The Gentleman's Daughter

by Amanda Vickery

  71 LRO, DDB/81/37 (1780), f. 2.08.

  72 LRO, DDB/81/21 (1774), f. 37. On maternal attentions, see LRO, DDB/72/306–7 (1777), E. Shackleton, Alkincoats, to J. and R. Parker, London. For filial requests, albeit indirect, see LRO, DDB/72/328 (7 June 1774), J. Parker, London, to T. Parker, Alkincoats.

  73 LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), fos. 60, 246.

  74 For examples, see LRO, DDB/72/29 and 42 (n.d.), R. Parker, Alkincoats, to E. Parker, Browsholme; LRO, DDB/81/7 (1768), f. 70; LRO, DDB/81/8 (1769), f. 95.

  75 LRO, DDB/81/13 (1771), f. 92. Personal property in farmyard animals is expressed in LRO, DDB/81/7 (1768), f. 87; LRO, DDB/81/8 (1769), fos. 30, 87; and LRO, DDB/81/26 (1775), f. 55. On the kitchen garden and orchard, see LRO, DDB/81/4 (1765), f. 97; LRO, DDB/81/8 (1769), f. 99; and LRO, DDB/81/26 (1775), f. 91. The order for ornamental plants is recorded in LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 265.

  76 These calculations are based on Mrs Shackleton's butter inventory for 1776: LRO, DDB/81/29 (1776), fos. 158–9. The variety of ways Mrs Shackleton engaged with her consumers can be sampled in LRO, DDB/81/11 (1770), fos. 49, 56; LRO, DDB/81/20 (1773), f. 41.

  77 [Woolley], Accomplish'd Lady's Delight in Preservings, preface. See also [Shirley], Accomplish'd Ladies Rich Closet, preface.

  78 For examples, see LRO, DDB/81/11 (1770), fos. 2, 92; LRO, DDB/81/17 (1772), fos. 46, 78; and LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 22.

  79 Witness two typical examples of her stocktaking. LRO, DDB/81/7 (1768), f. 26: ‘Hung our Bacon, two hams, two flitches, two shoulders, two cheeks – and two hams what we bought in March in the Market.’; LRO, DDB/81/32 (1777), f. 3: ‘Mr Shackleton Bot five bottles of Catchup from Gargrave. Boild it over again … had 1.2.3.4.Brought from Alkincoats 1.2. bottles. So we have in all 1 2 3 4 5 6 bottles.’

  80 LRO, DDB/81/37 (1780), f. 203. See also LRO, DDB/81/13 (1771), f. 15: ‘My Provident, Ingenious Housekeeper … let Will take seven whites of Eggs to put into shoe Blacking – Rather Extravagant.’; LRO, DDB/81/17 (1772), f. 96: ‘Miss Nanny Nutter left a candle burning all night in the Nursery’; LRO, DDB/81/37 (178o), f. 225: ‘My wise housekeeper let off the head of the last night's milk and the other also, so she hasbeen the Destruction of the Milk of eight cows at one do.’

  81 Raff aid, Experienced English Housekeeper, iii.

  82 See L. Pollock, With Faith and Physic. The Life of a Tudor Gentlewomen: Lady Grace Mildmay, 1552–1620 (1993), pp. 92–142. For other examples, see Hole, English Housewife, pp. 79–98.

  83 PRO, ASSI 45/25/2/98, Northern Circuit Assize Depositions, 1754; W. S. Lewis and R. M. Williams (eds.), Private Charity in England, 1747–1757 (New Haven, 1938), p. 41; Stirling, Annals of a Yorkshire House, I, pp. 97–8. Anecdotal evidence on the remedies favoured and dispensed by eighteenth-century ladies can be found in Bayne-Powell, Housekeeping in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 149–59. Recipes are in The Ladies Dispensatory.

  84 Gentleman's Magazine, 23 Aug. 1753. On public awareness of rabies, see C. Mullett, ‘Hydrophobia: Its History in England to 1800’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 18 (1945), pp. 44–65. On the Gentleman's Magazine's function as a medical talking shop, see Porter, ‘Lay Medical Knowledge’.

