Wakefield, its Woollen-Cloth Trade and Merchant Networks, 1558-1650

Abstract

Towns cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of their interactions with each other. This was never more true than at a time when the textile industry was both ubiquitous and of national importance. The industry had an influence over the largest city and the smallest cottage. Trade was a way in which many people saw their own area as a part of the national picture. Here, using a wide range of primary sources including wills, leases, court cases, taxation records and government surveys, the cloth trade of early-modern Wakefield has been partially reconstructed. Particular attention is paid to the network of towns and regions Wakefield traded with, and the reciprocal nature of this trade. Case studies illustrate how and why trading developed.

Keywords:

• Kersey
• broadcloth
• merchants
• networks
• trade
• Wakefield
• London
• Kendal

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my son Thomas for his assistance with photography and digital mapping and my late wife Patricia for proof-reading the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 These are estimates after K. Grady, ‘The provision of public buildings in the West Riding of Yorkshire, c. 1600-1840’, (unpub. Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Leeds, 1980), 13.

2 Heaton, Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, 78.

3 R. B. Smith, ‘A study of the landed Income and social structure in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1535-1540’, unpub. Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Leeds, 1962, 45.

4 Camden, Britannia, 856.

5 Collins, ed., Wills and Administrations from the Knaresborough Court Rolls, xi.

6 Calendar of State Papers Domestic [hereafter CSPD], 11 Jan. 1628, p. 49.

7 These rough estimates are based on surviving wills, leases, etc. Some may have been only wool merchants.

8 North Yorkshire County Record Office [NYCRO], PR/PRL18/3/1 (1617), PR/PRL 18/19/1 (1613).

9 Morehouse, History and Topography of Kirkburton, 29.

10 Cartwright (ed.), Travels through England of Dr Richard Pococke.

11 Nef, Rise of the British Coal Industry, 1, 59; CSPD, 1601-3; The National Archives [TNA], Prob 11/132/680 (1618), will.

12 Harrison, Description of England, 395.

13 Hey, Grass Roots of English History, 18-19.

14 TNA, Prob 11/132/680 (1618); E115/234/180/166 later notes kerseys.

15 Waters, ‘Social History of Wakefield’, 32.

16 Waters, ‘Social History of Wakefield’, 51.

17 Brears, Buildings of Tudor and Stuart Wakefield, 3.

18 See for instance Kendal Archives Centre, WDS 39/1/1/2/1 (1587), men of Hawkshead and Kendal with land in Kirkgate and Northgate, Wakefield; Univ. of Leeds, Special Collections, YAS/MD363/81f (1684), Edward Hill, City of London, burgage in Kirkgate; West Yorkshire Archives Service [WYAS] Bradford, SpSt/4/11/127/50 (1559), John Blackburn, London, Westgate burgage; Peacock, History of the Free Grammar School at Wakefield, 39, Thomas Bramley, London, burgage in Kirkgate (1603).

19 Marshall, ‘Study of Local and Regional Communities’, 203.

20 Clay, Economic Expansion and Social Change, II, 227.

21 Westerfield, Middlemen in English Business, 256.

22 Mendenhall, Shrewsbury Drapers and the Welsh Wool Trade, 24.

23 Heaton, Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, 137

24 Kerridge, Textile Manufactures, 28.

25 A comparison between the growth of Leeds and Wakefield is noted in Rimmer, ‘Evolution of Leeds’.

26 Heaton, Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, Ch. 4, 136.

27 Univ. of York, Borthwick Institute for Archives [BIA], will of William Allen, coverlet weaver, 16 Jul. 1593.

28 BIA, will 23 Aug. 1612 (Wakefield).

29 TNA, SP46/18/fol.249, 7 Dec. 1590, merchants Percival Brooks and William Paycock.

30 Heaton, Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, 79.

31 WYAS Bradford, SpSt 8/22/ (1567).

32 WYAS Bradford, SpSt 6/6/13/5, SpSt 4/11/127/59, SpSt 4/11/127/60, SpSt4/11/113/12.

33 Page (ed.), VCH, 51.

34 Goodchild, Aspects of Medieval Wakefield, 2; Doncaster Archives and Local Studies [DALS], DD/BW/D9, 10, 11, 13. For details of his house see Brears, Buildings of Tudor and Stuart Wakefield, 81.

35 Univ. of Leeds, Special Collections, YAS D 363/ 93N and 75F; Robinson, ed., Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield, 1651-52, 13 (John Scott).

36 Heaton, Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, 79.

37 BIA, will 8 Jan. 1622; WYAS Wakefield, C259/1, 1647.

38 A Calendar to the Records of the Borough of Doncaster, III, 198 (for 1580), available at DALS; also Leeds Univ. Lib.

39 TNA, SP 46/18/fol. 249, 7 Dec. 1590.

40 BIA, will, prerog. Pontefract, May 1636.

41 Brears, Buildings of Tudor and Stuart Wakefield, 27-9.

42 Kerridge, Textile Manufactures, 15.

43 Kerridge, Textile Manufactures, 20.

44 Kerridge, Textile Manufactures, 19, 20.

45 Middlesex County Records, I, 219; III, 183.

46 TNA, SP 46/18/fol. 249, 7 Dec. 1590; Page (ed.), VCH, II, 413.

47 Ramsay, ‘Distribution of the Cloth Industry’, 361-9.

48 Derbyshire Record Office [DRO], D7676 bag C 2563, 1586; Peacock, History of the Free Grammar School at Wakefield, 9. The Bread Booths was a medieval market, probably in decline in this period: see Fig. 3.

