The Family Tradesmen's Directory 1808

In 1808, Duncan McDonald, the Head Cook of the Bedford Tavern and Hotel, thought he had something new to offer to the world of cookery and cookery books. He may well have been right. Certainly his book was comprehensive, and his 'directions for marketing' and listings of the markets in London were unusual in such books of the day.

 

 I found his "Family Tradesmen's Directory" quite fascinating. It is a glimpse into a frozen moment in time of the retail world of 1808 London. The listing is long but I am including it all here in the interest of research and curiosity.

From this first page above, I looked in the British Newspaper Archive to see if T. Aveling had advertised his services in the London papers. He had. I was particularly interested because I had discovered that an 'oil and Italian warehouse' was virtually the "deli" of the Regency era.

Morning Chronicle 14 April 1803

The breadth of his stock is impressive, and there are seven other such warehouses listed by Mr. McDonald. Obviously these emporiums were important to the households of London.

 Linen-drapers, mercers, and woollen-drapers are mentioned in McDonald's list although his interest is in household suppliers, not fashion or clothing merchants. Cater, Marshall & Co. (listed above) advertised in the Morning Post.

Morning Post 10 April 1805

Table linens, and sheetings are among the household items offered for sale. On this same page there is a Glass & Staffordshire Warehouse listed. There are many china and glass suppliers on McDonald's list.

Morning Post 29 October 1804

Mr. Goldicutt seems to supply everything a household could require.

 There are several 'oil and colourmen' listed by McDonald. These were the equivalent of our paint stores. Linseed oil, raw pigments and the necessities for mixing and fixing them were sold by these shops. But on the last page below there is a new sort of shop mentioned--Vanherman, Fores & Co., British Paint Manufactory.
 

Morning Chronicle 16 April 1808

House decoration was changing and moving into the new century.

There are very few luxury shops in Mr. McDonald's list. The requirements of a household were uppermost in his mind. But he did include a perfumer in his list.

 Morning Post 19 May 1807

Presumably Patey, Butts & Co. Wholesale Perfumers sold items necessary to a household, as well as their 'Circassian Water'.

I feel as though I have been shopping in Regency London after perusing this list. And it has led me to reflect on who did go shopping for the wide variety of items required by a household. The mistress of the house would acquire large and/or decorative items I am sure. The size of the household would dictate the shopper for other items. It might be a maid, or it might be a house steward. I can see another interesting line of research opening up!

Happy New Year!

'Til next time,
Lesley-Anne

Sources:
New London Family Cook - https://books.google.ca
Advertisements - http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

Let's go shopping!

It's a beautiful summer day, and I fancy a little shopping. If we consult La Belle Assemblee, for the first months of 1807, we can find exactly the kind of shops that will interest us today.

I always love a sale and it appears we can find one or two, in Oxford Street and Bond Street.

Specialty items are always a treat. Lace, and shoes (possibly for husband or brother?), and shawls--these stores might need a return visit another day!

If we are tired of shopping for clothes, we can look at sundries--or perhaps even furniture:

And for that writing case I bought at Middleton's (above) I'll need good writing paper.

It was fortunate we brought the carriage; the shops are spread all over the City. What about one last stop in St. James Street--a new hat perhaps?

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

Elizabeth Grant goes Shopping - 1810

Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus, daughter of Sir John and Lady Grant, began writing her memoirs in 1845. She started with her childhood in Scotland, which included winters spent in London while her father attended Parliament.

Elizabeth Grant in old age

Elizabeth was born in 1797, had an eye for detail and a long memory, and her memoirs are fascinating. Her first volume--'Memoirs of a Highland Lady'--covers the years 1797 to 1827. Later she wrote of her years in Ireland and in France, supplementing her family's income and sharing her experiences with her children.

Her winters spent in London particularly interest me as they take place in the heart of extended Regency period. One page from 1810 describes a shopping trip:

"She [her mother] generally drove out every day, and some of us were always with her. On the week-days she made her visits and went shopping--

 To Green the glover's in little Newport Street, next door to such beautiful dolls, a whole shop of no other toy, some the size of life, opening and shutting their eyes, as was then a rare virtue; 

I have not been able to discover any information about Green, or the shop next door which sold dolls, but there was a lace merchant in Little Newport Street listed in the Post Office Directory for 1814.

to Roberts and Plowman;

Actually Robarts and Plowman, listed as Merchants, at 1 Chandos Street, Covent Garden. They are categorized as silk Mercers and Irish linen manufacturers.

to Gray the jeweller;

There were two Grays listed as jewellers in 1814. Thomas Gray, 41, Sackville-street, Piccadilly est. 1787, and William Gray, goldsmith & jeweller at No. 14 New Bond Street, established in 1792. We will never know which one Lady Grant patronised.

to Rundall[sic] and Bridge, so dirty and shabby without, such a fairy palace within, where on asking a man who was filling a scoop with small brown-looking stones what he was doing, he told me he was shovelling in rubies;

