A Fashionable Business
Discover more about women working as seamstresses, mantua-makers, and milliners in seventeenth and eighteenth century London.
Art supplies in London: the colour shops of Elizabeth Moseley and Anna Barnes
Painting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries required the careful preparation of tools and materials. Pigments were ground and mixed with oils or other mediums such as gum arabic to create a wide array of colours for painting. But what was a Colour Maker or Seller? It is worth quoting the entry in Joseph Collyer’s…
Mary Pyke (fl. 1669 – 1709)
Mary Pyke was a silkwoman and milliner on the Royal Exchange in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Mary Pyke was married to a Citizen and Skinner named William Pyke (d. 1674). In all, eleven young women were bound apprentice to either William or Mary Pyke through the Skinners’ Company between 1669 and 1695.…
A Hosier near Hungerford Market: Ann Hodgson and her Partnership in Trade
On 15 October 1718, Ann Hodgson ‘next the one Ton Tavern near Hungerford Market in the Strand’ took out an insurance policy for her goods and merchandise as a hosier.[1] No specific value for her stock was recorded but Sun Fire Office insurance policies usually covered goods worth up to £500 in this period (the…
Rhoda Moreland (fl. 1721 – 1736)
Rhoda Moreland was a milliner on Leadenhall Street and freemen of the Painter-Stainers’ Company. Moreland was admitted to the Painter-Stainers’ Company by patrimony on 2 December 1724.[1] She was described as a ‘Milliner in Leadenhall Street’ in the company’s court minutes and this is corroborated by a Sun Fire Office insurance policy that she took…
Judith Gresham the younger (1662 – 1728)
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…
Mary Gresham (1668 – 1726)
Mary Gresham was a milliner and freemen of the Painter-Stainers’ Company working on the Royal Exchange in London. The daughter of Judith and Seliard Gresham, Mary Gresham was baptised on 6 December 1668 and she worked with her mother and her sister Judith in their shop at the north end of the upper pawn of…
Judith Gresham the elder (1632 – 1694)
Judith Gresham was a milliner on the Royal Exchange in the late seventeenth century. Judith Beckingham and Seliard Gresham were married on 26 February 1660 and thereafter had five children.[1] They were long-standing tenants of the Royal Exchange and Seliard Gresham bound at least three apprentices – Mary Cox, Thomas Marshall, and Edward Pettit – before…
Dorothy Kidley (fl. 1646 – 1690)
Dorothy Kidley was a Merchant Taylors’ Company apprentice and hoodseller working on Cheapside in the 1660s and 1670s. Dorothy Kidley was baptised in Little Birch, Herefordshire on 5 January 1646, the daughter of Bridget and John Kidley, a gentleman.[1] Aged around 15 years old, she migrated to London and was bound apprentice to John Adams,…
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Mantua of the Month
A Fashionable Business 
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