopoly : The East India Company : English versus Dutch :
Grocers identified therewith : Instructions re Quality of S pices : The
King and his Pepper Speculation : Patent re Garbling : The Company's
Progress Pp. 188-218

xiv

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVI
THE GROCERS AND THE APOTHECARIES

Complaint* n the Sale of Drugs : Apothecaries seek a Reform Charter :
King Jatuee an their Champion : Sturdy Fight of the Grocers : A
Royal Rap over the Knuckles : Foundation of the Apothecaries'
Company Pp. 219-230

CHAPTER XVII
THE GROCERS' COMPANY AND PUBLIC DUTIES

Kiug James and the Companies' Servants : Ship-money and Royal Rapacity :
Grocers' Company and the Provision of Corn : Cromwell and the
Grocers Pp. 231-287

CHAPTER XVIII

THE RESTORATION AND AFTER

A Grocer Lord Mayor and the King's Return : Sir Thomas Allen's Pageant :
The New Charters and the Writ " Quo Warranto " : Fire and Plague :
The Harleian Miscellany and the Grocers of the Period : Petition of
1091 re Pedlars : A Country Grocer of the Period : Apprenticeship
Fees : Opening Business Pp. 238-263

CHAPTER XIX
THE RETAILER AND TOKENS

Harrington's Halfpence : Tokens made by Norwich Grocers : Devices on
Tokens : A Curious Advertisement : Robert Orchard, the Handsome
Grocer : Later Tokens Pp. 254-272

CHAPTER XX
NOTABLE GROCERS OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

Baron King, Lord Chancellor : Richard Grafton : Abraham Cowley : Sir
Henry Keble : George Bowles : Sir Thomas Middleton : Sir William
Hooker : Augustine Briggs : William Laxton : Daniel Rawlinson : Sir
John Moore : Elkanah Settle's Effusion Pp. 273-S88

i 6 xv

ILLUSTRATIONS

To/at*
w
THE GROCERS' HALL, LONDON (1909) (Photogravure) prwtitpUt*

A FEATURE or THE PAGEANT, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 167

THE LEVANT COMPANY: AN EARLY WARRANT 19S

EAST INDIA HOUSE, LEADENHALL STREET, E.C. 199

TOKENS ISSUED BY GROCERS, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 257

TOKENS ISSUED BY GROCERS, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 265

TOKENS ISSUED BY GROCERS, NINETEENTH CENTURY 267

ROBERT ORCHARD 269
SIR JOHN MOORE, GROCER, LORD MAYOR or LONDON 1681 285

xvn

CHAPTER I

IN EARLY ENGLAND

THE Grocery trade in its many branches as we
know it to-day, is, like our civilisation of which
it forms a part, the product of evolution.

In all evolutionary processes the beginning
is marked by simplicity, and the further we trace
them, the more complex do the results become.
This has been the case with our national life all
through : it is likewise the case with that part of it
represented by trade and commerce generally, and
by the trade of the grocer in particular.

Of course but little material remains from which
to put together a picture of trade as it existed in
England, in Anglo-Saxon times. The annals which
have survived and come down to us, scanty as
these are, deal, as might be expected, with events
of greater apparent importance than the happenings
in direct connection with trade, and with per-
sonalities famous in church and state, rather than
noted for their contributions to the furtherance of
commerce.

In fact, trade and commerce were but simple and
i A 1

THE GROCERY TRADE

primitive affairs in those times ; and the medium
of exchange was not so much money as barter.

But as the life of the nation became more civilised
and the needs of individuals of all classes grew in
extent and complexity, trade arose. All investi-
gations point to the fact that the earliest form
of retail trade, that is, the distribution of compara-
tively small quantities of commodities to the mass
of the people who actually used them, was effected
by means of pedlars and of fairs. At the same
time, in connection with the towns, the permanent
markets held at frequent intervals grew up — but of
that more anon ; the fair should first claim our
attention.

The fair is the typical institution of undeveloped
commerce. Its advantages are obvious, for, as
Thorold Rogers pointed out, its object was two-
fold. It supplied a market in which goods which
could not be found in the ordinary town markets
were procurable; and one in which there was a
wider scope for getting rid of ordinary goods. As
the trader did not exist in the villages, the fairs
were great periodical centres of barter and exchange
of the produce of the surrounding country-side, for
goods imported from afar.

The farm bailiffs attended fairs to buy their
annual stores of pepper, of iron goods and of tar,
for example ; and to dispose of the produce of their
farms, such as wool, hides, cattle, hay and corn.

Moreover, the fairs offered great opportunities
2

IN EARLY ENGLAND

t«» those who were large buyers to lay in their
stores for the year. Thus the manciples of colleges
and the great abbeys scattered up and down the
country-side, often at great distances, as things
urnt then, from towns, would attend the fair to
buy the winter's provisions and replenish their stock
of salt and spices, of wine from Spain, of furs from
the Baltic, or cloth from Flanders.

The stewards from the surrounding castles and
great houses found in the fair the opportunity
to buy such luxuries as their masters and mistresses
used in those days — such as cloth of fine texture,
silks, jewels; as well as the wine, and the salt
necessary for preserving provisions for the winter,
spices, groceries, and so on. For some of these
things such as wine and salt, the demand came
from almost all classes ; whilst for others, customers
were found only amongst the wealthy and fre-
quenters of Court. Much tallow was in request
for making the candles universally used in churches
and elsewhere ; and wax for the seals of lawyer,
court or monastery. All these things were brought
to the fairs and offered in sale or exchanged there.

Associated with the buying and selling there
was, as lingers even now, much pleasuring. This
points to the origin of the fair at an earlier time,
when its development into an occasion of trading and
bartering was by no means foreseen or contemplated.

The very name of fair comes from " feria,"
the Latin name for the holiday on which the

8

THE GROCERY TRADE

people assembled at the church or in the churchyard
for religious purposes. These assemblies were
accompanied by feasting and merrymaking — from
them arose perhaps the old custom of " church-ales "
— and wherever numbers of people were gathered
together, it was but natural that the soberer spirits
and those with an eye to business, should engage
in that most primeval of all practices, the bartering
of their superfluities in exchange for those of
others. In this way trading, associated with the
feast, recurring at regular intervals, gradually
became the fair. One can almost see at a glance
how the necessity for the legislation which regulated
and safeguarded the fairs arose. When people
of all sorts and degrees were assembled, indulging
in refreshment and chaffering with one another,
there must soon have arisen a need for the inter-
vention of the law and its officers, if order was
to be kept !

Thus the fairs quickly grew to be great centres
of trade to which resort was had by merchants and
traders and pedlars and chapmen of all sorts and
degrees with the object of doing business, either
buying or selling, or replenishing stores and stocks
for use or subsequent sale.

In the interval trade was by no means neglected,
as we can gather from the few and scattered notes
in contemporary writings. The villages would be
visited by the pedlar, who would barter his wares
with hunter, fisherman, smith, farmer, or shepherd.
4

IN EARLY ENGLAND

As showing how a familiar word of the language may
come to mean totally different things at different
periods, I may note that the travelling pedlar, the
chapman of those days, was frequently called a
" mercer." Mercer (probably derived from the
French merder] originally signified pedlar, the
huckster who dealt, not in silks, but in miscel-
laneous goods of all kinds, toys, trinkets, spices,
drugs, and a varied collection of small and stray
commodities. It is curious to note, too, that the
names by which these itinerant traders were known
are of early English origin ; thus " chapman,"
" pedlar," and " huckster," are for instance, of con-
siderably earlier origin than "grocer," the genesis and
present use of which will be dealt with further on.

That the pedlar was ubiquitous and that he was
a popular visitor around the scattered hamlets,
villages and homesteads may well be supposed.
He retailed news, gossiped with the farmers' and
labourers' wives and daughters, and was a species
of tradesman and morning-paper rolled into one.

Chaucer hints that the wandering Friars on their
begging excursions did not disdain to engage in
trade ; and in his work on the Franciscan Order,
Professor Brewer mentions that when that Order
degenerated " the Friar combined with the spiritual
functions, the occupation of pedlar, huckster, and
quack doctor."

The author of Piers Plownian, Old Will Lang-
lands, confirms this :

5

THE GROCERY TRADE

For thai have noght to lyve by, then wandren here and

there,
And deel with dyvers marche, right as thai pedlars were.

So much then for the early developments of trade
in the villages. In the cities and towns it took a
different form according to the influences which it
encountered.

At the opening of the twelfth century, besides
London there flourished such noted cathedral cities
as Exeter, Winchester, Chester, Norwich, Lincoln,
York ; and prosperous seaports such as Bristol,
Southampton, Dover, Dunwich, Lynn, Grimsby,
Hull and Newcastle. Here were likely to be
centres of trade from the very necessity of the case,
for the citizens would have a deeper veneer of
civilisation than the country-folk, their wants
would be more numerous, their tastes more
refined.

In the towns the market held on certain days of
the week became the great centre of retail trade.
From a very early period markets had been
established in convenient situations. Even in
Doomsday Book the market appears as the natural
complement of the manorial economy.

By the thirteenth century, the lord of the manor
counted the market as one of his most profitable
appanages. There were three conditions which
made the holding of a market legal; namely, a
suitable position to which public access would be
free and unfettered ; the grant of the right to hold
6

IN EARLY ENGLAND

the market by the King ; and the regulation of the
market and the receipt of the market dues, by the
Lord of the Manor. The latter duty he was not
at all likely to neglect.

The periodical markets served pretty much the
same purpose, at least in the villages and smaller
towns, as do such markets to-day.

In the cities, the markets also resembled those of
our own at Smithfield, for instance ; and every few
weeks saw a collection of cattle gathered together
I<M- s.ile from near and far.

As the importance of the market thus developed,
so, in accordance with all evolutionary process, the
constituent parts began to be more and more
highly differentiated. That is to say the butcher,
the cheesemonger, the baker, haberdasher, the
spicer, and all sorts of separate and distinct trades
came into being. To cite but one example : that
of Colchester. The rolls of Parliament for this
town in the year 1305 include varieties of trades-
men as follows :

3 Spicers. 6 Girdlers.

16 Shoemakers. 5 Manners.

13 Tanners. 4 Millers.

10 Smiths. 4 Tailors.

8 Weavers. 8 Dyers.

8 Butchers. 8 Fishermen.

7 Bakers. 3 Carpenters.

6 Fullers.

THE GROCERY TRADE

To minister to these and a probable population
of 2000, there were twelve clergymen ; and to
provide for material wants there are also enu-
merated, besides those named, one or more of the
following traders : mustarders, lorimers, linen-
drapers, coopers, cooks, tilers, barbers, brewers,
vintners, ironmongers, and old- clothes dealers.

It must be noticed that some of these trades
were of a manufacturing nature, that is to say the
trader carried on the making and the sale of his
commodities at one and the same time. As early
as the reign of King John (1199-1215) there is
extant a list of some thirty towns in which, for
example, a trade in dyed clothes had been carried
on for nearly half a century before. From the
Pipe Rolls it is apparent that the town population
included weavers, fullers, bakers, lorimers (i.e.,
saddlers and armour platers) and cord-wainers (i.e.,
bootmakers).

The arrangements of the shop at this period
were made with a view to facilitate manufacture
on the premises. The dwelling chamber was in
the upper storey, over an apartment used as a
workshop ; and the goods were exposed for sale on
a bench beneath the overhanging upper storey or
in the porch.

In the early period, as we should expect, the
separation between the various varieties of trades
was much less marked than it became in mediaeval
times and later. As we have said, the divisions
8

IN EARLY ENGLAND

became more distinct in a gradual manner. The
first line of cleavage seems to have been between
the tradesmen who dealt in eatables or those
connected with the victualling trade and those who
confined their attention to articles of clothing and
the like. That this is so seems to be indicated by
arrangements which later appeared in connection
with some of the traders' fraternities or companies.

Thus at Reading, the Victuallers' Company
comprised vintners, inn-holders, bakers, brewers,
butchers, fishmongers, chandlers, and salters ; whilst
the Mercers' and Drapers' Company included
mercers, drapers, haberdashers, chapmen, tailors,
and cloth-workers.

The same broad division of trading interests ob-
tained also in London. Trades " hung together "
and at times there was no little jealousy between
the respective parties. Thus in the fourteenth
century there was for some time a bitter feud
between grocers and drapers — which arose, however,
more as a matter of social reform than from trade
disputes.

As " birds of a feather flock together," so the
tendency was for tradesmen of a certain class to
settle in their own particular quarter of a city or
town. Very early indications of this localising of
various trades are apparent from the names which
almost from time immemorial have clung to certain
localities ; and from notices scattered up and down
our old chronicles. Thus Fitzstephen, a monk and

9

THE GROCERY TRADE

secretary to Thomas a Becket in A.D. 1150, wrote
in reference to London :

" This City even as Rome is divided into wards,
and all the sellers of wares, all the workmen for
hire, are distinguished every morning in their
place in the street."

In London, for instance, there was the West
Chepe, now Cheapside, where among other things,
bread, cheese, spices, onions, garlic and poultry
were sold by dealers, the retailers of those days.
Eastcheap was then the resort of butchers and
cooks. The East End of Cheapside is still called
" Poultry." Much of the business was done at
little wooden stalls, not more than two and a half
feet wide, ranged along the roadside. Other towns
and cities as Bristol, Canterbury, and Edinburgh,
can similarly point to their old trade landmarks.
Both Chester and Nottingham possess a " Pepper
Street," Canterbury its " Mercery Lane," Norwich
its " Spicery Row," Reading its " Shoemakers'
Row," and so on.

To trade within the cities, however, was not a
privilege extended to any comer indiscriminately—
as we shall see. Thus, when Edward II. in 1319
granted a Charter to the City of London, it was
enacted that "merchants who are not of the
freedom of the City " should not " sell by retail
wines or other wares within the City or suburbs."
This freedom was jealously guarded. It was
10

IN EARLY ENGLAND

enacted that " no inhabitant and especially English
merchant of mystery or trade, be admitted into the
freedom of the City unless by surety of six honest
and sufficient men of the mystery of trade that he
shall be of, who is so admitted into the freedom,
which six men may undertake for him of keeping
the City indemnified in that behalf."

The same precautions were taken in other cities
and towns in England which, as they grew in
importance, attracted strangers anxious to trade
within their gates. We find that Canterbury,
Bristol, Oxford, Hereford, Winchester and Chester
enforced local laws barring the stranger from so
trading.

Thus in Canterbury, only freemen were allowed
to trade within the City walls ; if journeymen of
various trades, not being citizens, desired to reside
in the city and to occupy themselves in their
crafts, they were only admitted on sufferance, and
had to pay an annual fee for the privilege until
they could afford to purchase their freedom. In
the meantime they were called "intrants." There
is in the ancient MSS. of Winchester a record of
the right to carry on the craft or mystery, of a
tallow chandler, being purchased by a gift of twelve
si her spoons, while the right to carry on the
mystery of a silk weaver was purchased by a silver
caudle cup. These "gifts" may still be seen in
Winchester. The ordinances of Norwich not only
provided that all the members of a craft were to be

11

THE GROCERY TRADE

enrolled citizens of the City, but that " foreigners,"
were only to hold shops under tribute and fine for
two years and a day, after which they were forced
to purchase the franchise of the City. " The
Master of the craft," the ordinances provide, " shall
come honestly to his shop and give him warning to
be a freeman, or else spear in his shop windows."
He was given fourteen days to obey the injunction,
and if still refractory, the master, with an officer of
the mayor, again visited him with his spear, to
"spear in" the window; and "he speared in, nor
no other, shall not hold his craft within house or
without."

In Chester, exclusive right to trade within the
borough was only granted to members of a gild,
but, at a later date, traders who were not members
of a gild, were admitted on payment of an annual
fee, such traders being known as " unfree " or " non-
free " ; and civic officials called leave-lookers were
appointed to collect the fees from these unfree
traders.

From what has already been said it will have
appeared that even in the very early times of
English commerce the monopolistic spirit — that
great enemy of trade — had made its appearance.
The history of our ever-growing trade has often
been the record of fights with that enemy. This
will appear incidentally in the course of further
investigations. However, we are not concerned with
the general history of commerce. Our purpose
12

IN EARLY ENGLAND

is simply to trace, in the midst of the evolutionary
processes which have made our great English trades
what they are to-day, the genesis and rise of one
specific division of those trades, that of the
GROGUL

As the articles in which the grocer was to
specialise grew in number, in importance to the
community, and in the quantities of each imported,
so did the grocer himself emerge from the mass of
other trades, acquire a distinctive name and style,
and take up his well-defined place in the com-
munity. The nation began to need the grocer and
in turn the grocer served the nation — " mutual
service for mutual advantage." How the grocer
has worthily carried out his functions — and how,
as is fitting, he has attained in many .cases to
eminence and distinction and an honoured place
among his fellow citizens, it is now our task to
relate.

18

CHAPTER II

SPICERS AND PEPPERERS

SINCE the origin and development of the grocery
trade, in the early times of which we have spoken,
is intimately connected with the craft-gilds of the
mediaeval period and their successors the Companies
of London and other places, I must crave the
indulgence of my readers for a word or two about
these famous gilds.

The Middle Ages might almost be described as
the age of associations. Not one merely but three
or four classes of gilds flourished at that time, and
our social order has its roots deep down in the
history of these organisations. There was the
frith-gild, or peace-gild, out of which grew the
town or commune with its government. Next
came the gilds merchant. Then came the trade
craft-gild. The whole of the traders in a town
were banded together first in the Merchants' Gild.
The " gild merchant " of Macclesfield — established
1261 — was one of the earliest of those institutions.
But as the trades increased in number the traders
concerned gradually segregated into craft-gilds.
14

SPICERS AND PEPPERERS

This movement was greatly encouraged by
Edward I. during the latter part of the thirteenth
century. As it developed other laws were applied
in the same direction of trade organisation. An
ordinance of Edward II. required every citizen to
be a member of some trade or mystery.

The craft-gilds were not merely trade unions in
the current meaning of that phrase, they were
organisations for industrial self-government, the
basis of membership being the practice of a common
trade. They not only laid down the laws whereby
the trade should be carried on, but rigorously
excluded from exercising the calling all those who
had not served a seven or ten years' apprenticeship.
1 1 is probable that in these craft-gilds, the origin of
the City Companies is to be found.

Buried in the records and ordinances of these
gilds, we find the earliest references to the fore-
runner of the grocer, namely the spicer or pepper er.

In the mediaeval ages, there came from India,
along various routes either across Europe or via
Egypt and the Mediterranean, the cloves, nutmegs,
mace, ginger, frankincense, canella and pepper-
spices eagerly welcomed by a people whose food
was coarse and often unwholesome. Spiced drinks
and spiced foods were greatly in vogue, especially
among the wealthier classes, and the increasing
demand for these spicy ingredients led to the
creation of a new class of traders known as spicers.
These spicers, in common with other traders,

15

THE GROCERY TRADE

formed themselves into gilds for the protection of
their trade interests. Early in the thirteenth
century we find a gild of spicers at Newcastle,
which Gild, with the Gild of Mercers and Drapers,
was federated together in the Merchant Adven-
turers' Company of Newcastle and claimed pre-
eminence over other local gilds. The curious oath
taken by the spicers on admission to the gild is a
significant indication of the bond of brotherhood
that existed among these traders. The spicer when
initiated swore as follows :—

" This hear ye, wardens of the craft of spicers that
I shall leyly and trewly observe and kepe all
goods rewles and actes made or shall be made by
the said Wardens and the most part of this felo-
ship of spicers and that I shall no manner of
(wares interlined) occupy that belongs unto the
craft of (grosser interlined) spicers bot alonly myn
own nor know no manner of man and occupye
nc manner of spicers perteyng to the craft of
spicers bot yffe he be als free as I to the said
craft of spicers, and if I shall know any persones
so doying or occupying agains the said occu-
pation of spicers I shall make it known to the
said wardens of spicers within owres next fol-
loeyng without any conselment. So helpe me
God and trelidom and all his hallowes and by
this boke."

There was also a Spicers' gild at York, while at
16

SPICERS AND PEPPERERS

Canterbury, I find traces of a gild of grocers,
apothecaries and chandlers.

By far the most important of these early gilds,
however, was the Pepperers' Gild of London. An
early reference to this gild appears on the Pipe Roll
of 1 180, where it is recorded that it was fined sixteen
marks because it was constituted without warrant.

The origin of this gild of Pepperers is shrouded
in obscurity. Some historians assume it to have
been directly descended from the " Emperor's Men ",
or Teutonic Society, which established itself in the
tenth century on the bank of the Thames near
Dowgate, and which paid an annual rental to the
crown of ten pounds of pepper.

Whether this be so or no we have abundant
evidence that the gild exercised an important
influence. Many of its members attained to public
eminence during the thirteenth and succeeding cen-
turies. Prominent among the Pepperers who served
the City as M.P.s may be mentioned John Gisors
(1288), William de Leyre (1299, 1313, 1314, 1315,
1819), Benedict de Folsham (1327-1387), John de
Bureford (1328), and Andrew Aubrey (1338-1340).
The office of Mayor of London was held by Andrew
Bokeril, Pepperer, for successive years, while John
Gisors was Mayor in 1245, 1248, and 1259.

It was during the Mayoralty of one of these

eminent Pepperers that we find the earliest use

of the word " Grocer " at present discovered. It

occurs in a report in the City record for 1310 in

i B 17

THE GROCERY TRADE

connection with the appearance before the Mayor
of William Chamberlain, Apprentice to John
Guter, " Grossarius " of Sopers Lane.

That the Pepperers were scrupulous of the honour
of their calling is evident from a perusal of the
ordinances which they framed in 1316, and which
show that while the gild itself had no right to
regulate the practice of its trade, it could do so by
consent and approval of a superior authority,
namely, the Mayor and Aldermen of London.

The record, which is headed "ordinance of the
Pepperers of Sopers' Lane ", commences with the
statement that "these are the points" which the
good folks of Sopers' Lane of the trade of
Pepperers, with the consent of Sir Stephen de
Abyndone, Mayor of London, John de Gisors,
Nicholas de Farendone, and other Aldermen, have
made for the common " profit of all the people of
the land," that is to say, Simon de Corp, John de
Hereford, William Salrain (here follow the names
of twenty-eight others) " on Wednesday next after
the feast of St. Philip and St. James (May 1st) in
the ninth year of the reign of King Edward, sone
of King Edward." The ordinances provided :

" That no one of the trade, or other person in
his name or for him, shall mix any of the wares,
that is to say, shall put old things into new,
or new things with old, by reason whereof the
good thing ' may be impaired by the old ; nor
18

SPICERS AND PEPPERERS

yet things of the price, or of one sort, with other
things of another price or of another sort.' '

That no person shall sub any manner of wares ;
(that is to say to arrange various bales as to
make the ends of the bale contain better goods
than the interior and thus deceive the buyer)."
" That no one shall moisten any manner of
merchandise, such as saffron, alum, ginger,
cloves, and such manner of things as may admit
of being moistened, that is to say, by steeping
ginger, or turning the saffron out of the sack
and then annointing it or bathing it in water, or
any deterioration arise to the merchandise."
" That every vendor shall give to his buyer the
thing that is on sale by the hundredweight of
112 pounds to the hundredweight, 15 ozs. to
go to every pound save things confected and
powdered are to be sold by the 12 ozs. the same
as always been the custom. Also that all their
weights shall agree the one with the other."

Two things are clear from these ordinances : that
the pepperer did not confine himself to the sale of
peppers, but included spices and confectionery
among the articles he dealt in; and also that he
used both the peso grosso, or avoirdupois weight,
and that which afterwards came to be called the
apothecaries' weight.

The end of this old Gild of Pepperers, to which
the London worthies previously referred to doubt-

19

THE GROCERY TRADE

less belonged, is not, so far as I can trace, recorded
in so many words. It probably, however, coincided
with a heavy loan extorted by Edward II. in 1338,
from the Lombards within his dominions. This
caused eventually, the ruin of the Italian Mer-
chants, who had settled in and given their name to
Lombard Street. The most influential of these,
the Bardi and Beruzzi, held out to the last, but
finally failed in January 1345. This was a severe
blow to the Pepperers and their allies, whose trade
lay with the East, and it is noteworthy that from
this time the name of Pepperer ceases to be dis-
tinctive of a gild.

Another curious document which throws much
light on the role of the Companies is that of the
Cheesemongers' Gild. In 1377, the fifty-first year
of Edward III., certain Ordinances of the Cheese-
mongers were confirmed by Nicholas Brembre, the
then Mayor sitting with his aldermen in full
Common Council. These Ordinances were pre-
sented by " reputable men of the trade of cheese-
mongers," and provided that " foreigners " (i.e.,
those who were not citizens) bringing cheese and
butter into the market for sale, should only be
allowed to offer it in two markets, Leadenhall, and
St. Nicholas Shambles, near Newgate, and that
before noon. They were also forbidden to sell it
to hucksters. The third point is also noteworthy.

" Also — divers bersters * of cheese from Hamme,

* Huckster, male or female hawkers.
20

SPICERS AND PEPPERERS

Hackney, and the suburbs of London, are wont
to go to divers markets, and to buy up and fore-
stall such wares, which ought to come to the
hands of the working men in London, and go
about through divers streets in the City, and
sfll it to the great damage of the Commonalty ;
saying and affirming it is the produce of their
own cattle, and of their own making; they do
pray therefore, that from henceforth such fore-
stallers, regrators, and bersters, and all other
vendors of cheese, or of butter, foreigners or
freemen, shall be charged to sell the same at one
of the said markets, on the pain aforesaid."

This ordinance is full of meaning to the student
of trade and of the time. One can imagine that
the idea of the "working men in London," and
their opportunity to obtain food at the lowest
price, would appeal to the City Magnates who
confirmed the ordinance ; and at the same time the
cheesemongers did what they could to keep the
sale of the food within their own hands. Curious
is it too, to note that the hawker, who buys the
cheapest of imported eggs and, dressed in country
garb, hawks them around the suburban houses as
" new laid from his own hens " is not unknown
at the present time.

The said reputable Cheesemongers * also had

* It is worth noting incidentally that the word " cheese-
monger" was once a peculiar name given to the l-'ir-t
Lifeguards, a title presumed to have been applied to them

I]

THE GROCERY TRADE

their eye upon certain dairymen from Wales who
sought through unauthorised channels to secure
the custom of the Londoner for a Welsh cheese
called " Talgar." These Welshmen, it appeared*
had " their serving men lying-in- wait in the city all
the year through, and when any one from Wales
brings talgar cheese to the City for sale such men
go and make false suggestions to the dealers in
such cheese, and they subtly regrate the cheese
in private, and then sell it by retail to the
commoners, without it coming to such market."
Therefore the City cheesemongers urge that they
should " be charged to bring their wares to the said
markets in form and on the pain aforesaid." That
the immigration of the Welsh has continued
through many centuries is evident from the many
Joneses, Morgans, and others who at present almost
monopolise the dairy shops in the metropolis.

The same reputable cheesemongers, jealous for
the good of their trade, were also mindful of the
frailty of human nature. They not only appointed
inspectors to oversee each member of the trade, but
restrained the inspectors from taking undue ad-
prior to the Peninsular War because of their almost ex-
clusive service at home. It is on record that the officer
commanding the regiment at Waterloo when leading his
men to the charge called out " Come on ! you d cheese-
mongers.1' The command was complied with so readily that
this title was restored, but was no longer regarded as a term
of reproach.
22

SPICERS AND PEPPRRERS

vantage of their position. Each inspector was
enjoined to make due examination of his office,
without laxity or doing wrong to any one. It was
also stipulated that they were not to " forestall"
anything to their own property, the penalties for
deviation from this rule being £5 for the first
offence, £10 for the second offence and for the
third offence 80 marks, i>., £18 6*. 8rf. Needless
to say these fines meant vastly more then than
the same mean now. In many other particulars
these comparatively remote times were analogous
to our own day. The human nature we have
inherited was much the same then as now.

CHAPTER III

THE GROCERS OF LONDON

WALKING through the City of London in the
middle of the fourteenth century, that picturesque
period of our early history, we should have seen
the clothiers displaying their wares for sale in
Cornhill ; in the Poultry we should have found
the poulterers ; while in the " Cheap " our eyes
would have beheld the mercers, cordwainers, and
goldsmiths plying their trade. All along Cheapside,
itinerant traders would be selling their fish and
other goods, shouting their praises meanwhile to the
passer-by. Branching off to the left from Cheap-
side and turning down Sopers' Lane, we should at
once have been arrested by the familiar aroma of
peppers and spices, and here we should have seen
the business premises of the predecessors of the
present-day grocers. Outside the shops, the
apprentices who, as Stow tells us, were made
to wear blue cloaks in summer and blue gowns
in winter, with breeches and stockings of white
broad cloth, and flat caps, would be shouting
their wares and urging the passers-by to purchase
24

THE GROCERS OF LONDON

the various articles offered for sale. A Benedic-
tine monk, John Lydgate, who visited London,
at a later period, refers to these cries in a poem
entitled •• London Lyckpenny " where he says :

Thru unto London I did me hie,

Of all the land it beareth the prize,

44 Hot peascodes ! " one began to cry ;

•• Strawberries ripe ! w and " Cherries in the rise ! "

One bade me come near and buy some spice ;

Pepper and saffron, they 'gan me bede ;

But, for lack of money, I might not speed.

The rents of shops in Sopers' Lane, the chief
resort of the Grocers, varied considerably during
this period. It was customary then, as now, to
lease business premises for the term of years, and
I learn from the City Records that in 1310 while
some shops were leased at 7s. per year, one shop
was leased to a Pepperer for 20*. per annum, and
another at 54s. 8</. per annum. As a comparison it
may be noted that rentals of shops at Bath varied at
this period from 4v. per annum to 12*. per, annum,
the latter being a shop " with an upper room."

In Sopers' Lane itself the grocers' porters would
be seen at work handling bales and boxes much as
they do nowadays, albeit the boxes and other
packages might have had a somewhat less neat and
more foreign look. On August 18, in the third
year of Richard II. (1879), a covenant was made
between Richard Eylesbury and William Culham
" Masters of the Mystery of Grocers of London "

25

THE GROCERY TRADE

with certain five porters, to the effect that the five
would serve the mystery of Grocers by themselves
and by their deputies, and would have on every
working day " six men at least in Sopers Lane and
Bucklersbury, always ready to serve the said
Mystery," and that they would take for their
trouble (travaille) in manner as follows :

Alum, Madders, Almonds, Cummin, Anise,
Woad (1 bale). Licorice, Flax (1 bale or
" Gymew "). Brasil, Pepper, Ginger, Cinnamon,
Cotton, Copper (1 bale). Black Soap (1 bar
for one bale). Wax of Poland, do of Lubeck
(1 piece for 1 bale). Yarn (2 cwt. or more for
1 bale). Wax of Lisbon, Seville and Morocco
(2 pieces for 1 bale). Rolls (1 couple forl bale).
Fruit Paper (10 reams for 1 bale). Canvas
(2 cwt. for 1 bale). Sugar (2 cwt for 1 bale).
For each bale from Aldermary Church by
Sopers' Lane, Bucklersbury, Walbrook, Budge
Row up to Aldermary Ch, from each place
short or long comprised within the bounds
aforesaid ....... %d.

And from each of these places to any place
in Cheap or in the Ropery (or vice versa) . Id.

For these goods double :

Soap in case Saltsmouth, 1 barrel

Anise, 1 package Cummin, 1 package
Rice, 1 package Raisins of Corent, 1 barrel
Dates, 1 large bale or " Gymew."
20

THE GROCERS OF LONDON

Prices were also agreed upon for loading and
unloading various wares from the ships which
brought them to the wharves on the river.

In Sopers I, .me such porters' work for the
grocers had then to be done in early hours and
cleared away betimes. In the preceding century
alter noon had chimed it was customary for a sort
of fair to be held in the Lane. " Fripperers " or
dealers in old clothes resorted there in large numbers
—perhaps to buy odd articles and coverings from
the foreign bales there unpacked. Thieves and
other undesirables also were attracted ; until the
" fair " became such a nuisance that in 1807 it was
abolished by proclamation. If we had passed
through the ancient thoroughfare on the 12th day
of June 1345, we might have discovered the fact
that the London Pepperers, though their gild had
ceased to exist, still realised the need and advan-
tage of association. As we passed down the Lane,
our attention would probably have been attracted
by some City merchants of the period wending
their way in the direction of St. Mary Axe.
Curiosity might have led us to follow them, and
we should at last have found ourselves at the
entrance of the town mansion of the abbots of
Bury, a house with several fine rooms and
surrounded by a good-sized garden. Standing
near the entrance we should have seen, one by one,
no fewer than twenty-two Pepperers of the period
entering the building. Many causes may have led

27

THE GROCERY TRADE

them to convene the gathering. It was an age of
fraternities of men in similar trades and crafts
binding themselves together for spiritual and
secular objects. The mercers, the weavers, and
the fishmongers had already formed themselves
into imposing combinations, whilst smaller crafts
like the Armourers, the Pursers, the Spurriers and
the Pouch Makers were also alive to the value of
organisation. It must also be remembered that
according to the Charter of Edward II. already
mentioned, " no inhabitant and especially English
merchant of any mystery or trade " was allowed to
be admitted as a freeman of the city " unless by
surety of six honest and sufficient men of the
mystery or trade that he shall be of." Not only in
London but in many of the smaller towns the
associated crafts were assuming the reins of local
government. The growth of the craft organisation
meant the growth of power and influence in the
councils of the City. Considerations of this kind
would therefore lead the pepperers to conclude
that their interests demanded collective action
and at an earlier meeting, namely on May 9, the
promotion of a Fraternity had already been agreed
upon.

Having entered the mansion, the twenty-two
pepperers adjourned to one of the large rooms and
sat down to dinner, it being evidently the belief
then as now, that a dinner was the most attractive
method for facilitating important business transac-
28

THE GROCERS OF LONDON

tions. At this dinner, to the cost of which each
member contributed a shilling, they must have
found many things to engage their attention.

In their " introductory remarks " they would
probably lament the collapse of the old Gild of
Pepperers which had been in existence as early as
the twelfth century. They would refer with
gratification to the fact that so many worthy
members of craft had already risen to eminence in
the City, notably Sir Andrew Bokerel, Sir John le
Gisors, Sir Alan de la Zouche, Hammond Chick-
well and Andrew Aubrey, each of whom had
occupied the position of chief magistrate, while the
latter had also represented the City in Parliament.

Another topic was probably the unfortunate
war with France which Edward III. was then
engaged in, and which they little foresaw would last
far into the next century. They would doubtless
discuss the political situation, and wonder what
new developments were likely to arise in connection
with Parliament, which, as a deliberative assembly
representing the nation, was yet in its infancy.
King Edward III. had been on the throne eighteen
years. He had recognised the value of the trading
classes, and in order to show the deep personal
interest he took in their welfare, had already
associated himself with one of their companies—
the Linen Armourers — thus raising them in the
public estimation and setting an example which
was to place on the records of the various com-
panies in later times the names of a constant

29

THE GROCERY TRADE

succession of titled members. The diners would
know nothing of it, but we now know that at the
date of this early dinner of the Pepperers Geoffrey
Chaucer, the " Father of English Poetry " was a
young London lad of five years of age, while
Wycliffe, whose fiery zeal in the cause of religion
was to bring him into conflict with the heads of the
church, was a young man of twenty-five and a
Fellow of Balliol College.

The dinner itself was no doubt a tame affair in
comparison with modern banquets of the City
Companies, but it was not short of rarities. It
probably consisted of two or three courses, of
which the first dishes would be roasted swans or
rabbits with cabbage, followed by delicacies towards
which the "spicers" themselves had contributed
not a little. One such delicacy known as payn
puff was made of marrow, yolk of eggs, minced
dates, raisins and salt. Light wines and ale would
be the beverages. The dinner over, the company
would settle down to the business which had
specially called them together, namely the formation
of a trade company.

The chair, we may be sure, was occupied by
William de Grantham, whose name in the records
of the company, heads the list of signatories to the
first ordinances. He and his friends duly discussed
the objects and constitution of the new " fraternity,"
and, as a result of their deliberations they decided
to enlarge the scope of the proposed new society so
80

THE GROCERS OF LONDON

as to include those allied traders, " the spicers of the
Ward of Chepe and the Canvassers of the Ropery."
The latter class of traders, who dealt in all
appliances connected with shipping, had naturally
many direct dealings with the Pepperers in oversea
transactions, whilst the former were no doubt
synonymous with the retail grocers of the present
day. It U significant, therefore, that the Pepperers
sought to admit both these branches of their
calling into the new organisation. At the meeting
we are referring to, they committed to writing the
particulars of their formation into a trading
fraternity, and they settled upon certain ordi-
nances under the title of " The Fraternity of
St. Antony."

In these ordinances it was laid down that :

" No person shall be of the Fraternity if he is
not of good condition and of this craft, that is to
say, a Pepperer of Sopers Lane, a Canevacer of
the Ropery or a Spicer of the Ward of Chepe,
or other people of their mystery, wherever they
reside, and, at their entrance, to pay at least
13/4 sterling or the value thereof; and, in good
love and with a loyal heart, shall submit for their
obedience toward all those who shall then be of
the fraternity."

The Ordinances further provided that members
were to be of good fame, and so continue under
pain of expulsion.

It may be noted that the entrance fee to the

81

Company was fixed at 13/4, with a subscription of
one penny per week towards the cost of a priest
who was engaged to pray and sing for the Company.
Eighteen of the twenty-two pepperers assembled
paid each a year's subscription in advance.

What most strikes one in reading the early
ordinances of the Company as settled at this
inaugural gathering, is the businesslike procedure
which seems to have been adopted, and the
amount of business actually got through. For
example, they made rules as to the taking of
apprentices by members of the Fraternity — a
matter of especial interest for us in these days
when the revival of apprenticeship is so much
debated. Any member taking an apprentice was
to pay 205. to the Common Box, and apprentices
on the expiry of their term might become members
of the fraternity on payment of £2, on condition
that they found surety for good conduct. They
agreed to meet annually on St. Anthony's Day to
hear High Mass, and appointed a priest to celebrate
it. They arranged for an annual dinner, and even
settled the price of it — members of the Livery to
pay 3s. Qd. ; those who kept shops but who were
not of the Livery, to pay Is. ; those out of town to
forfeit 2s. 6d. They also provided for works of
charity and benevolence, to be performed towards
members of the Fraternity who met with mis-
fortune. It was laid down that members should
loyally support each other in any case of dispute
32

THE GROCERS OF LONDON

with a third party ; while disputes with each other
were to be redressed by the Wardens of the Com-
pany, and not by an outside tribunal. They were
enjoined to assist any brother who became poor
through business misfortune; and it was stipulated
that in the event of one of the brethren dying and
" it happens that he has not left a sufficiency to
bury him according to his station," the expenses
were to be met, for the honour of the Fraternity,
out of the Common Fund. They also arranged
that the members should be clothed once a year in
a suit of livery.

Finally they elected two Wardens in the persons
of Richard Oswyn and Lawrence Halliwell.

Thus came into being the Grocers' Company — a
company that was destined to exercise a powerful
influence on the trade and City of London for
many centuries, and which is now privileged to
number among its illustrious members His Majesty
King Edward VII.

It may be noted in passing, that within the next
twelve months, death overtook one of the original
members, by name Geoffrey Halliwel, and at the
next annual assembly in 1846 his son Lawrence
Halliwell piously delivered to the Fraternity,
for the use of their chaplain, a silver chalice and
a vestment, alb, maniple, stole, and chasuble,
" together with the corporal and a small missal,"
on condition that the soul of his father should be
prayed for by those maintained or assisted by the
i c :w

THE GROCERY TRADE

Fraternity for ever. The gifts were accepted and
the requests granted accordingly.

Before proceeding with the Company's history
we may take a glance across the centuries at some
of the great men amongst the Grocers of that day,
who thus gallantly served the good cause of trade
organisation. Foremost among those who took a
leading part in the formation of the Grocers'
Company was William de Grantham, one of five
brothers, several of whom were actively engaged
in the grocery trade. A man of wealth and in-
fluence, his liberality and breadth of mind are
amply demonstrated in his will. Among his be-
quests we find sums of money left to the poor
of the hospitals in Southwark, Holborn and
Westminster, to the prisoners in Newgate, to
the lepers residing around London, and to every
anchorite and hermit in London. He also left a
hundred shillings (a very large sum in those days)
in aid and maintenance of the Fraternity of
Pepperers, for the keeping of his obit. At the
time of making his will he was a widower, and as
his brothers, John and Robert, had predeceased
him, he left the utensils of his shop and house to
a brother pepperer named John Genworby, a
fellow member of the fraternity, and warden of the
Grocers' Company in 1347 ; to whom he also
bequeathed various tenements. The children of
his brother John also came in for recognition.

The will of John de Grantham, William's brother,
34

THE GROCERS OF LONDON

who is also described as a pepperer, is still extant.
It is dated " London, Friday after the feast of
St Mary Magdalen" (July 22, 1844). This
pepperer was a man of substance. The will speaks
of the chapel he had erected near the church of
St. Antoiiin and provided for a chantry in connec-
tion therewith, to be charged on his tenements and
wharf at Dowgate in the parish of All Hallows of
the Hay. The possession of a wharf would seem
to be an indication that the pepperer imported his
merchandise, which is perhaps confirmed by the
fact that by his will it is shown that he possessed
property abroad. He leaves to his brother,
William de Grantham, all his tenements in the
town of St. Omer in Artois (France). After some
charitable bequests, the will provides for his three
sons, John, Thomas and William, by bequests
of tenements and reversions in various parishes.
Altogether, John de Grantham had property in at
least six parishes as well as that abroad.

Another of the twenty-two pepperers was Roger
Carpenter, whose will is dated March 24, 1348.
He, it may be mentioned, was one of the two
wardens of the Grocers' Company chosen to that
office on July 6, 1848. By his will we learn that
he had tenements and rents in the parish of
St. Mary Abchurch, which he left to Thomas his
son with remainder to his daughters ; and tene-
ments in the parish of St. Benedict Sharbogg. He
also made bequests to his two apprentices, John

85

THE GROCERY TRADE

Kynardeseye and Thomas, and the residue of his
goods he devised in three parts, one to his wife, one
among his children, and the third for pious uses.

Other notable early grocers and members of the
Company include John Hammond, who joined it in
1346, and made a will dated the same year. This
pepperer also had rents and tenements situated in
four different parishes. He makes numerous
charitable bequests, notably one of 40rf. to every
anchorite in London, and one penny to every
prisoner in Newgate. He gives five marks to the
work of building London Bridge. He founds two
chantries (one for the soul of Adam de Salisburi,
"late pepperer"), besides giving other gifts toother
churches ; and still can deal liberally with his wife
and family. To John, son of the aforesaid Adam
de Salisburi, he gives fifty pounds (probably enough
to set him up in business) and all his weights,
balances and other implements appertaining to his
business of pepperer. Of much interest is the
bequest of 60 shillings for clothing for the porters
of Sopers' Lane (the fourteenth -century 'Eastcheap)
and to each of the said porters and to every other
labourer in Sopers' Lane, connected with the
testator's business, twelve pence. John Hammond
must have been a man of an ample substance.