  85 Compare the prices revealed in the ‘table of proprietary medicines’, reproduced in Porter, ‘Lay Medical Knowledge’, pp. 166–8, with LRO, DDB/81/11 (1770), f. 99.

  86 Diary entries indicate that Isaac knew how to make up the medicine. For reference to Mrs Shackleton making up the medicine herself, see LRO, DDB/81/31 (1777), fos. 91, 107. The bequest of the recipe (‘a true account how to make the medicine’) is recorded in LRO, DDB/81/27 (1776), f. 43.

  87 G. D. Lumb and J. B. Place (eds.), ‘Extracts from the Leeds Intelligencer and the Leeds Mercury, 1777–1782’, Thoresby Society Publications, 40 (1955), p. 19.

  88 YAS, MD335/B0X 95/XCV/1 (1769–73), Letters from Mrs Beatrix Lister, Gisburn Park, and her daughter Miss Beatrix Lister to their son/brother Thomas Lister, Oxford and London.

  89 Wigan Record Office, EHC, 51/M820, (1718–23), Scarah Accounts, fos. 99–101, 109, and loose sheet.

  90 LPL, MS 8752 (1776), fos. 40, 74; LPL, MS 8753 (1778), fos. 14, 58, 78, 92, 102; LPL, MS 8754 (1779), fos. 9, 31, 47; LRO, DDPd/17/1 (16 April 1786), J. Pedder, Lancaster, to J. Pedder, Blackburn; and LRO, DDPd/17/1 (6 June 1786), same to same. In addition, see LRO, DDPd/7/1, Proposals for Building for Mrs Pedder.

  91 LRO, DDB/72/215 and 297 (1768), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats.

  92 LRO, DDB/72/201 (April 1767), B. Ramsden, Highgate, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/132, 139, 152 (1754–6), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

  93 LRO, DDX 510/8 (1804), Dolly Clayton's Diary, last page; LRO, DDX 510/9 (1805), last page; LRO, DDX 510/11 (1807), penultimate page. Farming notes can be found on LRO, DDX 510/4 (1798), frontispiece.

  94 LRO, DDWh/4/27 (12 Aug. 1813), E. Whitaker, Edgeworth, to C. Whitaker, Roefield; LRO, DDWh/4/107 and II (1820–21), W. St Clare, Preston, to E. Whitaker, Roefield; LRO, DDWh/4/23 (26 Oct. 1812), N. Bishop, Roby, to E. Whitaker, Roefield.

  95 LRO, DDB/72/1506–7 (1817–21), E. Parker, Selby, to E. Reynolds, Colne.

  96 LRO, DDGr C3 (21 July 1819), S. Tatham, Southall, to Mrs Bradley, Slyne.

  97 For instances, see HL, HM 31201, Mrs Larpent's Diary, III, 1799–1800, f. 150, facing f. 154 and facing f. 157.

  98 HL, HM 31201, Mrs Larpent's Diary, vm, 1810–13, f. 40.

  99 Chapone, Improvement of the Mind, p. 93. For similar exhortations, see Pennington, Unfortunate Mother's Advice, pp. 28–9.

  100 LRO, DDB/81/37 (1780), f. 119.

  101 Hall, Miss Weeton's Journal, 1, p. 163.

  102 Sarah Cowper's complaints are recorded in Brophy, Women's Lives, pp. 178–9. On the biblical distinctions drawn between a concubine and a wife, see Ezell, Patriarch's Wife, p. 139. On ‘Egyptian bondage’, see Haywood, Betsy Thoughtless, p. 442.

