That women were members of the Bakers’ Companies is shown by rules which refer to sisters as well as brothers. In 1622 the Corporation at Salisbury ordained that “no free brother or free sister shall at any time hereafter make, utter, or sell bread, made with butter, or milk, spice cakes, etc ... except it be before spoken for funerals, or upon the Friday before Easter, or at Christmas.... No free brother or free sister shall sell any bread in the market. No free brother or free sister shall hereafter lend any money to an innholder or victualler, to the intent or purpose of getting his or their custom.”[[470]] It is not likely that many women served an apprenticeship, but the frequency with which they are charged with offences against the Bye-Laws is some clue to the numbers engaged in the trade. For instance, in Manchester, Martha Wrigley and nine men were presented in 1648 “for makeinge bread above & vnder the size & spice bread.”[[471]] In 1650, twenty-five men and no women were charged with a similar offence,[[472]] in 1651 eleven men and no women[[473]] and in 1652 are entered the names of five men and ten women[[474]].
The constant complaints brought against people who were using the trade “unlawfully” show how difficult it was to enforce rules of apprenticeship in a trade which was so habitually used by women for domestic purposes. Information was brought that “divers of the inhabᵗˢ of Thirsk do use the trade of baking, not having been apprentices thereof, but their wives being brought up and exercised therein many yeares have therefore used it ... and the matter referred to the Justices in Qʳ Sessions to limitt a certain number to use that trade without future trouble of any informers and that such as are allowed by the said Justices, to have a tolleration to take apprentices ... the eight persons, viz., Jaˢ. Pibus, Anth. Gamble, John Harrison, Widow Watson, Jane Skales, Jane Rutter, Tho. Carter and John Bell, shall onlie use and occupie the said trade of baking, and the rest to be restrayned.”[[475]] The insistence upon apprenticeship must have been singularly exasperating to women who had learnt to bake excellent bread from their mothers, or mistresses, and it was natural for them to evade, when possible, a rule which seemed so arbitrary; but they could not do so with impunity. Thus the Hertfordshire Quarter Session was informed “One Andrew Tomson’s wife doth bake, and William Everite’s wife doth bake bread to sell being not apprenticed nor licensed.”[[476]] How heavily prosecutions of this character weighed upon the poor, is shown by a certificate brought to the same Quarter Sessions nearly a hundred years later, stating that “William Pepper, of Sabridgworth, is of honest and industrious behaviour, but in a poor and low condition, and so not able to support the charge of defending an indictment against him for baking for hire (he having once taken a halfpenny for baking a neighbour’s loaf) and has a great charge of children whom he has hitherto brought up to hard work and industrious labour, who otherwise might have been a charge to the parish, and will be forced to crave the relief of the parish, to defray the charge that may ensue upon this trouble given him by a presentment.”[[477]]
The line taken by the authorities was evidently intended to keep the trade of baking in a few hands. The object may have been partly to facilitate inspection and thereby check short measure and adulteration; whatever the motive the effect must certainly have tended to discourage women from developing the domestic art of baking into a trade. Consequently in this, as in other trades, the woman’s contribution to the industry generally took the form of a wife helping her husband, or a widow carrying on her late husband’s business.
Millers:—It was probably only as the wife or widow of a miller that women took part in the business of milling. An entry in the Carlisle Records states “we amercye Archilles Armstronge for keeping his wief to play the Milner, contrary the orders of this cyttie.”[[478]] But it is not unusual to come across references to corn mills which were in the hands of women; a place in Yorkshire is described as being “near to Mistress Lovell’s Milne.”[[479]] “Margaret Page, of Hertingfordbury, widow,” was indicted for “erecting a mill house in the common way there,”[[480]] and at Stockton “One water corne milne ... is lett by lease unto Alice Armstrong for 3 lives.”[[481]]
Such instances are merely a further proof of the activity shown by married women in the family business whenever this was carried on within their reach.
