Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

Among the clothing and cloth retailers are haberdashers and linen and woollen drapers,
while the term ‘mercer’ is now becoming antiquated. Other services include pawnbrokers,
booksellers, stationers, compositors, engravers and printers. 373
Documents in Period D mention hawkers and also dealers, some general, and
some specialising in glass, china, earthenware, smallware or coal. With urbanisation
came greater diversification in what was offered in the shops. Some businesses
specialised, while others offered a variety of services; for instance Pascal Paoli Waring,
butcher and hairdresser, was licensed to hire out horses and deal in lime. 374
Shops of all
kinds and also public houses were still often run as by-employments as they had been
throughout the study period. Censuses for this zone record many charwomen,
laundresses, washerwomen and nurses or ‘nurse-girls’. 375
The list of occupations
continued to expand in the 1850s when we find florists, coffee-housekeepers and tripemakers.
376
Professionals, gentry, domestic servants and others
Throughout the study period each parish had its clergy, some resident, others
absent, some rich and others poor. The Sheldon family in Beoley and the Throckmorton
family in Coughton supported Roman Catholic priests during the eighteenth century and
probably earlier. 377
Quakers and presbyterians appear in Redditch after the Restoration
373 Richardson, The Book of Redditch, p. 89, shows that the town had to wait until 1859 for its first
newspaper, which coincided with the opening of the railway to the town.
374 Various directories, e. g.: Lewis’s Worcestershire Directory 1820, Pigot’s Worcestershire Directory
1828-9 and Robsons’ Birmingham and Sheffield Directory 1839.
375 WaRO and WoRO, 1841 and 1851 censuses.
376 WoRO, 1851 census and Billing’s Worcestershire Directory 1855.
377 WaRO, MI163, Coughton RC register, lists priests at Coughton from 1744.
325