  103 For examples of such cases in the Chester church courts, see CRO, EDC 5, Calkin v. Calkin and Lees v. Lees. For judicial outrage, see Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship, p. 98, also pp. 92 and 115. Moreover, the conventional acceptance of the female manager was exported to colonial New England. When Beatrice Berry faced the Salem Quarterly court in 1677, she recounted how her unreasonable husband had humiliated her by denying provisions for cooking, refusing her offers to help with his weaving and spurning her home-made beer. Evidently, the court was sympathetic to this thwarted housekeeper since Edmund Berry was fined for his ‘abusive carriages and speeches’: Ulrich, Good Wives (see n. 16, above), pp. 23–4. Ulrich further suggests that this dispute demonstrates ‘the central position of huswifery in the self-definition’ of this northern New England woman.

  104 YAS, MD335/B0X 95/XCV/1 (28 May 1773), Mrs B. Lister, Gisburn Park, to T. Lister, MP, London.

  105 LRO, DDB Ac 7886/210 (24 March 1747), R. Parker, Alkincoats, to E. Parker, Browsholme. See also A. J. Fletcher, ‘Honour, Reputation and Office Holding in Elizabethan and Stuart England’, in A. J. Fletcher and J. Stevenson (eds.), Order and Disorder in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 92–115, and Heal and Holmes, Gentry in England and Wales, pp. 76–7.

  5 Elegance

  1 Consumers of Gillows furniture include the Aspinalls of Standen, Barcrofts of Clitheroe, Claytons of Carr, Cromblehomes of Preston, Cunliffes of Wycoller, Ecroyds of Edge End, Listers of Gisburn Park, Moons of Colne, Parkers of Alkincoats, Parkers of Browsholme, Parkers of Cuerden, Parkers of Marshfield, Pedders of Preston, Sagars of Colne, Shackletons of Pasture House, Starkies of Huntroyde and Waltons of Marsden. See WPL, Gillows Collection, 344/52 ledger, 1776–80; 344/53 ledger, 1781–90; 344/54 ledger, 1790–97. On Gillow's design, read Nichols, ‘Gillow and Company’ (MA thesis), p. 9.

  2 J. Gregory, A Father's Legacy to His Daughter (1774; Edinburgh, 1788), p. 24.

  3 Balderston, Thraliana, I, pp. 336–7.

  4 Harold Perkin's work provides an explicit example: ‘At bottom the key to the Industrial Revolu
tion was the infinitely elastic home demand for mass consumer goods. And the key to that demand was social emulation, keeping up with the Joneses, the compulsive urge for imitating the spending habits of one's betters.’ See H. J. Perkin, ‘The Social Causes of the British Industrial Revolution’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 75 (1968), p. 140. Neil McKendrick developed Perkin's thesis and went on to conceptualize this late eighteenth-century phenomenon as a consumer revolution. Thus, the consumer society was born, with recognizably modern advertising techniques exploiting a new propensity among the populace to consume in a self-consciously emulative fashion: McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb, Birth of a Consumer Society, pp. 9–194.

  5 T. Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1925), p. 54.

  6 McKendrick, ‘Home Demand and Economic Growth’, pp. 200, 209.

  7 A. Ribeiro, Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe, 1715–1789 (1984), p. 116. A subtler treatment of contemporary commentary can be found in Buck, Dress in Eighteenth-Century England, pp. 103–19. Some dress historians are more explicit than others about the nature of gender costume. Witness the inimitable Cunningtons: ‘feminine fashions … were less concerned than male fashions to express Class Distinction, being more intent on the display of Sex Attraction.’ See Cunnington, Handbook of English Costume, p. 26. For practical tips, girls, read ‘Costume as a Direct Method of Sex Attraction’, in C. W. Cunnington, Why Women Wear Clothes (1941), pp. 41–76.

  8 Weatherill, ‘Possession of One's Own’.

  9 P. Bordieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1984); D. Hebdidge, ‘Object as Image: The Italian Scooter Cycle’, in id., (ed.), Hiding in the Light (1988), pp. 77–115; M. Poster (ed.), Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 119–48; M. Mauss, The Gift (New York, 1976); A. Appaduri (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge, 1986); M. Douglas and B. Isherwood, The World of Goods (1980); D. Miller, ‘Appropriating the State on the Council Estate’, Man, n.s., 23 (1988), pp. 353–72.

