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Money supply and credit in rural Cheshire, c.1600–c.1680

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2009

STEPHEN MATTHEWS
STEPHEN MATTHEWS
Affiliation:
Late of 7 Riddings Road, Hale, Altrincham, WA15 9DS.
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Abstract

This article examines the incidence of moneylending and the supply of cash in four rural communities and one small urban centre in Cheshire through the seventeenth century. The evidence on which it is based is drawn from wills and inventories, supplemented by such probate accounts and depositions as are available. It considers the questions of who lent money and to whom, for what purposes and in what amounts. It also examines the incidence of cash holdings in inventories and the effect that the Civil War and its aftermath had upon the availability of cash.

Monnaie et crédit dans le cheshire rural entre 1600 et 1680

Dans cet article est examiné ce que signifièrent au cours du XVIIe siècle le prêt d'argent et la disponibilité monétaire dans quatre communautés rurales et un petit centre urbain du Cheshire. L'étude se fonde sur des testaments et des inventaires ainsi que sur les comptes homologués ou les témoignages dont on peut encore disposer. L'auteur examine qui prête l'argent et à qui, à quelles fins et pour quels montants. Il examine aussi ce qu'a pu signifier la présence de fonds en numéraire dans les inventaires et en quoi la Guerre Civile et les événements ultérieurs ont affecté la disponibilité de numéraire.

Geldmenge und kredit im ländlichen cheshire, ca. 1600–1680

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Verbreitung des Geldverleihs und das Angebot an Barmitteln in vier ländlichen Gemeinden und einer Kleinstadt in Cheshire im 17. Jahrhundert. Er stützt sich auf Testamente und Inventare und zieht ergänzend auch Gerichtsakten heran, wo sie verfügbar sind, und fragt danach, wer wem zu welchem Zweck und in welchem Umfang Geld lieh. Er untersucht ferner, wie häufig Barvermögen in Inventaren auftauchten und fragt nach dem Einfluss des Bürgerkrieges und seiner Auswirkungen auf die Verfügbarkeit von Bargeld.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , August 2009 , pp. 245 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

ENDNOTES

1 For an economic review of the difficulties of small-coin supply, see T. J. Sargent and F. R. Velde, The big problem of small change (Princeton 2002). Their study is light on the English historical experience, however.

2 Holderness, B. A., ‘Credit in English rural society before the nineteenth century, with special reference to the period 1650–1720’, Agricultural History Review 24:2 (1976).Google Scholar

3 C. Muldrew, The economy of obligation: the culture of credit and social relations in early modern England (Basingstoke, 1998); Catherine Frances, ‘Networks of the life course: a case study, Cheshire 1570–1700’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2000), 155.

4 See, most recently, Briggs, C., ‘The availability of credit in the English countryside, 1400–1480’, Agricultural History Review 56:1 (2008)Google Scholar; Schofield, Phillipp R. ‘The social economy of the medieval village in the early fourteenth century’, Economic History Review 61:1 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Spicksley, Judith, ‘Usury legislation, cash and credit: the development of the female investor in the late Tudor and Stuart periods’, Economic History Review 61:2 (2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Mather, Bob, ‘The Manchester grocer (or, where there is a will …)’, Manchester Region History Review 19 (2008).Google Scholar

6 Holderness, B. A., ‘Credit in a rural community 1660–1800: some neglected aspects of probate inventories’, Midland History 3 (1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; M. Spufford, ‘The limitations of the probate inventory’, in J. Chartres and D. Hey eds., English Rural Society 1500–1800 (Cambridge, 1990); Poole, Anthony, ‘Debt in the Cranbrook region in the late seventeenth century’, Kent Archaeological Society CXXIII, 2003.Google Scholar

7 For the development of Hale, see the slight description in. R. N. Dore ed., A history of Hale, Cheshire: from Domesday to dormitory (Altrincham, 1972), ch. 5; Bowdon is well described in Jill Groves ed., Bowdon wills: wills and probate inventories from a Cheshire township, part 1: 1600–50 and part 2: 1651–1689 (Sale, 1997 and 1998, respectively).

8 W. B. Stephens and Norah Fuidge, ‘Tudor and Stuart Congleton’, in W. B. Stephens ed., History of Congleton (Manchester, 1970), 48–56.

9 Cheshire Record Office, Chester, classification WC.

10 Briggs, ‘Availability of credit’; Norman Jones, in his God and the moneylenders (Oxford, 1989), also largely relied upon evidence from court disputes.

