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.

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

Ann Collard (c. 1726 – 1778)

Ann Collard née Jacques was a haberdasher and milliner who worked on Bishopsgate Street in London in the eighteenth century. In 1747, aged around 21 years old, Ann married George Collard, a freemen of the Merchant Taylors’ Company, and the table below details the female apprentices bound to the Collard household between 1750 and 1773.[1] George

Margaret Lendall (fl. 1660 – 1668)

Margaret Lendall was a Haberdashers’ Company apprentice milliner/lace-seller who worked on the Royal Exchange in 1660s London. In October 1660, orphaned siblings Margaret and Robert Lendall petitioned Charles II, asking him to ‘comisserate theire present suffering condition and to allow them a subsistence dureing theire minoritie’.[1] Their father, Captain Robert Lendall, had ‘endeavored to manifest his

Mary Reynolds (fl. 1694 – 1720)

Mary Reynolds was a member of the Mercers’ Company, working as a milliner in the City of London in the early eighteenth century. She was the daughter of William Reynolds, a gentleman from Canterbury in Kent and was apprenticed to a widow named Susanna Bolt on 28 September 1694. After she was admitted free of

Mary Bassett (fl. 1693 – 1712)

Mary Bassett was a milliner and tenant of the upper floor or ‘pawn’ of the Royal Exchange at the turn of the eighteenth century. Figure 1 shows her name recorded in tax assessments as the tenant of ‘a Shopp’ in the ‘exchange above’ in 1693/4.[1] Figure 1 We can learn more about the array of