Agricultural History Review, Volume 52 Part 2 (2004), pp. 141–160

The lives and activities of rural craftsmen-retailers have long been marginal to meta-narratives of rural change and retail revolution. Only with their disappearance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century have they been regarded as important markers of more general processes. Drawing on a detailed reading of probate inventories and wills, this paper offers some new insights into the numbers, distribution and activities of rural tailors and shoemakers in eighteenth-century Cheshire. It highlights the limited capitalization of their craft activities and their close involvement with agricultural pursuits, including the ownership of livestock and husbandry ware. It also reveals the close social ties which they enjoyed with their rural communities: friends and family were primarily rural, as were their customer and credit networks. 

Complete Volume PDF