John Smail

Credit, Risk, and Honor in Eighteenth‐Century Commerce

I 1781, Peter Tolson, a merchant in Leeds, wrote a letter responding to his son’s proposal to form an import and export partnership with a Mr. Merac: “It is a very weighty affair to form partnerships and requires deliberations and enquirys. As to Mr Merac, he may or he may not be a person of honor and probity and therefore it behoves you to enter into no connections with him but what are mere commissions.” The father’s concerns were natural enough, for to enter into a partnership was to put one’s credit—encompassing both assets and reputation—into the hands of another person. As Tolson well knew, however, the prospect of his son’s partnership merely magnified the risk inherent in all commercial transactions in the eighteenth century, for even the “mere commissions” he suggested as an alternative carried some risk, not least because they almost invariably involved credit in the strictly economic sense of delayed payment. While this merchant’s advice to his son is worthy of note because it so clearly illustrates how the concepts of “credit” and “risk” were closely entwined in the everyday concerns of middling people engaged in trade, it is all the more so because of the presence of a third concept, “honor.” Normally thought to be central to the social world of the landed elite, or more broadly to personal definitions of sexual reputation and identity, honor functions here almost as an antidote to risk, for it is only the answer to the question about Merac’s honor that might transform a foolhardy venture into a potentially sound enterprise. Tolson’s reference to honor in this context is thus an example of how an exploration of credit, risk, and honor

The origins of middle-class culture : Halifax, Yorkshire, 1660-1780

In this book John Smail focuses on the economic and social life in one of the most important northern textile centers as he explores themes fundamental to the history of eighteenth-century England. By developing a cultural theory of class formation, he offers a solution to a question that has provoked spirited discussion in recent years: what were the origins of middle-class English culture? Smail argues that a groups class identity depends on a culture that its members share, one that encompasses economic, social, and political factors in a common worldview. He traces the emergence of an increasingly prosperous manufacturing and middle-class elite in Halifax when large-scale and capitalistic textile operations began to undercut the small-scale, independent clothiers and yeomen. The new manufacturers and the elite professionals associated with them, he shows, became involved in distinctive economic forms and relationships of capitalistic production. They developed their own attitudes toward credit, investment, and money, with a distinctive consumer orientation toward a whole range of luxury items and fashionable goods. By examining the range of voluntary associations and official institutions in the public sphere and the new expectations of the family and forms of sociability in the private sphere, he shows how this new elite built its middle-class consciousness in opposition to other social groups. While Smail concentrates on a particular community, he continually explores the impact of the wider world on these families and the implications of their experiences.

The Sources of Innovation in the Woollen and Worsted Industry of Eighteenth-Century Yorkshire

This article examines the economic developments that induced producers to seek our innovations during a transformative period in the Yorkshire woollen industry. The analysis examines both the increase in the scale of the typical operation and the tremendous effect that fashion had on the industry. Particular attention is given to the ways in which the workings of real markets and product innovation focused entrepreneurial energy on the production process, and what that tells us about the origins of the Industrial Revolution.

The Merchant, the Clothier and the Market around mid-Century

In the summer of 1750, Samuel Lister, a merchant of Halifax, Yorkshire, wrote and received a series of letters regarding his nephew, William Fawcett. The young man, it seems, was inclining towards a future in trade and had written to Lister suggesting that he move out of London and set up as a merchant in West Yorkshire. Lister replied ‘that it would not be convenient, and that there were many better opportunities in London than anything here [P]erhaps the best scheme of all would be to set up a wholesale warehouse of our country goods in London’.1 The scheme that Samuel Lister proposed to his nephew never did get off the ground. Subsequent letters in the series reveal Lister’s increasing reluctance to enter into business with Fawcett given the latter’s modest capital and complete lack of experience in commerce (let alone the woollen trade). These concerns became increasingly apparent once Lister realized that he (and his brother Japhet) would have to be active partners in the warehouse instead of merely ‘friends’ in West Yorkshire on whom Fawcett could rely ‘to serve him faithfully and well with the best of goods and pennyworths’.2 For his part, Fawcett, perhaps realizing how much work was entailed in running a mercantile concern, quickly dropped the scheme and turned his attention to securing himself a commission in the army.3

The Manufacturer and the Market around mid-Century

In the late 1740s, Samuel Hill of the parish of Halifax, a substantial manufacturer and merchant dealing in kerseys and worsteds, made a concerted effort to break into the Russian market.1 He began by making enquiries of several of his London correspondents, none of whom were particularly enthusiastic. John Thornton wrote back to say that his only dealings ‘with your business’ (that is Yorkshire cloth) was providing soldier’s cloth for the Empress of Russia but in that he was already engaged with a Leeds merchant, Jeremiah Dixon.2 Abel Fonnereau, however, was at least willing to help: The woollen trade in Russia is so low and the demand so small that I fear your attempt to make cloth for that country at this time will be a disadvantage to you. Not withstanding, if you have an inclination to do it, begin by 10 pieces to be cut in 20 [half] pieces which must be measured by an archeen of 28 inches English measure; inclosed is patterns of cloth such as I have sent large quantities which this year cost £4 per piece [of 44 yards]; for dying 16s., dressing 8s. per piece; the charges to Hull amount to 8s., 9s., or 10s. per bale of 10 half pieces which includes packing, wrapper, ropes etc.3

