Little mercy was shown to either man or woman who engaged in the Retail Trade without having served an apprenticeship. A warrant was only issued to release “Elizabeth Beaseley from the Hospital of Bridewell on her brother John Beaseley’s having entered into bond that she shall leave off selling tobacco in the town of Wigan.”[[431]] Mary Keeling was presented at Nottingham “for falowing ye Treaid of a Grocer and Mercer and kepping open shope for on month last past, contra Statum, not being aprentice.”[[432]] At Carlisle it was ordered that “Isaack Tully shall submit himself to pay a fine to this trade if they shall think it fitting for taking his sister to keep & sell waires for him contrary to our order,”[[433]] and when it was reported that “Mrs. Studholme hath employed James Moorehead Scotsman to vend and sell goods in her shop contrary to an order of this company wee doe order that the wardens of our company shall fourthwith acquaint Mrs. Studholme yt. she must not be admitted to entertain him any longʳ in her employmt but that before our next quarter day she take some other course for keeping her shop and yt. he be noe longer employed therein till yt. time.”[[434]] At a later date Mrs. Sybil Hetherington, Mrs. Mary Nixon, Mrs. Jane Jackson, widow, and four men, were dealt with for having shops or retailery of goods contrary to the statute.[[435]]

There were fewer restrictions on retailing in London than in the provinces, and trading was virtually free in the streets of London. An act of the Common Council, passed in 1631, deals with abuses rising from this freedom, declaring “that of late it is come to passe that divers unruly people, as Butchers, Bakers, Poulters, Chandlers, Fruiterers, Sempsters, sellers of Grocery wares, Oyster wives, Herbe wives, Tripe wives, and the like; who not contented to enjoy the benefit and common right of Citizens, by holding their market and continual Trades in their several Shops & houses where they dwell, doe ... by themselves, wives, children and seruants enter into, and take up their standings in the said streets and places appointed for the common Markets, unto which the country people only have in former times used to resort to vend and utter their victuall and other commodities; in which Markets the said Freemen doe abide for the most part of the day and that not only upon Market dayes, but all the weeke long with multitudes of Baskets, Tubs, Chaires, Boards & Stooles, ... the common Market places by these disordered people be so taken up, that country people when they come with victual and provision have no roome left them to set down their ... baskets.”[[436]]

In provincial towns, stalls in the market place were leased to tradesmen by the Corporation, the rents forming a valuable revenue for the town; infringements of the monopoly were summarily dealt with and often the privilege was reserved for “free” men and women. Thus at St. Albans Richard Morton’s wife was presented because she “doth ordinarilie sell shirt bands and cuffes, hankerchers, coifes, and other small lynenn wares openlie in the markett,”[[437]] not being free. It was as a special favour that leave was given to a poor woman to sell shoes in Carlisle market. The conditions are explained as follows:—“Whereas Ann Barrow the wife of Richard Barrow formerly one that by virtue of the Coldstream Act brought shoes and exposed them to sell in Carlisle market he being long abroad and his said wife poor the trade is willing to permit the said Ann to bring and sell shoes provided always they be the work of one former servant and noe more and for this permission she owns the trades favour and is thankful for it ... agreed and ordered that every yeare she shall pay 2s.”[[438]]

The Corporation at Reading was occupied for a whole year with the case of the “Aperne woman.” The first entry in the records states that “Steven Foorde of Newbery the aperne woman’s husband, exhibited a lettre from the Lord of Wallingford for his sellerman to shewe and sell aperninge[[439]] in towne, in Mr. Mayor’s handes, etc. And thereupon tollerated to doe as formerly she had done, payeing yerely 10s. to the Hall.”[[440]] Next year there is another entry to the effect that “it was agreed that Steven Foorde’s wief shall contynue sellinge of aperninge, as heretofore, and that the other woman usinge to sell suche stuffes at William Bagley’s dore shalbe forbidden, and shall not hencefourth be permitted to sell in the boroughe etc., and William Bagley shall be warned.”[[441]] The other woman proving recalcitrant, “at Steven Foorde’s wive’s request and complaynte it was grannted that William Bagley’s stranger, selling aperninge in contempt of the government, shalbe questioned.”[[442]] Finally it was “agreed that Steven Foorde’s wife shall henceforth keepe Markett and sell onely linsey woolsey of their own making in this markett, according to the Lord Wallingforde’s lettre, she payeing xs. per annum, and that noe other stranger shall henceforth keepe markett or sell lynsey and woolsey in this markett.”[[443]]