  10 See J. Attfield, ‘Inside Pram Town: A Case Study of Harlow House Interiors, 1951–61’, A. Partington, ‘The Designer Housewife of the 1950s’, in Attfield and Kirkham, View From the Interior’, and C. Steedman, Landscape For a Good Woman: A Story of Two Lives (1986).

  11 LRO, DDB/72/19 (15 Aug. 1751), E. Parker, Browsholme, to R. Parker, Colne; LRO, DDB/72/43 and 45 (c.1756), R. Parker, York and Skipwith, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

  12 WYCRO, Leeds, TA 18/5 (31 Dec. 1753), W. Gossip, Askam, to A. Gossip, Skelton. See also TA 18/5 (17 Feb. 1747), W. Gossip, Nottingham, to same: ‘you must therefore excuse me if I do not execute your commission about the stockings.’

  13 LRO, DDB/72/125, 445, 132, 156 (1753–7), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

  14 LRO, DDB/72/177 and 179 (1764), W. and B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

  15 For an approximate assessment of global accounting, see LRO, DDB/76/4 (1758–75), Trust Account of Thomas Parker. This account book registers income from rents and investments, plus disbursements on the children's upkeep, travel and tuition. However, it carries no information about John Shackleton's income, or that of Elizabeth Shackleton beyond her £140 p.a. jointure. Reference to total yearly expenditure is made once only, see LRO, DDB/81/3 (1764), f. 12: ‘Spent including everything in 1762. £292.0.10. Spent including everything in 1763 £316.0.6.’ The diaries contain no evidence of financial anxiety, nor extensive saving; the family appear to have covered ordinary expenditure with a modest margin. However, Elizabeth Shackleton experienced considerable difficulty raising apprenticeship fees of £300, see LRO, DDB/81/14 (1772), fos. 8, 32, 38.

  16 Compare WPL, 344/7, Wastebook, 1779–80, fos. 639, 649, 720, with LRO, DDB/81/35 (1779), fos. 51a and 202.

  17 LRO, DDB/81/13 (1771), f. 57.

  18 By the terms of her first husband's will, Elizabeth Parker was charged with co-guardianship of the three Parker children, and, by her settlement of 1751, entitled to an annuity of £140 a year. After her second marriage she continued to receive her jointure in her own name and managed the children's trust accounts until they came of age. From 1765, however, the trust accounts bear John Shackleton's signature, alongside those of the other trustees. Occasional remarks indicate that a Parker–Shackleton marriage settlement was drawn up, but it has not survived. Refer to LRO, DDB/80/29 (1757), Will of Robert Parker of Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/78/13 (1751), Marriage Settlement of Elizabeth and Robert Parker; LRO, DDB/76/4 (1758–75), Trust Account of Thomas Parker, see entries for 1765–75. For reference to the existence of a second settlement, see LRO, DDB/81/27 (1776), fos. 62–3.

  19 See M. B. Norton, Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750–1800 (Toronto, 1980), pp. 157–63, and Midgeley, ‘Women Anti-Slavery Campaigners in Britain’ (Ph.D. thesis), chap. 2.

  20 Men's gifts from Birmingham, Sheffield, Skipwith and Chester are recorded in LRO, DDB/81/14 (1772), f. 13; LRO, DDB/81/22 (1774), fos. 3, 45. The enthusiastic consumption of waistcoats is a major theme of the following letters: LRO, DDB/72/322, 328 and 331 (1773–7), J. Parker, London, to T. Parker, Alkincoats.

