The Times, 9 June 1788, quoted in Hoppit (1987), 137.

His Skill consists in a perfect knowledge of the Linen Manufacture in general, the Difference between the different Fabricks, and the Properties of the Linens of all different Countries: His Business, as he is a Mere Buyer and Seller of one particular Commodity, is easily acquired; but his Education ought to be genteel, as his Stock in Business entitles him to the first Rank of Tradesmen.

The greater Number of Articles they sell, the greater Memory and Acuteness is required; but a moderate Share of Wit serves their Turn in general.^3

The number of articles sold by the linen drapers within the inventory sample was considerable, with typically fifty to a hundred lines. Their wares fell into two main categories: linens and Indian cottons. Most of the linens were white but some were dyed in plain colours, often in blue, and others were printed. The Indian cottons included white calicoes but also many dyed and printed cloths. Some linens and cottons were glazed and others calendered. London linen drapers paid subcontractors to carry out a number of finishing operations including bleaching, dyeing, glazing, calendering and possibly printing. During the seventeenth century their wares often included a third category of mixed fabrics principally fustians. In 1670, William Greene’s trade goods comprised by value 50 per cent linens, 35 per cent fustians and 15 per cent Indian cottons. In the eighteenth century neither the inventory of Richard Cocke in 1714 or John Sherman in

1723 contained fustians, but they exhibited an opposite specialisation for Cocke’s wares had some 80 per cent Indian cottons but Sherman’s 90 per cent linens (Appendix C4).

The range of linens varied considerably with some linen drapers specialising in German cloth, others in Dutch and Flemish, with a few stocking linens from all the main weaving areas. About half of the inventory sample stocked some damask and diaper. In the seventeenth century much of this was from Germany with some from the Low Countries and France. In the eighteenth century diaper from both Ireland and Russia was found.

In 1670, William Greene of Friday Street stocked a wide range of linens from the Low Countries (‘Isingham’, Gentish Cloth, Holland and cambric), Germany (‘Slecia’, ‘Pomers’, ‘Osenbrigs’, ‘Brunswicks’ and ‘Hartfords’), France (Rouen canvas and lockram), and the Baltic (‘Crocus’). His wares included a parcel of cheap diaper napkins which may have been German, as among Greene’s creditors were several importers of Sletia diaper from Hamburg including Peter Vandermarsh, John Lethieulier and Jeremy Elwes. Alternatively, the napkins may have been of Portuguese diaper, as another creditor was James Whitehall who imported diaper from Terceira in the Azores.^^ Greene also

4 3 Campbell (1747)*, 282. 4 4 Greene owed him £106.5.0.

The appraisers of Whitehall’s wares were John Gold and Stephen Bearcroft. In the inventoiy dated 11 April 1676, a group of goods, ‘Island Lynnen’, woad and diaper were linked together with Vs belonging

bought some of his goods from other linen drapers including Samuel Ongly, William Barron and Benjamin Thorowgood. His coloured linens and calicoes may have been dyed in London as he owed nearly £200 to William Cleeve, a substantial dyer in Cripplegate/^

Fisher Dilke in 1680 also stocked a wide variety of linens from Germany, Flanders,

Holland and France including suites of Sletia diaper and pieces of Sletia damask napkining. He seems to have sold wholesale to linen drapers in both London and the country as his debtors typically included Mr [Thomas] Abney of London and Robert Brown of Norwich. He also bought from other linen drapers as among his creditors were Benjamin

Thorowgood and Mr [Francis] Jenkes & partner. None the less his principal creditors were overseas merchants, Richard Bancks, Christopher Hamilton, John Hyde & ptnr, John Lamb and Mr [John] Morrice. Apart from John Lamb who imported Flemish linen, any of these merchants could have supplied the Sletia diaper and damask to Dilke, although Bancks was the major importer at that time.^6 Roger Gray in 1686 also stocked diaper (5 V2 suites, 68 tablecloths and 231 dozen napkins) which from its price was presumably Sletia, bought from his creditors John Morris [Morrice] or John Delachambre who were consignees of Sletia diaper in 1685."^^

On Andrew Kenrick’s death early in 1691, his goods were sold ‘by Inch of Candle’ at an auction on 5th March. The buyers included a number of the wealthier linen drapers in the

1692 list."^* The lots incorporated Holland and Sletia damask and diaper, and French diaper. His debts which amounted to nearly £15,000 included many described as ‘upon a booke debt’, owing mainly to overseas merchants. Numbered among them were the principal importers of damask and diaper at that time: Alexander Pope, John Hillersden and John Waller from Flanders; Sir William Scawen, Peter Vansittart, Rich. Banks, Jeremy Elwes, John Morris [Morrice], John Lloyd, John Delachambre and Gerard Vanheythusson [Vanhuson] from Germany; and James Waite [Wayte] from France.