At this time, when most roads were mere bridle tracks, and few conveniences for travel existed, when even in towns the streets were so ill-paved that in bad weather the goodwife hesitated before going to the market, the dwellers in villages and hamlets were often fain to buy from pedlars who brought goods to their door and to sell butter and eggs to anyone who would undertake the trouble of collection. Their need was recognised by the authorities, who granted a certain number of licences to Badgers, Pedlars and Regraters, and probably many others succeeded in trading unlicensed. This class of Dealers was naturally regarded with suspicion by shopkeepers. A pamphlet demanding their suppression, points out that “the poor decaying Shopkeeper has a large Rent to pay, and Family to Support; he maintains not his own Children only, but all the poor Orphans and Widows in his Parish; nay, sometimes the Widows and Orphans of the very Pedlar or Hawker, who has thus fatally laboured to starve him.” As for the Hawkers, “we know they pretend they are shut out of the great Trading Cities, Towns and Corporations by the respective Charters and all other settled Privileges of those Places, but we answer that tho’ for want of legal Introduction they may not be able to set up in Cities, Corporations, etc., yet there are very many Places of very great Trade, where no Corporation Privileges would obstruct them ... if any of them should be reduc’d and ... be brought to the Parish to keep; that is to say, their Wives and Children, the Manufacturers, the Shopkeepers who confessedly make up the principal Numbers of those corporations, and are the chief Supporters of the Parishes, will be much more willing to maintain them, than to be ruin’d by them.”[[444]]

The terms Badging, Peddling, Hawking and Regrating are not very clearly defined, and were used in senses which somewhat overlap each other; but the Badger seems to have been a person who “dealt” in a wholesale way. A licence was granted in 1630 to “Edith Doddington of Hilbishopps, widdowe, to be a badger of butter and cheese and to carry the same into the Counties of Wiltes, Hamsher, Dorsᵗᵗ and Devon, and to retourne againe with corne and to sell it againe in any faire or markett within this County during one whole yeare now next ensueing; and she is not to travell with above three horses, mares or geldings at the most part.”[[445]] The authorities, fearing lest corners and profiteering should result from interference with the supply of necessaries, made “ingrossing” or anything resembling an attempt to buy up the supply of wheat, salt, etc., an offence. Amongst the prosecutions which were made on this account are presentments of “John Whaydon and John Preist of Watchett, partners, for ingross of salt, Julia Stone, Richard Miles, Joane Miles als. Stone of Bridgwater for ingross of salte.”[[446]] of “Johann Stedie of Fifehead, widdow, ... for ingrossinge of corne contrary etc,”[[447]] of “Edith Bruer and Katherine Bruer, Spinsters, of Halse ... for ingrossinge of corne,”[[448]] and of “Johann Thorne ... widow ... for ingrossinge of wheate, Barley, Butter and Cheese.”[[449]]

Pedlars and hawkers carried on an extensive trade all over the country. At first sight this would seem a business ill suited to women, for it involved carrying a heavy pack of goods on the back over long distances; and yet it appears as though in some districts the trade was almost their monopoly. The success that attended Joan Dant’s efforts as a pedlar has been told elsewhere.[[450]] How complete was the ascendency which women had established in certain districts over this class of trade is shown by the following definition of the term “Hawkers”:—“those that profer their Wares by Wholesale which are called Hawkers, and which are not only the Manufacturers themselves, but others besides them, viz. the Women in London, in Exceter and in Manchester, who do not only Profer Commodities at the Shops and Ware houses, but also at Inns to Countrey-Chapmen. Likewise the Manchester-men, the Sherborn-men, and many others, that do Travel from one Market-Town to another; and there at some Inn do profer their Wares to sell to the Shopkeepers of the place.”[[451]]

Though peddling might in some cases be developed into a large and profitable concern, more often it afforded a bare subsistence. The character of a woman engaged in it is given in a certificate brought before the Hertford Quarter Sessions in 1683 by the inhabitants of Epping, which states that “Sarah, wife of Richard Young, of Epping, cooper, who was accused of pocket-picking when she was about her lawfull and honest imploy of buying small wares and wallnuts” at Sabridgworth fair, is “a very honest and well-behaved woman, not given to pilfer or steale,” and that they believe her to be falsely accused.[[452]]

While the Pedlar dealt chiefly in small wares and haberdashery, Regraters were concerned with the more perishable articles of food. In this they were seriously hampered by bye-laws forbidding the buying and selling of such articles in one day. The laws had been framed with the object of preventing a few persons buying up all the supplies in the market and selling them at exorbitant prices, but their application seems to have been chiefly directed in the interests of the shopkeepers, to whom the competition of women who hawked provisions from door to door was a serious matter, the women being contented with very small profits, and the housewives finding it so convenient to have goods brought to their very doorstep. The injustice of the persecution of these poor women is protested against by the writer of a pamphlet, who points out that “We provide Men shall not be cheated in buying a pennyworth of Eggs, but make no provision to secure them from the same Abuse in a hundred pounds laid out in Cloaths. The poor Artizan shall not be oppressed in laying out his penny to one poorer than himself, but is without Remedy, shortened by a Company in his Penny as it comes in. I have heard Complaints of this Nature in greater matters of the publik Sales of the East India Company, perhaps if due consideration were had of these great Ingrossers, there would be found more Reason to restrain them, than a poor Woman that travels in the Country to buy up and sell in a Market a few Hens and Chickens.”[[453]]

Even in the Middle Ages the trade of Regrating was almost regarded as the prerogative of women. Gower wrote “But to say the truth in this instance, the trade of regratery belongeth by right rather to women. But if a woman be at it she in stinginess useth much more machination and deceit than a man; for she never alloweth the profit on a single crumb to escape her, nor faileth to hold her neighbour to paying his price; all who beseech her do but lose their time, for nothing doth she by courtesy, as anyone who drinketh in her house knoweth well.”[[454]]