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<meta content="Women inhabited some unlikely settings in the early modern world, and in some cases their impact extended well beyond the confines oftheir home and local community. Case studies ofBritish businesswomen in the early industrial era establish their presence
in the areas oflong-distance trade, heavy industry, and high finance. Research on specific families or regions has revealed that from about 1650 to 1780 women owned and actively manipulated a good deal offamily and business capital. The fashion
trade offered scope to businesswomen who could exploit "separate spheres" to their own advantage. Women edged out ofoverseas trade during this period in favour of the expanding domestic retail sector, particularly for luxury goods. By the late eighteenth century, as the infant mortality rate dropped and life expectancy increased for the middle orders, more sons survived, fewer women were left widows, and younger women were more occupied with childcare. While changing social attitudes emphasized the ideal of "separate spheres" for men and women, changing demographics
formed the practical underpinning ofthese social conventions." name="eprints.abstract" />
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<meta content="1 Hannah Barker, "Women, Work and the Industrial Revolution: Female Involvement in the English Printing Trades c.1700--1840" in Hannah Barker and Elaine Chalus, eds., Gender in Eighteenth-Century
England (London: Longman, 1997), pp. 81-100; Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England, 1550-1720 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), pp. 313-326, give an excellent
brief survey on medicine and teaching. See also Margaret Pelling, The Common Lot: Sickness, Medical Occupations and the Urban Poor in Early Modern England (London: Longman, 1997).
2 Donald Woodward, Men at Work: Labourers and Building Craftsmen in the Towns of Northern England, 1450-1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
3 Estimates for towns in the West Midlands by Christine Wiskin, "Women, Business and Credit in England, 1780-1826" (paper presented to the Institute of Historical Research, London, November 1998). This is similar to the 6% of businesses estimated by Margaret Hunt, The Middling Sort: Commerce,
Gender and the Family in England, 1680-1780 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), and by Leonard D. Schwarz, London in the Age ofIndustrialisation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
4 Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Women and Men ofthe English Middle Class,
1780-1950 (London: Random Century, 1987), p. 312.
S Peter Earle, The Making ofthe English Middle Class (London: Methuen, 1989), p. 169.
6 Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes.
7 Ibid., p. 315.
8 John Smail, The Origins ofMiddle-Class Culture: Halifax, Yorkshire, 1660-1780 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1994), pp. 168-170. 9 Daniel Defoe, The Complete English Tradesman (London: Charles Rivington, 1725), pp. 201, 205.
10 See recent doctoral work on women's work in regional contexts, for example, Penelope Lane's recently completed Warwick PhD thesis on women's work in the eighteenth-and nineteenth-century East Midlands and Viktoria Masten's Cambridge PhD thesis on women's work in eighteenth-century Ipswich and Bath. Nicola Pullin, "Business is Just Life: The Prescription, Practice and Legal Position of Women in Business, 1750--1850" (PhD thesis, University of London, 2001), considers London businesswomen in the eighteenth century, whereas Christine Wiskin (Warwick) is looking at businesswomen
in the 1750--1850 period. Helen V.Speechley, "Female and Child Agricultural Day Laborers in Somerset, c.1685-1870" (PhD thesis, Exeter University, 1999), draws evidence from the diaries of widow Frances Hamilton, who efficiently ran a Somerset farm from 1779 (pp. 55-56).
11 Amanda Vickery, The Gentleman's Daughter (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 4-5. For further discussion, see Amanda Vickery, "Golden Age to Separate Spheres? A Review of the Categories
and Chronologies of English Women's History", Historical Journal, vol. 36 (1993), pp. 383414.
12 Joan W. Scott, "Comment: Conceptual ising Gender in American Business History", Business History Review, vol. 72 (1998), pp. 242-249
13 But Richard Grassby, Kinship and Capitalism: Marriage, Family and Business in the English-Speaking World, 1580-1720 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), has recently noted that women had a minimal role in business (pp. 312-340).
