Guilds, authority and the individual: The Company of Mercers prosecution of Dorothy Gretton in early eighteenth-century Derby

Peter Collinge

Business History, 2019, vol. 61, issue 2, 281-298

Abstract: Through a case study of the prosecution of milliner Dorothy Gretton by the Company of Mercers, this article investigates how shifting relationships between guild jurisdiction, patriarchy and familial influence affected a woman’s right to trade. Placed within the wider contexts of evolving economic practices and the expectation that many middle-ranking women should contribute to family incomes, it reveals how a minor spat in a provincial town escalated, drawing into its orbit the Lord Chief Justice of England. In doing so it highlights the obstacles and opportunities facing women in the early-modern economy.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00076791.2017.1368492 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:bushst:v:61:y:2019:i:2:p:281-298

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FBSH20

DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2017.1368492

Access Statistics for this article

Business History is currently edited by Professor John Wilson and Professor Steven Toms

More articles in Business History from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().