The Boot and Shoe Trades in London and Paris in the Long Eighteenth Century

Complaints could be even more impolite as in the case of a shoemaker in
Evesham who wrote saying "have received the shoes but not at all to my
satisfaction", and added he wanted "the right shape in the right fashion".88
4.6 Conclusion
This chapter has tried to investigate the hitherto widely unexplored field of
retailing and marketing practices in the eighteenth century. 89 Only recently
research has investigated the complexity that London retailing had already in the
eighteenth century. 9° It has been shown how little attention has been given to
retail before the nineteenth century, concealing a colourful and complex world.91
New research has OtWne.. a widespread idea present even in recent years in
France and Britain pointing to the simplicity of the retail market in the pre-
industrial era, and in particular the market for lower class goods. Michael
Miller's The bon marchè to industnalisation'the development of
complex retailing practises. 92 The same can be said about Rosalind Williams'
'& 1r
Dream worlds in which.)fairs and markets, more than shops, were the retailing
spaces before the nineteenth century. 93 All these studies focus on the nineteenth
88
Ibid., 'letter from a shoemaker of Evesham, 10 February 1829'.
89 This gap is being bridged by recent historical investigations. See for instance C. Walsh, 'The
advertising and marketing of consumer goods in eighteenth-century London', in C.
Wischermann and S. Elliott, eds., Advertising and the city: historical perspectives (Aldershot,
2000), pp. 79-95 and chapter 6 (in collaboration with Clare Walsh) of N. Cox, The complete
tradesman: a study of retailing, 1550-1820 (Aldershot, 2001).
° S.I. Mitchell, 'Retailing in eighteenth and early nineteenth century Lancashire and Cheshire',
Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire CXXX (1981), pp. 37-60); P.J.
Corfield, The impact of English towns, 1700-1800 (Oxford, 1982); H.-C. Mui and L.H. Mui,
Shops and shopkeeping in eighteenth-century England (London, 1987); P. Borsay, The
eighteenth-century country town: a reader in English urban history, 1688-1 820 (London, 1990);
C. Walsh, 'Shop design and the display of goods in eighteenth-century London', cit.; C. Walsh,
'The newness of the department store', cit.; C. Fowler, 'Change in provincial retail practice in
the eighteenth century', cit.
' A more traditional view is present in D. Davis, A history of shopping, cit.; D. Alexander,
Retailing in England during the industrial revolution, cit. For a summary see G. Shaw, 'The role
of retailing in urban economy', in J.H. Johnson and G.C. Pooley, eds., The structure of
nineteenth-century cities (London, 1982), pp. 171-94 and D. Collins, 'Primitive or not? Fixedshop
retailing before the industrial revolution', in J. Benson and G. Shaw, eds., The retailing
industry. Vol. i: Perspectives and the early modern period (London, 1999), pp. 327-42.
92
M. Miller, The bon marchè: bourgeois culture and the department store, 1869-1 920
(London, 1981).
R. Williams, Dream worlds: mass consumption in late nineteenth-century France (Berkeley,
1982).
203