14 P. McGrath, Merchants and Merchandise in Seventeenth-Century Bristol (Bristol: Bristol Record Society Publications, vol. 19, 1955), p. xiv; P. McGrath, Records Relating to the Society ofMerchant Venturers of the City of Bristol in the Seventeenth Century (Bristol: Bristol Record Society Publications,
vol. 17, 1952), p. 130.
15 H. E. Noll and E. Nash, The Deposition Books of Bristol, 1650-54 (Bristol: Bristol Record Society Publications, vol, 13, 1948), pp. 147-148. 16 Bristol University Library, Special Collections, Pinney Papers (hereafter PP), DM 58/1/80, Martha's account of her household goods, 1691.
17 PP, OM 58/2/24-25, resume and deposition on the G3y/W3Jden controversy.
18 PP, OM 58/1/83.
19 PP, OM 58/1/87, fragment of a leiter from Martha Gay to Thomas Walden, 1691.
20 Earle, The Making ofthe English Middle Class, p. 173.
21 PP, OM 58/1/15, leiter from Thomas Walden to Martha G3Y, October 18, 1678. For reprints of some
of this correspondence, see McGrath, ed., Merchants and Merchandise, pp. 260-261.
22 PP, DM 58/118.
23 PP, DM 58/1/27, October 31, 1679.
24 David Nokes, John Gay: A Profession ofFriendship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 19. 25 But PP, Nathaniel Pinney to Mary Gay, July 26, 1690, indicates that her difficulties were far from
over.
26 David Harris Sacks, The Widening Gate: Bristol and the Atlantic Economy, 1450-1700 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1991), p. 251. 27 Ibid., pp. 125--127. 28 Jacob M. Price and Paul G. E. Clemens, "A Revolution of Scale in Overseas Trade: British Firms in
the Chesapeake Trade, 1675-1775", Journal ofEconomic History, vol. 42 (1987), p. 32. 29 Ibid., p. 3, citing doctoral research by Hillier. 30 For example, Daniel A. Rabuzzi, "Women as Merchants in Eighteenth-Century Northern Germany:
The Case of Stralsund, 1750-1830", Central European History, vol. 28 (1995), finds that 11% of merchants
were women in Stralsund (p. 438).
31 Anne Laurence, Women in England: A Social History, 1500-1760 (London: Weidenfield & Nicholson,
1994), p. 125. 32 Ilana Krausman Ben-Amos, "Women Apprentices in the Trades and Crafts of Early Modem Bristol", Continuity and Change, vol. 6 (1991), p. 238. 33 E. M. Cams-Wilson, ed., The Overseas Trade of Bristol in the Middle Ages (Bristol: Bristol Record Society Publications, vol. 7, 1937), p. 121.
34 H. E. Noll, cd., The Deposition Books ofBristol, 1643-1647 (Bristol: Bristol Record Society Publications,
vol. 6, 1935), p. 145. 35 McGrath, cd., Records Relating to the Society ofMerchant Venturers, pp. 172-173. 36 W. E. Minchinton, cd., PoliticsandthePort ofBristolintheEighteenthCentury: ThePetitions ofthe
Society of Merchant Venturers, 1698-1803 (Bristol: Bristol Record Society Publications, vol. 23, 1963), p. 207. 37 Olwen Hufton, "Women Without Men: Widows and Spinsters in Britain and France in the Eighteenth Century", Journal ofFamily History, vol.9,no.4(1984), p.372. 38 E. M. Sainsbury, The Court Minutes of the East India Company, 1635-1679 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1907-1939), 11 vols. 39 Ibid., July 10, 1635; May 19, 1643. 40 Ibid., April 5,1676; June 7, 1676.
41 Ibid., AprilS, 1676; June 7, 1676.
42 Ibid. See, for example, April 1647 discussions with Mrs. Cony, Mrs. Chapman, and others.
43 H. V. Bowen, "Investment and Empire in the Later Eighteenth Century: East India Stockholding,
1756--1791", Economic History Review, vol. 42 (1989), pp. 186--206; P. G. M. Dickson, The Financial
Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of Public Credit, 1688-1756 (Aldershot, England: Gregg, 1956; 1993 ed.), pp. 250, 254, 268-269, 271, 282, 302,305.