Conclusion: Technology, Innovation and the Industrial Revolution

In the history of the English wool textile industry during the industrial revolution, the figure of Benjamin Gott is deservedly well known. The son of a local gentleman, he was apprenticed to the Leeds merchant firm of Wormald and Fountain in 1780 and joined them as a junior partner in 1785.1 By 1792, Wormald and Fountain were both dead, and as senior partner Gott significantly reoriented the firm’s business by taking up the production of cloth. The great Bean Ing mill he constructed at Armley, just on the outskirts of Leeds, eventually included workshops for wool preparation, weaving, dying, and finishing, some of which was done with the aid of a large Boulton and Watt steam engine.2 The scale of Gott’s investment, his decision to centralize production, and his use of steam power make his story significant, for he was visibly transforming the production process with these technological and organizational innovations in a way which heralded the industrialization of the wool textile trade. Yet if Gott’s place in the history books is secure, the nature of this industrialization, and Gott’s role in it, requires a closer look.

An Adventure to New York: the Export Trade in the Colonies

In November of 1750, William Westley, a clothier from Shepton Mallet in Somerset, received a letter from the correspondent in Bristol who supplied him with shalloons which had been dyed to match particular cloths that he made. In the letter, however, Samuel Hainsworth proposed a new arrangement, telling Westley that he intended to go to New York or Boston to set up as a merchant and asking if Westley wanted to send a commission with him. Hainsworth cited as his reasons for going his age, his lack of a wife, and the encouragement of the ‘principal gentlemen in the manufacture of Norwich and this place [Bristol]’, and he proposed departing at the end of February after the Bristol fair. He concluded: Let me know whether you intend to [word missing] in this undertaking by sending any thing by me and the quantity (with the patterns in order to h[ave?] shalloons dyed in readiness) and I doubt not of making you satisfaction [word missing] return in a short time, knowing quick returns to be my interest in and the [word missing] pleasure and life of trade.1

The End-of-the-Century Boom and the Supremacy of Yorkshire

In July of 1798, Charles Hudson of Skircoat in the parish of Halifax wrote a scathing letter to William Liddal, a cloth maker in Lancashire, rejecting Liddal’s offer of ‘weaving’. Although he thought Liddal was asking too much for his services, what had made Hudson angry was the fact that Liddal intended to put out the weaving instead of doing it in his own house on his own loom(s). Hudson’s rejection of Liddal’s offer, however, had nothing to do with the relative merits of the two possible ways of organizing production. Rather it was Liddal’s duplicity in this matter; indeed, Hudson indicated that he might have been open to an offer from Liddal to oversee the weaving, charging ‘2s. a piece or Is. as is commonly paid’ for his trouble. The fact that Hudson could contemplate either of the two arrangements suggests something about the range of manufacturing practices which had emerged in Yorkshire by the late eighteenth century. An examination of other letters in Hudson’s daybook reveals that his extensive trade (both domestic and foreign) in broad and narrow woollens, worsted cloth, and bays was fed by many different chains of supply. As a manufacturer of narrow woollens and bays he dealt with a range of producers from individual householders to sub-contractors like Liddal to manufacturers much like himself. Some of these producers simply contracted to supply Hudson with cloth while others were supplied with raw materials, some of which had been prepared in Hudson’s own mill.

Travellers: the Export Trade in Europe

In 1775, George Stansfield prepared a ‘NOTIFICATION’ in which he introduced himself as ‘a manufacturer of different sorts of woollen goods at Bowood near Halifax’ and announced that he was ‘now in full capacity to export his own fabrics’. To that end, it went on, he was taking the ‘liberty to solicit order for a trial by means of his friend Mr. Richard Hill the bearer hereof who will specify his different fabrics and his terms of credit and trade’.1 Written the year after the opening of the Calder and Hebble Navigation, which linked Halifax to the sea, this notification suggests that Stansfield sought to use this new link in England’s canal and river network to develop a more extensive trade in a broad range of woollen and worsted cloths.2 An essential part of this plan was his ability to employ Richard Hill — the son of Samuel Hill, and now a bankrupt merchant in exile on the continent — as a salesman travelling into Italy and Spain to solicit orders for cloth on his behalf.

Products and Markets in the English Wool Textile Industry to 1730

In 1730 George Stansfield, a kersey manufacturer and merchant from the parish of Halifax in Yorkshire, wrote to a correspondent in Holland regarding some bales of his cloth which were already in another merchant’s warehouse. They had been in Holland during a slump in trade, but now that the markets were improving, Stansfield was eager to find a buyer: Now good gentlemen, I’ve acquainted you with all the goods…1 have unsold which I doubt not can sell at a much better price than I offer them you, but in consideration of our former dealing you shall have them without advance as I offered you them at 34 s. per piece and 25 s. a pack for packing. This is the very lowest price I shall take, and as to a commission, trade, without, is much better. If what I propose consist with your interest, shall be glad to serve you, other-ways let us live and love still.1