We must also mention the name of Andrew
Aubrey, who became a member of the Grocers'
Company in 1346, having previously been twice
Mayor of the City, which office he again filled in
36

THE GROCERS OF LONDON

1851. It WHS whilst Aubrey was chief magistrate
that King Edward HI., when going abroad, left
powers to the Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty
of London for conserving the peace of the City.
And such powers were necessary, for soon after the
King had gone, a strife between the Companies of
Skinners and Fishmongers ended in a bloody
skirmish in the streets. The Mayor hastened to
the spot to arrest the ringleaders and was violently
assaulted by one of these with a drawn sword,
whilst another wounded one of his officers. The
result was that the two resisters of lawful authority
were beheaded in Cheapside, after trial before the
Mayor and Aldermen ; and it is satisfactory to read
that this prompt action of the grocer Mayor for
the peace and safety of the citizens was warmly
approved by the King on his return. Aubrey also
was a man of substance, as his will (witnessed by
John Nott and Henry Lacey, "Grossers" and
dated October 8, 1349) proves. He had tenements
in four parishes of the city ; and a leasehold
interest in the manor of West Chalke, Kent, which
he had from Sir John de Cobeham. He had
previously built a chapel adjoining the church of
St Antonin, to which he had appointed a chaplain
in his will ; and to him he left the mansion which
he had built in the same parish.

The life of this grocer, Andrew Aubrey, proves
that the trade was taking its part in the civic life
of the period. There is ample evidence that this

87

THE GROCERY TRADE

was also the case with others. About this time,
for example, at least one grocer — Geoffrey
Cremelford, an early member of the Company — sat
on a special committee elected by Mayor, Aldermen
and Commonalty to examine the ordinances in the
Guildhall, and to revise the same. And in 1376,
when each " mistery " elected certain persons to
serve as a Council for the City until the new Mayor
should be chosen, the same Geoffrey Cremelford,
who became an Alderman in 1383, was chosen
with five others to represent the " Grosser?."

Returning now to the progress of the Grocers'
Company itself, we may note that its second
assembly, in 1346, was again held at the mansion
of the Abbots of Bury. The question of enforcing
the claim of the fraternity came up for discussion
on this occasion and it was agreed that the Wardens
for the time being and their successors should have
power to distrain upon the goods of those members
" who shall act contrary to any of the ordinances,
or shall refuse to pay what shall be imposed upon
them by the resolutions of the Wardens for their
opposition or other defaults, according to their
deserts." The wardens were to retain the goods
so distrained, until satisfaction had been forthcoming
from the recalcitrant member. This ordinance was
sealed by the whole of the existing members.
Nine new members were elected at this gathering,
including Sir Andrew Aubrey, Simon Dolsely
38

THE GROCERS OF LONDON

(Mayor of London 1859-1860) and Thomas
Dolsely (M.P. for the City 1850, 1858-4). In 1847
six new members were added, including Nicholas
Chaucer, a relation of the poet ; and Sir John
Grantham, who according to Stow, had a house
in Thames Street " very large and strong, builded
of stone, as appeared by gates and arches yet
remaining." Among its members also was John
Notte, Mayor of London in 1868, who instituted
a campaign against usury and passed a bylaw
called " Notte's Law against Usury."

The assembly in 1348, which took place at Rynged
Hall in St Thomas, Apostle, was memorable for
some momentous decisions relative to the position
of women in the fraternity, it being very evident
therefrom that the advocates of women's rights
were in the ascendant. The members agreed that
it should be obligatory for each one to bring his
wife or companion with him to the annual ft
except in case of illness ; and that the charge for
the dinner should be increased from 36-. 6d. to 5*.,
being 1*. Sd. for the member, 1*. Sd. for his wife or
companion and Is. Sd. towards the priest It was
also agreed that the wives of members should be
entered in the books and should be regarded as of
the Fraternity with equal claims upon their bene-
volence. Every such wife had the right, should
her husband die, to attend the dinner so long as
she remained a widow ; in the event of her re-
marriage, with any one not of the Fraternity, she

89

THE GROCERY TRADE

forfeited all claims to their assistance and her right
to attend the feast. With the business of the
Fraternity increasing it was deemed advisable to
appoint a beadle to " warn and summon the
company whenever he is desired by the Wardens."
The funds, which had accumulated to £22 5s. 9d.,
were handed over to the new Wardens, and it was
resolved that " from thenceforth the Wardens
should not adventure over the seas, neither lend
any of the goods of the Fraternity but at their own
hazard."

During 1348 the Company obtained permission
to erect a chantry at St. Anthony's Church in
Budge Row, towards the decoration of which they
were given a chalice weighing fifteen ounces and a
missal which cost £3 6s. Sd. by Sir Simon de Wye,
a parson from Barnes, who was admitted a member
of the fraternity.

The assemblies of the Grocers' Company con-
tinued to be held from year to year at various
places, till finally the fraternity settled down at the
Cornet's Tower, Buckiersbury, where Edward III.
had formerly kept his exchange of money. The
Fraternity amended their ordinances from time to
time, and grew in numbers and influence, till in
1373 it included no fewer than one hundred and
twenty-four members, and attracted by its business
operations the attention of Parliament. It was
now on the eve of new developments.

40

CHAPTER IV

THE GROCERS' COMPANY

THE year of grace 1376 found the Merchants of
the City of London stirred by many conflicting
interests. The wealthy traders of the City had
grown in numbers and influence, and were becoming
more and more hostile to the foreign merchants,
whom they regarded as poachers on their exclusive
trading preserves. The Londoners were not
merely stirred by national and religious disputes,
but were also agitated by questions of local
administration. The citizens had formed them-
selves into two opposite camps. On one side were
ranged the drapers, goldsmiths, saddlers and many
other lesser crafts ; and on the other side, victualling
trades, which included the pepperers and fish-
mongers. The dispute raged principally round the
question of the election of the Common Council,
the clothing party, known as the reforming party,
seeking to establish a Council elected by the
wards.

Prior to this conflict the " Fraternity of St
Anthony" had strengthened its position and had

41

THE GROCERY TRADE

added over a hundred members to its roll, many of
whom were influential merchants. They had also
gradually extend their operations beyond the sale
of peppers and spices, so much so that in 1363,
eighteen years after their formation, a petition from
the Commons in Parliament complained, — "that
great mischief had newly arisen, as well to the
King as to the Great men and Commons, from the
merchants called grocers (grossers), who engrossed
all manner of merchandise vendible, and who
suddenly raised the prices of such merchandise
within the realm ; putting to sale by covin, and by
ordinances made amongst themselves, in their own
society, which they call the Fraternity and gild of
merchants (fraternite et gilde merchant) such
merchandises as were most dear and keeping in
store the others until times of dearth and scarcity."
The petitioners urged — " that merchants shall deal
in or use but one kind or sort of merchandise, and
that every merchant hereafter shall choose what
kinds of wares or merchandise he will deal in and
shall deal in no other." An Act was accordingly
passed, ordaining " that all artificers and people of
mysteries shall each choose his own mystery before
the next Candlemas ; and having chosen it, he shall
henceforth use no other ; and that justices shall
be assigned to inquire by process of Oyer and
Terminer, and " to punish trespassers by six
months' imprisonment, or other penalty according
to the offence." This Act, however, so far as
42

THE GROCERS' COMPANY

it related to merchants, was repealed the next
year.

Ten years later, 1878, we find the word " grocers"
or " grosers " as applied to the Company appearing
in their records.

Notable among the grocers of this date was
Nicholas Brembre, who was Warden of the
Fraternity of St. Anthony in 1869-70. In 1878
the King himself had deposed the Mayor, Adam
Staple, and Brembre became Mayor in his stead.
He was recognised as the leader of the victualling
section, as against the democratic draper, John
Northampton, who led the clothing section in the
agitation for the reform of the Common Council.
The dispute, in which Brembre was supported by
the Court party, reached the ear of the aged and
senile King, who, because of the disturbance of the
peace in the City, threatened to bring the matter
before Parliament This pressure led the Mayor
and citizens, who, whatever view they took, resented
the interference of Parliament, to come to an
agreement that the Common Council, should not
be elected by the wards but " should be composed
of persons of the wiser and more sufficient of the
mysteries, elected by the men of the same mysteries
and not otherwise." The result was that at a
General Assembly convened by the Mayor on
August 1, 1876, a Common Council was elected
from among the members of the forty-one mysteries
or trades, then in London. A commission of

48

THE GROCERY TRADE

Aldermen and Commoners, elected by the Mayor,
Aldermen and Commonalty, was appointed to
survey and examine the ordinances in the Guildhall
and to present to the Commonalty those that were
of benefit to the city and those that were not, and
on the 9th August, 1376

"there came immense commonalty from the
underwritten mysteries to the Guildhall before
John W arde, Mayor, Wm. Haldene, John Aubrey,
Bartholomew Frestkynge, Nicholas Twyford,
John Maryna, John Haddele, Hervey Begge,
Adam de St. Ive, Aldermen, and presented the
names of the underwritten persons elected by each
Mistery and deputed to serve as a Council for the
City until the Charge of a new Mayor, and they
were called separately for each Mistery and
charged by their oath as follows :
" You swear that you will readily come when
summoned for a Common Council for the City
unless you have lawful and reasonable excuse,
and good and lawful counsel shall give according
to your understanding and knowledge and for no
favour shall you maintain an individual benefit
against a common weal of the city, preserving
for each mystery its reasonable customs."

The "Grossers" so elected were Richard Odyham,
Geoffrey Cremelford, William Culham, John
Hothom, Adam Lovekyn, and William Wads-
worthe. The mysteries represented were:
44

THE GROCERS' COMPANY

1. Fishmongers.

2. Goldsmiths.
8. Skinners.

4. Saddlers.

5. Girdlers.

6. Embroiderers.

7. Tapestry-makers.

8. Weavers or " welbes."

9. Dyers.

10. Feathermongers.

11. Smiths or wrights.

12. Shearmen.

This agitation probably led the members of the fra-
ternity of St. Anthony to consider the advisability
of strengthening their Company and re-adapting
it to meet the changed circumstances. Accordingly
we find the pepperers and spicers meeting on
August 29, to draft new ordinances. Having
regard to the development in the Company's
affairs they now term themselves *' the Grocers of
London." Besides their annual festival they
arranged for quarterly meetings, " principally to
treat of the common business of the mystery." The
new ordinances also stipulated that membership of
the Company should only be open to members or
freemen of other mysteries on the payment of ten
pounds and subject to the common assent. It is
evident from this that the grocers had no in-
clination to allow other traders to participate in

45

THE GROCERY TRADE

the privileges of their calling. At this gathering
it was agreed that " for the relief of poor members
of the Company, who shall become impoverished
and for establishing other alms, every one of the
Company shall give to the Common Box ten
pence," and steps were taken for the establishment
of a Court of Assistants " to assist and advise with
the Masters."

After 1376, the Grocers' Company continued to
share with other mysteries the privilege of electing
representatives on the Common Council, and out
of twenty-three elected in 1397, the grocers were
successful in securing the return of three of their
number, namely William Baret (Aldgate), Adam
Karlill (Bishopsgate), one of the parliamentary
representatives for the City, and Adam Lovekyn
(Cornhill).

The victualling trades had now practically
supreme power in the government of the city.
The power of wealth had begun to assert itself.
Rich grocers like Brembre, Philpot, Hadley and
Karlill, and rich fishmongers like Walworth and
Sibyle, were able to render financial'assistance to
the Government, and in return acquired the civic
power they coveted. The times were hardly ripe
for the popular control which men like North-
ampton tried to establish ; and during the times
that were then at hand there was need for strong
government in the great and influential City of
London.
46

THE GROCERS' COMPANY

When Richard the Second came to the throne,
after the death of his father (the Black Prince) and
of the old King Edward the Third, he was but a boy
of eleven years old. The government was in the
hands of his uncles, at first of the autocratic John
of Gaunt Brembre, like Walworth and others, lent
money to the crown, and so gained influence which
procured the grant of a charter in December 1877 re-
stricting retail trade within the city to the freemen
of the City, and prohibiting all foreigners, excepting
the merchants of Acquitaine (the Black Prince's
French Duchy), from selling their goods to any
other foreigner within the liberties of the said
City. The Grocers' Company in common with
seven others of the leading companies were in-
structed by the Mayor to elect searchers to see that
the provisions of this statute were not violated.
There is no doubt that the grocers, who were one
of the largest importing trades and who were
extremely jealous of the Venetians and other
foreign merchants, welcomed this charter as a
distinct acquisition. Free trade and unlimited
competition were anathema to these monopolists.

Brembre 's star being in the ascendant he began
to exercise his power in many directions. John
Philpot, another sturdy grocer, and William
Walworth, the fishmonger, were other important
strands in the tangled skein of politics of that day.
These men were the great supporters of the Court,
and of the favourites of the young King, against

47

THE GROCERY TRADE

whom the people became at length so justly
enraged. When, in 1381, the peasants of Essex,
Kent, and elsewhere, marched into London under
John Ball and Wat Tyler, it was these men who
stood around the boy King, when Walworth slew
the people's leader ; and when by his audacity and
his smooth promises — never kept — Richard had
appeased the peasants as they stood dazed and
uncertain around him, he rewarded his friends with
knighthood on the spot. Perhaps Walworth, the
civic hero whose dagger is so jealously preserved by
the fishmongers, would hardly be held in so much
honour were it generally known that the scandal
of his brothels in Southwark was one of the com-
plaints the people had against him ; there was
little of bravery in his treacherous act at Smithfield.
Brembre and Philpot, the two grocers, were men
who appear far worthier to be had in repute.
Philpot at his own cost equipped a fleet and cleared
some piratical Scots off the North Sea at a time
when Richard's government was impotent. As
for Brembre, having allied himself with the Court
party he remained with it and followed Richard's
fortunes. The reforming Northampton on one
occasion obtained power in the City, but was
speedily ousted ; and Brembre remained one of the
leading men of the time until at length, as a hated
favourite of the King, he came to a tragic end in
1388, being executed as a traitor to the Parliament.
With his death departed one of the most
48

THE GROCERS' COMPANY

vigorous personalities of the early grocery trade, a
victim to his own ambitious impulses, and one
into whose mouth might fitly be put the utterance
of Wolsey —

Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my King, He would not in mine age
Have left me naked to my enemies.

His master, Richard the Second, was years after-
wards deposed as history relates.

NOTE. — Although the members of the Grocers' fraternity
were taking their full share in the government of the City in
1383, the assertion of some historians, including the learned
Bishop Stubbs, that no fewer than sixteen members were at
one and the same time Aldermen, is hardly correct.

The mistake arose from the not uncommon custom which
then obtained of continuing the title of " Alderman M to
those who had once held the office, but had since resigned.
Such persons were accorded the designation as a mark of
honour after they had really ceased to be entitled to it.

At Christmas 1383, as the Rev. F. B. Bevan points out,
the actual number of Grocers who were members of the
Court of Aldermen was eight, including the Mayor, who was
not an Alderman of a Ward, but presided in the Court
in virtue of his office. These were W. Baret (Cornhill),
W. Venour (Castle Baynard), G. Cremylford (Langbourn),
W. Staundon (Aldgate), R. Aylesbury (Dowgate), J. Furneux
(Bread Street), J. Chircheman (Bridge), and the mayor
Sir Nicholas Brembre, who had been previously Alderman of
Bread Street Ward ; and was again elected to that office the
next year.

1 D 49

CHAPTER V

MEDIEVAL GROCERIES

DURING the fifteenth century I find the word
" Spicer " gradually disappearing as the name of a
trader, and the word grocer being generally adopted.
Various derivations of the term " Grocer " have
been given, some attributing it to the fact that
many of the leading members of the fraternity
were dealers " in gross " (en gros] or in large
quantities, while others incline to the rather far-
fetched belief that it comes from the Latin or
Italian name of the articles commonly sold by
grocers — namely, Grossus, a fig. Another explan-
ation is that which connected the grocer with the
trade who used " peso grosso " or avoirdupois
weight.

Personally I think all the indications point to
the conclusion that the name arose through certain
members of the trade, the Hansons and Travers of
the fourteenth century, " engrossing" various kinds
of merchandise, though they gradually relinquished
dealing in goods foreign to the trade, as we under-
stand it at the present day. It is recorded, for
50

MEDIEVAL GROCERIES

instance, that an early bearer of the name grocer,
Thos. Knolles, sold in addition to spices, wax and
black soap, such articles as drugs, lead, tin, horns,
woad, flax, sulphur and saltpetre.

The early Grocers were the ministers of luxuries
to the rich, their customers being drawn principally
from among the wealthier classes of the com-
munity, and the Court. The chief articles that
they dealt in at the period were ginger, mace,
cloves, cinnamon, almonds, raisins, prunes, dates,
figs, rice, comfits and nutmegs.

As an indication of the width of the gulf between
the grocer and the poor of those days, it may be
noted that a skilled outdoor labourer lived on bread,
herrings, milk, cheese and porridge, with ale on
festive occasions, and when he could get it ! Fresh
meat he rarely tasted. And the diet of the field
labourer was even coarser and more scantily varied
than this.

The burgesses in the towns, able to afford a more
luxurious dietary, fed on meat, with pastry and
puddings. For drink, ale and mead were consumed,
and for the making of spiced ale and mead, resort
was had to the Pepperers and Spicers, who
imported the ingredients from over seas. At a
banquet in the fourteenth century, boars' heads,
peacocks, herons, swans, hams, tarts, jellies, " with
gay gallantines and dainties galore " were served.
When the banquet was over, dessert was spread
in another room, consisting of spices, under which

51

THE GROCERY TRADE

name were included almonds and dried fruits, with
malmsey and muscatel wines. Spiced drinks were
greatly favoured by the citizens of those days.
From a receipt for " hippocras," the " company "
drink of the Middle Ages, the brewer is bidden, if
preparing it for a lord, to add well-pared ginger,
thin strips of cinnamon, grains of paradise, sugar,
and turnsoles ; while for common people, ginger,
cannel, long pepper, and honey are deemed
sufficient.

Ships returned to London at this period laden
with spices and dried fruits, among other things of
rare and curious interest. A poem written in the
fifteenth century and published under the title of
" Libel of English Policy" refers to—

The great Galleys of Venice and Florence,
Be well laden with things of complacense,
All spicery and all grocers' ware,
With sweet wines, and all manner chaffers.

A Genoese ship, driven ashore on the coast of
Somersetshire in 1380, contained amongst its cargo
green ginger cured with lemon juice, dried prunes,
bales of rice, bales of cinnamon, dried grapes, and
sugar. A year earlier in the same century (1379)
a wealthy Genoese merchant submitted a proposal
to Richard II., wherein he suggested that South-
ampton should be made the chief port for the
distribution of spices and other Oriental goods
between Genoa and Flanders, Normandy and
52

MEDIEVAL GROCERIES

other parts. Had this plan succeeded, it was
estimated that pepper would have been sold in
Kn^luiul at -\il. a pound and other spices at equally
low prices. (Of course 4d. a pound in those times
meant many times fourpence in ours.)

The London merchants, however, foreseeing
danger to their position through such a rival,
caused his .-issassi nation by a man named Kirkeley
before he could carry his plan through.

Among the articles which, about this time,
began to be a source of profit to the grocer was
sugar. Sugar was introduced in the eighth century
to Madeira and the Canaries, and gradually found
its way to the West Indies through the medium of
the Portuguese and Spanish settlers. The date of
the introduction of sugar into England is uncertain
It is referred to in the cargo of a Venetian merchant
sent to England in 1319. At the date 1417 the
grocers' records show that loaf sugar was sold at 13d.
per Ib. It is also referred to in the year 1497 in a
letter by Sir Edward Wootan from Calais, wherein
he speaks of a purchase of twenty-five sugar loaves
at 6.v. each, which works out at 8rf. per pound. In
1498 we find it included among groceries in the
Goldsmiths' records, 6 Ib. "loffe sugar" being
purchased at 2jrf. per pound.

A further indication of what were considered the
proper ware of the grocer is afforded by the fact
that during this period and until 1617 such drugs
and medicines as were in common use were sold in

53

THE GROCERY TRADE

England by apothecaries and grocers. The
wardens of the Grocers' Company had the right of
search in all the apothecaries' shops and frequently
came into conflict with members of this trade over
the quality of the drugs sold.

One cannot pass over the period without referring
to an incident recorded in one of the Paston
Letters. Miss Margaret Paston, the member of a
wealthy family at Norwich, writing to a friend in
London says : " send me word what price a pound
of pepper, cloves, mace, ginger, almonds, rice,
galingal, saffron, raisins of Corinth, greyns and
comfits, of each of these send me the price of a
pound, and if it be better cheap at London than it
is here, 1 will send you money to buy with such as
I will have." This letter is a clear indication that
even in those days the wealthy classes were apt to
overlook their local traders in favour of London
merchants.

Several attempts were made by King and
Parliament during these early days of commerce
in England to fix the prices of food. In 1315 it
was enacted that all articles of food should be sold
at certain prescribed prices, with a view to relieving
the famine then existing among the people. The
result of this Act, however, was to limit the supply
of food, as those who had goods to sell remained at
home rather than bring them to market to be sold
at a loss. Parliament recognised its mistake and
repealed the Act a few months after it was passed.
54

MEDLEVAL GROCERIES

In 1849, immediately after the great pestilence,
another statute enacted that all dealers in victuals
should be bound to sell the same for a reasonable

A curious regulation concerning the price of
butter was made on June llth, 1879, to the effect :

** That no butter shall be sold in the City without
the esquielle which is to hold half a quart of
rightful capacity in butter measure, on pain of
forfeiture of the butter, and of the body (of the
seller) being submitted to disgraceful penalty.
And that every esquielle of such fresh butter
shall be sold for \%d. and no more, between this
and St. Michael ensuing, on pain of forfeiture
thereof."

It would appear that the sale of butter "by
pint " as in Suffolk, has a venerable antiquity be-
hind it ! An esquielle (or esquelle) is a deep plate
or porringer ; from this word we get " scullery."

Butter substitutes were not then invented, the
poor citizen might be nipped in his quantity or
overcharged, and so the Mayor, doubtless in con-
junction with the Grocers' Company, took steps to
protect his humbler fellow citizens and honest
tradesmen at the same time from unfair com-
petition.

In a statute passed 1889-90, it was ordered that
all victuallers "shall have reasonable gains ac-
cording to the discretion and limitations" of the

55

THE GROCERY TRADE

justices, while the prices of bread and ale were
regulated by the assize.

Pepper, one of the chief commodities handled by
the grocers of the period, also came in for the
attention of Parliament. In November 1411, a
petition had been laid before Parliament com-
plaining of the scarcity of pepper, " the spice most
used by the commons of the realm," owing to its
being withheld from the markets by grocers and
Lombards ; and the petitioners prayed that the
grocers might be compelled to sell it at a reason-
able profit. The result of this petition is seen in a
writ issued to the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs on
December 22nd, 1411, calling upon them to pro-
claim and cause to be observed an ordinance made
in the last Parliament to the effect that pepper in
the hands of any merchant should be sold to any
one requiring it at 20e?. per Ib. until fresh pepper
arrived from abroad, when the price might be
lessened. The following year, however, pepper
had risen to 4*. per Ib., and in 1413 to 8s. ; while
in 1425 we find it was sold at the extraordinary
price of 3f d. per Ib.

During the next ten years we find it quoted at
26-., 2s. 4>d., and 2*. Sd. per Ib.

With such variations and uncertainties it is
pretty certain that these embarrassing enactments,
regulating the price of food, were resented as much
by the grocers as by the dealers in food. Such enact-
ments, if not repealed sooner or later, fell into disuse.
56

MEDIAEVAL GROCERIES

The keeping of a shop was not by any means an
unmixed blessing in those days. Competition it is
true was restricted, but there were many dis-
advantages, besides that of the frequent regulation
of prices.

The unfortunate tradesman was not allowed to
sell his goods in open market till after the buyers
for the King and titled gentry had made their
purchases ; all goods of twenty-five pounds in
weight and upwards had to be weighed by the
King's Beam; and he never knew when he would
receive a visit from the representatives of the
Grocers' Company, who claimed control over
every one who kept a shop of spicery. A law of
1373 laid down that no one should sell groceries
except by the Guildhall weight of fifteen ounces.
A law of 1394 ordered that no trader should
expose spices or drugs without their first having
been cleaned by an official garbler. And so
on. It goes without saying that the mediaeval
grocer's liberty was restricted in the matter of
hours of business. For him as for others the
curfew was the reminder that the city gates were
being shut and that for the day all trade was
over.

For the delinquent there was the public pillory,
where the seller of bad food often had the satisfac-
tion of being placed as an object of popular ridicule,
whilst the confiscated goods were burnt under his
nose. One such delinquent in 1395, who had sold

57

THE GROCERY TRADE

for good " poudre de ginger," divers powders made of
the roots of rape, radish and old setewale, putrified
and unwholesome for human use, was ordered to
be placed on the pillory during the hour from eleven
to twelve for three days in succession, the said
false powders to be burnt under the pillory. The
effective nature of this punishment will be forcibly
apparent to my readers.

The practice of such methods of trading is a
reminder that the service of the public was by no
means the only end and aim which the mediaeval
traders kept before them.

Organised as they were in guilds, their own
gain and enrichment was their main object. The
struggling workers of a mediaeval time often looked
upon the traders as their natural enemy, whilst the
traders consciously or unconsciously adopted the
maxim " caveat emptor " — let the buyer take care
of himself! Who has not heard of the miller's
" golden thumb," — which, kept inside the measures
he was filling with meal, took toll of every pottle
and gallon ? To the consumer, the dealers seemed
all alike steeped in iniquity. Shopkeepers measured
out their wares by ** horn or by aim of hand," or
any cup or vessel which suited them ; and kept their
shops dark in order that the buyer might be the less
able to detect the tricks they were playing on him.
Indeed, so far was the spirit of hostility fostered
by the traders' practices towards the " poor com-
mons " that the friendliest state of feeling between
58

MEDIAEVAL GROCKKII s

them never went further than an armed truce.
Tims it is that our annals are full of enactments
designed to protect the " poor commons " from the
rapacity of the man who had goods to sell which
they needs must have and of which he had a
monopoly. On the other hand, it is fair to say
also, that the Companies quite early in their history
began to protect the good name of the trade of
which they were the official representatives, and
over which the law gave them control, by exercising
supervision both over the quality of the goods sold
and the justice of the weights and measures used
in the selling.

Of this there is ample record in our annals as
appears in the pages of this book.

The grocers of those days in conjunction with
other traders were subject to some disadvantages
which were peculiarly harsh. For instance, in 1256
Henry III., in order to benefit his subjects at
Westminster, instituted a " National Fair " of
fifteen days, and commanded that during the Fair
all the shops in the City should be closed, and that
the shopkeepers should bring their wares to
Westminster. The feeling of annoyance among
the shopkeepers at this arbitrary enactment was
not allayed by an incessant downpour of rain that
made open-air shopkeeping anything but a picnic,
and ruffled the temper and jeopardised the health
of the stall-holders. A similar disadvantage some-
times befell the traders in other towns. At

59

THE GROCERY TRADE

Exeter, no one was allowed, during fair time, to
sell anything in the City except at the Lammas
Fair, which lasted from the last day in July to the
third day in August ; goods so sold became forfeit
to the Lords of the City, and were liable to be
seized, " if they lie within the reach of a man's
arm."

It will be interesting at this stage to note the
evolution of the early retail shops. The first
" shops " for the retail sale of goods, outside the
retailer's own dwelling, were boards on trestles in
the street against the front of the house. As the
importance of trade in the great cities and towns
increased it is easy to see how the shop grew out
of this primitive and inexpensive mode of showing
the various wares for sale. The trade centres,
with the increase of population, became more
permanent, and the movable stalls gave way to
sheds or booths outside the doors, the more
effectively to store and protect the goods.

In time it came about that the front rooms of
the houses, the earliest shops, were thrown open
and converted into business establishments.

In some instances, however, no sooner had the
primitive retail trader of those days abandoned his
rude stall or shed for the front of his house, than a
rival, but less flourishing trader, would immediately
take up his stand in front with a stall of his own,
thereby injuring the trade of the original occupant.
In connection with this custom, one historian
60

MEDIAEVAL GROCERIES

informs us that the old trader sometimes found a
way out of this difficulty by engaging the new-
comer as his assistant !

An Act was eventually passed in the reign of
Elizabeth that no one should erect any stall before
any house, under a penalty of 40*.

Of course, there were various kinds and degrees
of business premises then as now. There were the
men who rented a tiny shop, small masters with
but a single journeyman or perhaps two, as well as
the great prosperous merchants ; and this not only
in London but in all the cities and towns. Shops
of such insignificance that they were described as
those of the artisans who let down the ledge from
their windows to display the goods which they
themselves had made, existed cheek-by-jowl with
the stately establishments of richer merchants.

For many years the city merchant lived over
his business establishment, the era of a town
business, with a country residence, having not yet
dawned. The City records inform us that John de
Grantham, whose name appears on the roll ot
membership of the Grocers' Company in 1347,
leased a shop in the parish of St. Anthony for
seven years at an annual rental of eight marks or
£5 6s. Sd., a rather insignificant sum when com-
pared with City rentals to-day. Though it is diffi-
cult to fix an actual comparison, the value to-day
would be at least twenty times the value of money
in that remote period.

61

THE GROCERY TRADE

The pepperers and grocers of the fourteeenth and
fifteenth century principally inhabited Sopers' Lane,
Bucklersbury, the Chepe, and the Ropery.

Sopers' Lane (now Queen Street, Cheapside),
where most of the leading grocers of that period
lived, was a street of fair-sized shops, and had de-
rived its name in all probability from the fact of
its being the mediaeval centre of the soap-making
industry.

All these things clearly indicate how far removed
the grocer of the present day is from his prede-
cessor, some of whose wares are alluded to in the
following lines from Chaucer's " Romaunt of the
Rose" (1340-1400):

There was eke weking many a spice,
As Clowe-gel ofre and lycorice,
Gyngeore, and greyn de Parys,
Canelle, and setewale of prys.

Tea, coffee, and chocolate, packed goods, and
canned goods of all kinds, were undreamt of by
the men who, with so much credit to themselves
and so much pride in their calling, laid the founda-
tion of this historic trade.

62

CHAPTER VI

PROGRESS OF THE COMPANY

THE Company of Grocers of London grew and
flourished, and, at the same time, jealously watched
over the interest of their trade.

As illustrative of the supervision exercised by the
Grocers' Company over the trade at this date, it
may be noted that the Wardens upon election had
to appear before the Court of Aldermen and there
assent to the following oath :

"ye shall swear that ye shall wele and trewly
ov'see the craft of (Company's name) whereof ye
be chosen Wardens for the yeere and all the
good reules and ordinance of the same craft that
been approved here be the Court, and none
other, ye shall kepe and doo to be kept. And
all the defautes what ye fynde in the same craft
ydon to the Chamberlayn of ye citee for the
tyme being, ye shall vele and trewly presente,
Sparying no man for me, grevying noo p'sone for
hate. Extorcion no wrong under colour of your
office ye shall non doo neither to doo noo thing

63

THE GROCERY TRADE

that sail be ayenst the state, peas and profite of
our Sovereign Lord the King or to the City ye
shall not consente but for the tyme that ye shall
be in office in all things that shall be longying
into the same craft after the lawes and franchises
of the saide citee well and lawfully ye shall have
you ; so helpe you God and all syntes etc."

The City Council's precept sent to the master in
]378, instructing the Company to elect men to
search in the City for strange merchants bringing
foods connected with their calling into the city,
resulted in the Company electing two of their
members — March Ernels and John Coayn — and
they were sworn to see that those Merchants not of
the Fraternity should sell their merchandise within
forty days of their arrival, and that no merchant-
stranger should sell to, or buy from, another
merchant stranger on pain of forfeiting his goods.
Later the City Council granted the Company the
power of search over all spicers whether members
of the Company or not, the ordinances of June
1386, including the following :

" Every person who keeps a spice shop shall be
under the Government of the said Masters for
the time being as well those who are not upon
the Livery as those who are, and in case any of
them are found in default that the Masters
shall report their names at our next common
congregation."
64

PROGRESS OF THE COMPANY

It was also ordained that every Liveryman
belonging to the said mystery wanting to assay any
weights, great or small, should bring them to the
hotel of the wardens, for the time being, paying for
each half-hundredweight a halfpenny, and for each
small weight so assayed a farthing.

In October 1898, the Grocers' Company peti-
tioned the Mayor and Council :

" That seeing the deceit practised by merchant
strangers in bringing to the city and selling in an
unclean state divers merchandise of grocers that
is sold by weight — pepper, ginger, cinnamon, &c.,
no merchandise that ought to be garbled should
in future be weighed or sold before it has been
cleaned and garbled by a man appointed for that
purpose by the said grocer."

The result was that the law of compulsory garbling
was re-enacted, and in January of 1394 the Mayor
and Aldermen appointed Mr. Thomas Half mark
as Official Gar bier, and proclaimed that any one
selling spices or other commodities subject to the law
of garbling, without such goods having been first
inspected and cleaned by the official garbler,
forfeited the same.

The Garbellor, or Garbler of Spices, was an officer
of great antiquity in the City of London. He was
empowered to enter any shop or warehouse to view
and search for drugs, &c. to garble, and cleanse
them, i.e., sift out the impurities with which they
I £ 65

THE GROCERY TRADE

were mixed when landed. It was the duty of the
garbler to put a certain mark on each bale of
merchandise after it had been garbled, and to
bring to the Council chamber all powder and dirt
that he might find. To further safeguard the
public the common weigher was charged not to
weigh any bale unless it bore the mark of the official
garbler.

Connected with the growth of the Company is
the foundation of Grocers' Hall in 1427. For some
years the " Fraternity " had held its meetings at the
House of the Abbot of Bury, afterwards taking up
its temporary residence in Bucklersbury at a place
called the Cornet's Tower. It was here that the
Company began to superintend the public weighing
of merchandise, and the list of weights attached to
this establishment is detailed in a note of the year
1398, in which it is stated that they were deposited
" in the house of our Community of the Mystery
of Grocers in Bucklersbury." In 1427 they bought
of the Lord Fitzwalter & portion of the land in Old
Jewry, and upon it built the first Grocers' Hall,
1427, on the site which is still occupied by its
modern representative.

In 1428, Henry VI. granted the Company a
Charter of Incorporation, thus putting it on a
legally recognised footing, by the name of " Custodes
et communitas Mysterii Groceriae London." It
empowered them to acquire and hold lands within
the City of London and the suburbs thereof to the
66

1'IIOGRESS OF THE COMPANY

value of twenty marks per year, towards the support,
as well of the poor men of the community as of a
chaplain to perform divine service. It cost the
( irocers a fine to the King, however, of 50 pounds,
for monarchs did not grant their favours lightly in
those days.

The Grocers' Company, having received its
charter of incorporation, began to grow in public
importance, and we find the King in 1447 conferring
upon the Company the privilege of being the
official garblers of the United Kingdom, London
only excepted, this privilege, so far as the City was
concerned, being vested in the court of Aldermen.
In the special ordinance dealing with this subject,
it is pointed out that spices and other kinds of
merchandise, such as almonds, grapes, dates, treacle,
senna, oils, ointments, conserves and confections
were " daily sold to the subjects not at all cleansed,
garbled and searched, to the manifest deceit and
hurt of our subjects."

The King therefore granted authority to the
Wardens of the Company to

" Supervise, garble, search, examine and prove
all sorts of spices, drugs and merchandise to the
purpose and intent that none of our subjects
may be deprived of benefit in buying any of the
aforesaid spices, drugs and merchandise, nor by
the buying of these kind to be in any wise hurt
in their bodily health."

67

THE GROCERY TRADE

The Wardens were authorised, on behalf of the
Company, to receive fees for their work, and to
seize any goods offered for sale that had not been
previously garbled, which goods were to become
forfeit to the King. An account of the said seizures
was to be made annually to the Royal Exchequer ;
and the Grocers' Company, "for their care and
diligence " were to receive for the use of the said
mystery one half of such forfeitures.

One can imagine the august representatives of
the Grocers' Company, probably by themselves or
in company with the wardens of other companies
and their attendants, riding out of London once or
twice a year to visit the divers " feyres, cytyes and
townys " in order to carry out the right of search.
What a flutter the local tradesmen of provincial
cities would be in on learning of the arrival of
these visitors in their midst, and how anxious they
would be to gain their goodwill ! The Spicer
would hasten to overhaul his goods ; the local
apothecary — whose knowledge of drugs probably
exceeded that of the " grocer " inspector — would
doubtless do his best to impress his visitors with
the excellent quality of the articles he offered for
sale ; and woe betide the innocent traders when
goods were not up to the high standard of excellence
which the Wardens, mindful of their own share in
the proceeds, would doubtless set up.

There is in existence a rare tract on the subject,
published in 1591, which throws much light on
68

PROGRESS OF THE COMPANY

this practice and the relation between the grocers
of that period and the Company. It is addressed
iVoin (iro« is Hall to the Lord Mayor and Alder-
men, and complains that the representation of
" Sundrye of the retayling grocers of London to
the chief officers, the guardians, and to the first
men of that society (the grocers) against the fact
of the bad garbling of spices, between them and
the merchants," had " in lieu of reformation, taught
many indignities, and wrought some indignation
towards the complainants."

The authors of the pamphlet inform the render
that the bad garbling of spices had then existed
some years; they also subjoin a detailed account
of the art as it should be carried out. They add
that the necessity of cleansing and purifying spices
was debated in the reign of Henry VI. when the
office of garbling was given to the Lord Mayor
and Corporation of London by that King; but
with the understanding that as well the merchant
owners of spices as the city grocers retailing the
same, should be advised with, in making the proper
regulations for conducting the art. Nutmegs,
mace and cinnamon, ginger, galls, rice and currants,
cloves, grains, wormseed, aniseed, cummin seed,
dates, senna and other things are spoken of as
having been in that reign garbleable.

The privilege of garbling granted by Henry
was afterwards confirmed with a few alterations, in
the grants of Charles I., Charles II., James II.,

09

THE GROCERY TRADE

and William and Mary. The last mention of the
office of garbling occurs in July 1689, when a
Mr. Stuart, the city garbler, purchased the com-
pany's right in the garbling of spices and other
garbleable merchandise for £50 and an annual
payment of 20s.

The management of the King's Beam was also
entrusted to the grocers, this duty being not merely
an honour, but also a source of profit. The Beam
itself — that is to say, a steel-yard with weights —
was, in the towns, kept by the mayor, together
with a standard yard and a standard bushel.
These were handed over to his successor on change
of office, and thereupon the mayor by his deputies
would make inquisition amongst the tradesmen —
spicers and grocers included — to compare their
weights and measures with the standards.

Already as I have noted, in 1318 the hundred-
weight of 112 Ibs., and the pound of 15 ounces had
been agreed upon between the mayor and the
heads of the pepperers, as they were then called.

According to Strype, one John Churchman, who
was an alderman in 1393 and a member of the
Grocers' Company, obtained from the King the
privilege of keeping the beam and weights in the
house he had built on the quay in the parish of All
Hallows, Barking, for which the King agreed to
pay John Churchman 40s. at each Easter and
Michaelmas. It was not long, however, before he
transferred this right to the Grocers' Company.
70

PROGRESS OF THE COMPANY

He removed the beam from the custom-house, as
it came to be called, at Barking to Bucklersbury.
In 1898, a note on the company's books, which
enumerates the weights attached to this establish-
ment, states them to have been deposited in the
house of the community of the mystery of Grocers
in Hucklersbury.

Articles of all kinds were brought here to be
weighed, and from a tariff of charges at the
company's weigh-house in 1453, it would appear
that these included drugs, alum, pepper, saffron,
rice, cloves, mace, cinnamon, dates, ginger, currants,
cotton, almonds, wax, saltpetre, and various precious
woods. The fees charged varied from one penny
to twenty pence according to the nature and
weight of the package. In the following century
King Henry VIII. granted to the City of London
the management of the beam and the Grocers'
Company was authorised to appoint a master and
under-porter for the same, a privilege retained with
more or less interruption till 1897.

In 1463 the ordinances of the company, which
up to that period had appeared in Norman French
were revised and translated into English. They
provided among other things for the regulation of
disputes between members, and stipulated that
only by leave of the Master might the members
go to law on any subject.

71

CHAPTER VII

SOME PUISSANT GROCERS

IF I were to enter upon a chronicle of all the great
and noteworthy citizens who adorned the grocery
trade during this period, the task would bid fair
to be unending. To the credit of the trade be it
said, every period of its history has produced men
who have not only proved themselves to be en-
dowed with the highest powers of intellect; but
shining examples of benevolent and charitable
deeds prove likewise that they were men full of a
sincere love for their country, their fellow citizens
and their brother tradesmen. Whether we turn to
the voluminous annals of the City of London or to
the scantier records of provincial towns and cities,
we are struck with the fact that grocers have
played their part bravely in the history of our
country ; and that as often as not, due recognition
has been made of their merits by King or by
Commonalty.

Thus from the year 1231 to 1500 the illustrious
roll of Lord Mayors of the City of London included
the names of thirty-nine grocers who filled the
72

SOME PUISSANT GROCERS

chief magistracy, many of them serving more than
once in that exalted office. Foremost among these
was Andrew Bokerel, Pepperer, who during the
years 1281 to 12.36 and a part of 1287 was Mayor
of London (the title of " Lord " was then not yet
added to the designation of the City's chief). He
was of Italian extraction, his name having been
anglicised in England.

Bucklersbury, which we have seen was anciently
a street inhabited by grocers, was named after him.
It is curious to note, in view of the fact that by
hereditary right the Lord Mayors still officiate as
butlers at the coronation of the Sovereign, that
Andreas Bocherelli appeared in that capacity at the
coronation of Queen Eleanor. He died during his
mayoralty in 1287.

Passing over various citizens and pepperers who
sat in the mayoral chair, including John de
Grantham, we next note the name of Andrew
Aubrey (1839-1840) who is stated to have held
the confidence of his Sovereign and the esteem of
his fellow citizens to an extraordinary degree, and
to whom, as has already been mentioned, the king,
when he went abroad, committed unusual powers
for the preservation of good order in the City.

