Judith Gresham the younger was a freemen of the Painter-Stainers’ Company and milliner on the Royal Exchange.
Baptised on 25 November 1662 in the parish of St Peter le Poer, she was the daughter of Judith Beckingham and Seliard Gresham.[1] She worked with her mother and sister Mary at their shop on the Royal Exchange in the north end of the upper pawn. Aged 32, she was admitted free of the Painter-Stainers’ Company by patrimony for a fee of £1 on 2 May 1694.[2]
Judith Gresham the younger remained a tenant on the Royal Exchange after her mother’s death, presumably in partnership with her sister, confirmed by her inclusion in land tax assessments until 1708/9.[3] The sisters appear to have continued in trade from a new location after this date as they both described their occupational identities as ‘Trader’ in their wills. Judith Gresham the younger died in 1728, two years after her sister and was buried in in the Parish of St Mary Colechurch. She bequeathed £20 to her nephew Thomas Gresham, £150 to her second nephew John Heigham Gresham and all of the rest of her estate to her niece Martha Susanna Gresham whom she named her executrix.[4]
Footnotes
[1] London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) P69/PET2/A/001/MS04093/001, Parish Register St Peter le Poer.
[2] Guildhall Library (GL) MS 5667/2, Part 1, fol. 334.
[3] LMA CLC/525/MS11316/028, Assessment Book, Candlewick – Farringdon Within, fol. 7.
[4] The National Archives (TNA) PROB 11/624/216, Will of Judith Gresham, Trader, Spinster of London, 11 September 1728; LMA P69/MRY8/A/002/MS04439, fols 23-24.
A Fashionable Business 