Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

others, if they could find storage space. John Squire stored malt in his ‘cockloft’ and
Henry Edwards ‘att the starehead’. 187
In Period D after farmers the most prominent occupational group according to
probate and marriage licence data is that of food, retail, service and dealing. 188
The fact
that they feature so strongly in these sources indicates that many in this sector were
comparatively affluent. However, baptism registers and the 1841 census give a more
realistic percentage for this sector. 189
Nevertheless, there were apparently many more
retailers per head of population than a hundred years earlier. Amongst the occupations
recorded are several butchers, while in 1851 a slaughterman and a fish-seller are also
specified. 190
Food retailers include grocers, maltsters, millers, mealmen, bakers,
confectioners, fruiterers, and one brewer and one bread-seller. 191
There are many
‘shopkeepers’ who may have sold food and other items. Mercers and drapers were
present alongside dealers, coal-dealers and several people described as ‘tradesmen’,
whose particular line is not specified. 192
The baptism registers in the 1830s (after the
Beerhouse Act) show an increase in publicans, now including beer-retailers and
beerhouse-keepers. 193
As in earlier periods, many families combined running pubs or
retail businesses with other jobs.
and Salford 2, while in 1786 they had 8 and 2 respectively. They are a more reliable guide to the number
of publicans than probate or marriage licences.
187 WoRO, probate of John Squire, Cleeve Prior, (no occupation given, but apparently a mason), 1671, £42-
19-8, and GlosRO, probate of Henry Edwards, Pebworth, (no occupation given), 1690, £25-19-0. Masons
in the Squire family still made malt a hundred years later.
188 Tables 5.2 and 5.4. Traders such as bakers and tailors were probably now selling more wares made by
others than their predecessors had done, but the local sources consulted do not make this clear.
189 3.9% in Table 5.6 (baptisms) and 4.3% in Table 5.8 (1841 census).
190 WaRO, Bidford 1851 census. The fish-seller was from a family of fishermen and boatmen.
191 Including a female maltster and a female miller, both in Bidford parish, (WaRO, 1841 census).
192 WaRO, Bidford 1831 census includes several ‘tradesmen’.
193 Baptisms give figures of 0.2% in 1813-1820, 0.3% in 1821-1830 and 0.6% in 1831-40 (Table 5.6). The
figure in the 1841 census was 0.7% (Table 5.8). WaRO, Bidford 1851 census also records one young male
public house worker as a ‘boots’.
180