We have also seen that Nicolas Brembre, who
was most active not only in municipal but also in
national affairs in the troublous reign of Richard II.,
received the honour of knighthood from the hands
of that monarch at the same time as another City

78

THE GROCERY TRADE

worthy, Sir William Walworth. Reference should
also be made to Sir Thos. Knolles, a merchant
grocer of the period and one whose name is pre-
eminently connected with the Guildhall, the re-
building of this edifice having commenced during
his second year of official life as Lord Mayor in
1410. His financial position may be judged from
the fact that he frequently advanced loans to meet
the king's necessities and is otherwise described as
a great public benefactor. He gave the Grocers'
Company his house for the relief of the poor for
ever. He also caused "sweet water to be con-
veyed to the gate of Newgate and Ludgate for
relief of the prisoners there," as the old chronicler
informs us ; prisoners in those days being locked
up in the strong gate-houses with which the walls
of the City, as in the case of other places, were
guarded. It is noteworthy that from this
grocer, mayor, and alderman of Dowgate Ward
descended the Earls of Banbury.

A notable worthy, too, was Robert Chicheley,
born in the latter part of the fourteenth century,
and brother of Henry Chicheley, Archbishop of
Canterbury. His father lived at Higham Ferrars
in Northamptonshire and was reputed to be of
humble origin. It is on record that one of the
courtiers of Henry VI. sent a messenger to his
brother, the Archbishop, with a present of a rag pie
as a scornful reminder of his birth. The prelate,
having received the messenger, desired him to
74

SOME PUISSANT GROCERS

return his thanks to his Majesty for reminding
him of a worthy and affectionate parent, and to
inform him that he should constantly pray that
the King might out-distance his father in prowess
and virtue as he had done his in honour and prefer-
ments. Robert Chicheley became a grocer, and
lived in the parish of St. James, Garlick Hythe, in
London. Baron Heath records that: — "by his
great application to business and industry he be-
came possessed of great wealth, and by means
of his fair character attained great importance
among his fellow citizens."

His London home was in the Vintry but he
also resided at Romford. He became Lord Mayor
in 1411, and was again elected in 1421. Like
many of his predecessors, he was esteemed for his
many generous actions. He gave to the parish of
St Stephen, Walbrook, a large flat ground whereon
to build their church and, on laying the foundation-
stone, the following year, gave one hundred pounds
towards the expense of building. His will also
made generous charitable provision for the poor,
providing as it did that two thousand four hundred
poor householders in the City should have "a
competent dinner " on his birthday and 2d. each.
He was a great benefactor to the parish of
St. James, Garlick Hythe, to the hospital of
Higham Ferrars, to the chapel of Hornchurch,
Romford, and to the poor of his blood in the
parishes of Higham Ferrars and Suldrop. He was

75

THE GROCERY TRADE

an ancestor of Viscount Strangford, A member
of the Grocers' Company, he received the honour
of knighthood during his term of office as Mayor
in 1421. Like his brother he took part in public
life, occupied the position of Master of the Grocers
Company on three occasions (1385, 1396 and 1406)
represented the City in Parliament (1398) and
served as sheriff in 1409-10. His brother William
Chicheley was also a grocer in London and made
sufficient money to purchase the manor of Wool-
wich, dying a rich landowner.

In 1418, the Mayor was Sir William Sevenoke,
who was so-called from having been a foundling of
Sevenoaks, Kent. He was apprenticed in London
and afterwards rose to prosperity. Out of gratitude
towards those who had helped him he founded
in Sevenoaks a free Grammar School and almshouses
for twenty people. In Johnson's " Nine Worthies
of London," he is referred to as one who :

To please the honest care my master tooke
I did refuse no toyle nor drudging payne,
My hands no labour ever yet forsooke
Whereby I might increase my Master's gayne.
Thus Sevenoke lived, for so they calde my name,
Till Heaven did place me in a better frame.

After his apprenticeship had expired, he joined the
army, and fought for king and country in the wars
with France, returning to England again after the
battles had been fought and won.
76

SOME PUISSANT GROCERS

For when my soldier's fame was laid aside,
To be a grocer once again I fram'de ;

And lie- uhich rules above my steps did guide
That through his wealth, Sevenoke in time was fanftle
To be Lord Maior of London l>v degree
Where justice made me sway with ctjuitic.

There is a curious point of contact between this
honourable member of the trade and the times in
which we live. It was under his chieftainship, in
1419, that a regulation was made prohibiting the
sergeants and other officers of the Mayor, Sheriffs
or City from begging for Christmas gifts. If the
regulation is still in force, the City may be said to
have done in the case of its own servants, what
Parliament has done some five hundred years later
for the whole nation ! Sir William Sevenoke was
buried in St. Martin's Church, Ludgate.

The next notable grocer mayor in this period
was Sir Stephen Browne, a native of Newcastle-
on-Tyne. Fuller in his " Worthies of England "
devoted the following interesting note to this
particular worthy : —

'* Stephen Brown, Grocer, son of John Brown,
was born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in this county
(i.e., Northumberland), afterwards knighted, and
made Lord Mayor of London in 1438, in which
year happened a great and general famine caused
by much unseasonable weather, but more by
some Huckstering Husbaudmeu who properly

77

THE GROCERY TRADE

may be termed knaves in grain insomuch that
wheat was sold for three shillings a bushel
(intolerable according to the standard of those
times), and poor people were forced to make
bread of fern roots. But this Sir Stephen
Browne sent certain ships to Danz, whose
seasonable return with rye suddenly sunk grain
to reasonable rates, whereby many a languishing
life was preserved. He was one of the first
Merchants who, in want of corn, shewed the
Londoners the way to the barndoor, I mean the
Spruse land, prompted by charity (not covetous-
ness) to this his adventure. It may be said
that, since his death, he hath often relieved the
City on the like occasion, because as Symmachus
well observed, Auctor est bonorum sequentium,
qui bonum relinquit exemplum." *

Later, as I shall show, the City Companies, and
among them that of the Grocers, made continuous
provision of corn against famine and scarcity. To
Sir Stephen Browne, doubtless, by the above
recorded action, is due the honour of having
shown them the way. He was M.P. for the
City in his time, and, according to Orridge, an
ancestor of Viscount Montague.

It will have been observed that in many cases
the grocer who rose to eminence and fame in the

* He who leaves a good example is the author of the
good deeds it prompts.
78

SOMK PUISSANT GROCERS

City of London sprang from the country ; sent up
t < > I ,ondon probably as a youth to be apprenticed
to one of the leading tradesmen and citizens, and
thus graduating through a seven years' apprentice-
ship in the greatest school of commerce the world
has ever seen. This is true of the next citizen and
grocer I have to notice in this period.

In 1456 Sir Thomas Canning, who bears a name
great in the history of England, ascended the
Mayoral chair. Canning sprang from a prominent
Bristol family, his father having been mayor of
that important city and seaport and also represent-
ing its citizens in parliament. The son was sent to
London on his father's death when only ten years
of age, entered the grocery trade, and became
Master of the Grocers' Company in 1456. Alder-
man of the ward of Aldgate in 1446 and in 1450
made sheriff, he took an active part in suppressing
the rebellion of Jack Cade, and petitioned Henry
VI. for remuneration for the expense he incurred in
" drawing Cade's body upon a hurdle through the
streets." It is said that in 1461, Canning and the
Corporation quarrelled, for in that year he was
" fined forty pounds and dismissed from office on
account of contumacy and disobedience to the
Mayor and Aldermen." It is worthy of note that
William Canning, brother of Sir Thomas, was also
a merchant of eminence in Bristol, and was mayor
of the city in the same year that his brother was
mayor of the City of London, so that the then first

79

THE GROCERY TRADE

and second cities in the kingdom were simultane-
ously ruled by two brothers — probably a unique
circumstance. Sir Thomas Canning is among the
ancestors of George Canning, Earl Canning, Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe, and Baron Garvagh.

Between this date and the year 1500, the annals
tell us of several grocer mayors who were knighted
on the field, having taken sides in the factions
which were finally fused in the person of Henry VII.
(1485-1509). These included Sir Richard Lee, a
native of Worcester, Sir John Young (M.P. for
the City), like Canning, a native of Bristol ; and
Sir William Taylor, from Ecclestone, Staffordshire.
The latter received the honour of knighthood after
the battle of Tewkesbury (1470). He is also
credited with having left lands and tenements to
relieve the inhabitants of his ward from paying the
tax called fifteenths.

Sir Thomas Hill, a native of Helston, Kent,
was Mayor in 1484. He directed in his will that
the water conduit in Gracechurch Street should be
built, and he provided for the cost of conveying
thereto the water to fill it. He had the honour to
meet in state the victorious Henry after the battle
of Bosworth Field, and, accompanied by the Alder-
men and citizens, to conduct him to St. Paul's,
there to make his thanksgiving for the fortune that
had befallen him. Sir Thomas Hill was buried in
Mercers' Chapel.

The foregoing are among the more notable
80

SOME PUISSANT GROCERS

grocers who attained to the highest dignity the
city has to offer. Hardly less worthy of notice is
Sir John Crosby, grocer, alderman, Royal Com-
missioner, Warden of the Grocers' Company, and
M.P. for the city. In 1470 he served the office of
Sheriff, and a little later he was appointed to the
post of Mayor of the Staple at Calais — (then, of
course, an English possession). He was knighted
on the field by Edward IV. in the former year,
along with several others who had joined with him
in resisting an attack by the bastard Falconbridge
on the City of London. The next year he was one
of the Commissioners appointed to settle the
difference with the Duke of Burgundy.

Perhaps the name of Sir John Crosby is best
known in our own day from his having been the
builder of that edifice over which so much, alas,
fruitless controversy was lately spent, to wit,
Crosby Hall. It was estimated in the owner's
time a very beautiful building, being described as a
residence fit for a prince. It was the highest build-
ing in London. For some time it was inhabited
by the Duke of Gloucester, who afterwards became
Richard III. Sir John Crosby was one of the
most liberal of grocers, leaving many handsome
bequests at his death to various city churches, the
Grocers' Company, to the repair of Rochester
Bridge, and to London prisons. The following
inscription to him in raised letters appears on a
stone at Theydon in Essex :

i F 81

THE GROCERY TRADE

" Pray for the Soules of Sir John Crosbie,
Kynght, late Alderman and Grocere of London,
and alsoe, of Dame Ann, and Annys, his wives,
of whose godys was gevyn. . . . li toward the

makyng of thys Stepyll, ao Vo que

d'ni, 1520."

London was not alone in producing public-spirited
men from the ranks of the grocery trade. In
other cities, such as York and Norwich, we find in
the records a continuous succession of these traders
as Lord Mayors and Sheriffs, the mayoralty being
frequently the prize and the burden attained by
the grocer anxious to serve his day and generation.
As Lord Mayors of York we find the following
grocers prominent in the annals of the city : Robert
Hancock (1488), Robert Johnson (1496), and
George Essex (1509).

Thus, until the end of the mediaeval period,
whilst England was becoming a great commercial
country, a nation of shopkeepers, a land of great
and fair cities, the grocer had his full share in the
life of the time, whether as merchant, or as a
sharer in the municipal honours and dignities. He
was incorporated in his Society; he regulated
trade and the purity and quality of goods sold ; he
fixed prices ; he ordained that a severe apprentice-
ship of seven long years should be the mode of
entrance into the trade ; and he had a good conceit
of himself and a high estimation of the part in life
82

SOME PUISSANT GROCERS

he was called on to play. Moreover, he was
jealous for the well-being and privileges of the
trade ; he watched over its honour and integrity,
and suffered no one by knavery or chicanery to
bring it into contempt. And in his way, he was
also deeply religious, putting his trade under the
protection of a patron saint — St. Anthony — as the
manner then was, celebrating his feast-day, not
only with cheer in plenty, but with pious ob-
servance; maintaining his Chaplain, — and, above
all, providing for the necessities of the needy and
unfortunate brethren and reverently following
their bodies to the tomb when their labours were
ended.

CHAPTER VIII
MEDIAEVAL PERIOD

IN the foregoing chapters we have endeavoured
to gather, from the mass of general information
which exists, although not all of it yet accessible
to any but the student — such indications of
the life and work, and condition of the grocers
as are scattered up and down the pages of the
records. Our work has brought us to the close of
the mediaeval period. Now, before entering upon
the task of tracing the trade through later times, a
chapter must be devoted to summing up and
illustrating the results attained.

One most salient feature which cannot be too
greatly emphasised as characterising trade in the
mediseval period, is that it was a time of thorough-
going " protection," of monopolies and close pre-
serves. Not only in London but in the provincial
towns and cities such as Bristol, Norwich, New-
castle-on-Tyne, Canterbury and Nottingham, the
traders in general, and the grocers in particular,
were obliged to belong to the " Company " or
guild which presented either a group of more or
84

MEDIAEVAL PERIOD

less closely allied trades, or the one trade by itself.
We have already had ample evidence on this point
as regards London, with its Grocers' Company ;
and similar evidence can easily be produced with
respect to the other places.

In this connection, it is also interesting to note
the powers and privileges of the master grocers,
with regard to those of the journeymen or assistants,
who, starting life as apprentices, afterwards, before
becoming master-men themselves, worked for a
wage in the warehouses and shops. Little informa-
tion is forthcoming on this subject, but it is
evident that the companies, including, of course,
the " Grocers," had full power over everything
concerning their craft, and resented any attempt
on the part of the journeymen to form societies for
their own protection. But, although the journey-
men were bound by oath not to form any con-
federation among themselves, many attempts were
made to form societies for mutual protection, a
lesson in combination being thus taken from the
employers. Such was the attempt of the saddlers'
men to form a religious fraternity in 1383.

According to the masters, however, this was
but "a certain feigned colour of sancity" under
which the men merely wasted their masters' time
and conspired " to raise wages greatly in excess " ;
and in fact in the space of thirteen years they had
increased them to twice or three times the old
customary rate. These proceedings were subse-

85

THE GROCER V TRADE

quently put down with a high hand by agreement
between the mayor and aldermen and the masters,
and the meetings were forbidden for the future,
and it was likewise ordered that the serving-men
should be under the masters, and that the " masters
must treat and govern" as in all other trades.
Similar attempts also took place in other towns
and amongst other classes of workers, but always
the fear of the municipal authorities hung over
the heads of the journeymen whenever they were
tempted to agitate on their own behalf. They
were bound by the rules of their craft, and these
rules, when once entered on the city records, became
an admitted part of the city statutes, to be enforced
by the authority of the whole community. The
masters found their jurisdiction recognised and
enforced, and might call on the mayor " if the men
are rebels or contrarious and will not work," to
deal with them "according to law or reason."
Many journeymen left the city to open business in
districts to which its supervision did not extend,
but the laws of other towns and cities made it
extremely difficult for any other than freemen to
gain a livelihood as retail traders.

I have already pointed out that the only way to
enter the trade in those days was by way of
apprenticeship. It was an age that believed in the
gospel of efficiency, and it said, in effect, to the
would-be grocer or draper or butcher, " if you are
sufficiently ambitious to desire to own a shop you
86

MEDLBVAL PERIOD

must be prepared to sacrifice a definite number of
years in order to equip yourself worthily for that
position. The aspiring London grocer had first
to pass through a seven years' apprenticeship, and
at the end of that period, if he wished to open a
retail shop, it was obligatory upon him to become
a member of the Grocers' Company. He had to
find six reputable men of the Company to re-
commend him for the freedom and certify his
*• condition and trustworthiness," and on admission
he paid £2.

An apprentice then was practically a member of
the family of the grocer to whom he was bound,
and who undertook to instruct him in his trade and
to supervise his moral conduct. The apprentices
fetched the water in the morning — the apprentices
of mercers alone being exempt from this domestic
duty. They attended their masters at meals, and,
when the day's business was over, they would
accompany their masters at night with a lanthorn
and the ever characteristic club or cudgel. Stow,
in his old age, complained that all good manners
were changed, and that though 'prentices still
carried their clubs, they used them to break each
other's pates and they could dress as they pleased.

The premium usually paid with the apprentices
was £10 ; it had later, in the reign of James I.,
risen to £100, while no less a sum than £200 was
paid in the last century by a member of the firm
<>i Messrs. Petty, Wood and Co.

87

THE GROCERY TRADE

That the apprentices of mediaeval days had
access to large sums of money and were not always
too conscientious in the handling of the same,
appears from the report in 1341 of the arrest of a
grocer's apprentice by Geoffrey Adryan, spicer of
Sopers' Lane, who found the sum of £40 in his
pockets which he had appropriated from the
business. Summary punishment was meted out
to offenders in those days. This apprentice was
forthwith charged with theft, and after due trial
was hanged.

Many an interesting chapter could be written
relating to the apprentices and their doings. As a
body of young men they were ready to assert their
rights, and woe betide the unlucky individual, or
class of individuals, who aroused their anger. The
days upon which they gained their freedom were
given up to merriment, and to prevent lawlessness
the government of the city found it necessary to
compel the heads of business houses in every street
to keep on foot, at the head of the streets, a certain
number of men armed with spears.

It appears from a perusal of the Canterbury
records that quite a number of grocers aspired to
open business in that ancient town during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Thus in 1399,
William Chilton, spicer, was admitted as an " In-
trant " and paid an annual fee. In 1398, we find
the word " grocer " appearing on the records as
representative of the calling of Robert Coupre,
88

IfBDIAVAL I'KRIOD

who applied for admission, while, during the
fifteenth century, we find Robert Cook, Robert
Sk ipps, John Fyssh, Nicholas Curtseys, John
Carlyll, and Christopher Lyon all appearing as
grocers who sought admission to the city.

The prohibition on the part of local authorities
and companies continued for some centuries, and
as the records show, many a local grocer had to
pay profit to the merchant guild or trade company
ere he could continue his calling.

Many quaint incidents come down to us as
illustrating the custom of the trade in those days.
That the credit grocer was not unknown even then
we have one or two instances to show. Thus at
Nottingham in 1482, Matilda Dyvett, widow of
John Dyvett, a spicer of that town, brought an
action against one John Melton for goods supplied
to the total value of 17*. These included 2 Ibs. of
pepper 2*. ; J of saffron 3s. ; 1 Ib. ginger 2s. ; 1 Ib.
doves li'. 6d. ; J Ib. mace 1*. ; 1 Ib. sanders 6d. ;
£ Ib. cinnamon 9d. ; 12 Ibs. wax 5s. Qd. ; and
8 Ibs. whole salt 9d. Did this action reveal a base
attempt to cheat the widow out of a debt justly
due to the estate of her deceased husband ? It
would appear so; but it is satisfactory to relate
that after Matilda had proved the debt and com-
plained that the shifty Melton had often been
asked to pay and refused, judgment was given in
her favour. Another Nottingham grocer who
gave credit unwisely was John Ewer, who sued

89

THE GROCERY TRADE

Reginald Shaw for goods valued at 13s. 4>d., con-
sisting of spices and such-like articles. The same
John Ewer, by his attorney, also sued another
debtor, who, from his cloth, ought to have known
better than to be in the position of defendant, to
wit Master Hugh Martell, parson of the Church
of Torlaton. The reverend gentleman had in-
dulged in spices to the tune of 19s. 8d., and should
have saved trouble by paying for them. Here is
the list :

f Ib. Draget Powder . . I2d.

1 „ Pepper . . . .2/8

1 „ Ginger . . . .2/4

^ „ Draget Powder . . 8d.

1 „ Pepper . . . . 2/-
1 oz. Saffron .... I4>d.

i Ib. H Draget . . . 9d.

A salted Salmon . . . 2/4

1 Ib. Raisin Currants . . 6d.

% „ Cloves and Mace . . I2d.

^ „ Frankincense . . . 8d.

The parson, who probably prided himself on his
knowledge of the law, raised a quibble "that
the declaration was insufficient and uncertain"
as the dates upon which the spices, etc., were
purchased did not appear thereon. We are not
told how the action went, but its interest for us
is that it reveals what the grocer of the fourteenth
century dealt in, and the prices he made (of course
90

MEDIAEVAL PERIOD

in terms of the existing money- value) ; and also that
he gave credit and had sometimes the same difficulty
as his modern descendant in getting his money.

Matters of contention between members of the
same trade were bound to be settled without
recourse to law. The settling of disputes was one
of the functions of the company, provided for in its
rules and ordinances to which the member had
bound himself to submit. Thus the ordinance of
the Grocers' Company laid it down that by the
common consent of the fraternity no member
should take his neighbour's house if he were of the
same fraternity, or enhance the rent against the will
of the neighbour aforesaid, under pain of for-
feiting £10 as a fine to the company and to the
offended brother, to each £5.

In 145G a case occurred illustrating this rule in
operation, when Richard Haale and Thomes Hooes
were haled before the wardens of the Grocers'
Company and examined for the offence of en-
hancing the rent and trying to put Edmund
Tervyle out of his house. The offending brethren
had the grace to confess their fault " don contrayre
the good old ordenance wretyn" and were duly
fined according to its tenor.

The wardens had also power to fine members of
the trade for offences which would come under the
modern Food and Drugs Acts. We read of John
Ayshfeld who was thus mulcted, for offences done
in making of untrue powder ginger, cinnamon and

91

THE GROCERY TRADE

saunders, to the tune of 6s. Sd. He was duly
warned that in case he should be found in such
another trespass then he might expect a similar
punishment.

Thus it is plain that the tradesmen received
authority to rule the affairs of their own particular
occupation, and that to them was committed the
honour of the trade and its "good name and
fame." The channel by which these powers were
received was either direct from the fountain head
of all authority, the King, by an instrument known
as a charter ; or in London, as we have seen, by
delegation from the Lord Mayor. In any case,
the ordinances were approved and confirmed by
that high official sitting with his aldermen in
council assembled. However, the individual some-
times elected to "kick against the pricks,"
especially if he were of a choleric mood and
turbulent spirit. One such instance occurred in
1415, when, on March 21, one Thomas Maynele,
grocer, of Tower Yard, was summoned by an alder-
man and duly interrogated as to certain irregular
and sinister doings and sayings, and as to divers
damages, dissensions, disputes and losses, by the
same Thomas caused within the ward aforesaid, for
the purpose of reforming the same. The Alderman
in question happened also to be a grocer, viz., the
renowned Sir William Sevenoke, who was Lord
Mayor of London in 1418, just three years later.
The rash Meynelle, caring nothing for the doubtless
92

MEDIAEVAL PERIOD

excellent advice of Sir William, despitefully and
menacingly said to him that in all his actions it
was his duty to conduct himself well and honestly,
lest such an end should ensue upon his designs
as befell Nicholas Brembre, a man lately of as high
dignity in the city, and even higher than he was
1 Brembre was Lord Mayor, who was afterwards
drawn and hanged). On appearing before the
Mayor's Court, the rash grocer was fain humbly to
ask pardon ; nevertheless the court sentenced him
to a year and a day's imprisonment. However,
the magnanimity of the good Sir William Sevenoke
was here well displayed. He pleaded for Thomas
Meynelle, saying that if he were imprisoned he
could not look after his shop. As a result of this
generosity, the accused had his punishment re-
mitted, although he was compelled to find sureties
in £200 to be of good behaviour for the future.

Sometimes, again, as occasionally happens now,
the grocer was the victim of either open or cunning
robbery. Thus we have the curious record of a
burglary at a grocer's shop in 1406. One William
Hegge was caught red-handed robbing the shop of
Thomas Normanton's widow, which, considering
the sex of the proprietress, was a peculiarly heinous
crime. Thos. Normanton had been a citizen and
grocer, of London, and dying had doubtless left his
business to be carried on by his wife, possibly for
the benefit of his young son. The design was
imperilled by the wicked attempt of the burglar,

93

who nearly got clear away with goods and chattels
to the value of £46 sterling. Happily, he was
caught, and doubtless he received but short shrift ;
hanging being then and long afterwards — in fact
until fifty or so years ago — the punishment for far
less grievous offences.

On other occasions the grocer was the victim of
fraud. In 1418, a worthy member of the trade
was waited on at his shop in All Hallows paris,
Bread Street, by a plausible rogue who wanted to
purchase 12 Ibs of pepper, valued at 176*. The
would-be customer offered to do a barter by way of
giving in exchange twelve silver spoons and a
quantity of other silver and jewels which he pro-
duced in a packet. No doubt, the grocer's cupidity
got the better of his caution, for he readily assented.
Whilst he was preparing the parcel of pepper, the
cheat substituted another packet, which was loaded
with tin spoons, beans and stones. It was not
until the thief had got clear away that the grocer
found he had been cheated out of his pepper.
Such shady tricks are by no means unknown in our
own day.

How the tradesman, and the grocer in particular,
was regarded from the social point of view, might
well be a question in a study of this period. Of
course, the great City merchant-grocer, who sat in
the aldermanic seat and was so frequently also an
occupant of the mayoral chair, who bore coat
armour and received not infrequently the honour
94

MEDIAEVAL PERIOD

<>i knighthood, had always a certain reverence paid
him.

Sir Walter Itesant has been at pains to in-
vestigate this in his chapter on " Trade and
Gentility."* He regards the City Companies of
London as often having drawn their apprentices
from the younger sons of the country gentry.

There was always an immigration into London
going on, he points out, and the humbler kind
could only get away fron their villages by running
uxvay. He goes so far as to say that " it was not
by men who had been humble village boys that
great offices in London were filled, but by men
of gentility and of connections." He draws the
conclusion that the younger son of a gentle family,
from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century
at least, regarded trade in the City as a desirable
and honorable profession, that often very large
premiums were paid with the apprentice which
were quite out of the power of the " baser sort/
Thus he comes to ask the question " does trade
detract from honour ? " and in reply he quotes
several authorities, among whom is the learned
Camden. Speaking of the De la Poles, Camden says :

" William de la Pole, a merchant and mayor of
Hull, was made a Baron of the Exchequer.
His son, Michael de la Pole, became Earl of
Suffolk, Knight of the Garter and Lord Chan-

* Mediaeval London.

95

THE GROCERY TRADE

cellor. His being a merchant did not detract
from his honours, for who knows not that
even our noblemen's sons have been merchants ?
Whence it follows that mercatura non derogat
nobiUtati — trade is no abatement to honour."

Hence it is somewhat curious that the relatives
of Margery Patson should have so strenuously
objected when she designed to bestow her fair hand
on one Richard Calle of Framlingham in Norfolk,
where the Paston estates were situated. We seem
to infer that Richard Calle, although he held the
office of bailiff and steward on the Paston property
— an honourable post indisputably — yet also kept
some form of a grocer's shop. We find John
Paston, in a letter to his relative Sir John Paston,
write of his " ungracious sister " as follows :

*' to the intent that they shall pluck no comfort
of me, I answered him, that an my father, who
God asoyle, were alive, and had consented to the
marriage, he should never have any good will to
make my sister to sell candles and mustard in
Framlingham."

The intervention of the Bishop of Norwich was
sought to induce the spirited young lady to give
up her lover all to no purpose. The worthy
prelate suggested that there might be some flaw in
the form by which she had betrothed herself to
Richard Calle which would render it void, but she
96

MEDIAEVAL PERIOD

rejoined that she had fully intended and did still
intend to bind herself to the contract. It is with
some satisfaction that we learn from the subsequent
" Paston Letters " that Margery married Richard
and that the match was a happy one, in spite of
the " candles and mustard," although the Paston
family took a long while to get over what they
evidently considered their sister's mesalliance.

Society in those mediaeval days was differently
organised from what it is in ours, with a different
religion, different ideas and different methods
of realising them. But a great change was
to be inaugurated, heralded by the invention of
printing and of gunpowder, and the discovery
of new worlds beyond the seas. And one thing
which marked this was the great increase in the
number of those who wrote on all conceivable
objects, and whose efforts, thanks to the printing
press, have been rendered accessible to us. In the
stirring times which marked the disappearance of
medievalism and the growth of modern conditions,
there was occasion for the setting down in black
and white of voluminous records of all kinds and
these incidentally enable us to penetrate the mists
of time, and gain a clearer view of what the grocer
of the period was, what he did, and how he lived
his life.

o 97

CHAPTER IX
IN THE DAYS OF THE TUDORS

WITH the opening of the sixteenth century a new
era in the history of our country dawns. The
century which saw the revival of learning, the
Reformation, and the beginning of modern England
was ushered in with eager activity with the young
King, Henry VIII.

The world was on the eve of great discoveries ;
indeed they were already struggling to their birth
and upon no class of the community were they
to have more far-reaching effects than upon the
tradesmen, and especially the grocer. The great
seaports of the time were soon to witness the
arrival of argosies laden with the golden spoil of
east and west, in far greater plenty than ever be-
fore, Bristol in England, Antwerp on the Continent,
being, perhaps, the two most important ports of
arrival in the northern parts of Europe. Indeed
Antwerp was the commercial capital of the world,
to which the Venetians and others brought spices,
and silks, and a thousand rare and beautiful things
from the immemorial East. And as Antwerp
98

IN II IK DAYS OF THE TUDORS

was comparatively easy of access from London, the
grocers of that day, we learn, would resort thither
as to a market from which their stocks could he
replenished at first hand.

The intellectual activity of the time which was
then bursting into glorious promise of flower, was
paralleled by an equal commercial activity in
which the grocer was to have his share.

The records of the period are still too scanty,
from our point of view, to enable us to get a com-
plete and intimate view of the life of the grocer
in the earlier part of the century. But the main
lines of the picture can be drawn with some
approach to accuracy.

The London grocer would have his shop with
its appurtenances such as 1 have already described ;
and he, with his family, lived in the best rooms on
the premises above the shop. His apprentices,
who were regarded as part of the family, lived with
him, sleeping in the garret beneath the high-
pitched roof of the gable. They were subject to
their master's almost absolute authority, in which
he was supported by the law and by the
customs of the trade. Over the shop-door would
hang a signboard, representing the owner's trade
as a grocer, the most popular device adopted by
these traders being the sugar-loaf. In the street,
the varied London street cries would resound
in his ears, while in and out of his shop would
pass and repass the customers of the day dressed

99

THE GROCERY TRADE

in the gay and picturesque costumes of the
period.

The tradesman worked early and late ; trafficked
with the customers on the one hand and with the
merchants on the other ; gave up much of his time
in many cases to the civic life of the city and
extended his borders until he was perhaps able to
retire to Hackney or Clapham Common, and leave
his business to his son or to the husband of his
daughter. Occasionally he would indulge in a
brief holiday, when he would take his wife and
family, dressed in their Sunday clothes, to the then
salubrious retreats of Edmonton or Hornsey.

In those times, means of communication were of
the scantiest and most primitive description. The
pack-horses were practically the only means by
which bulky goods could be carried about the
country ; for the era of made roads had not then
dawned, and of course the railway was yet many
generations ahead.

With interests confined to his own little circle, the
country or provincial tradesman would know little
of what was happening in the exterior great world :
for the newspaper had not yet come into existence,
and but few could read. There was no cheap post
with letters pouring in every morning to be attended
to Until after the Commonwealth, at any rate,
but little business could have been transacted by
means of letter. Afterwards there came a great
and rapid development in postal business which
100

IN THE DAYS OF THE TUDORS

has continually grown by leaps and bounds until
it has reached the enormous total of which we are
nowadays cognisant, and with which we are some-
times even too familiar.

In the reign of Queen Mary we have a personal
record, in the shape of the diary of a grocer,
which throws an illuminating side-light upon the
social life and business habits of those days. For
the honour of his trade one feels compelled to
disown the diarist as a really representative grocer
of the period. In fact, lie was as much a pro-
ional money-lender as a grocer, judging by the
extracts from his diary which have been preserved ;
and as he lived in the same house as Thomas
Lodge, the dramatist, a contemporary of Shake-
speare, it is a not unlikely theory advanced by
one writer, that he was the original of the
Usurer who appears as a chief character in one of
Lodge's plays.

This grocer was George Stoddart, who was first
an apprentice and then a manager to the dramatist's
father, Sir Thomas Lodge, grocer, of London,
Alderman, and afterwards, in 1563, Lord Mayor of
the City. Sir Thomas Lodge seems to have been a
very easy-going grocer, who allowed his apprentice a
long tether and who left his manager very much to
his own devices. This was probably owing to the
fact that the " grocer citizen " was drawn into
giving the bulk of his time and his closest attention
to civic affairs rather than to his business. Strype

101

THE GROCERY TRADE

records of him that " he showed himself a magis-
trate of good courage " in a certain " passage which
happened to him on his mayoralty." It appears
there was then troubling the tranquillity of the City
a certain Edward Skeggs who for some misde-
meanour lost the freedom, but on making due
submission had managed to get the privilege re-
stored. He had also obtained the appointment
of purveyor to the Queen. Now it seems that
Skeggs had still a grudge against the City and
wanting to offer some affront to the civic dignity,
on pretence of requiring certain provisions for the
Queen's table, seized twelve capons, part of a con-
signment of twenty-two destined for that of the
Lord Mayor. He also added insult to injury by
making use of language not fit for the magistrate
of the City to receive. Lord Mayor Lodge, equal
to the occasion, made the contumacious Skeggs
restore six of the capons, and threatened him with
"the biggest pair of bolts in Newgate." Away
goes Skeggs to the Earl of Arundel, Lord Steward,
and makes his complaint against the City ; where-
upon that officer of the court writes a very
threatening letter to the Lord Mayor, " in such a
style," says Strype, "that I believe, seldom or
never the like had been sent to so great and
eminent a magistrate, and so immediate under the
Crown." It was in fact a sharp rap over the
knuckles, with a threat that if any hindrance to
one of His Majesty's officers occurred again, con-
102

IN THE DAYS OF THE TUDORS

dign punishment would follow. Lord Mayor
Lodge having friends at Court in the person of
Lord Robert Dudley and Secretary Cecil, wrote
them a very dignified and sensible letter which
revealed Skeggs in his true character as a man
whose word was not to be relied on, especially when
it was in conflict with that of the Lord Mayor.
This appeal however proved unavailing and Lodge
was finally compelled to resign his gown.

But to return to Stoddart who, as I have said,
was for many years in the employ of Sir Thomas
Lodge. He appears to have had a true miser's
perception of his own interest and managed
successfully to feather his own nest, at the expense
sometimes of his master and sometimes of the
people.

Stoddart 's natural keenness caused him to be
entrusted by his master with business journeys as
far afield as Ireland, Flanders, and even Russia —
journeys which, it need hardly be said, were vastly
different in Queen Mary's days from what they are
to-day. The writer (Hall) who has quoted his
diary and to whom I am indebted for it, declares
that Stoddart "must have begun life in a very
humble way." But this is not very probable ; for
in those early days, as Sir Walter Besant has
amply proved, apprenticeship to a London grocer
was what many a good county family thought a
suitable introduction to life for one of its cadets.
Stoddart at any rate had some capital of his own,

103

THE GROCERY TRADE

sufficient to allow of a part being invested at
interest, and also to keep him in funds on these
long journeys abroad ; and he made a verbal
arrangement with Master Lodge that he should
pay his own expenses, and charge them to his
master, plus interest, at his convenience. The
way he did it was to keep a careful account of
every item of his outgoings, charge it all up at
compound interest and a little extra sometimes for
profits foregone, and present the bill in a lump at
the end of seven years — apparently at the expira-
tion of his indentures.

In his personal expenses Stoddart practised rigid
economy. He paid — and duly recorded — petty
sums for mending his slippers and " showne "
(shoes), his '•doblyt" ( doublet), "houes" (stockings)
and gloves over and over again. He sometimes
borrowed money, too ; one entry showing that he
owed £16 and interest for four quarters to a
member of his master's house. But this was
evidently because his own money was better
employed. While his wages appear to have been
£20 — this at any rate is mentioned as his fixed
income — he had money out at interest on his own
account, and he was able to spend on an average
about £70 a year and still keep piling up his capital.
The extra expenditure may indeed have been a
mere matter of calculation, the means whereby he
entered into the company of the courtiers and
others to whom he lent money on his own terms—
104

IN THE DAYS OF THE TUDORS

the '• well-dressed roisterers on whom he preyed "
U the unpleasant phrase used by Hall. Thus we
find in his Diary such entries as " a payer of gloves
parfoumynge 19$." — a sum equal to several pounds,
reckoning as money is valued to-day ; — and again
"Dressing my hatte with the lynings 1*." ; "Dressing
my sworde," " riding hose 6*.," and so on. Thus
attired as any young buck of the time, with his
fowling-piece on his shoulder and his spaniel at his
heels, the young 'prentice would repair to Staines,
where he met, no doubt, kindred spirits in a higher
sphere, such as dissipated courtiers from Windsor.
Amongst these he plied a brisk trade in loans and
commissions, the profits of which were neatly
entered in his private ledger. He could thus
afford to lose occasionally at dice with his
customers, and we read such entries as " lost at
divers tymes at the dyce-playing when I was in
Staines 19*., ' or " for findinge of trevye when he
was lost turning ought of Staines 2*."

Sometimes he went over to Antwerp — then, as we
have seen, a very important buying and distribut-
ing centre for the wholesale grocery trade. He
recorded his expenses in this manner : " I came
to Andwarpe the 18th day of June in the morninge,
and my carfe began at the Inglys Hous the sayme
day at neyt. For my charge coming from London
to Andwarpe the 18 June £2 4s. 7<f." His losses
at bowls and dice he treated as items of business
expenditure — as perhaps they were ; just as com-

105

mercial travellers even in modern days have been
known to reckon such business expenditure as the
champagne lunch that has secured an order. He
enters : " Lost at boules sinse my comyinge to
Andwarpe 3,?. 2d., and at dyce at W. Robynsone's
10s." And so on.

Hall tells us that after recording all such items
as these for nearly seven years Stoddart one day
presented the bill to his master, who, he suggests,
must have been "alarmed not a little." But a
London Alderman was hardly likely to be greatly
upset by a demand for £758, which was the total ;
although he may well have been loth to pay an
account made up as this was. The chief items
were as follows, headed : " A note what money Mr.
Thomas Lodge, Alderman, doth owe me, George
Stoddart :

"£85, which I alouyd for the loss of syllver
which my Mr. made allowans for in Kg. Edward's
day for the ockapying thereof for six yeres,
£172 6s. 3d. For £23 wch. I ought for to have
for my going and beinge in Oirlande seven
munts, promysed by Mr. Lodge after the rate of
£40 a yere, wch. would have gained at lest
£46 11s. 6d.

" For the ockapying of £443 6s. Sd. for 3 yeres
and a hayffe, wch. woolde have gayned in
ockapying or other wyes putting forth at lest
£670 14s. 3d.
106

IN THE DAYS OF THE TUDOKS

•• For paying of £60 by exchange at 20.v. Hd. at
the interest ulouyed tlie Quynes Ms. agent in
Flanders, wch. Mr. Lodge ought to have pd. be
that he hud the other £60 at 21.v. and no,
interest pd. £8 5*. for a legosy wch. my Mr.
Prat dyd gyve me by his wylle wch. I have not
as yet reed., £3 6*. 8d.

" Item — my Mr. owes me for a wayger layde wth.
lice upon a boye or a girle, the wych I have
wone, so that he owythe me £l 10*. 3d.
" So the total dew unto me Geo. Stoddart wch.
Mr. Lodge owyheth me is £1198 -£758." (less
£443 6*. 6d., and more £3 6s. Sd., and other
items.)

The £443 6s. 6d. here deducted is the subject of
another memorandum headed :

"A note what mone I have ever reseyvvd if
thus sum wch. I demand of Mr. Thos. Lodge,
alderman, at this present daye."
This says :

" I have reed, of this sum here agaynst at divers
and sundry tymes as aperes by there owne hondes
£443 6s. 6d.

'• Itm More the doo demande of me, wch. ye saye
was pd. unto me, but I knowe yt not who lycke
cas as dyd apere by there owne byll wch. I tar
in peces in presens of them all, and promysyd
that 1 would paye yt when my Mr. dyd
allowe me my mone wych he sayth he will doo

107

THE GROCERY TRADE

wth. the helpe of God. Then of thys mone above
sayde I have spent in my ordynary charges as
was to be provyd, and as the arbitrers did
persey ve and no well, in this his servys and trade
nothinge thereof alouyed my of my sayde
Mr. Lodge, but dyd promys me afor them,
wch. was T. Stokmede, Fr. Robynson and
H. Hamaike, to alowe me hereafter, for that he
was nowe called to be an alderman and colde
not then doo yt but hereafter and yf God dyd
spare him lyf," etc.

Of this earlier payment also, more than half was
on account of interest upon the principal account,
which has been manipulated by the agent so
entirely to his own advantage that £44 6s. 6d. had
grown in three years to £170, and the remainder in
like proportion.

When Stoddart began business on his own
account he had in hand a capital of something like
£5000 (at present-day values) and almost as much
out at interest. In his grocer's shop he troubled
little about cash terms ; what he preferred was
credit at high rates of profit. And it is very clear
that he managed to evade the usury laws of the
day by not a few clever transactions. There is an
entry of £12 to " Marry Cotton, gentil woman, of
Hamsher" for two rings, the money to be paid
either at her marriage or her death, whichever
happened first ; and there appears to have been
108

IN THE DAYS OF THE TUDORS

(juite an aristocratic party (whose names he enters
as witnesses of the transaction) present under the
young grocer's roof on the occasion when the rings
were passed over. Sometimes hard cash was ad-
vanced in the form of a wager. Thus :

" Fras Robynson to G. S. 200*. lent him in form
following: — that F. R. myst give me £200 for
the sayde £10, at my coming from Russer. wher
one Inglys ship hath byne alredy and yf I marre
before I go thether, then the sayd Fransis must
repays me £20 agayne, and I must give his wyffe
a payer of sleeves of velvett, but if I deye he
must have it.

" Fr. Robynson owes me at my daye of marry-
ayge £20.

" Francis Bayer to G. S. 4y. 2d. and is so much
he must gyve me yf I have not young Mrs.
Lowson unto my wyffe, the aforesaide sum, an yf
I doo marry her then he is to paye me nothing,
and is for 2*. Id. gyven me in money, and he is
to pay me bubblell."

In a transaction with one .1. Fabyan, to whom
he advanced £80, it was arranged that Fabyan
should pay the lender double the sum if at any
time he played " dice or tables/' Another ex-
cellent bargain Stoddart made with the same
Mr. Fabyan was a loan of £400 on his bond to pay
twenty per cent, for it during the lender's life ; that
is, lie was to pay £80 a year in interest alone. As

109

Stoddart lived at least ten years afterwards his
debtor paid the whole sum twice over and still
owed it to the grocer's executors ! On substantial
security, and with the aid of the best legal advice
of the day, Stoddart was constantly discounting
bills at high interest. He sometimes made bad
bargains, as when he writes thus accounting for a
deficiency " in the waye of monee lente for corne
for the City," through the Grocers' Company, to
be received " when we can gyt yt." On the other
hand he discounted bills repeatedly for hundreds
of pounds at twenty-five per cent, interest, and in
one case, where the loan he had advanced amounted
to less than £600, he piled up the amount due to
himself to £1030 and sold up the debtor. In an
average year he puts down his liabilities at
£1096 105. Od. and his assets at £2148 3s. 4>d.
besides the profits of his investments in real estate.
He had a house in Buttelle Lane which he kept in
good repair with the assistance of the " tyler," the
" plomer," and other workmen ; and here he was
still living as a successful merchant on 'Change
when last we hear of him in 1572.

