Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

making malt, while the Harris family who served the town from the 1670s to 1810
pursued various by-employments. 152
Butchered beasts yielded more than meat and hides. Tallow-chandlers used
animal fat (and beeswax) in the manufacture of candles. Alcester’s chandlers were also
general store-keepers, estate agents and ironmongers cum builders’ merchants, stocking
items as diverse as candles, bricks, tiles, honey, wax and methaglin (from their own
bees), hops, treacle, tobacco, malt, fish, tar, raddle, oil, pitch, starch, thread, earthenware,
glass, rakes and other implements. 153
Generally literate and often protestant dissenters,
many chandlers served as office-holders and ranked amongst the town’s more substantial
citizens with extensive trading links.
In the 1680s Alcester was served by John Whissell, horner and comb-maker. 154
Another family member continued the business into the next period, but after 1750
references to horners or comb-makers cease. 155
Chandlers and horners probably
employed few workmen and most likely catered for a local market. Chandlers are still in
152 For example, the last of the line, William Harris was a seedsman, ironmonger and agent for the
Worcester Fire Office. In 1760 their business was run by a woman, Ann Harris. (TNA, IR1/54)
153 WoRO, miscellaneous probate (815/2877) of Stephen Wade, Alcester, tallowchandler, 1667, £330-12-8
and WoRO, probate of Edward Johnsons, Alcester, chandler, 1682/3, £410-16-0. WoRO, probate of
Thomas Beesley, Alcester, chandler, 1714, £36-17-9, and probate of James Walker, Alcester, chandler,
1711, £176-3-2. Beesley was also a grocer, while Walker stocked besoms, earthenware, drinking glasses,
soap, oil, pitch, tar, nails, powder and shot, ink, tobacco pipes, linen cloth, ink, thread and pins.
154 WoRO, probate of John Whistle, Alcester, (no occupation given), 1686, £201-14-6, including ‘1000 of
horns’. Horns were used for cups and lanterns as well as combs. He was also a victualler (WaRO,
QS35/1/2). Amongst the by-products, hoofs were fed to the Throckmortons’ hounds. (WaRO,
CR1998/LCB/26).
155 WoRO, probate of John Price, Alcester, gunsmith, 1707, mentions William Whissell, combmaker.
WoRO, marriage licence of Joseph Kiffin, Jan. 1705/6 was witnessed by William Whissell, Alcester,
horner. Whissell was literate and probably also a publican and exciseman. WaRO, DR360/79/27, Alcester
apprentice records, mention Samuel Smith, combmaker, father to Benjamin who was apprenticed in 1749.
Smith and Whissell were the only horners or combmakers in Alcester’s records at this period. They
probably made combs of horn, but may have made metal combs for woolcombing.
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