There were also monies owed to two Cripplegate dyers William Toone and Peter Sands. Kenrick stocked quantities of ‘collored buckoram’ and blue German linens, possibly dyed by Toone who, from the evidence of his dyehouse equipment was an indigo dyer special­ ising in buckram.49 Kenrick probably used other subcontractors including a bleacher or ‘whitster’, glazer, calenderer and possibly a linen and cotton printer, as among his wares

to Whitehall. His outstanding adventures included one at St Michael's Island and another at Terciera, both in the Azores. Later that year on 5 August 1676, his widow Elizabeth Whitehall and Stephen Bearcroft were each consigned parcels of diaper napkining and tabling from Terceira. E l 90/64/1. 4 5 Mitchell (1995A), Figs 1-3.

4 6 1680 DILKE. 4 7 1686 GRAY.

4 8 1691 Ken r ic k. Appendix C l, Fran. Camfleld, Henry Kellsey, Arthur Evans, W illiam Broome, Sam. Wood, William Arnold, William Withers, John Strickson, James Bennett, Ben. Smith, Ben. Wilson, Sam. Harris, James Parker, Mr [John] Cuttlove.

were ‘English whited hollands’, ‘Lon°. Clo. Glaz. and Cullerd’, ‘printed Lynning’, and ‘died and watered bengaule’. Calenders could be used in the watering of cloth to produce a waved effect and also to give a fine finish to plain and figured linens. Although most good quality linens were finished before shipment, some cheaper linens or those damaged in transit were bleached and finished in London as most of the linen drapers in the sample had ‘whitsters’ among their creditors.^! The linens and calicoes that were dyed in London would also need to be finished sometimes by glazing or by c a l e n d e r i n g . ^ ^

Andrew Kenrick’s other debts were owed ‘upon a bond in full for Principall and Interest’. These debts which amounted to almost £9,000 of the total of £14,770, were capital loans to finance Kenrick*s trade from family, friends, tradesmen and merchants. Among the larger creditors were his uncle Matthew Kenrick, the linen draper John Billers, the merchant William Vandenberg, and Susanne Letten, the widow of the linen merchant John L e t t e n . ^ ^ Kenrick does not seem to have borrowed money from any goldsmith bankers, unlike William Greene and Thomas Came who had modest debts owing to George Day, a goldsmith-banker, who had been actively engaged with William Atwood in the 1660s.^

One of the purchasers of damask at the auction of Kenrick’s goods was the linen draper Richard Cocke who died twenty-three years later in 1714. The balance of his trade was very different from Kenrick’s as only 18 per cent was in linens and the rest in East India goods. None the less his linens which were valued at £940 included an array of plain cloth from Holland, Flanders, Germany, the Baltic and France, together with Holland and Sletia diaper. In addition Cocke carried Irish diaper and English huckabacks.A lso unlike Kenrick, Cocke was directly involved in overseas trade with over £2,000 of East Indian cloths in the hands of James Ellwick of Amsterdam. He does not seem, however, to have imported linens on his own behalf as his creditors included Sir Thomas Scawen and several of the German and Dutch linen merchants resident in London, Clement Boehm, Abraham Crasteyn and Abraham Crop.^^ Cocke had an active trade with other London

5 0 Montgomery (1984) states that many Bengals were of mixed cotton or silk. To produce a ‘watered’ or moiré effect the cloth was folded or wound on rollers, watered, and pressure exerted either in a hot press or a calender.

5 1 1675 POCOCKE ‘Roger Langstrafe Whitster £ 1 3 .6 ,0 ’; 1675 TOOKER ‘Mr Syddal’ £7.3.0; 1678 PRESTON ‘Mr Siddall Whitster’ £26.2.0; 1681 BERRIFFE ‘Mrs Sydwall’ £4.11.8; 1687 JENKES ‘Mr Styles a Witster to Ballance’ £35.9.0; 1723 SHERMAN ‘Thos. Selby Whister’ £3.8.0.

52 1686 G r a y ‘to Callenders & Dyers £131.2.0; 1718 TURNER ‘Glazer & Callender’ £5.11.0.