In the reign of Elizabeth, as all along through
the history of London, the youth from the country
continually turned to the City whose streets had
been fabled to be paved with gold, with hope of
fortune and advancement. In the long roll of
Lord Mayors, how many are credited with a
country birth and origin ! Doubtless many of
110

IN TIIK DAYS OF THK TUDOHS

them, as these records show, belonged to powerful
families- with London connections and had every
advantage with which to start and every influence
to assist them.

Occasionally however, we find, as in the case of
Sir William Sevenoke, that the poor and unknown
lad rises to eminence and affluence among the
grocers of the metropolis. This was the case in
Klizabeth's reign with John Sadler, a native of
Stratford-on-Avon, and one of Shakespeare's con-
temporaries, who came to London to look for a berth.
We read that " he joined himself to a carrier and
came to London, where he had never been before
and sold his horse in Smithfield, and having no
acquaintance to recommend him or assist him, he
went from street to street and house to house
asking if they wanted an apprentice ; and though
he met with many discouraging scorns and a
thousand denials he went on till he lighted on one
Mr. Brokesbank, a grocer in Bucklersbury."

Mr. Brokesbank was a Warden of the Grocers'
Company and one of the City grocers who had
protested against the granting of a monopoly in
starch, and was evidently a keen business man.
He granted Sadler an interview, but, " he long
denied him for want of sureties for his fidelity and
because the money he had (but ten pounds) was so
disproportionate to what he used to receive with
apprentices." After he had heard, however, the
discreet account he gave of himself and "the

111

THE GROCERY TRADE

motives which put him upon that course," he
regarded him more favourably and upon receiving
from him a promise to compensate with diligent
and faithful service whatever else was short of his
expectations he ventured to receive the lad upon
trial. Sadler so well approved himself, during the
period of probation, that Brokesbank accepted him
into his service and bound him for eight years ; and
we may safely conclude that the connection thus
established was satisfactory to both.

Upon the termination of his apprenticeship, John
Sadler entered into partnership with Mr. Richard
Quiney, a fellow townsman from Stratford-on-
Avon; and they carried on a successful business as
grocers and druggists at the sign of the Red Lion
in Bucklersbury. They counted among their
friends no less a personage than the bard of
Avon, William Shakespeare, and it is probable
that the many references in Shakespeare's works
to the goods handled by grocers were due to the
poet's frequent visits to the emporium in Bucklers-
bury. It was here that he would probably often
see unloaded the merchandise of Venice from
those

Argosies with portley sail,

(which) Like signers and rich burghers of the flood
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
That courtsy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings.
112

IN THE DAYS OF THE TUDORS

At tins shop he would hear the customers " call
for dates and quinces " (Romeo and Juliet), penny-
worths of sugar (Henry IV.), raisins of the sun
( Winter's Tale), rice ( Winter t Tale), mustard seed
(Midsummer Night" s Dream), nutmegs (Winter's
Tale), ginger (1 Henry IV.}, mace ( Winters Tale),
peppercorns (1 Henry IV.}, and currants (Winters
Tale.

He would also probably have heard from the lips
of his grocer friends the story of the Cheapside
grocer referred to in a previous chapter who was
executed by Edward IV. for innocently making a
pun on his shop sign " The Crown " and which led
Shakespeare to put into the mouth of Richard III.
when he instructs Buckingham to follow the Lord
Mayor to the Guildhall ;

Tell them how Edward put to death a citizen,
Only for saying he would make his son
Heir to the crown ; meaning, indeed, his house,
Which by the sign thereof was termed so.

It may also be inferred that when the poet
quotes Benvolio as saying to Romeo ;

In that crystal scales let there be weighed
Your lady's love against some other maid ;

or when he suggests in Hamlet, that

Thy madness shall be tumed into weight
Till our scale turns the beam ;

he was using illustrations gained through visits to
i H 118

THE GROCERY TRADE

his friends. Readers familiar with the Merry Wives
of Windsor will also remember that Falstaff in
making love to Mrs. Ford exclaims

" Come, I cannot cog and say thou art this and
that, like a many of those lisping hawthorn buds,
that come like women in men's apparel, and
smell like Bucklersbury in simple time."

It is to be hoped, however, for the sake of the
reputation of Sadler, that when Shakespeare puts
into the mouth of Achilles,

Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares,

he was thinking of some other and less respected
trader. Sadler and Quiney were active supporters
of St. Stephen's Church, but on being appointed
churchwarden of St. Stephen's, John Sadler paid a
fine of £20 in preference to accepting the offer and
on another occasion the partners lent the parish
£5. Although busily occupied with his business
in London, John Sadler never forgot his native
place and it is recorded that in 1632 he presented
to the corporation of the town of Stratford-on-
Avon two gilt maces to be borne before the bailiffs
and chief aldermen. Both Sadler and Quiney
were members of the Grocers' Company, and each
paid a fine of £50 in preference to serving as an
officer.

114

CHAPTER X

TRADE UNDER THE TUDORS

DURING the Marian and Elizabethan periods of
our history, the various City companies, successors
of the craft-gilds, fulfilling the purposes for which
they were called into being, attained a great height
of honour, wealth and influence. There came a
time when their monopolies had to be broken, but
in the period now before us they were still really
representative of the life of their respective trades,
and this meant influence and prosperity. We
must not imagine, however, that they were quite
uninfluenced by the general politics of the day.
It was of course a time when religious changes of
the period caused the Grocers' Company so to vary
their beliefs as to accord with the national senti-
ment. Consequently we find the company strictly
Protestant during the Reformation period, in
Henry VIIl.'s reign, whilst on the restoration of
the Catholic religion by Queen Mary, the company
appears to have reverted, at any rate temporarily,
to the Catholic faith, and incidentally came into
conflict with Bishop Bonner over the appointment
of rector to St Stephen's.

115

THE GROCERY TRADE

From various entries in their books, quoted by
Baron Heath, it appears that it was customary for
the Company during Mary's reign to repair to
St. Stephen's, Walbrook, to " hear dirge sung " or
to attend mass. On the accession of Elizabeth
the Protestant religion was at once re-adopted
and the books record the attendance of members
of the Company at St. Stephen's to hear divine
service. In 1563 the Company came to the con-
clusion that they would have no further use for
their relics of Catholicism and therefore ordered a
sale of all the vestments, copes, albs and other
ornaments "belonging to Church stuffe."

The Grocers' Company, in addition to looking
after the interests of the trade, were also called
upon to assist in the protection of the country.
By command of the King, precepts were con-
tinually issued to the various City Companies,
calling upon them to provide men or money for
national interests.

In 1557 the Grocers were commanded to find
sixty " good, sadd and hable soulders ... as well
for the suretie and safeguarde of their high-
nesses chamber and cittie of London as the
resistance of such iniquitious attempts as may
happen to be made against them by foreigne
enemie." Five years later, a further thirty-five
men were called for; in 1569 a further sixty, fully
armed, are requested " to march against the rebels in
the north " ; in 1574 the Company was ordered to
116

TRADE UNDER THE TUDORS

provide fourteen firkins of gunpowder, each fir-
kin to contain at least sixty pounds ; in 1578 a
demand is made for fifteen men for her Majesty's
ships, and in 1588, on the occasion of the threatened
invasion of the Spanish Armada, the Company
supplied on demand five hundred men. The Com-
panies had the power to press men into this service,
and it would appear that apprentices and journey-
men were often called upon to leave the counter
for the battlefield.

A sixteenth-century grocer probably found these
civic precepts a convenient channel for disposing
of any recalcitrant apprentices or undesirable
assistants.

In view of the foregoing, it is not surprising to
learn that the Grocers' Company deemed it ex-
pedient to establish an armoury and appoint an
armourer, an entry in their books recording the
payment of an annual grant of 13,v. -k/., and a
payment of one shilling per day to one John
Edwyn for his services as armourer.

The Elizabethan age is of special interest from
our point of view on account of many trade develop-
ments, amongst them being an important step with
regard to apprenticeship.

Under Elizabeth, stringent laws regulated labour
of all kinds, and it was particularly provided that
the door of apprenticeship should be used for
entrance into all trades and crafts then practised.

From time to time in the preceding reigns, laws

117

THE GROCERY TRADE

had been enacted regulating the form and manner
of apprenticeship, but certainly the most important
and comprehensive law bearing upon the mode of
entering an occupation was the Statute of Ap-
prentices passed in 1562, the fifth year of Queen
Elizabeth's reign. By this statute, which marked
a great advance on all previous legislation, it was
declared that no person should set up, occupy, use,
or exercise any craft, mystery, or occupation, then
used or occupied within the realm of England and
Wales, except he should have been brought up
therein seven years at least as an apprentice.

London and Norwich were exempted from the
operation of this Act, doubtless because the
management of the different trades and occupations
in those cities was already provided for by the
Companies with their Charters to warrant them.
By the same Act were established certain regula-
tions governing employment in general, which are
not without interest as bearing upon questions of
to-day. For example, it was laid down that a
testimonial must be given to the employ^ on his
leaving, for which the said employ^ was to pay
twopence ; the servant was to forfeit a penny on
being absent from work ; apprentices were to be
above ten and under eighteen, and in order that
there might be employment for all those who
desired it, a master could not take three apprentices
unless he employed a journeyman also ; and so on
in proportion. Hours were long in those days
118

TRADE UNDKK HIE TUDORS

cilthough before the Reformation there were very
tntjuent holiday^*. \iz., from 5 A.M. until 7 or
8 P.M., out of which two and a half hours were to
be allowed for meals and drinks I In summer the
hours were much longer than in winter. The
object of this •* Statute of Apprentices " was further,
to provide for the regulating of wages for every
trade by the justice of each district (of course, in
London this would be done by the Lord Mayor
and Aldermen) and no one was allowed to pay
more or less than the sum settled as the current
rate of wages. Among many regulations as to
apprenticeship, it was laid down that apprentices
to merchants and shopkeepers should only be
drawn from a well-to-do class. One result of this
was, as it was intended to do, to check the emigra-
tion to the towns, while it also maintained the
quality of the recruits that entered the grocery
and other commercial callings. This Statute of
Apprentices of " Good Queen Bess " was the first
serious attempt to regulate and organise industry
after the great breakdown of mediaeval organisation
which followed the Black Death.

During this period when the Tudors ruled the
rising destinies of England, we find that the prices
of groceries varied considerably. The Northumber-
land Household Book, relating to the expenses
of the Earl of Northumberland during the reign of
Henry VIII., gives some very interesting particulars
of the prices of the period. At a time when a

119

THE GROCERY TRADE

sheep could be bought for Is. 5d., pepper was Is. 4d.,
mace 8*., cloves 85., and ginger 4s. per lb., while
sugar cost 4jrf., currants 2d. and prunes l^d. per lb.
During the reign of Elizabeth prices went up.
The debasement of the currency and the destruction
of the monasteries during the reign of Henry VIII.,
coupled with the discovery of the silver mines
of America by the Spaniards, led to a general rise
in prices. Sugar bought for the household of
Lord North in 1577 cost Is. 3d. per lb., prunes
2s. per lb., currants 4jrf., and raisins 3d. per lb.

W. Harrison, an old historian also refers to
equally high prices. Sugar " formerly sold at
4>d. per pound," then (in the time of Elizabeth)
he says, fetched half a crown.

" Raisins and Currents were sold for a penny
that now are sold at sixpence and sometimes at
Sd. and Wd. per lb. Nutmegs at twopence half-
penny the ounce, ginger at a penny the ounce,
prunes at a halfpenny farthing ; great raisins,
three pounds per penny, cinnamon at fourpence
the ounce, cloves at twopence, and pepper at
twelve or sixteen pence the pound."

Stow tells us that grey soap speckled with white
sold at a penny and a penny farthing per pound
and black soap for a halfpenny per pound. It may
of course be borne in mind in comparing prices
that a penny was worth in those days several times
as much as it is now.
120

TRADE UNDER THE TUDORS

Sugar is one of the articles which came into
prominence in this period. Many glimpses of the
place which sugar had in the economy of the time
may be gleaned from contemporary records. Sugar
refining is said to have been introduced into
England in the reign of King Henry VIII. there
being at that period (1544) two refineries in the
Metropolis. At this time, however, most of the
refined sugar sold in England came from factories
in Antwerp, but when Antwerp, the commercial
capital of Western Europe, was sacked by the
Spaniards, the English refiners had a monopoly
of the trade for about twenty years and rapidly
acquired fortunes.

In 1589, Lord Burleigh, as representing the
Queen, wrote to the Grocers' Compay with reference
to the bad quality and high prices of sugar supplied
to the royal household. The wardens of the
Company, one of whom was Mr. Brokesbank,
called before them various retail grocers and asked
them for an explanation. The retailers laid the
blame upon the Barbary merchants, who appear
to have possessed a monopoly for importing
Barbary sugar, and charged them with bringing
into the country coarser sugars with the better
qualities, and compelling the buyers to purchase
some of each. They also charged them with
falsely marking the said sugars. The Grocers'
Company thereupon wrote to Lord Burleigh and
pointed out to him the disadvantage of the

121

THE GROCERY TRADE

monopoly and suggesting that if it were thought
desirable to continue the monopoly that they,
the Barbary merchants, be held responsible for
supplying Her Majesty's household with "good
choice and the best sugars at reasonable rates
and prices." There is evidence here of a pretty
bitter feud between manufacturers and retailers.

Sugar again came under the ban of the royal
displeasure in 1608, this time on account of the
high price. The troubles in Barbary had diminished
the supply from that quarter, and the Portuguese,
who had the main trade in sugar at this time, were
diverting it to other countries, on account of an
alleged high import duty. For these reasons, re-
fining works in the city were shut up for want of
raw material, and the price was raised.

In regard to sugar we may incidentally note
the practice of using that toothsome commodity
for purposes similar to those for which " palm oil "
is sometimes permitted to be used ! Thus in the
Newcastle records (for 1565) we find an entry that
the corporation paid 21*. lid. for " 4 lofes of
sugar " weighing 18f Ibs. at one shilling and two
pence per pound for a present sent to the French
" imbassyturs." In the Bath records under date
1587, there is an entry which shows that some of
the choicest wares of the grocer were purchased as
presents for the Sheriffs and Justices of the Shire,
including 2 Ibs. raisins at I4>d. the Ib. ; sugar at
1*. Sd. the pound ; a gallon of claret wine for
2*. 6d. ; and a pot of sack for 20*. The " eloquence
122

TRADE UNDER THE TUDORS

of the sugar touch" referred to by Shakespeare
was, in all probability, a reference to this custom.

During the reign of Elizabeth and later monarchs,
the grocers suffered, in common with other traders,
from the pernicious practice adopted by those
Sovereigns of granting monopolies to favoured
personages, whereby the manufacture or sale of
certain articles was controlled by individuals.

Students of English history will remember that
the monarchs of the Tudor and Stuart period were
frequently in need of money and that they often
adopted questionable means of raising the same
from the pockets of their loving subjects. Thus
Queen Elizabeth occasionally applied to the City
of London for the loan of various sums. When
she happened to owe her servants and dependents
money for their services, she would discharge her
indebtedness by granting them patents for mono-
polies. These they sold to others more directly
interested, and great discontent was thereby caused,
for, as Hume tells us, the monopolists were en-
abled to raise commodities to what price they
pleased and put invincible restraints on all com-
merce, industry and emulation of the arts. The
part which the Grocers' Company took in opposing
the grants of such monopolies, both in this and
the succeeding reign, is one of the most creditable
episodes of the Company's history.

" It is astonishing," says Hume, " to consider
the number and importance of these commodities,
which were thus assigned to patentees." Currants,

123

THE GROCERY TRADE

among the articles the grocer dealt in, were one of
these. A licence was granted " to trade the Levant
seas with currants only," the licensee paying the
Crown £4000 per annum. Salad oil was another
monopoly, the importation and sale being granted
by the Queen to an Italian in 1575. The Court of
the Grocers' Company took active steps by petition
to the Mayor and Aldermen, to protest against
this.

Starch was yet another article for which
a monopoly was granted. Starch was a material
doubtless then in great demand, if the size of the
collars seen in portraits of the period of both men
and women is any criterion of its use. For laundry
purposes starch is said to have come into general
use during the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth.
Stow in his annals notices the coming to London
in 1564 of a Flemish woman, Madam Dinghen
van don Plasse, with her husband. She was the
daughter of a man of good position and had
removed to England for greater security ; and soon
after arriving she started in business as a starcher,
acquiring a large custom among her own country-
men who had migrated to England. Her fame as
a starcher, and the sight of the beautifully starched
linen she produced, led to the more general use of
cambric and lawn, and consequently of starch to
stiffen them. The Fleming also took pupils whom
she charged five guineas each for instruction, and a
sovereign for initiating them into the art of
124

TRADE UNDER THE TUDORS

seething or boiling the starch. Stubbes termed
the new product as " a certain kind of liquid
matter . . . wherein the devil hath learned them
to wash and die their rufl's. In 1587 Richard
Young, of London, was granted for £40 yearly,
the privilege of making starch from the bran of
wheat The use of starch grew, until about the
year 1594 or 1595 it was already sufficiently in
demand to excite the cupidity of those who were
looking around for an article which should be a
suitable subject for the grant of a monopoly. In
that year Sir John Parkington procured the
Queen's Letters Patent authorising him alone to
make and vend starch. It was then becoming a
commodity in great request, and was vended for
the most part by the grocers, who in turn served the
chapmen and smaller traders throughout England.
The grant of the patent was eminently injurious
to the grocers. Accordingly, we hear of them, to
the number of thirty-nine, making complaint to the
Lord Treasurer, and speaking in this petition of the
assigns of the patentee " minding to enrich them-
selves very extraordinarily by the execution of the
said patent." In order to make the most of it they
had compelled the grocer to sell them such stocks
of starch as they had in their shops and warehouses
at the buyers' own prices, which was much less
than the starch had originally cost. If the grocer
were recalcitrant, his starch was seized and taken
away unpaid for. If the patentees or their agents

125

THE GROCERY TRADE

met with active resistance, the petition goes on to
say, the grocer was haled before commissioners
and required to enter into bonds in great sums of
money to buy all the starch he sold of the patentee
or his assigns. The grocers were also required by
the bond — and this shows the character of the
fetters which the grant of monopolies had the
effect of placing upon trade — not to sell starch to
any but to such as were licensed to buy by the
said patentee's assigns. The grocers did not object
to the first part of the conditions ; as they said,
out of their Company's regard to the loyalty due
to Her Majesty. But as to the latter condition,
they were persuaded that they could not yield with-
out compassing their own overthrow and undoing.
The monopoly was eventually revoked by Queen
Elizabeth.

The next phase of the Starch question occurred
in 1607-8 when a Company of Starchmakers was
incorporated. This new departure did not commend
itself to the Grocers' Company and we read that on
February 5th the Company represented to the
Lords of the Council, through the Lord Mayor,
the evils likely to arise from such incorporation
and they alleged among other things that the price
of the article had been raised from 15s. to 30s. the
cwt., that the grocers were compelled to buy from
the new Company at such prices and rates as they
shall limit and appoint, being threatened with dire
penalties should they refuse. They accordingly
126

TRADE UNDER THE TUDORS

sought, as freemen of London, the privilege of
enjoying their " liberty and custom of free buying
and selling in their trade in such ample and lawful
manner as is fitting and expedient."

Whether as a result of the action of the Grocers
or from some other cause, the incorporation was
suspended in 1610, and all domestic manufacture
of starch forbidden. This proved even more un-
satisfactory, and a proposal was soon afoot to re-
tocorporate the Company ; and eventually James I.
granted letters patent to the Starchmakers' Com-
pany on March 18th, 1622. The Company pos-
sessed a master, two wardens and twenty-four
assistants, but did not establish a hall. It is plain,
says Price, " that the patent for starch was issued
and re-issued as a means of liquidating the debts
of two courtiers whose financial circumstances were
desperate." The Queen joined in the general
scramble of creditors to realise upon inadequate
assets, intervening to prevent the performance of a
contract which bears the indication of having been
specially negotiated in order to make the con-
tracting parties preferred creditors instead of the
Queen. " The crown's financial interest alone ex-
plains the extraordinary vigour with which the
Council prosecuted offenders against this particular
monopoly." The ostensible object of the patents
was to prevent the consumption of wheat in the
manufacture of starch but evidence is not wanting
that such starch as was made under the supervision

127

THE GROCERY TRADE

of the Patentees was made with good wheaten
flour, and those acquainted with the manufacture of
this period recorded the possibility of employing
bran alone as a popular delusion which was fostered
by those who had no intention of foregoing the use
of flour.

A petition was presented to Queen Elizabeth by
Sir Thomas Mildmay in 1596 wherein he applied
for a monopoly to refine sugar on the grounds
that frauds were being practised by the refiners.
The trade, which was severely handicapped by
many other petitions at the time, was fortunately
saved from the iniquity of a sugar monopoly.

Two years after the incorporation of the Starch-
makers the ever-thrifty James had interested him-
self in a proposition to make soap " of the materials
of this Kingdom only "—a very specious pretext
for creating a monopoly. A Patent was granted in
1623 to two nominees of Sir John Bourchier, the
arguments advanced by the patentees in favour of
their monopoly being that English materials, i.e.,
bean-straw, pea-straw, barilla and inland kelp would
be used and the produce of the foreigner thus kept
out.

The patentees were to stamp all the hard soap so
made with the device of the Rose and Crown, " the
better to distinguish their soap from all counterfeit
soap ; " and they were further enjoined that, as the
public may be " prejudiced and damnified " by the
enhancing of the price, none of the soap so made by
128

TRADE UNDER THE TUDORS

them should be sold " at any higher or dearer rates
and prices than hard soaps and soft soaps of the
best sorts and kinds were most usually sold for,
within the space of seven years now last past.

The trade protested against this corner in soap,
and pointed out that the new article was both un-
merchantable and unserviceable, '* but," writes Sir
Edward Conway to the Lord Mayor, " His Majesty
thought the proposition of the Patentees reason-
able," and accordingly orders that the Court of
Aldermen arrange for a trial wash. The soap
was duly tested and the Aldermen under date of
May 2nd, 1624, after acknowledging his Majesty's
Royal favour " in that it pleased him to command
our service in a business of this nature wherein the
City of London hath particular interest as being the
Store House for all England of that commodity ''
repeated that :

" they were unable to determine whether it was
made only of the materials of this Kingdom or
not, but they found that with much labour, it
would, if used by skilful washers, wash coarse
linen as well as the ordinary sort of soap used in
the Kingdom, but they were of opinion that it was
far inferior to the best soft soap ordinarily made
in goodness, sweetness and merchantableness,
and they found that their servants and other
washing women, whom they had caused to make
trial of it, utterly disliked it"

I l 129

THE GROCERY TRADE

It is not surprising to find that with the offer
on the one hand of a diamond worth £35,000. and
the probable return to the Revenue of £20,000,
through a tax, and on the other hand this report,
the King should have grasped the former.

Doubtless this was amongst the " projects ''
which contributed to the disgust of Parliament and
led, in the same year, to its memorable declaration
that all such monopolies were illegal, whilst the
Lord Treasurer, Lord Middlesex, was impeached
and condemned for bribery. However the matter
fared in this reign, the soap-makers waxed strong
and prosperous in the next, and forty years after-
wards, in 1663, the Corporation agreed to recognise
their Company. On this occasion, the following
report was " openly read " :

" To the Right Hon. Lord Mayor and Court of
Aldermen. According to the late order of this
honourable Court upon a petition of the Mayor,
Warden, and Assistants of the Company of
Soap-makers, London, we have perused and con-
sidered the Charter of the said Company and the
Petitioners desire to have the same enrolled, and
their Company to be received into the franchise
of this City and are of opinion that their said
Charter be enrolled by Mr. Town Clerk, and
the said Company admitted and owned for a
Company of this City with these only limitations
that their present members also free of their
130

TRADE UNDER THE TUDORS

Companies be not taken off from their said other
Companies nor avoid any subjections to, or
services in, the same Companies without the
consent of the said other Companies or trans-
mission according to the customs.
" And likewise that the members apprentices
of the Soap-makers free of their Company be
made free of the said other Companies to which
they were bound. But that for the future it
may be free to bind their apprentices to become
freemen of the Soap-makers so to reduce all of
the trade in time succession to the said Com-
pany of Soap-makers for better regulation of
their trade and Society. All which notwith-
standing, we leave to the grave consideration of
this honourable Court, 19 May 1663.

" RICHARD CHIVERTON.

" FRANCIS WARNER.

" RICHARD BROWNE."

The Report was ordered to be entered in the
Records, and it was agreed that the Company
should be "owned and accepted" as a Company
of the City.

The Soapmakers never possessed a hall. In a
published list of City Companies issued in 1827
they appear as No. 71 in order of precedence, but
the Company has long since become extinct

181

CHAPTER XI
TRADE GOVERNMENT

WE have seen in the previous chapter that Queen
Elizabeth's reign was noteworthy, amongst other
things, for the passing of the Statute of Appren-
tices. The grocery trade was affected by it, in
common with other occupations and crafts, and
the only way to become a grocer then was to
serve a regular apprenticeship of seven long years.
That was by no means the only way in which the
trade was governed. The merchant or trader
could by no means please himself as to the price
of his goods. In those days the market was a
much more important institution than nowadays,
and in connection with market regulations much
may be learned concerning the policy of state
interference in regard to prices.

In 1534 a law was placed on the statute book
giving power to regulate the prices of victuals by
authority. This measure appears to have become
obsolete in a comparatively short time, for by a
proclamation of 1586 it was threatened to reinforce
its provisions, on account of what is described as
182

TRADE GOVERNMENT

the uncharitable covetousness of the great corn-
masters, who apparently were holding stocks of
corn in hope of a future rise, with the effect of
pinching the poorer sort of customer. The Privy
Council thus sought to protect the public against
those who would have made capital out of their
needs. The machinery by which such oversight
of retail prices was made possible was constituted
not only by the local justices but by officials who
had an independent jurisdiction ; that is to say, the
Clerks of the Market, whose power extended to
the holding of courts for the regulation of weights
and measures and the punishment of all market
offences. It is clear from a proclamation of 1618
that the duties of these officials, whose jurisdiction
extended to the grocers as well as to other traders,
was somewhat akin to those performed by the
present-day inspectors under the Food and Drugs
Acts. The preamble of this document recites that
although there should be a common standard of
weights and measures throughout the whole realm,
the fact was that there was immense diversity even
to the extent that " many unconscionable persons
have and do use several weights and measures,
with the greater to buy, and with the lesser to sell;
and do also use false and deceitful beams and
balances to the great loss &c. of our subjects."
It is therefore set out that the Clerk of the
Market ought to punish and reform the said abuses
and to

138

THE GROCERY TRADE

" set reasonable and indifferent rates and prices
upon victuals and other provisions, and see that
victuals be wholesome and of good condition."

The proclamation then sets out what duties the
said officers shall diligently perform and the
account they shall render concerning the same.
These include inquiry into all abuses of weights,
balances, and measures, and all deceits and abuses
of the various trades, including specifically those
of the chandler and grocer. Further the Clerk of
the Market ought to search out and inquire that
all victuals and other things offered for sale,
whether for the sustenance of man's body or for
that of his horses and cattle, be wholesome and of
good quality — and that they sell at and for reason-
able and moderate gains and not at unreasonable
and excessive prices. To search out and punish
all forestallers, engrossers and regrators, " who by
their inordinate desire to gain do enhance the
price of all things vendible " was also part of the
Clerk's duty. Trial by a jury of twelve men is
provided for in the court of this official, and it is
directed that he receive constant assistance from
the justices in the counties and from the constable
of every parish. In the towns some difficulty was
apprehended in the carrying out of these provisions
for the protection of the buyer — who, in the mass,
was of course much more in need of this kind of
legislation than the people of to-day, through the
184

THADK GOVERNMENT

great ignorance then prevalent. It was reported
that in the towns the greatest deceits were often
practised by the "Chief Officers" — presumably
members of the Corporation themselves — " men
who ought to reform themselves and others within
their jurisdiction." Special care was to be taken
on this point, and the names of refractory persons
were to be reported to the Council.

With the assistance of and by means of the
Clerk of the Market, it was possible to keep a
check upon the constables and even on the
justices. The grocer was thus continually re-
minded of his obligations to the public. The
Privy Council, through this organisation, could
attempt to administer the food -supply of the
nation, a work undertaken entirely in the interests
of the poor consumer ; could control prices so
that, for instance, the stock of corn might be
economised and made to last from harvest to
harvest ; and could check the operations of specu-
lative dealers whose own profit was their sole
concern, whether it injured the mass of the
populace or not.

For the better regulation of trade an Act of
Parliament was passed in 1555 by which non-
residents were not allowed to sell their wares in
any town.

" Whereas the Cities, Boroughs, Town Corpora-
tions, and Market Towns, did heretobefore

185

THE GROCERY TRADE

flourish where Youths were well-educated and
civilly brought up and were highly serviceable
to the Government ; but were brought to great
Decay, and were like to come to utter Ruin and
Destruction by Reason that Persons dwelling
out of the said Cities and Towns came and took
away the Relief and Subsistence of the said
Cities and Towns by selling their wares there ;
for remedy whereof be it enacted, that no person
or Persons dwelling anywhere out of the said
Cities or Towns (the Liberties of the Univer-
sities only excepted) shall hereafter sell or cause
to be sold by Retail, any Woollen or Linnen
Cloth (except of their own making) or any
Haberdashery, Grocery or Mercery Ware at or
within any of the said Cities, Boroughs, Towns,
Corporations or Market Towns with this realm
(except in open Fairs) on Pain to forfeit and
lose, for every time so offending, Six shillings
and eight pence and the whole wares so sold,
offered or preferred to be sold."

Government clearly thought it a duty to interfere
with and regulate the development of industry.
However, in London and other places, of which we
have more or less complete traces, this regulation
of trades was done by deputy — that is to say, either
specific trade organisations looked after the members
of the trade, or more extensive combinations of
traders were in existence for this end among others.
136

TRADE GOVERNMENT

Thus in Bristol there was the Merchant
Venturers Company, one section of which was
made up of grocers and the kindred trades ; whilst
in Newcastle the spicers appear to have been a
section of the Newcastle Merchant Venturers'
Company, mentioned in a previous chapter — where
the curious oath which the spicers took in presence
of the Wardens of the Craft, is set out In York,
also, it was the Merchant Venturers' Company
which exercised jurisdiction over the grocer, the
Charter granted to them by Queen Elizabeth con-
ferring power among other things —

(A) To admit into and make free of the
Company such persons as they should
think fit and convenient, who had served as
Apprentices for seven years, and had followed
merchandise for ten years :

(B) To rule and govern the members in all their
private causes, plaints, debts and offences.

(C) To reform, assuage, and pacify all disputes,
discords, and controversies between them-
selves, or between any other persons who
should complain to the Governor against
any of them.

(D) To make laws, and ordinances for the good
government, rule and order of all persons
intromitting, exercising, and using the art
and mystery of Merchants or Mercers
within the City and the suburbs thereof,

187

THE GROCERY TRADE

and also all persons who should show, or
expose for sale in their houses any wares,
goods and merchandise, from beyond seas,
except fish and salt ;

(E) and to enforce such laws and ordinances by
fines, forfeitures, penalties and imprisonment.

In Dorchester there were five Companies, the
chief of which was the Merchants Company,
comprising Grocers, Mercers, Haberdashers and
Apothecaries.

The traders of Devizes divided themselves into
three companies, namely Drapers, Leather-sellers,
and Mercers, the latter company including the
grocers, bakers and apothecaries. Under their
ordinances,

" no foreigner or stranger not being a burgess or
inhabitant of the borough and free of the fra-
ternity, to sell within the borough except on fair
days any commodities appertaining to either of
the trades included by the Fraternity, other than
corn, grain, victuals, wools, woollen or linen yarn,
woollen or linen cloth of their own making upon
pain of forfeiture for every offence forty shillings."

Several grocers rose to be Masters of this
company.

We have, happily, many traces of the position
and activities of the grocers of Norwich at this
period in the history of the trade. Here, as in
138

TRADE GOVERNMENT

London, the grocers were of sufficient importance
and number to be formed into a Grocers' Company,
and to have committed to them, as thus incor-
porated, the regulation of the whole trade as it was
carried on in both city and suburbs, receiving their
powers through the mayor, sheriffs, and citizens.

The Norwich Company was in existence and full
vigour during the sixteenth century (as also in
the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth)
regulating the conduct of the trade within the city,
and, as in London, providing for its members
participating in civil and religious functions. The
records of the Company during the sixteenth
century are few and scattered, but they are suffi-
cient to indicate the influence of the Company on the
trade in Norwich at that period. In June 1546 for
instance a meeting of the Company was held at
which an ordinance was passed providing for the
regulating of the grocers' weights and measures.
The entry in the Grocers' Book was as follows :

" Forasmoche as ye wardeyns had serchyd
thorowe ye Company, and had fownde moch
varyete of wyghts and also ye weyghts of ye
Guyldhalls is to be st ye lytest, agreed yt one
pfyght (perfect) pyle (pile) should be bowgth by
ye companye ; and whatsoever he be of that
Company yt occupye any other wayghts after a
certayn day not agreeabyll wt those weyghts, shall
be fynable by ye dyscrecon of ye Companye."

189

THE GROCERY TRADE

To open business as a grocer in the town it was
necessary to obtain the sanction of the Company,
and a record is extant of one Henry Holden paying
a fee of 20s. to " be allowed (to be) a grocer and
one of ye Company."

When it is considered that 2d. was the fee to a
chaplain in those days for saying evensong, and
that 5d. was the amount spent for dates, almonds,
and perfumes disbursed on a festival occasion, it
will be perceived that 20s. was a sufficiently large
sum to be a matter of moment.

The method adopted by the Company for the
election of officers is worth recording, it being laid
down that

" Ye too old wardens shall go by themselff and
chose 4 men of ye same company there present,
and there eleccon made and presentyd to ye
Company that those 4 men shuld by themselff
chose 8 more to them. After ther Elecon made
and presented to ye Company then those 12
shuld go together and chose first the Aldermen,
and then too of ye rest of ye hole fellowshyppe,
not beyng any of ye XXIII I Aldermen of ye
Citie to be wardeyns for ye yere folowyng. And
those Wardeyns newe chosen and ye 12 before
chosen to be called ye Counsell of ye Company of
ye Grocers and Raphemen for ye yere followyn.

It was further laid down that the ordinances of
the said twenty-four persons for the common -
140

TRADE GOVERNMENT

wealth and good governance of the aforesaid
fellowship, should stand and be obeyed of all the
said Company and Fellowship.

In addition the Company conducted a yearly
pageant in conjunction with the other trade
companies of the city — full particulars of which
I have given in chapter xiii. The Council of
the Company also determined that all the Com-
pany should hear mass yearly on the Sunday
after Corpus Christi day (the Thursday after
Trinity Sunday) and after mass should dine
together. Each person should offer a halfpenny
at mass, and for dinner every man was to pay for
himself &d. and for his wife 4>d. and every widow
6d. The members of the Company were to bring
their wives to mass and dinner, and all widows
whose husbands had been enrolled grocers were
also to attend.

The records show that the meetings for election
of officers and for assessment were held in the
spring of each year. At the assembly of the
Company of Grocers holden at the Black Fryers
May 8, 1534, Mr. Robert Greene was chosen
Alderman of the Company ; whilst two Wardens,
two *Assisters,' four Surveyors of the Pageant,
and one Bedell were appointed. An assessment
was made which produced 22s. lOd. This was for
the purposes of the Pageant and the way the
money was expended is detailed, including such
curious items as :

141

THE GROCERY TRADE

Sope to gresse ye wheles . . . Id.
Oryngys (oranges) ..... Wd.
A new Heer, w'a crown for ye Serpent . 6d.
For mendyng of ye Gryffyn and off ye
Father's Gloves ...

At that of May 5, 1543, it was agreed that
"every man beyng a Grocer Inrollyd in ye
Cyte of Norwiche shall ye Sondaye next aftyr
Corp. Xi day, come to ye Common Halle
Chappell at 9 of y* clocke in ye forenoone
and there here masse."

The most interesting particulars of this Company
appear however, in the Bylaws, Ordinances and
Constitutions made, ordained, and appointed at
an assembly of the Mayor, Sheriff, Citizens and
Commonalty at the latter part of the seventeenth
century. The document, preserved among the
Norwich Corporation records, begins with the
assertion that the power of making such laws, &c.,
within the City has been granted to the Mayor, by
divers charters and grants made by the Sovereign
at various times, and proceeds :

" Forasmuch as the Citizens of this City using
the Trade Mistery and occupation of the Grocers'
Craft being an Ancient Trade had and used in
this City, have complained that the said Ancient
Trade is now much abused and abased by divers
interloping and petty retailing Shopkeepers (and
other tradesmen) which are indeed no Grocers
142

TRADE GOVERNMENT

nor have been Apprentices nor served as Ap-
prentices or been brought up in the same trade
... to the great hindrance of the Grocers of
this City . . . who by means of such Usur-
pation of the said trade by (such interlopers
petty retailers) Weavers, Shoemakers, Taylors,
Masons, Hostlers, Young Women and Maids
fitt for service (and other tradesmen not being
grocers) are not, or in short time shall not be
able to maintain their families or to pay to His
Majesty such duties and to beare in this City
such charges to the Poore and otherwise as of
them are from time to time necessarily required.
Unless some speedy remedy according to the
Laws Customs and ancient usuages of this City
may be had, and the evills aforesaid may thereby
be timely taken away and prevented . . . It is
enacted, ordered, constituted and ordained at
this present Court of Assembly . . .
" That the Grocers and Raffemen called Tallow
Chandlers and Confectioners called Sugar Bakers
in this City and the County thereof which now
are ffreemen of the said City and doe now use
the same Crafts and Misteries and have bin
Apprentices or Hearafter shall Be Apprentices
by the space of seaven yeares thereunto and be
and shall be ffreemen of the said City shall from
henceforth be a ffellowship and Company of
Grocers of the said City according to the ancient
usages and customes of the same City."

143

THE GROCERY TRADE

The Assembly further agreed :

1. That no one was to be allowed to use the
trade of the Grocer other than freemen or widows
of freemen.

2. That every Grocer being a freeman might be
compelled upon notice by the Headman or Wardens
of the Company, to attend four quarterly meetings
during the year, " to confer and take notice of
things behovefull for the good of the trade."

3. That no Grocer should keep more than two
apprentices, or employ a boy more than three
months before binding him as apprentice.

4. That no grocer's son was to be made free
of the Company by redemption or purchase unless
he had first served as apprentice to the trade.

5. That searchers were to be appointed by the
Company who should at least four times in every
year "search in every convenient and suspected
places between the sun rising and setting, for
defective grocery wares and defective weights,
scales, and beams in the shops or in the suspected
places of all persons exposing grocery for sale."
Such searchers were to proceed against such
offenders according to the law. Any grocer inter-
fering with such officers or their assistants was
to forfeit 20s. for each offence.

6. Any person using the Trade or Mystery of
the Grocer should not either by themselves or any
third party directly or indirectly keep more than
one shop at the same time.

144

TRADE GOVERNMENT

Offenders were liable to a fine of 10*. for each
offence. The Ordinances also stipulated that :

" whereas many persons goe basely about wan-
dring in the streets and Market Place of the
City with Grocery Wares and sell wares in their
hands and doe otherwiles offer and putt the
same to sale by Retayle in Basketts and Poakes
and such like and sell their wares disorderly
upon Stalls, Trussells, Boards, Bulkes, and upon
the ground to the great hindrance of Shopkeepers
and Grocers that be Ffreemen of this City and
whereby many deceits and frauds may be
committed and not easily detected and punished.
It is now therefore further ordained and enacted
that no person by himselfe or by any other
person or persons for his or her use or benefitt
directly or indirectly shall sett up or use any
Booth, Stall, bulke of Shopp, Trussell or Board,
or make any other provisions upon this ground
or otherwise to lay or hang his her or their
wares to sell, or put to sale shall in the open
Market Place, or other streets of this City other
than decently within a house, a shopp where
they dwell, sell, offer, or putt to sale any
Grocery wares by retayle or shall goe hawking
after the manner of Pedlars or Petty Chapmen
about the streets of the City or Suburbs thereof
with any such wares to the intent to sell or offer
the same to sale upon payne of fforfeiture for
i K 145

THE GROCERY TRADE

every day and tyme soe offending six shillings
and eight pence."

Provision was made for the recovery of the fines
by officers of the City, and such fines were to be
divided into three equal proportions, one-third to
go to the Mayor of the City for the time being, to
be put into hamper for the benefit of the poor ;
one-third to go to the Wardens of the Company
of Grocers, for the using and benefit of the poor
of the Company ; and one-third to the person or
persons who first gave information of the offence.

An annual meeting was appointed whereat the
officers of the Company should be chosen, the said
officers to be sworn before the Mayor within a
month of their appointment. A rule provided
that the ordinances should be read at every
assembly of the Company — a rather lengthy
proceeding.

The ordinances further stated that the goods in
the selling of which the trade of a grocer was
defined to consist were

" raysons, currants, sugar, spice, sope, candle,
molasses, gunpowder, shot, match, tar, pitch,
rozen, tobacco and pipes, cotton wool, cotton
yarn, starch, blueing, rise, linseed, oil, white and
red lead, olives, prunes, figs, Spanish white alabas-
ter, alum, almonds, brimstone, lamp-black, and
candle-rushes, and such other commodities as do
properly belong to the Grocers of the City to sell. "
146

TRADE GOVERNMENT

It would be difficult indeed to get a better and
more detailed picture of the status of the grocer in
a large provincial town than is disclosed by this set
of ordinances of the period. That the ring fence
which lie endeavoured to build round himself, his
doings, and his trade was intended to make it a
close preserve is evident. The policy lasted for
some years after this date. It was bound, however,
to give way and become obsolete with the growth
of English commerce and of the population, and
with the increase of facilities in communication by
land and by sea.

The ordinance of the traders of Windsor may
also be taken as typical of the local trade regula-
tions of the time. This stated, inter alia :

" No Draper, Mercer, Haberdasher, Hatseller,
Grocer, Petty Chapmen, or other retailer and
victualler of all sorts, . . . the like whereof, are
not made or traded in this Towne only excepted
. . . shall show or sell upon the market and
weeke day, except faire dayes, any of the above
mentioned wares upon forfeiture, after reason-
able admonition [of] all such wares &c."