11 Frances, ‘Networks’, 157.

12 Jill Groves did, however, note cases as they arose, as for example that of John Hardy, who owed Margery Harding £6 plus interest in 1658 and also owed £1 to Ellen Brundrett; see Groves ed., Bowdon wills, part 2, 12.

13 M. Spufford, ‘Limitations of the probate inventory’, in J. Chartres and D. Hey eds., English rural society 1500–1800 (1990).

14 An Act against Usury, 13 Eliz c8.

15 21 Jac. 1, c17.

16 For the background, I have relied heavily upon Jones, Moneylenders.

17 Jones, Moneylenders, 197.

18 Jones, Moneylenders, 124.

19 Jones, Moneylenders, 172.

20 Mather, in ‘Manchester grocer’, reproduces the list of ‘Book Debts of John Jackson Rece'd’ (†1744), 127.

21 Thomas Wilson, A Discourse upon usury, ed. R. H. Tawney (London, 1925), 19.

22 R. A. Arnold, History of the Cotton Famine (London, 1864), 278.

23 Stephens and Fluidge, ‘Tudor and Stuart Congleton’, 72–8.

24 Stephens, Congleton, passim; R. A. Philpotts A coin hoard from Priesty Field, Congleton (National Museums and Galleries of Merseyside, 1992); M. Warhurst, ‘Four seventeenth-century coin hoards from Congleton’, British Numismatic Journal (2002); Cheshire Sites and Monuments Record, ref. 2373/1, CH5159.

25 John Craig, The Mint; a history of the London Mint (Cambridge, 1953); Li, Ming-Hsun, The great recoinage of 1696 to 1699 (London, 1963); C. E. Challis, A new history of the Royal Mint (Cambridge, 1992).

26 See Appendix: Hale 29.

27 Spicksley, Female investor, 280–1, 289.

28 Appendix: Hale references as listed.

29 See the Appendix for individual references.

30 See the Appendix for individual references.

31 It is not clear what the terms ‘with’ or ‘without specialty’ refer to; it may have been a term for grouping small debts without individual description.

32 This Radnor was a small township in Astbury parish.

33 See the Appendix for individual references.

34 See the Appendix for individual references.

35 See CRO wills online at http://www.cheshire.gov.uk/Recordoffice/Wills/.

36 See the Appendix for individual references.

37 A maker of tagged points or laces for fastening clothes (Oxford English Dictionary).

38 The diary of Thomas Turner 1754–65, ed. David Vaisey (Oxford, 1985), 153.

39 See the Appendix for individual references.

40 See the Appendix for individual references.

41 See the Appendix for individual references.

42 See the Appendix for individual references.

43 Appendix: Wilbraham, Malpas.

44 Appendix: Wilbraham, Malpas.

45 Appendix: Broster, ‘four parishes’.

46 See the Appendix for individual references, and for Sherman see Groves ed., Bowdon wills, Part 1, 20.

47 See the Appendix for individual references.

48 Appendix: Groves, Bowdon wills, Part 2, 12.

49 Personal communication. Details supplied separately by Jill Groves (not listed in the Appendix). Groves' transcript notes: ‘One bond sealed by Thomas Perrin Jun[io]r, Thomas Perrin Sen[io]r and John Lamb of Hale of the penaltie of £40 dated September the 29th 1662: with Condic[i]on annexed for the payment of £20 and interest due at a daye past … £20.’ None of the entries gives us an interest rate but the implication that the loans were annual was made explicit in one which was worded slightly differently, for the standard formula was changed to ‘One bond sealed by John Owen sen[ior] John Owen Jun[ior] of Altrincham of the penalties of £20 dated the 6st [sic] of December 1662: with Condic[i]on annexed for the payment of £10 and interest due the 6st December 1663 … £10.’

50 See the Appendix: Bradley (H63)

51 See the Appendix: Simpson (BW1, 17).

52 Charles Foster, Seven households: life in Cheshire and Lancashire, 1582–1774 (Northwich, 2002), 88–119, primarily at pp. 96–7. The ensuing details are taken from Foster's work.

53 Foster, Seven households, 136.

54 See the Appendix for individual references.

55 See the Appendix: Goulden (BW2, 51).

56 See the Appendix for individual references.

57 See the Appendix: Pytheon (C,WS0176).

58 Vaisey ed., Thomas Turner 1754–65, 22, 269.