Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

for the district’s needlemakers, but may also have dealt in other produce. 367
The
Redditch ‘waterman’ was probably a deliverer of fresh water to the hill-top industrial
community. 368
Travelling petty dealers often avoid any mention in the archives, but a
‘poor pedlar’ is recorded in Studley. 369
The industrialisation and urbanisation of Redditch and its environs in the early
nineteenth century attracted many new businesses in this sector. For the most part
sources suggest that publicans and other retailers and dealers comprised a bigger share of
the workforce than in previous periods. 370
Baptism data (1813-1840) places 4.2% of
fathers in the food and retailing sector and 1% as publicans, while the 1841 census has
figures of 6.0% for food and retailing and 1.2% for innkeepers. The latter increased
significantly after 1830 when beer-retailers joined grander establishments such as
Redditch’s Unicorn Commercial Inn and Posting-House. 371
In Period D associated
occupations include wine and spirit merchants, barmaids and ostlers, while lodginghousekeepers
and boarding-housekeepers appear in Redditch. Maltsters are still in
evidence while brewers in this zone appear more frequently than before, despite the sale
of ‘Birmingham beer’ in Redditch. 372
Amongst the food retailers and dealers we now find milk-sellers, butchers,
millers, mealmen, flour-dealers, bakers, bread-sellers, confectioners, grocers, tea-dealers,
cheese-dealers, cheesemongers, fruiterers, greengrocers and provision-dealers. Midcentury
censuses list general shopkeepers, shop-girls, shop-boys and errand-boys.
367 WoRO, marriage licence of James Swann, Tardebigge, factor, Oct. 1797.
368 Redditch Library, A Description of Redditch 1776, (copy of a MS by Joseph Monk), mentions the
waterman. Elsewhere ‘waterman’ often means someone who carried by water, but this reference is before
the arrival of the canal, and there were no navigable rivers nearby. Salters and higglers were referred to
above in the transport section.
369 WaRO, Studley burial register, 1758, Edward Grantham alias Woods, poor pedlar, buried aged 92.
370 Tables 7.2 and 7.4.
371 Table 7.6 and Pigot’s Worcestershire Directory1835.
372 Richardson, The Book of Redditch, p. 128, quoting John Hollis writing circa 1820.
324