An indication of the privileges of the grocers at
the same period is given in an ordinance made at
Kendal, March 24, 1653, that

" woollen drapers shall sell all sorts of woollen
cloth including hats and bands, that the mercers
and haberdashers of small wares shall be counted

147

as one trade, that grocers shall sell grocery wares,
apothecary wares, dyeing stuffs and whatsoever is
sold by the hundredweight and gallon measure,
and that linen cloth shall be used in common
until some will undertake to manage that trade."

Similar restrictions appear to have existed at
Darlington, and we find a grocer appealing to the
bishop of the diocese for a special licence to trade,
the result being that the Bishop of Durham granted
him the following singular licence in 1661 :

" To all Justices of Peace, Bailiffs, and all other
officers whatsoever within the County Palatine
of Durham, and Sadberge, greeting.
" KNOW YE — that whereas we have been in-
formed credibly on behalf of Henry Shaw,
Yeoman, that he is a free Boroughman of
Darlington, and that he and his ancestors have
sold Grocerys and other wayres in Darlington
as a Chapman there, and that he hath noe other
trade or calling whereby he can maintain his

- wife and many small children and famillie having
only one small house in Darlington and having
been lately molested for using that trade not
having serued as apprentice thereunto by the
space of seven years contrary to the form of the
statute in that case made and provided and still
greatly fearing to be troubled for the same
WEE nevertheless hearing that the said Henry
Shaw is of good name and faime amongst his

148

TRADE GOVERNMENT

neighbours and having consideration of his poor
estate for diverse causes vs moving as much as
in vs is are content to lycence tolerate and suffer
the said Henry Shaw to vse and exercise the
trade and occupation of a Grocer or Merchant or
Chapman within the Town of Darlington afore-
said and elsewhere within the said County
Palatine of Durham and Sadberge not willing
that he in or for exercising the said trade shall
from henceforth be impeached molested, fined,
sued or any way disquieted by vs, or our suc-
cessors, or any Justice, Sheriffs or other Bailiffs
or Officers within the County Palatine aforesaid
for any fine forfeiture or penalties which by
reason thereof or by force of the statute there-
of to vs or our successors shall be due or
appertaining."

Traders in London were subject to severer and
more far-reaching restrictions, as will be demon-
strated in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XII
TRADE OVERSIGHT IN LONDON

THE references in previous chapters to the part
played by the Grocers' Company of London in the
development of the trade cannot fail to possess
more than a passing interest for trade students.

It is, however, in its more direct dealings with
and on behalf of its members that we find the cur-
tain raised upon some of the most interesting per-
sonalities and scenes in the whole history of this
trade. More particularly is this so towards the
latter part of the sixteenth and the beginning of
the seventeenth centuries. The Grocers' Hall was
then the scene of much animation and of many
exciting incidents. Grocers came and went, some
to petition the Company to act on their behalf
against the encroachments of the monopolists,
others to pray to be excused from serving the office
of Warden or Master. One would come to lodge a
complaint against an unruly apprentice, whilst another
would seek to defend himself against the charges of
the searchers of the Company. Another would be
seeking a benevolent grant, while a young man
150

TKADE OVERSIGHT IN LONDON

would approach to petition for a loan. On certain
days the Court of the Company would sit in solemn
conclave to hear cases and fine or otherwise punish
offenders. These leaders of the trade were very
jealous of its reputation, and they meted out punish-
ment without fear or favour. At the date in
< I nest ion the Company's powers and the way they
were exercised were by no means innovations, for
according to the privileges and ancient usages
of the Grocers' Company of London, the Wardens
had the power of entering the warehouses and shops
of all persons who followed the trade of grocers,
apothecaries and druggists, for the purpose of
inspecting the articles they dealt in, with a view to
preventing adulteration, and likewise assaying their
weights.

We read that in April 1603 the Members of the
Company were called together, " and the ordinances
were read to them with straight admonition and
warning given unto them to occupy good and
wholesome wares, and that they buy no wares
ungarbelled and also to take the allowance of trett
according to the old order and custom of the
Company."

There are frequent entries in the records of the
Company to show that the Wardens regularly
discharged their duty in protecting the public from
the sale of defective groceries, and in their travels
they examined the spices, prunes, figs, raisins,
treacle, and other wares with the keen and practised

151

THE GROCERY TRADE

eye of veterans of the trade, in order to see that a due
standard of purity and quality was maintained.

Thus a few years before the following examples
of their vigilance may be adduced :

William Johnson was fined in 1582 the sum of
ten shillings for having 6 ozs. of ungarbled cloves
in his possession ; Stephen Burton and William
Yrryll were found to have corrupt raisins for sale,
and these were confiscated and ordered to be burnt.
One Ralph King and certain others, &c., in 1571
were charged before the Wardens for dismeanours
in mingling starch with sugar, "and such other
things as be not tolerated nor suffered." They
were ordered to enter into bonds of £20 each
" That they shall not hereafter make any bisketts
but with cleare sugar onely nor make any comfitts
that shall be wrought upon seeds or any other
things but with cleare sugar onlie."

The task of supervising their fellow members
was not always a congenial one, this oversight being
often resented by the delinquent, as, for instance,
in 1582, when John Chean, who had been caught
with 27^ Ibs. of ungarbled cloves in his posses-
sion, had the audacity to suggest to the Court that
there was not a retailer sitting there but who did
not buy the like. For this " unreverent " speech
he was forthwith fined 40s.

Punishment did not always stop at a fine in those
comparatively rough-and-ready days. A case in
point is that of a cheesemonger who in 1560 was
152

TRADE OVERSIGHT IN LONDON

charged with selling " Measlle " bacon. He was
convicted, and in punishment of this offence com-
pelled to ride about London on horseback, his face
to the tail of the horse. He was then placed in
the pillory, and two large pieces of the " Measlle "
bacon were hung over his head, with a notice in
writing that he had been convicted in two years
for the same offence.

In 1611 the Company appointed John Mynshall
the Official Searcher at an annual salary of £5,
and he was authorised to "diligently and truly
search and survey the several markets, streets, lanes,
and other places within the said City, liberties and
suburbs thereof, and cause all such grocery wares
to be seized taken and brought to Grocers' Hall in
London, which he shall find there to be corrupt,
defective or unwholesome for man's body, and
offered for sale to his Majesty's subjects."

This official continued to do his duty for some
years to come.

Owing to the prevailing sickness in 1636, however,
the usual search of grocery wares was dispensed
with, but in 1649 it was ordered that the search be
again revived and evil goods destroyed.

In addition, however, to their oversight over
grocery wares, the Company also kept an eye upon
interlopers, and in 1601 a petition was presented to
the Court by certain retail grocers complaining of
" certain lewd and idle people uttering and selling
grocery wares up and down the streets which are

153

THE GROCERY TRADE

both nought and unwholesome, to the great
offence of Almighty God, the dishonour of this
City and a great reproach to your Worshipfull
Company." It was agreed to approach the Lord
Mayor on the subject, with a view to this abuse
being remedied.

In 1610 the Grocers' Company was called upon
to appeal to the Court of Aldermen of the City for
protection on behalf of one of their members. It
appears that Robert Phipps, grocer, had recently
bound as an apprentice William Filder for a term
of eight years, of which period he had served three.
His employer, Mr. Phipps, had omitted to enrol
him in accordance with the customs of the City
within the first year of his apprenticeship, and
Filder, taking advantage of this omission, had
obtained a discharge from his service, and had
afterwards, " against the ancient custom of the City
and the laudable ordinances of the said Grocers'
Company," and without seeking their permission,
engaged himself to a Mr. John Gibson, a mem-
ber of the Company of Girdlers, with whom he
had been employed up to about a fortnight before
the Christmas preceding, when, to the astonishment
of his previous employer, taking advantage of the
knowledge acquired during his term of apprentice-
ship, he had, with the said Gibson, opened a grocer's
shop, " to the great preiudice and hindraunce as
well of the said Robert Phipps by intisinge and
drawinge his Customers from him as of all other
154

I HADE OVERSIGHT IN LONDON

freemen of the said Company of Grocers, usinge
the said trade of Grocerye."

The Court of Aldermen, having considered the
case, ordered that the said William Filder should
from henceforth " remayne sequestred and be kept
at the Charges of the said Robert Phipps from the
dwellinge lodginge servinge or beinge wth the
said John Gibson in any sorte (otherwise then to
fetch his apparel 1 or other necessaries from him
;nul that wth an officer either of this Court or of the
said Company of Grocers) in such place and wth
such psons as Mr. Thomas Nutt one of the said
Wardens shall appointe, thinke titt till the said
Filder or any other frynd for him shall finde such
a sufficyent Maister free of the said Company of
Grocers and usinge the arte or misterye of Grocerye
wth in this Citty as the said Mr. Chamberlen or
Mr. Wardens or any of them shall like, aliowe of
to serve the rest of his said terme of Apprentice-
shippe yet to come."

The early part of the century under review found
not only drugs, but sugar and tobacco, engaging
the attention of the Grocers and of their Company.
In a previous chapter I have mentioned the intro-
duction of sugar, and the petition for a monopoly
of sugar-refining.

Some interesting correspondence of the year
1616 throws a valuable sidelight on the history of
the sugar-refining trade. Incidentally one can
gather from it that the Government held the Lord

155

THE GROCERY TRADE

Mayor and other City authorities in some sense
responsible for the trade misdoings of those within
their jurisdiction; that the office of "King's
Grocer " was an appointment then in existence ; and
also that the grocers of the time had to face a con-
dition of things created by the importation of cheap
sugar from Holland — so does history repeat itself.

In 1615 complaint had been made to the Board
of Green Cloth of the " badness and ill-condition "
of the sugar supplied to his Majesty's house.
The Board — then, apparently, as now, the depart-
ment which had the duty of selecting those trades-
men upon whom the orders of the Court for
various supplies should be bestowed, and from
which the royal warrants of appointment as
purveyors to the king emanate — took the matter
up at once, and examined Mr. W. Barratt, the
" King's Grocer," as to the cause. This worthy, like
the grocer of to-day, had probably nothing to do
with the manufacture of the sugar, and accordingly
stated it as his opinion that the fault was the
refiners', and that many grocers in and about the
City could testify the same. The Board of Green
Cloth accordingly wrote to the Lord Mayor and
Court of Aldermen requesting them to call
Mr. Barratt and others before them, and take such
steps for the making of better sugar as in their
judgment might be fitting.

The said refiners, however, were not willing to
take the allegation of Mr. Barratt, the " King's
156

TRADE OVERSIGHT IN LONDON

lying down. They formulated an
answer to the charges, and in quite the style of
modern times complained of foreign competition
as a contributing cause in the production of the
unsatisfactory sugar complained of by the Court.
They state that they made the sugar of good,
wholesome material, but that in making large
quantities some few loaves may be of second
quality, and that these are sold at a penny a
pound cheaper, though of the same substance as
the best. (Was this an attempt of the refiners to
imply that Mr. Barratt had charged the Court for
the first quality sugar and sent in second ?) They
went on to state that

" The best refined Sugar coming from the Low
Countries was much worse than even their
second sort, and caused much false imputation
upon their Sugars."

Clearly, here was a case of unfair foreign com-
petition, the foreign produce being palmed off as
English. Finally, Mr. Barratt and others, it was
alleged, had been forward in setting up strangers
and others in the City to supplant the London
refiners who, as was but natural in those days, re-
ligiously resented any encroachments upon what
they regarded as their own sacred preserves. The
sugar-refiners of that period, as a distinctive trade,
had no special status in the City of London, they
being principally composed of men who, not having

157

THE GROCERY TRADE

discovered success in other callings, had been
attracted to sugar-refining as a more profitable
means of livelihood.

The seven or eight sugar-refiners in London at
that date included Martin Freeman, an ex-salter,
Ralph Busby, an ex-grocer, John Juxon, an ex-
merchant tailor, Stephen Scott, an ex-haberdasher,
Thomas Juxon, an ex-soap-boiler, Gilbert Keete,
an ex-grocer, and John Short, an ex -ironmonger.
In addition to these English refiners there was also
a Dutch refinery in Duke's Place, run by Jacques de
Bee and Klin Renberry.

The refiners were not subject to the control of
any City company, no one had a right of trade
search, and as a result they conducted their busi-
ness much according to their own inclinations.

The English refiners, through not having served
an apprenticeship, found it necessary to employ
Dutchmen from Antwerp, the then home of the
sugar-refining industry, to undertake the manage-
ment of their works.

The Wardens of the Grocers' Company, not un-
naturally, had an eye upon this state of affairs, and
it was regarded as anything but satisfactory. In
the opinion of the grocers the said refiners not only
combined together to buy the raw sugar in bulk,
but they also agreed upon the selling price, in-
creasing it at their pleasure, regardless of the
quality, " to the great damage and prejudice of the
freemen " of the City.
158

THADK OVERSIGHT IN LONDON

Matters had reached this stage in October 1015,
when one Paul Tyn merman, a naturalised Dutch-
man, sought and obtained the approval of the
(Grocers* Company to set up a new sugar refinery
in the City.

The London refiners were much disturbed by
this development, and they petitioned the City
Council against it, urging that it was against the
general freedom of the City and the statutes of the
realm. They further urged that

" It is dangerous in example, for if way be given
to this man's desire in this particular, it will be
an encouragement to other aliens to attempt the
like, both in this and other trades, and a dis-
couragement to the endeavours of our own
nation, when without any necessity aliens shall
be set up and maintained to root the English out
of their trade, and in this particular the English
refiners make more refined sugars than the
Kingdom doth spend. The suffering of strangers
to have sugar houses in this kingdom will be the
decay of merchandise and therewith of the
shipping of the kingdom. . . . They will bring
in sugars for their own refining in their foreign
ships as they now at this time have done, which
will grow to the impoverishing of our marines
and a hindrance of our navigation. They do not
maintain their exportation (for the sugars which
they bring in) with the manufacturers of this

159

THE GROCERY TRADE

land as they ought by the statute of employment,
but do make their return of what they import
either by the coin and treasure of this kingdom
or else at the best upon their bills of exchange."

This seventeenth-century onslaught bears a
marked resemblance to modern Protection theories.

The matters were referred to the Privy Council,
but it appears that in the end Paul Tynmerman
gained the day after having promised not to stock
more than £6000 worth of sugar at any one time.

When, a month later, the complaint was made
by the Board of Green Cloth, previously referred
to, it was but natural that the refiners should seek
to attribute the blame to the new departure.

The controversy was renewed in 1633, when a
complaint was made by certain City merchants and
refiners that three strangers, John Gibbs, John
Therry, and James Therry, had set up a refining
house without Bishopsgate, contrary to an Order
of the Council of two months previously prohibiting
all strangers and sons of strangers from carrying on
the trade of refiners of sugar. The City agreed
to oppose the newcomers, and gave instructions
accordingly.

The refiners were subsequently brought under
the supervision of the Grocers' Company, as will
be seen later.

In the reign of James I. the custom already
mentioned of giving sugar-loaves as presents was
160

TRADE OVERSIGHT IN LONDON

still in vogue. Thus it was quite a recognised
practice with the Colchester Corporation (as we
learn from its records) to make presents of sugar-
loaves to persons of rank and state from whom
they expected favour and protection, and in the
Chamberlain s account we read of the best refined
sugar costing in the year 1607 2*. 2d. a pound, and
the second quality 1*. Wd. That upright and
incorruptible judge Sir Matthew Hale (1600-75),
who was ever deaf to private recommendation and
application from persons concerned in cases brought
before him, was once, when on circuit, presented
with six sugar-loaves by the Dean and Chapter
of Salisbury, whose cause he had to try. Malcolm
tells us that he bade his servants pay for the sugar
before the case came on.

The records of Chippenham also relate that in
1654 one John Steevens was paid £l 5$. for six
sugar-loaves, weighing 18| pounds, at 1.?. 4d. per
pound, which were presented by the town to
Colonel Popham. The books of the Grocers'
Company also record that on December 15, 1625,
" the Wardens were directed to present Lord
Coventry with 20 sugar-loaves," and such other
spices as the Wardens should think fit, to the full
value of £20, " as a free and loving gratuity from
the Court." Two years later Lord Coventry had
the freedom of the Company conferred upon him.

Turning to tobacco, the other great commodity

which just now comes to the fore, we may note

i L 161

THE GROCERY TRADE

that the " weed " was introduced from the East by
Sir John Hawkins, although the popular hero to
whom tradition assigns the honour of having been
the originator of smoking in England is Sir Walter
Raleigh. Various authors assign different dates to
its introduction. Stowe, in his " Annals," says that
" tobacco came into England about the twentieth
year of Queen Elizabeth (1577)." Taylor, the
" Water Poet," assigns an earlier date, saying that
" tobacco was brought into England in 1565 by Sir
John Hawkins." It was not long before its use
caught on, for in the next reign we find James I.
speaking of those who spent as much as £300 per
year on the weed, which he deemed noxious and
detested with all his soul, but from which he was
glad enough to draw a part of his revenue.
Snuff was also much used ; in fact, in a few years
the use of tobacco obtained over the whole
country, so that a contemporary writer could
assert that most men and women took their pipe of
tobacco every day with as much regularity as their
cup of wine or tankard of ale.

It was the grocer, at this period, who, besides
dealing in what we should understand nowadays as
"groceries," combined with it also the selling of
drugs, and now added the sale of tobacco to his
other goods. The grocer's shop became the
rendezvous of the fops of the day, anxious to learn
the secrets of the latest innovation and to acquire
the perfect art of indulging therein.
162

CHAPTER XIII
PAGEANTRY

THE sixteenth century, which I have strictly over-
shot in preceding chapters, was a time of great
activity and many changes. It saw, amongst other
things, the transition from the old " mystery " play
to the civic pageant. Now the civic pageant was
not infrequentlya trade pageant — a grocers' pageant.
There is fortunately extant a series of extracts
from Grocers' records showing the proceedings
and expenditure of the Norwich Grocers' Company
about their pageant from 1534 to 1570; also the
version of the play in use in 1538, and a revised
and corrected version used in 1536.

Anciently the pageant, as presented to the good
citizens of Norwich, had been provided by the
Guild of St Luke of that city. In 1526, however,
the guild presented a petition to the Mayor and
Council of Norwich praying to be relieved from
the burden of providing solely the plays and
pageants for the people on Whit-Monday and
Tuesday, suggesting at the same time that each
" occupation " within the city should take a share

168

THE GROCERY TRADE

in the work by annually setting out a pageant.
Such petition being agreed to, it was enacted that
henceforth every occupation within the said city
should find and set forth one such pageant as
should be appointed by the Mayor and Aldermen.
The following pageants were among those agreed to :

1. Mercers, Drapers,

Haberdashers . Creation of the World

2. Glaziers, Stainers,

Carpenters, &c. . Helle Carte

3. Grocers and Raffe-

men . . . Paradise

4. Shermen, Fullers,

Masons, &c. . Abel and Cain

5. Bakers, Brewers, Noyse Ship (i.e., Noah's

Cooks, Millers Ark)

6. Tailors and Bro-

derers . . Abram and Isaac

And so on right through the Scripture history until
we come to the " Day of Final Judgment."

The Grocers' was acted from a carriage described
as " A Howse of Waynscott paynted and buylded
on a cart with fowre whelys." It was drawn by
four horses having " headstalles of brode Imple
with knepps and tassells." The full title of the
play was "The Storye of Man in Paradyce," the
actors personified including The Father, Adam,
Eve, "The Serpent," "Doler," "Myserye," and
various musicians.
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PAGEANTRY

In 1505 an inventory of the "Properties" which
were kept by the Grocers' Company of Norwich for
the yearly pageant enumerates, among other quaint
items, " A Gryllbn, jrylte, with a fane to sett on
ye sayde toppe, a rybbe colleryed Red [from which
Eve was made ?], a Cote and hosen and tayle for ye
serpents, stayned, with a white heure ; and AngeiTs
cote and overhoses of Aphis Skynns ; and a cote of
yellow buckram wt ye Grocers amis for ye Pendon
bearer." Last of all there are enumerated " weights,"
which belonged to the serious side of lite, one would
think, rather than to the recreative.

It may be mentioned that the " Gryffbn," which
probably had some allusion to the Grocers' arms, was
painted and gilt. It was borne by a lad, and incense
was burned in it, probably that the smoke might
escape by the nostrils of the ferocious creature !

However, the whole custom fell into disuse
and the final destruction of the materials for the
pageant came about in the year 1570, when,
because the surveyors of the Company would not
pay for the house-room given for properties in the
gatehouse of one Mr. Nicholas Southerton, they
were put out in the street and allowed to become
weather-beaten and rotten. After six years of
such exposure the remains of the properties were
offered for sale at 20s., but no one desiring to buy,
they were handed over to Southerton in satisfaction
for his claim for rent. Thus ended the Grocers'
Pageant at Norwich.

165

THE GROCERY TRADE

In London " Grocers' Pageants " were to wax
instead of wane, for the Elizabethan and suc-
ceeding reigns were the age of London's civic
pageants. On all sorts of occasions there were
pageants, which were set forth with great magnifi-
cence and the quaintest of conceits. Poets were
engaged to sing the praises of the period, and the
day was one of merry-making generally, those
taking part being astir as early as seven o'clock.
Of these great popular spectacles not a few were
contributed by the grocers and Grocers' Companies.

On the occasion of a grocer being elected Lord
Mayor of London the Masters, Wardens, and
Assistants of the Company would assemble at
Grocers' Hall, as also would the members of the
Livery, the Batchelors, Gentlemen Ushers, and
Pensioners. They would be accompanied by
bandsmen and pages, and other attendants neces-
sary for the day's proceedings, each of whom would
be allocated to their different positions in the pro-
cession of the Foot Marshal. The pageants were
got up without regard to expense. The one
arranged for the Right Hon. George Rowles in
1617 cost the Company £882 18s. lid. Of this
sum £282 was paid to the designer, Mr. Thomas
Middleton, for his services, which included the
writing of the pageant and the furnishing of the
various scenes. It was customary for the Grocers'
Company, on the occasion of one of their members
being raised to the Mayoralty, to distribute broad-
166

\ IK ATI KK or THK PAGEANT, SEVENTEENTH ( KNTl'KY

PAGEANTRY

cast among the crowds assembled on those occasions
samples of the wares sold by grocers, such as
raisins, almonds, figs, dates, and prunes. A young
negro boy, gorgeously attired in an Indian robe of
divers colours, with a wreath of various coloured
feathers on his head, and with silver buskins laced
and surrled with gold, would appear seated upon a
stage camel, with two silver panniers, one on each
side, filled with all kinds of fruits and spices,
described as the " delicious Traffic of the Grocers'
Company," and at a given moment he would
scatter them abroad, it being the usual sight, to
quote a writer of the period, " to see a hundred
persons confusedly scrambling in the dirt for a frail
achievement of a bunch of raisins or a handful of
dates, almonds or nutmegs " (see Illustration).

In 1613 a spectacle, to quote the words of the
designer, " unparalled for cost, art and magnifi-
cence " took place at the installation of Sir Thomas
Middleton, grocer, as Lord Mayor of London. It
was called " The Triumphs of Truth," and took the
form of a water spectacle on the River Thames. The
pageant consisted of " five islands artfully garnished
with all manner of Indian fruit trees, Drugs, Spices,
and the like, the middle island with a fair Castle
especially beautified." Among those who attended
the Lord Mayor in the pageant were " Truth's
Angel," on horseback, in a raiment of white silk
powdered with stars of gold, and on his head a
crown of gold. He was preceded by a trumpeter

167

THE GROCERY TRADE

on horseback, while behind him followed " Zeal,"
the champion of "Truth," dressed in silk and
mounted on horseback, and holding in his right
hand a flaming scourge. The procession proceeded
from the river towards the City, encountering on
its way " Error," in a chariot, followed by " Envy "
who were speedily compelled to retire before
the onslaughts of " Zeal." The procession then
proceeded to St. Paul's Churchyard, whither it had
been preceded by the five islands previously referred
to. At this point a ship appears containing a
" King of the Moor," and his Queen and his
attendants. The King addresses the Lord Mayor,
and other speeches followed, after which the
procession proceeds on its way into Cheapside,
where it passes " the chief grace and lustre of the
whole Triumph," namely, " London's Triumphant
Mount." As the procession approached, the
Mount is enveloped in fog. Seated at its four
corners are " Barbarism," " Ignorance," " Im-
pudence," and " Falsehood." " Truth " commands
them to flee, and as they vanish the cloud of fog
rises, and is transformed into a bright spreading
canopy, and at the top of the Mount is seen a
figure representing " London," surrounded by per-
sonifications of " Religion," " Liberality," and
"Love." On either side of the Mount are dis-
played the charitable and religious works of
London, especially of the Company of Grocers, in
giving maintenance to scholars, soldiers, widows,
168

PAGEANTRY

and orphans ; while other emblematical figures of
"Knowledge," "Modesty," "Chastity," "Fame,"
•• Simplicity. " and *• Weakness" are set on various
parts of the Mount.

After an address from " London," in which the
newly elected Lord Mayor is exhorted to deeds of
charity, the whole procession moves on, first to the
Cross in Cheapside, and then to the " Standard,"
stopping at both places to enable the spectators to
witness a combat between " Truth " and " Error."
Another speech from " London," and a few words
of good counsel from " Perfect Love," who reminds
them that

He that desires days healthful, sound and blest,
Let moderate judgment serve him at his feast,

and the Lord Mayor and his company pass into
the Guildhall to dine. At the conclusion of the
feast they return, accompanied by the pageant, to
attend the religious ceremony annually performed
at St. Paul's.

The ceremony over, all return homewards, " full
of beauty and brightness." Another eulogistic
outburst from " London," and then a further dis-
sertation by " Truth," who reminds the Lord
Mayor that

I have set thee high now, be so in example,
Made thee a Pinnacle in honour's temple
Fixing ten thousand eyes upon thy brow,
There is no hiding of thy actions now,

1G9

THE GROCERY TRADE

and prays that he may continue the good works of
his predecessor with

Truth in thy heart, and plenty in thy hall,
Love in thy walks, but justice in thy state,
Zeal in thy chamber, bounty at thy gate,
And so to thee and these a Blessed Night,
To thee fair city, Peace, my Grace and Light.

Four years later, in 1617, another grocer, Mr.
George Bowles, was elected Lord Mayor. Thomas
Middleton, the dramatist, was again engaged to
write the pageant, and, with his eyes fixed on
possible future engagements, he referred to the
Company of Grocers in his introduction as " this
noble society where 1 have always met men of
much understanding and no less bounty to whom
cost appears as a shadow so there be fulness of
content in the performance of the solemnity."
When we recollect that the pageant cost nearly
£900, as against £600 spent by Queen Elizabeth
on her masques, and that the accessories purchased
or hired included 714 torches, 124 gowns, 183 caps,
288 staves for the whipplers, 124 javelins, 8 drums
and 4 pipes, 18 long swords, 50 sugar-loaves, 36
pounds of nutmegs, 24 pounds of dates, and 114
pounds of ginger, we can well understand the lavish
expenditure of the Company referred to.

No fewer than three dramatists aspired to write
the pageant for this year — Anthony Munday, who
had been responsible for the Fishmongers' pageant
the year before (the designs for which are still
170

PAGEANTRY

preserved by that Company) ; Thomas Dekker,
who is known to have arranged the Ironmongers'
pageant twelve years later ; and Thomas Middleton,
who succeeded in gaining the ear of the Grocers.
The Company paid Mr. Munday £5 and Mr.
Dekker £4 for their trouble in drawing up and
submitting their projects.

The pageant provided on this occasion included
three chariots. The first chariot represented a
company of Indians engaged at work on a Spice
Island, some planting nutmeg and others trees,
some gathering the fruit, some taking up bags of
pepper. The second chariot represented " India
supported by Merchandize and Industry." Into
the mouth of the latter the dramatist put the
following speech :

Where has not Industry a noble friend ?

In this assembly even the best extend

Their grace and love to me joy'd or amazed :

Who of true fame possessed but I have raised,

And after added honours to he days,

For industry is the life blood of praise.

To rise without me is to steel to glory,

And who so object to leave such a story ?

It is as dear as light, as bright as truth,

Fame waits their age, when industry their youth.

The third chariot represented a " Castle of Fame
and Honour," whereon was shown several memor-
able worthies of the Grocers' Company and former
Lord Mayors, including Andrew Fokerel, Alan de
la Zouch, and Sir Thomas Knolles.

171

THE GROCERY TRADE

The Pageant performed on October 29, 1681, at
the insurgation of Sir John Moore as Lord Mayor
was devised and composed by Thomas Jordon.
Sir John Moore was a grocer, and hence the
pageant is full of allusions to the trade, mingled
with tributes said by all sorts of allegorical cha-
racters. The first scene included the camel — albeit
" artificial but well served " — which is an animal
described as "proper for the Company's crest by
reason of its uses in the transportation of their
fruit and spices in India and other parts." The
negro with his silver panniers is duly mounted
on the camel's back — the populace would have
been sorely disappointed had not this accustomed
feature of the pageant appeared. Other symbolical
figures which accompanied the body were "two
virgin ladies," representing Abundance and Whole-
someness, their apparel being designed to represent
these two qualities as typical of the trade of the
grocer. The first, who carried a silver basket, had
a robe of white silk sprinkled all over with cloves,
and a garland of dates, with leaves and branches,
adorned her hair. The second bore a wreath of
saffron flowers intermingled with green leaves, and
in one hand carried an almond-tree, with leaves,
blossoms, and fruit. The young negro was common
to all the pageants, and the ingenuity of the
director chosen for the occasion was exercised in
varying the other details.

Other features of the scene were the representa-
172

PAGEANTRY

tion of a " Royal Theatre," built in the Ionic style,
which accommodated the Seven Champions of
Christendom, to wit :

St George for England St. Andrew for Scotland
St Denis for France St Patrick for Ireland

St David for Wales St James for Spain,

together with St. Anthony (for Italy) as the ancient
patron of the Grocers' Company, the latter bearing
a shield charged with an olive tree, with its leaves,
blossoms, and fruit. This figure, St Anthony, was
the speaker of verses arranged for him in his
capacity as patron to the Grocers. Besides the
Champions, the five senses were also symbolised,
each represented by a woman gorgeously dressed.

A second scene followed, introduced by the two
griffins of the Grocers' arms, ridden respectively
by " Jocundity " and " Utility," led by two pretty
boys. Here was doubtless a subtle allusion to the
two qualities which especially distinguished the
goods dealt in by the grocer. Eight figures
accompanied this piece of symbolism, typifying
Power, Prudence, Fate, Fame, Fertility, Integrity,
Agility, and Alacrity. The feature of the second
scene, however, was " a delightful and magnificent
fabrick worthy of an artful man's examination,
called the Academy of Sciences, on which were
placed learned philosophers, and prudent women,
including Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Diogenes,
and Dictima." Other figures were the Four

178

THE GROCERY TRADE

Elements and Four Complexions, represented by
" eight virgin ladies." Diogenes has his tub with
him all complete, and, issuing from it, addresses the
Lord Mayor in serio-comic vein. These topical
lines occur :

Truth is the same, altho' taught in a tub :
I have dwelt in a butt, in days of yore,
But ne'er taught in a currant-butt before.
The Grocers lent it me, and Fm as well
Pleas'd as if planted in a citadel.

Diogenes, concluding his speech, re-enters his
currant-butt, and the second scene thus concluded.
The third scene contains an " Indian Garden of
Spices," over which a figure representing Fructifera
presides, with four other delightful ladies to attend
her, representing Fragra, Florida, Delicia, and
Placentia. The costly and elaborate robes are
described as decorated with fruits such as oranges,
lemons, pomegranates, and " Indian fruits " of
divers kinds. The governess of the garden is
provided with a rhyming speech, which she ad-
dresses to the Lord Mayor. The four virgins who
bear her company are under her command, and

From India to London now their trade is
To please my Lord Mayor and delight the Ladies
You make your feasts on which we have been planting,
Then is it fit that Plenty should be wanting
In such a place as this. I have heard by some,
London's the dining-room of Christendom.
174

PAGEANTRY

A reputation the City seems even now to do its
best to live up to ! The speech concluded, several
planters, tumblers, &c., all black men and women,
appear on the stage and delight his lordship (not
to speak of the spectators) with their antics. One
of them •• Chanteth out this Madrigal to a pleasant
tune":

We are Jolly Planters that live in the East,

And furnisht the World with delights when they Feast.

For by our Endeavours this Country consumes :

Our trading is whirled

All over the World

In vast Voyages, on the Ocean so cuiTd ;

France, Spain, Holland, England, have sent men to know

Where Jewels are found ; and how Spices do grow ;

Where Voyagers with a small stock have been made,

By the Wealthy returns of an East India Trade.

From torments of troubles of Body or Mind,

Your Bonny Brisk Planters are Free as the wind.

We eat well to labour, and labour to eat,

Our planting doth get us both Stomach and Meat ;

There's no betther Physic

To vanquisht the Phthisic

And when we'er at Leisure our Voices are Music :

And now we are come with brisk drolling Ditty

To honour my Lord ; and to humour the City ;

We sing, dance, and trip it, as frolick as Ranters ;

Such are the Sweet lives of your bonny brave Planters.

Our weighty Endeavours have Drams of Delight,
We slave it all day but we sleep well at night ;

175

THE GROCERY TRADE

Let us but to obtain a kind hour to be merry,

Our Digging and Delving; will ne'er make us weary.

And when we do prate

In reason of State,

What's wanting in Wit will be made up in weight ;

They'l currently pass, I do simply suppose,

At them no wise man will take pepper i' th' nose.

No Vaunters, or Fawnters, or Canters, or Ranters,

Do lead such a life as the bonny brave Planters.

Of Cinnamon, Nutmegs, of Mace, and of Cloves,

We have so much plenty they grow in whole Groves,

Which yield such a savour when Sol's beams do bless 'em

That 'ts a sweet kind of contentment to dress 'em.

Our Sugar and Gums,

Our Spices and Plums,

Are better than Battels of Bullets and Drums ;

From Wars and Batta' ia's we have such release

We lie down in quiet and rise up in peace.

We sing it, and dance it, we jig it, and skip it,

Whilst our Indian Lasses do gingerly trip it.

This "brisk" song concluded, the procession
passes on to the Guildhall, and everybody repairs
to dinner in his order. Finally, the feasting being
done, his lordship, attended by a retinue of his
own Company, takes coach and is conducted to
Grocers' Hall.

176

CHAPTER XIV

GROCERS AND EDUCATION

ANOTHER respect in which the period we have
reached is remarkable, and especially from the
grocery trade's point of view, was the attention
then given to education. It was the period when
England felt the growing force of the revival of
letters which had been heralded by the discoveries
and inventions of the fifteenth century.

Even quite early in the fifteenth century
symptoms of the coming intellectual ferment were
showing themselves, and already the ground was in
existence and ready to receive the seed. Thus the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were in
being and flourishing. Certain great public schools,
still part of the glory of our land, such as Eton
and Winchester, were also seats of learning. The
monasteries scattered up and down the country, and
crowding one upon another in London and other
cities, often had schools for youth connected with
them at which free instruction in such learning as
was then in vogue was dispensed. It was felt,
however, as early as 1456 that the educational
i M 177

THE GROCERY TRADE

facilities of the day were insufficient. In that
year four clergymen petitioned Parliament,
alleging the lack at that time of grammar schools,
and praying leave to be allowed each to found a
school, " to teach all that will come." The peti-
tioners complained of teaching being a monopoly.
The prayer of the petitioners having been regularly
granted, a grammar school was founded accord-
ingly, which became connected with the Mercers'
Company, and bore its name.

But it was in the sixteenth century that the zeal
for education reached high-water mark, as proved by
the enormous number of foundations, reaching from
one end of the country to the other, which were
made at that period. The leading reformers were
not slow to advocate the extension of the work, as
the records they have left abundantly testify. For
instance, Latimer, in his well-known "Sermon of the
Plough," preached in 1548, says : " Why are not
the noblemen and young gentlemen of England so
brought up in knowledge of God and in learning
that they may be able to execute offices in the
commonwealth ? . . . If the nobility be well
trained in godly learning the people would follow
the same train, for truly such as the noblemen be
such will the people be. Therefore for the love
of God appoint teachers and schoolmasters, you
that have charge of youth, and give the teachers
stipends worthy their pains."

In this work of providing places of learning and
178

GROCERS AND EDUCATION

the means whereby it might be pursued eminent
grocers and citizens of London were not slow to
take their share. Thus in 1550 a merchant and
members of the Skinners' Company, Sir Andrew
Judd, founded Tonbridge School. By his will
certain lands and houses were devised " for the
perpetual maintainance of this school." Tonbridge
School still flourishes, its governor being the
Master Warden and Court of the Skinners'
Company, and its pupils numbering 400. About
the same time Bedford Grammar School was
founded by Sir William Harper, an alderman of
London, who conveyed thirteen acres of land for
its maintenance. This school is at present in a
most efficient state, with upwards of 900 boys in
regular attendance. So, in 1571, Harrow was
founded by John Lyon, spinner ; and, in 1597,
Gresham College by Sir Thomas Gresham, mercer,
We have already seen that the example of public
spirit and munificence among grocers had already
been set somewhat earlier by the good Sir William
Sevenoke, who, in conjunction with the almshouses
for twenty poor people which he set up at Seven-
oaks, Kent, built a free school for the education
of youth within that town, and endowed it with
sufficient to ensure its proper maintenance.

In 1553 Mr. Richard Beckenham, a London
grocer, founded in Guildford a free grammar
school for thirty of the poorest men's sons of that
town, so that they might learn to read and write

179

THE GROCERY TRADE

English and cast accounts perfectly, that thereby
they might be fitted to become apprentices.
This foundation, due to the munificence and public
spirit of a grocer of London, was not long in
showing its value, for one of its early scholars was
George Abbot, the son of a cloth-maker (born
1562), who afterwards became Archbishop of
Canterbury. Whether his youngest brother,
Maurice Abbot, who was one of the first directors
of the East India Company, and in his time Lord
Mayor of London and M.P., also received the
benefit of an early education at the Grocers' founda-
tion at Guildford I cannot say ; but it is possible
enough. So, again, in the case of Sir William
Laxton, mentioned by Fuller in his " Worthies."
Sir William was " bred a grocer in London, where
he so prospered by his painful endeavours that he
was chosen Lord Mayor 1544." He munificently
founded an almshouse and free school at Oundle,
in Northamptonshire. To ensure his foundations
being properly worked after his death, he entrusted
the devised land for its maintenance to the Grocers'
Company, with directions that a schoolmaster and
an usher should be employed. The former was to
be paid £18 and the latter £6 I3s. 4>d. per annum.
At the death of the founder his lands so devised
were worth £50 a year. The gross value in 1884
had increased to £4000. It may be noted that in
that year the Grocers' Company fulfilled their
trust by expending upwards of £3000 per year on
180

GROCERS AND EDUCATION

the school, and had then lately improved the school
buildings and appurtenances at an expenditure of
I'js, ooo. It is the habit of members of the Court
of the Grocers' Company to make periodical visits
to Sir William Laxton's foundation at the quiet old
town of Oundle, to see that the pious founder's
intention is being strictly carried out.

But the most illustrious example of zeal for
education manifested by a grocer is in the case of
the world-famous school at Rugby, which, having
gone through many vicissitudes, was raised to a
pinnacle of eminence and prosperity by the labours
and influence of the celebrated Dr. Arnold — a
fact immortalised in that delightful classic " Tom
Brown's Schooldays." The pious founder of
Rugby School was Lawrence Sheriff, a native
of Rugby and a successful London grocer.

He was apprenticed to one William Walcot,
grocer, in London, about 1534, and was admitted in
due time (1541) to the freedom of the Grocers'
Company.

That he became a tradesman of some eminence
is certain, since, we find him in 1551 Purveyor to the
Princess Elizabeth, and later residing at the " King's
Grocer's House," in Newgate, the rental of which
was £6 18*. \d. per annum.

There is some curious light on this subject in
Fox's " Book of Martyrs," wherein an incident
is related which exhibits the good grocer of London
as a man of honesty, loyal principles, and of con-

181

THE GROCERY TRADE

siderable courage in maintaining them, for he
showed himself actively faithful to a mistress at a
time when he might have reaped suffering and loss
for his pains. The conspiracy of Wyatt had then
recently been unmasked, and Elizabeth in the life-
time of her sister, Queen Mary, could not have been
either very comfortable or very secure. Lawrence
Sheriff, who is spoken of as being " a servant of the
lady (afterwards Queen) Elizabeth and sworn unto
her Grace," happened to look into the Rose Tavern
one morning for his cup of ale, and there met one
Farrer, a haberdasher, whom Fox declares to have
been a pretty regular frequenter of that hostelry.
Farrer, " being in his full cups," and not having
consideration for those present, began to talk at
random, and allowed himself to speak despitefully
of the Lady Elizabeth, saying that " Jill had been
one of the chief doers of this rebellion of Wyatt's,
and before all be done, she, and all the hereticks
her partakers, shall well understand it. Some of
those hope that she shall have the crown ; but she,
and they I hope, shall hop headless, or be fried
with faggots, before she come to it." Sheriff did
not relish this at all, and, like a brave man, turned
on the speaker, and, owning himself to be her
Grace's servant, valiantly took her part, alleging
that she was a king's daughter, and that it ill became
a knave like Farrer opprobriously to call her a
"Jill." Sheriff did not let the matter end there,
for shortly afterwards he resolved to complain
182

GROCERS AND EDUCATION

to the Commissioners, whose chairman was the
notorious Bishop Bonner, of the conduct of Farrer,
although he probably knew that his plaint would
not meet with much sympathy in that quarter*
made as it was on behalf of one reputed a heretic.
In fact, when they had heard his complaint the
Commissioners endeavoured to minimise the con-
duct of Farrer, the Bishop saying that probably
Sheriff had taken the matter too seriously, and
another commissioner also taking the part of the
accused. However, Sheriff told them that the
Lady Elizabeth was his mistress, and he related
an incident which occurred when he was about
the Court the day before, when he saw Cardinal
Pole, and even King Philip himself, do obeisance
to her. At this the Bishop intimated that they did
not intend to take Farrer's offence too seriously,
for they thought that perhaps it was his fear that
should Elizabeth come to the throne it might
cause an alteration in religion which had prompted
him to speak hastily. They would send for the
delinquent and administer a reprimand. And with
that Sheriff was probably satisfied, having vindicated
the honour of his mistress and purged his own
honourable conscience.

Shortly afterwards the Lady Elizabeth ascended
the throne, and the year following we find Sheriff
rewarded for his loyalty by the grant of a coat
of arms, and it is significant that they con-
tained griffins' heads (an idea evidently copied from

THE GROCERY TRADE

the arms of the Grocers' Company), and a bunch
of dates, emblematical of his calling as a grocer.