44 Mary Prior, "Women and the Urban Economy: Oxford, 1500-1800", in Mary Prior, ed., Women in English Society, 1500-1800 (London: Methuen, 1986; Routledge, 1991), pp. 103, 107-109; see also Margot Finn, "Women, Consumption and Coverture in England, c.176Q-1860", The Historica/Journal,
vol. 39, no. 3 (1996), who states, "An analysis of married women's complicated debt and credit relations ... suggests that, at the level of much day to day life, the law of coverture is best represented as existing in a state of suspended animation" (p. 707). This echoes the findings of many historians on the disparity between legal stipulation and actual practice.
45 Amy Louise Erickson, Women and Property in Early Modern England (London: Routledge, 1993); Christine Churches, "Women and Property in Early Modem England: A Case Study", Social History, vol. 23, no. 2 (1998), pp. 165-180.
46 David M. Mitchell, " 'It will be easy to make money': Merchant Strangers in London, 1580--1680" in
C. Lesger and L. Noordegraaf, eds., Merchants and Industrialists Within the Orbit ofthe Dutch Staple Market (The Hague: Stichting Hollandse Historische Reeks, 1995), p. 130. 47 R. w. K. Hinton, ed., The Port Books ofBoston, 1601-40 (Lincoln Record Society, vol. 50, 1956), pp. 162-163,256-257.
48 Hester Pinney's papers are also contained in the Pinney collection in Bristol University Library. For more details, see Pam Sharpe, "Dealing With Love: The Ambiguous Independence of the Single Woman in Early Modem England", Gender and History, vol, 11, no. 2 (1999), pp. 209-232
49 See Joan Thirsk, Economic Policies and Projects: The Development ofa Consumer Society in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), for a classic examination. 50 Nuala Zahedieh, "London and the Colonial Consumer in the Late Seventeenth Century", Economic History Review, vol. 47 (1994), pp. 239-261.
early51
Jill Liddington, "Gender, Authority and Mining in an Industrial Landscape: Anne Lister, 1791-1840", History Workshop Journal, vol. 42 (1996), pp. 59-86. See also Jill Liddington, Female Fortune: Land, Gender and Authority (London: Rivers Gram, 1998).
52 Helen Clifford, .. 'Scorn to be Seen in the counting house, much less behind the counter": The Role of Women in the London Luxury Trades, 1620-1820" (paper presented at Ihe Second Exeter International
Gender History Conference, "Women, Trade and Business", July 1996), pp. 4-5.
53 Philippa Glanville and Jennifer Faulds Goldsborough, Women Silversmiths, 1685-1845 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990), pp. 15-16,30. 54 David S. Shure, Hester Bateman: Queen ofEnglish Silversmiths (London: W. H. Allen, 1959), p. I
55 Glanville and Goldsborough, Women Silversmiths, p. 20.
56 I am very grateful to Nicola Pullin for providing these references from her work in progress.
57 Hunt, The Middling Sort, p. 132.
58 Schwartz, London in the Age ofIndustrialisation, p. 22.
59 Stana Nenadic, "The Social Shaping of Business Behaviour in the Nineteenth-Century Women's Garment
Trades", Journal ofSocial History, vol. 31, no. 3 (1998), p. 626.