5 3 Matthew Kenrick was one of Alderman Andrew Kenrick’s executors. John Billers, see Appendix C2. William Vandenberg was the son of Peter Vandenberg of Kortrijk and was naturalised in 1660. He was elected deacon of the Dutch Church in 1666 [Guilliam van den Berge]. John and Nathaniel Letten were brothers and both were overseas merchants in the linen trade. Susanne was sole executrix o f John’s w ill of 1687. Prob. 11/393, sig. 163.

54 C109/21 Part I, Ledger, 19 and Part 2, Large Ledger, 108, 130, 140 and 142.

55 1714 Cocke. Ten years earlier John Parker’s stock included a piece of Irish diaper tabling, 12 yds at 3s per yd, 1706 PARKER.

5 6 Parker may have had a similar trade for ‘James El wick’ of Amsterdam owed him £244.14.11. 5 7 Cocke along with other London linen drapers (‘James Taylor & Co., Richard & Wm Chaunsey, Abel

Wilkinson, Samuel and John Wood, and W illiam Pomeroy’) were debtors to the m âchant Peter Vansittart in 1706. Vansittart seems to have imported a limited range of linens in large quantities.

linen drapers, with Richard Chauncy, William Taggart and the royal linen draper Henry Warcop numbered among his debtors.

John Sherman’s inventory of 1723 included an assortment of linens with quantities of ‘Garlicks* and ‘Dowlas’ (probably German) and plain Irish linen. Sherman had no Holland damask or diaper, but like Cocke he stocked Irish diaper and in addition Russian diaper. He purchased linens from overseas merchants such as Sir Thomas Scawen, William Vandenberg, John Dupre and ‘Messrs Voguell & Goebell’, as well as from the linen draper ‘Mr Wm Swann’. A p a r t from these purchases, Sherman also imported linens directly from the Continent as he ‘paid customs & Charges for Sundry Linnens’ £32.0.11.59 This is in line with Negley Harte’s findings that from early in the eighteenth century, linen houses in Hamburg and Amsterdam attempted to eliminate the merchant middleman by dealing directly with London linen drapers.

In 1730 the London merchants Claude Fonnereau & Son wrote to J I de Neufville & Co., one of the largest Dutch linen-exporting houses, explaining that they had large unsold stocks of linen on their hands and that they no longer

intended to deal in linen on their own accounts. They explained that ‘our linen drapers imports more and more, so not find our account in laying out money in linens . . . ’. Three years later another London merchant. . . Alexander Fobes wrote to de Neufville, ‘Every draper who formerly were my customers for hollands linen hath now his

correspondent in Amsterdam and other parts of Holland so that he hath no occasion to buy any h ere.’^o

d) Royal linen drapers

The royal household was the single largest customer of ‘Holland’ damask and diaper throughout the period from 1450 to 1750. Between 1660 and the switch to Irish linen in

1737, it often purchased more than a quarter of the total recorded imports of Flemish and Dutch damask and a tenth of the diaper (Table 6.1). From the Restoration, purchases of napery were made by the Board of the Greencloth, sometimes through royal officers in the Low Countries but normally from the royal linen drapers. At any particular time, one or two linen drapers received warrants of appointment from the Lord Steward and had the

His inventory included stocks of 680 doz. fringed napkins and 1451 fringed tablecloths (presumably Sletia damask). His goods in England totalled £4896, of which £2016 were linens, 1706 VANSITTART. For Scawen and Boehm, see Tables 5.15 and 5.16. For Crasteyn and Crop, see Eeghen (1959), 1649, 1682 & 927.

5 8 For Dupre, and Voguell & Goebell, see Eeghen (1959), 927 & 1344. For Swann, see Appendices C l & C2.

5 9 Sherman also reimbursed the dyer Gabriel Kent for duty on 378 yards o f linen £4.14.6, presumably paid on his behalf. In addition to this ‘Gabriel Kent Dyer’ was owed £100. 1723 SHERMAN. 6 0 Harte (1973), 87-88. Claude Fonnereau was a creditor to both 1714 COCKE & 1728 COLLYER. An

right to display the Royal Arms over the doors of their shops.^^ They signed annual contracts to supply several qualities of damask, diaper and plain linen at fixed prices.

TABLE 6.1 PROPORTION OF TOTAL IMPORTS OF ‘HOLLAND’ DAM ASK AND DIAPER