It is evident that he was a friend at Court, for we
find gifts being exchanged between Queen Elizabeth
and himself. In 1562 Sheriff makes the queen a
New Year's gift of a " Sugar loaf, a box of ginger, a
box of nutmegs, and a Ib of cinnamon," and the
queen in return gives him one gilt salt cover
weighing 7 ounces.

In his position as Queen's Grocer he was now
doing a prosperous trade, and we find him buying
property in Rugby, his native town, and building
thereon what he termed a " Mansion House,"
wherein he spent part of hie time till his death, five
years later. He greatly prospered, and at the time
of his death he could make some very munificent
bequests in his will. His funeral ceremonies were
to be carried out principally in London, but after-
wards his body was to be buried in the Church of
St. Andrew, in Rugby. A learned divine was to
preach a sermon, and £10 was to be distributed to
the poor of Rugby on the day of the funeral. He
left to the Grocers' Company the sum of £13 6s. 8d.,
one-half of this to be spent on " a recreation " of the
Company.

It is as founder of the great school at Rugby
that this worthy grocer comes down to fame. By
his last will Lawrence Sheriff bequeathed a third of
his Middlesex estate to found in his native town of
Rugby a fair and convenient school-house, and to
maintain therein an honest, discreet, and learned
184

GROCERS AND EDUCATION

man to teach grammar. It is interesting to note
that the property alluded to afterwards consisted
of the site of a number of the streets near the
fountain then called Conduit Mead, from which
the present Lamb's Conduit Street gets its name.
The rent of this property amounted to £8 at the
time of the bequest ; in 1669 the rent was £20 per
annum ; in 1686 it was leased for £50 ; in 1702
the lease was renewed for forty-three years at £60.
In 1780 it had risen to £116 17*. 6</., and in 1825
the increment had swelled the rent to no less than
£5500, a fact which would truly have astonished
the donor could he have foreseen it. Needless to
say, the famous school still exists and flourishes,
with ten or twelve entrance scholarships of £100
to £20 awarded annually, and a muster roll of
nearly six hundred scholars. Many men of emin-
ence in all branches of service to the nation have
received part of their early training within its
walls, a fact alluded to so recently as on July 3,
1909, by his Majesty King Edward VII., who on
that day paid a visit to the school there to open
a new speech-room. Replying to the school
address, the King spoke of the school as having
been the scene of the labours of Arnold, and
of Temple (afterwards Archbishop of Canter-
bury), and that of the schooldays of Landor,
Clough, and Matthew Arnold, as of many others
who have won distinction in statesmanship, in battle,
in law, and in every other field of human activity.
It is noteworthy that the new speech-room is

185

THE GROCERY TRADE

enriched with a memorial window of painted glass,
in which the old-world figure of Lawrence Sheriff,
the pious founder, appears as a perpetual reminder
of the munificence of this worthy citizen and grocer.

Yet how many aspiring sons of grocers have
been assisted by the rich endowment to a place at
Rugby and the opportunity of profiting by the
provision made by a grocer in the ages long
past ? It is to be feared the number is very few,
for this foundation, like so many others, has
been practically monopolised by one class to
the exclusion of others — a fate certainly not con-
templated by the founder.

Tracing the history of the trade, a little later we
find a provincial grocer taking part in this useful
work of founding seats of learning and education.
Edward Owner, a grocer of Yarmouth, born in
1576, was in his time a notable citizen of that
East-Coast seaport for that and many other reasons.
He must have stood head and shoulders above his
fellow townsmen by reason of his understanding
and activities, as his record testifies. He was
returned as M.P. for Yarmouth in 1620, and sat
until 1625, and again in 1639. During the Long
Parliament he had Miles Corbett as his colleague in
the representation of the town. In 1625, and again
in 1634, he was High Bailiff. He distinguished
himself by warmly taking side from the first with
the Puritan party. He opposed the levying of
ship-money and was among those who voted it
186

GROCERS AND EDUCATION

illegal. When the Civil War broke out he actively
exerted himself in the defence of the town, and
contributed both in money and plate to that
object. He showed a rare public spirit in labour-
ing for the social good of his fellow citizens, and it
was mainly through his exertions that the Children's
Hospital School was established, he himself con-
tributing £1500 to its endowment Owner died in
1650, and was buried in Great St. Nicholas Church,
whence, however, one regrets to learn that his bones
were removed and dispersed at a later day to make
room for another occupant of the resting-place.

Other schools founded by grocers in the seven-
teenth century include Appleby Grammar School,
founded by Sir John Moore, Witney Grammar
School, founded by Richard Box, citizen and grocer
of London, and Colwall School, Herefordshire,
founded by Humphrey Walwyn, another London
grocer. The two latter schools are governed by
the Worshipful Company of Grocers.

In a subsequent chapter it will be my pleasant
task to show how the good example set in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as regards
education for the trade has been followed in recent
times. But before taking leave of the Elizabethan
age altogether it is high time to say something of
another development of those " spacious days,"
fraught with even greater consequences — the story
of how the grocery trade has contributed to the
expansion of the British Empire.

187

CHAPTER XV

THE MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

IT has often been said by politicians the " Trade
follows the Flag." The history of the grocery
trade furnishes a good deal of evidence supporting
the converse maxim that " The Flag follows trade."
Empire has dogged the steps of traders, and it
v might fairly be said that the Empire itself has to a
large extent been discovered by pioneering navi-
gators seeking groceries for grocers 1

The Levant and East India Companies, for
instance, and the many voyages of exploration that
from time to time have been undertaken to discover
new routes to India and the East for the sake of
the trade in fruits and spices — what a vast influence
have these had on the course of the world's history !
If, then, we find Professor Thorold Rogers start-
ling us, as he repeatedly does, with the assertion
that there are few objects on which more blood has
been spilt than on the exclusive right to sell cloves,
the grocer may fairly plead that his trade is not to
be held accountable for excesses committed in its
name, and that, moreover, there is a good deal to
be set to the other side of the account.
188

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

Take, for instance, the remark of Ravenhill, the
official historian of the Worshipful Company of
Grocers in 1689. " They " —the grocers — says he,
" have been the most universal Merchants that
traded abroad . . . and indeed tins City and
Nation " — that is, London and the English — " do
in a great measure owe the improvement of navi-
gation to Merchants originally exercising their
mystery, as trading into all foreign parts from
whence we have received either spices, drugs,
fruits, gums, or other rich aromatic commodities."

Obviously, trade must have a civilising influence,
and it is just because the grocer handles the
necessaries of life that his trade has from the very
earliest times been associated with the development
of civilisation. Salt, pepper, spices, dried fruits,
sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa — all these have had, through
trade, an immense bearing upon the progress of
mankind and the opening up of the world.

The salt trade, we may be sure, has had its share
in contributing to the spread of the British Empire
in Africa, just as other of the commodities handled
by the grocer have helped the Empire's growth in
Asia and America.

Pepper had a great deal to do with the acquire-
ment of the British Empire of India, and, with
other groceries, was the magnet which drew British
traders — and after them the British flag — into the
New World, as well as the remotest parts of the
Old. Pepper from the Malabar Coast of India

189

THE GROCERY TRADE

was used by the cooks of ancient Rome, who
gave as much as ten shillings a pound for it. The
spices of India have been renowned since the
earliest times. It was the Indian trade, largely
in spices, that caused the founding of such cities
as Alexandria, Bussora, and Bagdad ; that gave
flourishing commerce to Phoenicians, Greeks, Car-
thaginians, Romans, and other successive Powers of
the Mediterranean ; and that after them enriched
the Genoese and Venetian merchants and navi-
gators. Then when the Turks invaded Europe —
they were half-way over France before they were
checked — and blocked up the ancient overland
routes by which Indian spices had found their way,
adventurous sailors at once began the search for
new routes to India by sea. This was what led
the Portuguese to sail south round Africa, and so
discover the Cape and Natal ; the Spaniards to fare
west till they discovered America ; and Bristolians
to go north-west till they reached Newfoundland—
the dates of the great discoveries being the New
World, by Columbus, 1492 ; Newfoundland, by
Cabot, from Bristol, 1496 ; the Cape, by Vasco da
Gama, 1497.

All were seeking India, and even Columbus
believed he had found it. Economists have pointed
out that the perennial " Eastern Question " is
simply the expression of the rivalry for the
great commerce of the East, centring in India.
"Whether at Constantinople and Cairo, or Can-
190

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

ilahar and t'abul, or in China," writes Sir George
Hirdwood, " it is simply the question of how to
obtain the control of the trade, navigation, and
commerce of the Indian Ocean, for the purpose of
exchanging on the most favoured terms the manu-
factures of Europe against the spices, perfumes,
dyes, tans, oils and oil seeds, fibres, drugs, cereal
and pulse grains, and woods and tropical pro-
ductions of India, Farther India, the Indian
Archipelago, and China and East Africa." But
when we add to the spices, oils and oil seeds cereal
and pulse grains and other tropical productions
above enumerated, the Eastern staples of tea,
coffee, cocoa, dates, and a few others, we find
ourselves picturing what is not only in a pre-
eminent degree British trade, but the British
grocers' trade !

The British Empire in the East arose primarily
from the efforts of the British grocers to supply
their customers with pepper, cloves, and nutmegs
at reasonable prices at a time when Dutch mer-
chants were trying to extort unreasonable prices
by the unwholesome power of monopoly. In the
early days referred to previously in this volume,
when London grocers were commonly called
pepperers, what little trade we did was mainly
with the Baltic, the Flemings, and the South of
France. In the North the Hanseatic League was
the great trading body. Spices and foreign fruits
were chiefly purchased at Bruges, whilst salt and

191

THE GROCERY TRADE

wine were important articles in the French trade.
Bagdad was then the great dep6t of Indian
produce in the East. Thence it came overland to
Alexandria, where the spices and other goods were
exchanged for European produce, chiefly metals.
But in those times British traders never thought of
penetrating to the Mediterranean — we were supplied
by the Flemings and the Venetians. As time
went on we find the London Grocers' Company
doing business side by side with the merchants
of the Hanseatic League on Thames wharves.
Professor Rogers says the earliest specimen he
could find of paper made from linen rags was a
fourteenth-century bill for spices, no doubt bought
at the London shop of some Bruges merchant.
Of so little account in the world was English sea-
power in the fifteenth century that Pope Alex-
ander VI. (Borgia) in 1493, being asked to settle
the map, drew a line from pole to pole through
the middle of the Atlantic and the southern
continent of the New World, and calmly bestowed
all the countries that should be discovered west of
that line on the King of Spain, and all those east
of it on the King of Portugal.

The establishment of the Levant Company in
1581, enabling Eastern products to be imported
direct instead of through Venice as hitherto, had
immediate consequences upon the grocery trade.
This Company, according to Ravenhill, was one of
the offsprings of the Grocers' Company, and the
192

London, zAnno'Dom. i 639.

By Order pf the Right Worshipful!

the Govcrnour and Afsiltams of the Company of
Merchants trading the LeT>e,»i Seas, &C.

I He Levant Ctmptnj tt t general! C»mri btld ibe tenth it] if March. 1657.
tt^fjng into rirjldertiion \be regaining if the Trade of Can <i »/•< h of Itie
It faSexn.it great diftrdcr, liretftntf ibemtnj Snjers^ ikfgr'ti tnle\cef^,
J.ifprireifiief iberefiribe ftmf;ihr ji[""""'-X,<""V""6 fmetuQttd\»&Mt
Ifme il.treif: Did iKertvptmrfl^.i ,. irri.n-e 10 time, la btietnl tut flu
gn)rr tf til the nrrtm if lie ijltnJi \f'ti:t .,* i < q I'. .onia, win ti it
rt;,dets Jgrn: tnd rnmiftllFtRirfnT i tinpany tftngl.lb Mertbtnunt
dingihe Levant ^iti.tndinitiht'r Jji* • ••, a*-i,,> r,**nrfitm one it ibrtibrr,
tube Iff mffrfbtB require : jtnd it ibji ftiftfeJid mtktdiiieq M.;;.rr T h OM AS SYMONDS
Mrril'Jiu,t Member tf ibe ftiJl inptx) fir tbti Emplt)mrni alt hub tmm,fyn tnd InftruHuin
frimibt Ctmptxjjtr bti proceeding! thertia, tdOiMngiofn-eitllOrJeiiiinltiiifbtlfemtde.

!•. Theftid F rincipatf Fttltr il, bytrdertftbe Ctmptti), anJiriibbiit-rne ftnfeni, tottlie tntlYe-
Cftvettbiitfne aft for bit mains f ntnte and recompente for bn painri it teitken in ibe Emfiljniau,
ibreejHtnerioftDillerperTun upon til ibeCurrtnttliti fbtltie (l-^f,d from thence ftrtcccapt if
dnj the Memberitf;befiidComptn)>during the lime tf bnftid EmplymeM ibere.

. 2. Ftr ibe Price tf ibe furrtni tf rtcb ifltnd^ the Comptnjbne revoked not It exceed ibffe pritei
folitwingl T'z- Firibe'iimfurrtnf, 11. Dollers per ibtiift»J grtjje H right tf Venice frvm slvgnli
nUcbnjtmts^ and 20. Dotleri frtmCbriftmti nit Jugnfl fttliiring. Jlndftr ibe Currant if Ct-
pbtltnit,io,DillerJ ftr the Meireigbitfrimsl*g*jl tilt Cbrifmti, tnd- 18. Dullin f,om CtafmU
nil Anguffiillotfing : Tbeffpncei tt ciniinue ft kn^ tube Ctmftn) flull ibinke £i.

3. Tortbetimetf Ltdtngtiis ordered as follmei]j^ viz. Ttttfir ttemftiltg jrtrf, ft

Sbipi[btnU(imeinii Port tube Ifltndi tf'Ltnl jWCcphjlonia , io!jJr (airtxi, n,'l,bt lirjl tf
Dteembernixi •' ^ndibe Company btieti tgemertli Ctnn trdered a peat!;) rj titent) Holtlriptr Tim
ttbe Inted uftnatl ibti fbtllirtnfgrfj]e,eiiber inpriie)time tf Lt^ing^tyifg itnltus iucinfe/ii frfl
btdjtndxiitptjing ibrftid three jutrien tf t DoUerperTunne1tt.c.

4 . fir ibe letter effefling tf ibe lupnrffe , tnd fading no tiler «t) it tcftmj-l.flj ji , ,be Camptnl
did refokett flint etib Member of their Sonet) tt t certtia q ntntu) of Cu-'tnl )rtrlj,rrfpe[l/ng their
tun quit) intke freedtme , tnd ftrmer irtding in thtt Ctmmtdity : If'bitb ieing rej 'tired it t Couri if
jlfy'jltn'l, not agreed tnt and (el ltd accordingly ; at b) t particular Scednlrtj ibe fn-erell Names tnd
Stint i remaining vnbibe Hull tnd cf ibe Ctmptn),mtre ti largedtib appetre.

5. vtlltbe Cnrrtni il,at faille btiglii iftrelj ti btib ihe fJ!anJl,fl>tll if tbeftiJ PrineiptSFtBtr '
lenfualljtndindijerenil)dijiriliittditil>eFt8iriihere,ftrtccompiif their '1'rinciptlls, tcitrJingtt
ibeir fnertll Sttnu mentioned in the Seednle, ai H afire-mentioned.

6. Andforprnenting the alufe ibai migk: bappeiitj transferring of Sunn, itit aitrrnerall Ctun
btlden ihe fmneenib of jtpntL, 163(5. trdered, That nt mtn fbttttirtnifrrre, Itnd or f,II bis Stint it

) tiler JireBIt tr indirect), uptn

*Uf*", •''•''"

tpe/it!ij tf treble Impofmtni it be levied and placed it etch Ft
t tr bring in mtre iiitn his ftid Stint.

Isfdy, Theft ^niileiaeretgreeduptn tad unarmed l)i hefadlcvinc Ctmp.ixi. ittCrnenU
fun. she xxixh.dijtf *>f frill Ujl 1639. t»d til the Members tf the fad Ctmftm stint U
fctttjinfjj I) t ' tmatinj tberemstttppaiiited ftrtbunfuing Jftrt, us jftttffurtt) ibf Jf'eJtle re-
mtiKingit-ibft.tiuti if ibefiid Huib*nil(-»putiicLot>. ROBERTS. «X/ rbtfh nmeiim.is j'f; <>r-
"deredl) ibr Ctmptn) tftreftid.ibtt mtiti Seriitm tr FeStr fitter ktltitgiag it an} ihememi/ers tfili-
ftulCtmftxjiitwtmplijedsr hereafter it keimpltjeJwiibmibefiul lltitdi fktuU^H/aie trtrt*Jgrrj]'
ihetftremeaneiietl Orders, enhr> aireSl^iiibutinuperfoii^r iiulirc9ljtj tn) ttbrr hii metxri tr pn-
rrmeM; tr flmlJ ctxiempinttjlj iehn-e htmfelf tgiinfl ihefaid Company, ibeir tftnt ,,r i(h«nr>,an<l

fad Ctmf**),*** be ibertl] mtdeumftbletfbufieedtmetfibeft,<tStc,ei)bere<f<ef : t*d if firmer!)
ftt frtlbe ditfMibiftd.

WILLIAM BURC.E.J

is

TIIK I.KVAXT COMPANY: AN EAHI.Y WAIM.'ANT
A.I). 1C39

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

commodities imported from the East through
its enterprising members, which included dates,
currants, figs, raisins, were now able to be sold at
greatly reduced prices. Not that these imports
were easily acquired, for many of the vessels had
to fight their way homewards, attacked by Barbary
corsairs or Spanish trade rivals, One such en-
gagement took place in the Strait of Gibraltar in
1590, when ten of the Company's ships encountered
twelve Spanish galleys, and, after a stiff fight of
six hours, finally put them to rout. These embar-
rassing miniature naval engagements eventually
led the Company in 1593, when the charter was
renewed, to provide for the equipment of four
vessels with ordnance and ammunition and two
hundred English mariners.

An interesting document illustrating the methods
of the Company during the reign of Charles I. has
come into my possession. It deals with the im-
portation and sale of currants, and is signed by
William Burgess, secretary. It runs as follows :

" The Levant Company at a generall Court held
the tenth day of March, 1687, taking into con-
sideration the regulating of the Trade of
Currans, which of late is fallen into great dis-
order, by reason of the many Buyers ; the great
and excessive prices given there for the same ;
the ill-curing, untimely flivening, and lading
home thereof: Did thereupon resolve for the
i N 193

THE GROCERY TRADE

time to come, to have but one sole Buyer of all
the Currans of the Islands of Zant and Cephlonia,
who is to reside as Agent and Principal Factor
for the Company of English Merchants trading
the Levant Seas, and into those Islands, and to
remove from one to the other, as the business
shall require: And to that purpose did make
choice of Master THOMAS S YMONDS, Mer-
chant, a Member of the said Company for that
Employment who hath Commission and Instruc-
tions from the Company for his proceedings
therein, according to severall Orders in that
behalf made.

" 1. The said Principall Factor is, by order of
the Company, and with his owne consent, to
take and receive to his owne use for his main-
tenance and recompense for his paines to be
taken in the Employment three quarters of a
Doller per Tun upon all the Currans that shall
be shipped from thence for account of any the
Members of the said Company, during the time
of his said Employment there.
" 2. For the Price of the Currans of each Island,
the Company have resolved not to exceed these
prices following, viz. : — For the Zant Currans
22. Dollers per thousand grosse weight of Venice
from August till Christmas ; and 20. Dollers from
Christmas till August following. And for the
Currans of Cephalonia 20. Dollers for the like
Weight, from August till Christmas, and 18.
194

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

Dollars from Christmas till August following:
Tlir.se prices to continue so long as the Company
shall think fit.

"8. For the time of Lading it is ordered as
folio weth, viz. : — That for the ensuing years, no
shippe or ships should come into Port at the
Islands of /ant and Cephalonia, to lade Currans,
till the first of December next: And the
Company have at a generall Court ordered a
penalty of twenty Nobles per Tun to be levied
upon all that shall transgress, either in price,
time of Lading, buying without his consent first
had, and not paying the said three quarters of a
Doller per Tunne, &c.

" 4. For the better effecting of the business, and
finding no other way to accomplish it, the
Company did resolve to stint each Member of
their Society to a certain quantity of Currans
yearly, respecting their antiquity in the freedome,
and former trading in that Commodity: Which
being referred to a Court of Assistants, was
agreed on, and settled accordingly, as by a
particular Schedule of the severall Names and
Stints remaining with the Husband of the
Company, more at large dothe appeare.
" 5. All the Currans that shall be bought
yearly at both the Islands, shall by the said
Principall Factor be equally and indifferently
distributed to the Factors there, for account
of their Principally, according to their several

105

THE GROCERY TRADE

Stints mentioned in the Schedule, as is afore-
mentioned.

" 6. And for preventing the abuse that might
happen by transferring of Stints, it is at a
generall Court holden the fourteenth of Aprill,

1 638, ordered, That no man shall transferre, lend
or sell his Stint to any other directly or in-
directly, upon penalty of treble Impositions to
be levied and placed to each Parties account,
that shall lade or bring in more than his said
Stint.

"Lastly, These Articles were agreed upon and
confirmed by the said Levant Company, in a
Generall Court, the XXIXth day of Aprill last

1639, and all the Members of the said Company
stinted accordingly by a Committy thereunto
appointed for this ensuing yeare, as doth appeare
by the Schedule remaining in the hands of the
said Husband Captaine LOD. ROBERTS.
At which time it was also Ordered by the
Company aforesaid, that what Servant or Factor
soever belonging to any the member of the said
Company now imployed, or hereafter to be im-
ployed, within the said Islands, should violate or
transgress the afore-mentioned Orders, either
directly in his own person, or indirectly by any
other his means or procurement ; or should con-
temptuously behave himself against the said
Company, their Agent or Assignes, and these
fore-named Orders, should be for ever batulated

196

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

from the further imployment of any the members
of the said Company, and be thereby made in-
capable of his freedome of the said Society here-
after : and if formerly free shall be disfranchised."

In the charter ratified in 1675 a singular clause
provided that " two ship loads of figs and currants
are annually allowed to be exported ... for the
use of the King of Great Britain's kitchen, provided
there be no scarcity of these fruits, paying only
8 per cent, custom for the same."

Thus we may see how history repeats itself.
The Levant Company, in its policy of appointing
" but one sole buyer of all the Currans of the
Islands of Zant and Cephalonia," as long ago as
1639 was but instituting the same policy of mono-
polistic concentration which commended itself to
the Greek Government nearly three centuries
afterwards ! Students of orthography may note
with interest this early spelling of the word
" Currans." There is of late a tendency to speak,
in some newspapers, of " grocer's currants," as
though the grocer's currants needed a distinguishing
epithet As a matter of fact, the grocer's currants
are the original possessors of the name, since it was
derived from " Corinth," so that whether they are
or are not " really grapes " they have a perfect
right to their name.

The discovery of the Cape route to India
had also many important bearings upon the

197

THE GROCERY TRADE

grocery trade. The Portuguese, bringing the
spices by sea, were enabled to undersell the
Venetians, whose trade was by the more expensive
overland route, and Lisbon soon displaced Venice
as the great resort of traders. The Turkish
invasion, too, ruined the overland trade, and
destroyed Alexandria as a business centre. As a
consequence we find Portuguese and Flemish
merchants carrying their goods to the great inter-
mediate market of Antwerp, and that city opening
up to great wealth and influence through the spice
trade. Guicciardini, who wrote in the early part
of the sixteenth century, calculates that the value
of the spices brought to Antwerp from Lisbon
exceeded a million crowns yearly. Thus the
Portuguese and the Flemings prospered ; and at
the same time we find the Spaniards prospering by
a monopoly of the West Indian trade, mainly in
sugar, ginger, and cotton.

Next came the turn of the Dutch. An enter-
prising and successful people, the Dutch made
their Bank of Amsterdam for a long period what
the Bank of England is now to the commercial
world. In 1595 they reached the East Indies by
the Cape passage, and at length they managed to
displace the Portuguese and get a good grip of the
spice trade. It was their gripping too tight that
ruined them. They put up the price of pepper
from 2s. Sd. and 2s. tod. a pound to 4s., and even 8*.
The London grocers were up in arms 1 They
198

*3

= 2
H I;

* -

^ 00

- <

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

determined to seek the Eastern trade for them-
selves, and their petitions to Queen Elizabeth led
to the chartering of that great Company which
laid the foundations of and largely built up the
Anglo-Indian Empire.

The merchants forming the first East India
Company (including such well-known grocers of
the period as Paul Bayning, Sir John Moore,
Oliver Style, Robert Brooke, William Barret (the
King's grocer), and Thomas Middleton), received
their patent of monopoly on the last day of the
year 1600. The first capital of the East India
Company was £72,000. Two years afterwards the
Dutch formed an East India Company with a
capital of 6,600,000 florins, or £550,000. The
London Company, to whom the Queen granted
a charter exempting them from certain duties for
four years, and empowering them to put down
interlopers with a heavy hand, were successful in
bringing down the price of pepper to the English
consumers to 2s. a pound and less, but they had
a keen struggle with the Dutchman. Gradually,
however, the English Company devoted their
attention more to the mainland, displacing the
Portuguese, whilst the Dutch, after founding the
city of Batavia, captured Amboyna from the
Spaniards, and devoted all their energies to getting
possession of the five islands on which alone at
that time the clove grew.

The clove, known in Europe from early times,

199

THE GROCERY TRADE

was always in high demand. " For the monopoly of
the Spice," says Rogers, " Spaniards, Dutchmen and
Englishmen long contended and warred sedulously.
... To obtain a monopoly of it for themselves,
the Dutch thought no efforts and no sacrifices too
great." And eventually the Dutch fleet got
possession of the Moluccas and of the coveted
clove monopoly. But the sequel was not to the
Dutchman.

The " First Letter Book " of the East India
Company contains much quaint and interesting
matter relating to the Company's early years, its day
of small things. The first voyage was under the
command of Sir James Lancaster, who commenced
what is known as the " Factory Period " in the
Company's history, by establishing a trading centre
at Bantam. On leaving Bantam in 1602 on his
return voyage home, Sir James Lancaster wrote
memoranda for the guidance of Tudd, Morgan,
Towerson, and others whom he left in charge of
the business. The following is a sample of his
directions :

" And when God shall send you to Banda take
a house or houses for your business as you shall
think most fit for the Company's best profit, and
make sale of your commodities, always advancing
the price the best you may. In your provision
you shall make in Nutmegs and Maces, have
you a great care to receive such as be good,
200

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

for the smallest and rotten nutmegs be worth
nothing at home, so that their freight and
principal will be lost. Of Maces the fairest and
best will be soonest sold and to best reckonings.
Also be careful to get together all the Cloves
you can, and use all diligence to procure some
60 or 80 tons at the least and the rest of
Nutmegs and Maces."

A letter from the Company to Mr. Thomas
Starkie at Bantam the following year impresses
upon him to be careful that

" The Pepper, Cloves, and Nutmegs be well
cleaned of dust before they be laden aboard, for
the dustiness of them, besides the pestering and
charging of the Ship with unprofitable dust, the
commodity is disgraced by the uncleanness of
it, and we are desirous that regard be had, as
far as possible may be, that the Pepper be large
and smooth, and that the Nutmegs be cleansed
from Rumps, and that no commidity be brought
from so long a voyage that shall not be clean
and commend itself."

The same caution is separately impressed upon
Mr. Thomas Morgan, " English Merchant Resident
at Bantam." The Company's head office was
always very anxious — as good grocers have ever
been to this day — that the public should receive a
clean and wholesome article, and to this end sent

201

THE GROCERY TRADE

out skilled men to assist in the buying and first
preparation of their spices. Thus David Middle-
ton and Dymond Dickenson were sent to the
Moluccas, and we read :

" ITEM further touching the Dragon, we
wish you the General to use all means and
dilligence to lade her with Cloves at the
Molloccos, or if the whole lading of Cloves
cannot be gotten, then return to Banda to
furnish out the same with Nutmegs and Mace,
wherein, as for all other Spices, we would have
you principally to be advised by Dymond
Dickenson, who hath best skill therein. And to
remember to foresee, that in lading either Cloves,
Nutmegs or Mace, you cleanse them what you
can from dust and Rump that the Ship be not
stuffed with such unprofitable ware as is not
worth the Customs, and so we lose all other
charge, therefore rather burne the same than lade
it in the Shipps and be careful to buy dry Cloves
and not such as are green."

If the goods were not found what they ought to
have been on reaching London the Company's
representative abroad did not fail to hear of it.
In a letter sent to Gabriell Towerson in March
1606 we read :

"Touching the condition and quality of our
spices, you shall understand first that the Pepper
202

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

was reasonably clean, although we lost much by
your garbling there, which course notwithstand-
ing we rather wish to be used, than to send
it home dusty and uncleansed, whereby we are
compelled to pay freight and Customs for garble
yet desire that our spices if it be possible be so
brought in, as there shall not be in cleansing
thereof so great loss. Our Nutmeggs were ex-
ceeding bad, being light, not having their full
ripeness, which afterwards with carrying and
removing turned to dust to our great loss, as
indeed not worth the bringing home besides the
freight and Customs we paid for them. At
which ignorance of you to buy such spices, we
conceive the Indians do rejoice, but if ye shall be
enforced to take such spice, or none at all, you
are as near as you can to make the price there-
after."

In other instances we have the Company giving
minute directions to ensure the cleanliness of the
ships' holds, the matting of the hatchways, Ace.,
to prevent contamination of the cargo. They were
strictly charged

" That noe liquor be spilt in the ballast of
the Shipps or filthiness be left within bourde
which in heate breedeth Noysome smells, and
infeccion, but that there be a diligent care to
keep the over-lopps [lowest deck] and other
places of the Shipps cleane and sweete, which is

208

a notable presenacion of health, wherein the
Dutchmen doe farr exceede us in cleanliness
to their great commendacions and disgrace to
our People."

Nor were the merchants the only persons who in
those early days of our foreign trade displayed
shrewdness and foresight Queen Elizabeth was
asked to allow Spanish money to be sent to the
East for the purposes of trade, on the ground that
her own silver coins and stamp were not known
there. Whereupon, instead of acceding to the
request or insisting that the English coinage of
that day should be used, the queen issued special
money, "of a kind unknown to the British Mint
either before or since her time," intended for the use
of the East India Company only. This money,
which bore on the one side the queen's arms and on
the other a portcullis, was made to match in weight
the Spanish piastre, and its half, quarter, and half-
quarter — afterwards called a crown, half-crown,
shilling, and sixpence. The queen said it was her
fixed resolution not to permit the merchants to send
to India the coin of the King of Spain or of any
other foreign prince, but only such silver as had
her picture on the one side and the portcullis on
the other, to the end " that her name and effigies
might be hereafter respected by the Asiatics, and
she be known as great a Prince as the King of
Spain."
204

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

It was not always plain sailing for the adven-
turous grocers, however, even when their Indian
spices had been bought and brought home safely
to the London warehouses. His Majesty King
James I., who came to the throne the third
year after the Company was chartered, claimed a
large share of the pepper brought home, and when
his pepper needed to be sold had a shrewd notion
of how to prevent the spoiling of the market for
it by unwelcome competition amongst sellers less
puissant. The Calendar of State Papers (East
Indies, 1518-1616) records that, in 1603, the East
India Company was in consultation with the Court
respecting the sale of certain pepper held by the
king. The sequel to these preliminary proceedings
is seen in a letter from the Lord Treasurer dated
" the last of November, 1603," which, in modernised
spelling, reads :

" After our hearty commendations, whereas there
hath been already proposed by me, the Lord
Treasurer, in behalf of the King's Majesty, to
you, the Governor the Company of Adventurers
trading into the East Indies, these three things
ensuing — first, that although His Majesty by
virtue of his princely prerogative may lawfully
restrain the sale of your pepper lately brought
from the East Indies until his own bulk and
mass of pepper now remaining at Leaden Hall
be first sold and rented, as by His Majesty's

205

THE GROCERY TRADE

learned Council His Highness hath been fully
resolved, yet nevertheless such is His Majesty's
gracious favour and inclination towards you,
having respect to your so worthy adventure
made and great charges sustained in this last
long voyage by you set forth, so much for the
honour of His Majesty and the public good of
the realm as he is pleased to forbear the using
of his prerogative from this time, and to omit his
own profit to give means of benefit unto you.
Secondly, that there should be a joint sale of
His Majesty's pepper and a like quantity of
yours, and so to be altered and sold together
equally and not otherwise. Thirdly, if you
should thereof mislike, then you to buy His
Majesty's pepper at some reasonable rate to be
agreed upon. Now forasmuch as we understand
that . . . you having considered the two other
offers, you do with all humbleness and thankful-
ness embrace the second . . . these are therefore
to signify unto you that His Majesty being
informed of these things, is well pleased to allow
of good choice, namely, of a joint sale as well of
His Majesty's pepper as of yours in a propor-
tionable quantity together. And for the better
accomplishing of the same, as well for the King's
benefit as your own behoof, we have thought
good to recommend the whole ordering and
managing of this business to your good diligence,
cares, and discretions, praying and requiring you
206

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

to assemble yourselves together, .and to consider
of some such course for carriage for the same as
may produce good effect of some speedy and
reasonable benefit unto both ; for the furtherance
of which we think it requisite, first, that there be
.in Institution general, that no pepper should be
brought into this Kingdom, by English or
Stranger, until the said pepper, proportionally
agreed upon as is aforesaid to be sold, be first
rented. Secondly, that all such pepper as is
already brought in either by Stranger or English
out of the Low Countries or from the Straits
should be sequestered likewise from sale. Thirdly,
that a present survey be made of all such pepper
as you the Adventurers have already delivered
or shall deliver. . . . Provided always that it
may be lawful for any to transport pepper out of
this realm at their pleasure. And it seemeth also
most just and reasonable that strict order be taken
with the Grocers that they buy no pepper but His
Ma jest i is and yours, the same being wholesome
and saleable pepper ; and to that end that a
present survey be made of such store and
quantity as the said Grocers now have upon their
hands. These points we have thought fit to
remember unto you. ... So we bid you heartily
farewell from the Court at Wilton the last of
November 1603."

The Company's answer to their lordships' letter

207

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states that they have, as directed, met and conferred
upon the course to be taken, and with respect to
the proposed joint sale of their own and his
Majesty's pepper they proceed :

" We find in the examination of that course
these particular impediments following: — First,
a great quantity of the Company's pepper already
disposed into many hands by a general divident
[division] agreed upon amongst themselves before
your lordships' letters came to our hands, besides
other great quantities of pepper brought out of
the Low Countries, and both of them so passed
from hand to hand from the Merchant to the
Grocer and from the Grocer to the Chapman in
the country, that by this means there is sufficient
pepper already delivered out abroad in the City
and Country to forbear any further sale for one
year at the least ; so as the vent of His Majesty's
pepper by a joint retailing sale with the remainder
of the Company's pepper can no way advance any
sum of money in convenient time to His Majesty's
use, worthy the attending the event of this
course. Which being so, then there resteth only
the other means, which is the sale of the King's
pepper to the Company, wherein we, the Com-
mittees on the said Company's behalf, do humbly
inform your lordships that the said Company
have upon their hands already so great a mass
of pepper, that albeit every Adventurer thereof
208

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

hath free liberty for the bringing in of 100 pounds
of money to take out 500 pounds' worth of
pepper upon his stock, to set forth a new voyage
to the East Indies to fetch home the remainder
of their goods there, yet in regard there is no
present sale thereof there is such drawing back
in performance of the supply that the voyage
hath not that expedition which were convenient.
Whereupon we think that so many particular
men of so divers condition will hardly be drawn
to engage themselves for their several proportions
of their Adventurers to enlarge any further sums
to buy a commodity that is like to lie so long
upon their hands. . . . And we the Committees
for the Company do humbly advertise your lord-
ships that if the preparation of the voyage be
any way crossed by urging the generality with
further supplies of charge, or hindering them in
the uttering of their pepper divided and to be
divided amongst them before the departing of the
Fleet, which will be about the end of February,
the voyage will wholly be overthrown — which
may by your lordships' favour be upholded both
to the benefit of the King and the good of
the Commonwealth by this small toleration ;
and the ships being once sent away the
Company will be ready in all duty to submit
themselves to any course that shall seem bene-
ficial to His Majesty for the venting of his
pepper. And thus humbly waiting at your
i o 209

THE GROCERY TRADE

lordships' commandment and service we take
our leave.

" London, 8th December 1603.

"Thomas Smyth, Governor. Jo. Wolstenholme.

Wm. Rider. Wm. Romeny.

Tho. Middleton. Tho. Bramley, Dep.

Samu. Saltonasted. Tho. Cordall."

This letter throws an interesting sidelight on the
state of the grocery trade at the time of the first
ventures of the Company. With the small popu-
lation of those days, the consumption of expensive
spices was necessarily very limited, and when a
large cargo of pepper came in the stocks on hand
went up with a bound. The policy then preferred
being that of maintaining prices, rather than ex-
tending the consumption area by lowering them,
as so often happens nowadays, there was no small
difficulty in realising such large quantities as had
to be dealt with. In the instance before us, the
Company, to raise money for another voyage, had
offered to every Adventurer £500 worth of pepper
for £100 cash. Whether this course proved effec-
tual in lowering stocks, and whether the Company's
policy or that of King James's privy councillors
was adopted in the pepper sales in which his
Majesty was so keenly interested, the letter-book
unfortunately omits to state. We find the king,
however, subsequently assisting the Company in
various ways, such as by writing letters to Eastern
210

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

potentates, and by granting special privileges as
regards such important matters as " the garbling "
of spices.

The following transcript from the East India
Company's first patent for " mitigation of Statute
for Garbling Spices " is interesting as giving a list
of the spices and other grocery wares imported by
the Company :

" James by the Grace of God King of England
Scotland France and Ireland defender of the
Faith, &c. To our High Treasurer and Ad-
mirable of England, and to all other Admirals,
Vicadmirals, Captains and others serving upon
the sea, And to all Mayors Sheriffs Constables
Customers Comptrollers Surveyor Searchers,
Keeper of our Ports, Creeks and Passages and to
all others our Officers Ministers and Subjects
whatsoever to whom in this behalf it shall or
may appertain and to every of them greetings.
WHEREAS in the first session of our Parliament
holden at Westminster, in the first year of our
reign of England France and Ireland and of
Scotland the seven and thirtieth one Act was
made intituled an Act for the well-garbling of
Spices, whereby it was ordained and enacted
that from and after the last day of September
then next ensuing the end of that Session of
Parliament, All spices Wares Drugs and other
Merchandise garbleable, that is to say, Pepper,

211

THE GROCERY TRADE

Cloves, Mace, Nutmegs, Cinnamon, Ginger,
Long-Pepper, Wormseeds, Cumminseeds, Ani-
seeds, Corianderseeds, Bynny Pepper, Almonds,
Dates, Galls, Gums, of all sorts and kinds
garbleable, Spikenard, Galingath, Turmericke,
Setweth (Zedoary) Cassia fistula, Guinea pepper,
Senna, Barbaries, Rice, Erius, Stavesacre, Fennu-
greek, Cassia, Lignum, Grains of Paradise, Car-
roway Seeds, and all other Spices, Drugs,
Wares, and other merchandises that had been
usually garbled or ought to be garbled cleansed
severed sorted or divided in the City of London
and the liberties thereof, should for the fees
usually allowed in their behalf be sufficiently
cleansed severed garbled and divided and after-
wards settled [sealed] by the Garbler thereunto
appointed for the time being, or his sufficient
Deputy or Deputies, Servant or Servants, before
that the same or any part thereof should be sold,
upon pain of forfeiture of all and every such
spices, Drugs, Wares or other Merchandise, or
the value thereof which should be sold as by the
said Act more at large appeareth. And whereas
the true intent and meaning of the said Act was
that none of tJie said Spices, Drugs, Wares and
Merchandises brought into the realm should be
altered or sold to the end to be used in Meats,
Drinks, or other needful occasions amongst our
subjects within this realm before such time as same
were sufficiently cleansed severed garbled and
212

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

divided as is aforesaid. And the true meaning
the same Act did not in any wise extend to the
cleansing, severing, garbling, and dividing of any
such of the said Spices, Drugs, Wares and
Merchandises as should be transported out of
this realm in such sort as they were brought
into the same. And whereas it is found that by
some general words that passed in the said Act
no Wares, Merchandises or commodities that
are garbleable being brought into this realm can
be sold between Merchant and Merchant un-
garbled and the intent to transport the same into
the parts beyond the seas but the seller thereof
by the strict letter of the said Statute shall
thereby be in danger to forfeit all the said
Spices, Drugs, Wares and Merchandises which
he shall so sell ungarbled. And whereas our
loving subjects the Governor and Company of
Merchants of London trading into the said East
Indies have credibly informed us that they
having lately brought from the said East Indies
into this one realm a great quantity of Spice and
other Wares and commodities garbleable, more
than can be uttered and spent within the realm
in many years, and have been therefore humble
suitors to us to have our license to sell some of
the same spices in gross to other Merchants to
be transported in gross into divers beyond the
seas, which by reason of the said Statute they
make doubt to do without our special license in

218

THE GROCERY TRADE

that behalf, which favour if we grant them not,
and that very speedily, other Merchants of other
Nations will haply prevent them in serving those
places with such like spices and so theirs shall lie
upon their hands to their great loss and damage.
Know ye therefore that we, graciously tendering
the welfare and commodity of our said loving
subjects the Governor and Company of Mer-
chants trading into the East Indies, and to the
end they may be the better enabled to maintain
and continue their trade and traffic in the said
East Indies, of our special grace certain know-
ledge and mere motion have given and granted
and by these presents for us our heirs and
successors to give and grant full and free liberty
license power and authority unto the said
Governor and Company of Merchants of London
trading into the East Indies, and to their
successors, that it shall and may be lawful to
and for them and every of them hereafter to
utter sell and put to sale any of the said Spices,
Drugs, Wares and Merchandises or any of them
already brought from any parts of the said East
Indies unto this realm or any part thereof in
whole packs sacks or casks unbroken ungarbled
and not cleansed severed sorted or divided to
any Merchants as well our natural born subjects
as Aliens, denizens or Strangers that shall within
the space of three months next after the date
thereof transport the same in whole packs, sacks
214

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

or casks unbroken as aforesaid into any the
parts beyond the seas without any damage loss
forfeiture and penalty against the said Governor
and Company. . . . Provided always never-
theless that if there shall not be from time to
time and at all times hereafter sufficient quantity
or store of the said Spices, Drugs, Wares, and
Merchandises to be garbled, cleansed, severed,
sorted and divided left and being within this our
realm of England, and to be used spent and
occupied by our loving subjects within the same
realm in their meats drinks and other needful
occasions, and the same to be sold altered and
put to sale to any of our said loving subjects at
reasonable and indifferent prices. That then
and from thenceforth as well the said Governor
and Company of Merchants of London trading
into the East Indies shall cease and forbear to
sell and utter any of the said Spices, Drugs,
Wares, and Merchandise ungarbled as is afore-
said, as also the said Merchants and others shall
cease and forbear to buy receive and take the
same ungarbled, anything before in these presents
to the contrary notwithstanding. ..."