60 Stana Nenadic, "Gender and the Rhetoric of Business Success: The Impact of Women Entrepreneurs in the Later Nineteenth Century" (unpublished paper), p. 12. 61 Elizabeth Sanderson, Women and Work in Eighteenth-Century Edinbourgh (London: Macmillan,
1996), p. 40. 62 Ibid., p. 34. Compare with Prior, "Women and the Urban Economy". 63 Michael Roberts, "Gender, Work and Socialisation in Walcs c. 1450-1850" in S. Betts, ed., Our Daughter's
Land: Past and Present (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996), p. 50. I am very grateful to Michael Roberts for references to businesswomen in Wales. 64 Ifano Jones, A History ofPrinting and Printers in Wales to 1810 (Cardiff: William Lewis, 1925), pp. 175,226-227.
manage65
Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson, "Rehabilitating the Industrial Revolution", Economic History Review, vol. 45 (1992), p. 32. 66 Richard Grassby, The Business Community ofSeventeenth-Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 319; Bowen, "Investment and Empire". 67 This is a very topical subject of research. For example, a session at the recent International Economic
History Congress in Madrid focused on "Women and Credit" and was organized by Maxine Berg,
Laurence Fontaine, and Craig Muldrew. See particularly Craig Muldrew, The Economy ofObligation
(London: Macmillan, 1998); Beverly Lemire, Ruth Pearson, and Gail Campbell, Women and Credit
(Oxford: Berg, 20(1). 68 PP, Nathaniel to Hester, October 30, 1710. 69 B. L. Anderson, "Provincial Aspects of the Financial Revolution of the Eighteenth Century", Business
History, vol. 11 (1969), pp. 11-22.
70 Alice Clare Carter, Gelling, Spending and Investing in Early Modern Times (Assen, Netherlands: Van
Gorcum, 1975), p. 139.
71 Susan Staves, "Investments, Votes, and 'Bribes': Women as Shareholders in the Chartered National
Companies" in H. L. Smith, ed., Women Writers and the Early Modern British Political Tradition
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 273.
72 B. A. Holderness, "Elizabeth Parkin and her Investments, 1733-66: Aspects of the Sheffield Money
Market in the Eighteenth Century", Trans Hunter Arch Soc, vol. 10 (1972), pp. 81-87.
73 Ibid., p. 85.
74 Ibid., p. 85.
75 Liddington, Female Fortune, p. 245.
76 Maxine Berg, "Women's Property and the Industrial Revolution", Journal of Interdisciplinary History,
vol. 24 (1993), pp. 233-250. 77 T. V. Jackson, "British Incomes circa 1800", Economic History Review, vol. 52, no. 2 (1999), pp.
272-275; personal communication with Tom Jackson.
busi78
Mary McNeill, The Life and Times ofMary McCracken, 1770-1866 (Dublin: Allen Figgis and Company,
1960), p. 254. 79 Pamela Sharpe and Stanley D. Chapman, "Women's Employment and Industrial Organisation: Commercial
Lace Embroidery in Early Nineteenth-Century Ireland and England", Women's History Review, vol. 5, no. 3 (1996), pp. 332-333. 80 Charles Vancouver, "General View of the Agriculture of the County of Essex", p. 27, cited in Pamela
Sharpe, Adapting to Capitalism: Working Women in the English Economy, 1700-1850 (London: Macmillan,
1996), p. 56. 81 Liddington, Female Fortune and "Gender, Authority and Mining".
82 Revel Guest and Angela V. John, Lady Charlotte: A Biography of the Nineteenth Century (London:
Weidenficld and Nicholson, 1989). 83 PP, Azariah to John, August 28, 1711. 84 Vickery, The Gentleman's Daughter, pp. 87-125. 85 Deborah A. Rosen, Courts and Commerce: Gender, Law and the Market Economy in Colonial New
York (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1997), finds that debt litigation rates show women increasingly disadvantaged in the legal system and unable to take advantage of commercial opportunities
as men could.