Elizabeth's description of the exterior of Rundall and Bridge, I find quite fascinating. Certainly their later building did not fit this depiction.

to Miss Stewart, our delight, cakes and flattery and bundles of finery awaiting us there; and then the three or four rooms full of hoops before the court days, machines of whale-bone, very large, covered with silk, and then with lace or net, and hung about with festoons of lace and beads, garlands of flowers, puffings of ribbon, furbelows of all sort. As the waists were short, how the imprisoned victims managed their arms we of this age can hardly imagine. The heads for these bodies were used as supports for whole faggots of feathers, as many as twelve sometimes standing bolt upright forming really a forest of plumage; the long trains stretched out behind, very narrow, more like a prolonged sash end than a garment. Yet there were beauties who wore this dress, and in it looked beautiful.

 original art by Shakoriel

I can discover nothing about Miss Stewart; alas, that research has such limitations.

We went to Churton's for our stockings,

William Churton of the Nottingham Warehouse, later sold to Wm. Harris

advertisement from The Repository of Arts, 1816

to Ross for my mother's wigs--this was another queer fashion--every woman, not alone the grey and the bald, wore an expensive wig instead of her own hair;

Alexander Ross was listed as a Patent Peruke-manufacturer & perfumer at 119, Bishopsgate. His wigs, commented The Scourge; or Monthly Expositor magazine, "are universally allowed to give elegance to youth, and add to the dignity of age."

to Lowe for shoes, to St. Paul's Church corner for books.

Of Lowe the shoe-maker I can find no information, but St. Paul's Church-yard was well-known for its publishers, printers, and bookshops.

from W. Roberts' The Book-Hunter in London

Elizabeth Grant admits at last "I don't remember half the places."

But I think she did very well; well enough to expand our knowledge of shopping in London, in 1810, very greatly. Thanks, Elizabeth!

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

Shopping in the Regency Period

I do wish there was a book about shopping--the retail trade--during the Regency, and in particular, shopping in London in the early 1800s. It would make research so much easier. As far as I can find, there is no definitive work. If you have come across one, please let me know. I'm researching for my 2010 release, The Harmless Deception. The heroine is a lady milliner and I want to have a feel for retailing in the Regency. Some things I have discovered:

'The Picture of London', a guidebook published in 1803, has the following widely cited quote. I think it's worth repeating:
"…two sets of streets running nearly parallel, almost from the Eastern extremity of the town to the Western, forming (with the exception of a very few houses) a line of shops. One. lying to the South, nearer the river, extends from Mile End to Parliament Street, including Whitechapel, Leadenhall Street, Cornhill, Cheapside, St. Paul's Churchyard, Ludgate Street, Fleet Street, the Strand and Charing Cross. The other, to the North, reaches from Shoreditch Church almost to the end of Oxford Street, including Shoreditch, Bishopsgate Street, Threadneedle Street, Cheapside, Newgate Street, Snow-hill, Holborn, Broad Street, St. Giles and Oxford Street. The Southern line, which is the most splendid, is more than three miles in length, and the other about four miles,…"

A great deal of shopping, indeed, and we know so little about it all. The impression I have gained is that the retail trade up until about 1815 was dominated by the independent merchant. They set up shop in the best premises available to their pocketbook and sold their goods. A fascinating exhibit from 2001 at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, still has its catalogue online. This is the 'John Johnson Collection Exhibition 2001 A Nation of Shopkeepers - Trade Ephemera from 1654 to the 1860'. There are literally hundreds of trade cards on-line for viewing. They tell us more about retailing during those 200 years than anything else I have found.

The best author I have found specializing in shopping history is Alison Adburgham. Her book 'Shopping in Style' is very useful, though it emphasizes the more accessible Victorian period. She also has 'Shops and Shopping, 1800-1914', which has a valuable chapter titled 'Shopping During the Napoleonic Wars'.

Regency novels lean heavily on the first department store in London, Harding, Howell & Co, for their characters' shopping needs. I did so myself in The Rake's Reflection, only I called it by the name of its location--Schomberg House in Pall Mall. The bazaars also figure large in Regency fiction--the Western Exchange, Soho Bazaar and the Pantheon Bazaar--but it is difficult to pin down their operating dates, so it can be wiser to create a fictional bazaar rather than risk an error. I have seen the Burlington Arcade has been wrongly used; it was late in opening, 1819. In fact, Adburgham gives the date of the Pantheon's re-creation as a bazaar as 1834. I used a nameless, unfashionable, bazaar for a scene in The Beggarmaid, and enjoyed creating it.

Individual well-known shops are fascinating to research and invaluable settings for writers. I'm thinking of the plumassier Botobol, Ackermann's for art, the perfumery of Floris, Hatchard's for books, and Bedford House and Grafton House which Jane Austen patronized. In fact, Jane's letters are a treasure trove of shopping details.

So the study continues. But as shopping and research are both among my favourite things to do, I don't mind a bit!

Til next time,

Lesley-Anne