The above patent of dispensation was granted in
1606, after a petition from the Company had been
referred to " the Lord Treasurer and Earle of
Salisburie " and the two Lord Chief Justices. In
1616 we find King James granting further letters

215

THE GROCERY TRADE

patent to extend the Company's privileges in the
same respect, in which the following passage occurs :

" That it shall and may be lawful to and for
them and every person and persons being free of
the said Company at all times hereafter and
from time to time at their own free wills and
pleasures to alter sell and put to sale such
quantities, and so much of all or any sorts of
Spices, Wares, and Merchandises and com-
modities which they shall bring and have
returned in any of their voyages or ships from
the said East Indies into this our said realm of
England or any part thereof, as to them or any of
them shall seem good, or as may most tend to the
profit and benefit of them or any of them, in whole
great packs, sacks, or casks ungarbled, and not
cleansed, severed, sorted or divided. . . . And we
further . . . do give and grant full and free liberty
from license and authority unto all and every Mer-
chant and Merchants person and persons whatso-
ever as well our natural born subjects as Aliens,
denizens, or Strangers, and they and every or any
of them shall and lawfully may bargain for, buy,
receive and take of the said Governor and Com-
pany of Merchants of London trading into the
East Indies, and their Successors for the time
being, and of all and every person and persons
being free of the same Company or of any of them,
any such Spices, Drugs, Wares, Merchandise
and commodities in whole great packs, sacks, or
216

MERCHANT TRADING COMPANIES

casks as aforesaid, before the same be garbled,
cleansed, severed or divided, without any
damage, loss, forfeiture or penalty . . . Paying
unto us our heirs and Successors from time to
time all and every such customs, subsidies, sums
of money and other duties as are or ought to be
answered and paid to us. ... Provided always
that if any Merchant or Merchants or other
person or persons . . . shall at any time after-
wards put any of the said Drugs, Wares, or
Merchandises so bought as aforesaid to sale or
otherwise utter the same within the realm of
England or any other of our Kingdoms, Do-
minions or Territories, which Spices shall not be
afterwards exported but sold within this our
realm for inward use, that then every such person
shall incur and fall into the losse penalty and
forfeiture in the said recited Act contained."

The letters patent name the Governor (Sir
Thomas Smith) and Committee of the Company,
and exonerate them for any previous offences
against the statute now covered by this permission.

A grievance which the East India Company had
against King James in its early days was the issue
of a licence by the king to Sir Edward Michel-
bourne and others, to send out ships to trade with
Cathaya, China, Japan, Cambaya and Corea —
illustrating how these trade ventures grew and
spread in all directions. The length of the Indian
voyages and their comparatively poor results, and

217

THE GROCERY TRADE

the feeling of being ill-used by the Government,
caused many of the Adventurers to lose heart in
the early years ; but those who persisted were
rewarded and encouraged in 1611 by a cargo of
nutmegs and mace so valuable as to produce a
dividend of 211 per cent. A single ship which left
Gravesend in 1611 and returned in 1615 produced
218 per cent, upon the capital invested ; and the
eleventh voyage, in twenty months, yielded no less
than 340 per cent. Pepper costing in India 2%d.
per Ib. was sold in England at Is. Sd. ; cloves
costing 9d. were sold at 5s. ; nutmegs costing 4id.
were sold at 3s. ; whilst Mace costing Sd. per Ib.
was sold at 6s. per Ib.

By the year 1620 the Company possessed
factories in Sumatra, the Mogul's dominions,
Japan, Java, Borneo, Banda, Malacca, Celebes,
Siam, Coromandel, and Malabar. In this way
trade spread its empire in the East, whilst in the
West the Company had at least made the effort to
extend it by sending out Knight in the Hopewell
in search of the North- West Passage.

This preliminary period of quiet but enterprising
business in the spice trade lasted until 1623, when
the massacre of the Company's agents at Amboyna
brought its operations into prominent public notice,
with the result that a general desire sprang up to
share in its prosperous trading. Thus rival
ventures came to be fitted out, as we shall have
occasion to see in a later chapter.
218

CHAPTER XVI

THE GROCERS AND THE APOTHECARIES

Tin: century we have reached with the chronicle
of the East India Company was one in which
the making of modern England went on apace.
Half-way through that hundred years came the
Civil War, with the temporary overthrow of the
monarchy. Then when the Stuart dynasty was
restored and peace again assured came a new
expansion of trade, which has never since for any
long period ceased to grow.

In particular the seventeenth century brought
with it many hours of storm and stress for the old
City companies in general, and, what is mostly our
concern, for the Grocers' Company. It is remark-
able for the number of times the Company's
charters were renewed, and for the branching out
from the Grocers of another company or society
which has flourished to the present day.

In 1607 James I. granted to the Grocers' Com-
pany a renewal of their charter. This, as an
inspection of the ancient copy still in the Company's
possession serves to show, included a renewal or

219

THE GROCERY TRADE

confirmation of their ancient privileges and powers
in relation to the sale of goods, including drugs,
which up till then had been exercised and possessed
by them, and the plenary control of members of the
undivided community. Apparently no idea was
entertained that in a few short years a dissolution
of the bond which existed between the Grocers and
another branch of their fraternity would come about.
As a matter of fact, the grant of this date was the
last under which the ancient Company would retain
jurisdiction over pharmacy. In the agitation which
followed, and which resulted in the Apothecaries
forming a separate society, they had the manifest
advantage of having the king himself on their side.
It was not done, however, without a very vigorous
protest from the Grocers, who were loth to part
with the privileges they had so long enjoyed.

Events had not been wanting to justify the
Crown in its action. During the reign of Eliza-
beth many complaints had been made against the
incompetence of apothecaries — then, of course,
under the jurisdiction of the Grocers' Company —
and so far back as 1562 the Physicians sought to
obtain powers through Parliament to transfer the
correction and oversight of the Apothecaries from
the Grocers to themselves.

This action of the Physicians led the Grocers'
Company to increase its activity in the detection of
bad and unwholesome wares sold by apothecaries,
and in May 1562 there were " burnt and consumed
220

THE GROCERS AND APOTHECARIES

by fire in the parlour of this house," sundry wares
seized by the Wardens, including rhubarb, worm-
seed, manna, and other " noughtye " and corrupt
drugs and wares, the said apothecaries being
" straightly charged and commanded so to use them-
selves hereafter that they be no more found faulty in
the having or selling of any corrupt drugs or wares."
The abuses, however, continued, and in 1587 the
Court of the Company resolved that

" for reformation of sundry and many abuses
amongst the apothecaries, brothers of the Com-
pany, it is ordered and agreed that, Mr. Warden's
calling unto them such and so many of the apothe-
caries as they shall think convenient from time to
time, thrice at the least every year, viz., once at the
spring and once at the fall, and at other times when
Mr. Wardens shall think meet and convenient,
shall search the apothecaries for compounds and
other matters according to the ordinances."

Whether as a result of this increased vigilance of
the Grocers' Wardens or because the Grocers' Com-
pany could not adequately cope with the growing
abuses of the Apothecaries, an agitation among
the latter for a separate society broke out early
in the seventeenth century, one of the prime
movers being Gideon de Lawne, " a stranger born,"
who resided in Blackfriars; and a Parliamentary
measure was framed in 1610 definitely providing
for the creation of a separate corporation of apothe-

221

THE GROCERY TRADE

caries. This attempt to weaken the Company of
Grocers met with strong opposition, and for the
moment with little success. In 1614, however, the
agitation was renewed, and a petition was presented
to King James which set out that of late years

" many imperfect and unskilful persons do make
and sell, without restraint, false and corrupt medi-
cines in and about London, and do likewise send
them throughout your Highness' Kingdoms to
the disgrace and prejudice of the noble science of
physic and of the learned physicians and of such
as are skilful in the art of apothecaries, and to the
imminent danger of your subjects healths and
lives which abuses by your said subjects remaining
one body politic with the Company of Grocers,
hath not hitherto nor cannot receive any due
reformation, your said subjects having no place
of authority amongst them nor they having any
skill in the said science nor power to reform the
abuses and wrongs thereof."

The petitioners thereupon besought the king to
incorporate them as a separate body.

The king referred the matter to the Attorney-
General (Sir Francis Bacon) and the Solicitor-
General (Sir Henry Yelverton), with instruc-
tions to confer with his Majesty's Physicians and
the Apothecaries upon the matter. The judges
thereupon wrote to the Grocers' Company as
follows :
222

THE GROCERS AND APOTHECARIES

"To the Mr. and Wardens of the Company of
Grocers in London.

•' It hath pleased his Majesty to refer unto us the
examination of disorders complained of by the
Physicians and Apothecaries. And if we find the
redress thereof to be by way of incorporating of
them to certify the same to his Majesty. And for
so much as we conceive this new incorporation
may concern your Company being an ancient
Company already established we have thought it
fit before any further proceeding be had in this
business to give you hearing and to that purpose
we will that you attend us at mine the King's
Attorney's Chamber in Grays Inn upon Wed-
nesday next by two of the Clock in the afternoon.
" Your very loving friends,

"FRANCIS BACON.

"HENRY YELVERTON."

The Company thereupon appointed the Wardens
and certain apothecaries, being members of the Com-
pany, to attend and give evidence as requested, repre-
senting that the incorporation was unnecessary and
likely to be prejudicial to their ancient Company.

Gideon de Lawne, however, had not remained
inactive, and he continued to support the agitation
in influential circles, his appointment about 1615 as
apothecary to the king giving him additional power
at Court.

The removal from office of Baron EUesmere in

223

THE GROCERY TRADE

1616, who as Lord Keeper had jealously examined
all applications for new incorporation, and the elec-
tion of Bacon in his stead, no doubt favoured the
suit of the Apothecaries, and James was even-
tually convinced that a separate incorporation of
the Apothecaries was desirable, and a charter was
accordingly granted them on December 6, 1617.

The Apothecaries' Company's charter had a
negative and a positive side. Whilst on the one
hand it restrained members of the Grocers' and all
other companies from keeping apothecaries' shops,
and from exercising the " mystery " in London or
within a radius of seven miles, it required every
practitioner to have served his full term of ap-
prenticeship, and to have obtained from the College
of Physicians a certificate as to his competence.
It also conferred on the society powers of search,
seizure, and supervision over apothecaries' shops
in London and within the aforesaid radius, a
privilege hitherto held by the Grocers' Company.
The new body was also empowered to buy, sell,
and make drugs — a function which, it is said, they
found at first some difficulty in performing, owing
to the want of corporate resources and the expensive
character of the materials. Later, it is said, the
apothecaries not only dealt in their own proper
material, but, under pretence of selling liqueurs
for medicinal purposes, laid in stocks of the richer
sorts of wines — Stowe specifies more particularly
muscadel, Malmsey, sack, and bastard — thus tres-
224

HIE GROCERS AND APOTHECARIES

passing upon the province and injuring the rights
of the Vintners.

The new society was fortunate in having James
for a friend. He would even call it " his " society ;
and in the grant of arms made to them the
Apothecaries symbolised their obligations to the
king by having two unicorns introduced, the
dexter one denoting Scotland, James's native land.

The foundation of the Apothecaries' Company
was resented by the Grocers and the City authori-
ties, and both these bodies were to receive a sharp
rap over the knuckles in quite the Stuart manner
for their pains. To the temper James perceived in
the Grocers he replies :

" Another grievance of mine is that you have
condemned the patents of the Apothecaries in
London. I myself did devise that Corporation,
and do allow it. The Grocers who complain of
it are but Merchants. The mystery of these
Apothecaries was belonging to the Apothecaries,
wherein the Grocers are unskilful ; and therefore
I think it fitting that they should be a Corpora-
tion of themselves. They (the Grocers) bring
home rotten wares from the Indies, Persia, and
Greece, and herewith through mixtures make
waters and sell such as belong to the Apothe-
caries, and think no man must control them,
because they are not Apothecaries."

To the Lord Mayor and Aldermen the following
I P 225

THE GROCERY TRADE

letter was despatched by the king in 1618 on the
same subject :

" Whereas for the Reformacon of the manifold
abuses comitted dayly by unskilful persons,
professing and practising the Art of Apothe-
caries in London Wee were lately pleased upon
deliberation and long advisement first taken, in
a Cause of that weight, tending soe much to the
Publique good and safety of our subjectes by
a late Chre to separate the Apothecaries of
London from the Company of Grocers to whome
they were formerly united, And to create the
Apothecaries into a distinct body by themselves
Inhabling them to the sole practice of their owne
Arte which had beene of late tymes promiscu-
ously used by Grocers and other Emperickes.
And whereas thes Princely care of cures,
seemeth now to be by you impugned as of late
wee have bin informed, in that you have refused
to enroll our said Chre offered to you and not to
admitt their Apprentices as Apothecaries into
the freedome of the Cittie, Wee let you weet
that our pleasure is, That this Company of
Apothecaries created by us, shal bee as free and
absolute in all Respects as any other Corporacon
in London, And doe therefore require your due
conformitie, and obedience to us herein, and in
whatsoever ells shall concerne them And that you
so provide by all good wayes and means, that
226

THE GROCERS AND APOTHECARIES

they may bee fourthwith settled and established in
the free practice of their goverment and trade.
And that they maie without ympeachment freely
use and enioye such granntes and privileges as
wee in grace to them and good respect to our
subiectes have thus conferred upon them And
hereof faile you not as you tender our dis-
pleasure.

"Given under our signett at Whitehall the
XJth day of Aprill 1618."

The royal will and pleasure, or rather dis-
pleasure, thus manifested was further emphasised
by a proclamation of August 4, 1621, commanding
that none should sell, compound, or make any
medicinal receipts, or sell or distil to sell any oils,
waters," or other extracts in London or within
seven miles, but apothecaries of the new company,
upon great pains therein contained.

Furthermore, the proclamation even commanded
that none should presume to petition his Majesty
for alteration of the aforesaid order.

The royal mind being thus shown to be ab-
solutely obdurate and made up on the subject,
the Grocers' Company sought a remedy for their
complaint in another place.

Accordingly we find that the Grocers' Company
and divers apothecaries of London presented a
long petition to the House of Commons, which
set out the reasons why the new charter should

227

THE GROCERY TRADE

be repealed. The petition begins by reciting the
state of things which up to that time had existed.
It runs as follows :

"The Humble Petition of the Company of
Grocers and of divers Apothecaries of the said
City : — Most humbly showing that the Company
of Grocers being one of the chiefest and ancientest
Companies of London, consisting of Merchants,
Retailing Grocers, Apothecaries and others of
divers trades, upon the humble petition and
joint suit of the freemen of the mystery of the
Grocers and Apothecaries of London, the Com-
pany of Grocers and Apothecaries were incor-
porated, made and confirmed into one body politic
by His Majesty's Patents, in the fourth year of
His Highness's reign, and ever since and long
before, the Apothecaries and their medicines
and compositions have been yearly, as often as
occasion required, viewed, searched, and cor-
rected by the President and Censors of the
College of Physicians, by authority of Statute
made in the 32nd year of the reign of King
Henry VIII., and also by the Wardens of
the said Company, assisted with some skilful
Apothecaries, about ten years since preferred
a Petition to His Majesty for the obtaining
of a new Corporation of Apothecaries only."

The petition of the Grocers goes on to show that
the petition of the Apothecaries, just referred to,
228

THE GROCERS AND APOTHECARIES

had been put into the hands of the Law Officers of
the Crown, with the result that it had been found
that by law the king had full power to separate
the Apothecaries from the Grocers and erect them
into a separate body.

The petitioners allege, with some boldness, that
this opinion is against law, and they also set out
that the charter of the Apothecaries was incon-
venient to the Company of Grocers, having taken
from it a fourth part of its members, that the
said members were to be forced against their oaths
to leave their obedience to the Company, and that
the Grocers were restrained in their trade thereby,
to their great impoverishment. They also affirm
that some good citizens had given over their trade
and left the City rather than submit to the new
corporation, and that more were likely to follow.

Then follow other reasons under several heads,
viz., that the customs of the City would be
violated and a bad precedent set up, that damage
would be done to other companies of London, and
to particular men, and so on.

Notwithstanding these efforts, however, the
Apothecaries' Company had come to stay, and
doubtless soon proved its usefulness. The separa-
tion between the two functions — that of purveying
goods and that of compounding medicines — was
bound to come as science and civilisation progressed,
and it was at this point in our history that the
change arrived.

229

THE GROCERY TRADE

The Apothecaries went out of Egypt, so to
speak, poor, for the Grocers retained the bulk of
the property. Nor could the vigorous opposition
of the Grocers' Company itself, which saw some
of its valuable privileges vanishing, or that of the
Court of Aldermen of the City of London, which
looked on the separation with disfavour, avail to
thwart the king's will. I need hardly say that the
Society of Apothecaries exists until this day, and
with a Hall at Ludgate Hill where medicines and
drugs are yet dispensed — for, unlike others of the
companies, that of the Apothecaries is still closely
connected with the trade with which its name is
identified.

230

CHAPTER XVII
THE GROCERS' COMPANY AND PUBLIC DUTIES

THE despotic temper of the Stuarts, shown in many
other ways, appeared in their dealings with the
City of London in general and with the companies
in particular. We have seen the royal will of
James, the king "who never said a foolish thing,
and never did a wise one," exercised over the
foundation of the new Apothecaries' Company in
1617. In 1622 James interfered in the election
of the Grocers' Company's servants. His suc-
cessor, Charles I., endeavoured also to influence
the disposal of the Company's property and that
of their Church patronage.

We have seen that in the reign of Elizabeth the
City companies were expected, and, indeed, com-
pelled, to contribute large sums of money for
providing soldiers, sailors, and ships for the defence
of the country. Thus did the arbitrary tax called
" ship-money " grow up, the levying of which was
the occasion of so many disasters to Charles I. a few
years later. The Grocers' Company was among
those corporations and individuals from whom

281

THE GROCERY TRADE

resistance came. In 1639 Charles made his last
attempt to levy the hated impost ; and on April 8
of that year a letter was received by the Wardens
from the Lord Mayor " for the loane of £100 from
this Company for six months, towards the setting
forth and furnishing of a ship." The order did not
commend itself to the Court of Assistants any more
than similar demands were doing to the country at
large ; and accordingly, after the subject had been
well considered, it was resolved " that forasmuch as
it appears that this Company is much indebted, and
hath yearly paid ship-money, and hath heretofore
lent several sums of money to this city for the like
occasions, which are not yet repaid, and for diverse
other things, it is resolved and agreed by this court
not to lend the said money required by the said
letter, unless sufficient security be given for repay-
ment thereof at the end of six months."

However, the next year, 1640, found that the
necessities of the monarch, now fast hurrying
towards his undoing, were met by the Grocers'
Company, and that to the tune of £6000 and £4000
respectively. This year the Company received a
new charter from the king, and hence it is fair to
conclude that the transaction was in the nature of a
bargain.

Three years later the Grocers were paying £30 a
week to Parliament towards the support of the
troops, as well as £6 for the defence of the City
with chains and engines, and £8 for the relief of
282

THE GROCERS AND PUBLIC DUTIES

wounded soldiers. All these exactions pressed so
heavily upon the Company that it was ordered that
£1000 worth of plate should be taken out of the
treasury and sold for the payments of debts. The
same year a sum of £4500 was the Grocers' share of
a total of £50,000 ordered to be raised from the
companies by the Lord Mayor " for defence of the
City in these dangerous times, as the Parliament
forces are approaching." This forced the Wardens
to sell all the plate except £300 worth, which was
retained for necessary use. One would have thought
that now at length the exactions of Government
would have ceased ; but it was not so, for in 1645
the Committee of Safety, sitting at the Haber-
dashers' Hall, sent for the Wardens of the Grocers'
Company and informed them that they had learned
that the Company was indebted to one Richard
Greenough in the sum of £500, who had, as they
alleged, been found a delinquent to the Parliament.
They therefore demanded a speedy payment of the
£500 to themselves. The Court, whom the War-
dens consulted, found resistance useless ; so they
were obliged to borrow the money on the Com-
pany's seal and " restore the bond."

The old tradition of charitable and philanthropic
practices was well maintained in this period. In
this connection a note as to the granaries maintained
by the Grocers', as by the other great companies,
should be made.

The first notice of the companies being compelled

288

THE GROCERY TRADE

to assist in the provision of corn occurs in 1521,
when an Act of the Common Council of the
City decreed that £1000 was to be borrowed on
account of the great dearth and scarcity of wheat.
This was to be levied by way of a loan from the
City companies, according to the resources of each.
Moneys were lent by the companies from year to
year for this purpose. Thus in 1545 there was a
great arrival of foreign wheat, and the companies
were called upon to assist in purchasing it. On
this occasion the Grocers' Company subscribed
£100, as did also the Mercers', Drapers', and
Merchant Tailors', no other company furnishing
anything like the same amount. The Chamberlain
of the City was security for the repayment of this
loan, as of a similar one the next year.

In 1577 a conference was called on the subject
whether stores of corn should be provided and kept
by the companies ; or by the City, upon loans
from the companies by order of the Court of
Aldermen. The queen's Council had required that
5000 quarters of wheat at least should be kept in the
City against emergencies. It was finally agreed in
October 1578 that the companies should provide
quotas of corn according as each should be assessed,
and that the City should give them rooms in the
Bridge House for storing it up. Here, in common
with the other twelve great companies, that of
the Grocers had a store allotted to it. This
arrangement continued until 1596, when an
234

THE GROCERS AND PUBLIC DUTIES

alteration took place, the companies then building
granaries of their own. That of the Grocers was
at Bridewell.

It is noteworthy that the money for the purpose
of keeping up the supply of corn was provided by a
contribution from the members of the Company,
and two of the livery were periodically appointed,
under the name of " Corne Renters," to collect it.

Now, although this quasi-communal provision of
corn had previously been designed to ensure that
there should never be a lack of the staff of life in
the City, as the carrying out of this policy progressed
real utility and charity began to be lost sight of.
Applications were made to borrow the companies'
stores from quarters which should have been above
it, and attempts were made to force the companies
into selling for mere private advantage. In par-
ticular the history of the Grocers gives two remark-
able illustrations of this. The first of these dis-
closes a curious instance of royal poverty and mean-
ness, and comes down to us in a letter addressed
in 1622 to the Wardens of the Company by the
Duke of Lenox, Lord High Steward. It was
a demand that thirty or forty quarters of the best
and whitest wheat might be lent for the use of the
Court. Repayment was promised the next month,
at the latest, when the king's stores should have
arrived. The Wardens at first did not care to accede
to the demand, but at last reluctantly lent ten quar-
ters to his Majesty. It is doubtful whether it was

235

THE GROCERY TRADE

ever repaid. The other case is one in which the
Privy Council tried to force the Company to buy a
quantity of rye, a grain for which there was but
little demand, which had been brought into the
kingdom by divers merchants trading to the coun-
tries of the East. The Court of the Company
firmly but respectfully declined the transaction.

On another occasion (1642) of a different kind
the companies answered with the greatest readi-
ness a call on their charity made by the distressed
Protestants of Londonderry ; and the Grocers in
particular gave them 100 quarters of corn.

It may also be mentioned by anticipation that
after the Restoration in 1660 a sum of £12,000 was
levied by Common Council on the City companies
to be lent out in corn as a present to the king.
The Grocers' proportion was £1080, which they
freely gave as an act of honour and respect from
the City, quaintly adding that it might in due time
conduce to the singular advantage and benefit of the
Company.

The custom of thus storing corn continued until
the Great Fire, when the companies' mills and
granaries were destroyed, and these were never
afterwards renewed.

With regard to the relation between the Grocers'
Company and the Commonwealth, it is worthy of
note that the " Committee of Safety " appointed to
watch over the interests of the nation in 1641, met
at Grocers' Hall for several years.
236

THE GROCERS AND PUBLIC DUTIES

In 1052 a special committee entitled the
"Committee of Corporations" was appointed by
the Parliament It seems that it was the duty of
this body to inquire into the validity of charters,
and on December 1 of that year the Grocers'
charter was called for. The Wardens were directed
by the Court to proceed with caution, taking the
original and also a copy, and instructed not to let
the original go out of their hands unless peremp-
torily required to do so. A proposal for confirming
and renewing the charter appears to have followed
the interview, and the Company left the matter in
the Wardens' hands. Cromwell, who was made
Law Protector the next year, is stated to have
granted the Company a new charter by which it
was empowered to make bylaws for its govern-
ment, and, amongst other privileges, it gave the
power to levy a fine of £30 on a member on his
admission. Possibly this was to enable the Com-
pany to replenish its impoverished chest. How-
ever that may be, no trace of the Cromwellian
charter now remains ; and if it ever existed, it
doubtless went the way of all such documents at
the Restoration, when the acts of the republican
Government were nullified and disowned.

237

CHAPTER XVIII
THE RESTORATION AND AFTER

THE king came to his own again in 1660 ; and as
it happened that the Lord Mayor of the year was
a grocer, that dignitary played no small part in
welcoming the returning monarch. Every one
knows with what a fever and fervour of loyalty the
king, Charles II., was acclaimed, and the City was
by no means behindhand in paying its respects to
the Sovereign, and lavishing upon him every token
of joyful recognition.

On May 29, 1660, Charles entered London, and
Thomas Allen (or Alleyne), the Grocer Mayor,
received him with great state, and was knighted
on the occasion. On June 14 the Lord Mayor
went forth to meet the king, the day being that
of his Majesty's entry into London in triumph. Sir
Thomas Allen was again honoured by being made
a baronet. The Grocers' Company, for their por-
tion of the pageant, provided " thirty persons as
riders, and each a man, in livery, to attend the Lord
Mayor, for the more magnificent reception of the
King's most excellent Majesty in his passage through
238

THE RESTORATION AND AFTER

the City." On July 5 the king again came to the
City, this time attended by both Houses of Parlia-
ment, and was entertained with them at the Guild-
hall, when, of course, the grocer Lord Mayor occupied
the chair. Previously to these two visits the king
had consented to become a member of the Com-
pany of Grocers, and the Lord Mayor acquainted
the Court of Assistants " that he had, by special
friendship at Court, procured the moving of His
Majestic to owne the Company of Grocers for his
Company."

It may here be noted that the mayoralty of
Thomas Allen had been inaugurated on October 29,
1659, with a pageant " done at the cost and charges
of the ever-to-be-honoured Company of Grocers."
This fact gives rise to the reflection that even in
the time of Puritanism the City did not forego its
methods of celebrating the elections of its chief
magistrates. However that may be, the Lord
Mayor's Show of Thomas Allen was noteworthy
in that it was described as partaking of the
character of a lecture on medicine. Not only
were groceries mentioned in the verses wherewith
his lordship was saluted, but drugs were also
alluded to, as, for example, in the two following
stanzas :

Your currans from Zant
When your worships want,
Come thing as wood,
In vessels good ;

289

THE GROCERY TRADE

And reasons* you know

Come from Maligo ;
Dates, figs, cloves and nutmegs, with sugar and rice ;

The pepper and ginger,

That nose-toasting twinger,
Then synamon and mace and other such spice.

Then casia and myrrh,

We next must prefer,

With fine frankingsense,

That doth cost you pence :

Then sweet benjamine

Doth draw storax in,
With sena, and china, and rhuberb so good :

All the next I can tell a

Is sarsaparetta,
Which strengthens the body and cleanseth the blood.

Thus, whatever might have been the extent of
the sole right of the apothecaries to compound and
dispense medicines, the grocers still plainly sold
drugs ; and Orridge goes so far as to say that the
" Company of Grocers were the druggists of the
time." This is amply confirmed by the charters
granted during the thirty years following the Re-
storation, by Charles II., James II., and William
and Mary, to the Grocers' Company. The right to
sell drugs was not, however, maintained without a
struggle. On this occasion it was from the Phy-
sicians that the danger was apprehended. In 1664
they had obtained a charter of incorporation which

* Raisins are still called " reasons " in some parts of the
country.
240

THE RESTORATION AND AFTER

seemed likely to abridge the sphere of the Com-
pany's activities. Accordingly " divers members of
the Grocers' Company trading in drugs made suit
and request for the countenance and protection of
the Court of the Company in freedom of their
trade, against the invasion of the College of Phy-
sicians, who, having lately obtained from His
Majesty a patent with new and strange power of
privilege and search, seizure, fine, and imprisonment,
are attempting the passing of a bill in Parliament
for the ratification of the same; which, if effected, will
be an insupportable inconvenience and prejudice."

The aid of the Court was granted, and a com-
mittee was appointed to consult and instruct counsel
to defend them before the committee in Parliament ;
and it was likewise ordered that the charges in-
curred by the Druggists for the defence of their
right against the Physicians should be defrayed by
the Grocers' Company. The right to sell drugs
was maintained, as we shall see, by reference to
the charter granted to the Grocers' Company by
James II. some years later.

In 1684 a notable event occurred in the history
of municipal and other corporations. This was the
issue of the notorious writ " Quo Warranto," by
the authority of which inquiry was made into the
validity of all charters. The writ was ostensibly
directed against the City of London, with the
Corporation of which the companies were, of course,
intimately connected. The City charter was arbi-
I Q 241

THE GROCERY TRADE

trarily and illegally declared forfeited in the Trinity
term of the above year ; and some of the com-
panies, terrified by the proceedings, and apprehend-
ing that they would be the next victims, surrendered
their charters. The Wardens of the Grocers' Com-
pany on March 28, 1684, reported to the Court that
they had received the writ " Quo Warranto," in
common with the other companies. A committee
was elected to deal with the matter, including the
Lord Mayor, the Earl of Berkeley, Sir William
Hooker, and others. The committee appointed a
deputation to wait on the Secretary of State to
inquire what was the king's pleasure ; to whom
answer was returned that what the Crown intended
was not to abolish the ancient charter of the Com-
pany, but to reserve to itself the right of appointing
its officers. The Company decided to surrender its
charter; and, at the same time, petition for the
king's pardon (for they feared they must have
highly offended him), and ask that the charter
might be restored. The surrender and petition
were presented to the king at Windsor on April 12
by a deputation of grocers, including Sir James
Edwards, Sir John Moore, and other members.
They were received by his Majesty very kindly,
and were promised that the matter should be looked
into preparatory to their being granted a confirma-
tion of the charter.

On December 18 new charters were issued to
the companies. These were by no means in the
242

THE RESTORATION AND AFTER

same terms and on the same conditions as those
which had just been surrendered, but under such
restrictions as the king should think fit. A proviso
was inserted that, although they might choose their
own officers, these should have received the sacra-
ment six months before their election according to
the forms of the Church of England. The Wardens'
and Clerks' names were to be presented to the king
for confirmation. In a word, all liberty of will and
action was destroyed.

Three months afterwards Charles II. died.
James II. succeeded on February 6, 1685, and one
of his first acts was to use the power just conferred
in an attempt to influence the companies' selection
of voters by packing them with liverymen likely to
conform to his will in the selection of members of
Parliament for the City. In 1688 James II. had
come to the length of his tether — the measure of
the Stuarts was filled to the brim. In that year
James made an act of restitution to the Grocers'
Company, with others, under pressure of the
rumoured coming of the Prince of Orange, on the
basis of the charter of Henry VI. and that of the
fifteenth of Charles I. A hasty Order in Council
was made preparatory to the removal of all restric-
tion which had been imposed under the "Quo
Warranto."

The renewal of the Charter in 1684 offered, to
quote Baron Heath, "an excellent opportunity
of framing a new set of bylaws," and, availing

243

THE GROCERY TRADE

themselves of the assistance of the Earl of Mul-
grave, their Master for the year, they procured
what is termed in the records " an enlargement
of their Charter." This enlargement extended the
jurisdiction of the Company over all confectioners,
druggists, tobacconists, and tobacco -cutters.
It was therefore decreed that

"All manner of person and persons of the
mystery or art of grocery and of the mystery
or arts of a confectioner, druggist, tobacconist
and tobacco-cutter, of and in the city afore-
said, or the suburbs precincts or liberties
thereof, or within three miles of the city
aforesaid, exercising, or who shall hereafter
exercise the arts aforesaid or any of them,
may and shall be by force of these presents,
one body politic and corporate ... by the
name of the Mystery of Grocers of the City of
London."

The Charter also continued the right of trade
search to the Company, directing that the

" Wardens of the Company for the time being
may for ever and at all times hereafter have the
oversight searching correction and government
of all and singular persons of the mysteries of
confectioners, druggists and tobacconists."

They were also granted
244

THE RESTORATION AND AFTER

" power and authority to punish all offenders for
deceit and incompetent occupation or execution
of the mystery or art of grocery aforesaid and
the other arts or mysteries aforesaid, according
to their sound discretion and the ordinances so
to be made as aforesaid by them and their
successors."

Finally, in 1690, the second year of William and
Mary, all pre-existing charters were declared to be
abolished and annulled, and a charter was granted
upon which the Company still relies as the source
of its powers and rights. By it all existing privi-
leges were confirmed. It refers to " grocers, con-
fectioners, druggists, tobacconists, tobacco-cutters,
sugar-bakers, and refiners of sugar in the City or
within three miles thereof."

Thus at the beginning of the century the Com-
pany lost the apothecaries ; at the end they gained
the tobacconists and sugar-refiners.

Under Charles II. the grocer was to add, little
by little, many new articles to his stock-in-trade,
but first were to come those disastrous calamities
the Great Plague and the Great Fire. It is hardly
necessary to say that during the plague trade was
paralysed. The tradesmen put up their shutters
and retired to their parlours, there to await the day
of visitation.

The journal of a wholesale grocer who lived in
Wood Street, Cheapside, has come down to us.

245

THE GROCERY TRADE

On the premises lived the grocer, his wife, five
children, two maidservants, two apprentices, a
porter, and a boy. At the approach of the plague
the grocer sent the boy home to his friends in the
country, he gave the elder apprentice the rest of his
time, and he put the porter on guard. For five
long months the household remained prisoners.
Five months with trade at an absolute standstill,
and in not one, but every shop ! Chroniclers of
the time tell us that often servants and apprentices,
when attacked by the plague, were thrust out to
die in the streets ; another lamented that the
apprentices, " the children of Knights and Justices
of the County," were rated as beggars and buried
in the highway.

The plague having subsided, next came the
Great Fire, when ten million pounds' worth of
damage was done, and most of the grocers of the
City lost their all — houses and warehouses, stock,
debts, everything swept away by the flames.
Grocers' Hall was burnt to the ground, and only a
summer-house standing in the garden escaped.
The plate was melted, the furniture destroyed.
Happy to relate, the Company's archives and
documents, which were in this summer-house or
" turret," were preserved. These may be seen in
facsimile to-day in the pages of Kingdon.

It is a matter of history that the citizens set to
work manfully to rebuild the fair city. Very soon
the ground was covered with houses and shops, the
246

THE RESTORATION AND AFTER

localities and streets being preserved as before,
although plans had been prepared to lay out the
new city on a more regular and beautiful scale.

From the Harleian Miscellany can be gathered
very interesting information as to the state of trade
and the life of the tradesman in the years shortly
following the Great Fire. The author of "The
Grand Concern of England," who describes himself
as " a lover of his country," takes a review of English
society, which he apparently considered to be going
to the dogs, and then suggests certain remedies to
Parliament The year 1673 is the date of this pro-
duction, which is as verbose as documents of the
time usually were. When he comes to survey the
citizens and tradesmen, he observes that they com-
plain for want of trade, but really without a cause ;
and though so many tradesmen failed yearly, trade
had never been greater than it then was. He rather
saw the cause of so many failures in high living and
too much luxury — probably reactions in this reign
from the dourness of the Puritanism of the Com-
monwealth. However, the condition of things did
not warrant this policy, for there were alleged to be
five times as many of most trades as were in exist-
ence twenty or thirty years before. To this state
of things the traders themselves had contributed by
taking double or treble the number of apprentices,
for the sake of the premiums received with each
niul the cheap labour they would be able to count
on, and had thus spoilt trade by creating too many

247

THE GROCERY TRADE

traders. Nevertheless, apprentices had caught the
prevailing taste for luxury, in which they were en-
couraged by the example of their masters. It was
recommended by the author of the pamphlet that
they should be made to do their share of servile
work, and be thus kept humble, and less proud and
less insolent and quarrelsome with their service,
usage, and diet than they had lately become. The
love of luxury followed the apprentice into his
tradesman's days, and when setting up in business —
which he would do as soon as he came out of his
time — he would expect to have as good a house as
his master, keep as high a table, and lay out half of
his thousand-pound capital in furnishing his house,
with the idea of making a good match, with a wife
who would bring him another thousand pounds as
her marriage portion. But the wife would not feel
that justice had been done unless she too could spend
at once three or four hundred pounds out of the
money she had brought her husband in finery such
as cupboards of plate, a necklace of pearls, earrings,
diamond rings, lace, embroidered hose, and other
fine raiment. Thus the money to be invested in
the new business was seriously curtailed. But the
extravagance of the newly married couple is said
not to have rested there ; for the wife, encouraged to
think herself some one great by her husband, would
not stir out of doors without a coach, and spent
more in the hire of such a vehicle than the sales in
the shop came to. All this would take the young
248

THE RESTORATION AND AFTER

woman into fast society, and they were " so courted
and gallanted, that oftentimes they were persuaded
into such inconveniences, as proved fatal to their
husbands as well as to themselves." The writer of
this pamphlet goes on to say that the husband
himself was most to blame, as originally the cause
of his own ruin. " Nothing will serve them, but
live at this rate, keep their wives thus fine, expose
them to temptations by setting them in their shops
in tempting dresses, thinking to invite customers."
The upshot of this was often the downfall of
the wife and the ruin of the tradesman. Other
young tradesmen, when a little prosperity fell in
their way, were said to " grow high, keep their
coaches, have their country-house, the candle
burning thus at both ends." These luxurious
courses, together with decay of trade, are alleged
as the cause of so many failures at this time — the
thirteenth year of Charles II.'s restoration and the
seventh alter the Great Fire, when London had
already risen in great degree from its ashes. But
the City was already noted for the great rents that
tenants had to pay for shops, houses, or warehouses
within its precincts. So much was this the case
that the writer alleges that trade had gone to the
other end of the town, where rents were lower.
Tradesmen who were content to live in the City
before the fire had begun to fix their abodes
in the suburbs, to the destruction of the City.
Evidently, moreover, many had removed their

249

THE GROCERY TRADE

businesses to the suburbs, for he complainingly asks,
" Why should they not come into the City again,
and make that the seat of trade ? " Although the
City had been rebuilt, the traders, notwithstanding
their oaths when bound apprentices and made free,
in many cases would not return to the City, a fact
which greatly incensed the writer of the pamphlet,
who quaintly says that a man who would " make
no conscience of forswearing himself merely to
gain a little advantage in his trade " would make
no conscience of cheating him, and therefore should
have none of his custom.

Another complaint was that the beginners, who
were obliged to keep shops heavily rented, rated,
and taxed, in order to gain custom (these dues
being in London treble those of any county in
England), had to meet an unfair form of com-
petition from the older tradesmen. The latter, he
says, having a large circle of customers, were able
to give up their shops and take a country-house at
a small rent, paying not the sixth part of taxes
that were paid in London, and so to carry on their
trade in London in warehouses. He hints that
magistrates who did this, and by their sordid
avarice spoilt trade for the young beginners, ought
not to have any manner of government or power
in or over the City. In other respects this " lover
of his country " desired a return to the simplicity
of the good old days, as he probably thought
them, of the Commonwealth.
250

THE RESTORATION AND AFTER

However, this somewhat pessimistic pamphleteer
did not altogether succeed in quelling the spirit of
the time ; nor did his forecast of the ruin of his
country, and of London in particular, prove a true
one. Trade was in the course of time destined to
right itself and to attain to greater things than
ever before, as the nation grew and expanded both
in population and riches. It will be my task to
follow, as far as possible, some of the developments
which that part of it represented by the grocery
trade underwent.

The vigilance of the Grocers' Company in regard
to the oversight of their trade and its interests is
evidenced by a petition presented to Parliament
by the members of the Company, in conjunction
with other London traders, in 1691. In this a
complaint was made concerning a class of people
called pedlars, hawkers, and petty chapmen, who,
contrary to law, " do carry about, dispose, and sell
in cities and towns of this kingdom very great
quantities of several sorts of goods and commodities
belonging to the said trades, to the ruin and
destruction of the said tradesmen, and to the
great inconvenience and danger of the whole nation
in general." Nineteen reasons were given for
these men being brought within the purview of the
statutes, it being pointed out that most of them
were aliens and that no fewer than 10,000 of them
were alleged to be touring the country. From
this petition it seems evident that the Grocers'

251

THE GROCERY TRADE

Company considered itself to be to some extent
entrusted with the guardianship of the whole
trade ; and that it further thought that should the
hawking of grocers' wares be tolerated and become
general all supervision of the retailing of groceries
would be rendered ineffectual and nugatory.

At this period, a country grocer would travel
once a year to London on horseback in the
company of friends to give orders for goods. The
journey, which usually took some days, would
be beset with difficulties, not the least being the
highwaymen who then beset the public roads.
Having reached London in safety, the grocer
would give his various orders, some of which were
to be sent home by coasting- vessels and some by
carriers. The charges for carriage by road from
London to Lancashire varied from 3s. to 5s. per cwt.
and these waggons would be accompanied by guards
bearing quaint flintlock firearms to protect them
from the Jack Sheppards of the day. Only the
cheaper kind of goods were entrusted to the ships
as it was not an unfrequent occurrence for a
vessel with all it contained to be captured by one
of the French privateers which infested our coasts.

A country grocer would take an apprentice for
seven years, receiving fees ranging from £35 to £50,
and having taught the apprentice his trade would
encourage him to open business for himself. One
such apprentice having terminated his apprentice-
ship, received from his master letters of recom-
252

THE RESTORATION AND AFTER

mendation to the wholesale dealers in London, and,
with £120 in cash proceeded from Lancaster to
London on horseback to make his purchases. When
he reached the metropolis, he put up at the " Swan
with Two Necks " in Lad Lane,* afterwards buying
goods of sundry persons of the value of £200 and
upwards, and paid each of them about half ready
money, " as was then usual to do by any young
man beginning trade." He got his goods placed on
board an outward bound vessel and then returned
homeward to fit up his shop with the aid of a local
joiner, his goods arriving about a week later. The
apprentices of those days would frequently have
their bed in the shop, they being, to quote one
writer, " called up at all times of the night to serve
customers."