Butchers:—The position which women took in the Butchers’ trade resembled very closely their position as bakers, for, as has been shown, the special advantages which women, by virtue of their domestic training, might have enjoyed when trading as bakers, were cancelled by the statutes and bye-laws limiting the numbers of those engaged in this trade. As wife or widow women were able to enter either trade equally. Both trades were subject to minute supervision in the interests of the public, and as a matter of fact, from the references which happen to have been preserved, it might even appear that the wives of butchers were more often interested in the family business than the wives of bakers. An Act of Henry VIII. “lycensyng all bochers for a tyme to sell vytell in grosse at theyr pleasure” makes it lawful for any person “to whom any complaynt shuld be made upon any Boucher his wyff servaunte or other his mynysters refusing to sell the said vitayles by true and lawfull weight ... to comytt evry such Boucher to warde,”[[482]] shows an expectation that the wife would act as her husband’s agent. But the wife’s position was that of partner, not servant. During the first half of the century, certainly, leases were generally made conjointly to husband and wife; for example, “Phillip Smith and Elizabeth, his wife” appeared before the Corporation at Reading “desiringe a new lease of the Butcher’s Shambles, which was granted.”[[483]]
Customs at Nottingham secured the widow’s possession of her husband’s business premises even without a lease, providing that “when anie Butcher shall dye thatt holds a stall or shopp from the towne, thatt then his wyefe or sonne shall hould the same stall or shopp, they vsinge the same trade, otherwaies the towne to dispose thereof to him or them thatt will give moste for the stall or shopp: this order to bee lykewise to them thatt houlds a stall in the Spice-chambers.”[[484]]
The names of women appear in lists of butchers in very similar proportions to the lists of bakers. Thus one for Chester gives the names of twenty men followed by three women,[[485]] and in a return of sixteen butchers licensed to sell meat in London during Lent, there is one woman, Mary Wright, and her partner, William Woodfield.[[486]] Bye-laws which control the sale of meat use the feminine as well as the masculine pronouns, showing that the trade was habitually used by both sexes. The “Act for the Settlement and well ordering of the several Public Markets within the City of London” provides that “all and every Country butcher ... Poulterer ... Country Farmers, Victuallers Laders or Kidders ... may there sell, utter and put to open shew or sale his, her or their Beef, Mutton, etc., etc.”[[487]] It may be supposed that these provisions relate only to the sale of meat, and that women would not often be associated with the businesses which included slaughtering the beasts, but this is not the case. Elizabeth Clarke is mentioned in the Dorchester Records as “apprenticed 7 years to her father a butcher,”[[488]] and other references occur to women who were clearly engaged in the genuine butcher’s trade. For example, a licence was granted “to Jane Fouches of the Parish of St. Clement Danes, Butcher to kill and sell flesh during Lent,”[[489]] and among eighteen persons who were presented at the Court Leet, Manchester, “for Cuttinge & gnashing of Rawhides for their seuerall Gnashinge of evry Hyde,” two were women, “Ellen Jaques of Ratchdale, one hyde, Widdow namely Stott of Ratchdale, two hydes.”[[490]]
Beside these women, who by marriage or apprenticeship had acquired the full rights of butchers and were acknowledged as such by the Corporation under whose governance they lived, a multitude of poor women tried to keep their families from starvation by hawking meat from door to door. They are often mentioned in the Council Records, because the very nature of their business rendered them continually liable to a prosecution for regrating. Thus at the Court Leet, Manchester, Anne Costerdyne was fined 1s. “for buyinge 4 quarters of Mutton of Wᵐ. Walmersley & 1 Lamb of Thomas Hulme both wᶜʰ shee shold the one & same day.”[[491]] Their position was the more difficult, because if they did not sell the meat the same day sometimes it went bad, and they were then prosecuted on another score. Elizabeth Chorlton, a butcher’s widow, was presented in 1648 “for buieing and sellinge both on one day” and was fined 3s. 4d.[[492]] She was again fined with Mary Shalcross and various men in 1650 for selling unlawful meat and buying and selling on one day.[[493]]
She was presented yet again in 1653 for selling “stinking meate,” and fined 5s.[[494]] Evidently Elizabeth Chorlton was an undesirable character, for she had previously been convicted of selling by false weights;[[495]] nevertheless it seems hard that when it was illegal to sell stinking meat women should also be fined for selling it on the same day they bought it, and though this particular woman was dishonest no fault is imputed to the character of many of the others who were similarly presented for regrating.