Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

thereof must have gone out of fashion. 107
From the 1780s the descriptor ‘staymaker’
makes an appearance, followed by ‘habit-maker’ from the 1830s. 108
After 1750 Tables 4.2 and 4.4 both show an apparent decline in the percentage of
the workforce working as tailors. Perhaps tailors became less numerous as they
concentrated on a purely local market rather than the more extensive market hinted at
above. This possible reversal in the market may have caused a decline in wealth for
tailors and their consequent absence from probate records. 109
Baptism records (in Table
4.6) show that tailors were still plying their trade and were indeed on the increase in
Period D. 110
In the latter period it was increasingly likely that tailors retailed items made
elsewhere.
Musson points out that most clothing was bespoke before 1700, but even at this
early period some garments, especially hats, were stocked ready-made. 111
In addition to
the hatter cum feltmaker mentioned above, there was always enough call in the town for
at least one hat-maker. From the probate of the hat-maker William Alexander in 1767, it
is clear that he was a cut above most of the tailors, with two houses and land in the
common field, mainly sub-let to others. 112
Alexander was followed in the hat trade by
Thomas Osborn and Joseph Wilks. 113
107 The term bodicemaker was not found in any parish apart from Alcester, where it occurred from 1676
until 1729.
108 For example, staymakers in WaRO, DR360/79/ 49 dating from 1780 and UBD 1792. WaRO, Alcester
1851 census lists a handful of female staymakers. Two male habitmakers cum tailors appear in Alcester’s
apprenticeship records from 1830s. (For example, WaRO, DR360/79/291). ‘Habitmakers’ also appear in
Redditch and Bidford at this time.
109 However, several tailors appear in other sources and as witnesses in marriage bonds and beneficiaries in
probate.
110 UBD 1792 lists 4 tailors and Pigot 1835 lists 12.
111 Musson, The Growth of British Industry, p. 49.
112 WoRO, probate of William Alexander, Alcester, hatmaker, 1767. His brother was also a hatmaker in
Warwick.
113 UBD 1792. The directory does not reveal the type of hats being made.
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