82 Revel Guest and Angela V. John, Lady Charlotte: A Biography of the Nineteenth Century (London:
Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1989). 83 PP, Azariah to John, August 28, 1711. 84 Vickery, The Gentleman's Daughter, pp. 87-125. 85 Deborah A. Rosen, Courts and Commerce: Gender, Law and the Market Economy in Colonial New
York (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1997), finds that debt litigation rates show women increasingly disadvantaged in the legal system and unable to take advantage of commercial opportunities
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trade offered scope to businesswomen who could exploit "separate spheres" to their own advantage. Women edged out ofoverseas trade during this period in favour of the expanding domestic retail sector, particularly for luxury goods. By the late eighteenth century, as the infant mortality rate dropped and life expectancy increased for the middle orders, more sons survived, fewer women were left widows, and younger women were more occupied with childcare. While changing social attitudes emphasized the ideal of "separate spheres" for men and women, changing demographics
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<h1 class="ep_tm_pagetitle">Gender in the Economy: Female Merchants and Family Businesses in the British Isles, 1600-1850</h1>
<p style="margin-bottom: 1em" class="not_ep_block"><span class="person_name">Sharpe, Pamela</span> (2001) <xhtml:em>Gender in the Economy: Female Merchants and Family Businesses in the British Isles, 1600-1850.</xhtml:em> Histoire sociale / Social History, 34 (68). pp. 287-306.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em" class="not_ep_block"></p><table style="margin-bottom: 1em" class="not_ep_block"><tr><td valign="top" style="text-align:center"><a onmouseover="EPJS_ShowPreview( event, 'doc_preview_3639' );" href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/2772/1/Female_Merchants_in_the_BIa.pdf" onmouseout="EPJS_HidePreview( event, 'doc_preview_3639' );"><img alt="[img]" src="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png" class="ep_doc_icon" border="0" /></a><div class="ep_preview" id="doc_preview_3639"><table><tr><td><img alt="" src="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/2772/thumbnails/1/preview.png" class="ep_preview_image" border="0" /><div class="ep_preview_title">Preview</div></td></tr></table></div></td><td valign="top"><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/2772/1/Female_Merchants_in_the_BIa.pdf"><span class="ep_document_citation">PDF</span></a> - Requires a PDF viewer<br />1252Kb</td></tr></table><p style="margin-bottom: 1em" class="not_ep_block">Official URL: <a href="https://www-dev.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/HSSH/issue/view/762/showToc">https://www-dev.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/HSSH/issue/view/762/showToc</a></p><div class="not_ep_block"><h2>Abstract</h2><p style="padding-bottom: 16px; text-align: left; margin: 1em auto 0em auto">Women inhabited some unlikely settings in the early modern world, and in some cases their impact extended well beyond the confines oftheir home and local community. Case studies ofBritish businesswomen in the early industrial era establish their presence
in the areas oflong-distance trade, heavy industry, and high finance. Research on specific families or regions has revealed that from about 1650 to 1780 women owned and actively manipulated a good deal offamily and business capital. The fashion
trade offered scope to businesswomen who could exploit "separate spheres" to their own advantage. Women edged out ofoverseas trade during this period in favour of the expanding domestic retail sector, particularly for luxury goods. By the late eighteenth century, as the infant mortality rate dropped and life expectancy increased for the middle orders, more sons survived, fewer women were left widows, and younger women were more occupied with childcare. While changing social attitudes emphasized the ideal of "separate spheres" for men and women, changing demographics
formed the practical underpinning ofthese social conventions.</p></div><table style="margin-bottom: 1em" cellpadding="3" class="not_ep_block" border="0"><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Item Type:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">Article</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Additional Information:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">Female Merchants in the British Isles</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Subjects:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row"><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/view/subjects/430000.html">430000 History and Archaeology</a><br /><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/view/subjects/430100.html">430000 History and Archaeology > 430100 Historical Studies</a><br /><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/view/subjects/420000.html">420000 Language and Culture</a></td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">ID Code:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">2772</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Deposited By:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row"><span class="ep_name_citation"><span class="person_name">Scholarly Publications Librarian</span></span></td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Deposited On:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">02 Jan 2008 10:53</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Last Modified:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">09 Jan 2008 02:30</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">ePrint Statistics:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row"><a target="ePrintStats" href="/es/index.php?action=show_detail_eprint;id=2772;">View statistics for this ePrint</a></td></tr></table><p align="right">Repository Staff Only: <a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/cgi/users/home?screen=EPrint::View&eprintid=2772">item control page</a></p>
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