The life of a trader in the country towns was
spent under altogether different conditions and
quieter circumstances than to-day, and if he suc-
ceeded in making a clear profit of £100 in a year,
he assumed he was doing well.

* This Inn was pulled down in 1845.

253

CHAPTER XIX

RETAILER AND TOKENS

THE story of retail trade in this country in general,
and that of the grocer in particular, can be in-
directly traced from a study of the tokens issued
during the latter part of the seventeenth century
and later.

The history of these little discs of copper or
other metal really divides itself into two periods.
The time of the Commonwealth and the earlier
years of Charles II., to be precise, from 1648 to
1679, saw almost every tradesman of any im-
portance making his own money — at least, as far
as farthings and halfpennies were concerned 1
Numbers of these little pieces are still extant, and
much learned and antiquarian diligence has been
expended on their study, whilst they have been
eargerly collected by connoisseurs, and many
varieties now repose in the British Museum and
other public depositories. As we shall see, the
grocer had his share in the production of this
private money, and at one time a great many
tokens still extant were given by the grocers of
254

RETAILER AND TOKENS

Norwich, of Canterbury, of Bristol, or of London
in exchange for the silver or gold coin of the realm,
he, of course, undertaking to give full value for them
whenever they should be tendered at his counter.

At the present day one of our strongest pre-
possessions is that to the State alone belongs the
prerogative of coining the currency in general use.
Such is the statute law of the land, but it was not
exactly always so. In the time of Elizabeth the
want of a copper coinage was severely felt, yet the
Mint made no provision for coining any metal
below the value of silver. The Government of
that queen, it is true, had under consideration the
subject of a copper coinage, but the proposal was
not pursued. Permission, however, was given to
Bristol about the year 1594 to strike tokens.
There is extant a square leaden piece of this city,
bearing the device of a ship issuing from a castle
(the arms of Bristol) and the date 1591, with the
name of the city and the word " Farthing " upon
it. It is surmised that this token was but a
pattern. In 1594 a letter was sent to the Mayor
and Aldermen requiring them to call in all the
private tokens which had been issued by divers
persons without any authority, and directing that
none should make the same without licence from
the Mayor.

In the next century the need for a copper
coinage, which, in the words of a report to the
Council of State, dated 1651, ministered to frugality,

255

THE GROCERY TRADE

inasmuch as " men can have a farthing's worth and
are not constrained to buy more of anything than
they stand in need of, their feeding being from
hand to mouth," was severely felt. In the early
years of the seventeenth century it was sought to
meet this need by the then prevalent device of
granting patents to Court favourites to issue half-
pence and farthings. On April 10, 1615, Lord
J. Harrington, of Exton, Rutland, obtained the
monopoly by a patent of this kind.

Now in the popular view a monopoly of coining
was no more desirable than many of the other
monopolies which were during this period secured
to favourites of fortune and the Court by patent,
especially as the pieces thus circulated were not
equal in intrinsic value to the amount for which
they were stamped to be current. The coins
issued by the above-named nobleman were nick-
named " Harringtons," and tradesmen soon began
to defy the Government by resorting to the practice
of issuing their own small coinage. Of these
thousands are in existence, all dating from the
thirty years between 1648 and 1679. The contest
was concluded practically by the issue of " royal
farthings," as they were called, in 1672, although
traders continued, as at Norwich, to issue their
own tokens for some years later. The contest
between the people and the Government during
these years, and the success of the former in
defying authority, is the more readily understand-
256

TOKKXS ISSUKI) BY GROCERS, SKVKXTKKXTII < !.\ I I IM

RETAILER AND TOKENS

able when it is remembered that it took place
during the troublous times of the Civil War and
the Commonwealth. When " the king came to his
own again " the sole right of coining was soon
reasserted by the State. It was no longer felt to
be beneath the dignity of the Sovereign to coin
baser metal than silver, and one interesting phase
in the history of commerce came to an end.

But to come to the part the grocer played in
this almost universal issuing of tokens. In the
revised edition of Boyne's work on this subject
notice is taken of no fewer than 3550 different
pieces which were issued in London alone during
the years under review.

Again, at Norwich the private coinage of
farthings and halfpence went on until 1667, when
the functions of the local mint so far as copper
coins were concerned were taken over by the city
authorities. About ninety examples of private
traders' tokens issued at Norwich are extant. Of
these the most numerous issuers were those who
followed the occupation of grocers. No fewer
than twenty-nine different examples have come
down to us, bearing either the arms of the Grocers'
Company or such devices as designate the occupa-
tion of the grocer, or at least the positive statement
that the issuer, whose name or initials appear
upon the coin, was a grocer.

A number of tokens issued in the provinces

which have come into my possession lie before me

i B 257

THE GROCERY TRADE

as I write. A particularly well-preserved half-
penny, which, as a matter of fact, is of exactly the
same circumference as a farthing of our own day,
but is of wafer-like thinness, bears on one side the
well-known shield of the Grocers' Company, en-
circled by the name of the issuer — Francis Reed,
Grocer. On the other side there are the words
" In Waymouth, 1669," in a circle ; in the centre,
" His Half-penny."

Another specimen is much smaller. It bears
the Grocers' arms, or rather shield, encircled by
the words " William Stevenson." On the reverse
side appear " I. Abington, Grocer," and a capital
" S " over " W. M." Still a third example was
issued by "William Stayner in Blandford,
Grocer." "W. S." appears in the centre of one
side, and a pair of scales evenly balanced on the
other.

It must be noticed that many of these tokens
bear a strong family resemblance, as if the dies
from which they were struck were made by the
same hand. It is said that the engravers of the
pieces included Rawlins, who under the Com-
monwealth fell into great poverty, and from
having been employed on the royal coins and seals
was glad to accept employment in designing tokens,
and was the author of many of the devices they
bear. In other cases local artists were employed,
who travelled from town to town designing tokens
for the various tradesmen. The presses which were
258

RETAILER AND TOKENS

used wherewith to strike the tokens were of
primitive but effective pattern.

A frame of four-inch oak beams strongly dove-
tailed together was made. In the centre of the
top beam a rod was fitted, bearing a screw, with
handles to turn the same at the top. On the lower
end the die was fitted, and exactly underneath, on
the upper edge of the lower beam, the counterpart
was securely fixed. The disc of metal, cut to the
requisite size and thickness, was inserted, and the
rod screwed down until the token was firmly and
with great pressure squeezed between the die and
the counterpart. The result was the impression on
both sides of the token. Probably in many cases
the tradesman thus coined his own pieces.

It certainly is a strange picture, and one that
well illustrates the changes undergone by the
grocery trade, which this practice calls up — the
grocer preparing for his busy day by setting his
apprentices or journeyman to strike off a few
hundred halfpence or farthings, so that he may be
able to give change to those who tender the silver
coin of the realm I

The number of grocers throughout the country
who issued tokens upon which appeared the arms
of the Grocers' Company are far in excess of those
using other devices. The phenomenon may be
accounted for by the popularity and wide extension
of the Grocers' Company of London, " foreign
members/' as those who had their business outside

259

THE GROCERY TRADE

the Metropolis were called, being scattered about
in all parts of the kingdom. The reason for the
abundance of grocery tokens cut probably is that
the grocers had more need for giving small change
than other sorts of tradesmen. There is, however,
abundant evidence that the grocers, and those
tradesmen who were so closely allied to grocers that
they then came under the same generic title, such
as druggists, tobacconists, and even apothecaries
(at that date), were by this time a large and im-
portant part of the community in Norwich and
other places outside London. Besides the wide
range of tokens mentioned in proof of this, the
Grocers' device may still be seen on many monu-
ments erected to Norwich citizens in the next
century in various churches of the city, and the
coat of arms of the Company is conspicuous in the
fine carving on the backs of the Corporation seats
in the Council Chamber at the Guildhall. The
shield of the Grocers also appears on the stained
glass of church windows, as, for instance, in the
east window of St. Andrew's, where it is repeated
four times. These are proofs that the grocers were
not only numerous and wealthy, but also that they
were not ashamed of their calling and were willing
to acknowledge in the most public and permanent
manner that they followed an ancient and honour-
able occupation.

That many of the grocer issuers of tokens at this
period were substantial tradesmen and citizens of
260

RETAILER AND TOKENS

eminence and importance may even be gathered
from a study of the tokens still extant Many
interesting particulars have also been brought to
light through investigations suggested by these
little pieces of metal.

Thus, one Charles Morgan, grocer, issued a
halfpenny on which it is stated that his place of
business was in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden,
and the device of an angel appeared. Curiously
enough, the following advertisement occurs in
The Naves (No. 62, August 4, 1664, p. 500):
" A Lexicacus, or the famous Spirit of Salt of the
World, good against the Scurvy, Fevours, the
Stone, Rheums, &c. prepared philosophically (not
after the common way) by Constantine Rodochuaces,
an approved Grecian Chemist. . . . And it is like-
wise to be had at Mr. Morgans, Grocer, in Henrietta
Street, Covent-Garden"

Another advertisement which appeared in the
London Gazette, No. 242, March 9-12, 1667,
runs as follows : " Several Chymicall prepara-
tions, besides those mentioned by Mr. Boyle in /«.*
book of the usefulness of Natural and Experi-
mental Philosophy, made by a skilful hand ; are
sold by Mr. Morgan, a Grocer, in Henrietta Street,
Covent-Garden."

It is evident that the functions of the grocer and
the druggist were still conjoined at this period ;
that the grocer also sold what one might term
•• patent " medicines — an article which his modern

261

THE GROCERY TRADE

descendants do likewise sometimes include in their
stocks.

A curious token was that issued from the famous
coffee-house in Exchange Alley near the old
Exchange, in the City. It is described as the only
extant specimen of the seventeenth century on
which the word "tea" occurs. The sign of the
coffee-house was the head of the Grand Turk.
This appeared on the token surrounded by the
words " Morat. ye. Great. Men. did. Me. call "
(obverse) ; the reverse contained the couplet
" Where-eare. I. came. I. conquerd. all " ; and in
the centre was the advertisement " Coffee Tobacco
Sherbet tea and Chocolat retaCd in Exchange Ally.'"
" Where'er I came I conquered all " was certainly
strangely, if unconsciously, prophetic of the vogue
which tea, long years afterwards, was to obtain !

The case of a token also occurs which bears the
Drapers' arms, although it is that of "Edward
Roberts, grocer, near York House in Le Stran."
This grocer was appointed by notice in the London
Gazette (No. 174, July 15-18, 1667), in the room
of a Mrs. Warwick, to receive all letters, paid and
unpaid, and to carry them to the office for despatch.
There had been complaints that unscrupulous
persons had represented themselves to be
authorised to collect letters who for the sake of
retaining the postage fee had subsequently
destroyed them. So to prevent the like abuse his
Majesty's Postmaster- General appointed, amongst
262

RETAILKlt AND TOKENS

others, Edward Roberts, grocer, at the Bay-tree,
over against York House, who had given security
and voluntary oath for his faith fuln<

There have been many grocers since who have
combined the office of postmaster with the over-
sight of their business ; they can look upon
Mr. Roberts as certainly one of the earliest of
those to whom the responsibility was committed.

But it would be an endless task to follow all the
paths whither a study of the pieces issued during
this thirty years would lead us. An example from
the country, however, must not fail to be noticed
(it is illustrated on p. 257), for it is a rare instance
of a seventeenth-century grocer having a number of
branch establishments, for which he issued a com-
mon token. The obverse bears the inscription
"JOHN. LETHBRIDGE. of South," around the
initials " I. M. L." The reverse is inscribed
" Tawton, Chagford and Moreton his halfe
penny." As the same grocer also issued a token
for a shop in the village of Zeal, it seems that he
had four places of business situated in the same
locality. Thus the multiple-shop concern, as it
has been called, is not altogether such a novel
method of trading as one might think.

The devices which appear on a large number of
tokens include, apart from the shield of the Grocers'
Company, with its chevron and cloves, sometimes
a pair of scales evenly balanced, to infer the just-
ness of the issuer's dealings. Less seldom a sugar-

203

THE GROCERY TRADE

loaf or loaves is the device ; and in one instance, at
all events, what appears to be a tea-chest is intro-
duced. In a majority of instances the design
included nothing more artistic than lettering — the
place of issue, the name of the tradesman, some-
times, but not always, the trade he followed, and
the initials of his wife and himself, together with a
statement of the value the piece represented.

However, this " taking of the law into their own
hands " by the trading community — issuing its own
copper coinage — was not to be suffered to continue
for long. An Order in Council was promulgated
for making current his Majesty's farthings and
halfpence of copper, and forbidding all others to be
used under the threat of severe pains and penalties.
This proclamation was universally obeyed through-
out the kingdom, except in one or two places, as in
Chester and Norwich. In the former case the
Crown took legal proceedings against the city, but
on the Member of Parliament for Chester and the
Speaker of the House of Commons interceding with
the Law Officers of the Crown the proceedings were
stopped, on condition that the law was obeyed.
Norwich had to petition the king for pardon,
which was graciously granted, and the tokens were
then called in by the public bellman. The issue
of tokens continued in Ireland until 1679. Thus
closed the first period of our history during which
a private coinage held the field.

A hundred years later, for a second time copper
264

TOKKNS ISSUKU 15V GUOCKKS, Eir.HTKKXTII CKXTUKY

RETAILEIt VXD TOKENS

coins, and even pieces of silver, were to be put
in circulation by the enterprise of individual
citizens, driven thereto by necessity rather than
by choice. From 1767 to 1816 many handsome
examples of the art of die-sinking saw the light
in the shape of tradesmen's tokens. Of these
numerous specimens have come down to us from
all parts of the kingdom, a selection of which, as
illustrating the use of tokens by the grocer of the
period, forms the subject of the plate opposite.

What were the circumstances which made this
fresh recourse to private enterprise to make good
the deficiencies of the State currency necessary ?
It will be remembered that the Government was
always more or less in difficulties at the time from
the imminent danger to the country of foreign
invasion. The supply of legal copper ran short, for
between the years 1755 and 1769 no minting of
halfpence and farthings took place, except of about
ten tons of the former and seven of the latter.
The copper coins that were in circulation had
become very worn and defaced ; the same was true
of the silver pieces ; yet the Government took no
steps to remedy the inconvenience caused the
public, and especially the trading community, by
this state of things.

Private resource came to the rescue in the
persons of merchants and shopkeepers, the banks
and public bodies, and the result was a return, for
a time, to the circulation of privately coined money.

265

THE GROCERY TRADE

Thus the embarrassments into which the free
exchange of commodities had fallen were remedied ;
and the private currency subserved an important
purpose, there being sufficient evidence to prove
that through its use trade generally received a
degree of assistance during a period of monetary
and commercial peril that at the time was recognised
and appreciated.

Nor was the issue of tokens confined to the
humbler varieties. Gold in a few cases, and more
frequently silver, tokens were issued by public
bodies, and even by private tradesmen. Thus in
1812 the town of Reading issued a 40s. piece
in gold, Sheffield a half-guinea in 1812. It is
curious to recall that a specimen of the 40s.
piece just mentioned was sold in 1900 in London
for £16.

As may be supposed, the tokens issued during
this second period are far handsomer and more
presentable than those of the reign of Charles II.
and of the Commonwealth. A comparison of the
illustrations given of each period will make this
evident. As showing that the grocers took their
full share in the issue of tokens at this period, I
have reproduced a selection, which, of course, is by
no means exhaustive. It will be noted that just
as the shield from the arms of the Worshipful
Company of Grocers was used to adorn the earlier
issue of tokens, the grocer, whether in London or
the country, frequently made use of the entire arms
266

T(>KI:\> issi \-.\> in <.I;I>CKI:>. MNKTKKNTM ( KMI i:v

RETAILER AND TOKENS

with which to stamp his halfpence or farthings.
Thus in the case of John Downing, of Huddersfield,
tli'- obverse of the token, issued in 1798, bears a
very well executed emblazonment of the Grocers'
arms; whilst the reverse shows East India House,
the headquarters of "John Company," which at
that period held a monopoly of the tea trade.
Again, J. Fieldings, of Manchester, issued a " pro-
missory halfpenny " the same year bearing the arms
of the Grocers' Company. On the other side of
the very well executed coin there occur the words
** Payable at M. Fieldings, Grocer and Tea Dealer,"
surrounding the device of a heart, which was
probably a species of trade- mark. At Bath M.
Lambe and Son, tea-dealers and grocers, issued a
token a year later (1794) on which the India House
appears,and having a laden camel, upon which rays of
the sun shine down, upon the other side — evidently
again taken from the Grocers' arms. The legend
surrounding the camel runs : " Teas, Coffee, Spices
and Sugars." Another token, dated 1796, has the
full arms of the Company, surrounded by the words
•* Fine Teas, &c." On the reverse an excellent
representation of Salisbury Cathedral from the
north appears, with the legend " Cathedral Church
of Sarum." This interesting coin was issued by
L. and T. Sharpe, of Salisbury. Thus we find the
Grocer's arms used by retail traders in all parts of
the country not much more than a hundred years
ago.

267

THE GROCERY TRADE

Other tokens bear various devices either re-
ferring to the trade, the locality, or the personality
of the issuer. Wm. Stinton, of St. James's Street,
London, had a token struck in 1 795 to represent a
halfpenny. He used the device of a grasshopper,
which, it may be recalled, was the badge of that
old City worthy Sir Thomas Gresham, as we are
reminded by the vane on the tower of the Royal
Exchange. The insect is surrounded by the legend
" Fine Teas of the Rough Flavour," a singular
testimony to the taste of our forefathers in tea
some hundred years ago. The reverse side of the
coin bears the words " Patent Cocao Warehouse,"
and the date. On another token, issued by
D. Garraway, of Croydon, a tea-pot adorns one
side and the intertwined initials "D. G." the
other. Round the tea-pot are the words " The
Best Teas in Croydon, 1797," and the initials are
surrounded by " Payable at Garraways Croydon.
Halfpenney."

(The whole of the foregoing tokens are illustrated
on p. 267.)

It does not appear that the issuer of the token
often caused his own portrait to be impressed upon
it. An exception, however, is noticeable in the case
of Robert Orchard. A farthing of Orchard's in an
excellent state of preservation now lies before me,
bearing his portrait most beautifully impressed
thereon. He was a handsome man, and, it is said,
was particularly cognisant of the fact. His head
268

ROBKKT OKCIIAIM)
A LONDON" GKOCKR, 1804

KKI AILER AND TOKENS

appears on his token with clean-shaven lips and
chin, wavy hair and pigtail, and the neck is
swathed in high white cravat.

Fortunately we are able to compare the portrait
on the token with an engraving of Robert Orchard
which he himself published, with facsimile of his
signature, in May 1803. He was a man of sub-
stance, for besides being a grocer and tea-dealer,
carrying on business at No. 84 Greek Street, corner
of Church Street, Soho, London, he had a business
at Sawbridgeworth, Herts, and he was a manu-
facturer of chocolate and cocoa on a new and
improved principle, wholesale, retail, and for ex-
portation. His signature is written in a fine bold
hand. He also sported a coat of arms, or rather a
shield emblazoned with a chevron of three pears,
doubtless in allusion to his name.

Robert Orchard issued tokens of the value of a
halfpenny and of a farthing in 1803, and again of a
farthing in 1804. On the farthing of the former
year, as I have noted, his head is reproduced, with
the lettering of his name and place of business
surrounding it. The reverse of the coin bears
a representation of the house and shop at Greek
Street, Soho, with the lettering " Robert Orchard,
Tea Warehouse, corner of Church Street, and at Saw
Bridgeworth [sic] Herts." Another farthing issued
by the same grocer in 1803 is impressed with quite
a little scene. A Chinaman, surrounded by tea-
chests, with the sea, upon which a ship appears, as

269

THE GROCERY TRADE

a background, points to the inscription on the coin :
" Maker of chocolate and Cocoa on a New Principle.
Farthing." The reverse bears the inscription,
" Robert Orchard Grocer and Tea Dealer., no 34
Greek St. Soho London, Wholesale and Retail,
1803."

Other devices seen on farthings issued by grocers
of the period include a sugar-loaf with the initials
" W. C." upon it, flanked on each side by a tea-
canister, that on the right labelled " Hyson " and
that on the left " Sowchong." Its date is 1813, and
its issuer W. Curtis, wholesale and retail grocer
and tea-dealer, linen and woollen draper. Mr.
John Nuttall, of 206 Deansgate, Manchester, is
described as family grocer, tea-dealer and importer,
and a tea-chest is the device. Another tea-chest,
surrounded by the words "fine teas, raw and
roasted coffee," appears on a farthing of John
Harrop, of Gateshead (1814).

The issue of these private farthings continued
till as late as 1850. Several bearing the date 1838
and 1839 are in the author's possession ; notably
one of Thos. Wright, of 39 Grosvenor Row, Pimlico.
The obverse has a chest with the words "Fine
Tea " upon it, over which hangs a pair of hand
scales ; on the reverse is the head of a Chinaman,
surrounded by the words " Grocer, Tea Dealer and
Coffee Roaster." Yet another of this date is
inscribed as " payable at Wm. Gray's Tea Dealer,
Green, Aberdeen " ; and beneath the words " Teas
270

RETAILER AND TOKENS

as Imported a Chinaman is seated on a tea-chest,
having a large jar and a canister as his supporters.
A lamb appears on the token of John Lamb,
of Pinton and Cricklade, draper and grocer. On
the reverse of this coin there is the figure of a
classic female sitting upon a ram, with a cornucopia
at her feet and a branch with leaves in her hand.
Around is the inscription, " Importer of undress'd
Irish linen." Finally, bearing date 1850, a farthing
of Gent and Co., tea-dealers, of Northampton, lies
before me. It is charged with the girlish head of
the late Queen on one side; on the other the
arms of the Grocers' Company, somewhat fantasti-
cally displayed, are engraved, surrounded by the
legend, " The Best and Cheapest Tea, Coffee,
Sugar etc."

It has been stated that silver coins were also
struck to meet the deficiency and scarcity of the
royal currency. This chapter shall close with a
description of one of these, issued by ** W. Kalians
Tea Dealer, Market Place Manchester. Token
value one shilling," as the inscription upon it runs.
It is a not unhandsome coin, and bears the arms
of Manchester on one side between a palm and an
oak branch, whilst on the reverse a fine representa-
tion of a building, probably one of the public
edifices of the Manchester of that day, appears.
It bears no date.

As the nineteenth century progressed the
necessity for grocers and others supplementing

271

THE GROCERY TRADE

the Royal coinage by having pieces of the kind
described struck and putting them into circulation
ceased. Between 1811 and 1815 there was great
activity at the Royal Mint. In 1821 a new
copper coinage was issued, and every year since,
except 1824, 1832, and 1833, has seen a like
issue of pence, halfpence, and farthings. It may
be noted that just as in 1672 a copper coinage
was first undertaken by the Government, so in
1860 the bronze now in use was substituted for
copper, to the manifestly greater convenience of
his Majesty's lieges, as any one who has handled
the old copper pence will readily admit.

Nevertheless, the fact that the fervour of nu-
mismatists and collectors has served to bring
together, to preserve and illustrate by research and
comparison, the many tokens of both the earlier
and later periods, contributes to throw additional
light on the history of the trade of these islands ;
and not the least interesting part of this has to do
with the grocer, who has thus been shown to have
all along taken his full share in the trading life of
the community.

CHAPTER XX

NOTABLE GROCERS OF THE SIXTEENTH
AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

THAT the trade during this period continued to
produce men of intellect and power, is evident
from the eminent positions occupied by grocers or
the sons of grocers. They supplied the nation not
only with many politicians but with a Lord
Chancellor, and quite a number of Lord Mayors,
Magistrates, Clergymen, and Soldiers ; with cer-
tainly one National Poet into the bargain.

The most notable name in our list is that of
Baron King, Lord Chancellor of England. In
1669, a son was born to an Exeter grocer, by name
Peter King. His father, who carried on business in
the High Street, decided to apprentice him to the
trade, and arranged his education accordingly,
finally placing him behind the counter in his
Exeter business. Here for some years he served
his father's customers, and delivered their goods.
Voung King, however, was a great student, and
spent all his available cash in purchasing books,
which he eagerly devoured in his spare time. His
i s

THE GROCERY TRADE

uncle, Locke, the famous historian, visiting Exeter,
" discovered " his nephew, and, having tested his
abilities, decided to send him to Germany to com-
plete his education. Upon his return he became
a student at the Middle Temple and took up law
as a profession. Later he became a Member of
Parliament, and, in 1725, was created Lord
Chancellor of England, a position he occupied
with much credit for some years, being then
raised to the peerage as Baron King. It has
been reported by many aged people who knew the
parties, that Mr. King, the grocer, decided to visit
his son after his appointment as Lord Chancellor,
and being of a mercenary disposition, set out on
foot to London. He arrived in London, and
having found his son's house, he inquired for
Peter King, which so irritated the porter, who was
unaware of the identity of the caller, that he shut
the gate against him, and a scuffle ensued. This
attracted the attention of Lord King, who, recog-
nising his father, hastened to the door and fell
on his knees to ask his blessing. This action
frightened the porter, and he humbly begged for
pardon, which was granted him. " He descended
to the tomb," in the words of the biographer, " one
of the most consistent and spotless politicians who
have ever appeared in England."

A notable grocer of the Reformation period was
Richard Grafton, described as chronicler, printer,
prosperous London merchant and a member of the
274

NOTABLE GROCERS

Grocers' Company. Grafton was apprenticed in
1526 to John Blage, a worthy London grocer,
whose shop was in Cheapside, and who counted
among his customers many of the notabilities of
the day, including the Earl of Northumberland,
Lord Lisle, Governor of Calais, and Archbishop
Cranmer. In the Warden's accounts of the
Grocers' Company, it is recorded that Richard
Grafton was " received entered and sworn " on
November 14, 1526, a fee of 80*. being paid.
During his seven years' apprenticeship he was
brought into contact with his employer's fashion-
able clientele, and this doubtless led him to take an
active part in the religious controversies of the
period. In 1537, about four years after the termina-
tion of his apprenticeship, his zeal for the reformed
religion led him to arrange for the printing of the
Bible in English, and Cranmer gave him a letter of
introduction to Thomas Cromwell. Later we find
him thanking Thomas Cromwell for having moved
the King to license the work, and pressed for a
new licence under the Privy Seal to prevent others
underselling him. His signature to this petition
runs, " Richard Grafton, Grocer." He became
printer to the King in 1547, and was printer of the
First Book of Common Prayer in 1549. Upon the
death of the King his connection with the Court
was severed, but he maintained his position in the
City, and in 1555 was elected Warden of the
Grocers' Company.

275

THE GROCERY TRADE

Abraham Cowley, the poet, was another celebrity
of the period who traced his descent to the grocery
trade, his father being a grocer living in the parish
of St. Michael le Querne, Cheapside.

Cowley was born in 1618, and lost his father at
an early age. He was carefully educated by his
mother, and, through his fame as a poet and prose-
writer, rose to be popular in the highest ranks of
society. Although Cowley 's fame as a poet has
seriously diminished, his eminence as a prose-writer
is still acknowledged.

A history of the grocers of the past period
would be incomplete did I not refer to Sir Henry
Keble, Lord Mayor of London, 1510, himself a
grocer and the son of a grocer, and one whose
magnificence and generosity, in the words of Baron
Heath, " entitled him to rank among the eminent
members of the Grocers' Company." His bene-
factions included the gift of £1000 towards the
building and decorating of the church of St. Mary
Aldermary, in Budge Row ; one hundred and forty
ploughshares to poor husbandmen in Oxford and
Warwick ; one hundred marks to poor maids'
marriages ; and to seven poor members of the
mystery of grocers 3s. 6d. per week, such
poor men to be selected by the Wardens and
Associates for the time being. He was buried in
the church of St. Mary Aldermary in a vault
prepared by himself, and his epitaph concluded
thus:
276

NOTABLE GROCERS

God moves the minds of wealthy men,

Their works so to bestow.
As he hath done, that though they die,

Their virtuous fame may flow.

For some unexplained reason, we are informed by
Stow that in later years " his bones were unkindly
cast out and his monument pulled down,1' and two
other members of the Grocers' Company, each of
whom had been Mayors, were buried in his vault.

Another well-known grocer of the period of
whom we have now and then a passing glimpse
was George Bowles, who, in 1592, represented the
City in Parliament. He was Master of the Grocers'
Company in 1606, Sheriff of London in 1608-9,
and became Lord Mayor in 1617-18. On his
marriage with the daughter of Sir John Hart, a
brother grocer, he acquired the mansion in Oxford
Place (near Oxford Court), Cannon Street As
typical of his courage in public life it is recorded
that on the occasion of the King's retinue passing
through London on a Sabbath day, and during
divine service, Sir George Bowles, then Lord Mayor,
ordered them to be stopped. On this occurrence
being brought to the notice of King James, he gave
vent to his kingly anger by exclaiming : " He
thought there had been no more kings in England
than himself." When his anger had been some-
what appeased he signed a warrant to the Lord
Mayor to let them pass. This order was imme-
diately obeyed by Sir George Bowles who sent this

277

THE GROCERY TRADE

reply : " Whilst it was in my power, I did my duty,
but that being taken away by a higher power it is
my duty to obey." This answer so pleased the
King that he sent the Lord Mayor his thanks.
He died in September 1621, aged eighty-three
years, and was buried in St. Swithin's Church,
a handsome memorial being erected to his memory
by his wife, Lady Jane Bowles, with the following
epitaph :

Honour, Integrity, Compassion,

These three filled up the life-time of this man.

Of Honour, the grave Praetorship he bore

Which he discharged with conscience, Truth and care,

He possessed Earth, as he might Heaven possess,

Wise to do right but never to Oppress.

His charity was better felt than known,

For when he gave there was no trumpet blown,

What more can be compressed, in one

To crown a soul and leave a living name.

Another historical personage was Sir Thomas
Middleton, Lord Mayor of London in 1613. He
came of a Denbighshire family, and with his
brothers Hugh, Thomas, and William was closely
associated with the commercial life of London.
He was apprenticed to Ferdinando Poyntz, grocer
of London, and admitted to the freedom of the
Grocers' Company in January 1582-83. Twenty
years later he was elected an Alderman of London,
and was knighted by James I. on July 26, 1603.
He represented London in Parliament in 1624-
278

NOTABLE GROCERS

1626. On the day of his election as Mayor,
New River Head was opened by his brother, the
celebrated Sir Hugh Middleton. He was married
four times, and died in 1681 at Stansted Mount-
fichet, where he had a mansion and estate. At
his death he left some property to the Grocers'
Company of the annual value of £7 for the benefit
of their poor members.

Reference should also be made to Sir William
Hooker, grocer, who became Lord Mayor in 1675-76,
and of whom Sir Thomas Player wrote referring
to his installation that, " the 29th is the day for the
Lord Mayor's installation, a mighty day for
custard and mince pies, and what is admirable, on
the 14th when the Artillery are madly killing one
another, doth Sir William Hooker . . . now
nearly being 60 years of age, marry the youngest
sister of my lady Dawes, a lady of about 26, an
act of strange courage."

Some interesting stories are recorded of the
kindly intervention of Sir William Hooker (who
carried on business in St. Swithin's Lane) on behalf
of persons in lower walks of life. Pepys records
in his diary under date of September 3, 1665.

" My Lord Brouncher, Sir J. Minnes and I went
up to the vestry at the desire of the justices of
the peace ; in order to the doing something for the
keeping of the plague from growing ; but Lord 1
to consider the madness of people of the town,

279

THE GROCERY TRADE

who will (because they are forbid) come in
crowds along with the dead corpses to see them
buried ; but we agreed on some orders for the
prevention thereof. Among other stories, one
was very passionate, methought, of a complaint
brought against a man in the town for taking a
child from London from an infected house.
Alderman Hooker told us it was the child of a
very able citizen in Gracious Street, a saddler,
who had buried all the rest of his children of the
plague, and himself and wife now being shut up
in despair of escaping, did desire only to save
the life of this little child and so prevailed to
have it received stark naked in the arms of a
friend who brought it (having put it into fresh
clothes) to Greenwich, whereupon hearing the
story we did agree it should be permitted to be
received and kept in the town."

On another occasion the worthy alderman wrote
to Pepys seeking the discharge of a tailor, who
had been pressed into the navy, on the ground
that he was the sole support of his wife and
children, and aged parents.

In the provinces, too, many records may be found
of grocers who rose to eminence in public life, not
the least interesting of this age being that of
Augustine Briggs of Norwich. He was born in
1617, and at twenty-six years of age was found
fighting on the King's side at the siege of Tyrone.
280

NOTABLE GROCERS

The strenuous support he gave to the King led to
his being turned out of the Court of Aldermen.
At the Restoration, in 1060, he was restored to his
former position and elected Sheriff. His services
were much in request as an arbitrator in compromis-
ing the differences between various factions after
the Restoration, and we find him elected to the
Mayoral Chair in 1670, and a Member of Parliament
in 1677, and on four other occasions. His early
history in military affairs continued, and in later
life he became Mayor of the Trained Band or City
Militia. He died in 1674 and left his estates at
Swardestone towards the maintenance of the
Boys' and Girls' Hospitals. He also left £200 to
be invested in house property, the proceeds to be
devoted by the Mayor towards " putting forth to
convenient trades every year two such poor boys
of the Ward of St. Peter as can write and read,
and who have neither father or mother able to put
them forth to such trades, and if there be no such
boy in the ward, the money to go to the relief of
of the necessitous poor."

A handsome monument is erected to his memory
in the church of his native place, the inscription
testifying to him as " a studious preserver of the
ancient privileges of his country ; was always firm
and resolute for upholding the Church of England,
and assiduous and punctual in all the important
trusts that were committed to him, whether in the
august * Assembly of Parliament/ his honourable

281

THE GROCERY TRADE

commands in the Militia, or his justiciary affairs upon
the Bench, gaming the affections of the people by
his hospitality and repeated acts of kindness, which
he continued beyond his death."

A long list of municipal honours held by grocers
might easily be compiled from the annals of the
period. Among notable London grocers who be-
came Lord Mayor was the Right Hon. Sir William
Laxton, already referred to as the founder of Oundle
School. He became Lord Mayor in 1544 and his
year of office was distinguished by his being sum-
moned, with the Aldermen toBaynards Castle, where
a sum of money was demanded from each of them by
King Henry VIII. He died in 1566 and his funeral
is thus quaintly described by a diarist of the period —

" The 6 day of August was buried Sir William
Laxton, late Lord Mayor, in the Church of
St. Mary Aldermary, with a goodie here with
V. prynsepalles (and the majesty) and the valans
gyltyd and viij dozen of penselles (and) xiij dozen
of skochyons and half of bokeram, and a standard
and iiij penons and ij baners of (images) ; and
the hawsse, chyrche and the stret hangyd with
blake (and) armes ; and a cott armur and helmett,
target and sword, mantylles and crest a teygerbed
with colynbyn and the slype. (There were two)
grett and goodly whyst branchys and xxxiiij
stayffes torchys and xxxiiij mantyll fryssegownes
to powre men, and a c blacke gownes ; monies,
282

NOTABLE GROCERS

Master Loges, Altherman, cheyff moraar and
master Machyl second Morner and master
Wanton iii morner and dyver oder, the lord
mare and master Whytt and dyvers odur, and
alle tlie thodur althermen in vyolett ; and then
cam the women morners, lades and man alther-
mens wyffes and gentyil women ; and after durge
to the plasse to drynke and the conpame of the
Grocers, and ofter prestes and clarkes, to the
place to drynke, and the harolds — and the Wax-
chandlers and the Penters, to drynke, with
many odurs. And the morrow iij masses sing,
ij pryke songe and (the) iij (d) requiem at masse
dyd prychc docher Harpsfelle archeydekyn;
and after to dener for there was a grett diner as
I have sene at any berehyng, for ther dynyd
many worshepful men and women."

Seventeen grocers served the City in the office of
Lord Mayor in the seventeenth century, and there
were numberless instances of the chief magistracy of
provincial cities and towns being filled by a grocer.
Thus at Derby, in 1660 and in 1684, John
Dunnidge (grocer) was Mayor. John Burrell
(grocer) was Mayor of Exeter in 1698. Jasper
Samways (grocer) filled the post of Chief Magis-
trate of Dorchester in 1674. John Osborn was
Mayor of Norwich in 1660 ; W. Parmenter,
Sheriff in 1676. Thomas Johnson was Mayor of
Liverpool in 1670. Richard Harrison of Wisbeach

283

THE GROCERY TRADE

i
was Town Bailiff and a Member of the Corporation

in 1675. John Bellamy was Bailiff of the same
place in 1682, and his family still exists there.
Richard Prime, of Bury St. Edmunds, was thrice
chief magistrate of the borough. He died in 1711.
Memorials of his family may be seen in the church
of Great Saxham, near Bury St. Edmunds. At
Yarmouth, Edward Owner was Mayor in 1620, and
again in 1625, 1639, and 1640, and he represented
the town in the Long Parliament. He endowed
the Children's Hospital School with £1500, and
dying in 1656, was buried in St. Nicholas Church,
the parish church of his native city.

In 1592 a poem entitled, "The Nine Worthies
of London," appeared, in which the writer took
occasion to eulogise the lives and heroic deeds of
at least two members of the Grocers' Company.
Another worthy of note was Daniel Rawlinson,
a friend of Pepys, founder of the firm of Messrs.
Davison, Newman and Co., Wholesale and Retail
Grocers. This firm enjoys the unique distinction
of being the oldest existing firm of grocers in this
country having been established in 1650. Daniel
Rawlinson rebuilt Hawkshead School in 1675.

I have already mentioned that this was the age
of pageants, with all the lavish expenditure,
elaborate preparation, and strange conceits, in
which the grocers of London, Norwich, and other
cities took their full share.

The water pageant was revived in 1661 after
284

SIR ,H i UN MOORE, GROCER,
!.ol,M> MAYOR OF LONDON 1681

NOTABLE GROCERS

having been abandoned for twenty years, and
singularly enough it was the Grocers' Company
that revived it, the occasion being the election of
Sir John Frederick, one of their members, as Lord
Mayor. The spectacle was witnessed by King
Charles. Eleven years later the Company had
occasion to organise another pageant, this time in
hononr of Sir Robert Hanson. The City had
evidently by this time recovered from the effects
of the fire and plague, for Thomas Jordon who
composed and arranged the pageant, entitled it
" London Triumphant ; or the City in Jollity and
Splendour expressed in various Pageants, Shapes,
Scenes, Speeches, and Songs, invented and per-
formed for congratulation and delight of the
well-deserving Governour Sir Robert Hanson,
Knight, Lord Mayor of the City of London."
Grocery pageants were also organised in 1673,
1678 and 1681, the last named being the occasion
of the inauguration of Sir John Moore as Lord
Mayor.

Sir John Moore was a native of Leicestershire,
and after coming to London resided in Mincing
Lane, where he traded as a merchant. He was
a strong Nonconformist and twice refused to accept
office in the City. In 1671, he was elected Master
of the Grocers' Company, and the same year,
overcoming his religious scruples, he agreed to
serve as Alderman of Walbrook. Owing to his
strong Royalist tendencies, Moore was not alto-

285

THE GROCERY TRADE

gather popular in the City, and on being nominated
for the Mayoralty in 1681, his election was chal-
lenged by Sir John Shorter and Sir Thos. Gold.
The victory was to Moore, he having succeeded
in obtaining 1831 votes being 300 over his next
highest opponent.

Following his election, he delivered the following
speech : —

" Gentlemen and Worthy Citizens.
" I give you all my hearty thanks for the great
Honour you have done this day in choosing me
your Chief Magistrate for the year ensuing. It
is a very great trust that you have reposed in
me and a High and Honourable Employment to
which you have called me. It shall be my great
Care to the uttermost of my Power with God's
Blessing and your Assistance to discharge it
faithfully, It is a work I never did, and requires
that Strength I never had which I hope the Lord
will grant me. God by you hath called me to it,
and I trust will carry me through it.
" Magistracy is an Ordinance set up by Divine
Authority and Government is appointed for the
good of Mankind to keep the World in Order
to which is due the great Reverence and
Obedience. I wish all men did their Duty. I
am sorry to hear and see such great Divisions
amongst us, and certainly they are in a great
error that Promoters of them. It is the design
286

NOTABLE GROCERS

of Rome to divide us, it will be the Wisdom
of Protestants to prevent and disappoint them
by living together as Brethren in Unity amongst
themselves. And my request to you all is to
exercise Christian Charity, to forbear Reproach-
ing and Backbiting each other, to study Questions
amongst yourselves, to discourage Sin and
Wickedness, to promote piety and Godliness
which will bring Glory to God. Honour to the
King and his Government, Peace, Happiness
and Prosperity to this City, which God Almighty
grant and let all the people say Amen."

As a liberal benefactor to the Grocers' Company,
having contributed £500 towards the rebuilding of
the Hall ; as the President of Christ's Hospital and
donor of £5000 towards the rebuilding the Writing
School ; and as the founder of the free Grammar
School of Appleby in Leicestershire, Sir John
Moore will be long remembered as one of the most
generous of men. He died on June 2, 1702,
leaving estates valued at £80,000, and he was
buried in the Church of St. Dunstan's in the East
His full-length portrait may be seen in the Hall of
the Grocers' Company.

It may be added here that a noted writer of the
period, Elkanah Settle, contributed to the " book "
of at least one pageant — that of " The Triumphs of
London," performed on Saturday, October 29,
1692, for the entertainment of the Right Honour-

287

THE GROCERY TRADE

able Sir John Fleet, Kt., the Lord Mayor. In his
epistle dedicatory to the Worshipful Company of
Grocers, at whose charges and costs the pageant
was set forth, Settle lets his soul go in the follow-
ing quaint, not to say bombastic, style :

" Gentlemen, The whole world is but your
Garden, and nature your Confectioner, whilst all
the Richest Sweets and spices, and all the Trea-
sare of your own Phoenix Nest are so entirely
Yours, that I may justly say, the softest Dew of
Heaven falls for your sakes, and the warmest
Beams of Day smile and cherish for you, whilst
the noblest Fruits and Products of the Earth only
furnish your Granary ; And if the Creation, since
the start Gates of Edne, and the Flaming Sward
before it, has any remains of Paradise left, 'tis
only in your hands."

Whether the breasts of the worthy grocers who
listened to this astonishing tribute swelled with
importance when it resounded in their ears we
cannot say. It was probably not extraordinary
when compared with the standard of taste of the
time. Settle earned his guineas, and the grocers
were satisfied, the populace was pleased, and the
Lord Mayor felt, doubtless, duly honoured by the
attention of not the least among his honourable
fellow citizens.

END OF VOL. I

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