In addition to these Trades, skilled and semi-skilled, in which men and women worked together, certain skilled women’s trades existed in London which were sufficiently profitable for considerable premiums to be paid with the girls who were apprenticed to them.[[417]] These girls probably continued to exercise their own trade after marriage, their skill serving them instead of dowry, the Customs of London providing that “married women who practise certain crafts in the city alone and without their husbands, may take girls as apprentices to serve them and learn their trade, and these apprentices shall be bound by their indentures of apprenticeship to both husband and wife, to learn the wife’s trade as is aforesaid, and such indentures shall be enrolled as well for women as for men.”[[418]] The girls who were apprenticed to Carpenters were evidently on this footing.
References in contemporary documents to women who were following skilled or semi-skilled trades in London are very frequent. Thus Thomas Swan is reported to have committed thefts “on his mistress Alice Fox, Wax-chandler of Old Bailey.”[[419]] Mrs. Cellier speaks of “one Mrs. Phillips, an upholsterer,”[[420]] while the Rev. Giles Moore notes in his diary “payed Mistress Cooke, in Shoe Lane, for a new trusse, and for mending the old one and altering the plate thereof, £1 5 0; should shee dye, I am in future to inquire for her daughter Barbara, who may do the like for mee.”[[421]] Isaac Derston was “put an app. to Anthony Watts for the term of seven years, but turned over to the widow—dwelling near: palls: who bottoms cane chaires, £2 10 0.”[[422]] That the bottoming of cane chairs was a poor trade is witnessed by the meagreness of the premium paid in this case.
No traces can be found of any organisation existing in the skilled women’s trades, such as upholstery, millinery, mantua-making, but a Gild existed among the women who sorted and packed wool at Southampton. A Sisterhood consisting of twelve women of good and honest demeanour was formed there as a company to serve the merchants in the occupation of covering pokes or baloes [bales]. Two of the sisters acted as wardens. In 1554 a court was held to adjudicate on the irregular attendance of some of the sisters. The names of two wardens and eleven sisters are given; no one who was absent from her duties for more than three months was permitted to return to the Sisterhood without the Mayor’s licence. “Item, yᵗ is ordered by the sayde Maior and his bretherne that all suche as shall be nomynated and appoynted to be of the systeryd shall make a brekefaste at their entrye for a knowlege and shal bestowe at the least xxᵈ or ijˢ, or more as they lyste.”[[423]]
Possibly when more records of the Gilds and Companies have been published in a complete form, some of the gaps which are left in this account of the position of women in the skilled and semi-skilled trades may be filled in; but the extent to which married women were engaged in them must always remain largely a matter of conjecture, and unfortunately it is precisely this point which is most interesting to the sociologist. Practically all adult women were married, and the character of the productive work which an economic organisation allots to married women and the conditions of their labour decide very largely the position of the mother in society, and therefore, ultimately, the fate of her children. The fragmentary evidence which has been examined shows that, while the system of family industry lasted, it was so usual in the skilled and semi-skilled trades for women to share in the business life of their husbands that they were regarded as partners. Though the wife had rarely, if ever, served an apprenticeship to his trade, there were many branches in which her assistance was of great value, and husband and wife naturally divided the industry between them in the way which was most advantageous to the family, while unmarried servants, either men or women, performed the domestic drudgery. As capitalistic organisation developed, many avenues of industry were, however, gradually closed to married women. The masters no longer depended upon the assistance of their wives, while the journeyman’s position became very similar to that of the modern artisan; he was employed on the premises of his master, and thus, though his association with his fellows gave him opportunity for combination, his wife and daughters, who remained at home, did not share in the improvements which he effected in his own economic position. The alternatives before the women of this class were either to withdraw altogether from productive activity, and so become entirely dependent upon their husband’s goodwill, or else to enter the labour market independently and fight their battles alone, in competition not only with other women, but with men.
Probably the latter alternative was still most often followed by married women, although at this time the idea that men “keep” their wives begins to prevail: but the force of the old tradition maintained amongst women a desire for the feeling of independence which can only be gained through productive activity, and thus married women, even when unable to work with their husbands, generally occupied themselves with some industry, however badly it might be paid.