  21 LRO, DDB/72/185 (30 April 1765), W. and B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

  22 LRO, DDB/81/35 (1779), f. 51a.

  23 LRO, DDB/72/683 (1796), E. Parker, Clitheroe, to T. Parker, Alkincoats.

  24 This impression is confirmed by Clifford, ‘Parker and Wakelin’ (PhD thesis), p. 243. Parker and Wakelin's customers between 1766 and 1777 were made up of 257 men and 43 women. The women's purchases were almost invariably confined to the smaller less expensive items, like individual pieces of teaware, snuff boxes and paste and silver jewellery. Only three woman made large orders for investment goods, such as entire tea services or gold and precious stone jewellery. See also Lippincott, Selling Art in Georgian London, pp. 66–9. Wealthy and noble women made up a quarter of the customers of Arthur Pond, the painter and art dealer. However, their average individual expenditure was in most cases lower than men of the same rank; only two women spent more than £50 and none exceeded £100. 82 per cent of these female consumers made only one purchase as opposed to 62 per cent of the men.

  25 A complete breakdown of Elizabeth Shackleton's consumption by individual commodity can be found in Vickery, ‘Women of the Local Elite’ (Ph.D. thesis), pp. 264–76.

  26 See LRO, DDB/72/74 (n.d.), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/86 (21 March 1754), A. Pellet, London, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

  27 Consult Nichols, ‘Gillow and Company’, p. 9.

  28 See LRO, DDB/72/123, 134, 137 (1753–4), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

  29 LRO, DDB/72/223 (15 March 1768), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats. By contrast, Ann Pellet who was older and lived a more retired existence, satisfied herself with ‘great inquiries’ into the ‘reigning fashions’ on her niece's behalf, LRO, DDB/72/92 (11 June 1754), A. Pellet, London, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

  30 LRO, DDB/72/257 (18 Sept. 1772), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/192 (31 May 1766), W. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to same.

  31 LRO, DDB/72/280, 284 (1775), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB Ac 7886/256 (17 Dec. 1748), A. Pellet, London, to E. Parker, Browsholme; LRO, DDB Ac 7886/24 (n.d.), A. Parker, Royle, to E. Shackleton.

  32 LRO, DDB/81/36 (1780), 21 April.

  33 LRO, DDB/72/184, 280 (1765–75), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats.

  34 LRO, DDB/72/92 (11 June 1754), A. Pellet, London, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/285 (n.d.), B. and W. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to same; LRO, DDB/72/133, 147 (n.d.), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to same.

  35 Home, Upon Education, p. 231.

  36 See LRO, DDB/72/91 (1 June 1754), A. Pellet, London, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/123 (22 Oct. 1753), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to same; LRO, DDB/72/285 (n.d.), B. and W. Ram
sden, Charterhouse, to same; and LRO, DDB/72/288 (12 Nov. 1776), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to same; WYCRO, Sp St 6/1/50 (1 May 1746), M. Barnardiston to Mrs Stanhope, Leeds. That women were capable of sustaining an interest in fashion throughout the life-cycle is confirmed by N. Rothstein (ed.), Barbara Johnson's Album of Fashions and Fabrics (1987).

  37 LRO, DDB/74/5 (n.d), Poem ‘Given Me by Mrs Parker of Marshfield’. Compare this with M. D. George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum (1942), VII, 1793–1800, 8569, 8570, 9491.

  38 WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St 6/1/50 (17 Aug. 1743), M. Warde, Squerries, to Mrs Stanhope; HL, HM 31201, Mrs Larpent's Diary, III, 1799–1800, f. 149.

  39 WYCRO, Sp St 6/1/50 (1 May 1746), M. Barnardiston to Mrs Stanhope, Leeds; A. Buck, ‘Buying Clothes in Bedfordshire: Customers and Tradesmen, 1700–1800’, in N. B. Harte (ed.), Fabrics and Fashions: Studies in the Economic and Social History of Dress (1991), pp. 211–37.

  40 Weatherill, ‘Consumer Behaviour and Social Status’, p. 191.

  41 Hall, Miss Weeton's Journal, I, pp. 33, 253, 122.

  42 LRO, DDB/72/191 (3 April 1766), W. and B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats. See also LRO, DDB/72/133 (n.d.), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to same: ‘I am sorry you have a tabby sac they do not make their Lustrings so genteel in negligées But don't ask my advice again when the thing is over’.