49 WYAS Bradford, SpSt 4/11/127/50 (1559); 54 (1562).

50 Meaning ‘yard wide kerseys’. Heaton, Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, 79.

51 Newton, ‘Long Distance Cloth Trade of Halifax’, 41, 50, 51; Heaton, Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, 146.

52 Fisher, ‘Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, 11-18; Chartres, Internal Trade in England 1500-1700, 11.

53 TNA, SP 46/18/fol. 249, 7 Dec. 1590.

54 J. R. Dasent (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council, 1542-1631 (1890), 307, mentions hot-pressing used for this purpose in the local area; Kerridge, Textile Manufactures, 26.

55 WYAS Halifax, SH:1/LI 1604 Oct 12/1; SH:1/UP 1572 Aug 13; MISC 468/4 1586; SH:4/VL 28 Oct. 1607.

56 BIA, will 7 Jan. 1603.

57 Walker, Wakefield: its History and People, 44; Jordan, Charities of Rural England, 285.

58 TNA, Prob. 11/140/213 (1622).

59 TNA, Prob. 11/132/680, 1618, will of John Lowden; TNA, E115/254/180/1610 (taxation).

60 CSPD, Elizabeth, vol. 269, 45.

61 TNA, E134/11 Jas/Mich 11 (1613). John was not alone in these tax disputes, much discussed in Heaton, Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries.

62 Walker, Wakefield its History and People, 665; TNA, C8/57/164.

63 Univ. of Leeds, Special Collections, YAS MS.624, will 27 Jul. 1609; WYAS Kirklees, DD/WBD/X/123 (1621); WYAS Leeds, 100/2/5/28 (1573); WYAS Wakefield, QS Order Book, 1638, 13, James Bynnes.

64 BIA, will 16 Jul. 1593.

65 Birmingham City Archives, MS3312/395/767, bond for £1,100 mentions Blackwell Hall (calendar only).

66 Jordan, Charities of Rural England, 293.

67 Dodsworth, Yorkshire Church Notes, 51.

68 TNA, Prob. 11/250/295 (1655).

69 Heaton, Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, 148; Kendal Archives Centre, WDS/39/1/1/2/1 (1587).

70 Jones, ‘Westmorland Packhorse men in Southampton’, 65; Heaton, Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, 128.

71 Supple, Commercial Crisis and Change, 258; Marshall, ‘Rise and Transformation of the Cumbrian Market Town’, 138.

72 White, History of Kendal, 129.

73 Hunter, Familiae Minorum Gentium, 500, passim; Newton, ‘Long Distance Cloth Trade of Halifax’, 48.

74 WYAS Bradford, SpSt/14/1, sale of horses, 10 Mar. 1629; SpSt/5/1/63, bond, 24 Dec. 1632; PRE 1/10/4/9, agreement, Thomas and George Gill, 20 Dec. 1632; will of Thomas Gill, 27 Dec. 1632.

75 NYCRO, ZXF/1/31, 21 Apr. 1647.

76 Whitaker, History and Antiquities of Craven, 2; Loidis and Elmete, 276.

77 Walker, Wakefield: its History and People, 394; Everitt, ‘Marketing of Agricultural Produce’, 560. Staple town status was granted by the monarch to trade and market wool.

78 Kerridge, Textile Manufactures, 25; Heaton, Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, 204.

79 BIA, wills: H. Watkinson, Wakefield, July 1594; H. Knowles, May 1576; NYCRO, PRL/18/19/1 (1613).

80 Raine (ed.)., Wills and Inventories, vol. 26, 275. No further explanation of the types of cloth is given.

81 WYAS Wakefield, QSI/ 18/10/8/5 (1674).

82 Clark, Transformation of English Provincial Towns, 113.

83 TNA, Prob.11/79/282, will of John Mitchell, 21 April 1592, including his ‘debt book’. Most of this section is based on this one will.

84 Peacock, History of the Free Grammar School at Wakefield, 40.

85 Morgan, ‘Trade in Hereford’, 16-17, mentions Thomas Church as a dyer of coloured cloths.

86 Jones (ed.), Stratford-upon-Avon Inventories, VI, 64, 70, 71. ‘Cotton’ and ‘fryce’ refer to cloth finishes.

87 Mendenhall, Shrewsbury Drapers and the Welsh Wool Trade, 24.

88 Mendenhall, Shrewsbury Drapers and the Welsh Wool Trade, 24.

89 Unwin, Industrial Organisation, 186-7; Kerridge, Textile Manufactures, 20-1.

90 Walker, ed. Burges Court of Wakefield, 16.

91 Waters, ‘Social History of Wakefield’, 129.

92 Everitt, Change in the Provinces, 41.

93 Walker, ed. Burges Court of Wakefield, 414.

94 Goodchild, Aspects of Medieval Wakefield, 60.

95 WYAS Wakefield, C225/1 and /2, 1633; BIA, prerog., will July 1644.

96 DRO, DD7676, Bag C 2558, 24 May 1532; Peacock, History of the Free Grammar School at Wakefield, 9, 90; BIA, prerog., wills, Aug. 1636.

97 TNA, Prob. 11/287/196 (1659); BIA, 1 Aug. 1626.

98 Everitt, Change in the Provinces, 560; Bowden, Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England, 10.

99 TNA, C1/708/38, 1532–1538.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

G. D. Newton

George Newton is an historical writer and researcher living in Wakefield. His major interests include the development of early coal, iron and textile industries in West Yorkshire before the rapid industrialisation of the late-eighteenth century. He has also written about the long-distance cloth trade of early-modern Halifax, in the Halifax Antiquarian (2018).