B. Retail Trades.
The want of technical skill and knowledge which so often hampered the position of women in the Skilled Trades, was a smaller handicap in Retail Trades, where manual dexterity and technical knowledge are less important than general intelligence and a lively understanding of human nature. Quick perception and social tact, which are generally supposed to be feminine characteristics, often proved useful even to the craftsman, when his wife assumed the charge of the financial side of his business; it is therefore not surprising to find women taking a prominent part in every branch of Retail Trade. In fact the woman who was left without other resources turned naturally to keeping a shop, or to the sale of goods in the street, as the most likely means for maintaining her children, and thus the woman shopkeeper is no infrequent figure in contemporary writings. For example, in one of the many pamphlets describing the incidents of the Civil War, we read that “Mistresse Phillips was sent for, who was found playing the good housewife at home (a thing much out of fashion) ... and committed close prisoner to castle.” Her husband having been driven before from town, “She was to care for ten children, the most of them being small, one whereof she at the same time suckled, her shop (which enabled her to keep all those) was ransacked,” £14 was taken, and the house plundered, horse and men billetted with her when she could scarce get bread enough for herself and her family without charity. She was tried, and condemned to death, when, the account continues, “Mistress Phillips not knowing but her turne was next, standing all the while with a halter about her neck over against the Gallowes, a Souldier would have put the halter under her Handkerchiefe, but she would not suffer him, speaking with a very audible voice, ‘I am not ashamed to suffer reproach and shame in this cause,’ a brave resolution, beseeming a nobler sex, and not unfit to be registered in the Book of Martyrs.”
The woman shop-keeper is found also among the stock characters of the drama. In “The Old Batchelor” Belinda relates that “a Country Squire, with the Equipage of a Wife and two Daughters, came to Mrs. Snipwel’s Shop while I was there ... the Father bought a Powder-Horn, and an Almanack, and a Comb-Case; the Mother, a great Fruz-Towr, and a fat Amber-Necklace; the Daughters only tore two Pair of Kid-leather Gloves, with trying ’em on.”[[424]]
Amongst the Quakers, shop-keeping was a usual employment for women. Thomas Chalkley, soon after his marriage “had a Concern to visit Friends in the counties of Surrey, Sussex and Kent, which I performed in about two Weeks Time, and came home and followed my calling, and was industrious therein; and when I had gotten something to bear my expenses, and settled my Wife in some little Business I found an Exercise on my Spirit to go over to Ireland.”[[425]] Another Quaker describes how he applied himself “to assist my Wife in her Business as well as I could, attending General, Monthly and other Meetings on public Occasions for three Years.”[[426]] The provision of the little stock needed for a shop was a favourite method of assisting widows.
The frequency with which payments to women are entered in account books[[427]] is further evidence of the extent to which they were engaged in Retail Trades, but this occupation was not freely open to all and any who needed it. It was, on the contrary, hedged about with almost as many restrictions as the gild trades. The craftsman was generally free to dispose of his own goods, but many restrictions hampered the Retailer, that is to say the person who bought to sell again. The community regarded this class with some jealousy, and limited their numbers. Hence, the poor woman who sought to improve her position by opening a little shop, did not always find her course clear. In fact there were many towns in which the barriers between her and an honest independence were insurmountable. Girls were, however, apprenticed to shopkeepers oftener than to the gild trades, and licences to sell were granted to freewomen as well as to freemen. At Dorchester, girls who had served an apprenticeship to shopkeepers were duly admitted to the freedom of the Borough; we find entered in the Minute Book the names of Celina Hilson, apprenticed to Mat. Hilson, Governor, haberdasher, and Mary Goodredge, spinster, haberdasher of small wares; also of James Bun (who had married Elizabeth Williams a freewoman), haberdasher of small wares; Elizabeth Williams, apprenticed seven years to her Mother, Mary W., tallow chaundler, and of William Weare, apprenticed to Grace Lacy, widow, woolen draper.[[428]] An order was granted by the Middlesex Quarter Sessions to discharge Mary Jemmett from apprenticeship to Jane Tyllard, widow, from whom she was to learn “the trade of keeping a linen shop,”[[429]] and an account is given of a difference between Susanna Shippey, of Mile End, Stepney, widow, and Ann Taylor, her apprentice, touching the discharge of the said apprentice. It appears that Ann has often defrauded her mistress of her goods and sold them for less than cost price.[[430]]